The Greatest How To....Ever....

This is going to be the greatest and most amazingly useful How To in the Landyzone history of 'How To's'....

It is not how to permanently fix the EAS on the P38 without resorting to coils, nor is it the final and definitive answer to the great M51 Diesel Engine MAF/EGR debate.....

And if you guessed it is for the final word in alternator charging rates or what pressure you should put in your tyres, then you are wrong there too......

It is also a no to...

• How much is it worth?
• Can I fit blah blah mod to the front of my P38?
• Is the L322 a reliable vehicle?
• What should I do with my £6000, P38 or L322?
• What size tyres can I fit to my Classic?
• Is the fueling really dependant on the MAF or not.....??

'So Ant, what is it really about then??'

It is a How To on how to create and write a 'How To'

I know that sounds strange, but I take a great deal of enjoyment from writing 'How To's' for the things I do and have done to my Range Rover and Ninety....I thought it might be fun if some of you had a go too and impart knowledge and learning onto others.....

So how do you write a 'How To'?

Well along with most of the tasks I do on my Landys, it starts with research...lots and lots of research.

We all have the most valuable tool in modern times for research...the internet, and also membership to the greatest forum on the 'net for Land Rovers....Landyzone.

I read RAVE endlessly for the task I will be performing, Gooooooooogle for other information, come on here and search, browse hundreds and hundreds of pictures, all to gain some info on the task ahead and the best way to carry it out.

I then gather the bits and bobs needed to start the task and write the How To...



Obviously I check I have the right tooling to hand, if not, I either make it, buy it or borrow it.

A laptop with RAVE incase I have to refer to anything, or get on the net for help.

A camera to take How To pics or if I am disconnecting lots of things so I can refer to how it all goes together by photographing them before i remove them.

PPE goes without saying!!

A notebook so I can jot things down regards tool sizes, important things to remember for the How To like, 'mark the position of the clamp before removing' or other things of note.

Entertainment.....this is personal choice. I like to listen to things as I work, half the time I do my work in the workshop at work after working hours (how many more times can I get the word 'work' into this sentence?? ) so it is fairly quiet and a bit of noise helps, or if I am at home, it keeps me company.....I usually listen to TV shows on the iPlayer or youtube...music that sort of thing.

So I look up the job on RAVE



Carry out the work and remember to take photos of the different stages



Make notes as I go



Drink loads of water or coffee (water in this recent heat!)



Once it is all done, I get home or in the office and using Word or similar, start typing out the How To....I use a word processor as it allows me to regularly save the How To so I don't loose anything.



I download the images to the computer and re-number them into the logical order... starting at 10, then 20, 30, 40 and so on....I do this so if I find and image that should sit inbetween say image 20 and 30, I can number this new image 22, this gives me the chance to fit 4 images inbetween each one if I make a mistake.

Once done, I resize them using mspaint to be about 800x500 pixels in size so they present reasonably on the forum.

I upload these to my webserver....but you can use an image sharing site like photobucket or flickr etc.



This then gives you the image URL (the location of the file that can be placed in the forum)

I then copy this link into the How To using the correct [....] tags so they will display in the forum message box.

I then start a new thread on Landyzone



And cut and paste the text into the box



Making sure all the images have the correct [....] tags etc....

And then post for you all to wonder at

Simple really.....

Whos first??

..where's the beer stage?

If you reach my skill level, you'll also need these.....

Another fine how to from our Saint, you do us proud

blue beasty said:

Another fine how to from our Saint, you do us proud

Click to expand...

Somebody's got to do it.

I find IrvanView very good for editing and resizing images quickly.

Of course, once you've posted your How To you can then have to wait some considerable time for the moderators to approve it ... think my resynching using the Nanocom took 9 or 12 months?!

wattfield said:

If you reach my skill level, you'll also need these.....

Click to expand...

There should be a like button or a thumbs up icon or something for stuff like this!

Grrrrrr said:

I find IrvanView very good for editing and resizing images quickly.

Of course, once you've posted your How To you can then have to wait some considerable time for the moderators to approve it ... think my resynching using the Nanocom took 9 or 12 months?!

Click to expand...

I have to admit, I chase the mods with a PM to get it fast-tracked through!!

Saint.V8 said:

I have to admit, I chase the mods with a PM to get it fast-tracked through!!

Click to expand...

Whatever works

We tried setting up a system where how tos were approved by a group of senior members but there wasn't much input so now I go through the automatically moderated threads in the how to sections every now and then and try to sort the wheat from the chaff.......It don't go through then as often as I should and most threads turn out to be questions anyway :doh:

If a thread doesn't get approved it's just as likely I've not seen it than I don't think it's up to par. I try and give feedback if I think it could be improved.

I'm more than happy for folk to point them out to me

blue beasty said:

Whatever works

We tried setting up a system where how tos were approved by a group of senior members but there wasn't much input so now I go through the automatically moderated threads in the how to sections every now and then and try to sort the wheat from the chaff.......It don't go through then as often as I should and most threads turn out to be questions anyway :doh:

If a thread doesn't get approved it's just as likely I've not seen it than I don't think it's up to par. I try and give feedback if I think it could be improved.

I'm more than happy for folk to point them out to me

Click to expand...

I had to do it in 2 or 3 parts as it restricted how much I could type at a time. Maybe it was because it used embedded images instead of having them on a webserver somewhere else.

I did one on changing CV boots a few months back. Not sure if it was approved or not. Get Saint to check it

I'm still waiting for Saint's Vanos overhaul 'How To'....

This should be in the How To section!