Douglas Tecnical Articles

[Alan Cun]

 Hello readers     There are many great Tecnical Articles  in the past issues of New Conrod magazines the voice of the London Douglas Club  Most of these articles contain much more information than the standard handbooks and the suggestion was these should be compiled into a book or disc  even an index back to the articles would be an asset  But then most of you may not have been fooling around with Dougs as long as some.   I have only been on the forum since Feb and I reckon 99percent of the tech questions asked are covered in sometimes 8 pages of detail.    Who knows someone may run with it    regards Al

[Doug]

I have long lamented the fact that the New ConRod does not even have an annual index. Other club magazines do, and it does help when trying to find something you know you have read but just can not recall how long ago it was. That is, of course, assuming you have been subscribing to the magazine for years and years to have read it in the first instance.

The Scott Owners club, smaller than the LDMCC, several years ago compiled all their technical articles into a simple photocopied book called the "Technicalities" and it was a great success. More recently it got a second lease on life by being converted to digital format and distributed first on Compact Disk and then as a direct download from the member's website. This is much more convenient than distributing the hard copies, as one binder of Technicalities, printed double sided, was some two and a half inches thick! Now they have gone one further and are scanning all the back issues of their club magazine into digital format. So now newer members can have a full library instead of spending years trying to build a complete, and now collectable set. Unfortunately this digital copy does not have searchable text, something they looked into but for whatever reason were unable to incorporate. I did some experimentation into this for one of the folks collaborating on the project. The character recognition software that comes with most scanners is just getting better and better with each year. Pity they could not include it, as searchable text would make it a lot easier to find all occurrences of say "Freddie Dixon" in all back issues. I would suggest anyone contemplating such a project make searchable text a mandatory feature.

-Doug

[Alan Cun]

I have long lamented the fact that the New ConRod does not even have an annual index. Other club magazines do, and it does help when trying to find something you know you have read but just can not recall how long ago it was. That is, of course, assuming you have been subscribing to the magazine for years and years to have read it in the first instance.

The Scott Owners club, smaller than the LDMCC, several years ago compiled all their technical articles into a simple photocopied book called the "Technicalities" and it was a great success. More recently it got a second lease on life by being converted to digital format and distributed first on Compact Disk and then as a direct download from the member's website. This is much more convenient than distributing the hard copies, as one binder of Technicalities, printed double sided, was some two and a half inches thick! Now they have gone one further and are scanning all the back issues of their club magazine into digital format. So now newer members can have a full library instead of spending years trying to build a complete, and now collectable set. Unfortunately this digital copy does not have searchable text, something they looked into but for whatever reason were unable to incorporate. I did some experimentation into this for one of the folks collaborating on the project. The character recognition software that comes with most scanners is just getting better and better with each year. Pity they could not include it, as searchable text would make it a lot easier to find all occurrences of say "Freddie Dixon" in all back issues. I would suggest anyone contemplating such a project make searchable text a mandatory feature. -Doug     

Hello Doug  Last night being Wednesday I retreated to the shed to escape a horrible Aust TV drama (McLeods Daughters )    And I started flicking through some more new conrods and there jumping out at me was the decompression lifters that you made  in the pic of the timing side 600 motor      What a feat.       Feel a bit embarrased when I probably have 3 or more sets that are surplus to me     And yes missing from the timing side is that little one way check  valve you took home with you  that is very important for the correct lubrication.       Might also mention the Triumph twin timing gears with triple keyways that we looked at and could be used to band worn cam gears.   Another thing have a mate in the next town who is a wizz on exausts  in stainless will show him a 600 intake manifold and see what he thinks.   Regard Al

[tck]

I have long lamented the fact that the New ConRod does not even have an annual index. Other club magazines do, and it does help when trying to find something

-Doug

The Vincent owners made a lot of Money selling a book on all the tech items in MPH (their mag) called '40 years on' followed by another '10 years on'