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Sheds and diffs...jawaproThu 12/12/2013 10:43 PM
I like sheds so much I got another one...
Oscar and I spent most of last week landscaping. Oscar was on trailer duty - I was swinging shovels and making garden edges etc..
After such a productive week - I took Oscar through to Dad’s to pick up another shed. This one is the size of a kit garden shed - but considerably more solid. It was built by Grandpa when he wasn’t legally allowed to have a shed at the shack - so he built this on the back of a truck (he was allowed to park a truck).
After Grandpa died, the shed ended up at Dad’s - and has now been passed on to me. It will be a garden shed - but short term it’ll be storage for stuff that generally lives in the main shed - so I can paint the floor.
Anyway - we loaded it onto a trailer (it kinda fits) and Oscar started towing it home. When I was picking the shed up on the grass, I’d had Oscar in ‘all-wheel-drive’ mode. That’s not ‘four-wheel drive’ - no centre diff. Anyway - I’d decided since I was towing, it might be a good idea to leave it in ‘all-wheel-drive’. Turns out that was a bad idea.
I have now been told that ‘all-wheel-drive’ is only for gravel or wet/snowy tarmac - and it’s especially bad for towing. Basically the front diff over-heated and exploded.
Well - when I say exploded - the oil did. Went everywhere. Prior to that the diff had been trying to disengage the all wheel drive and failing - so there were flashing lights on the dash - and basically I figured I’d killed it.
We managed to limp home with the shed in tow - and Chris gave us a hand to move it into place. Quite a weird feeling lifting a shed up from inside and marching it when you can’t see a thing. Dad was guiding us - and we managed to avoid running one shed into another.
Anyway - the good news is that Oscar might not be as dead as I thought. Apparently it’s a fairly common issue - and the safeguards normally mean that it doesn’t destroy the diff - so re-oiling it is often all you need to do. I’ve (or more accurately - Chris’s) done that so now I just need to take Oscar for a drive and see what happens.
So in short - I have a second shed - and I might have a working Pajero.
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The WeekendjawaproThu 28/11/2013 08:13 PM
Well - that was an epic weekend.
Friday night Emma and I went to a Mick Thomas concert in Launnie. Mick’s the lead singer from Weddings Parties Anything - so I had a ball (and Emma didn’t hate it). It was a cool little concert - but sadly for Mick there weren’t many people there. I think it had been moved fairly last minute to the venue - but regardless it was an awesome night.
Saturday saw the family heading down to Hobart for a wedding. My cousin Daniel has become the first of the Kingston grandkids to get married. Congrats to Dan and Anita!
After a great night at the wedding, we headed back north. It was "The Day of the Doctor". Yep - Dr Who was celebrating it’s 50th anniversary.
The episode was broadcast around the world at the same time (about 6am here) but we skipped it, because it was also being screened at the cinema in Devonport. So off we hopped to watch Dr Who on the big screen!
I won’t spoil things if you haven’t watched it - but I really enjoyed the special. It tied up a lot of loose threads, while opening up new ones. Plus it was a lot of fun. Even Rose wasn’t too painful.
And then Monday night was my mate Tim’s 30th. He held a bit of a shindig celebrating 1983. Apparently that’s when Chicken Nuggets and 2 Minute Noodles arrived on the scene (so that was tea) and we watched BMX Bandits (not surprising if you’ve never seen it - I wouldn’t bother). The other choice was WarGames (which is well worth watching) but the BMX one was the first movie Tim remembers watching - so we did that instead.
We also hooked up my old Atari and had some great oldschool gaming going. Cant wait to play some more two-player Space Invaders. That’s good co-op!
Quite a busy weekend, followed by quite a big week. But it was great fun. Now I just want to catch up on some sleep...
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The Night of the DoctorjawaproSun 17/11/2013 12:27 AM
It’s only a week until we finally get ‘The Day of the Doctor’ – the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. It’s being release in cinemas to celebrate!
As a prequel to that massive episode – a new minisode has been released called ‘The Night of the Doctor’.
It’s epic for some many reasons. If you’re a Doctor Who fan and you haven’t seen this yet – watch it now. I won’t spoil it – I’ll just say ”IT’S ABOUT TIME!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U3jrS-uhuo
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Towbars and starters...jawaproSat 16/11/2013 08:31 PM
Almost a year ago, Oscar’s towbar separated from the rest of the vehicle and went uncomfortably close to killing Chris.
Since then Oscar has lived life without a towbar - but it’s been inconvenient. So finally I sourced a heavy duty bar. This one is a Hayman-Reece bar that accepts a standard tongue (so you can easily swap between towball styles etc).
Unlike the previous towbar, this one attaches to the chassis at the sides as well as the 4 bolts the original one used. As the caged nuts on the original bolt holes were destroyed in the incident and it’s very difficult to replace them - the new bar has been welded in place. I’ll probably add bolts again eventually just for cosmetics - but the weld is stronger than the bolts anyway.
While this was happening - Oscar was developing a starter problem. The starter motor wouldn’t fire easily. To start with you only had to turn it on and off a few times and it’d work - but by the end I was sitting for about 3 minutes turning the key on and off again until it’d fire. So I replaced the starter motor as well.
Wonder how long the new one will stay that colour? Looks out of place...
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Mr Plumber arrives!jawaproFri 01/11/2013 07:55 PM
After far too many delays, the plumber finally arrived to dig holes in my driveway and hook up my shed's downpipes.
We could have done it ourselves - but as council need to sign it off, I figured I'd get it done properly.
Now I discover that I have to concrete the new pipes in as that's a regulation when the pipes are in lawn. Ah well - we're close now!
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