Thursday, August 30, 2012

I didn't do anything ...

... like as much as I was going to do today. I was up early and spent a few hours on the computer as usual, but it was after that that it all started to go wrong.

Finding a fully-charged battery for the Hitachi SDS drill was the first thing, and then drilling the brick pillars has caused some of the bricks to split, and that's annoying to say the least.

But anyway the window frames are fitted and that's something. Next plan was to fit the facia boards to the end of the chevrons on the lean-to, but in a fit of astounding brilliance of which surely only I can be capable, it seems that having cut the wood to the right length, I seem to have discarded the piece that I want and I've painted the off-cut instead.

I didn't get much done after lunch as the phone rang. The handbrake on Marianne's son's car has ceased to function and so could I look at it. He brought it round and I dismantled the rear end (brake drums held on by the wheel bearings, how I hate that!) to find that the auto adjusters aren't working. And no surprise as the handbrake needs 12 clicks to work. I reset the adjusters but that didn't do much so crawling underneath the car, it turns out that the cable adjuster (there's one of them too) has slipped out of position. I reset that and now the brakes will stop that little Twingo on a sixpence.

But that cable is totally weird. Most cars have one single cable and there's a slider at the centre of tha cable that's attached to the handbrake arm so that the brakes pull evenly and when you work the manual adjuster, the adjuster works on both brakes. But not the Twingo. There's no slider but just a single fitting on the end of the handbrake arm, and two cables, one from each side, that go to the fitting. Consequently while moving the manual adjuster will tighten up the cable, it doesn't equalise the brakes - if just one side is slack, then you can't adjust the cable as that will overtighten the good side. It took us ages to adjust the brakes correctly, doing it by trial and error.

And then we had the issue of refitting the hubs and bearings, and torquing up the nuts. That's something I really hate doing.

Back on the lean-to afterwards (just as well I finished the car as we had a torrential storm straight afterwards), I've fitted one window pane (one of them survived having a ladder thrown on it) and the second one is ready to cut, but aty 19:00 I called it a day.

Tea was a courgette and lentil curry - you can see that things are gioing berserk in the garden now.

3 comments:

  1. Watermelon season is in full swing here as is peach season Loads of watermelon and peach to eat :)

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    1. I dreamt about you last night. I can't remember where I was living but it was a "proper" house and you came to visit. You were so hungry that you sat down and ate all my food, including the bacon and eggs that I had made for my breakfast.

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  2. As has been said of me in the past - I'll eat anything dead; that looks like it's about to die or that even looks like it's thinking of being mildly ill.

    Mmm.... Bacon and eggs... And there's me sitting down to a bean burger, rice and steamed veggies.

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