What, you may ask, has James been up to recently?
To be fair, you may also not ask that. But I’m going to tell you anyway.
This Flickr thing… Well that’s going to hit me when they decide to limit free access. I could (and may) just pay but at some point I’m inevitably going get bored / drop dead / get fed up of paying. But I’ve more or less convinced myself that I’m not writing this drivel for my own amusement but as a lasting thanks to some communities that have inspired me. You folks have inspired me, just maybe I can inspire others…
I’d like the thread to live on after I’ve moved on and bought a bus / truck / tracked military vehicle to play with. I’m glossing over the fact that if I stop writing nobody’ll bother to read it but, well, er…
So anyway, I need to sort out my Flickr problem. I’ve done this thread, the roof thread, and I found an old one about fixing an 80’s synth so I did that too. But the main MR2 thread… Oh boy… That’s a shed load of work.
Anyway, it’s too damp and cold to do bodywork on the MR2. The next big job is to fit new big end bearings and, shortly after, a clutch. But I need to strip it down to get the big end shell sizes (Toyota fitted 3 sizes). But it also needs it to stay mobile until after Christmas so, well, car work’s not happening…
Time for excuses then!
I’ve had a compressor for ages. And a water trap. But I’ve always used it by plugging things up with bits of hose which was getting annoying. What I needed to do was plumb it properly. A couple of outlets in the garage and one outside would be nice.
Start by plumbing in the inlet and water trap.
This is why I haven’t done this before… The simple pain in the botty of removing everything from the shelves and unhooking all my cabling. And then putting it all back.
Still, on the positive side, I’ve hoovered my shelves for the first time since, er, God only knows when… My memory doesn’t stretch back that far. Or even to lunchtime yesterday for that matter.
So now I have a couple of outlets in the garage like this…
And this one outside by the gate. (The gate I lovingly made with my own hands if you remember.)
Need to paint that. Must remember… Somebody remind me to paint it would you?
I’ve now got a proper inlet.
Which is now plumbed up with a short piece of hose rather than the curly red thing.
And a fully plumbed in water trap.
Excellent! Tidy! And I’ve recovered a couple of bits of curly hose for future use.
Next customer please…
Ah yes. This blue doofer is one of my wood working tools. It’s supposed to be screwed to the floor but that’s not convenient so I have it screwed to a couple of sleepers.
And, as you can see it has casters so I can move it.
Now there are a couple of problems with the casters. The idea is that that you stomp on the bit of wood that’s sticking up in the air which pushes the casters down and clips behind the bit of bent aluminium.
However the design meant that neither of the casters were quite level so it steered worse than a supermarket trolley. The aluminium clip was rubbish so you’d be busy fighting it across the garage when the clip slipped and dumped it on the ground again.
And thirdly…
…It broke.
Time for a new idea. A metal idea.
I spent ages working out how to build some form of pedal and latch arrangement. Eventually I realised that I don’t need either.
Just a couple of hinges.
You just tip the machine up and kick the wheels under. The weight of the machine stops them coming out again.
When you are where you want to be you just tip it up again and kick the wheels out again.
Now to be fair, kicking the first wheels under is easy. But tipping the machine over to kick the second set under is a problem because the machine just tries to roll away. But it is possible and it’s much better than before.
Must remember to paint them one day. Somebody remind me to paint them would you?
That’s another job done! What next?
Ooh ‘eck… A large pile of oak.
Tell you what. Oak turns out to be flamin’ expensive. Evidently it doesn’t doesn’t grow on trees.
Who’d have thought that wood doesn't grow on trees?
James
