It came to a shuddering stop around 6:30 on Tuesday evening. It had all started with a rocking sensation, a bit like a misfire. On an old petrol car I’d have said that one of the TH leads was loose. Then all of a sudden the engine stopped turning, luckily it was whilst in a line of rush hour traffic so not at high revs or under a lot of stress. Eventually we got it back to the house - only a mile or so but round a couple of busy roundabouts.
Terry at TLT ( Great garage, 01942608723 ) took it in for a look see..
Turns out that one of the fuel injectors had sheared deep inside the engine and flooded it with high pressure diesel. The engine couldn’t compress the fluid thus causing a ‘HYDRAULIC LOCK’ and not turning. This is going to be VERY expensive.
HOW CAN AN ITEM DESIGNED TO RUN FOR 500K MILES FAIL SO CATASTROPHICALLY AFTER ONLY 36K?
Typically, this has all happend just 2 months after the warranty ran out - so Land Rover have washed their hands of it.
Whoopsie, I’ve snapped one of the drive belts in the Wessex Finishing Mower.. Anyone know where I can get one from? Or should I try and ‘borrow’ one of these:
We eventually got around to replacing our dead Freeview set-top box. Tesco were doing a deal on the tiny Phillips DTR220 , not expensive but not too cheap.
I plugged it into our Toshiba HDD recorder and sat back to enjoy all those extra channels…
I then tried to do a One-Touch record of something on the ‘normal’ BBC1, whilst watching a ‘digital’ channel.
Nope, not a chance…!
Whilst the Freeview was switched ON the recorder ‘chose’ the digital signal as the preferred source and automatically jumped back to record that and not the terrestrial BBC1.
We could switch off the Freeview and record the normal BBC1 signal or just record the digital BBC1, but what’s the point in that??
RTFM time…
Nothing in either booklets commented on this signal preference, except for a single cryptic sentence in the Tosh. handbook that commented on SCART having a “control voltage”…
Googling the ‘net brought up the Electronics2000 site, with a SCART pin-out diagram and a note that some devices use different voltages on Pin 8: some for controlling screen aspect ratios and some to automatically switch devices to AV input!!
I opened up the cable and cut the wire to pin 8!
All is now normal.
Human choice over machine totalitarianism has returned!
I had no idea that camping with a 5 year old would have been so much fun.
We went up to the Lakes camping, after the purchase of new tent in the sales ( 50% off! ).The pitch only cost £14.50 per night and the toilets were stocked with paper this time.
I drove up to Coniston Hall camp site and pitched the tent. Megan filled her sleeping bag - adult size - with soft toys. Then we set out for Grizedale after stopping in Coniston to shop for the things we’d forgotten: plates, water bottle, dish cloth, etc etc etc…
Upon unpacking the bikes we came to the realisation that although we’d packed Megan’s elbow and knee pads, her helmet was still at home! As it’s not been long since we took the trainer wheels off her bike and this was her first real ‘off-road’ ride this was a show stopper. Luckily the bike hire shop at the Grizedale Visitors Centre do child size lids for £2 a day.
We set off, knowing that Megan wouldn’t get far… but she got a lot further than I’d have ever thought. This all came to a sudden stop when Meg lost control on a loose gravel section of ‘Fire’ road. She ended up on her face and hands. The peak of the lid had a big scratch an dent showing that the £2 was worth it.. (I wouldn’t have taken Megan into the forest without one)
Big thanks to all the cyclists we met for their words of encouragement and to the Ranger who stopped, offering the use of his First Aid kit. The only real damage done was Megan’s ‘Princess’ bell that will never ring again…
A couple of Ice creams later, a play on the large wooden play area and all was forgotten.
Megan had a walk around one of the child friendly marked routes, passing by the large tepee and the Go-Ape area… unfortunately Meg is too small yet for the rope slides and climbs.
Back at the camp Megan cycled around for a bit and found a small sloping escarpment to clamber around before dragging me to the shore to throw stones and go for a paddle in the evening sun. Meg even went for a swim in the very chilly lake.. followed by a refreshing shower (50p).
Next day we went to Ambleside via the Hawkshead/Windermere car ferry. I thought Megan would be too pooped to want to do anything other than shop, so was very surprised when asked if she could climb a mountain! Next time we visit we’ll go up Loughrigg, but this time we went to the Stock Ghyll Force waterfalls. A trip to the Apple Pie shop for lunch was much appreciated. Then we went to BikeTreks for a drool over their latest bikes and to get a new bell. Specialized now do 20inch wheeled ‘mountain’ bikes in pink. Megan is really looking forward to having longer legs.
A trip to Keswick included rowing on Derwent Water, Meg was insistent on having a go, an expensive walk around Fryers the chocolate shop and a Pub lunch at the Oddfellows arms. There’s a picture on the wall in the pub of a relative of Marcus… It’s a small world.
So all in all Megan has been Mountain Biking, Rock Climbing, Lake swimming, Rowing, Hill Walking and shopping for bike ‘Candy’… A perfect holiday in the Lakes.
If you need to mount one of these PolymerOptics lens and holder combos :
Use one an old CD or DVD:
The centre hole of the disc is the same diameter as the optic, but smaller then the lens holder. And the lens will sit flush with the surface of the cd when glued in place
The guts of the torch and the guts of the old Solo have been throw up in the air… accompanied by the magic words: “DUCK!”
This picture of the bits is a little small and a lot fuzzy, so here’s a breakdown of what you can’t see…
The battery ( blue fuzzy thing ) is now wired to the Solo’s switch ( right most black fuzzy thing ) and the Cree XLamp 7090 ( roundish white fuzzy thing ). The rechargable LC16340 is also connected to the Solo’s jack socket( black fuzzy thing to the left of the switch shaped black fuzzy thing ). Got all that?
To charge the battery ( it’s going to be sealed in the lamp) I’ve fitted the Solo’s power lead to the +/- ’s inside the charger and routed the lead through the chargers case:
Now all I need to do is find someway of handling the heat ( the too big heat-sink is the square green fuzzy thing bottom left in pic #1 ) and mounting the lens in the Solo’s front plate…
As I do a lot of driving and not enough cycling, I try to listen to ‘Podcasts’ on my MP3 player - in an attempt to keep at least my brain on the right track. My favourite one is THE FREDCAST ( www.thefredcast.com ) hosted by David Bernstein, it’s great, lots of news & features.
Alas, someone else has started to use the FREDCAST name.
How could those people be so stupid?!? Or are they just insanely arrogant to think they could actually get away with it?
( Why do I still want a road bike? )
Back to reality:
Managed to get Dudley out onto the fields to give the jungle a civilised short back and sides… I hacked back two paddocks and a large area of the big field, before realising I should have been wearing a hat. I’ve now got a massive head ache.
I’ve been looking for a way to tow a ‘normal’ trailer or caravan with my Iseki compact tractor, but it doesn’t have a towing ‘ball’ type coupling… There are frames available that mount on the Cat1 implement arms, but they are expensive. James ( a local farmer or great standing ) showed me his gob-smackingly simple method: it’s a block of metal with three holes: the block fits in the jaws of the ‘hoop and peg’ coupling ( used for farm trailers ) and the peg secures it through one hole, the remaining holes have a ‘car’ type tow hitch bolted on. He’s going to make one for me at cost… Wonder if it’s patented.
With my Dad’s help, I put up the last of the guttering - most of which was salvaged from the Mother-in-laws new guttering and eaves installation. I even got the welder out for a test.. Boy-o-boy do I need to practice before I try anything important.
All in all a good weekend, with too much food and not enough sleep.
