Got the sleepers roughly in place. They need tweaking to get them properly spaced and levelled out. They’re close though. Cross-wise they’re all pretty good, but along the length of the shed there’s a slight decline, as you get further from the house.
Workman’s hands!
It was pretty quick n easy, doing the sleepers, in the end. Somewhat surprisingly so. Teresa helped me shift the first one. But after that I was on my own. Just ‘drag n’ drop’, like Photoshop!
The foreman checks over my work. Seems to approve.
It was very sweet when Chester saw what I’d done. He evidently enjoyed clambering over them all, and even snuggled up to one for a little spell. I’m glad I have the guv’nor’s blessing!
Teresa liked my previous satay so much she asked me to do it again! That’s nice. I’ll take that!
But I didn’t have quite the same ingredients to hand this time. We did, however, have chicken. So in that respect I was truer to the orig’ recipe. But in several others, I wasn’t.
We still had carrots, broccoli, pak choi and green beans. But we had no beansprouts or bamboo. Gluten-free soy, peanut butter and ginger, etc, made up the home-made satay. And the whole thing was finished with sesame seeds, ginger and chilli flakes.
I put in twice as much of the latter this time. As previously we couldn’t really taste it!
Chester likes to daydream in this planting box!
We ate dinner outside, in the muggy heat of a summer evening. Chester was chilling in the greenhouse, whilst we quaffed first Portuguese then Spanish red wines. Nice!
This satay recipe is a good ‘un; easy and very tasty. A one pan (wok) wonder, if desired. That is, one pan if using noodles. But two if, like us today, you go with rice.
I got this DVD box quite some time ago. Been meaning to start watching it for ages! It was enjoying Swayze in Dirty Dancing that prompted the purchase! His undeniable charisma coupled with my abiding interest in the ACW meant this was a ‘shoe-in’, whatever that is!
Last night Teresa and I watched the first two episodes. Each of which is a 90 minute self contained movie. We really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s cornball, and very sentimental. But it’s durn good fun watching.
Our handsome heroes at West Point.
Swayze’s Orry, and his buddy Hazard (James Read) make for very likeable pals. And the basic premise, of the clashing of cultures and a friendship tested by the travails of love and war, is a familiar but potent vehicle for good solid drama.
I’m not going to go into any great detail here, this is just a brief note to record that I’m watching and enjoying this old but epic series. I might have more to say about it as I watch more of it.
Ding Dong! A real Southern Belle!
One thing I will note is that Lesley Anne Down is, as we said back in the 1980s, lush! And I rather warmed, bizarrely perhaps, to the villainous Bent (Philip Casnoff), esp’ when we learn that he’s the bastard ‘mistake’ of a powerful senator.
Looking forward to watching some more later today!
There was a very faint knock on our door at about 9am this morning. I’m amazed I heard it. As I was busy drilling holes in an upstairs wall, to mount a little shelf for a DVD player, ‘neath our bedroom TV.
DVD shelf brackets up; hardboard shelf is temp’!
On going downstairs I spied a young lad with a lorry, with a crane on’t back, and six rather knackered old looking sleepers on it. It is a shame they’re B grade, in all honesty, as they have ruddy great cracks in them, splintered areas and missing chunks.
Unloading the sleepers.
But we were given them, in exchange for my help with some manual labour. So really we’re lucky to have them at all! Thanks, Ken, for helping us out.
Nearly there.
Two other jobs this morning: the above mentioned little DVD-player shelf in our bedroom, and (re)fixing – I already repaired it once – another knackered old drawer from a set of freebie (Freecycle this time, and ages ago now) chest o’mc-drawers.
The drawer in its broken state.
This set of drawers was full of my clothes till yesterday, as were two others. Leaving Teresa with just one set of drawers, and yet more clothes than me! So now we’ll have two chests each, and I’ll have mended us a drawer each in one of them as well.
The drawer fixed, the glue ‘going off’.
The heat today is ridiculous. I did some of the drawer fixing work out in the back garden. And now I’m back indoors, buck naked and sweating profusely (I think at heart I’m a naturist!). I’m going to hop in the shower and freshen up, and have a brief rest.
Another view. Note missing bits of fancy trim!*
Or should I delay the shower until after moving the sleepers? The latter would require enlisting a strong burly neighbour. I wonder… is Sean in at no. 72?
Yesterday and today I’ve been out in the garden, filling in a hole I dug a whiles back. I had hare-brained plans to dig an underground drum bunker music studio. Actually I still do. But I was eventually persuaded that, for now, such schemes weren’t really on.
More Hollyhocks.
I took these photos whilst working in the garden. What an absolutely gorgeous day it’s been! Our long thin garden is looking lovely. To my eyes at any rate. It’s cluttered and messy, just like ever single room in our home! And that’s actually something I’m determined to start dealing with better.
Look at the roses. Lovely!
I haven’t bothered to document the re-filling of the concrete slab ‘ole. Tho’ I may take some pics tomorrow. As there’s (literally) tons more earth to shift. Pretty flowers and grasses seem more uplifting!
Our ‘cottage garden’ long grasses are out of control.
Fortunately the large tree at the end of the garden meant I was mostly in the shade when doing the earth-moving. We wound up inviting some new-ish neighbours over to have a look around our garden, which was very nice. But it did stop me from doing as much spade work as I’d hoped.
‘Strategic neglect’ creates meadow!
Yesterday I picked up two spades and two forks, all nice old fashioned stuff, from a local Facebook seller, for £5 each. I thought these would be useful for this job, and just to have generally.
Returning to the theme of clutter. I’m determined that 2022 will be the year I turn that side of our home life around. In every area: every room, every outbuilding, the garden. The whole damn lot!
‘Egbert the Egret’, by his ‘nest’.
And to finish, a pic of a bird sculpture. We got two of these, one for us, and one for my mum. It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally go for. But Teresa wanted it, and I’m mellowing and allowing her to change me, in many ways. For the better, I hope!?
Today I decided I’d try once again to sort out our washing machine. I’ve tried several times before, without succeeding. According to the rather scant Hotpoint support, on YouTube, 90% of issues are due to the filter getting blocked.
I’ve attended to this filter several times. It’s occasionally had a little crap in it. And I really mean a very little. But mostly it’s been pretty clean and empty, i.e. free of any serious obstructions. Never enough to have caused the blockage and drainage issues we’ve faced.
Eugh! The area under the machine was horrid.
The most recent and worst of these was when it stopped draining altogether. Meaning that we had to empty the drum using a measuring jug. A faintly unpleasant smell gradually but inexorably turned to a truly rank odour!
Intuition and common sense suggested that as the filter was pretty clean and totally not blocked, then logically the blockage must, surely, be in the drainage hose?
So I took the hose off – much easier said than done! – and stuck a trombone cleaner down it. Alas, the ‘bone unblocker isn’t as long as the hose, so I had to attack it from both ends.
Tipped her on her side, to access the hose.
After this, I rigged the pipe so it was on a constant downwards gradient, and started running hot water through it. After about five or six flushes, the stinking opaque effluence had turned, if not into wine, at least into clear clean water!
After re-assembling the washer, and clipping the hose back in place, I ran a cleaning cycle with some soda crystals added to the drum. It was then that another recurrent fault reared it’s ugly head: the machine never reaches the end of any programme.
Not sure why, exactly, but whatever program we run, the machine always ‘hangs’ on one minute remaining… forever!
Hoses and a tub, outside, in case of overflow!
To finish any program off, requires turning the entire machine off, and restarting it set to a rinse ‘n’ spin (which in turn won’t actually finish!). Bit of a palaver. And a lot of a pain!
But not having to bail out stinking dirty water is a tremendous improvement! Compared to which having to fudge finishing wash and rinse cycles is but a minor issue.
I’m not a slick blogger or YouTuber, and very rarely if ever document these things thoroughly, let alone well! But the few pics here do give an idea of just how dull a job this is.
The black clip in the centre releases the hose.
That said, and despite the as yet unresolved ‘won’t finish’ fault, improving the situation does come with a certain pay off.
It’d be great if we could fix the ‘one minute remaining’ issue. And we do also need a new front door seal, as well. But, little by little, we’re getting somewhere.
Spark-plugs reminder photo.Working in dazzling sunshine.Note that banjo bolt (rear of VVT) leaketh not!Later in’t day, torch now required.Happy grease monkey; engine starts!
And lo, it came to pass, that ye olde engine was fix-ed! Hence the happy mien, and Churchillian two finger salute above. The image below is just a reminder of an earlier – and at this point gratifyingly absent – OBD fault diagnosis.
Adopts Inspector Clouseau voice ‘Yes, I know that, you fool!’
But at this point I still have a major coolant leak.
Last night, after emailing Greg Peters at ‘carpassionchannel’ (thanks, bro’!), and much – mostly fruitless – googling and watching of YouTube, I finally found out what the thing circled in the image below is.
Turns out this is a power steering pressure sensor.
Having established what it is, I was able to find a YouTuber removing it, and thereby learn how to do so myself. I did that late last night, sporting a head-band style torch, as it turned dark.
In the YouTuber’s video, as so often, it looked super easy. In real life, for me, it was very, very, very tricky. I used needle-nosed pliers to simultaneously grab the whole thing whilst depressing a tiny little lever, all the while also pulling upwards.
After lots of worrying (about breaking it whilst manhandling it so roughly!) and a fair bit of swearing, the ficker funally came orff…
The pic at the top of this post is how I looked and felt at day’s end. Note the new mechanic’s style overalls! £20 from the local Boyes.
Yesterday it was raining in the morning. And it remained damp, drizzly, and cloudy all day. But the afternoon was workable. Today the sun is out, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful, and so … wahoo!
After our car died last Thursday, the AA got us home. At a not inconsiderable cost. So… with no money for repairs, what to do? I decided to get her up somehow, for inspection. I tried using a trolley jack I have, and some ordinary jacks. But no dice.
Bought these ramps from Halfords.
It was time to buy some ramps. Halfords in March did’nae have any. But the Wisbech branch had some, for £45 a pair. But without wheels, how was I to get ‘em? Fortunately our pal Ken was kind enough to give me a lift to Wisbech, so I could collect them. Cheers, buddy!
These ramps do the job nicely.
The ramps will be very useful if I need to access the underside of the vehicle/engine bay. And I imagine I will need to. But I didn’t need to today. Thanks are also due to our neighbour, Sean, for helping me get the car up on the ramps.
Step one in getting the rocker cover off.
I decided to photograph each step. And, starting with the picture above, that’s what this series of photos depict. All I was doing today was removing the ‘rocker cover’. So I could see if the cam-belt was indeed, as the AA engineer believed, broken.
Disconnecting wiring..
The first thing I discovered on starting this job is that YouTubers routinely make things look very easy. Usually they’ll be doing stuff they’ve done many times before. But if you’re not used to whatever it is? As an example, disconnecting some of the wiring junctions proved much harder than expected. It’s amazing how discouraging that can be!
… gradually got easier.
Gradually things got easier. Which was encouraging. The hoses all came off very nicely and cleanly. This was a relief, as old tubing can be brittle and perish, etc.
Each of these was easier than the last!And this was the easiest of them all!Front end of the spark plug wiring loom.Back of the spark plug wiring loom.There were a couple of points like this.
The above photo shows a point where a male peg goes into a female hole. But it wasn’t actually connected. This one was at the back. There was another, pictured below, on the left side of the engine.
Another unattached point.
One thing that really spooked me was the long doodad in the image below, below the spark plug wiring. None of the YouTube videos I watched had any such parts, so I was stumped. Nor could I find any diagrams online that explained this mysterious appendage.
A complete overview of the spark plug wiring.
Luckily I stumbled across a video by an American dude that clarified the matter. Turns out it’s a thing called a VVT, or Variable Valve Timing mechanism. Guess I might need to look into that?
Jerry-rigged the variable timing mechanism.
One thing I didn’t photograph, and should’ve, was a 19mm nut at the rear of the engine cover, that was a real mother to loosen. I had to use a mallet to get that loosened off! Once I’d done that I was able to lift the whole thing up and secure it with a bungee cord.
Front end of variable timing thing, note gasket.
As the photo below shows, I tried to arrange my nuts n bolts in such way that they’d be easy to replace in their proper order.
I tried to keep my nuts in order.
As can be seen below, I got the spark plugs out okay, these were, once again, rather different to anything I’d seenYouTubers dealing with. Fortunately if anything my set up is easier.
This tube clips into the bracket.
And then it was the moment of truth; removing all the bolts holding the rocker cover in place, which I did in a cross-cross fashion, a la drum head tuning, to keep the release of tension/pressure even.
And lo and behold, a busted cam belt!
And so it was that, finally, I was able to get the cover off and see… And yea, verily, the cam belt was busted. The AA engineer spook sooth! I was able to gently work it out. And it’s lying there, rather tragically, in the above pic. But is the engine itself okay? I can’t tell, to be honest.
The engine, in all its glory.
So, I managed to get the engine apart, and find the source of the problem. And the AA guy was right. Busted cam belt. Now what do I do? I guess I have a crack at replacing the timing belt? But that’s an even more complex and challenging job.
It’s late, getting dark… testing the ECU with OBD.
Yesterday Teresa and I packed our picnic basket and headed out for a lovely lunch at Anglesey Abbey.
Sadly, between Fordham and Burwell, on the B1102 Ness Road, an orange engine diagnostic light came on, followed – in seconds – by the engine conking out.
We were relatively lucky inasmuch as a lay-by appeared on our left exactly as this happened. Our forward momentum was enough to get us in and parked, off the main road, and safe.
Several other people were parked in the lay-by. I asked the nearest if he wouldn’t mind helping us try and jump-start our car off his battery. Fortunately I carry jump-leads 90% of the time (due to previous experiences!). He obliged.
But sadly that didn’t work. I thought I ought to try, as I’d had an engine failure about six to eight weeks ago, where I’d just run out of petrol and the battery had also died.
But this time there was still petrol, and the battery appeared to be ok. And the jump-lead start failed. So… time to call the AA!
Got this via Amazon Vine, some time ago.Not the swankiest of its kind. But useful.
The AA engineer got to us quicker than I’d ever experienced before (20-30 minutes?). And very quickly diagnosed a failed cam-belt. I asked how he could be so sure, without seeing it; the cam-belt is enclosed, at the front of the engine, behind two other external belts (and all sorts of other gubbins) .
He said it’s the sound. There’s no tell-tale compression, apparently. If there were compression you’d have that wheezy but rhythmic ‘turning over but not catching’ sound.
My AA membership didn’t include getting us and our dead car home. So I called a company to see if they – Manchetts – could ‘recover’ us. Yes, for approx £250-ish!
What about the AA? They could do it, for about £180-ish. So I went with the AA, naturally! Chatting with the AA engineer on the way home, about our options, he seemed to feel that it was highly likely the cam-belt going had killed the engine, bending rods, or some such.
However, when I got home, and started researching this issue, it got very confusing. My mum and her husband Malcolm had, on learning what’s happened (we were supposed to go and see them on Sunday, but that’s not happening now!), also looked into it.
They came up with some more encouraging info (thanks!), suggesting that Mazda engines are built in such a way that a cam-belt failure isn’t necessarily fatal. Oh, how I hope this proves to be the case for us!
P1345 code… que pasa?
We simply don’t have the funds for a new car, or even a repair to the current motor. And I really love this car. So I’d prefer to keep her going, if at all possible.
I started watching YouTube videos on cam-belt changes. And I’ve found a good few. One, by MX5parts.co.uk is pretty good. But an even better one is by TheCarPassionChannel. (Watch it here.)
Both videos show the cam-belt being replaced by one guy, working at home, using basic tools. So there’s a bit of hope it’s a job I may be able to do myself.
TheCarPassionChannel’s video is the better of these two, because he moves the camera(s) around much more, such that you get a far better and clearer view of everything he’s doing.
Annoyingly everything’s shut – at least everything I’ve tried, car parts and service/garage wise – for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. So I can’t get quotes on repairs, or pricing for parts, etc.
Anyway, numerous plans have been scuppered. A trip to the seaside today. A Curtis Mayfield tribute gig in London tonight. A visit to mum’s at the weekend. Hey-ho!
Pressing the VIN button didn’t do anything.
So, what to do!? I’m kind of hoping I can install a new timing belt myself. As per the videos I’ve been watching. But it’s not a simple job, by any means. And how am I going to get about to my teaching?
Some time later the same day…
I just remembered Amazon Vine sent me an OBD unit some while back. Ages ago actually! And until now I haven’t used it. With what feels horribly like it might be a terminal fault, I thought the time had come to track it down and use it.
After a bit of stressed searching, I did locate it, and give it a go. It was getting late and pretty dark – about 10pm – by the time I went out to check the car. So I had to do it by torchlight.
Finding the ECU/OBD interface point was the first challenge. You have to plug the OBD in first, then turn the ignition on. I read the manual, which is in mangled Engrish, and far from excellent.
The DTC button is what you press to get the codes. I was hoping for a fully explanatory readout. But all I got was ‘P1345 Manufacturer Control’. This means you have to look the fault code up on ye internet.
And so it is, that now, 11pm, the day after the engine conked out, I’m still not really too much the wiser about what’s gone wrong or what to do. The info I got googling MX5 P1345 is rather diverse and varied!
I hope somewhere that can help me might be open on Saturday. Otherwise it’ll be Monday by the time I can talk to anybody. And it might very well start cutting into my teaching/earnings.
