Moop

So, another week of nights approaches, and we're trying to get a car ready to go on holiday. The minor's exhaust is fouling the suspension, which should be fairly easily fixed. Rebecca is the most likely candidate; only the noisy gearbox and worn diff and suspension being a problem. Jejy's right out. Vixy's heading that way too. In fact, Vixy is looking like she might end up being a parts car for Jejy. In so far as I might pinch the engine, and possibly the seats.

Jejy then gets all new hoses, all new front brakes, new shoes, and a 21k mile engine. Vixy gets a worn out 79k mile engine and shipped off to a new home, keeping her new brake shoes and brake cylinders.

In other news I forked out for a new charger for the batteries. Years ago when I bought some Uniross rechargable NiMHs I went for the nicer charger that they had. It did NiCds and NiMHs and all seemed well, until, obviously, I looked deeper into the 'my batteries seem to die awfully quickly). It turns out it can't deal with more than 2,000mAh batteries. It's timer, not ΔV based, which means it's never, ever charged the batteries properly. The new charger (VapexTech, had a good review, somewhere) is ΔV based (although it has an over-time shut-off), sports specs for 2900mAh batteries (my highest capacity ones say 3,000mAH but probably aren't after having never been charged properly), and came with 4 shiny new 2,900mAH batteries. Hopefully the holiday snaps should be snappable.

Also, in the name of longevity it runs on anywhere from 100-250V at anything from 50-60Hz. Woot for portability.

Now, I'm gonna go shower and get working on the DAF. I need to get the rear brake drum off, because there is, what looks like a leak. Impressive, I feel, since when I tried to bleed it no fluid came out. A whole and proper WTF moment.

Anyhow. Shower. Car*.

* We were meant to be going protesting today. Can't though, 'cos we need transport. Granted we don't need transport more than we need to be able to breathe, but it's all a matter of timing :-/

Moving around a lot without going forward

So after 5 hours of work on the DAF (Vixy) she's in exactly the same state as she was before, only now the brake fluid instead of looking like this:



Looks more like brake fluid. That there is brakefluid with added flecks of crap. I suspect it's disintegrating rubber from the insides of the tubes. Not teh internet's tubes, but the brake hoses. The flexible bits. They mostly look fine from the outside, after much footling, one of them looks 'iffy'. Plan is to whip one front and one rear off and see how much my local Allparts want for a set. This really is the last-and-final thing though.

I footled with the minor - the 'safety' on the passenger door is now working again, and I think that the exhaust probably isn't fouling the suspension any more - but it's lowest point remains ridiculously low and I can't see any way of making it higher... anyway. Bed beckons.