and today i have mostly been...

[steve_earwig]

No, not really The repair manual (it's for the 2.5 yank version 2AZFE but it's much the same) doesn't mention any bleed thingies and both Mika and me had a good look too. I'd post the instructions but there's an awful lot of blerb. Err, it has a reservoir and it's pressurised (ask me how I know ) but I'm not sure if that qualifies it as an expansion tank.There's no cap on the radiator, if that helps.

[steve_earwig]

And the collant level hasn't dropped since. Weird. I suppose I should really test it to make sure it's got enough antifreeze in there.

yoyoII just went for it's registration (insurance, MOT and road tax in one big expensive lump) and I discovered they've added a new tier of stupidity. Ok, I was warned sort of, I posted this after last year's:

One thing the tester did ask us was: did the running boards on the RAV come with it new or were they fitted later? Umm, I dunno, I presume it came like that. Can I prove it? How the feck am I meant to do that? Seems from next year either I'll have to prove they came with the car, er, somehow, or I could pay a fine (did someone say stealth tax?) or they come off and go in the bin. I'm not sure if Toyotter Croatia will have any records of what the car came with, it's only 10 years old so maybe, but what else am I going to have to prove? It also sports one of those useless 70's porn star moustache bull bars, will I have to prove where that came from too? What about the mud flaps, I fitted them, do I now have to take them off and bin them?

I'd say you couldn't make it up but I'm sure somewhere in Croatia there really is some useless f*cker whose job is making sh*t like this up.

Well, I asked about but nobody had a clue what I was talking about, so I just put it down to some daft idea they'd realised was too stupid to implement.

Well today during the test 2 of the testers were looking at the porno moustache and talking, I didn't like the look of it so t'wife asked, the guy said they'd have to go and check the records to see if the car had always had it fitted (btw for some reason they photograph all the vehicles they test and that's what he was going to look at). It must have been on there as we "got away with it", now it's written in the log book that it's been fitted with the bull bar and running boards SINCE THE DATE CROATIA JOINED THE EU

We asked the woman that was doing the paperwork and she just said it was some new EU directive. Ah well, I guess they can't blame it on Brexit here.

[Doggy]

Sounds like a result.
I'd keep an eye on the coolant until it gets properly boring, but then I'm paranoid.

Just marveling at how time evaporates when one is 'retired'. (Jacked the main job in last May and this is a quiet spell for retail logistics, so I haven't driven a truck in 10 days or so).

So far this week, I have removed the roomstat from one side of our hall and replaced with a new one on t'other side, thus enabling me to swap the "grotty" bit of wood with 4 coat hooks with a shiny new one sporting 6 hooks.
Took 2 days, (so far - I've still got to paint where I filled the hole in).
Doesn't feel like the pinnacle my achievements somehow.

[steve_earwig]

I don't suppose it's that important this time of year, I'll keep an eye on it though (and then forget...)

When you work full time any sort of DIY stuff is generally rushed because you know you've only got so many hours to do it in, and you can't leave it in a state because it'll be noticed. Personally I seem to go from bored silly to headless chicken all the time, I'm either scratching about to find something vaguely useful, to I don't have time to finish one job before the next one needs starting (I'll add it to the list dear ).

Hey, it doesn't matter how small the job is, it only matters that you're actually doing something.

[Bailes1992]

I recently did the timing belt & waterpump on the Saab. I used a vacuum kit to fill the system, it created a vacuum in the cooling system and then 'sucks' the coolant in from a reservoir. Before starting the engine I used a Lisle funnel that gives you a head around a foot higher than the expansion tank filled with ready-mixed coolant.

All in all it worked really well. I didn't have any air in the system at all. I didn't need the Lisle funnel at all but cooling systems scare me.

Bare in mind Steve, when you remove the bottom hose you aren't draining the block and heater matrix. The thermostat will be closed so all you are draining is the radiator. Still, better than nothing.

[steve_earwig]

The block actually has a drain, they used to be common but I think it's fairly unusual these days. But that leaves the bottom of the radiator and the matrix as you said. I dunno, I thought quite a lot came out of it but it's hard to say how much actually came out as it all sploshed out onto the ground

And I still didn't get the hygrometer to it

[Doggy]

Drain off an eggcup full and bung it in the freezer?

[steve_earwig]

The hygrometer's supposed to be quite accurate, I just need to, er, find it Egg cup might be easier though, I know where they are...

[steve_earwig]

Hygrometer found (why would it be in with the car stuff?), antifreeze tested and it end stopped at -40 (conversely it says tap water freezes at +2, so if anything it reads high) so either it's all good or the waterpump's goosed and that's all the concentrated stuff I just tipped in there

Oh, and there's also a yoghurt pot (isn't it poisonous?) of it in the freezer

[Doggy]

wrap it clingfilm? [/20-20 hindsight]

Was out pounding the highways last night with a fun trip to Stratford, (just by the Olympic park), then Bluewater. Got home at 4.30 this morning.
I feel another retirement coming on.

[steve_earwig]

fun

Yeah, it sounds like it

wrap it clingfilm? [/20-20 hindsight]

It probably wouldn't have mattered but I felt uncomfortable putting something that's probably quite toxic in something we might be eating out of (are eggs poisonous this week?) and I have loads of yoghurt pots hanging about (for seedling purposes). It didn't freeze anyway.

[Doggy]

I haz a new puter.

Invested the eyewatering sum of £52 in a 2nd hand dell OptiPlex 3010 desktop with Intel i5-3470S 2.9GHz CPU & 8GB of ram.
After trying & failing to use the usb wifi adapter from my old PC, I got a posh tp-link Archer T4U which allegedly can manage 867Mbps with a 5GHz router and USB3 port.....

and it flies, (comparatively) - 136Mbps download/ 13Mbps upload

Just trying to learn Windoze 10 now

[steve_earwig]

and it flies, (comparatively) - 136Mbps download/ 13Mbps upload

That's pretty cool, I get 7.28/4.47Mbps here, and that's paired up on the mobile phone network an' all. Bleedin' banana republic

Your specs are better than mine, I bought this pc with upgrading in mind and then it never happened, now I'm noticing a lot of slow down since I inflicted Windows 10 on it Still, my only experience of a Dell pc was completely un-upgradable, I even had to modify the case to get a new psu in it.

If you've been using Vista then I don't suppose you'll have much to get used to, it's just as awful. I can still recommend Classic Shell for it's start menu, rather than the standard junk which is completely uncustomisable unless you want a screen full of buttons. The explorer that comes with it is the same one as Vista, I found that a complete jumble so I'm trying to get used to the Windows 10 abomination instead. Umm, what else? I'm using Honeyview for looking at pictures because the photoviewer is rubbish (what was wrong with picture and fax viewer?). You may want to look into signing in with a local account, unless you don't mind Microsoft looking over you shoulder, plus turning off all the tracking rubbish, binning onedrive and edge and nuking all the useless garbage that comes pre-installed (Groove music ffs ).

[Doggy]

I has some exposure to Windows 10 - may last company laptop was similarly afflicted, but you couldn't change anything as they wouldn't give us plebs admin access until I got to be a proper justifiably needful PITA....

Still "configuring" bits, (blundering around cluelessly breaking more than I fix). I expect I'll persevere with anything that really bothers me and accept the rest.

In other news, I fixed the roof today.

We lost a few tiles off my daughter's end of the house courtesy of storm Ciara a week ago on Sunday and struggled to find anyone who could help. Our 1933 vintage Dutch clay tiles are as rare as hen's teeth hereabouts. My son tracked down a roofer who was able to make a reasonable short-term fix by filling in the hole from the missing tiles with some felt. Enough to get us through storm Dennis, (which got it's own back by ripping a few corrugated plastic sheets off my porch). Fortunately Dennis didn't have the oomph of it's predecessor which rocked my 7-ton camper van that badly I thought it was going to topple onto the house.....

My daughter found an eBay ad for the right tiles at the extortionate price of £8.50 each, (the last few I manged to get locally cost about half that 5 years or so back). Advert stated 8 available, so I took the plunge and grabbed them all...…

…….then I read the advert properly and discovered it was £8.50 per 10

What the hell, I thought - you'd have paid that last weekend to get it sorted, so might as well make sure I've got a stash for any future emergencies.

So I got up nice and early and traipsed off to a reclaimed building materials yard in Erith, (that picturesque coastal village sporting an excellent view of the QE2 bridge and attendant congestion), to secure said tiles.

"Sure you want 80, since you thought you needed half a dozen or so"?
"Yes, might as well since I've come all this way....er....if you don't mind me asking, where did you get them"?
"Oh, locally - they're dead common round here"


Then back round the M25/M11/almost finished A14, unloaded tiles and bullied the necessary 6 or 7 into place from inside her loft. (Our ancient roof has no felt, not even any nails holding the tiles in place). 3:15 pm job jobbed.

Was forced to grudgingly admit the Cistern did a sterling job of getting there and back plus lugging a boot load of clay tiles, in about 5 hours with decent economy.

Must remember to pay the Dartford crossing charge or it won't seem such a bargain.

[steve_earwig]

I presume the Dartford crossing no longer involves chucking coins in a hopper

After a few days I had to reinstall Windows 10 (there was me thinking which drive I installed the OS on no longer mattered ). When it installed it came with most of my settings, even the wallpaper, which I hadn't saved anywhere - how did that happen? Turns out MS has a record of everything, even key stokes apparently. Hmm, that'll have to go...

Sounds like, with a good reserve of roof tiles, you're ready for any eventuality. Or you could have got just enough but there's a chance the next time the wind blows you'd end up cruising Kent waiting for someone's house to fall down. The tiles are like that here, just hooked over a batten, which is fine until the hooks freeze off and then it starts raining pottery (I knew there was a reason I was parking further away from the fire house now).

Meanwhile, we have new furniture - gone is the cat & dog damaged 3 piece (well, the 3 seater is upstairs as it's a pull-out bed too), they've been replaced by 2 arm chairs and a 3 seater, all recliners (despite my protestations that the cats would end up mangled in the mechanisms). Yesterday the cupboards turned up, one upright glass jobbie and a horizontal thingy (a commode?), oak-fronted, so they look the part if nothing else. Unfortunately while I was dismantling the old stuff Sunday I managed to drop a big shelf on my foot and now I'm hobbling about sporting a big purple toe, aren't I clever? I can't even get my effing shoes on, arse