Lickey

Streetlights,hosepipes? you were lucky, we lived in cardboard box in middle of road ,,,,,,,,

Honestly though, we didnt have tap water or electricity untill 1965, and thats East Anglia UK, it was a well, and the water was so sweet, [pre fertilizer/chemical days] light was by pixee parrafin lamps, and tilly lamps while eating or playing cards or some game, entertainment was a valve/catswhisker radio, which the batteries would be taken away and charged once a week, [another set left for use] ,,

From age 6 and 8 [older brother] dad gave us a bit of garden on the 1 acre home land, about 40sq yds each i would reckon, he used to say, dont do as i do boy, but do as i tell you, the ses pit would be ladled onto the whole plot, then a trailer load of hot pig/cowshit from the local farm spread allover, then dad would plough it in with his BMB plowmate, leave for 2 weeks and then get planting, We never did question dad why he done this next step, because he always done it like that, he planted a row of onions then carrots, then more onions,marigolds,spuds,gooseberrys,turnips,more flowers,radishes, chrysanthemums,spuds, and so on, as we got into our early teens, of course, cycle tracks,gang huts,tree climbing,motorbikes, slug guns, and girls, and still we helped dad & mum with the garden and still had a teaspoon of cod liver oil and a tsb of malt before bed, i still maintain the cod oil, wish i could find the malt!!

It wasnt untill i moved to Thai that i started my gardening and farming thingy again, just over 2 years ago, we got the mealy bugs in the papaya ect, i was asking for help on here, Ozzydom sent me a site called companion planting, after reading this, i only then realized what dad was up to 45years previous, the plants produce different chemicals to keep bugs away from each other, it could be a bit labourious to put a garlic bulb in between every plant in a 9 rai field, but if it will save your crop, what the hel_l,, garlic or oinion bulbs are cheaper than sprays!

IA, how long have you been here mate? fancy taking the family when you have deadlines to meet!! what you describe is a daily occurence hear, and thats why i dont have a pick-up, i like to keep my sanity, well, i try hard,

Keep plugging along together all, Cheers, Lickey,,

Hihttp://www.motorbikesport.co.uk/riderbiography.aspx?id=12 Soihok, seems like your vieing career was a few years after mine, my kids were being born then so that put the mockers on things a bit,

Just done a bit of research about the Haslams, yes, Leon did compete in 125 and 500 GPs, and dad Ron did a 100 500gps, plus 1 at silverstone on the Norton JPS rotary, got a point for 15th, but it kept coming into my mind that the rotary had been in OZ at a GP, and i found it, Steve Spray at Philip Island also came in 15th on the rotary, the year before,

I remember very well the comments at Snetterton at a British formula 1 meeting, [pre BSB] the Nortons were there, with Steve Spray and Trevor Nation, the nortons went down the Revvett straight like all else were in slow motion, after the racing, the riders complained that the oil mist from the Nortons made them unable to see through the bombhole and into Corams, the comentator, Dave Bailey i think it was, said thats what racing is all about, you have to stay in front of them!!

Heres the Leon Haslam site

http://www.motorbikesport.co.uk/riderbiography.aspx?id=12

Oh yes, i agree with your coments about Fogarty, a very good racer, but his off track coments were mind boggling, even when he won, he would say I could have won by more if,,,,,

Frankie never hit him hard enough at Assen!!

Ok fine, a car will creep if drive is selected when stopped, my point is that all the TC is doing is spinning the drive vane against a stationary vane, this keeps the trans loaded, if you keep "unloading" the trans, this will send shockwaves through it when you select drive and accelerate, specially when the light goes green and you are in a hurry,

I would think a max of 3 mins to hold it on the footbrake, or handbrake if you dont want to dazzle those behind you in a storm, and then, when you select drive, feel the box engage before you accelerate, and dont worry about the brakes, vented discs cool quick, even my mrs wave has heat marks on them,,

Ok, perhaps it will work this time??

We had quite a "dry" summer last year and the Tamarind came early, about 6 weeks early, the straight pod type were good, but not many people bought them, they lacked moisture i think was the problem, so we shelled and steamed them, they sold better but nothing like the previous year, then a month later the curly pods came on song, i would say nearly 95% had some kind of fungus/mold inside near the top, Must have taken about 210 kilos back to the farm and put on the compost heaps, I dont really understand why this all happened, the trees were full of pods, I think i posted some pics last year?

The mangoes were early as well, i think we had 3 of them, what happened is that the local temple [opposite the Salon] is building a new domitory, and the only labour BIL could find was 45ks away, he told them, its ok, you can live on the farm, we have 2 buildings there, electricity and borehole water, so about 30 people are living there now, but they have been there since Xmas, so thats where the mangoes went im sure, can even see a trail in the grass and bamboo poles under the trees, i think perhaps the mrs told them it was ok to take the mango but not banana or Kanoon, the next problem was, i usually run the pump at nights on a timer, so the water dont evaporate to quick, but the supply was getting intermitant, 3 mins sprinklers on, 5 mins off, so i stopped it altogether, just to make sure the labour had water, because they have kids and dogs ect living with them, so they got water and the bananas didnt,

Onto the Kanoon, for one week i told the mrs, will you please come and look, the fruit is starting to open/splitting, she says no its too early for this, but i dragged her to the farm and she says, why you not bring home? its ready!! cant you smell it? this particular fruit is 5 mtrs above me, how can i smell it?? she says, i will go get Mr Poo, he will take it down, this kanoon is huge, mrs cant find Poo, his mrs says he is in hospital again with kidney stones problem, Personally, i think he has made a bit of money, finished his rocket, and gone back to his own planet, I tell the mrs, im not going up there with all them weaver ants, so she nips back to the village and comes back with 2 teenagers, who willing climb and cut the huge kanoon, lower it to the ground and take it to the salon for 20bht each [in a trailer] the previous best was 19.5 ks, this one weighed in at 30ks, mrs sold it complete for 150bht, so we made 110 bht, [2.5 bottles of Leo] .....

As for doing the salad beds this year on the farm, what do you think? with 30 thais living there, so <deleted> to that this year!!

Yes, Pedrosa did well, a good start as usual, and led from start to finish, it was like waving a flag at a bull to Lorenzo, in my mind, lorenzo grew up at the weekend, perhaps he could of caught pedrosa, but at a high risk of crashing doing so, if he crashed out, pedrosa would be level on points with him,

And Lorenzo must have thought about what happened to Rossi, in his accident, he kept his calm and place and got 20 points, well done,

MotoGP, it will be hard to imagine without Rossi after 14 or so years, a very likeable bloke!

Same as the TT, i didnt follow it much after the death of Joey Dunlop in Latvia, 26 times a winner at the TT, i dont think that will ever be beaten,

Anybody want to post there favorite biking heros while we wait for the next GP form Silverstone UK, [old airfield, flat and featureless}

For me, its

Joey Dunlop

Phil Read

Mike Hailwood

Barry Sheene

Mick Grant

Kork Ballinton

John Cooper

Peter Williams

Barry Ditchburn

Niall Makenzie

Ron Haslam

Valentino Rossi

And loads more who have gave me some of the greatest weekends of my life,,

By the way, go to youtube, type in Honda 6 startup or Phil Read MV Augusta and listen to those incredible sounds, lots to choose from,

Cheers, Lickey..

Testing testing,1 2 1 2 12 happened to me as well, had a lovely story but!!!!

10 days or so ago, some goverment fella phoned the mrs, turns out he is from the present goverment and from south Thailand, [how he got her number, god olny knows?] but he is looking for nor sor sam or chanote land with 6/7 year old rubber trees, 100k per rai or barren land with the same paper for 70k, but will only buy in parcels of 2000 rai or over, so at 3% commision, mrs is very busy,

Im sure i dont have to explain what this would do to the local farmer,

SHOCKER.

Looks as if Rossi's challenge for the 2010 Moto GP crown is over.

After suffering an exsposed fracture of the tibia during a fall in practice, it is unlikely that he will be racing again until the end of the year, realistically.

The surgeons have operated on the doctor, pinning the fracture.

This a great blow for Rossi and all his fans, indeed, the race series will miss him greatly. Very unfortunate.

This race will be the first that he will not have started for many years, ending a continuous run of race starts since the 1996.

Sad news and I wish him all the best for his recovery.

Lorenzo will now start to run away with the title, I believe.

Yes, it was a shock to me, i didnt know till the commetators mentioned it during the 125 race, and since the start of the moto gp race, Lorenzo has gone up a lot in my appreciation, declaring that Vale is a Legend, and to wear a Rossi T-shirt on the podium, Good Lad!!!,

Was good to hear Rossi speaking from his hospital bed at the start of the race and the Ducati fans doing the "italian wave" for him, brilliant stuff!!

230 back to back GP starts, perhaps they can strap him onto Steve Websters chair outfit for a couple of races just so he continues his GP starts?

I dont think it will be too long before the Doctor is back, hes rode with a broken hand and foot before now!

Moto2 was again brilliant, but it would be good if Scott Reddings boast of being in the top 5 all year come true!!

Congrads Bradley, lets see what you can do at Silverstone, go for it!!

Hi folks, I've been replacing leaky seals in the clutch slave cylinder and fitting new friction disc's to the clutch......and I have a problem bleeding the system. The only fluid in the system is in the master cylinder reservoir. The workshop manual says pull the lever in and quickly open and close the bleeder valve, then release and repeat.....which I did 100 times.....with no result! I put a vacuum on the bleeder to suck out the air but it wouldn't hold a vacuum.

It's like there is a problem with the master cylinder, but it was fine last Sunday.

Anyone have a clue?

BSJ, the most foolproof method of bleeding hydraulics is to fill the master cylinder, open the bleed screw, wait for the fluid to dribble out, then pull in the lever, close the bleed screw,release the lever, and most important, watch to see if the fluid in MC goes down, if it does, open screw and repeat till air bubbles stop,if this doesnt work, then it could be a broken return spring in the MC, The way to test this is gently pull in the lever, and you should feel a slight resistant,

Vacunm method is ok on some systems but useless on others, you could back bleed the system, fill a pump type oil can with fluid, attach it via plastic pipe to the bleed screw and pump till MC is full, close screw and test,

just a few ideas for you before stripping it out again and possibly damaging the new seals,,

Slapout, ive no doubt that she would have told if i woke her, but my good lady works 14hour days in her salon and then some! even xmas day she was doing roast lamb and all the trimmings and still took in customers while i was looking after 6 falang mates, so with kudos to her, i did remember to ask her tonight,

The name of this bean/pod sounds like linfar, when it gets to the stage we saw in the pics, its useless, but when young and green, its used as a flavouring in Issan cooking, so i suppose thats why you only

ever see the black pods on the ground, they must come from the top of the tree where thais cant reach??

So there you go OP, Linfar, No smoke tonight Slapout, to much rain,

Transam, of course they had high stall converters,and a 6 litre cummins engine would scream at 1200rpm against the convertor holding it back, max power would be from 1350 to 2500 rpm, the convertors also had a lock up, bringing in a 1 to1 drive through the box, also to allow precise free wheeling when of the throttle, also big trans dont have a park faccilty, it would be to easily broken due to the weight of the vehicle.

The buses in the US you mentioned probably have the Allison new world trans, the control is all done by touchpad, no stick, you can select park and the brakes will come on, plus you can also up the engine revs to maintain AC or heating, even with these settings, touch drive and it will be off, many UK dustcarts and buses have had this for 12 odd years now.

So has this tecnology not filtered through to cars ect yet?

I dont want to wake the mrs up now but we have 2 on the farm and there is many such trees around the temple in the lake in Namsom, i dont think they are edible because these pods lay on the pavement round the lake, normally if its edible the tree would be bare in a few hours knowing the Thais, will get back to you when i find out [if any] uses this pod has,,

Cheers, Lickey..

OP, you can test your vehichle yourself, very easy, take it for a run, warm up the trans, stop on a level road, select neutral, [engine running,] if vehicle dosent move [no brakes] its a level road, then select drive, the engine will slow a little as it powers up the trans, and might even creep a few inches, but if engine tickover is right, it will come to a standstill, with no brakes applied, no harm atall!! whilst in drive it is circulating the oil through-out the gear box filter and cooler.

I worked on overhauling autotrans for 7 years, mainly big Allisons and the New World series, 18 months into the job i had to re-con an urban 45 seater bus trans, 1 of many, i saw this bus on my way to work and on the way home, now this so called driver would sit at traffic lights in drive foot on the brake and throttle, i could hear the engine screaming away from my van, as soon as the lights changed, he was off, I asked the chief trans engineer about this, he said, dont worry, the bus is not moving, the trans is doing nothing, 4 years later, i overhauled the trans again, just normal wear and tear, not bad 450,000 miles since the last overhaul, but it had 2 engines in that time,

So OP, the auto has been around many years now, just drive how you feel comfortable,,

Hi Somtam, its a glow-plug engine? if so, try connecting the battery first, 1 pump on fuel then pull the rope, it sounds like its flooding and fouling the glow plug, heres a site that may help,

http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/model-airplane-engines.html good luck, Lickey,

Anybody here thinks that airfares should be based on weight? same as a postal service,

observations please,

Thanks,

After neary 4 years in Issan, i would say its definitely tonal, we live 50ks south of Laos, and if we go to BKK her accent changes, also, a lot of english speaking falang have told me to very careful if learning Issan, because every word can have up to 5 different tones, a wrong tone might get me into a fight! I always reply, oh really? and english doesnt have the same? for me, [in english] its the facial expression that gives away the tone that its meant in, same for Thais i would think!

Cheers, Lickey,,

Got my visa today, no problem, no medical, [udon Thani] but i seem to remember when they first opened, it was required, as we all know, every office is different, so perhaps phone in advance if youve a long way to go,

Thanks Lickey,,

Op, a modulator valve will cause problems in all gears, same as a faulty TC, a sticking regulator might cause the problem, but i would go for the valve body, a broken shift spring,worn seals or plungers,But, and a big BUT, is that if youve changed the oil and filter ect and its no different,and the oil is black and smells like burnt peanuts,then its too late for a minor repair, what happens is the pegged clutch plates wear a step in there drum, causing them to stick, due to low oil pressure caused by the broken/sticking valve body,

Time and cost of such a repair would be exstensive i imagine,

If you go looking for a s/h trans, try to find a recent write off rather than an old worn out car, even then, pop out the TC and pour some oil out, if its cherry red or a very light colour, ok, if its black, avoid it!!

Good Luck,,

I had to let my retirement visa lapse for a few months, staying here on tourist visas,

Back on track now and all ready for retirement visa again, this week at Udon, now, do i need a medical certificate,as was the first time i applied?

Thanks, Lickey..

Whoops sorry folks, i got the dates all wrong, bloody commentators saying that the French Moto GP would be in 2 weeks time, in fact, its 3 weeks May 23, and should be live on ESPN,

Meanwhile, Crutchlow and toseland are heading the grid, and Laverty in WSS, on today,,,

Daniel, your car is now 14 years old, has the radiator matrix ever been cleaned? the best way to do this is with a high pressure airline from the engine side of the radiator blowing outwards, this will dislodge all the flies and dust that have acumalated over the years,

If after doing this and the problem persists, please post again,

Cheers, Lickey,

I thought all bearings are sealed nowadays, like wheel,prop,steering ect, but if your Isuzu has had regular services, then greasing should be a part of it, {if it has grease nipples? } Perhaps check your service shecdule handbook, see if it refers to greasing atall?

If your truck is front wheel drive, perhaps it has a split gaitor on a driveshaft, loosing grease and drying out the CV joint, if this was the case, they should reccomend the work immediatly,

Take the truck back to the garage and ask them where it needs greasing or lubing, besides the normal points of the doors, bonnet hinges, tailgage lock and hinges, handbrake linkage,throttle linkage,AC vent control linkage,Wiper links,

Good luck..

Just flicked through the listings for Sunday on UBC, seems like its going to be live WSB from Kyalami, SA at 16.45 till 18.00, and race 2 a bit later, about 19.45 i think? channel 106 or 107, star or espn?

Friday nights and Leo beer!!!!!!!! sorry, but keep an eye out on either,,

No mention of Moto GP from France, perhaps they have dropped it in favour of WSB?

Or we could watch Shumacher at Monaco, where a few years ago he got the fatest lap then parks his car at a difficult slow corner so nobody could beat him,, what a champion he was????

IssanAussie, I dont do cassava anymore, once bitten,twice shy, biggest problem was the Wall St crash i suppose, then came the mealy bugs which destroyed 9rai of Papaya in a matter of weeks, the bugs then got onto the cassava, a lot of plants didnt survive, and what did [after spraying the ground] we got 1bht 4st for, my bookwork suggests a loss of 18,000bht, start to finish in 10 months, so im not going through that again.

What im trying to do is tell the good cassava farmers on here that a lot of the responsibilty of mealy bugs spreading are ants, Yes, by all means, bring on the wasp, the ladybird beetle, whatever you want, but the ants will protect the bugs against natural predators,

try this link, www.mealybugs ants paste into Google search.

Hi Old Git, a brilliant detailed reply, thankyou,,

We did make the trip 2.5 years ago to UK, and it doesnt seem like much has changed, Sister will look after the salon, as she did before, so no problem there,

I checked GFs passport and it runs out in Dec 2010, so will get that renewed anyway, [dont need any hicups at Heathrow,,]and she can take both to immigration in BKK.

Old Git,when you say add the headers to the e-mails, could you explain what you mean please, Just so i get it right, thanks,

TVE, definitley a famliy visit visa, thanks for your input,,

TOG, next time you are in Namsom, fish chips& mushy peas & beers are on me, Cheers, Lickey & Pan..