This really spooked Olivia.

Olivia started yelping last night when she went to grab some washing that had dried, I believe it's another Scrub Python and a splendid example, I'm hoping the clever rodents that currently plague our lives are scared, real scared.

90 today.

I just popped over to my parents to wish my Father Fred a happy Birthday, later a little party is planned.

An easy ball joint job that wasn't.

I noticed Oscar had a torn ball joint boot when I was checking out the DPF arrangement the other week so ordered a pair to sort things out, this should have been a really simple job as I'd also ordered a long 40 mm socket to enable simple removal, it wasn't.

After not being able to get the socket to grip I decided due to my lack of strength and agility that it would be easier to remove the hub and take the job inside, naturally due to the old Jimby luck the driveshaft popped out and dumped a fair amount of expensive gearbox/diff oil, bugger.

I had to use the pipe wrench plus a metre extension to be strong enough to pop the joint but I did manage it. The new ball joint is in the background here.

Postmortem stuff here, I like the idea of the screw in fitting, although I'm old an frail now so life is harder. The long socket I'd bought needs either another 3 mm of depth or more length in the square drive fitting, this was only obvious after removing things and checking on the bench, hindsight is such a wonderful thing. I might weld a couple of beads on it and use it with the pipe wrench to pop the other side.

Of course I noticed doing the job that the tie-rod end on the left side also has a torn boot, so that's another job on the soon to do list, I'll wait for them to arrive before doing the RH side, then of course the alignment will be a concern, it is already despite the shop claiming it'd just been done, which brought a groan from Jimby, dunno why but I have a deep seated distrust of wheel alignments, in my mind they should never need to be touched unless the bits I'm currently doing here are played with, shops always find a reason to adjust but often folk kiss their lovely steering goodbye once it's been molested.

This ball joint was still functional and no cause for any alarm but without a functional boot it's a time bomb, and in this age a new unit costs little or no more than a new boot, and happily my time is worth nothing.

If I can have an offsider for the other side the job will be a snap.

A patch up for Oscar.

On the drive bringing Oscar home a noise was heard for a while, it appears the front RH inner splash shield was somewhat loose and rubbed itself into destruction against the tyre. I've had it off for a while and even tried to buy another one but with the timing belt now done it's best I sort things out.

I cut some donor plastic from an old oil container.

Then used some clips to hold things in place.

Now I just hope it holds together for a while.
BTW the brake pads are near new with close to 12 mm of wear left, and there's plenty of meat on the rotor. The brakes are lovely on Oscar so I don't have much reason to swap the padsfor Protex Blue's which I like, but I may yet.

Oscar again.

I visited Grace at the cemetery this morning so I took a piccie of Oscar since John has correctly picked me up for being slack lately.
I'm also as sore as buggery today from changing Oscar's timing belt yesterday.

It started off as a simple enough job  but it soon degenerated into the job from hell due to a lack of room and the new belt being a very tight fit and very difficult to get onto the sprockets.
A keen eye will see the water pump has a trace of seepage, I'll have to replace that soon but without knowing Oscar's history I wanted to get a new timing belt on ASAP, although Oscar's DW10BTED4 engine is a clever design that sacrifices rockers in case of a snapped timing belt rather than destroy the engine, for me it's still urgent to try to prevent that sort of damage.
Golly I'm sore today.

Introducing Oscar.

I haven't actually got a better photo yet but to satisfy the curious here's a piccie I took getting Oscar home.

A special tool for Oscar.

To relieve the tension on Oscar's serpentine belt it requires a number 15 spanner, I've had this broken one laying around for a decade and despite it having the ring end broken, I decided I'd endure the irksome use of the open end if it worked sufficiently well, happily it did and the extra length provided by the wood lathe tool which I had no use for helps the job a plenty. The rusty welding rod is what I bent (unseen here) so it could fit into the locking hole for the tensioner.

My new ultra small and cheap stick welder works a treat too, highly recommended compared to the old brick sh!thouses.
Brother Mega may be pleased to know that Oscar's trip computer can be set to km per litre, me I'm happy enough with litres per 100 km, but maybe I could become oriental and try it.