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Diary Page 3 |
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| WOW I had no idea how long I had left this website. But as usual with me it was a long time. I forget stuff and time passes me by so quick. Trudy moans at me for not getting things done and looking at this I realise how bad I can be. Anyway I doubt any body actually looks at this page so thats ok.
Well it looks like the last time I wrote anything was Nov 2006. So much has happened since then so I have a major amount of writing to catch up on. WHERE TO START ..... Well in 2007 around january time I started to have a little trouble with Mud first the clutch needed changing and that cost something like £300 boy did that hurt. Shortly after that around february time I think. I had a little trouble starting Mud. Like always I put things off and never looked at the problem. Which got worse and worse. I managed to take the starter motor off myself which is amazing. It was a struggle and I hurt my arms but it had to be done. We took it up to colchester auto electrics and they rebuilt it for me and gave me a years guarantee. Sadly they charged me £120 which turns out to be more than a refurbished one would have cost me off the internet. Never mind such life hey. Well a month after that I had trouble again unbelievable - same sort of thing but this time I wasnt worried cos the starter had a guarantee. Well one day I parked up outside the primary school and Mud had been running great no noises or anything. When I went back to the car it wouldnt start absolutely nothing. two hours later the RAC turned up and said it was the starter motor siezed so they got it home. I took the starter motor off again but it was fine. Our friend Michael said he could change the engine no problem and I found a discovery engine which was a much better engine being a 200 TDI. We borrowed a trailer and got Mud over to michael and he had the engine out in a couple of hours. But after several weeks I realised he had bitten off more than he could handle. He wasn't telling me though and just kept tinkering on. He had laughed at me at first as I said I only had three months before the club holiday. He told me it would take 4 days maximum. Several weeks on I decided to ask him if he would mind me taking Mud to a garage who were familiar with this conversion and I could see the relief on his face. Only bad thing was; we had wasted three months and had to miss our first holiday with the landrover club which was very sad. I borrowed another trailer and once again our friend Bill jumped in and helped out by towing the trailer and Mud all the way to onger. At one point on the A12 the trailer started to swing and bounce and it was really touch and go as to wether we lost it all together. I can tell you my heart litterally stopped and I felt so sick at the thought of the landy being wrecked after all the trouble I had already had and all the money we had spent. Thankfully Bills quick thinking and calmness got us out of trouble. Even he had to stop and the next service station to take a breather though. I left it with Richard at the garage and 3 months later he finished the job. I finally got it back Xmas eve 2007. it was a lovely Xmas present after having such an awful year with the mechanical side of things. Early in 2008 I sold the old dead engine on ebay and I was expecting something like £20 maybe £50 but it went for a few hundred quid and I was well happy. The new TDI engine had only cost me £400 so getting this money back offset the expense of having the conversion done. The final cost of the converstion was £1100 so sellling the old engine really helped. Next I sold the old steering guard followed by the wheels which all added up and got it all out of my way which was great. 2008 turned out to be a good year for the landy and we had many great days out on the lanes with the club. I will try and sort out some photos to add into these pages as soon as possible. |
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