What "man jobs" have you done today?

Chris Wilson said:
Well, it was a Sunday job really. Been busy since.


After having my brand new power take off generator (PTO) arrive smashed after the couriers dropped it off a fork lift truck, I was promised it would be rebuilt as new and the suppliers had all the bits to facilitate that in stock. A few days later the story had changed to "Uneconomic to repair, we will supply a new unit". But they didn't have any new ones until the New Year and probably well beyond.

So, I changed tack and bought a self powered (3.3 litre N/A Perkins diesel) gennie in a silenced enclosure. Of course, I chose a day when the weather changed for the worst and in Warwickshire the snow came down with a vengeance and my poor old Volvo estate cried enough of 1.25 tons on a big trailer, on an icy A road incline. This despite having gone onto the RH side of the road where descending traffic had made some attempt to leave some clear ruts. Fearing the worst I tried the old trick of using the handbrake to effect a crude limited slip differential. The car and trailer moved upwards a BIT. I then took the final step of dropping the rear tyre pressures to about near flat, and the ensemble made it, desperately slowly, steam coming from the back tyres, to the top of the damned hill.

Found a garage, paid an extortionate amount for an asthmatic slot machine to slowly blow the rear tyres back up, and just cleared the M54 back to Whitchurch before it was shut due to impassible snow. Got home and there had been not a flake of snow all day there!

Then my little vintage MF 35 tractor's front loader took one look at the gennie and said "Nah, sod off, you gotta be kidding me", so enrolled the farmer up the road to unload it and get it into the back workshop with a proper bit of serious kit.

The catch is the engine has a blown head gasket, and maybe more... But it was cheapy cheap and otherwise near mint condition. So that's my Christmas holiday sorted, stripping and examing and measuring it, and it's also my excuse to avoid the relatives, (an added bonus ;)). I REALLY thought I was going to be stuck in Warwickshire for the night...

on-trailer1.jpg





on-trailer2.jpg
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What is it for?

Also, are those your cars? :o
 
Chris Wilson said:
Well, it was a Sunday job really. Been busy since.


After having my brand new power take off generator (PTO) arrive smashed after the couriers dropped it off a fork lift truck, I was promised it would be rebuilt as new and the suppliers had all the bits to facilitate that in stock. A few days later the story had changed to "Uneconomic to repair, we will supply a new unit". But they didn't have any new ones until the New Year and probably well beyond.

So, I changed tack and bought a self powered (3.3 litre N/A Perkins diesel) gennie in a silenced enclosure. Of course, I chose a day when the weather changed for the worst and in Warwickshire the snow came down with a vengeance and my poor old Volvo estate cried enough of 1.25 tons on a big trailer, on an icy A road incline. This despite having gone onto the RH side of the road where descending traffic had made some attempt to leave some clear ruts. Fearing the worst I tried the old trick of using the handbrake to effect a crude limited slip differential. The car and trailer moved upwards a BIT. I then took the final step of dropping the rear tyre pressures to about near flat, and the ensemble made it, desperately slowly, steam coming from the back tyres, to the top of the damned hill.

Found a garage, paid an extortionate amount for an asthmatic slot machine to slowly blow the rear tyres back up, and just cleared the M54 back to Whitchurch before it was shut due to impassible snow. Got home and there had been not a flake of snow all day there!

Then my little vintage MF 35 tractor's front loader took one look at the gennie and said "Nah, sod off, you gotta be kidding me", so enrolled the farmer up the road to unload it and get it into the back workshop with a proper bit of serious kit.

The catch is the engine has a blown head gasket, and maybe more... But it was cheapy cheap and otherwise near mint condition. So that's my Christmas holiday sorted, stripping and examing and measuring it, and it's also my excuse to avoid the relatives, (an added bonus ;)). I REALLY thought I was going to be stuck in Warwickshire for the night...

on-trailer1.jpg





on-trailer2.jpg
Click to expand...
How much are you powering with a generator of that size?
 
It's about 21KW so will run the house and workshop without breaking a sweat, basically the same as the damaged in transit tractor PTO one, but self contained and quieter. If you add up all the electrical stuff modern lifestyles tend to accept as "the norm", it's quite frightening, and we have no power showers, no electric central heating and no array of gizmos like huge TV's.

If you look inside the so called sound proof, but really sound attenuating box, it's pretty empty :) I decided that having worked bloody hard most of my life I am not going to spend the rest of my time with a torch and candle, wondering when the power might come back on when a power cut occurs. Some folk have two holidays or more a year, I haven't had a single one in thirty five years, so I am having a big generator <LOL>
 
Chris Wilson said:
It's about 21KW so will run the house and workshop without breaking a sweat, basically the same as the damaged in transit tractor PTO one, but self contained and quieter. If you add up all the electrical stuff modern lifestyles tend to accept as "the norm", it's quite frightening, and we have no power showers, no electric central heating and no array of gizmos like huge TV's.

If you look inside the so called sound proof, but really sound attenuating box, it's pretty empty :) I decided that having worked bloody hard most of my life I am not going to spend the rest of my time with a torch and candle, wondering when the power might come back on when a power cut occurs. Some folk have two holidays or more a year, I haven't had a single one in thirty five years, so I am having a big generator <LOL>
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Why haven't you had a holiday in 35 years? Having a break might make you less grumpy.
 
Chris Wilson said:
Making electrickery! :)

Err, most are, yes, don't you bloody start, bad enough with `er indoors. I like Volvos... :)
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Yeah yeah yeah Volvo this Volvo that, but don't try and divert our attention away from the imported Silver 1995 Toyota Supra MK4 RZ twin turbo sitting there looking soooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice, even if it is just a tease of that rear end :cry::cry::cry:
 
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aVdub said:
Yeah yeah yeah Volvo this Volvo that, but don't try and divert our attention away from the imported Silver 1995 Toyota Supra MK4 RZ twin turbo sitting there looking soooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice, even if it is just a tease of that rear end :cry::cry::cry:
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There's usually three or four of them here, I do a lot of them, and Skylines, there's two of those here at the moment, plus an RX7 and a 9800 mile Merc SL55 AMG. But I still like my old RWD Volvo's ;) Road cars don't really do much for me, my real love is race cars.
 
Chris Wilson said:
There's usually three or four of them here, I do a lot of them, and Skylines, there's two of those here at the moment, plus an RX7 and a 9800 mile Merc SL55 AMG. But I still like my old RWD Volvo's ;) Road cars don't really do much for me, my real love is race cars.
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Had the pleasure of a wild off road play in a Carlos Saints Celica in the 1990's and started my car years on Toyota :)

There is a big Jap importer and tuners that do things to these cars locally that are insane.

We were told to not try and start RX7's if they didn't start on the second crank :cry::cry: and only good for 40,000 miles.

Have got a soft spot for the SL55 AMG though....That sound...
 
dirtychinchilla said:
I really want one as well. I'm just worried that the floors and ceilings won't be level and it'll cause other issues!
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Might just be unlucky but my experience of all the houses I've lived and done jobs in with family/friends, is that hardly anything is level/straight! :) So yeah it might highlight what you already thought and didn't want confirming lol.
Those oscillating saws are pretty sick though. I've even seen attachments where the entire "blade" is in the shape of like a light switch, and you literally just push it onto the wall, but like a cookie cutter and it just sinks into your plasterboard and you pull out the shape! Completely unnecessary yeah....but cool.
 
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Chris Wilson said:
There's usually three or four of them here, I do a lot of them, and Skylines, there's two of those here at the moment, plus an RX7 and a 9800 mile Merc SL55 AMG. But I still like my old RWD Volvo's ;) Road cars don't really do much for me, my real love is race cars.
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This doesn't explain why you've not had a holiday.
 
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Chris
Are you going to wire it in permanent so if you do have a power cut it starts automatically.

Lad at work bought one of works backup gennys but didn't wire it in -His wife paged him one day saying it kept stopping -Did you switch off incoming mains - She was only trying to power the whole of Oakengates in Telford. :)
 
sigma said:
This doesn't explain why you've not had a holiday.
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Ok let me break down facts so you can draw your own conclusion:

* Dude lives in a gated farm
* Dude has several old Volvos
* Dude has many expensive Japanese cars
* Dude requires a MASSIVE gennie 'in case of power cuts'
* Dude cannot leave premises (even skipping holidays for 35 years)

I wager drug lord
 
jaybee said:
Might just be unlucky but my experience of all the houses I've lived and done jobs in with family/friends, is that hardly anything is level/straight! :) So yeah it might highlight what you already thought and didn't want confirming lol.
Those oscillating saws are pretty sick though. I've even seen attachments where the entire "blade" is in the shape of like a light switch, and you literally just push it onto the wall, but like a cookie cutter and it just sinks into your plasterboard and you pull out the shape! Completely unnecessary yeah....but cool.
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Not at all unnecessary when you've got 15 of them to do! I bought the same bit of kit for solid walls. Whack it in an SDS drill, bosh out your holes, no horrible angle grinder faff :)
 
dLockers said:
Ok let me break down facts so you can draw your own conclusion:

* Dude lives in a gated farm
* Dude has several old Volvos
* Dude has many expensive Japanese cars
* Dude requires a MASSIVE gennie 'in case of power cuts'
* Dude cannot leave premises (even skipping holidays for 35 years)

I wager drug lord
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or a farmer with a sideline in cars
 
Welshman said:
or a farmer with a sideline in cars
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I have four highland cattle, all over sixteen years old, no crops and no interest in farming, too much like hard cold work <LOL>. Most of the cars are customers, I hate druggies and am so content here I don't really miss holidays, I went on plenty when I was younger :) No, my work is in the motor trade. My road cars are usually bought for less than £1500 these days, although despite my old man's advice I went a bit silly on them when younger. That's out of my system now, I should have listened to him...

My "proper" cars are on slicks with a LOT of downforce ;)
 
dLockers said:
But why!!! And can you adopt me?
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I'd make a terrible father! :)

Why what? Why am I not into road cars? Too much time spent working on other people's fancy cars, I know what money pits they are, and would rather be the pit than the one filling it. Not much pleasure in driving on the road these days, too likely to lose the old licence with fast cars, and when you get into proper race stuff even the road car exotica is a bit, well, boring. If you can't frighten yourself witless it's not really quick :)
 
sigma said:
Why haven't you had a holiday in 35 years? Having a break might make you less grumpy.
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he may have been self employed i never had a holiday in 30 years ,some folk are like that. doh should have read further:)

and yes tbh im now of the age where a car is really just a box with 4 wheels that gets from a to b had too much time around and owning and working on expensive stuff, .
 
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