Give us a brake

The second man called Arthur to work on Althea this year arrived a couple of hours ago and after returning to base to get heavy duty sledge hammers he had her wheels off in no time. It turns out that the drums are fine and the pads aren't too badly worn but a couple of the cylinders are leaking and one is stuck. I had a moment of dread when it looked like I was going to have to source new cylinders but a call to the man who will be relining the brakes confirmed that he can refurbish the cylinders too. I have decided to have all the cylinders and all the pads done.

You can just about see that the windscreen rubber seal has been replaced too. It's lovely and dry now but Boris and Ken the two spiders who were living in the cab have moved out. Maybe they will be back in the spring...

Althea gets winterized

After failing her MOT due to bad brakes she's been parked up waiting for the mobile mechanic to come and remove them so I can send them of to be relined. It's getting cold now so I spent some time emptying the water from the kitchen storage and pump to avoid damage when it drops below zero. I also drained the cooling system and replaced the water with water and antifreeze mix.

A weekend of worry. Update.

I just got a call from National Windscreens. She's done and all is well. I can't believe how anxious I've been about this.

I'm waiting for a call from the MOT guy now. So there'll be another update shortly.


-- Post From My iPhone

A weekend of worry.

So I'm on a tram in Croydon now having just dropped Althea off to have her front and rear windscreen seals replaced. If she survives that she goes accross the road on Tuesday for her MOT. I'm very worried about all of it.

Legs 'n' Coils

The Land Rover clutch pedal spring I had ordered arrived so on Saturday morning I decided to pop it in. I had no idea if it would work or not but I guessed it would be close enough. I was right and it went in easy and works perfectly. I took the bungy off the clutch pedal.

I also decided to have a quick look at the new weird problem which came about as a result of my accidentaly puting the engine battery in backwards. Now the on light was coming on when the key was removed and there was a 120 ohm short somewhere which was flattening the battery over night.

I took about an hour to trace it to a short on one of the unused dials and at the same time replaced the light bulbs behind them.

I thought while I was at it I'd try the original driver's seat I bought months ago. It took about 4 hours to unscrew it from the base plate and screw it in position. This involved a lot of hammering and a few bruised and broken nails. All the while my resident spider Boris sat waiting patiently for a thin and wretched wasp to ensnare itself in his sticky spiral. Even though Boris is growing I have been wondering if he was getting enough to eat so it was nice to know he might have a meal soon. It can't be that bad a place to live as since then there's another smaller spider moved in next to Boris.




I watched for a while hoping to witness the moment of capture but looked away for the wrong two seconds. When I looked back the wasp was parceled up unable to moved. Boris didn't save it for long. In minutes it had been sucked dry and dropped from the web.

I evetually got the seat into position and after much puffing and panting had it as low and back as it would go.

Either this van was designed with people whose legs are both on the right hand side in mind or for those with detachable ones. I was very nearly stuck there and could imagin the laughing firemen cutting me loose. There is no way at all that the original or in fact any proper seat is going in there without shrinking or raising the steering wheel and/or moving the whole seat position back.

I took it back out. Maybe one day I will have it re upholstered and turned into a chair.

The original BMC seat belt I had bought from a boot sale didn't fit either. It was about 2 feet too short so I took that out and put the Volvo one back in.

So why legs 'n' Coils? Well here I am writing onto the World Wide Web about springs, cobwebs, a spider and leg room.



-- Post From My iPhone

No such thing as a quick fix 2

It turned out that the thermostat housing itself was cracked and though it was only losing a few drops at a time, that was enough to empty the cooling system in a very short time. I bought a brand new replacement part from eBay and spent Saturday morning installing it. I had to smash the old one with a hammer to get at the valve inside and in doing so discovered that underneath the oil and dirt it was made out of green Bakelite.

This morning we found a really nice boot sale in Chorley wood where I bought a pair of unused 35 year old BMC seat belts and a huge chrome spot light for her. Toby and I met a guy who has a music promotion company, is an avid vinyl collector , plays keyboards and lives round the corner from Toby too. i had another of those days where everyone wants to stop and have a chat about Althea and was quite happy to do so.

I slept in her last night and once again got a lovely night's sleep. It got really cold in the night but as long as I kept all the vents shut, blocked off the gap under the door, stayed under the duvet I was warm. I'm looking forward to the winter now and experimenting with how cold/warm she is.

Here's a picture of Boris the spider. He's been living in Althea's cab for about 5 weeks now.



And here's a picture of Plum at the boot sale.

No such thing as a quick fix

At about 10am I started the little job of replacing the damaged top hose. It's now 3:30 pm and I've just finished. Finished that is as long as the job I've done holds and I wont be able to test that until tomorrow when the silicon seal has cured completely.

The replacement part is a Ford Transit top hose but of course the part it's replacing isn't. Or at least that's the way it seems. I managed to persuade the new one on after quite a bit of puffing and panting but it certainly isn't much like the one that came off.

Good old Gaffa Tape. I was as surprised as anyone that this repair got us home.

While I was there I thought I'd have a look at the leaking thermostat housing and worked out that it doesn't need replacing but that there is a gasket missing, or some kind of sealant. I put everything away and headed off to Catford on the bus. The Mazda is overdue for its MOT so I couldn't take it.

You can see the sealant in the photos it's the blue stuff.






Tomorrow I'll fill her up with water and run the engine for a while to see if there are any leaks.