Mr Charles

A risky gambit, letting the dreamer know they are in a dream.

I recently received my reward from a Kickstarter project I pledged towards earlier this year, and it was certainly worth the wait.

These spinning tops from Canadian startup Forever Spin are simply gorgeous. I've wanted to get an "Inception" top ever since I saw the movie, but only pushed when I saw these.

I'm glad I did.

They are machined from the solid material, originally started as variations of stainless steel, the pledging snowballed so magnificently and backers requested more different materials, the final line up on offer was:

Brushed Stainless
Mirror Polish Stainless
Gold Plated Stainless
Copper
Brass
Aluminium
Titanium
Bronze
Nickel
Tungsten

As well as a gold plated "Forever Dock" to display them.

I pledged for the ones shown above, brushed stainless, and added brass and copper after - I received the green"kickstarter" top as a bonus for doing so...

In the hand they are so beautiful and tactile. When I'm not spinning them I often have one in my hand just rolling it between my fingers.

But of course, spinning is what they do...

There have been a few remarks on kickstarter that they don't spin well compared with a certain other spinning top project, "The Lambda Top". But I think these dissenters miss the point. The Forever Spin top isn't about breaking records for longest spin times, it's about having a classicly shaped top that looks beautiful and spins well and is made in one piece out of solid material.

The Lambda top is an exercise in engineering.

It's like saying a Ferrari is rubbish because it isn't as fast as a top fuel dragster. Sure the dragster is fast, but is it beautiful? Certainly not beautiful like a Ferrari.

And without a proper spin surface, on a good day I can get about 2 minutes spin time from the brass or copper tops. Top be honest, that's probably long enough. Spend 10 minutes and thats about 5 / 6 spins, or 1 with the Lambda... May as well go and do some work while that's spinning, nothing more to do.

Not to mention they match my other Kickstarter rewards nicely (Kara's Kustoms pens).

(I also have the aluminium and brass pens, but not on me right now...)

It's not just the tops that are pleasing to the eye, the packaging has been well thought out too, with little muslin bags to keep the tops protected (certainly helps as mine shares pocket room with my pocket knife and flashlight). The outer box is really nice too, simple, modest and dare I say it, classy.

The only item offered that I wasn't enamoured with, would be the "ForeverDock". It's a purely subjective opinion but I would have liked a circular base, with spaces for the tops evenly arranged around the rim. And maybe made from a nice wood - to act as a foil to the metalfest of the tops themselves. But that's just my take on it.

All in all, I'm very impressed with both the product and the presentation and I hope to add more tops to my collection over the following months.

I have just backed another spinning top project, the Janus Top. Like the Lambda, this is another engineered top, but I think it looks nicer than the Lambda.

VCU (Conclusion)

Well what can I say? Stirling work by my local garage had my shiny new VCU and bearings installed and boy do they make a difference! It's like driving a new car, no tightness in steering, its a bit quicker and it's not making any nasty noises.

Which made me think about the flak the Freelander gets for VCU failures. Yes there may be better ways to achieve AWD, and a failing VCU damaging other components is in no way good. But let's face it, this is not a Nissan Micra, it's more complicated than that and the owner of such a vehicle should be aware of the related service costs.

I'll generalise here, but the Freelander is possibly a victim of its own marketing - "Soccer moms" buying them to take little Johnny to school because they are "safe", but having no interest in the upkeep.

And the upkeep isn't really that bad (w.r.t. the VCU). Take the clutch, about £400 to replace and it lasts about 30,000 miles. That's accepted, but a VCU costs about £300 to replace and should last twice as long. Why is that regarded as bad? It's an added expense of owning an AWD vehicle.

But hey ho, I'm riding high right now - my Freebie is running sweet and my little tweaks are just falling into place.

VCU (Part the first)

It's come to the point where I can afford to replace the Freelanders ailing VCU. It's not entirely failed, but I can tell it's started getting stiffer, so time to change.

I ordered a new GKN one from Island4x4, which was only £90 more than getting a reconditioned one.

Look at it's loveliness!

And I also ordered some "OEM" propshaft support bearings to be replaced at the same time (mine are getting quite noisy now).

And finally, back when I had the clutch replaced the garage commented that I was missing some marbles, sorry, missing a propshaft - IRD bolt. A quick order to Brit-car had these on my doorstep a couple days later.

It's booked in for repairs next week, and I can't wait. This is the last major part that absolutely needs to be replaced, there may be other repairs that need to be done as a result of the VCU failing, but this is the core item.

Socket to me

Had a bit of energy so I thought I'd make a start on wiring in the extra socket in the boot.

I loosely followed the way Land Rover suggest with their kit, but made a small difference as to where the power came from. More on that further down. 

First off I removed all of the passenger side interior panels. A reassuringly simple affair only requiring a torx bit and some gentle persuasion to pull panel clips free.

Once cleared I fed 2 wires, one red for power (2.5mm) and one yellow (1.5mm) for the relay signal from the boot to the passenger footwell. Here I had to swear a little as there is so little space behind the dash to route wires, between the console and the heater / air con there is literally no room to see through to the drivers side glovebox (where the wires will terminate). So out came my stereo which let me feed the wires up from the passenger footwell, across but behind the stereo wiring and down into the drivers footwell. 

I had to do this twice, once to get the length of wire required and then again after I wrapped them in cloth tape...

All wrapped and fed along the sill and into the boot... More wrapping than I do at Christmas!

So now to the meat of the beast, wiring up the relay and fitting. As is my way with these things I rushed ahead and got it wired without taking pictures, but it is simply a 30A relay and it's wired the same as if it was powering spotlights.

The relay is secured to the body by the silver screw near the top of the picture, and the ground cables are secured to the same point as the tail lights (near the bottom).

And finally the power wires are attached to the back of the socket. Yup, more wrapping here too!

All of the trims refitted, one more job for the day which is finding a home for the power and signal wires.

The master plan is to install a secondary fuse box in the cabin, with it's own battery feed. This will make adding additional circuits easier, and keeps my wiring away the cars factory kit.

The little glovebox under the steering wheel is a bit useless for me, and as it's right next to the main cabin fusebox it seems the most logical home for the new one. This will be a job for another day, I need to buy some battery cable and an main fuse holder to protect the feed, then I can finally get it fitted. But for now...