Santa reminds us that he’s the owner of several Stags. The DVLA classify his reindeer as Stags if they are red males over five years old. Some of his reindeer are more yellow than red, but says he’s noticed yellow is a popular colour in the SOC and hopes this will be ok. He asks us to allow his female reindeer to be included as many Stags seem to have female names He recently read several posts about Mabel.
He says he’s also been looking at some other topics on the forum. As he’s quite busy at work he’s asked me to post on his behalf. Most of his comments concern his sleigh, which he says is a vital accessory for his Stags.
On the question of tyre lubricant, he has noticed that his Stags seem to run more smoothly if he applies some to the runners on the sleigh, especially if climbing a hill under fully laden conditions. The silicone lubricant seems to reduce friction. However, he assures us that he is not taken in by efforts of sleigh auctioneers or online sellers to make basket-case sleighs look better than they are.
The tyre lubricant has to be replenished on a drip-feed principle, so he installed a 12 volt electric oil pump made by Mocal, which he found on the Merlin Motorsport website, apparently this works well. When designing this he was greatly helped by discussion of oil pressure and flow rate earlier in the year. More recently, he’s seen the posts about difficulty in getting access to remove the original oil pumps, he wonders whether some enterprising member will develop an external oil pump kit on the same principle as the external water pump.
He is very sympathetic with other members who have problems with rear brakes binding. This winter it has been a great problem on the sleigh, he has not yet got to the bottom of it and has had to temporarily remove the brakes. Fortunately, the Stags are able to provide a braking effect when going downhill because they have the manual transmission option.
There is a problem with water getting in the boot of the sleigh. This is fitted with a custom soft-top rather than a boot lid, but it isn’t really fully waterproof. The main problem is that when the wrapping paper gets wet it sometimes tears-off as the present goes down the chimney. He is grateful for the advice about the various water-proofing products available and will deal with this when he has more time.
He's always interested to read about the problems that people have with washer bottles. In his situation the whole system freezes up. However, he had a lightbulb moment and came up with the idea of adding a simple heat exchanger in the washer bottle which would be plumbed-in to the engine cooling system. But he’s a bit nervous of suggesting this, though, as he's noticed there’s already a fair bit of controversy about mods to the cooling system. Speaking of lightbulbs, the sleigh is still running on the original bulbs but he looks with interest at reports of members’ experience with LEDs.
Finally, he just wanted to mention a problem with lower strut bolts on the sleigh that hasn’t yet been mentioned. Some of the bolts on the market are made of material which becomes brittle and breaks in very cold temperatures - it can go down to – 40 C in Lapland. When he’s there this weekend he’s going to ask the engineers who look after the oil pipelines where they get their bolts.
Meantime, he says he'd like to wish Merry Christmas to all the members and their Stags.
He says he’s also been looking at some other topics on the forum. As he’s quite busy at work he’s asked me to post on his behalf. Most of his comments concern his sleigh, which he says is a vital accessory for his Stags.
On the question of tyre lubricant, he has noticed that his Stags seem to run more smoothly if he applies some to the runners on the sleigh, especially if climbing a hill under fully laden conditions. The silicone lubricant seems to reduce friction. However, he assures us that he is not taken in by efforts of sleigh auctioneers or online sellers to make basket-case sleighs look better than they are.
The tyre lubricant has to be replenished on a drip-feed principle, so he installed a 12 volt electric oil pump made by Mocal, which he found on the Merlin Motorsport website, apparently this works well. When designing this he was greatly helped by discussion of oil pressure and flow rate earlier in the year. More recently, he’s seen the posts about difficulty in getting access to remove the original oil pumps, he wonders whether some enterprising member will develop an external oil pump kit on the same principle as the external water pump.
He is very sympathetic with other members who have problems with rear brakes binding. This winter it has been a great problem on the sleigh, he has not yet got to the bottom of it and has had to temporarily remove the brakes. Fortunately, the Stags are able to provide a braking effect when going downhill because they have the manual transmission option.
There is a problem with water getting in the boot of the sleigh. This is fitted with a custom soft-top rather than a boot lid, but it isn’t really fully waterproof. The main problem is that when the wrapping paper gets wet it sometimes tears-off as the present goes down the chimney. He is grateful for the advice about the various water-proofing products available and will deal with this when he has more time.
He's always interested to read about the problems that people have with washer bottles. In his situation the whole system freezes up. However, he had a lightbulb moment and came up with the idea of adding a simple heat exchanger in the washer bottle which would be plumbed-in to the engine cooling system. But he’s a bit nervous of suggesting this, though, as he's noticed there’s already a fair bit of controversy about mods to the cooling system. Speaking of lightbulbs, the sleigh is still running on the original bulbs but he looks with interest at reports of members’ experience with LEDs.
Finally, he just wanted to mention a problem with lower strut bolts on the sleigh that hasn’t yet been mentioned. Some of the bolts on the market are made of material which becomes brittle and breaks in very cold temperatures - it can go down to – 40 C in Lapland. When he’s there this weekend he’s going to ask the engineers who look after the oil pipelines where they get their bolts.
Meantime, he says he'd like to wish Merry Christmas to all the members and their Stags.
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