We are a 2 Dremel* Household

[pyoor_excuse]

Okay, so one of the Dremels is around 4,000 miles from the house, which is why we have another, second dremeloid*. This is for the sake of one bolt. But when it stops raining and I have some time, that bolt is mine! And once that's done we can move on to swearing at the clutch.

Also, repairing the inlet manifold is another of the exciting tasks on the list (because it's got a crack the size of the Grand Canyon in it**, and it's only a small car). For the uninitiated (who care) the inlet manifold is where the evil petrol(gas) which has been mixed with air in a careful stoichiometric ratio in the carburetor is sucked through to get to the cylinders before being ignited into a raging and rapidly expanding fireball by the spark plugs. (Suck Squeeze Bang Blow). Except in Jejy that careful mix is screwed by the cunning process of sucking in vast quantites of air through a great huge gap in the manifold. This we shall initially fix using the highly technical approach of slopping some chemical metal on it. Apparently that should be sufficient. If it's not then it's off to the welder for some aluminium alloy welding.

At any rate, progress shall be being made shortly. As soon as it's dry (because it's been both wet and windy today). On the good news front (there's always got to be something good) - we should hopefully have the garage, assuming the rentees of the house on the corner are happy to have someone else using the garage. It needs major structural reno's and for the sake of six months it'd hardly be worth it, but it's rent free garage space, so a couple (well at least 4) joists is definately worth it.

As a side point, how aweome is my beloved, she already owns a dremel. She is such a geek *grin*.

* A Skil 1415, I think, off the top of my head. Looks like a Dremel tho'
** I just watched the first episode of 'The Wire', having found it's been wildly critically acclaimed and I'd never heard of it, I had to find out what it was. The result of this is that I had to resist writing something along the lines of 'more crack than Baltimore'.

Comments

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

In my experience the chemical metal should be able to cope with the petrol and heat. Fenchurch has survived over 20,000 miles with the stuff sealing a hole in the inlet manifold right next to the exhaust manifold. I broke through with the hacksaw when I sawed the one-piece manifold into two pieces - a temporary bodge that is working too well to bother fixing properly. Any idea what caused it to crack? If it's flexing somehow then the chemical metal might not be strong enough to hold the crack together.

[pyoor_excuse]

Apparently it's a mixture of the vibration (it's only a 2 cylinder engine; although it's horizontally opposed so shouldn't be too bad), and the fact that it's a two-metal component. One person said take it to a welder, the other person said 'get some chemical metal'*, the latter one is cheaper :)


* Which is what he'd done, and worked for him.