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So, yesterday we made vegetable jalouise, or some such. It required approximately a packet and a half of butter (about 3 sticks, I think). 2 and a bit sticks in the puff pastry (home made), and a goodly chunk to fry the veggies in.

On top of which it contained milk. It was delicious, and each of us ate half of it…

On top of which we had Cornmeal pancakes for breakfast, with butter on.

It’s rare that we have quite such a dairy heavy dish, something which my body informed me about (in no uncertain terms of) at 1.30am when I was quite unwell. Twice. And then sat on the toilet thinking ‘oh god, am I going to throw up now…’

So I ended up ringing in sick, and because of my symptoms have to have 48 hours off. Next time I shan’t be quite so generous with the servings, because had I have had less, I may have not made myself sick :-/

My stomach’s still not settled, and I still feel faintly sick (I’ve not had breakfast despite being up for 2 hours)

So, I spent today working in Resus. I am, not to put to finer point on it, exhausted. My alarm went off this morning and having hit snooze once, and then switched the alarm off, it took me a full ‘nother 20 minutes to get out of the bed. I missed my shower, and was late setting off, but managed, thankfully, to get there on time. Of course, once there I remained tired. Perhaps doing the car the last two weekends in a row was not the most sensible plan.

Perhaps I do, at some point, need a break.

I have a spot on my head, under my hair. It’s annoying.

I wish I’d had a shower.

Anyhow, having had an very busy shift in Resus I came home and lept on the car with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I wish I’d remembered what I learned last time was doing this – fundamentally that without a pipe expanding dooble it’s really fracking difficult. However, in a few hours I’ve managed to knock up a temporary section of exhaust. Would have been a lot less had I have had a sharp blade in the hacksaw. It started out pretty good, but by the last cut on the last section of exhaust it was a bit laughable really.

It’s not really any quieter, ‘cos it’s still got several holes in it (2, actually) but they’re smaller holes than were in it before hand. I may go and get some exhaust repair bandage which’d shut it right up, or I could get a couple of jubillee clips and some metal from a can… ;)

Bodge? Me? To keep a car on the road? Never.

Anyway,

I’m going to stop now, because I’m really very tired.

Even a few years ago, back in Brizzle, I walked into a quick fit, explained I had need of some 1.5″ exhaust to knock up something to make the exhaust for my minor (before I had a ‘proper’ exhaust) and not only did they hand me their skip and say ‘go dig’, they also said if it needed welding to bring it back.

Asking for a ‘temporary repair’ was not akin to saying ‘please bow down and kiss my shoes’. It did not result in looks of horror, fear and shock.

Today I toured Slough asking for such a thing. A temporary repair. Even lopping out that entire front silencer and replacing it with a straight section of 1.5″ tube. This would require: Taking some 1.5″ tube, whopping the end of it on their little expander, and then chopping the old one off just after the silencer and sticking the two ends together. A task that most average CDT school classes could have done (at least back when I was at school).

Apart from the phrase (which I’m somewhat sick of hearing) ‘We can’t do that anymore’ (or it’s equally popular alternative – “we don’t do that anymore”) I also got that you couldn’t weld stainless steel, that my three piece* exhaust is a ‘one piece item’ and that ‘it’s made as one piece’ and that you couldn’t ‘just take a section out’ and replace it with a straight one.

Who are these guys? What happened to real exhaust fitters?

It’s now too late for me to attempt a temporary repair today, one place did at least concede that it might be possible (although they wouldn’t do it) and gave me an old section of 1.5″ exhaust, so I should be able to knock up something to keep the car on the road until Option E comes into effect. I’m trying to decide if I should take the bike today and save the Minor’s current temporary repair for tomorrow morning (which seems sensible to me, but cold).

I think it’s very sad, years ago mechanics were skilled people who could strip and rebuild anything from a dynamo to an entire engine. They could diagnose faults without computers. They could actually *do* something other than take off a broken bit and replace it under instruction from a computer.

Back when I did work experience and whoever it was at my school had a laugh and put me down to work in a garage** the guys there knew how and when to replace, repair and to bodge. It wasn’t *that* long ago.

What happened to these people? What happened to these skills. These places are now very depressing. When a part time mechanic is better at fixing things (and sadly, probably fitting things) than the mechanics she’d normally pay to do things then the world is a sad place.

* It’s actually four, but described as three.
** Who were very shocked, thinking they’d got some little school age numptie who’d get in the way for a week, the first day he took me out on a test drive and asked me how a clutch worked and was for. He got a nice precise explanation including the basics of the structure of the clutch. Then he discovered that I knew what a ‘long weight’ and a ‘glass hammer’ were, and eventually we settled into me poking the underside of cars doing MOT’s and helping with servicing.

Option A: Replace minor exhaust – difficult seeing as no one has the 1.5" exhaust in stock. JLH have a 2" exhaust in stock, but it seems a bit…big. Thinking about it. Not a quick solution.
Option B: Wodge DAF back together, ignoring the will-be-very-quickly-trashed-100-quid’s-worth of clutch shoes.
Option C: Ride motorbike.
Option D: Repair Minor exhaust – difficult – apparently "We don’t do that sort of thing". I’m going to shower and take the minor to a couple of exhaust places and see if, with it in front of them, they can be a bit more helpful. I suspect not.

Of course, there is option E.

Option E is the one I’ve picked which enables me to sort out the front of the Minor. The worn out suspension, the ratty engine bay, the rattly dashboard, and to take her off the road for a bit to sort the transmission out. That way, she’ll truly be ready for Canada. Temptation: make her into a left hooker at the same time.

Option E only arises because of Rich, who is, it turns out, possibly the nicest man in the universe.

Option E will get more air time in the future, when the details of Option E have been successfully worked out.

In the mean time, I’m going to shower and work on Option D – because it’s bloody cold out there and while the bike did a stellar job carrying me to work and back yesterday, the idea of doing so for more than a one off in weather this cold doesn’t appeal. Not one bit.

In other news, wasn’t the first episode of BSG dark (spoilers lurketh).
(more…)

So, congratulations to the USA on having a really eloquent, intelligent president; a person who’s inaugural speech was refreshingly honest and challenging. I hope that his presidency marks the beginning of a greener, more tolerant, and generally better period in the history of the USA, and indeed, the world.

So, it’s cold, frequently wet and windy. What would be less than ideal?

Guess… go on… guess.

Yep; that’s right, the exhaust on the Minor (made by Falcon, incidentally, with a ‘lifetime warranty’ from Charles Ware’s Morris Minor Centre, in Bath) has snapped again. I think this is the 3rd centre section. It may be the fourth.

Either way, they stated before that they would not replace the centre section again despite it having a ‘lifetime warranty’. The Lifetime in question clearly, in this case, referring to that of the exhaust. I.E. the lifetime of the warranty is as long as the exhaust lasts. Which in this case is months. It lasted longer than the last one on the basis that, well, the car was off the road for nearly a year.

Unfortunately, since we spent the day having a very pleasant walk around the countryside around Newbury with work, and getting lunch at a pub*, we didn’t finish off the DAF today. Although, it’s going to wreck the new clutch shoes running it with drum as it is. But the DAF owner’s club has been awesome, for reasons I’ll explain later, when we’ve had a chance to mull over the incredibly kind offer.

But on the less good front, I’ll be riding the MZ to work tomorrow. For a long day. In the cold. The bitter, bitter cold.

Not that I’m a little unkeen.

I’ve found the inner liner for my bike trousers tho’ which is handy.

* Which annoyingly had only one main veggie course, which was curry, so for the third day in a row I’ve had curry :(

So, we spent another day working on the car, it took about 3 hours to get the single bolt off, and then the exhaust didn’t want to budge anyway. Technically we didn’t have to remove it, but it was enough of a nightmare getting the engine out without trying to loop things around the exhaust so I’m pleased we did take it off.

Unfortunately, when we finally got to the clutch things didn’t look good.

This is the whole clutch, you can see that the friction pads have all but disappeared entirely, and the metal shoe backs have been doing their job.

Here’s the worst offenders, it must have been worn out for thousands of miles. I can’t imagine that it’s ever been changed.

Unfortunately the drum is so badly worn that I don’t think you could just skim it. It’s got deep grooves cut into it (I wanted to take a picture but the camera batteries are now completely knackered; and all the other batteries in the house are ex-camera batteries which are also knackered).

We reassembled the engine and with a great deal of difficulty got the engine back in (it’s really been one of those days. The work lamp broke, the batteries that came with the Skil tool’s torch are the worst batteries I’ve ever encountered and died incredibly rapidly, the desk lamp I got from upstairs accidentally got shorted out (it’s one of those silly ones with exposed metal poles to carry the current)… however, thankfully it stayed working until I’d crushed my fingers with the prop-shaft, ironically after I’d stopped fiddling the engine unexpectedly settled in having finally aligned correctly with the shaft.

…’s just my fingers were in the way.

Anyhow, it’s just finishing putting it all back together.

Kathryn spent some time filling the inlet manifold cracks with plastic-metal, it’s rated to 150 degrees C… hopefully that’ll do. And Kathryn, again, rocks for helping so much; without her this job’d be impossible.

So, back when I followed computers and IT I knew which hard drive manufacturer was good, and which sucked. I had favourites, and brands I’d not touch. I was a consumate geek and cared not if the drive produced more or less decibels of noise, so long as it was quick, and had a low seek time.

Now I look at the drive comparison chart trying to balance 42dB/A against 35.9dB/A and power dissipation and usage figures against seek times and transfer rates, and find myself wanting to hide. Part of me wants the fastest drive I can lay my hands on (because eventually it’ll find it’s way into the work mac, I expect, when it gets too small for entertainment mac usage), and then I’ll want it to be quick, and less concerned about noise. But while it’s sat next to the TV I want it to be quiet and consume little power. Damn it, why’s it so complex.