As many of you know by now, Santa is a Stag owner and gets in touch from time to time to share his experience and ask advice. Contrary to most of us, he uses his Stags and sleigh more often in the winter and this often prompts him to message at this time of year – the Forum has been quiet in the last few days, so he thought this would be a good opportunity.
Since last Christmas he’s tackled a big repair job he had been putting off, namely the refurb of the runners on the sleigh. He says this went ok until he removed the stainless-steel finishers put on by the previous owner - he found more rot than expected because water and mould had festered underneath for years.
New runners are “no longer available” from the usual suspects. He made some repair sections in the shed and patched the old ones using mortise and tenon joints, dowel pins, random sash clamps, and some wood from a skip.
He’s grateful that they taught woodwork when he went to school years ago - in his view most lads wouldn't have a clue nowadays. He says he’s seen a video online where a chap does metalwork on Land Rovers, and he’s a fan of another chap from a place near Sunny Retford. He thinks he ought to make his own video to pass on some woodwork skills.
As luck would have it, halfway through the job he saw some "new old stock" runners advertised online. But the cost was out of reach, and as he'd already invested a lot of time and effort and doesn't like scrapping original parts, he decided to press on. He tells me that in the past he had a lot of problems with "new old stock" that came from someone else's shed.
When he came to fix the runners back onto the sleigh's chassis, and wanting to do the job properly, he decided to raid his savings and buy new nuts, bolts and washers. After checking the parts book and manufacturer's hardware catalogue he was pretty sure he knew what bolt sizes and threads he would need - though he sometimes wonders why UNC threads aren't specified where he’d expect them, yet sometimes are where he wouldn’t.
In passing he mentioned that he often finds himself stuck halfway up a chimney, so to speak, when he finds errors in the parts book. But the hardware catalogue is accurate, and handy for identifying generic fixings. He thinks he'll see the optician in the New Year as his hardware catalogue is a smudgy copy of a copy and he finds it rather hard to read.
He tells me that sourcing imperial fixings is sometimes a challenge, needing hours of trawling on the Internet to find bolts in lengths other than the nearest 1/4-inch to which the usual suspects often default. It ends up with him having to place several small orders, with the postage and packing often costing more than the parts. He did think about calling on the suppliers to pick up parts while out and about at Christmas but then realised they'll probably be closed for the duration.
Meantime, according to the parts book, some of the old fixings he took off appeared to be the wrong ones, so he began to suspect that someone had been there before him. He tells me his suspicions were confirmed when he found that some smart Alec had forced a 10mm bolt from the garden centre into a 3/8-inch UNC hole. Santa apologises to anyone on here called Alec, whether they’re smart or otherwise … hang on Santa, moderators might have to jump in if an Alec complains, so better stop digging.
Being a conscientious sort of chap and knowing that sleigh runners are a safety critical item he decided to make a thread repair, but went down a rabbit hole looking at videos explaining why one make of insert is better than another. There were other worries - should he use high-tensile bolts or stainless-steel? Should the threads be lubricated, and with what? What about the blind holes in the chassis legs that were bottoming out, and why on earth did the factory drill and tap them to different depths in the first place?
Eventually he just made his decisions and got on with it, and he tells me he was cross with himself for wasting so much time because most of this didn't really matter - the important thing was to get the sleigh going again. Pragmatism having prevailed, the pristine repaired and painted runners - better than new - were installed with new bolts finger-tight. But then he then looked-up the torque settings in the repair operations manual and was perplexed: it gave a range, not a spot value.
Not sure what to do, he asked a chap down the pub known to regulars as Roger the Dodger. Roger worked on the line at the factory until recently when Sir Michael fired him, most likely for finding loads of ways to avoid doing the job right, and for working hard to make life easy.
Roger's regular drinking pal is known as Dennis the Menace - they're often seen sitting at the bar. Santa says that Dennis is known for his skills in building vehicles in his shed, like rocket-powered go-karts and tanks powered by his pet pig, Rasher. Roger let slip to Santa, on the quiet, that many of the parts Dennis needs find their way out the factory on the night shift. Roger doesn’t know much about the rockets, though, other than the ones Sir Michael gives the workers when statistics on warranty claims are released.
Santa goes to Roger first when seeking technical advice, because despite all his faults, Roger can tell you exactly how the sleighs were meant to be assembled. Best not to ask Dennis because he'll tell you anything you want to hear in exchange for a pint of "Gold Brummie".
Rasher likes Brummie too – he often downs a swift half in the pub garden but avoids the place if he finds out the landlord is planning a barbeque – he sometimes gets wind of this when the menu on the blackboard mentions pork chops and gammon steaks. Santa gets anxious about the venison kebabs. There’s also rabbit stew if you don’t like barbeques.
Roger told Santa that the workers used a brand of torque wrench called “Feels Right” with a setting dependent on where the sleigh was made - 45 ft-lb for Speke, 55 ft-lb for Canley, or 65 ft-lb for Solihull - though not all models were produced at every location. But he warned Santa that the setting could vary a bit if the worker fixing the runners had received a rocket that day, or it was a Friday afternoon.
Roger posed the question that many of us ponder in in the quiet of the night - is ft-lb the right unit of measurement, or should it be lb-ft? Being wary of rabbits and their holes by now, Santa was relieved that he already knew the answer as this had been revealed in a Christmas cracker.
The name "pound-foot", intended to minimize confusion with "foot-pound" as a unit of work, was apparently proposed by British physicist Arthur Worthington. Despite this, torque units are still called "foot-pound", but confusingly, can be denoted as either "ft-lb" or "lb-ft”, and then there's the "inch-pound" denoted as "in-lb". Still with me? It turns out that Dennis knows you can multiply ft-lb by twelve to get in-lb but says best not to try this after five pints if you want to avoid an embarrassing mistake.
Roger sometimes asks Dennis about the embarrassing mistake. Dennis refuses to discuss it but Rasher knows the inside story. Sixty years ago, AC Cars took a Cobra Coupé GT on to the M1 for a test-run just before the Le Mans 24 Hours race. Dennis’ dad was a friend of the works driver, Jack Sears. Dennis' dad said Jack did 185 mph. Roger thought this was pretty good going in1964.
Dennis thought his rocket-powered go-kart could do better, and now was the time to try. Everything was arranged for 11th June 2024, the 60th anniversary of Jack’s run. Dennis and Rasher set out from Newport Pagnell towards Luton. A mile south of Toddington Services their Vega rocket reached full power. As you may know, the European Space Agency uses these to send small payloads into low-earth orbit.
Dennis made certain he used bolts with the right threads for the rocket's mounting points. Unfortunately, owing to the embarrassing mistake, they weren't torqued-up enough to withstand the vibration. The pair whizzed into the outside lane at 112 mph but narrowly escaped disaster when the rocket came adrift.
Rasher agreed to keep quiet if Dennis promised to never again taunt him with smoky bacon crisps down the pub. Sometime later Rasher broke out in a cold sweat when he realised that there was no plan for re-entry if the go-kart had achieved escape velocity.
So, Santa has gone for the mid-range Canley setting. The runners appear to be strong and solid, but he's taking his socket set and torque wrench on the Christmas run as he expects to make many landings before he comes home and will need to re-torque the bolts on-the-fly. He tells me his torque wrench is calibrated in N-m but he managed to convert from ft-lb. Rasher thinks it's just as well Santa was able to do this without help from Dennis but keeps his opinions to himself.
Santa has seen some posts on the Forum talking about what else to take on long trips, as in Stags touring on the Continent, and thanks us all for these helpful suggestions.
Before signing off, he said he's noticed that other owners report good experience with events like the Round Britain Reliability Run. This has inspired him to keep going with running repairs and regular maintenance and he says he feels confident that his trip this Christmas will go well. For sure, the runners won't collapse now, even under the weight of all the presents.
Just one last thing, I almost forgot - Santa tells me he decided not to refit the stainless-steel finishers as he doesn't want to repeat this repair anytime soon. But just in case he’s stashed the finishers in the shed along with some packets of bolts with the wrong threads.
Season's greetings to everyone from Santa, Roger, Dennis, Rasher, and me.
Since last Christmas he’s tackled a big repair job he had been putting off, namely the refurb of the runners on the sleigh. He says this went ok until he removed the stainless-steel finishers put on by the previous owner - he found more rot than expected because water and mould had festered underneath for years.
New runners are “no longer available” from the usual suspects. He made some repair sections in the shed and patched the old ones using mortise and tenon joints, dowel pins, random sash clamps, and some wood from a skip.
He’s grateful that they taught woodwork when he went to school years ago - in his view most lads wouldn't have a clue nowadays. He says he’s seen a video online where a chap does metalwork on Land Rovers, and he’s a fan of another chap from a place near Sunny Retford. He thinks he ought to make his own video to pass on some woodwork skills.
As luck would have it, halfway through the job he saw some "new old stock" runners advertised online. But the cost was out of reach, and as he'd already invested a lot of time and effort and doesn't like scrapping original parts, he decided to press on. He tells me that in the past he had a lot of problems with "new old stock" that came from someone else's shed.
When he came to fix the runners back onto the sleigh's chassis, and wanting to do the job properly, he decided to raid his savings and buy new nuts, bolts and washers. After checking the parts book and manufacturer's hardware catalogue he was pretty sure he knew what bolt sizes and threads he would need - though he sometimes wonders why UNC threads aren't specified where he’d expect them, yet sometimes are where he wouldn’t.
In passing he mentioned that he often finds himself stuck halfway up a chimney, so to speak, when he finds errors in the parts book. But the hardware catalogue is accurate, and handy for identifying generic fixings. He thinks he'll see the optician in the New Year as his hardware catalogue is a smudgy copy of a copy and he finds it rather hard to read.
He tells me that sourcing imperial fixings is sometimes a challenge, needing hours of trawling on the Internet to find bolts in lengths other than the nearest 1/4-inch to which the usual suspects often default. It ends up with him having to place several small orders, with the postage and packing often costing more than the parts. He did think about calling on the suppliers to pick up parts while out and about at Christmas but then realised they'll probably be closed for the duration.
Meantime, according to the parts book, some of the old fixings he took off appeared to be the wrong ones, so he began to suspect that someone had been there before him. He tells me his suspicions were confirmed when he found that some smart Alec had forced a 10mm bolt from the garden centre into a 3/8-inch UNC hole. Santa apologises to anyone on here called Alec, whether they’re smart or otherwise … hang on Santa, moderators might have to jump in if an Alec complains, so better stop digging.
Being a conscientious sort of chap and knowing that sleigh runners are a safety critical item he decided to make a thread repair, but went down a rabbit hole looking at videos explaining why one make of insert is better than another. There were other worries - should he use high-tensile bolts or stainless-steel? Should the threads be lubricated, and with what? What about the blind holes in the chassis legs that were bottoming out, and why on earth did the factory drill and tap them to different depths in the first place?
Eventually he just made his decisions and got on with it, and he tells me he was cross with himself for wasting so much time because most of this didn't really matter - the important thing was to get the sleigh going again. Pragmatism having prevailed, the pristine repaired and painted runners - better than new - were installed with new bolts finger-tight. But then he then looked-up the torque settings in the repair operations manual and was perplexed: it gave a range, not a spot value.
Not sure what to do, he asked a chap down the pub known to regulars as Roger the Dodger. Roger worked on the line at the factory until recently when Sir Michael fired him, most likely for finding loads of ways to avoid doing the job right, and for working hard to make life easy.
Roger's regular drinking pal is known as Dennis the Menace - they're often seen sitting at the bar. Santa says that Dennis is known for his skills in building vehicles in his shed, like rocket-powered go-karts and tanks powered by his pet pig, Rasher. Roger let slip to Santa, on the quiet, that many of the parts Dennis needs find their way out the factory on the night shift. Roger doesn’t know much about the rockets, though, other than the ones Sir Michael gives the workers when statistics on warranty claims are released.
Santa goes to Roger first when seeking technical advice, because despite all his faults, Roger can tell you exactly how the sleighs were meant to be assembled. Best not to ask Dennis because he'll tell you anything you want to hear in exchange for a pint of "Gold Brummie".
Rasher likes Brummie too – he often downs a swift half in the pub garden but avoids the place if he finds out the landlord is planning a barbeque – he sometimes gets wind of this when the menu on the blackboard mentions pork chops and gammon steaks. Santa gets anxious about the venison kebabs. There’s also rabbit stew if you don’t like barbeques.
Roger told Santa that the workers used a brand of torque wrench called “Feels Right” with a setting dependent on where the sleigh was made - 45 ft-lb for Speke, 55 ft-lb for Canley, or 65 ft-lb for Solihull - though not all models were produced at every location. But he warned Santa that the setting could vary a bit if the worker fixing the runners had received a rocket that day, or it was a Friday afternoon.
Roger posed the question that many of us ponder in in the quiet of the night - is ft-lb the right unit of measurement, or should it be lb-ft? Being wary of rabbits and their holes by now, Santa was relieved that he already knew the answer as this had been revealed in a Christmas cracker.
The name "pound-foot", intended to minimize confusion with "foot-pound" as a unit of work, was apparently proposed by British physicist Arthur Worthington. Despite this, torque units are still called "foot-pound", but confusingly, can be denoted as either "ft-lb" or "lb-ft”, and then there's the "inch-pound" denoted as "in-lb". Still with me? It turns out that Dennis knows you can multiply ft-lb by twelve to get in-lb but says best not to try this after five pints if you want to avoid an embarrassing mistake.
Roger sometimes asks Dennis about the embarrassing mistake. Dennis refuses to discuss it but Rasher knows the inside story. Sixty years ago, AC Cars took a Cobra Coupé GT on to the M1 for a test-run just before the Le Mans 24 Hours race. Dennis’ dad was a friend of the works driver, Jack Sears. Dennis' dad said Jack did 185 mph. Roger thought this was pretty good going in1964.
Dennis thought his rocket-powered go-kart could do better, and now was the time to try. Everything was arranged for 11th June 2024, the 60th anniversary of Jack’s run. Dennis and Rasher set out from Newport Pagnell towards Luton. A mile south of Toddington Services their Vega rocket reached full power. As you may know, the European Space Agency uses these to send small payloads into low-earth orbit.
Dennis made certain he used bolts with the right threads for the rocket's mounting points. Unfortunately, owing to the embarrassing mistake, they weren't torqued-up enough to withstand the vibration. The pair whizzed into the outside lane at 112 mph but narrowly escaped disaster when the rocket came adrift.
Rasher agreed to keep quiet if Dennis promised to never again taunt him with smoky bacon crisps down the pub. Sometime later Rasher broke out in a cold sweat when he realised that there was no plan for re-entry if the go-kart had achieved escape velocity.
So, Santa has gone for the mid-range Canley setting. The runners appear to be strong and solid, but he's taking his socket set and torque wrench on the Christmas run as he expects to make many landings before he comes home and will need to re-torque the bolts on-the-fly. He tells me his torque wrench is calibrated in N-m but he managed to convert from ft-lb. Rasher thinks it's just as well Santa was able to do this without help from Dennis but keeps his opinions to himself.
Santa has seen some posts on the Forum talking about what else to take on long trips, as in Stags touring on the Continent, and thanks us all for these helpful suggestions.
Before signing off, he said he's noticed that other owners report good experience with events like the Round Britain Reliability Run. This has inspired him to keep going with running repairs and regular maintenance and he says he feels confident that his trip this Christmas will go well. For sure, the runners won't collapse now, even under the weight of all the presents.
Just one last thing, I almost forgot - Santa tells me he decided not to refit the stainless-steel finishers as he doesn't want to repeat this repair anytime soon. But just in case he’s stashed the finishers in the shed along with some packets of bolts with the wrong threads.
Season's greetings to everyone from Santa, Roger, Dennis, Rasher, and me.
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