Tom Booth

Its funny you should say that, I rode a friends lappierre last night with revelations on and couldn't believe how nice they felt, super smooth! I will say they seemed to flex more then what I'm used to with the fox's but I was super impressed. Really put me in line for something pike or Lyrik

Finally scratched the itch and bought a SantaCruz 5010 frame, looking to build up a nice trail build, I haven't looked at components for a long time so still assume fox 34/36 rule the roost The Fox 32s on my orange are still great with regular servicing so may well just go with another fox setup, just curious if anyone's rating anything different really..

In the new year when your full time at it you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I worked 2 jobs in the start as I was scared to make the jump, did eventually and realised what I'd been missing out on. Even using an extra hour a day to advertise and get yourself onto social media was a huge help. Its funny when you find a nice niche, you find there's lots more weirdos then you expected Glad it's going well though, always nice to see something come good

You never shrug the feeling that if your not at work it's wasted time I didn't have more then a day away from my business for its first 3 years, then after that just utilised long weekends and stuff. Eventually you get the hang of it but you'll always be on call, it gets tiring and you're never 100% relaxed, it'll always be in the back of your mind if you replied to a Facebook message or replied to an Instagram post. Once people understand how good you and your product is though, usually a day or so wait isn't a problem. Congratulations on it turning a profit though, its not an easy thing to do!

Yeah he switched to a vegan diet a couple of years ago and it kept it at bay, didnt get any better but certainly didn't get any worse. He started a course of treatment that was hormone based in Germany last October and he got the all clear in December, absolutely unbelievable, I know it hit him hard, like double dose of chemo hard, but results were there. Saw him yesterday funnily enough, he looked really well. It's a testament to good diet and research really. He has an 8 month old boy now too

Do you kept up on your flea and worming tablets too? I take mine every 6-8 weeks.

Nice one Mark, glad your happy with it! We looked at a 2017 golf alltrack at the weekend, but not really sure wether to go for it as there is no situation where we'd ever need the all wheel drive, just like the look of them Carpeted the back of the caddy, made and fitted a new headliner and boot liner over the last few evenings, made a huge difference and looks really smart. Just rear seatbelts to fit and it's done.

2006-2014ish Toyota Avensis any good Rowan? Always see them as taxis and all seem to keep on trucking well into the 200k's

Dad wagon checklist is getting worked through nicely, -60mm drop all round, 18x8 steelies, rear seats and trim are in aswell as the sliding door windows and I'll be carpeting the back end this weekend.

They do a 1.4tsi petrol passat I think

Yeah its always the dance isn't it, I sold my b6 passat on 180k, but I did buy it on 130k, not sure if I'd do it again though now I'm older and supposedly wiser haha. Nah never an issue with the EGR stuff, I think 99% of testers just look to see if it's still there and move on.

Yeah I'd say so, but font come back to me if it gives you problems With fsh, how clean it looks and the other factors, it's safe to say it looks a good edged bet, I love that B7 shape, really want one for jenny and me. I really do think the 1.6 is a good motor, plenty of go when you need it, my vans never really loaded down, but even with a 120kg jukebox in the back it scoots along pretty nicely, usual VW quality everywhere else, everything goes with a solid clunk. I had the EGR blanked on my last one and mapped out, I think it was about 300, but to be honest can't really remember. I think they're sbit sensitive to fuel filters being replaced regularly, but keep on it with servicing and shouldn't be a problem. The pre-facelift one to go for is the earlier 1.9tdi I my opinion, the 2.0l of that generation had fuel pump issues, dual mass issues and injector issues. But as always you only hear the bad, never really the good. I only know a little about the EA189 stuff, my last van never went for the recall and as far as i know my current van isn't eligible so I've never really paid it much attention, just seen a few reports of people getting extended warranties etc because of it.

The 1.6tdi had injector issues from 2011-2016ish, the injectors fail electronically, not mechanically so can't really be reconditioned properly, so really its replace with a good second hand or new. There's a nationwide shortage on new injectors currently so it's VW only at about £450ish plus fitting. See if you can find out if its had the EA189 emissions recall, some people say it can cause injector issues, but if you can prove it's had it and it's had VW service work after some people have had warranty replacements. I've had 2 caddys, both with the 1.6, my last one I had for 70k miles and had to replace an injector at around 100k, at the time they were readily available so the repair was about £300. I love the 1.6tdi motor, plenty of low end grunt for milling around town and sits pretty happily at 75 on the motorway, always gives 45+mpg (went round Europe in my last van for 2 weeks a few years ago and saw 58mpg average). They're pretty well known to have issues with EGR valves too, its a pretty big job on a caddy, subframe and driveshafts out, not sure if it's the same on the passat but I'd imagine it's similar. Might be wise to block it and map it out before you get issues. Generally though I've had pretty minimal issues with both of them, I've owned them for 7 years now, 1 injector and other then servicing I can't remember anything else. Before the caddys I had a B6 passat (same as that but pre-facelift) an I absolutley loved it, if I didn't need a van I'd 100% still have a passat wagon of some sort. If you venture onto some of the caddy pages you won't be far away from some boob slating the 1.6tdi, but generally they suffer with all the same stuff other modern engines do, joys of modern cars I guess..

That was my immediate rebuttal to this, but I couldn't word it, bravo!

Wait, what?

Gotta keep up the steez even with an infant . It's something I've wanted to do since buying it but now I've got momentum to work on it seems as good'a time as ever.

Lockdown wasn't it, only so much netflix you can stand

In other car news, work van needs to become a family wagon for the arrival of our first infant in September. Spent the weekend cleaning out the caddy, removed the panel that bridges the load floor to the bulkhead, thus revealing the same floor as a VW touran. Tacked in the brackets for the 2nd row of seats and installed them to get the rear mounts lined up, a friend who's much better at welding is stitching them in for me Wednesday. Ordered eibach -60mm springs, rear axle flip kit, side windows, all the boarding I'll need to make it a relatively nice place to be in the back and 10m of 4way stretch carpet. Hoping to get the bumpers painted in the next few weeks, stick some nice wheels on and make a nice workhorse/family bus. With the seats in I can still fit a full sized jukebox in the back, it's awesome.

Just going back over some stuff on the forum from a few years back, nostalgic moment I guess. All this stuff turned up about a year after I posted that, work was so busy at the time I never did anything with it, put the pallet ontop of my spray booth and forgot about it Its still there..

Its savage stuff, I've known it remove powdercoat before.

Starchems good or this stuff, this stuff is pretty evil... https://paintman.co.uk/shop/paint-stripper-strip-away-pro-professional-users-only/ I use the strip away pro at work and there's not much it won't tackle.

Keep going Sam, it's a good feeling to get busier and expand your name out there.

Not strictly true, we've had a house sale fall through because the buyers discovered I was self employed and thought it would be risky to enter into the deal with me, despite having a fair sized deposit and mortgage in principle. They accepted our offer then slow timed to see if they got anything better, as far as I'm concerned, not sure where they found out my employment status though..

Subterranean shagpad

F'kin snowflake. Humping hide.