Ray!

Then someone will put a canopy on it and you'll have a 1970s four door wagon. Cheers Ray

By the sounds of it, the reason for coming over here was to simply try and incite. Note once again how what I said has been twisted, which is why I'm so over the non-debates over yonder. All I wanted was to have a post that I started here removed, as I believe that I made a mistake in posting it in the first place, and now I'm accused of stiffling free speech. Madness! Cheers Ray

I've had windscreens replaced previously and used Wizard Windscreens, they come to you and the cost has never ben over $200. On my Gq, they re-used the rubber and it never leaked. Cheers Ray

I don't have any anamosity towards Patrol4x4, but perhaps I'm a little jaded with it all and a break is as good as a holiday. When I couldn't post and then log in, coming here and starting afresh was sort of a good feeling and I'm happy to keep it up. That's not to say I won't ever post in Patrol4x4, but I'm over the pointless debates and I stopped responding to the political crap even before the forum got wobbly. My bad for even starting such a post here; I knew immediately after I did that it wasn't worth doing and that's why I want it deleted. All it's done is attract individuals from over yonder who seem have no other purpose or contribution to the forum but politics. Cheers Ray

You've certainly pointed out one thing, which is that marketing has a big impact on how buyers often determine the quality of a product. Chinese manufacturing has definitiely commodotised so many products that few could afford maybe 10-20 years ago, without a lot of financial pain, yet the products are generally fit for purpose. Also, it certainly confirms my views about Aldi products and considering the German influence, I think the products they sell are required to meet certain quality/reliability standards. Cheers Ray

I have to say that the tools are pretty damn good for what you pay. I've not had a dud tool so far and things like the cordless drill have done a shed load of work and still appear as good as gold. The same goes for the electrical goods, only one thing stopped working and that was their $25 DVD player and if I'd checked my receipts before opening it up, I'd have realised that it was still under warranty and could have had it replaced or money back. Cheers Ray

It doesn't need to be changed unless it shows signs of playing up, usually affecting boost etc. The best thing to do is periodically give it a clean as you have. If you plan to do a lot of remote driving, then it's probably not a bad idea to carry a spare if yours has done a lot of kilometres. Cheers Ray

I thought they'd be glad I went quiet, the sociallists can now have it all their way without any disputes from another conservative arsehole. But it seems they can't ever be happy, now they come over here to flog their wares. I've asked to delete my post in the PC section, I'm really over it. Cheers Ray

Not to be pedantic, but have you determined at what tonnage your towbar will separate from the chassis, considering that the hooks are attached to the towbar? Cheers Ray

When I have a look at the old forum, I feel like a stranger for some reason and I can't find it in me to post, even when some of my old threads are resurrected. It's kind of weird. Cheers Ray

You can't stay away from any 4x4 forum can you? Anyhoo, a Raspberry Pi is basically a mini (credit card sized) computer that runs on a version of Linux. It's absolutely bare bones, so that you can do just about anything you want with it (in a PC sense), given talent and incentive. Some clever soul has even managed to run Windows 7 on it. Cheers Ray

The warranty covers the usual product indemnity applicable to all goods sold in Australia; no different to anything else that you might buy from anyone else. Aldi actually have a pretty good warranty, often much longer, compared to many other suppliers; but I can't say how well a warranty claim would be upheld, as I've never had to make a warranty claim for anything that I've bought from Aldi. Cheers Ray

Locks are only there for honest thieves, that's why I have insurance. It's the inconvenience that you have to go through, like insurance claims etc, if you make things too easy for thieves. I don't think that's there's anything that I own, that's worth stealing, that isn't replaceable. I just like the idea of carrying/storing as few keys as possible. When we moved into our new place, it had/has five external doors, three with two locks, and every door and lock had a different key. The first thing I did was replace every lock with a keyed-alike lock so one key fits all. I cannot believe how some people operate. Cheers Ray

The best place is the wreckers. Nissan sell them but want the usual arm and leg for small, not oft, requested parts. Normal switch blanks may also fit, as the factory ones are pushed in from underneath, but I have switches that click in from the top. Cheers Ray

If that's what you're considering, why not consider what I did to make an extension point for my USB GPS antenna (it's a switch blank on the side of the console): It allows me to connect to my tablet, without having cables strung all over the car. You can easily fit two USB ports to each switch blank. Cheers Ray

If you're into Arduino, then you can use Raspberry Pi to drive them. Cheers Ray

Raspberry Pi Will Cost $41 In Australia: http://www.gizmodo.c...1-in-australia/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/05/under-the-hood-taking-a-bite-out-of-raspberry-pi-35-of-tiny-pc-power/ Cheers Ray

I have an Abloy padlock that is now at least 40 years old and still works like new, not that I use it, as I keep it more for historical reasons than anything else: The thing I like about the BOLT Lock idea is that it uses your car key. I only carry two keys with me, the key for the Patrol and the other for the house (every lock is keyed alike). It would be great if I could have a bunch of padlocks and the like work just off the car key, or even better, if I could have every other lock work off the house key. I guess what you were alluding to was that one could get every lock converted to an Abloy lock and have that benefit. Nice, but probably very pricey. Cheers Ray

A pity it doesn't include Nissan keys: http://www.boltlock.com/ Cheers Ray

I installed a switch as well, but find it a mixed blessing, so simplified the entire circuit so that it only operates off a foot switch like in your photo and an override switch that arms/disarms the circuit (partly hidden under the console). This is the circuit that I used: I find the lockup useful when going up hills (towing or not towing) and I know that the engine has the power to hold the extra gear. It's also useful for acceleration, going from 2nd to 3rd and OD. Cheers Ray

Then he'll have to write to Google and ask for their permission. Cheers Ray

A little know fact is that you could get an infraction if some number of people complained about one of your posts. I once pointed out to a member how he was proposing to do something incredibly dangerous and got abused in return by the OP and told to piss off, and then others complained about me and I received an infraction. People may not always like my opinions, but when it's not politically related, I'm generally stating cold, hard, facts. The way that issue was handled right royally pissed me off. Cheers Ray

I had to replace the bushes once on my GQ and the bushes that are on the diff side were the most painful to replace. Getting them out wasn't such a chore, as I didn't care if they got mangled, but putting them back in was like brain surgery. The original Nissan bushes had only a very thin steel casing on the outer side (not sure if it's the same now) and if you got anything out of alignment, kiss the bush goodbye. Fortunately, I had a friend in an engineering firm and they had a press that could move in about 1/10mm movements, which enabled me to ease the bushes into place. Cheers Ray

I can understand the desire to extract some form of profit from the efforts put in to establish and maintain this forum, but one important feature that will make or break the forum are its contributors. Rome wasn't built in a day and it's still early days and the forum needs to establish its credentials and like any business; it doesn't get that in a day or even in a year. So it may be prudent to consider a break even situation for a period of time, to build that cred and potentially get formal advertisers/supporters to the forum. Consider that the Patrol4x4 forum started off as a business venture, fizzled out somewhere along the line and was then maintained on a shoestring budget by a few dedicated moderators for quite a number of years. Domain name registration cost is a relative pittance, forum software is free/inexpensive, hosting costs aren't a huge impost, but will grow with increased bandwidth and personal input is a cost only the individual can attribute. I think taking what would be a relatively small monetary risk in the early days may well pay dividents in the long term. Cheers Ray

Accurate weather forecasting is so important, as pointed out, but what gets me is that despite the tax dollars spent on the BOM, and now they want advertising dollars, they can still barely get a forecast right one day in advance; yet they seem to agree that it's possible to forecast the climate 100 years in advance! So the new computers will deliver 12x the power of the previous models. What? Were the previous model's accuracy only 0.001% of reality? And I'm not sure why you need 10 (extra?) flood forecasters. If you're going to have heavy rains, you're likely to have floods. Can't the existing meteorologists figure that out? Cheers Ray