CitroJim's AX, C3 Picasso, Cycling and Running Tales

[CitroJim]

to all of that Matt!!

[CitroJim]

Today, after baking a loaf of bread, baking a cake and brewing up a rather lively curry, I completed work on freeing off Bluebell's track rod ends ahead of checking/setting her tracking. The LH inner was well seized...

All good now

Earlier, I spoke of the incorrect taper profile on a new pattern part track rod end and how it did not 'sit' right on the strut steering arm and was the very devil to remove...

Here's a photo of the genuine article (on the left) and the pattern part... It's easy to see the difference. I confirmed it my taking measurements with a vernier caliper.

The pattern part is bootless as this was used to reboot the original track rod end...

Then Mick and I enjoyed a most enjoyable chatty lunch in a favourite local hostelry which, on first sight, looks a bit of a dive... It's scruffy, in a less than salubrious area of MK, some clientele may look a bit dodgy and the whole place needs a bit of TLC. The staff, though, are lovely and the food above reproach. It just goes to show that one must never judge such establishments on first impressions...

Plus for Mick, they have Guinness Zero!

[MattBLancs]

Are they differing angles of taper Jim? (Look similar on the photo to my tired eyes!)

Just if same angle, they should be interchangeable - so long as the nut does not bottom out on its thread ahead of the taper seating of course!
Just thinking aloud really, if they are different angles it's pretty incredible they got it soooooo wrong!?

[myglaren]

Today, after baking a loaf of bread, baking a cake...

Now there's a thought!
I could do that instead of going to the shop for bread.
If only I had a cow in the garden. And perhaps a chicken.

[mickthemaverick]

Be careful Steve, on a foggy day you may end up with a minute steak and a blooming great egg!!

[myglaren]

I did bake a loaf, first and only one, when Covid was rife. Had some well out of date flour and yeast (several years out of date). Wasn't too bad.
Bought fresh flour, yeast and loaf tins. Found the loaf tins while digging in the oven a few weeks ago, long forgotten and unused.

[CitroJim]

Are they differing angles of taper Jim? (Look similar on the photo to my tired eyes!)

Yes, slightly differing angles of taper Matt and the taper is also too long... The genuine article has a taper that then goes parallel at the top whereas this pattern one doesn't so the nett effect is that it does not properly fit the mating taper in the strut steering arm. As they say, it only fits where it touches...

I'd say most people wouldn't even notice and it does do the job but for me, things on steering, braking and suspension has to be right.

Be careful Steve, on a foggy day you may end up with a minute steak and a blooming great egg!!

And that might be a mis-steak

I did bake a loaf, first and only one, when Covid was rife. Had some well out of date flour and yeast (several years out of date). Wasn't too bad.
Bought fresh flour, yeast and loaf tins. Found the loaf tins while digging in the oven a few weeks ago, long forgotten and unused.

I love baking my own Steve, and to my tastes, it beats any shop-bought. It takes a while and needs a bit of practice and 'feel' to be 100% consistent but well worth it. Time-wise, it take around four hours but most of that is waiting on the dough to prove and then rise. You can be doing other things whilst that happens.

Against that, it likely costs a lot more than a supermarket 'Chorleywood Special' when given the cost of running the oven although I try to combine it with the baking of a batch of scones, flapjacks or a cake and thus make best use of the oven being hot.

The big upside for me is that I know exactly what goes into my bread and I know it has no potentially worrisome additives. And the taste and texture is sublime

[NewcastleFalcon]

You have made it to word/phrase of the day again with your colourful language Jim

viewtopic.php?p=819819#p819819

Neil

[myglaren]

I love baking my own Steve, and to my tastes, it beats any shop-bought. It takes a while and needs a bit of practice and 'feel' to be 100% consistent but well worth it. Time-wise, it take around four hours but most of that is waiting on the dough to prove and then rise. You can be doing other things whilst that happens.

My late wife always baked our own bread, cakes and biscuits and cooked everything from raw ingredients, especially all the baby food for the five kids, she wouldn't entertain buying over the counter baby food, partly fro the contents and partly as there had been some scares with poison being added in the shops/supermarkets and broken glass being found in some jars of, IIRC, Cow & Gate baby food.
All the meat was bought as whole lambs, half pigs and 1/4 beasts (cows). that she then butchered and froze.
Much more economical than buying a bit at a time.

[mickthemaverick]

I have to agree about both the quality and the economics of that plan Steve, unfortunately we didn't have a freezer until our kids had passed the baby food stage and even then a relatively small one which couldn't accommodate lumps of animal. So we used to buy the meat from our local butcher, remember them?, in larger pieces as you suggest and then share it between 4 local neighbours, all of whom had similar small freezers to us. Obviously the families took it in turns to buy the meat on a 4 week rota. I had nothing to do with the whole process as it was devised and operated by my Mother originally and then adopted by the ex wife when we bought my parent's house following them inheriting a bungalow nearby!

[myglaren]

One of the first things she wanted when we moved to England was a gas cooker with an 'S' setting, she cooked lots of things overnight, and two large freezers, one a chest freezer.
She had it all worked out.

[CitroJim]

You have made it to word/phrase of the day again with your colourful language Jim

viewtopic.php?p=819819#p819819

Neil

I'm highly honoured Neil

My late wife always baked our own bread, cakes and biscuits and cooked everything from raw ingredients

I cook virtually everything I eat from scratch Steve, About the only exceptions are bars of chocolate and some particular Nairn oatmeal biscuits I rather like...

The only times I don't eat my own fully home-cooked food is when I eat out... Twice this week, yesterday and again today when Robyn, Autumn and I enjoyed lunch at a local petting farm, complete with play park and a garden centre

There, unusually for me, I rather fell in love with the alpacas, and the goats. I have a bit of a connection and bond with goats as I was brought up on goat's milk as a baby; being unable to have cow's milk due to eczema. I can just remember our small flock of goats...

Autumn loved the rabbits and guinea-pigs but and was terrified by the rather loud bantam cockerel! Later it all came good when she helped collect the eggs from the big flock of chickens...

Then, she enjoyed a track-day in a hire-car

And taught me how to drive a tractor

Later, when I got home I had some NOS AX air filters courtesy of eBay waiting for me. They're fine although they have one problem; they reek of fish Goodness knows where they've been. Maybe they fell off the back of a trawler...

Also some (hopefully) more suitable rectifier diodes for Alasdair's battery charger. I'll build them into a bridge and test it shortly...

Spot the error on the envelope - Paggers appears to have moved a few miles to the right

Something else arrived; that's for another topic at another time

[myglaren]

Wasn't aware of the goat's milk thing for Eczema. Eldest daughter has bad Eczema and Asthma and it may have benefited her. She's almost fifty so perhaps a bit late now.

[Zelandeth]

The terrifying thing for me is that I was driving around on the farm next door to us on a tractor not all too dissimilar to that one (albeit a bit older I think) by the time I was physically tall enough to push the clutch...and largely unsupervised once I'd demonstrated I knew what I was doing and wasn't an idiot.

Pretty sure I'd been out on the (similarly ancient) combine at least once before I got to secondary school. That I remember being challenging in that there was roughly 3/4 of a turn of slack in the steering and only one brake kinda-sorta worked. 4mph could feel incredibly fast on occasion.

That's just how things were in the back end of nowhere in Aberdeenshire in the early/mid 90s...different world now I'm sure!

[CitroJim]

That's just how things were in the back end of nowhere in Aberdeenshire in the early/mid 90s...different world now I'm sure!

Yes, a very different one Zel... Looking back, it's amazing any of us ever survived our childhood or made it to adulthood...

Got a good bit done today and started off with those misaddressed diodes and built a new bridge rectifier for the old battery charger Alasdair rescued from the last resting place of his Sinker...

Here it is fitted...

I used all the old rectifier terminals and the rigidity of the wiring makes any further bridge support unnecessary...

On test, the charger now works a treat. I tested it initially into a parallel H4 headlamp bulb and then gave my workshop jump-start battery a maintenance charge.

It's very scruffy, looks like a wreck, it still has peeling paint but that all belies a very functional device

This is the old rectifier:

Whilst the charger was on test, I checked and adjusted Bluebell's tracking using a tape measure. I was able to take advantage of the fact the front tyres are a pair and have deep longitudinal parallel grooves that would act as datums. I held one end of the tape in a groove with a lump of Blue-Tak, took a measurement front and back, made adjustments, re-measured and repeated until I was happy.

Then everything went back together with a nice new filter in the airbox and all is good

The next job is now on the bench - the 'group spare' AX alternator... It's not giving much output... With any luck, it might just be brushes... And with three AXs to keep on the road, it's good to have a spare on the shelf

Also, on the list is to have Bluebell's door cards off to give her electric window mechanisms some maintenance and to see if I can make her passenger side central locking work. It never has but then I've never looked closely at the problem.

Then it'll be on to seeing if I can teach the rear wiper how to park properly

I saw a rather rusty AX GT on an F-plate with a cracked dash being offered for sale on Facebook this afternoon... I spent a good few milliseconds being interested until I saw the asking price - not far off £5,000 I then suddenly lost all interest. It did not help it was a silver one