I live in the wrong country

[EE_Bota]

I am with Renze.

I want a Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup, hopefully with a conventionally boxed bed. I would like a TDI engine in the front, and batteries under the bed of the truck as near to directly over the rear axle as is practical. I want the rear tires mounted on electric hub motors. I want those hub motors to provide boost on take off, manage the 4wd function, and provide anti-locking, regenerative braking.

Can one of you fellows in Europe call in a favor with one of your buddies in Germany and "hook me up."

Hey I misspelled misspelled a moment ago! Hah! Top that!

 

[033614]

Quite frankly I'm getting to the stage where I would like a pony and trap never mind a TDI. All this rushing around is making my head spin, it seems a bragging point to say, " got there in 3 hrs", does it really matter? Lets face it, someone passes you like a dose of salts and ten minutes later you're 2 cars behind him at lights. Anyway you can't do more than about 40mph where I live, you'd never make the corners!!

 

[EE_Bota]

There is a certain elegance to a "machine" that will fill it's own tank, heal minor "mechanical" issues on it's own, and in some cases navigate and drive on it's own.

That reminds me of poor old "Dolly." When I was a kid, I "primed" tobacco in the summers to earn money for school clothes in the winter. This was in the late '6o's early '70's. Some of the farmers had tractors pulling sleds in the sled row, but one farmer had poor old Dolly. "Woh" meant stop and a kissing sound meant go. It really was not Dolly's fault that the farmer chose a sound for "go" that sounded remarkably like the sound a large tobacco leaf being pulled off the bottom of the stalk. Someone would pull the odd leaf, and Dolly would take off down the sled row, and the farmer would yell in a hateful tone "Woh Dolly, Woh!" Sometimes Dolly would stop, but other times Dolly would NOT stop until her head was around 1 foot past the last stalk in the row.

The reason Dolly would ignore his command to stop (in my opinion, she didn't tell me this) was she could tell by the way he yelled that he was going to "frail her like a Banjo," so I guess she figured she could delay the retribution a few more seconds by going to the end of the row. Poor old Dolly.

She would be at the end of the row, hearing him coming up behind and all nervous about it, she would start to eat tobacco like there was no tomorrow. Sometimes when I am nervous, I want a cigarette too.

 

[Cami]

@EE Bota: A friend of my father was a horse logger and, though he loved the work, had a few things to say in favour of tractors. The biggest point was that tractors only eat when they're working. In one winter, he lost one horse to a broken leg and another was gored by a moose. I've never heard of a tractor being killed by a moose, and if your tractor breaks a leg, you just order a replacement.

Seriously though, regarding the availability of cheap tools in the UK, I just don't know because none of my family are fabrication hobbyists or work in small shops. An impression I get from UK periodicals like Engineering in Minerature and Model Engineer's Workshop is that there are more lathes per capita in the UK than anywhere else in the world. There are a few tool houses that advertise in those, aren't there?

Britain used to have massive industrial and manufacturing concerns; where did all the tools go?

 

[033614]

There are lots of lathes and stuff over here in the UK, her indoors thinks I've got most of it. Lots of it just got smashed and scrapped, lately the powers that be have insisted that farmers must clean up the old junk around the farms, partly so they get subsidies and partly environmental. Trouble is all the old hedgerow tractors are being scrapped. Scrapman called here today, telling me he took a sledge to a lathe last week and has weighed in 50 tractors in the last 2 years. Mills and lathes are aplenty, newer stuff (tig/plasma etc) all chinese and shipping, import duty and value added tax make them very expensive for the hobbyist like me. Still, if I leave it for the kids they'll only spend it on wine, women and song, then waste the rest.

 

[jas67]

In the mean time, as long as there are people idling diesels right in front of the store entrance, and pickup trucks are reprogrammed to bellow huge clouds of black smoke, for the sake of the drivers ego, I will continue to object.

As for the drivers that reprogram their diesel trucks to bellow huge clunds of black smoke; they are not the same crowd that would be purchasing diesel-powered cars like the VW's, BMW's, and the many Hondas and Nissans we can't get here in the U.S.

Anyone that does that with the 6.4L Powerstroke or any other post-2007 diesel pickup is going to be unhappy when they have to replace the DPF (diesel particulate filter) extremely prematurely.

You can't blame the design of a vehicle, and shouldn't keep responsible people from being able to own a particular vehicle, because of a few irresponsible and selfish people out there who indulge in such behavior.

I've been behind plenty of gas-powered vehicles (both cars and pickups) that smell way worse than any diesel, because they are not properly maintained, and are running like crap.

It is only a matter of time until the automakers put DRM features into EMC's to keep you from reprogramming them (kinda like game-console people try to keep you from customizing their game consoles). This will make it double-illegal to reprogram the ECM, as it is already illegal to tamper with emissions controls devices in many of not all states, and the DMCA (Digital Copyright Millennium Act) makes it illegal, not only to circumvent the DRM (anti-copy/anti-tampering software), it makes it illegal to sell or distribute devices or software to enable others to do the same. This would pretty much kill the market for ECM tuners.

 

[jas67]

I want a Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup, hopefully with a conventionally boxed bed. I would like a TDI engine in the front, and batteries under the bed of the truck as near to directly over the rear axle as is practical. I want the rear tires mounted on electric hub motors. I want those hub motors to provide boost on take off, manage the 4wd function, and provide anti-locking, regenerative braking.

Hey, EE_Boat, sounds like you have a project idea to start a build-picture thread over in the "Built It Yourself" forum.

 

[jas67]

Lets face it, someone passes you like a dose of salts and ten minutes later you're 2 cars behind him at lights.

That just means that the lights are timed badly. We have a lot of lights around here that are timed very badly. The one road that I drive to work has a 45 MPH speed limit, but if you go 45, you hit at least 1/2 of them red. Sometimes, if you go 65 MPH, you can hit them all green. They're probably timed for 32.5

The road used to have a 55 MPH speed limit, but they lowered it to 45 MPH when I81, which runs parallel to it was under construction about 8 years ago, to discourage trucks from using it to avoid the construction. The construction project is long since done, but the 45 MPH speed limit remains. The local township to too addicted to the extra revenue they get from the speeding tickets. I am getting very fed up with speed limits set for revenue generation, instead of safety, and traffic lights that impede traffic flow, instead keeping it flowing smoothly.

Think of the emissions and fuel savings if we had more intelligent traffic light controls that had sensors all along the roads, or at least for a mile on either side (I'm talking semi-rural highway with lights every 1/2 to 1 mile, not intercity), so that 10-20 vehicles don't have to stop quickly (and subsequently re-accelerate) because the light turned red right before they got to it so that one car can make a left from a side road. In many cases, the "clump" of traffic is small, and if the light could delay the green for the one car as little as 10-15 seconds, the clump of traffic could avoid the extra stop and go with relatively little inconvenience to the one car.

 

[ray66v]

Anyone that does that with the 6.4L Powerstroke or any other post-2007 diesel pickup is going to be unhappy when they have to replace the DPF (diesel particulate filter) extremely prematurely.

It seems they know enough to get around these problems. Like using the emissions warranty, as one example.

You can't blame the design of a vehicle, and shouldn't keep responsible people from being able to own a particular vehicle, because of a few irresponsible and selfish people out there who indulge in such behavior.

I don't blame the design, nor do I have the ability to keep anyone from doing anything.

I've been behind plenty of gas-powered vehicles (both cars and pickups) that smell way worse than any diesel, because they are not properly maintained, and are running like crap.

I am not sure why you are making this point. I never said diesels were the worst smelling thing on the road. Lots of things smell worse that a diesel, a dead skunk for one example. If we got rid of everything that smelled worse than a diesel, (I will back you on this 100%), would that make them smell any better?

It is only a matter of time until the automakers put DRM features into EMC's to keep you from reprogramming them (kinda like game-console people try to keep you from customizing their game consoles). This will make it double-illegal to reprogram the ECM, as it is already illegal to tamper with emissions controls devices in many of not all states, and the DMCA (Digital Copyright Millennium Act) makes it illegal, not only to circumvent the DRM (anti-copy/anti-tampering software), it makes it illegal to sell or distribute devices or software to enable others to do the same. This would pretty much kill the market for ECM tuners.

In the mean time, they also don't mind selling lots of these very high profit vehicles to those who fully intend to do so. I spent over 30 years in the auto industry, and have seen how slowly the manufacturers move when a change will reduce their profits.

As far as legality goes, fewer than 20% of the Harley Davidson riders around here, have legal exhaust systems, And we also still have murders taking place, even though both are illegal.

My original point was, I am glad there are not more diesels on the road. As of this moment, I am still free enough to hold that opinion.

I was not actually looking for a debate on the subject. No one will change my mind, and I will not change yours.

 

[Renze]

The reason Dolly would ignore his command to stop (in my opinion, she didn't tell me this) was she could tell by the way he yelled that he was going to "frail her like a Banjo," so I guess she figured she could delay the retribution a few more seconds by going to the end of the row. Poor old Dolly.

My father lend out his first tractor, a Deutz D15 out to an old neighbour, back in 1969 or so when my parents married. This neighbour had the opposite problem, not with a horse but with a tractor that didnt listen to his commands: He would hit the brakes hard while yelling "huu" to the tractor as if it were a horse, but forgot to push down the clutch pedal also so he came to a sudden halt against the newly built barn. My parents were having lunch so he entered the room and said "well, i couldnt find the brake so quickly"

In his hands, anything mechanical would become a lethal weapon. But for the sake of neighbourhood relationships, my father had to let him borrow the tractor and just pray it would come back apiece.
The guy also took some driving lessons at old age, but only his wife got a drivers license: at his first lesson, he took place in the car, said to the instructor "if you pay attention, then i'll do the driving"
He thought he could drive and only had to learn to negotiate through traffic. In fact he never learned either.

Once this very same guy drove to the field over a road surrounded by big oaks: the retaining pin of the mid mounted sickle bar mower vibrated loose and it swung down in working position: The tip grabbed an oak, the tractor made a full 360 degree turn and halted on the road, heading the right direction to continue to the field. Luckily that little D15 didnt weigh more than a small car, so the sicklebar mower remained no structural damage from this mishap.