Brakes Broke

I think I have spoken of my Veg Oil powered Citroen Ax Ebay special before, bought in November 2007 for the princely sum of £125, and intended for use as my commuter car/parts chaser/runabout/banger rally car.

Well it converted well to Veg oil and is running cleanly and cheaply on both SVO (new oil) and recycled waste oil acquired from 2 cafes I frequent.

It has however soiled it's copybook. It joins a BMW 320 and a Triumph FWD as one of only three cars in probabkly fifty I have owned in the last 22 years that have disgraced themselves by having to be recovered on a breakdown truck. Most breakdowns of my various bangers have been rectified at the roadside, although a Yugo I owned twice had to be towed home, once with an exploded coil (never seen before or since) and once with a sheered flywheel location pin.

Any I digress. The Citroen, yet to acquire a nickname, had been running well. For a £125 bargain buy, needing just a CV boot and a headlamp adjuster to pass MOT after a few years standing it was performing exceptionally. Hitting roadside debris holed the radiator last month and cost me £65 for a new one, but saved a few pounds in weight, as the old one was all steel, the new one is plastic and alloy.

It let me down badly however on Sunday morning. I was already late finishing my night shift, and as I left work the handbrake resisted a little as I released it and set off, just a minor niggle i thought. About a mile and a half down the road I stopped at red traffic lights and applied the handbrake. As the lights changed to green I released the handbrake let up the clutch and rose about 9 inches on the back haunches as the car refused to budge. The nearside rear wheel had locked up solid. Suspecting a sticking brake piston I tried to reverse with similar comic effect - the car appeared to be doing press ups as it rose again on the suspension. With much clutch slipping and high revs I coaxed it, wheel locked around the corner into a car park.

A call was placed to "international rescue" otherwise known as my sister Reb, who lived less than a half mile away, and who I knew would have some tools to hand. She duly arrive in her Ford Ranger with a siezed trolley jack and a selection of useful sockets and spanners, plus a much needed large hammer. Ffteen minutes saw the trolley jack working and the car raised off the ground and wheel removed. The brake dru however resisted all attempts to free it off.

despondent, dejected and knackered after a 12 hour nightshift I gave up and called out a friendly recovery agent, who we just happen to put a lot of business through at work. I didn't expect a freebie recovery, but got one anyway, as they were running my way on a Police Recovery, so they were passing anyway - thanks Robin at Bells Truck Services.

The AX arrived home and was shunted into a corner until I finished nights.

monday afternnon I started again trying to remove the drum. I tried coaxing it gently, then using heat, cooling it, whacking it with a ruddy great hammer - nothing worked. The only solution in the end was to take a grinder to it, and cut the brake drum in half as far as I could, then split it with a cold chisel. This did the trick and revealed the extent of the problem - the friction material from one shoe had parted, then worked it's way 180 degrees around the drum until it had become very firmly affixed with the shoe in that side, locking the drum very tightly. I've seem this happen before, but never to this degree where the drum is locked cmpletely. I think it was compunded by the overall wear on the shoes, making the handbrake adjuster go overcentre as well, locking the mechanism on that side. But no warning was given, the brakes worked just fine one minute, then jammed the next.

A new brake drum came in at £42 quid. Normally I would change both sides, but given the banger status of the Citroen (by virtue of age rather than condition) and it's low mileage I measured up the opposite drum and found it had hardly any wear at all. At the risk of a minor brale imbalance I have replaced just the one drum I damaged in removal, but fitted new shoes to both sides, giving them a genorous coat of copperslip grease to ensure smooth working.

Job done, the handbrake is now much better, the spring resistance can be felt through the lever, and the brakes are fine.

Bearign caps are £3 each, although they come for a Saxo rather than the AX, with a different size hub nut. I have reused the old hub nut against advice, as the straking point is different once refiited due to wear on the bearings, so it should be fine. The alternative is to find onother nut the same size fitted to something else, and as I can't see a failure being likely why bother?

The next major project for the Citroen is to see if Hydrogen Injection is feasibly as a fuel booster, using tap water to onert the H2O into oxygen and hydrogen on the fly, and running it in through the air intake to reduce the amount of Veg Oil burnt. An intersting hobby project for this bargain banger. I'll post my findings here, so watch this space.

Land Rover

Well, it's Thomas' 5th Birthday tommorow, and of course what every five year old boy needs is .......a Land Rover. Not a real one of course, that would be silly, he'd never reach the pedals. So I bought some paper plans to build a working model from scratch. Then I found out it was going to cost a small fortune to buy the wheels, axles etc.........or was it? I had a cunning and devious plan, as I figured that the wheels of one of those disabled peoples buggies that the elderly use would be about the right size. Hmmm! Rather than steal a pensioners buggy from under them, I browsed on EBAY and found a non runner for just £34. Some quick measurements and hey, the frame ws the right track, just too short. Angle grinder, welder, new box section - Hey Presto, new chassis. The old mobilty car had a steering tiller, rather than a steering wheel, so I begged an old Reliant Robin Steering wheel and column from BELL TRUCK SERVICES of WODDMANSY (many Thanks Robin!) and "Uncle" Graeme (see pictures below) assisted in maunufacturing new track control rods, whilst an old socket set provided a UJ for the modified steering rack. With the body temporarily fitted the brakes cleaned and tested and the lights transfered fom the old scooter, with new trailer lights for the rear it was time for a test run, Uncle Graeme taking the jockey seat.

Left, What we started with, and old 1980's BATRICAR invalid carriage/OAP scooter, a non runner bought off eBAY for £34.

Left, Thomas at the wheel. Whilst not a true Land Rover replica, it is instantly recognisable, and in any case just what is a "standard" Land Rover? They made so many variations, this would reasonaby pass as a factory product.

Now it just needs final painting, the grille fitting to the bonet, the windscreen and surround fitting and some minor fettling.

It has forward and reverse gears, but is rear wheel drive only, the original motor driving the rear axle by a chain and sprocket, hence the high seating position - the motor is huge and sits under the seat. Although not timed and tested I reckon top speed with the driver and adult supervisor on board to be around 12 mph, (A scale speed of about 60 mph!) and there is so much toruqe at start up that it wll pull wheelies! Braking is by a disc on the rear axle. The turn signals work as do the lights, although there are no brake lights yet, and there is a working horn too.

We have a disused railway line nearby where some of our tests have been completed off road where the "Crosslander" performed very well - right up to the mark 1 steering linkage breaking. The reinforced Mark 2 steering system is much stronger and also prevents going "over centre" which is what did for the first one - you could turn it roght through the arc of operation so that eventually you could turn roght but be steering leftand vice versa - not anymore, the redesigned system works just like the real thing.

Project cost is probably around £200 all in, this beng the cost of the plans, the timber and plywood, paint, lights (we reused the front lights from the BATRICAR but had to buy new for the rear), perspex for the windscreen, various steel stock and offcuts, aluminium frame and offcuts, aplsu the new Leisure battery and the BATRICAR itself. We started the build in June and have finished (almost) in January, although work has prevented regular time being spent on the car. It probably represents about 200 hours work, although this could be done a lot quicker, I took my time as I wanted to involve Young Thomas as much as I could in th build - what better than to be able to boast at 5 Years old that you helped your dad build a car!

So far as the value of the car goes, well it's not for sale and won;t be for a long time as Thomas and I are going to have fun in it for some time to come, but I guess if some body offerred £1000 I might be tempted, but then I know I'd just end up building another, bigger, better, stronger (four wheel drive?) version anyway.

Maurice and his Educated Rodents

....Was the title of a Terry Pratchett book, the story of Marice the cat and his team of magically influenced talking mice, who came to a partnership to effectively fake the whole pied piper thing to fleece unsuspecting townships of their fortune.

Thing is you see, these mice were educated, the could think and talk.

Well I thing the little bastards have been round my way. Allow me to explain. I own a caravan, kept in storage on a former farm near home. Siad farm now has high security CCTV, razor wire fences, secure electronic locks etc, to keep the theiving scum of our society out. Now I don;t expect these measures to deter mice, that would be expecting too much. There are however bait boxes to poison any visiting rodents one of which is fixed to the fence right alongside my caravan.

Caravans generally have one or more vents to prevent condensation build up and keep them aired. Mine are in the floor, but that's okay, as it is a foot off the ground. Except it's not okay, because some enterprising mouse has chewed through the plastic vent and got in, wrecking the soft upholstery inside, presumably because the little vandal couldn't find anything else to eat. But hold on, how does a single mouse reach over a foot from ground level to vent to chew trhoguh the grille inthe first place? Either he's a very tall mouse, he had a step ladder or he had help. I reckon four mice standing on each others shoulders would do it. Or perhaps 7 in a pyramid, for better stability whilst the to one chewed? Which then poses the question, did he chew the grille, or did he have a small motorised chainsaw. Was this a cunningly planned "mouse breaking"

I tell you, they really are incredibly intelligent pan dimensional beings (Douglas Adams, you have a lot to answer for)

Humber Bridge debt

It's just been on the news that the Humber Bridge tolls could be scrapped if the Government agree to wipe out the debt on the bridge - good, they should have done that years ago. Why are we still paying interest on such a big debt - it must have been astronomical interest, as the tolls are the highest in the country and we still owe more than the bridge cost to build. Someone obviously got their sums wrong.
So anyhow it occurs to me, if I don't pay my mortgage my house gets repossesed right? Why don't the Humber Bridge Board just stop paying the money, then the government will have to repossess it, and it becomes their problem? See what they do with a second hand bridge? I doubt they'll make a profit from it, they couldn;t make a profit selling apples.

AX Update

Well, it is a banger, so life would be dull if their hadn't been an event!
Following my first puncture in about 17 years I've now had my second debris strike within a year - Remember the road crap (I never did see what it was) that damaged the belt and pulled the wiring off the fuel cut of solenoid on the Ligier? That was my first. Now my second, a huge stone took out the radiator on the AX. In true banger bodger style I plugged it with exhaust putty to get me home (and to work and back for a few days - with regular top ups) until I could source a new radiator. Now I am £66 lighter and strangely the car is lighter too. The old radiator was steel and looked like it had seen better days anyway, the bottom looked about rusted out. And it was heavy with sludge and crap. The new one is plastic and aluminium and weoghs about half as much. So not only do I have efficient cooling and heating again, but I save fuel (as weight equals fuel) into the bargain.
More updates as they occur.