I’m having a bit of a struggle at the moment and I really don’t know why. Well, actually that’s a lie, I do know why, which I’ll get onto in a minute, but first I seem to have got behind on the blog front again. Normally, I sit down and the words just flow, but recently it’s seemed like a chore and not the cathartic experience that it normally is. I normally seem to have something worthy of talking about, or some observation that’s worth mentioning and recording for prosperity, but at the moment it’s like getting blood out of a stone. You would think that the hard ones would be the weeks when I’ve not been up to much, or nothing interesting has happened, but that’s not the case. Last week's post is a fine example. I had a brilliant time playing bikes at Brevet Cymru but getting that down on paper was like pushing water uphill, surely the words should just flow, but no! I suspect that it doesn’t help that I’m really struggling for motivation at the moment, and I don’t know why that is either, although I suspect my ongoing knee issues and the miserable weather aren’t helping. No that that should be holding me back, springs here, summers on its way, yet I’m about as enthused as a dead slug (and I wish there were a few more of those around). The weather for the last couple of weeks has been awful too, the Saturday of the Coronation saw rain all day and the Bank holiday Monday wasn’t much better, plus I think I’ve got wet on the work commute more times in May than I did over the entire winter months, what’s that all about? The endless rain’s not helping on the Allotment front either. Normally by this time of year, the plot would be dug and most stuff would be planted out and enjoying the Spring sunshine. At the moment though it’s just a waterlogged mud bath that’s far too wet to dig, and the lack of sunshine means that everything's just sat in the greenhouse feeling sorry for itself (a bit like me). I suspect that my ongoing Knee problems are the root cause of my lack of enthusiasm. I’ve made enough of a song and dance about the left one (which has been ongoing for a couple of months and I’m seeing the Physio about), but the right one causing problems during Brevet Cymru was another knock to my confidence and another set back, although it seems to have recovered fairly well, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that, that was only a temporary setback. I’m still not running though and it’s getting to the point now where it’s incredibly frustrating and there seems to be no end in sight. Unlike most of the population I want to run, but I can’t, and I know that as the weeks go on it will get harder and harder to get back to the same level of fitness that I had before (and maybe impossible) which is somewhat depressing. If I can’t run and my knees hurt from cycling then what's the point? That doesn't mean that I haven’t been doing anything though, far from it. Whilst I haven't been running or cycling for the past couple of weekends (apart from the daily 22 mile work commute by bike) I have been trying to keep myself busy. So in an attempt to avoid boring you all to death, and to make my life easier, let’s catch up the last 2 weeks of pottering around and I promise that normal service should resume next week (if nothing else I’m determined to stop being a miserable so and so and get out there and start enjoying myself again). So, in no particular order, over the last 2 weekends, amongst other things I’ve; Here's an easy one to start with, or it should have been an easy one; A few weeks back "The Emma" said that the horn on her Peugeot had stopped working and could I have a look. I had a look and the wires had corroded through at the plug, that should be a quick 2 minute fix. But hold on with your quick fix, nothings that simple. To get at the plug the bumper needs to come off, but to get the bumper off the grilles got to come off, and to get the grille off the headlights have to come out, and to get the headlights out ............ Well you get the idea. While the bumper was off I also fixed the Cooling fan high speed relay, which likewise had corroded into a green mess, and while there's no pictures of any of that lot, there are a couple of the next issue. It's pretty rare that I drive Emma's cars (normally only when they need fixing) so I was somewhat surprised to find that on starting the "Pug" to move it round to the garage, that it sounded like a bag of spanners falling down a lift shaft. I asked "The Emma" how long it had sounded like that and she said "A couple of weeks, it's getting worse though". Closer inspection showed that the auxiliary drive belt was only half on the tensioner and the tensioner looked like it was about to fail completely. A pretty easy fix once you get out every tool you own, and take the wheel, arch liner, and bottom pulley off. An easy enough fix for a Sunday morning, but it's always good to know that the horn not working is worthy of immediate repair, but the sounds of impending engine failure from under the bonnet don't warrant a mention in "The Emmas" world of driving! The front lawns been a bit of an ongoing project for the last few weeks. It's never had much grass, it's just weeds and moss, which whilst it looks awful, does mean that it doesn't need mowing very often. For some unknown reason I decided that I'd had enough of Moss and weeds though and I'd do something about it this year, starting a month or so back with a good sprinkling of Moss killer. That's been followed up over the past month or so with multiple goings over with the lawn rake which did a really good job of pulling up the moss and revealing how little grass there actually was. So this weekend I've marched up and down stabbing the ground to death with a fork (and ruining my wrists) to get a bit of aeration going, filled in all the holes with topsoil, and generally levelled it out a bit and re-sown it. With lots of nice shade tolerant grass seed. Which no doubt means that it'll never rain again and all my efforts will have been a waste of time and we will have to live with a bare mud front garden until the autumn! This next ones a bit of a setback; A couple of months ago I noticed that the ceiling trim next to the sliding door on the van was damp. Now, the door runner, which is attached to the van roof, is the only part of the entire living area which isn't insulated (because it's impossible) and as such it tends to be where the condensation gathers on a cold day. Armed with this information, I assumed that condensation dripping off the door rail and catching on the ceiling trim was the issue. So I dried it out and started watching it a bit more closely. Roll on a few more weeks and it was actually wet, not just damp. So I took the trim piece out for a better look, dried everything out again, and left it out for a better look. Whilst it was in bits I took the door seals off and cleaned then too, just in case water was getting in through the door seal. I left the trim off for a couple of weeks and couldn't find any issues and everything seemed dry, so I put it back together again, and it was fine for a few weeks. Fine that is until a couple of weeks ago when after sitting unused for a couple of weeks there was actually a small puddle on the floor and the trim was dripping wet! I still wasn't convinced it wasn't condensation, as I couldn't see any way for water to be getting in there. The ceiling was dry to the touch, the area where the insulation meets the door rail felt dry and the only other place water could be getting in was around the skylight, but that also appeared to be dry. Any way, last weekend it was wet again, so I finally bit the bullet and started removing things to get a better look. Cutting a long story short, the sealant around the front left corner of the skylight had given way and during heavy rain water was finding it's way between the skylight and structure. From there it was running down the opening and then tracking under the bottom layer of insulation to come out above the door rail. Why it couldn't have just found it's way down the edge of the skylight I don't know, because if that was the case, which would have been the path of least resistance, I'd have found the problem ages ago and done something about it. Now if you've read "the van plan" you'll know that the roof light and ceiling were the first things to get fitted! Que one nightmare trying to get enough room to take the roof light out to reseal it and then refit the ceiling, once it and all the insulation, had dried out. I got there in the end though and only time will tell if it's successful. Whilst I was there I did notice a minor design flaw on my part, which could have played a part in the water ingress, where I'd joined the roof light support on a corner. So I've redesigned and remade that while I was at it, which will hopefully help, and I've added extra sealing to the cut out in the hope that if it does leak again the water will drip off the roof light opening and not track elsewhere, giving me a better chance of catching future problems before they happen. A wet Saturday morning resulted in a few bottles of Chilli oil (made with home grown Chillies which have been drying in the airing cupboard all winter), which can get put away to mature. And a few jars of "Mymalade" "It's just marmalade but made by me". Obviously, despite the weather doing it's best to hold back progress there's been plenty going on in the garden and on the allotment too. While I'm pottering around fixing stuff, I've been watching the coolant on my "Bangernomics" run around for a few months. When I got it in December 2021 the coolant reservoir looked pretty oily (never a very good sign) although I don't remember there actually being any oil in the coolant, but it had just had a new radiator, so the coolant would have been drained for that! Anyway, at the time I serviced it and changed the coolant and gave the reservoir a clean out and thought I'd see what happened. A year later and the reservoir's oily again and there's been a small amount of oil into the coolant (there's an oil and water passage in close proximity at the head gasket and leaking across is a common fault). Now, I know it's probably leaking, but I don't really want to pull the head off if I can help it. So before I do that, lets reset to a known good point and see how much it is actually leaking. To that end then, it's had a good dose of cleaning fluid through the coolant system, followed by a really good wash out, and before refilling it I cleaned the reservoir out again. Obviously now I know it's definitely clean (something I couldn't guarantee when I got it) I can see what happens over the next few weeks / months. If it really oils up again, then I'll change the head gasket while the weathers good, but if I think I can live with it, maybe with regular coolant changes, then I think that's the best option. At the end of the day it's only a run around so it's hardly worth spending the time and money on. While I was pottering around I also changed the rocker cover and seal for one that I got from the "scrappy" and refurbished (cover that is, not the seal, that's new). As they say "a shiny engine is a happy engine" and that looks much better than the rusty, leaky one that was there. Next up, a Sofa story; When "The Emma" and I first moved in together one of the first things we bought was a Sofa, and while we waited for it to be delivered (8 weeks) we sat on 2 inflatable camping chairs - Happy days. Roll on 16 years and 3 house moves later, that Sofa is starting to show it's age. It was still clean and tidy, but it was a bit low for my old back, and one of the springs had gone (It's had a plank of MDF under the cushions for about 2 years to make it a bit firmer) and the time for a replacement was fast approaching. Wasting a Sunday that could have been far better spent, trawling round furniture showrooms and fighting off useless salesmen, finally resulted in an acceptable replacement which was for delivery this week. The first problem was what to do with the old one? I asked around at work in case anyone wanted it, to no avail, so we stuck it on Market Place and Gumtree for free, but had no takers, which is a shame because it would probably have served someone well for a couple of years. Instead, it had to meet it's maker so I took the big hammer to it and took it to the tip. I'd have taken it in one piece but it was a bit unwieldy to move on my own. Now, when we ordered the new sofa, the nice salesperson said "The feet on all these sofas are a bit rubbish. But we can sell you some different ones for £50 a set". H'mmm let me think about this for a few seconds said I. How about "No". She was right though, the feet on the new sofa are a bit rubbish. They're rubbish as they're really small so all that's going to happen is they're going to sink into our new plush carpet and deep underlay and that'll be the sofa immovable and the carpet and underlay left with great big divots where the sofa sits. What they really need is some £50 feet that are a bit wider to spread the load a bit and stop them sinking into the carpet. And I'm sure I've seen some tucked away somewhere. And there we go. 8 load spreaders for the sofa feet to stop them sinking into the new carpet. Total cost, half an hour of my time, a couple of pounds worth of scrap plywood and thousands of pounds worth of tools (but we'll ignore that). Either way it's still £100 in my pocket and not the furniture salespersons! and as they're going under the sofa they'll never be seen again. And one last one before I go. I think I might have mentioned these a few weeks ago, but after the success of the first set, I've since fixed some more. Shimano rear derailleurs (were talking bike stuff now) come as standard with sprockets that run on pins and bushes (no bearings fitted), which is fine. However, as it's just a metal on metal bush they tend to wear, and as they wear the float and general sloppiness increases and the gear shifting starts to suffer. Obviously, you can get Shimano replacements, but a cost effective option is to upgrade to non OEM parts with roller bearings, which seems to result in crisper and improved shifting across the board. And anything you can do to make life a bit better when your 300Km into a 400 Km Audax, it's dark and raining, and you've already changed gear approximately a million times, is a plus in my book. The roller bearings come with their own issues though. Eventually water and dirt gets past the seals and the bearings jam up. I seem to get at least a year, if not two, of all weather riding out of a set of sprockets, but for the sake of a £2 of bearings you end up throwing £20 of sprockets away. Or is there another option? The first set of these that I changed the bearings on have done over 1000 miles now with no problems and I've just done the set on my work bike (and a spare set too) so we'll see how they hold up.
I don't know how many times I'll get away with pressing new bearings in before the plastic sprocket deforms or splits, but even if it's only once, it's bought a new lease of life to an allegedly un-fixable, disposable, part, and that's a plus in my book.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|