I hope to give an update in the next couple of weeks of our pre-season maintenance schedule for the camper, but that can wait until I haul it out of the shed and take some photos. We have kept the solar panel hooked up to the batteries, so they're fully charged and sitting at 14volts which is great. The camper is looking a little dusty, and I am in the process of changing the generator box for a new one to house the Coleman Hot Water system... All good fun!
In the meantime it has been a hectic few months in this household. The usual whirlwind of school and all its associated additional commitments, with a few other projects on the go, including unpacking and setting up our new home was compounded with a bit of surgery and a few weeks laid up. Ah if only there was more hours in each day!
With impeccable timing, the day I go in for surgery, the Little Helper revealed that he had perhaps got a small piece of Lego stuck up his nose. Jo ended up spending all day at hospital with him, whilst various nurses and doctors all had a go at removing the Lego. Eventually a team of three burly nurses wrapped him in a sheet and held him still whilst a doctor extracted the Lego. It was a painful way to learn that the only thing you should stick in your nose, is your elbow!
Internal Combustion Engine Model - for little mechanics (and not so little ones!)
The Little Fisherman has been showing more interest in the mechanical workings of engines of late, so when I found this model of an internal combustion engine by Haynes, I knew I had the perfect birthday present. We spent the best part of a rainy day putting it together, and were thrilled with the result.
Of course we then had to try out our skills on a real car.
Thankfully with our new house we inherited an old Commodore with a leaky rocker cover gasket... Beat Up Beast, or 'BUB' for short was sitting behind the shed. When we moved in, it didn't take long for everything not nailed down inside to be rearranged, and the drivers window to be popped out... but after charging the battery we found it started! It's only problem - apart from the obvious dents, broken lights and years off the road, was a rather prolific oil leak from the right hand side rocker cover, which dripped directly onto the exhaust manifold, producing great quantities of smoke!
If BUB was to stay, it would need to be fixed, and now I had just the helper!
After a bit of a fiddle we had the rocker cover off, and could see the rocker gear all in place. It made the lesson of the previous day all seem so much more real and practical. The best part of it all was that if we broke something, it wouldn't have been too much of a drama. We could have put it back together confident that at the very least, we wouldn't have made the leak any worse!
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| And it still works! |
The old Commodore has seen better days - but whilst it is still running it is a great resource for the boys to learn all sorts of things about cars. We managed to refit the rocker cover, and joy of joys, we had fixed the oil leak... but created a coolant leak from a hose we hadn't refitted properly. A few tweaks of a screw driver, a few minutes letting the oil burn off, and BUB was back in action!
We are lucky the new house has a bit of space, so Mum doesn't mind hanging on to BUB... for now, and I have the number of a bloke who will drag it away when we finally get to the point where we can't start it.
And then there is 'Hailey', the hail damaged Mitsubishi Mirage... but her story is for another day.
And so Spring is finally here!
After a look at the weather forecast, we picked a promising day and decided to play hookie and take the kids to the coast. The weather turned out to be glorious, and whist the water was chilly, it was very pleasant indeed to get away for the day and relax.
It almost felt like we were camping...
If only.... but it won't be long. School holidays are just around the corner and who knows where we will end up!
Cannot wait!
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