Karl’s Asylum

We went to Big ‘n’ Queer last weekend (B&Q)…and found a shelf for Jems office which went up today. Also in there we found a 4 drawer chest of drawers…in the £135-200 bit. Reduced to £30 as a return. It’s in, it’s good, and it only needed 4 holes drilling! Bonus.

We’ll need storage soon..heh. I’ve also mopped the bathroom twice (I like it clean), we’ve vacuumed like mad today (and upset downstairs who put their music on full blast, diddums), and yesterday I took the Astra to have the tyre repaired.

£12 later, I have a “mushroom patch” repair that looks good, and works well. It seems the tyre had a staple in it. It’s been there a while, as the handbook has it noted as examined 3 times in 2008. Heyho.

I’ve removed and realigned the back wiper as it was cutting into the window seal, I’ve boiled the wiper rubber and treated it, and now it should be good as new. Yes, I’m that tight.

I did the front wipers today, as it seems Astras are quite well known for the linkages siezing up. So off came the wipers, arms, scuttle panel and so on, and in I went with an old toothbrush and a tub of bearing grease. Bish bosh, job done. All greased up well and truly, and moving SO much better. I think I’ll do it yearly.

All in all, not bad.

In between working and sleeping, there’s the cleaning, cooking, washing and car to sort and livestock to feed. Dear me. I found time to tweak the site mind..I’ve been doing a WP one for work and I’m now VERY familiar with wordpress, themes, plugins, includes and so on.

Tiredness apart, I’m still fighting the car. I have a tyre with a slow puncture, and I’m SO glad I bought the diagnostic and reference kit, as I’ve had to use it to clear a few faults. The thermostat is working perfectly, the timing belt is good, the new water pump is also running in nicely. I’ve found out my 2000 X plate car is in fact an April 2001 car (ECU date), I know a hell of a lot about its data flows and sensor interactions, and that EGR valve fault has been sorted I think. I had to put the valve in a vice and use a pair of stilsons on it, then a hammer, a blowtorch, some carb cleaner, some WD40 and some threats, plus a 12v benchpack, but I seem to have revived it. I’ve blanked it on the engine with a plate, and just bolted it off to the side with the plug in.the engine seems happy enough. We’ll see tomorrow.

What else do I need to do..fix this tyre, get a front one replaced or swapped for the spare, new bulb in the boot light, touch in a few scratches, get some new wipers, get the wheelnuts airgunned off and retightened by hand (I HATE it when they’re that tight they don’t come off in an emergency), and for preference strip and grease up the wiper linkage, as it looks quite dry and judders a bit. All minor things.

One oddity is that on paper this Astra-G is a heavier car than the Astra-F..yet on the F I had a 2 week tank..same tank on the G, now a 3 week tank!

I’ve reprogrammed the dash panel as well to turn off the 20000 mile servicing..damn silly. I’ve set it to every 12 months.

Car apart, the cats are fine if a little odd at the moment..Jems still hurling every day..it’s all fairly normal here..heh.