Bought a lift…

Posted on 14-August-2023 by Henrik Morsing

After seeing a ready made garage pit at the NEC 20 years ago, I have been thinking about getting a pit or two-post lift. It always seemed too complicated, too expensive, just too much…

I started following “Seaside Garage” on Youtube, who described the difference his mid-rise scissor had made. It’s not a full height lift, but cheaper and much more convenient! I started looking around and found Strongman and their apparently popular “Clifton” lift (previously “Montford”?).

Link to Seaside Garage: Seaside Garage – YouTube

It wasn’t the cheapest lift, but fitted the bill perfectly. Delivered within two days, and despite weighing 500Kg, I set it up myself. Here it is in situ (yes, I fitted the ramps to the wrong sides, handles need to be on the outside):

Still not hooked up to the “Control Tower” and it needs a commando socket installed. Will post a video of the first test run. (EDIT: Now posted below)

First run of lift.

The red lamp on the Control Tower, and the manual does not mention this at all, is not a fault indicator as I first thought. It is a warning to everyone in the shop (and my neighbours) that the lift is lowering, and it is LOUD! So loud that I put some Duck tape over it, which brought it down to a more pleasant sound level.

I swapped the control tower connection side to be by the wall, which, TBH, I don’t think it was really designed for. The only slight issue is that the cable bracket for the stop switch has no holes to be screwed into on the other side. Double-sided tape should hold it in place.

The Chinese Google-translated manual is awful. Poor quality photos, lack of information, and written in bad English. The hydraulic line joins were not tightened from the factory, so oil leaked everywhere the first time I ran it. The dip-stick for the oil reservoir is also shiny metal, so useless. I will try to mark min and max with permanent marker on the reservoir itself.

The motor is a 3HP motor and uses 18A at cos φ .54 as seen below.

B230E valvetrain refresh

Posted on 24-August-2020 by Henrik Morsing

After 250 000 miles, I finally got around to renewing the valvetrain components of my Volvo 240. Springs and hushers being the main items to replace. I also adjusted the fuel distributor system pressure, control pressure, flow plate and CO mixture.

Cam out and new valve springs in

All back in!

Next up, tuning fual distributor system pressure

System pressure was only 4.6 (not shown in photo), so I carefully got the pressure regulator out and added shims to it. Quite a lot of shims was needed, I think the spring had gone weak.

After that, I centered the air flow sensor plate and checked the rest height. To be able to tighten the flow plate nut without it moving, fold over a piece of A4 paper and slot it down all round the plate. This has the right thickness to keep the plate centered.

Next, CO tuning. Incidentally, if you can’t find a photo of this either, this is what the bung down the CO adjuster screw tube looks like:

I screwed a little screw down the tube and pulled it out.

That’s it. Next, replacing the power steering pump…

Pro-tect rust proofing services, Milton Keynes

Posted on 25-May-2018 by admin

After buying an almost new car (3 years old), we agreed that proper rust proofing was essential and from Dinitrol’s own website chose Pro-tect services in Milton Keynes, although it is actually by Buckingham.

It took three days to get done, but unfortunately after picking up the car from Protect services, we realised it had multiple sets of scratches such as from a zip. All hip height, short but deep.

Unfortunately Frankie from Pro-tect Services in Milton Keynes was not very accomodating. He said it wasn’t him, and went quiet when we sent him photos of the scratches. We certainly won’t be dealing with Frankie from Pro-tect Servcies in Milton Keynes again!

Would I recommend Pro-tect Services DInitrol rust proofing center in Milton Keynes to friends and family? NO!