Where there's a will there's a Wayne!

Hello peeps!  Long time no speak n'est-ce pas?  Yes I'm back!

Well I've been cycling (a lot) and planting in the 'new' garden and and.., well generally getting down and dirty bodging about a bit.  

I'll write about the cycling a little later but today it's all about the buggerations, scrubbed knuckles and generally the successes in fettling and spannering things.   No, it does not include my testicles this time cos my nuts are not nut shaped and as hard as I might try a one and three quarter Whit ring spanner just will not fit...

As I have written before I'm willing to have a go at most things.  I'm a Yorkshireman who would beat any Scot in a 'non-spending' competition so anything that can be fettled for nowt is fair game.  I'm rarely far from my tool bag (fnar!) and more often than not you will find me eager to have a go at spannering something / someone / anything!

Whether it's the regular small mountain sized pile of stuff to do at chez 'Mi Casa Es Su Casa' - you know the old peoples home in Pickering inhabited by the Howardian Pillock and Pat, his pet dog.  New curtain rails to hang?  Pictures?  Fix the grandmother clock?  How about Kathryn's dead hedge cutter with a severed power cord?  My sister Barbara's broken fan oven element?  Or Mary's plumbing - no not her plumbing - the house plumbing.  And not forgetting London Alan's 'brr brr brr' bike sounds when out on the NC500?  How about the old Major's rotary mower blade which needed sharpening?  Max and Linda's extractor canopy light?  I could go on and on....  

I always knew that I was Kathryn's 'man that does'.  Wayne, can you fix this?  Yep.  NOW!  Er yeah, OK...  The lists needed immediate attention and were endless.  With a bit of cunning and guile I was able to dodge some jobs.  Nonetheless, everything eventually was fettled.  Where did I ever find the time to work at BT?  

I'm a have a go hero.  No problem is too small.  I'll help anyone.  There's something inside me.  An inquisitive streak perhaps.  An urge to fettle?  To make things right?  Better than the original perhaps?   How should that work?  Yes I see.  Get yer tools out Wayne, no not that one, and see if you can fix it.   It's all fair game to me.  It's why The Howardian Pillock calls me his Chapucero - Spanish for 'bodger' - well in fact it is Spanish for many descriptive words such as: 'bungler', 'sloppy', 'slapdash', 'botched', 'shoddy'... that's enough fer Gods sake!

Well, I leant on the sofa arm the other day and there was a loud pop!  Something important to its continued existence had given way.  Unlike mine the left arm was now floppy.  Oh dear!  For any other person it would be time to take it to the vet to be put down and then to go out and buy a new leathery pup.  However, being Yorkshireish I had no intention of binning it.  I'm into 'up cycling' - LOL!  

So here is the result of me dismantling the right hand side and finding a broken glued joint and 2 broken screws.  Poor thing.  It had finally given up the will to live having taken all of the strain every time this particular fat man had a strong stretch whilst watching TV.  A horrid thought.  Imagine 20 or so stones bearing down on YOU!  Yup, you would break too!

Firstly the broken bits...

Now the new 'strengthened' joint...

Voila!

I'm rather proud of my efforts here.  It's my first time getting down and dirty with a sofa.  Honest.  But as you can see with the last photo the arm is again nice and tight (ahem) having re-made the joint with some additional steel bracket'eering to make it fat man proof.

Next job.  

Imagine the sound of a fat man crying in a garden..  I've just spent £340 [SOB!] on a new detachable tow bar hook for the Range Rover money pit so that it could take me and my bike to far away places rather than continuing to circulate the well worn pastry and cycle loops around York.  

A bit of fettling to clean away some rust and the detachable tow hook snicked into place with a solid feeling.  Grand :-). I clipped on my old bike rack and...  FECK!  It didn't fit as the bumper was in the way of the bike support bar.  Whimper :-(.   

There was NO WAY I was gonna shell out £600 for a Range Rover spec cycle rack.  NOT A CHANCE!.  So... Get yer spanners and drills and files and hacksaw out again Wayne cos this problem needs some serious fettling...  

Looking at it the latch for the 'tilt' mechanism needed to be raised to move the support bar clear of the bumper to make all sweetness and light.  Here it is with the bar against the bumper and still there's about 15mm to go before it latches on the horizontal bar...

After a bit of graunchy grinding and fettling in the garage, hey presto!, a pair of bracket extenders were produced...

And fitted...

All done and sorted!  Even to the degree where I have replaced a pair of rubber 'bump' pads to make sure that the tilt mechanism is held securely in place.     

I'm rather happy with this one as the reason why I bought the tow hook was so that me and the bike could go father afield without having to rely on the train.  However, the ever increasing cost to make that happen left me feeling faint.  Also the new man cave / bike store / workshop which was built last year has finally been pressed into proper service with drills and grinders and vices and hack saws and the like are now being put to good use.  As I always intended it to be :-)

Perhaps a tenuous link to cycling but I think appropriate to include in this blog.  Simply, my determination to avoid costs and having an uncle Con given ability to bodge and fettle stuff for sure is helping me, and many others with the little things that they can no longer do cos of wonky eyesight and fading bones.  One day I may be in the same boat and in dire need of some fettling too?  

Not yet, not yet.  

Ciao for now.