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Not the most exotic location for some car photos (my driveway) but having the car out and being driven in late December in the mountains of Montana, USA is a big deal. I skied yesterday and went for a blat today. Not bad. I wanted to show off my new front suspension courtesy of Siltech Racing. I was running the stock narrow track Westfield A arms and I opted for the +35 mm kit from Siltech. It installed beautifully and was super easy to set up. I love the simple camber adjustment that comes with this set up. I’ve had it on the road a number of times and I’m very impressed with how supple yet grounded it feels. It really does breathe with the road while at the same time it feels hunkered down and stuck to the floor. I will no doubt be quicker racing next year with this configuration. I finished it off with a new ARB (swaybar in American) of my own design and manufacture. It’s running in oillite bronze bushings and the lightweight end links (also my own work) are clamped in place by clamps made with the good folks at Clear Motorsport. As you can see there’s snow on the ground here but the roads were dry today so I couldn’t resist taking it out for what could be the last time this year seeing as more snow will be here soon. It’s good to have this stuff mostly set up and benchmarked so it will be ready in the spring for next year’s race season. Thank you Siltech and Clear. Dave

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All now reassembled and calibrated as best as I could get it, by checking my weather site for my postcode , however I had to convert the metric pressure into imperial. I notice also the pressure isn’t changing much on the website in the coming weeks so it may take a while to prove this works.

Broken barometer for sale, no pressure.

Officially speaking, we've not received any messages to say anyone is struggling/having problems with the thread. Personally speaking, thank goodness, we've seen very little of the "sheep" posts, which are pretty much a red flag to cause trouble. The debate has been calm, reasoned and most have tried to keep it as factual as possible, and the emotive and political sides, largely steered away from. This has helped massively.

The only way to confidently keep up my social life and see my family, one daughter is immunocompromised, as is their mum (lung transplant patient) For their mum I suspect Covid would signal the end. Early Dec. I had a two or three hour conversation with a mate that the next day was symptomatic and positive. Too close a call that, two transmissions from putting someone's life at serious risk.

To WSCC Members, Thank you for supporting us in 2021 and being such a great community. We would like to personally thank you all and wish you a Happy Christmas & New Years. May 2022 be a great year for you and yours. We are closed from today until Tuesday 4th January. Take care and stay well. Warm regards Westfield Sportscars

Mini road trip today, set out at 7.30am pitch black and 2 degrees , two and a half hours later and I arrived on the Wirral - I go on the A roads as I don't like motorways personally with a low, small car. Duties were performed , then the trip back same temp sadly and the roads were even busier, return journey taking 3 hrs with a 10 minute comfort break . pics are not so good, still getting used to this phone, but the car in Barnston, Wirral. I was tempted to stop en-route but to be honest my hands were so cold I could not work the phone 😄 Still thawing out to be honest and I have been back an hour , lol...

I'm sure we can weather the storm...

Impressive work, @OldStager! I think the capsule is naturally 'sprung' into the open position, but it's sealed partially closed so that the partial vacuum holds it mid-way open in mid-range atmospheric pressures. It's hard to tell from your photo, but if the capsule is 'puffed up'/ expanded, it's likely to be punctured. We're under relatively high pressure at the moment, so it should be roughly halfway between open and closed (much like your pointer needle). Clearly, under a massive winter depression the capsule will expand, and under a summer high pressure it will contract. You could construct a pressure chamber into which you place the barometer, and slowly pump some air into the chamber (or suck it out). The needle should move accordingly. Or you can take the easy way out and wait for the weather to change...

@OldStager you can test it by putting it in a sealed bag then applying some gentle pressure to the bag

If you can open it up, to be honest it’s quite a simple device inside. It took me a while to work out what all the parts did, and google helped for images etc. Never done anything like this before, and I have everything crossed that it will be working once the pressure changes.

I don't like being beaten, especially when it comes to mechanical things. An hour of trying to place things still enough to solder and eventually I managed it. It seems to be holding as it's under a fair bit of tension, I have some very thin oil , so will apply that were I think it needs to be, and then reassemble. Fingers crossed it works now. The phone makes it look like it's a huge blob of solder , it's 2mm wide.

Finding it tricky to word this... I agree entirely with the above. So, where does that lead us in relation to everything we are being been told related to the current worldwide virus issue? I am as 'guilty' as anyone of listening to what is being reported, and only questioning it a very small portion of the time.

Wow, think I know where it goes now,thanks to the above diag. Seems my loose soldered at one end arm,attaches to the hair spring, one end of the spring does look like it once had solder on it, but it looks a tad short when offered up to the lever arm. Eta ok getting there now, I was wrong it’s not the spring it attaches to but a very small chain like wire, as in the diag, it seems it wrapped itself around the mech which is why it was hidden, I have pulled it out and can clearly see where it fastens to the arm. Now where is my soldering gear....

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Currently, as the last few weeks have seen the usual multiple jobs across multiple sites needing last bits of attention before Christmas, I've been testing every Saturday, as a general test, then every morning before setting out to a "new" site/different client. This is regardless of symptoms, as with the usual annual colds etc going around, it's hard to rely on preliminary symptoms till it's too late, if you see what I mean. It's just part of a minimise risk strategy.

If the spring is broken near to the attachment point at one end or the other (very likely) you could simply remove the stub from the anchor point and poke the broken end in instead. It's not like a balance spring where its length is fundamental to the accuracy of the timepiece, it's a return spring in effect and it's natural resonant frequency will be irrelevant. Edit. Oldstager pre-empted my suggestion by saying it's not the spring! That 'spiral tube' is actually a delicate bellows as Ian said. If that is punctured I suspect you're stymied.

Well just opened it up, and just as Iain has mentioned just now there are indeed a sealed spiral tube,together with a small hair spring and various lever arms. The first thing that was obvious was that one of the arms of a level has become unattached from where it should be - Trouble is not sure where it is supposed to attach to. Wether this is the reason for it’s failure I am not sure of yet, I can’t see where is goes, there are a few splatter marks f,rom where it was soldered to, but no obvious position it fixed to.

I am conscious that we are having a fairly protracted discussion here and, in the past, we have been asked to ‘rein it in’. If anyone has seen enough of this, please do drop a hint, I would not be the least bit offended, the participants could easily take it off line. Having said that, most of the spanners are away, and this is far and away the most informed and civil discussion I have seen on the subject. With my ‘in the spirit of questioning’ post I was being a little facetious. We had been asked why people are not more questioning of what they are told by Govt. media, etc, but then presented with a screenshot appearing to show that all is rosy on the Omicron front, which contradicts what we are seeing in the real world, so, I questioned. In the same report it says, amongst other things ‘these reductions should be balanced against the much larger risk of infection with Omicron, due to reduction in protection acquired from both vaccination and natural infection’. Add that to the slide and we have more balance, and a possible part explanation for what is going on in London. Government data shows testing to be fairly flat since April, with at most a doubling in the last few weeks. I know I am testing two or three times weekly with the approach of Christmas and the ready availability of tests (I was handed three boxes on my way out of Tesco) It is confounded, many people test many times and most cases map onto multiple tests, but it leaves me struggling to use testing to explain case rates going from 2,000 to 20,000. Briefly looking at your extensive research Adam, confirmation bias or not (we are all guilty of it!) most people don’t have that capacity, they have to trust the government to advise them (or hairdressers on twitter, whichever). The government cannot present us with an algorithm (remember the outcry last year when the message changed from ‘stay at home’ to ‘stay at home unless..’. Most people in your age group will be at much higher risk than you. and many people are getting the decision wrong. On your very valid and interesting point about general health in reducing the risk, it lands in two categories: Stuff we can do to help now or soon, such as eating healthily to boost our immune systems. Stuff that would better protect us against future pandemics (some of these comorbidities are decades in the making) ..more to discuss on that

The 69% reduction only counts for people who are RE-INFECTED with Covid-19. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-50-Severity-Omicron/

One of the issues in London is the very low uptake of vaccine 68% had first dose 62% second dose, various reasons, trust, too many distrust vaccines, are not registered with any GP, believe stories about trying to keep births down to them etc. They live in a city dense population close contact so spread is quick and easy In South West, best uptake at almost 90%, sparse areas wide open field and sea air. If it stays as it is no need for action other than to encourage vaccine uptake, which will help now and in the future as variants develop

It may be worth looking at this, http://www.barometerworld.co.uk . I hope this might be helpful.

What have you got to lose and most times with these mechanical instruments a thorough clean and lubrication with thin oil does wonders. In the good old days with auctions I used to buy lots of dud machines with very few of them needing major works to get going again, mostly just siezed spindles. Major tip, always disassemble on a large piece of preferably white paper as it saves many hours of scrabbling around trying to find a miniscule part and have a suitable container ready. I'm sure you know this already but doesn't hurt to remind.

As you say, the more we test, the more we will find. April 20 was before we had any serious testing capability, hence high hospitalisation vs reported cases Meanwhile, our ability to travel freely to other countries is heavily influenced by our obsessive reporting, maybe this should be more focused on hospitalisation rates rather than the headline-grabbing case rates

And thank you for responding Jim! Your balanced input is a credit to this thread. Personally I haven't only considered this in 'live or die' terms. I appreciate there is a risk of what is being termed long Covid. This is defined as symptoms persisting for more than 4 weeks since the first infection, that cannot be explained by anything else. Rates of 'long Covid' are self-reported (the self bit may be significant, I am unsure) to be hovering around 1.5-1.7% of those who have had Covid (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/7october2021). I am no expert, but with the main 'symptoms' of this being fatigue, shortness of breath, loss of smell and difficulty concentrating, I an unsure how this can be differentiated from normal (eg. what you'd get from having flu) viral fatigue. I have also seen the 'horror stories' of 'super dooper fit and healthy people' being hit harder by 'long Covid' than others - I would argue this is to be expected, as they have 'further to fall' following a period of no training. For example, this study showed that cardiovascular performance (VO2 Max) of well-trained cyclists reduced significantly - down to 95% output (doesn't sound a lot but yes that is significant!) - at 7 days after stopping training, with other indicitave factors such as blood lactate concentration and respiratory exchange ratio changing at a similar rate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236590070_Detraining. All of this also depends on actually having contracted Covid, of course. Lifestyle factors come into play here in my opinion, and with a relatively secluded / reclusive lifestyle compared with many, I would say contraction risk for an individual such as myself is well below average. Indeed, I have had no need to take any form of Covid test until last week (negative). To consider in balance to the risk of long Covid, there is also the possibility of a health issue (that isn't death) from the jab. Now, I do appreciate that data on this is sketchy, but there are some sources. One is Pfizer's own 'yellow card' report. I appreciate this is only one of the jabs, but it seems to be most common right now: https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf - This is Pfizer's own report and listed as confidential so we can assume it is for internal use. I think this adds weight to the contents, as it is not being presented for the outside world - but may be wrong. - Within 42000 'yellow card' reports, there were: Recovered/Recovering: 19582 (46%) Recovered with sequelae (long term side effects not expected to clear up): 520 (1.2% - not much less than long Covid) Not recovered at the time of report (study length was 2 months): 11361 (27% - much higher than long Covid) Fatal: 1223 (2.9% - I raised my eyebrows at this. While the report doesn't confirm if these deaths were directly DUE to the jab or just 'deaths before the end of the study after having had the jab', the value is high compared with the Covid mortality rate in England so far of 1.3%). Unknown (I am going to count many of these to be 'recovered', since no news is generally good news): 9400 (22%) OpenVAERS is another source: https://openvaers.com/. As far as I can work out, reports to the database from which this site is built can be added by the general public, so I am unsure how reliable this data is, but I would say that mortality reporting is fairly non-opinionated (its a 1 or a 0!). The reports also include a 'time to death after jab administered', which to me is a fairly useful metric to get an understanding of how closely the two events are linked: https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality Heart attacks are also listed separately: https://openvaers.com/covid-data/cardiac The UK's yellow card reports (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting#yellow-card-reports) show 327,000 reports (from 128m England jabs). Based up on the same categorisation and percentages as the Pfizer report above, and being generous by dividing all the numbers by 2.5 (assuming people have had 2.5 jabs on average), this would indicate that there are the following number of English citizens: Recovered with sequelae (long term side effects not expected to clear up): 1570 Not recovered at 2 months since the jab: 35315. Fatal: 3793 None of this is age-biased, and I am sure a data scientist would be able to find flaws in the logic, but it still feels to me that there is a large group of our population - the young and the healthy - who may be better served by not taking the jabs (even considering their interactions with and effects on others, knowing what we do now about how the jabs affect contraction and transmission). Counting back to the cumulative risk way of looking at things, my risk isn't significantly higher whether I get jabbed or not - especially when you consider an average week includes mountain biking, using a lathe, using an angle grinder and driving a car. My personal healthcare 'regime' is heavily based upon not trying to mess with nature. I am extreme in this, but I won't put anything in my body that I can't pronounce, can't immediately envisage in my mind's eye how it looks, or isn't known to be beneficial to human bodily function. Anyone intrigued by this, read the back of the packaging of everything that goes in your trolley next time you go to the shop. I find it... enlightening. So, am I looking at this with confirmation bias? Honestly, I would say yes. I am looking for a reason not to put something unknown in my body. And I do believe - even with all the data above - the jabs being foisted upon us are still an unknown; especially compared with drinking only water, eating only stuff that grows out of the ground, and raising your heart rate for 3-6 hours a week. (War and peace again, dammit).

In the spirit of questioning what we are told, that it is all good news about Omicron and we have overreacted, why is this happening in London...and should we ignore it? anyone? Overreacted - three full attendance football matches, I am not sure.

Yes, you can no longer use the username to log in. For security reasons we had to switch that off. That means you can not have two identical email addresses on different usernames. Both those usernames have a different email address though, so I can not see why you are not able to log in as both.

No fog in Snowdon. Fantastic 100mile run out today and only got caught out in the fog bank when I dropped down into Conwy for my last 5 miles and no it wasn’t me who hit Santa.

One of the funniest / saddest things I've ever seen, from last year: person stood with mask pulled down over their chin, puffing away on a cigarette!