I’ve had two go’s at our quad tyre with the local (usually brilliant) tyre company and it’s started with a slow puncture again. So I’m going to have a go myself with the kit I got for my military truck
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What's made you grumpy today?
The good news is...it's nowhere near the walls and it's holding enough air to blow it up and drive it back.
It's now back...for attempt 2..which at least was free.
It's now back...for attempt 2..which at least was free.
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The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Well is certainly looks like a very good job, and if its one of 6 fittings its not mission critical in its self. You are clearly moderately well equipped... Ship building anyone?I appreciate your concern, but it's welded. It looks better than the pic. Frickin' Auto flash.
It wasn't as bad a job as I thought it would be. Still, messy and overhead welding isn't my favorite position.
There are six points of attachment between the sidecar and the bike. I had four disconnected when this one let go. I'm thinking that this one ball stud had a small crack due to binding and I finished it by tilting the bike. I'm going to take this slow and easy for the foreseeable future but I think it will be fine.
My welders. L to R: Small generic inverter stick welder, Eastwood Tig 200-TIG and stick welder, almost invisible CH plasma cutter, Lincoln Weldpack 100 mig/gasless. Oxy set up is on the other side of the shop.
The Lincoln can handle up to 5/16" steel at 110 VAC using .35" flux-core wire, which is just about perfect for this job. It will only handle 14 ga steel using C25 and .30" solid wire. The little generic stick welder would have choked at this and I would have sworn at the 1/16" rods starting everywhere but where I wanted them to. I didn't have enough gas to do TIG and no filler wire. The big stick would have worked great but I prefer 7018 rod and only had a couple on hand.
I did consider drilling, tapping, and welding but wasn't sure that I could drill a straight enough hole by hand.
You story had brought to mind Mrs Panda Nuts reason for being. When I was 19 we were at uni. I was mending the car in the residence car park. Job completed, I was just putting a wheel on when it fell off the jack trapping my left hand on top of the wheel. The edge of the wheel arch crashed onto my watch and cut the steel strap in half!. Fortunately 'Mrs Panda Nut to be' was nearby and heard my squealing. She ambled up and lifted the back of the car dead weight and freed my trapped arm. I think she decided at that point that I was suitable for her to wed. I think it had something to do with having demonstrated her arm strength was much greater than mine so I ought to know my place. She has been pretty handy to have around ever since. If shees see this distorted version of events, she will certainly kick me. The back end of a Triumph Herald is a fair weight though and I was very stuck..
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As an apprentice hedge cutting time was the worst for puncture repairs on tractor and trailers etc, with tubes in, the thorns from the hedge cutting would gradually work their way in and puncture the tube so you had to make sure you got every bit of the thorn out of the tyre or it would puncture the tube again.
Flail ‘mowing’ hedges is bloody lazy and causes many punctures…next door does it whereas we copice and foldAs an apprentice hedge cutting time was the worst for puncture repairs on tractor and trailers etc, with tubes in, the thorns from the hedge cutting would gradually work their way in and puncture the tube so you had to make sure you got every bit of the thorn out of the tyre or it would puncture the tube again.
From memory this was a finger mower angled up the side of the tractors, as an apprentice we had several farms nearby, I forgot the other pleasure was doing the punctures on the muck spreaders also.
Six point fixings for the sidecar. Wow! From memory my old Matchless 600 only had three including the swan neck at the front and that was for a double adult side car, which once I removed all the woodwork used to spend a lot of it's time in the air when I was overtaking cars as a mad 16 year old.My welders. L to R: Small generic inverter stick welder, Eastwood Tig 200-TIG and stick welder, almost invisible CH plasma cutter, Lincoln Weldpack 100 mig/gasless. Oxy set up is on the other side of the shop.
The Lincoln can handle up to 5/16" steel at 110 VAC using .35" flux-core wire, which is just about perfect for this job. It will only handle 14 ga steel using C25 and .30" solid wire. The little generic stick welder would have choked at this and I would have sworn at the 1/16" rods starting everywhere but where I wanted them to. I didn't have enough gas to do TIG and no filler wire. The big stick would have worked great but I prefer 7018 rod and only had a couple on hand.
I did consider drilling, tapping, and welding but wasn't sure that I could drill a straight enough hole by hand.
I like the Lincoln welders, I have an ex plant hire Miller Maxstar 200DX DC Tig which I got for £80 at auction as it was on three phase 415volt 32amp socket which doesn't appeal to everyone, though not a problem for me as I have a 10Hp Rotary Phase Convertor so could plug it straight in, I was even more impressed when I downloaded the manual and found it had AutoVoltage Sensing which meant I could fit a 240volt 32amp plug to it and apparently it can also run on 110volt so very versatile.
Another new carer today, and not paid attention to the instructions, or not been trained properly. Plus, also careless.
A damp towel left on a pile of clothes.
Commode lid left on the floor, instead of on the commode.
Taken my used breakfast spoon from my used bowl next to the sink, but used a clean bowl for partner's breakfast. But found a clean teaspoon in the drawer to make the tea. Clean larger spoons are next to the teaspoons.
Whilst out shopping, carer did the lunchtime visit, and felt the need to wash the few dishes and cutlery, using hand soap. Then washed down some worksurfaces, using the sponge used for washing up. Also rearranged everything on the work surface, kettle, teapot, etc., all moved around. Standard instruction is to NOT wash up. Has also partly cleaned the sink, again, using handsoap.
It drives me nuts. It is not their home, it is mine. They should respect that, and not interfere. Not helpful.
A damp towel left on a pile of clothes.
Commode lid left on the floor, instead of on the commode.
Taken my used breakfast spoon from my used bowl next to the sink, but used a clean bowl for partner's breakfast. But found a clean teaspoon in the drawer to make the tea. Clean larger spoons are next to the teaspoons.
Whilst out shopping, carer did the lunchtime visit, and felt the need to wash the few dishes and cutlery, using hand soap. Then washed down some worksurfaces, using the sponge used for washing up. Also rearranged everything on the work surface, kettle, teapot, etc., all moved around. Standard instruction is to NOT wash up. Has also partly cleaned the sink, again, using handsoap.
It drives me nuts. It is not their home, it is mine. They should respect that, and not interfere. Not helpful.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I am sorry to hear of the problems, I went through the same until we finally found someone steady. I spent a lot of time with the carers manager and in the end got to know the boss woman quite well.. It is very frustrating indeed> try to look at anything that works is my only tip. We found the district nurse helped. She gave the care firm a trmendous kick up the abckside one day and that made a big difference. I think she said if there lack of care caused a health issue she could have their license suspended, She must have threatened to report them somewhere. It seems nearly incomprehensible that some of the people they employ are so thick and uninformed about basics. Nothing you have mentioned is high tech or difficult. Keep bearing up!
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
The part thats described as the big breather hose. £64!!!!!!!!!! For 40cm of 10mm rubber pipe.
You ought to be able to but 1/2 of a mile of small bore rubber pipe for that. It is an outrage.
You ought to be able to but 1/2 of a mile of small bore rubber pipe for that. It is an outrage.
When we had an 07 Panda Active,
I bought a few replacement parts and the short 'Breather' hose was also very expensive
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
We are having the A47 dualled and work has started. (Good thing????) Suspiciously during this weeks rain the A47 flooded and was blocked. The first time in 35 years I have lived here. This is 250 yards from one of the new highway construction 'dens' built 3m above the A47 very near by. This closure diverted ALL east / west traffic down the back roads which have been irreperably altered from being a 10ft or 12ft carriageway to a 30ft to 45ft cariage way. This was rural Norfolk. In 50 years of motoring I have never seen anything even remotely resembling the carnage. This road widening resulted from the total destruction of ditches, verges footway and cycleway along some 4 miles of minor road, by the traffic badly diverted along unsuitable roads and totally unsupervised. You can no longer tell where the road was and have to gues +/- 10 yards in places,! The Colton back road will never ever be the same again. The damage is irreparable, and the village of Colton will take years to make any sort of recovery. It resembles the Somme.
You won't believe it until I post the photos and then you will share astonishment. A 4x4 is the only way through there today. My daughter was caught in the mele on her way home from work on Friday. 3.5 Hours to do a 25 minute trip. Her words, "that road is now so dangerous there will be an accident there with risk to life". Its now known as the road of doom. I shall get photos but dont have any of before. There were indeed 5 serious accidents resulting on this and other adjacent roads causing them to be blocked as well. The highways and police were - lets be very generous here - slow doing anything let alone anything useful.
I suspect run-off from the contractors den blocked the drains on a new(ish) roundabut and caused water to be sent down the road instead of away in the drains. It filling up a dip in the road. This dip was a known puddling point due to run off from a side road that flooded due to water running off fields and down the hill to the A47. The super brains involved have just completed works on this minor road on both sides where is intersects the A47. They have created a dam and a lake with normal rain levels. They then compounded the situation by blocking off the other side and kerbing the bottom so all the water known to run away there also stasy on the A47, instead of spreading out on the wide verge, running away or across the main road to the adjacent small or into the ditch. Net result, ABSOLUTE mayhem and its evident the damage caused will not be repairable its so great. Words fail me at the lunacy of the idiots involved in this. ANYONE and by that I mean absolutley EVERYONE that lives near here or uses the A47 at this point knows this is a flooding point but never before to this extent. I was only saying to my other hald the day before the rain that there has been a total absence of any ditch work locally and it would be a problem if we had much rain. We always have to wait for a flood before tehy shift themselves.... Why? Lack of maintenance is a disgrace. Although it rained a lot here its is still exceptionally dry here and with fields cultivated and a lot of work by local farmers on their ditches and water courses the land could disperse a lot of water, even now after the heavy rain of Thursday / Friday last. This situation was engineered and self inflicted. Much as I said on the day, the floods will be gone 6 hours after the rain stops, and indeed 90% were. The land is so thirsty there is still a lot of capacity. This was avoidable.
My feelings of disgust dismay, (and pitty really) towards the parties involved in this scandle are at the top of the scale. We do not need such large scale damage inflicted on pretty localities that was predictable and avoidable. We have to ask where is the maintenance that we pay rates and taxes for.
Dont they teach the muppets that do road building that water flows down hill, not up? Clearly not as they have now dug a damned great ditch out where the A47 flooded but banked the spoil up between the road and the ditch. Next time the flood will wash all of this onto the road. Not only could a group of 4 year olds have done a more competent job so could Mickey Mouse.. If nobody loses their job over this then something is very very wrong with the management of the parties involved.
My heart goes out for the poor folk of Colton village who are now marooned in a sea of mud some 12" deep. Almost every property on the road has sustained severe damage to its curtilage. It looks like hell. Bad enough if unavoidable but this was clearly caused by stupidity and / or negligence by highways engineers.
Anyone could see that immediate one way diversions were required for each direction and local knowledge was to be involved to go round flooded back roads. I have to ask how difficult is it in such a situation for people and road signs to be deployed?? Or is this another case of budgets cut below the quick by the cretinous conservatives in their mindless moronic pursuit of endless tax cuts at the expense of any service delivery whatsoever of essential serivices. I shall get the 4x4 out tomorrow and go get the photos, but only after I have spent two hours power washing the mud off our two cars already stuffed with mud from this outrage. The A11 was also briefly blocked so a fun day was had by everyone visiting and leaving Norfolk last week. Is Norfolk becoming the backwaters of a developing 3rd world country.
You won't believe it until I post the photos and then you will share astonishment. A 4x4 is the only way through there today. My daughter was caught in the mele on her way home from work on Friday. 3.5 Hours to do a 25 minute trip. Her words, "that road is now so dangerous there will be an accident there with risk to life". Its now known as the road of doom. I shall get photos but dont have any of before. There were indeed 5 serious accidents resulting on this and other adjacent roads causing them to be blocked as well. The highways and police were - lets be very generous here - slow doing anything let alone anything useful.
I suspect run-off from the contractors den blocked the drains on a new(ish) roundabut and caused water to be sent down the road instead of away in the drains. It filling up a dip in the road. This dip was a known puddling point due to run off from a side road that flooded due to water running off fields and down the hill to the A47. The super brains involved have just completed works on this minor road on both sides where is intersects the A47. They have created a dam and a lake with normal rain levels. They then compounded the situation by blocking off the other side and kerbing the bottom so all the water known to run away there also stasy on the A47, instead of spreading out on the wide verge, running away or across the main road to the adjacent small or into the ditch. Net result, ABSOLUTE mayhem and its evident the damage caused will not be repairable its so great. Words fail me at the lunacy of the idiots involved in this. ANYONE and by that I mean absolutley EVERYONE that lives near here or uses the A47 at this point knows this is a flooding point but never before to this extent. I was only saying to my other hald the day before the rain that there has been a total absence of any ditch work locally and it would be a problem if we had much rain. We always have to wait for a flood before tehy shift themselves.... Why? Lack of maintenance is a disgrace. Although it rained a lot here its is still exceptionally dry here and with fields cultivated and a lot of work by local farmers on their ditches and water courses the land could disperse a lot of water, even now after the heavy rain of Thursday / Friday last. This situation was engineered and self inflicted. Much as I said on the day, the floods will be gone 6 hours after the rain stops, and indeed 90% were. The land is so thirsty there is still a lot of capacity. This was avoidable.
My feelings of disgust dismay, (and pitty really) towards the parties involved in this scandle are at the top of the scale. We do not need such large scale damage inflicted on pretty localities that was predictable and avoidable. We have to ask where is the maintenance that we pay rates and taxes for.
Dont they teach the muppets that do road building that water flows down hill, not up? Clearly not as they have now dug a damned great ditch out where the A47 flooded but banked the spoil up between the road and the ditch. Next time the flood will wash all of this onto the road. Not only could a group of 4 year olds have done a more competent job so could Mickey Mouse.. If nobody loses their job over this then something is very very wrong with the management of the parties involved.
My heart goes out for the poor folk of Colton village who are now marooned in a sea of mud some 12" deep. Almost every property on the road has sustained severe damage to its curtilage. It looks like hell. Bad enough if unavoidable but this was clearly caused by stupidity and / or negligence by highways engineers.
Anyone could see that immediate one way diversions were required for each direction and local knowledge was to be involved to go round flooded back roads. I have to ask how difficult is it in such a situation for people and road signs to be deployed?? Or is this another case of budgets cut below the quick by the cretinous conservatives in their mindless moronic pursuit of endless tax cuts at the expense of any service delivery whatsoever of essential serivices. I shall get the 4x4 out tomorrow and go get the photos, but only after I have spent two hours power washing the mud off our two cars already stuffed with mud from this outrage. The A11 was also briefly blocked so a fun day was had by everyone visiting and leaving Norfolk last week. Is Norfolk becoming the backwaters of a developing 3rd world country.
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The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Its par for the course with Fiat, charging silly prices for parts. The long pipe can thankfully be replaced with an ordinary length of hose while the other one is much more shaped. I must do this soon before is just falls apart. Not to self nurture your hoses!
Filled up my 500X today (1.4 petrol). Used to get around 32 mpg potterting around. Has now dropped to barely 27mpg due to having to drive in 3rd gear at 20mpg for miles and miles and miles of local Wrexham MAIN roads. If I do no long journeys then the next time I fill up I'll probably only get 20 mpg. (had fuel in tank from before the 20mph changed)
Oh how green we are!
Oh how green we are!
I also see a cunning plan / deception.
Next they will complain city emmisions and polution have increased and instead of reversing the 20mph bodged decision they will ban or charge even Euro 6 vehicles! That will kill communities and local businesses.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Pollution moitoring will be reported and petrol cars will be banned at peak times / altogether drom large swathes of the country, or from all urban areas. its wht we left the EU. So we can do our own thing.
Sadly, most of the District Nurses are problematic too. They prefer to shout at my partner, instead of putting her hearing aids in. Two days ago, one needed a new insulin pen. Insulin is stored in a fridge, she should know this, so guess where they are? From upstairs, I heard my partner say, "In the fridge, in the drawer." There's only one drawer in the fridge. Nurse opened the fridge, promptly declared there were no insulin pens, and continued to shout the question of where to find them. Stupid woman. Did she expect them to be displayed prominently, when needed only once every few weeks? I had to go downstairs, open the fridge, pull the drawer, lift the obvious box, and hand the idiot a new pen.
Usually the nurse is supposed to arrive after the carer has been. Occasionally they arrive before. So yesterday, same idiot nurse arrives first. Partner is still in bed, in a dark room, curtains closed. "Has the carer been yet?" was the first stupid question, as the carer's job is to get her out of bed, washed and dressed. Next question, "Is the carer here?". It is a lounge/diner, effectively the whole downstairs is one room, plus the kitchen, that the nurse had entered through. Where did she think the carer might be? Under the bed? Perhaps hiding in the fridge with the insulin?
On a lighter note, today seems to have gone smoothly.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Well done for NOT killing anyone.
It's been close.
The MIM(Morons In Management) decided to 'Streamline' the 'Accounts Payable' process.
We use a UK outfit called Spendesk, where we submit a pic of a receipt. It sure beats the hell out of filling out a weekly expense report, but it came with some early teething pains. The first bunch of cards issued to the field staff were debit cards, not credit cards. In the US, no hotel or rental car company will accept a debit card for payment. Secondly, it's run out of funds a couple of times. That really pissed off the field staff as we had to use our personal cards to cover hotels, meals, airfare, and rental cars, then wait to get reimbursed. A lot of folks on the other side of the world didn't realize that the US is a very big place. Chicago to LA is a 4.5 hour flight on a good day. Flying to Alaska or Hawaii is an easy 12 hour day, with like fees.
Anyway, things had smoothed out, until the MIM threw a wrench into it this week. We have certain categories for certain expenses. They changed that all around on Wednesday but never told anyone they were doing it. I had two receipts to submit yesterday and I was totally lost, so I posted the damn receipts wherever. We got an email later in the day telling us that they had moved everything around to make it more 'efficient' for the accounting staff. I got a separate email telling me I effed up and to resubmit.
Gloves came off. First, I hit Reply All on the first email with "I think the time to do these changes would have been better spent correcting the chaos that is known as the factory floor. The Field Staff is not the problem, Beaufort is the problem. Costs would drop if the Field Staff wasn't chasing warranty repairs all over the US and Mexico." Fart in church time and I don't care.
The reply to the AP person and the CFO was, "If you are going to rearrange the kitchen cabinets without telling me, don't be surprised if the box of corn flakes ends up back where I want it to be. Telling us you made the changes after the fact and expecting us to kowtow to your whims is utter bullshit."
I expect some phone calls today. Caller ID means they will be ignored.
We use a UK outfit called Spendesk, where we submit a pic of a receipt. It sure beats the hell out of filling out a weekly expense report, but it came with some early teething pains. The first bunch of cards issued to the field staff were debit cards, not credit cards. In the US, no hotel or rental car company will accept a debit card for payment. Secondly, it's run out of funds a couple of times. That really pissed off the field staff as we had to use our personal cards to cover hotels, meals, airfare, and rental cars, then wait to get reimbursed. A lot of folks on the other side of the world didn't realize that the US is a very big place. Chicago to LA is a 4.5 hour flight on a good day. Flying to Alaska or Hawaii is an easy 12 hour day, with like fees.
Anyway, things had smoothed out, until the MIM threw a wrench into it this week. We have certain categories for certain expenses. They changed that all around on Wednesday but never told anyone they were doing it. I had two receipts to submit yesterday and I was totally lost, so I posted the damn receipts wherever. We got an email later in the day telling us that they had moved everything around to make it more 'efficient' for the accounting staff. I got a separate email telling me I effed up and to resubmit.
Gloves came off. First, I hit Reply All on the first email with "I think the time to do these changes would have been better spent correcting the chaos that is known as the factory floor. The Field Staff is not the problem, Beaufort is the problem. Costs would drop if the Field Staff wasn't chasing warranty repairs all over the US and Mexico." Fart in church time and I don't care.
The reply to the AP person and the CFO was, "If you are going to rearrange the kitchen cabinets without telling me, don't be surprised if the box of corn flakes ends up back where I want it to be. Telling us you made the changes after the fact and expecting us to kowtow to your whims is utter bullshit."
I expect some phone calls today. Caller ID means they will be ignored.
