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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 18, 2018 21:54:28 GMT
A friend of mine (In Wisconsin, where else?) Collects and restores military vehicles. He's starting to get quite the collection. This is his latest addition. And yes, this is actually his truck.  Just after he got it, it put it to good use using the crane on the back to change the battery in his electric fork lift.  |
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Post by the light works on Mar 18, 2018 22:43:55 GMT
actually, there is a reason why its speed is limited. it is the same reason why my Jeep's speed is limited. just because you can turn the wheels that fast does not mean it is necessarily a good idea to GO that fast. Not at all. The Mini Cooper is a rather simple mod of the original Mini. Except for the engine and brakes (and paintjob) there are only a few minor modifications. The engine is about 50% stronger and the transmission allows the car to reach its top speed at the maximum power of the engine so it is almost twice as fast! The Mini cooper isn't unsafe at all. The restrictions of the original Mini is due to the tax-system back when the Mini was designed. Cylinder gauge and transmission ratio was made "bad" to lower the tax rating. The Mini was meant for people which couldn't afford too much annual taxes. And the Cooper version was made for people which liked the Mini but didn't care about operational costs. yeah, apart from the frame, body, suspension, steering, safety equipment, engine, transmission, and brakes the original mini is exactly the same as the BMW version. technically, it IS rocket science, since I learned it from model rocketry. short vehicles are less stable than long ones. at high speeds that means you can get beyond recovery a lot quicker in a short car than a long one. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 18, 2018 23:08:44 GMT
my Jeep is mathematically capable of going 100 MPH. I suspect I have had it in the neighborhood of 90 MPH. at that velocity, if you step off the throttle, the steering geometry will shift it one lane to the right, with no steering input from the driver. if you don't, you are still making constant steering correction to keep it going in the general direction you want. (my mathematically capable, I mean that is the velocity at which the engine hits redline) US made cars are not famous for their precision steering. There is a lot of room for improvements! The Mini has a very precise steering mechanism, you can't compare it with a Jeep. A Jeep is designed to crash a front wheel against a boulder and continue as bad as before. It has one of the worst steering mechanisms in the world. just because the drag link runs at the opposite angle to the crossbar that keeps the front axle from sliding out to the side doesn't make it the worst in the world. and the straightest it has ever tracked was on a road that the highway department gave up on smoothing and just filled the deepest craters. the worst steering I have driven, to date, was the Ford SUV the department had for a duty officer vehicle some idiot thought it was supposed to be a racecar, so they put short ratio steering it it, which made it try to turn like an F-1 car, while still riding like a manatee. and don't forget I've driven a 1940s fire engine, a 70s "screaming" Jimmy, a first gen (US) Ford escort, a horse, a sailboat with no rudders, and a go cart made by tying a hand truck to the tongue of a garden tractor trailer. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 18, 2018 23:10:45 GMT
A friend of mine (In Wisconsin, where else?) Collects and restores military vehicles. He's starting to get quite the collection. This is his latest addition. And yes, this is actually his truck. Just after he got it, it put it to good use using the crane on the back to change the battery in his electric fork lift. I think I have the answer to the fire deprtment's jet ski carrier troubles. once the training officer gets done figuring out HMMWVs aren't as good on the beach when they are carrying an extra 3/4 of a ton of jetski. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 19, 2018 1:29:44 GMT
I think I have the answer to the fire deprtment's jet ski carrier troubles. once the training officer gets done figuring out HMMWVs aren't as good on the beach when they are carrying an extra 3/4 of a ton of jetski. Not so sure if an Oshkosh HEMTT would be much better on sand, but the built-in crane would make loading and unloading jet skis easy. We did a number of HVAC systems for HMMWV ambulances. Have to admit, I'm not that impressed with that vehicle. They do make a version of the HEMTT for fire fighting that you may be interested in.  |
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Post by the light works on Mar 19, 2018 1:40:20 GMT
I think I have the answer to the fire deprtment's jet ski carrier troubles. once the training officer gets done figuring out HMMWVs aren't as good on the beach when they are carrying an extra 3/4 of a ton of jetski. Not so sure if an Oshkosh HEMTT would be much better on sand, but the built-in crane would make loading and unloading jet skis easy. We did a number of HVAC systems for HMMWV ambulances. Have to admit, I'm not that impressed with that vehicle. more tire surface. further from its maximum payload rating. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 19, 2018 8:22:09 GMT
actually, there is a reason why its speed is limited. it is the same reason why my Jeep's speed is limited. just because you can turn the wheels that fast does not mean it is necessarily a good idea to GO that fast. Not at all. The Mini Cooper is a rather simple mod of the original Mini. Except for the engine and brakes (and paintjob) there are only a few minor modifications. The engine is about 50% stronger and the transmission allows the car to reach its top speed at the maximum power of the engine so it is almost twice as fast! The Mini cooper isn't unsafe at all. The restrictions of the original Mini is due to the tax-system back when the Mini was designed. Cylinder gauge and transmission ratio was made "bad" to lower the tax rating. The Mini was meant for people which couldn't afford too much annual taxes. And the Cooper version was made for people which liked the Mini but didn't care about operational costs. Original Mini Cooper was when John Cooper put a 1275CC engine, exactly the same "1300" engine by the way as the infamous Allegro by BL, into the bolt holes left by the original 850cc engine. Brakes were upgraded, steering geometry "tweaked", better seats, steering wheel, tyres, and use of wind up windows instead of the old leaky half/half sliding windows, and weld the rear swinging windows shut, it had further tweaks when it was found to be a rather excellent Rally vehicle. And then the fool that I am, I realised that the 1500 allegro engine was just a change of cylinder size, so slid again in the same bolt holes, eventually bored and sleeved to 1700 cc, and a minor tweak to the gear ratio's, before we abandoned that in favour of a shorter throw wider bore of a fuel injection. Which needed a new sub-frame, but by then, we were so far into the project, why not?. However, the Mini Metro was about by then, bigger wheels, and Disc brakes. Being BL, the engineering was "Similar", so transplant of bigger wheels and disks to a Mini were a Must. We also put in a better master cylinder for those brakes, one stole from the wreck of a Ford Escort, but what the heck, it works, so use it?. De-Seaming the bodywork helped a lot, "Flip front" of the whole bonnet and front wings to make way for a whole new tubular steel framework at the front and a Glass Fibre body work, lightened the load on the front. Is it unsafe to drive?. In the right hands, no worse than any other eager engined sports car. In the wrong hands, yes, as revealed by the fact it was sold and the buyers wife was not expecting the power, so shot out the drive of their house, across the road, up the drive and through the garage of the house facing, and into their pond. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 19, 2018 8:29:58 GMT
Not at all. The Mini Cooper is a rather simple mod of the original Mini. Except for the engine and brakes (and paintjob) there are only a few minor modifications. The engine is about 50% stronger and the transmission allows the car to reach its top speed at the maximum power of the engine so it is almost twice as fast! The Mini cooper isn't unsafe at all. The restrictions of the original Mini is due to the tax-system back when the Mini was designed. Cylinder gauge and transmission ratio was made "bad" to lower the tax rating. The Mini was meant for people which couldn't afford too much annual taxes. And the Cooper version was made for people which liked the Mini but didn't care about operational costs. yeah, apart from the frame, body, suspension, steering, safety equipment, engine, transmission, and brakes the original mini is exactly the same as the BMW version. technically, it IS rocket science, since I learned it from model rocketry. short vehicles are less stable than long ones. at high speeds that means you can get beyond recovery a lot quicker in a short car than a long one. I have ridden a bike at speeds well over the speed limit, which is proof that shorter wheelbase is not "deadly at ans speed", so on a shorter wheelbase vehicle, you have to learn to use the instability to corner better, and not twitch the steering in a straight line. As for the Mini?. I have owned several in my early years. I had a 1275 cooper "traveller", thats the one with the twin rear doors and "estate" type wooden framed sides, it managed 110 on motorways without much of a problem, before they got down to being so keen on speed limits. It cornered "On rails" as long as you remember to slow down a little and treat them with respect. They are Nimble, they corner well, if not a little quicker than you would expect if all you have had previously is vehicles twice the size. And they have a low centre of gravity. Lifting a wheel on one of them is not that hard, but its easy to recover from. Unless you want to take it to the Stupid thread level?. |
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Post by mrfatso on Mar 19, 2018 8:41:13 GMT
Mini Mrk III  Mini Cooper  The modern BMW Mini Coopers are just using an old brand name as SD says. Edit Original Top Gear footage, ......Before May and Hammond |
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Post by the light works on Mar 19, 2018 15:01:16 GMT
yeah, apart from the frame, body, suspension, steering, safety equipment, engine, transmission, and brakes the original mini is exactly the same as the BMW version. technically, it IS rocket science, since I learned it from model rocketry. short vehicles are less stable than long ones. at high speeds that means you can get beyond recovery a lot quicker in a short car than a long one. I have ridden a bike at speeds well over the speed limit, which is proof that shorter wheelbase is not "deadly at ans speed", so on a shorter wheelbase vehicle, you have to learn to use the instability to corner better, and not twitch the steering in a straight line. As for the Mini?. I have owned several in my early years. I had a 1275 cooper "traveller", thats the one with the twin rear doors and "estate" type wooden framed sides, it managed 110 on motorways without much of a problem, before they got down to being so keen on speed limits. It cornered "On rails" as long as you remember to slow down a little and treat them with respect. They are Nimble, they corner well, if not a little quicker than you would expect if all you have had previously is vehicles twice the size. And they have a low centre of gravity. Lifting a wheel on one of them is not that hard, but its easy to recover from. Unless you want to take it to the Stupid thread level?. and by comparison, before they got so keen on speed limits, my dad got a citation for going 120 in his plymouth (back before I was a thing) but you're right that short things can be just as stable as long things provided you are more attentive to not letting them get out of shape. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 19, 2018 15:43:25 GMT
As for the new BMW MINIs. My son has been working on some regional promotional videos for MINI and they gave him two cars for a couple of weeks to use in the shootings. These were high end models with one being a plug-in hybrid. I got to check out the hybrid in some detail. A really, really nice car, but way out of my price range.
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Post by the light works on Mar 19, 2018 15:55:47 GMT
As for the new BMW MINIs. My son has been working on some regional promotional videos for MINI and they gave him two cars for a couple of weeks to use in the shootings. These were high end models with one being a plug-in hybrid. I got to check out the hybrid in some detail. A really, really nice car, but way out of my price range. when the Smart tm was first offered in the US, the price point was comparable to the base model BMW mini. everything else fell short. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 20, 2018 5:57:55 GMT
As for the new BMW MINIs. My son has been working on some regional promotional videos for MINI and they gave him two cars for a couple of weeks to use in the shootings. These were high end models with one being a plug-in hybrid. I got to check out the hybrid in some detail. A really, really nice car, but way out of my price range. Really really nice, yeah, but I dislike them for trying to say its a Mini. Mini's original brief was a wheel at each corner, seating for 4, or 5 if the back seat was just kids, small economic engine, and good handling. Sir Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, Alec Issigonis to his fellow workmates, designed that beautifully. Not perfect by todays standards, but good back then. There is now a Fiat Cinquecento, the Italian answer to the mini, that seats up to 7 people. There is supposed to be a Mini in the pipeline that does the same. Thats NOT the brief of the original micro-car is it?. There is already a Mini "Plus" thats twice the size of the new mini, its getting to Big car hatchback territory, again, away from the brief of micro-car. Its NOT a mini. It may look like it has parentage from the old mini, but it is not, its just built to resemble the old, but thats just stealing an old name, and its basically a whole new car. They started with a whole new car design from ground up and "bent" it to the shape of resembling an old mini. Say a bit like me taking a modern micro ford, say a ford Ka, and bending it to the shape of a Corvette, and slapping a bigger engine in, is that a "new" corvette?.. ...no, I didnt think so. Plus, on seeing the results of the NCap crash test, Micro cars are "Out" for me, I prefer a bit of bonnet space to crumple should I need it at motorway speeds?. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 20, 2018 13:13:10 GMT
As for the new BMW MINIs. My son has been working on some regional promotional videos for MINI and they gave him two cars for a couple of weeks to use in the shootings. These were high end models with one being a plug-in hybrid. I got to check out the hybrid in some detail. A really, really nice car, but way out of my price range. Really really nice, yeah, but I dislike them for trying to say its a Mini. Mini's original brief was a wheel at each corner, seating for 4, or 5 if the back seat was just kids, small economic engine, and good handling. Sir Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, Alec Issigonis to his fellow workmates, designed that beautifully. Not perfect by todays standards, but good back then. There is now a Fiat Cinquecento, the Italian answer to the mini, that seats up to 7 people. There is supposed to be a Mini in the pipeline that does the same. Thats NOT the brief of the original micro-car is it?. There is already a Mini "Plus" thats twice the size of the new mini, its getting to Big car hatchback territory, again, away from the brief of micro-car. Its NOT a mini. It may look like it has parentage from the old mini, but it is not, its just built to resemble the old, but thats just stealing an old name, and its basically a whole new car. They started with a whole new car design from ground up and "bent" it to the shape of resembling an old mini. Say a bit like me taking a modern micro ford, say a ford Ka, and bending it to the shape of a Corvette, and slapping a bigger engine in, is that a "new" corvette?.. ...no, I didnt think so. Plus, on seeing the results of the NCap crash test, Micro cars are "Out" for me, I prefer a bit of bonnet space to crumple should I need it at motorway speeds?. I wasn't trying to justify the name, just saying it was a very nice car. But then, these were the top of the line models. As for the size, these are not micro-cars in any sense. They are what I would consider at least mid-size. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 20, 2018 14:32:03 GMT
As for the new BMW MINIs. My son has been working on some regional promotional videos for MINI and they gave him two cars for a couple of weeks to use in the shootings. These were high end models with one being a plug-in hybrid. I got to check out the hybrid in some detail. A really, really nice car, but way out of my price range. Really really nice, yeah, but I dislike them for trying to say its a Mini. Mini's original brief was a wheel at each corner, seating for 4, or 5 if the back seat was just kids, small economic engine, and good handling. Sir Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, Alec Issigonis to his fellow workmates, designed that beautifully. Not perfect by todays standards, but good back then. There is now a Fiat Cinquecento, the Italian answer to the mini, that seats up to 7 people. There is supposed to be a Mini in the pipeline that does the same. Thats NOT the brief of the original micro-car is it?. There is already a Mini "Plus" thats twice the size of the new mini, its getting to Big car hatchback territory, again, away from the brief of micro-car. Its NOT a mini. It may look like it has parentage from the old mini, but it is not, its just built to resemble the old, but thats just stealing an old name, and its basically a whole new car. They started with a whole new car design from ground up and "bent" it to the shape of resembling an old mini. Say a bit like me taking a modern micro ford, say a ford Ka, and bending it to the shape of a Corvette, and slapping a bigger engine in, is that a "new" corvette?.. ...no, I didnt think so. Plus, on seeing the results of the NCap crash test, Micro cars are "Out" for me, I prefer a bit of bonnet space to crumple should I need it at motorway speeds?. careful, you're stating to get a bit of 'murican rubbed off on you. next, you'll be thinking about buying one of these in case you need to carry a sheet of plywood, with the kids in the car and there might be a muddy bit.  |
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Post by c64 on Mar 20, 2018 14:52:40 GMT
Not at all. The Mini Cooper is a rather simple mod of the original Mini. Except for the engine and brakes (and paintjob) there are only a few minor modifications. The engine is about 50% stronger and the transmission allows the car to reach its top speed at the maximum power of the engine so it is almost twice as fast! The Mini cooper isn't unsafe at all. The restrictions of the original Mini is due to the tax-system back when the Mini was designed. Cylinder gauge and transmission ratio was made "bad" to lower the tax rating. The Mini was meant for people which couldn't afford too much annual taxes. And the Cooper version was made for people which liked the Mini but didn't care about operational costs. Original Mini Cooper was when John Cooper put a 1275CC engine, exactly the same "1300" engine by the way as the infamous Allegro by BL, into the bolt holes left by the original 850cc engine. Brakes were upgraded, steering geometry "tweaked", better seats, steering wheel, tyres, and use of wind up windows instead of the old leaky half/half sliding windows, and weld the rear swinging windows shut, it had further tweaks when it was found to be a rather excellent Rally vehicle. And then the fool that I am, I realised that the 1500 allegro engine was just a change of cylinder size, so slid again in the same bolt holes, eventually bored and sleeved to 1700 cc, and a minor tweak to the gear ratio's, before we abandoned that in favour of a shorter throw wider bore of a fuel injection. Which needed a new sub-frame, but by then, we were so far into the project, why not?. However, the Mini Metro was about by then, bigger wheels, and Disc brakes. Being BL, the engineering was "Similar", so transplant of bigger wheels and disks to a Mini were a Must. We also put in a better master cylinder for those brakes, one stole from the wreck of a Ford Escort, but what the heck, it works, so use it?. De-Seaming the bodywork helped a lot, "Flip front" of the whole bonnet and front wings to make way for a whole new tubular steel framework at the front and a Glass Fibre body work, lightened the load on the front. Is it unsafe to drive?. In the right hands, no worse than any other eager engined sports car. In the wrong hands, yes, as revealed by the fact it was sold and the buyers wife was not expecting the power, so shot out the drive of their house, across the road, up the drive and through the garage of the house facing, and into their pond. Of course, the original Cooper was a pure race car. But there were Mini Coopers versions made for common customers which are not the "real" Cooper but a minor tweaked original Mini. Of course there were many different versions of the Cooper, I was referring to the most basic variant meant for ordinary driving. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 30, 2018 8:09:48 GMT
Question on insurance expectations.
You park up in a public car park. Council owned public car park not a dodgy bit of spare ground thing.
It has the usual "Dont keep valuables on display" notices and reminders that the council are not responsible for damage caused by thieves sort of notifications and parking is "At your own risk", which is basic legaleses that is there is any incident you should refer to your own insurance and not try to sue the council for damages that they didnt cause?.
You return to your vehicle to find someone has driven into your parked car.
Severe, Un-drivable because of hanging bodywork damage, but still steers and drives, just probably "Not safe" because of bits falling off type damage.
You inform the Police, who give you a reference number to use, but wont be in attendance, "refer to your Insurance, they will do all the investigations from now on"
You claim through Insurance, who start asking a lot of questions about the Public Car Park and their insurance...
Erm?..
What now?.
You have been hit by "persons unknown", obviously a drive-away, you do not have details, but this is a public car park, you reasonably expect that as it is so, you should be covered by insurance when using it to park?.
So why all these questions?.
As it is, there IS CCTV in the car park, and maybe they have the details of the guilty car.
Who's job do you think it may be to recover that CCTV footage?.
I ask this because with all the cost of Full Comp insurance, it seams the insurance people are VERY keen for the insured to do a lot of the leg work?.
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Post by kharnynb on Mar 30, 2018 12:48:53 GMT
had a similar, though less damaging incident some years back, mirror and paint jobbie...
incident nr from the smurfs and an email with photo's to the insurance and we got it all fully covered, no wonder we are still with the same company....
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Post by the light works on Mar 30, 2018 16:53:38 GMT
Question on insurance expectations. You park up in a public car park. Council owned public car park not a dodgy bit of spare ground thing. It has the usual "Dont keep valuables on display" notices and reminders that the council are not responsible for damage caused by thieves sort of notifications and parking is "At your own risk", which is basic legaleses that is there is any incident you should refer to your own insurance and not try to sue the council for damages that they didnt cause?. You return to your vehicle to find someone has driven into your parked car. Severe, Un-drivable because of hanging bodywork damage, but still steers and drives, just probably "Not safe" because of bits falling off type damage. You inform the Police, who give you a reference number to use, but wont be in attendance, "refer to your Insurance, they will do all the investigations from now on" You claim through Insurance, who start asking a lot of questions about the Public Car Park and their insurance... Erm?.. What now?. You have been hit by "persons unknown", obviously a drive-away, you do not have details, but this is a public car park, you reasonably expect that as it is so, you should be covered by insurance when using it to park?. So why all these questions?. As it is, there IS CCTV in the car park, and maybe they have the details of the guilty car. Who's job do you think it may be to recover that CCTV footage?. I ask this because with all the cost of Full Comp insurance, it seams the insurance people are VERY keen for the insured to do a lot of the leg work?. does the insurance company have the name of the people in charge of the car park? if not, give it to them. if so, offer to provide intermediary services for a nominal fee. |
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Post by the light works on Apr 1, 2018 0:47:58 GMT
another tesla autopilot crash. money.cnn.com/2018/03/31/technology/tesla-model-x-crash-autopilot/index.htmlrelevant bit: the car was in autopilot mode, but had given the driver multiple warnings to steer manually, and the driver had earlier taken the car to the dealership for service, complaining that it drifted towards the divider on the stretch of road it drifted into the divider on. the driver was not manually steering at the time of the crash. the crash was made worse by the fact that the shock absorbing end on the divider had already been crushed by an earlier crash. |
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