Home made twisted pair audio cable

I'm not sure if many people would appreciate my reasoning but I decided that I could make a slightly tidier job if I used a twisted pair cable to connect up the sub-woofer in Shelley's car, rather than a long RCA (phono) cable and an adapter.

I could buy twisted pair cable but for a one off job I decided I might as well make my own. To that end, I rigged up a tool out of short lengths of timber and some spring clamps.

I use the spring clamps and timber, rather than the vice, so that the cables do not get crushed. I use the same thing when holding wires to be soldered

I spun one end by hand, doing about 40 full turns per metre of cable length. When I stopped to add more length, I put a bit of tape round, just to keep the cables together. Cable gauge and twists are all guesswork but I'm confident it is better than I need.

It took less than an hour to make over 5m, including cutting the timber and threading the outer sleeve.

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Defenders update

A lot has gone on with Shelley's Land Rover Defenders over the last few months. It all started back in May, after someone drove in to Fender and wrote it off. Shortly after, we purchased another Defender and we have been bringing that back to the same configuration as the previous one.

The new one has been named, Thunder Truck. It is 11 years newer than Fender but is still over 11 years old. It has a 2.4 TDCi engine, usually called a Defender Puma after the Ford name for the engine.

Fender had done over 250,000 miles. This one is a mere youngster with less than 100,000 on the clock.

Most of the jobs we are doing to Thunder, are jobs that we had previously done to Fender.

Convert it from a van to a pickup.

Swap over the rack from the remains.

Fit more appropriate wheels and tyres.

Fit a double DIN size stereo and replace the speakers.

There are a couple of new things. One odd thing is a hand made dip stick for the coolant because the tank is too close to the bonnet and not easy to see through. A new feature is a lock box in the back, to free up space in the cab.

The rear rack has a cover.

Another convenience is a glove box which very neatly fits on the passenger side of the dash. It was so obvious, I have no idea why Land Rover did not fit one themselves.

The jobs are getting more time consuming. I've started to thread the cables to eventually fit central door locking.

There are plenty more jobs left on the list.

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