Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[Rod Paradise]

Coming along nicely Rod.

Cheers Booder, next update will be a pic when it's been fitted.

How you getting on?

[booder]

Coming along nicely Rod.

Cheers Booder, next update will be a pic when it's been fitted.

How you getting on?

Not bad mate , busy busy busy.

[RED-DOG]

I've been off the grid for a few days and a PM enquiringly if I am OK has flooded in. well I'm fine TYVM for asking. Normal surfing will be resumed shortly.



In the meanwhile...

My daughter's milk gets spilled during the night and in the morning no one knows who did it.


Who ya gonna call?

Click to see full-size image.

[nirvana]

I've been off the grid for a few days and a PM enquiringly if I am OK has flooded in. well I'm fine TYVM for asking. Normal surfing will be resumed shortly.



In the meanwhile...

My daughter's milk gets spilled during the night and in the morning no one knows who did it.


Who ya gonna call?

Click to see full-size image.

Haha, don't worry if it takes a while to get back to mine

[RED-DOG]

I've been off the grid for a few days and a PM enquiringly if I am OK has flooded in. well I'm fine TYVM for asking. Normal surfing will be resumed shortly.



In the meanwhile...

My daughter's milk gets spilled during the night and in the morning no one knows who did it.


Who ya gonna call?

Click to see full-size image.

Haha, don't worry if it takes a while to get back to mine

What have I missed?

Do I owe you one Glen?

[Doobs]

I've been off the grid for a few days and a PM enquiringly if I am OK has flooded in. well I'm fine TYVM for asking. Normal surfing will be resumed shortly.



In the meanwhile...

My daughter's milk gets spilled during the night and in the morning no one knows who did it.


Who ya gonna call?

Click to see full-size image.

My 2 daughters love this.  Youngest is pretty sure it is a genuine ghost.

[RED-DOG]

A quick update - the window is now soldered, so I could lift it off the workboard & put it on the lightbox:

Click to see full-size image.

Polishing, grouting, blacking the lead & trimming to go before fitting it in the window. I can see every mistake still, but overall I'm delighted with it.

Also had a rare (as in I've never seen one in town) visitor to the feeding table:

Click to see full-size image.

RSPB don't even have them down as visiting Scotland, and the local birders apparently say it's only an occasional visitor to the south end of the region. Of course no-one tells the birds that & there's at least 2 pairs nest regularly within a couple of miles of the town.

It's looking very professional now Rodders. I can't see the mistakes, you will have to point them out.

Do you have ideas for your next project yet?


I have only ever seen a nuthatch once, I did get a pic but I can't find it at the mo.

[RED-DOG]

I've been off the grid for a few days and a PM enquiringly if I am OK has flooded in. well I'm fine TYVM for asking. Normal surfing will be resumed shortly.



In the meanwhile...

My daughter's milk gets spilled during the night and in the morning no one knows who did it.


Who ya gonna call?

Click to see full-size image.

My 2 daughters love this.  Youngest is pretty sure it is a genuine ghost.

If that's what she says then she must be right. Little girls are adorable, and even more difficult to contradict than big girls.

[RED-DOG]

What a job Sadie's broken power steering turned out to be. No one could tell me if a second hand replacement would work. Some said the serial numbers had to match exactly, some said you only needed to match prefix and suffix. all very confusing.

Sadie said, "Please mend it soon dad, I'm turning into Arnold Schwarzenegger".

Eventually I found a firm in Tamworth who would recondition the original one for £300 and guarantee it for 2 years so that's the way I went.

It was an absolute nightmare to change. I spent an entire day curled up in the foot well trying to figure out what to undo and how to access it. Ford mechanics must have the brains of Enestine and the body of Quasimodo

One of the most scary parts was removing the drivers airbag. Now I know what it feels like to do bomb disposal.

Then once I had it all undone and disconnected, I had to extract a very large component through an impossibly small opening. Now I know what it feels like to be a midwife.


This pic shows the car with everything removed. It this point I was convinced it would never work again.

Click to see full-size image.

This is several hours later with the new electric power steering column back in place. The most amazing part was, we started it up and it worked.

Click to see full-size image.

Not everything went smoothly. I forgot to re connect the horn wire which meant I had to remove the drivers air bag for a second time.

Altogether though, the entire job cost £340 instead of £1170, so it was worthwhile imo.


It got me thinking though. Would we rather have the cars of today that are ultra-reliable but a Main Agent fix when they go wrong, or the older, less reliable ones that are mostly repairable in the field?

[atdc21]

Give me the older stuff everyday, modern cars have too much on them and its all jammed in far too tightly.

[RED-DOG]

Give me the older stuff everyday, modern cars have too much on them and its all jammed in far too tightly.

Yep.

Remember the days when you could open the bonnet and climb in alongside the engine?

I used to buy a few motors for export to Africa (still do the odd one if I fall over it) and they only want stuff that you can strip down and re build using basic tools. Pre TL Bedfords, Land Rovers, old shape Toyota pickups etc.

[TightEnd]

Engine light comes on

take it to garage

get charged for the diagnostics

get charged for the fix

engine light comes on again

don't start me off!

[RED-DOG]

Engine light comes on

take it to garage

get charged for the diagnostics

get charged for the fix

engine light comes on again

don't start me off!

The worst thing is when your car goes into limp mode because the computer thinks your ABS or some such might not be working properly, even though it is.

Anyway, we managed without ABS for donkey's years, what's the dig deal?

[bobAlike]

How much money have you really saved though? How much of your time was spent from start to finish and how much would that time cost you in real terms?

I knew someone once who decided to save money by building his own, relatively small, kitchen extension. This was so he didn't have to pay a builder £200/day. Now this friend of mine was a self employed computer engineer which meant if he didn't work he didn't get paid. He took 2 weeks off to complete a job that would have taken an experienced builder 5 days to complete. His time off cost him £3000. For an intelligent bloke he weren't half thick.

[Kev B]

How much money have you really saved though? How much of your time was spent from start to finish and how much would that time cost you in real terms?

I knew someone once who decided to save money by building his own, relatively small, kitchen extension. This was so he didn't have to pay a builder £200/day. Now this friend of mine was a self employed computer engineer which meant if he didn't work he didn't get paid. He took 2 weeks off to complete a job that would have taken an experienced builder 5 days to complete. His time off cost him £3000. For an intelligent bloke he weren't half thick.

Cost Tom nowt in time, he does feck all anyway. 

WP BTW Tom. I'd be too shite scared to work on todays cars. (Too lazy as well).