El Andrew

EL replacement decision just picked up some pace. Wife drove it to Sydney yesterday and back home today. An hour later I went to use it and won't start. Cranks but won't fire. Pretty lucky it didn't happen to her while away. Time to check fuses and battery and then spark at a plug lead so I can narrowed own whether it seems to be fuel or electrical related. She was having central locking issues with it last night too so I'm guessing it might be something in the smartlock cutting spark or fuel. From memory when the security system thinks there's a problem it allows crank but no start which is exactly what's happening. Looks like 35 degrees and push bike for me tomorrow!

Thanks for that. Seems to be ticking our boxes on a size/space reliability, value, equipment, etc basis. We do quite a bit of country kms each year such as Canberra to Adelaide or Mt Gambier, so being able to overtake and get the job done quickly is important too. Kluger ticks that box much better than some if the other family junk getting around. I measured the 3 year old today and he is already 113cm. So something like a Forester is going to be too small pretty quickly!

Haha yeah the EL has one airbag and ABS so what more do you want!

Interesting. I've been turning over in my mind buying a Kluger sometime this year as the main family car. BA stays as my baby and EL goes. Id love to keep it (had it nearly 13 years now) but just don't have the time, space or headspace to have two pet cars. Washed the EL tonight and the thought of having to part with it legit almost brought me to tears! Bloody cars...

Even if you don't have a chunk of cash, as explained above if you put all your expenses through a credit card and have it set to pay off on the due date (ie before interest starts to accrue) , that cash is sitting there reducing your interest on your mortgage. Haha I rang my bank today and quoted the Bank West rates above and got my interest reduced a bit. Although I went with "my friend was telling me he gets this rate", as it seemed more legit than "some bloke on fordxr6turbo.com"

I reckon he is right. You would expect a fair bit of flex in a length like that. But that won't affect its intended purpose. Maybe I should reword that second sentence...

When I built mine, my design didn't pass first time because of this. I had planned for the horizontals (collar ties) to be quite high up. Apparently they need to be no higher than one third of the rafter rise, which looks to be exactly where your new ones are.

That's true! I laughed too because we are having a look at extending the mortgage to do a couple of upgrades. Bank has an online thing to give current house value so you can determine what equity you can borrow against. The tool predicts a value range between x and y. The gap between x and y is $120k on our place. I asked them which value they use to determine current value, and they said "well, what do you reckon it's worth?"

That's what happened with us "You'll never believe it, but the valuation was exactly the amount you are paying!" Funny that, because for every cent you valued it higher I would have paid less mortgage insurance.

Exactly. And sounds like in your case they have needed to add some strength to get it to pass. When we were in Adelaide I built a 5x5 free-standing Pergola with a gabled roof. The approval process gave me some peace of mind that my design was sound, given it was based solely on research and no actual skills or qualifications!

I asked my insurance company a bit about liability and cover when we bought our place. When you buy a place in ACT, independent building inspection is already done and provided by agent when you ask for it (better than multiple potential buyers each paying to get the exact same thing done). Part of that includes listing what improvements have been made and what has been approved. In our case, the roller door on the carport wasn't approved. Is apparently a common issue in many ACT suburbs that are littered with sewer, water and electricity easements that have access requirements. A builder laughed at me and said most of the car port roller doors in ACT are not approved and wouldn't be approved. Anyway I asked the insurance company if that caused any issues by being unapproved eg if the door fell on the car, if the motor caused a fire etc. Their advice (in this case anyway) was that they don't care about improvements not being approved as long as the work is done to standard. Ie if you have something that is structurally sound but doesn't meet planning requirements in terms of distance to boundary, uncovered space on block etc then no big deal. If your improvement wouldn't get approved due to structural deficiencies then there could be issues.

Actually might be in luck - guy on Gumtree in Brisbane will convert for $12 per tape, plus a bit of postage. Will have a chat to him tomorrow.

Thanks guys. Yeah no DVD recorder here unfortunately to use that method. I would have thought second hand cameras that use mini DV tapes would be cheap as they are old tech, but not so. I guess if I buy one though I should be able to resell at a similar price.

/forum As I said the pro options are pretty pricey, as your link also confirms, for something I think I could DIY. Sometimes a question in the off topic thread unearths someone with some practical first hand experience that is more useful than search results or ringing a professional. Heaps of examples of that through this thread.

Yeah I'm a bit lost where to start! Should have done the transfer at the time, even if I didn't have the time to edit. Might try commercial options but they all seem to charge in balls rather than dollars.

Anyone got thoughts on how to transfer mini DV tapes to a digital file? Could buy a camcorder off eBay etc and then resell it, but I'm assuming they need firewire or something. Is it possible to get a firewire to USB 3.0 adapter. Have 4x tapes from our wedding - two fixed cameras and two that were mobile. One camera took audio straight from the desk rather than inbuilt mic so plan was to edit it all together but use good quality audio from that tape. But need to get it all into a format I can use first. Anyone know anything about this sort of thing? Haha wedding was 12 years and 3 house moves ago and just found the tapes when cleaning out the desk.

I'd get some advice (starting with the council) before throwing it in the bin if they don't accept $30k less. It might be perfect from a structural and planning perspective and the owner just couldn't be bothered getting the approval. Might only be a couple of grand to sort out.

The good thing about doing what Arronm suggests is you can easily isolate your own wiring from the factory gear. If you have an electrical issue, it's a quick unplug and you are back to factory spec so you can eliminate your additional wiring and accessories as the cause. I've got an additional power socket for my Bluetooth hands free adaptor and my gauges wired that way.

I reckon my 100 cell cat was only about $450 fitted, which included making up a Y piece to split into 2 pipes after the cat.

If your cat is 200k old it's probably pretty clogged too which adds weight to the idea of replacing it or bashing it out. They are surprisingly cheap if you don't want to just gut it.

Reminds me of when I worked at a butcher while I was at uni and there was a really annoying customer who carried her dog under her arm. One day one of the butchers said "Nice pig!" "What? It's a dog" she replied. "Yeah I know, I was talking to the dog." I'm dyslexic and cannot turn off simple functions in tapatalk

6 spot breaks

Thanks again - finished off last night. Final check over and test drive this morning and all good. A couple of things I found when doing the job for anyone else looking to do this: -If you are changing your shock bushes on the front at the same time (I figured I might as well, and were only $25), a G-clamp, piece of timber with a hole in it and a socket were able to press the old bushes out easily. The Nolathane replacements are split (you insert a half from either side, then insert the metal sleeve) and so don't need to press these in. -For the rear springs, I put a stand under the knuckle and disconnected the outer end of the rear lower control arm from the knuckle. I could then lower the arm leaving the hub still, so didn't need to worry about brake lines. Spring then can be removed easily and you can just jack up the control arm once the new spring is installed until the bolt to the knuckle can be re-fitted.

Brilliant - thanks very much! I double check the orientation of the hat on the side I've already installed too. Legend as always!

Almost done installing new KYB shocks and King springs at all 4 corners (plus rear sway links and bushes, and front shock mount bushes) and this thread has been mega helpful. I'll post up a couple of additional tips once I am done. . 3 corners done, but having trouble on the passenger front. My spring compressors weren't strong enough to install the new shocks, only good to remove old shocks so I took my top mount along with the shocks and springs to a shop and had them put together. The driver's side went in fine, but when I put the top mount into the chassis on the driver's side, the lower mount is out by about 30 degrees. Is it as simple as putting a bar through the lower shock mount holes and twisting into alignment? Or do I need to get the assembly disassembled and put together in correct alignment? I wonder if I could use compressors to take the tension of the spring, maybe I could loosen the top nut and rotate the top? The spring itse;f is located in the upper and lower guides correctly, so I'm guessing either the shock inner can twist in the outer to align, or does the top insultator rotate inside the top mount? Any advice most appreciated! Cheers guys