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.

Regrowth

My father Fred seems to be getting hairier on the top these days, no drama though as like me he has a minimum of vanity about it.

And a shot for a family album, here he takes in what in a very limited view of the world going past. It's the real down side of his current abode as he really misses having a good view of life going past.

Daisy's last day.

Daisy is leaving us today, somebody came to us after word of mouth got around that I wished to sell and they liked it, it'll be for their daughter so hopefully the Hello Kitty stickers I put on the mirrors will stay.

Only 30k km in 5+ years, that's what happens when your health has issues as well as a dose of blindness due to cataracts, since solved.

Before and after

This is approximately how I saw things without spectacles until my recent cataract operation. Actually that was just how the myopia and astigmatism affected things, the cataract effect made things even gloomier.

This is about how I now see things, although my right eye is still recovering and finds light to be a rather painful thing yet, dark sunglasses are the go, plus they give me a Roy Orbison look. Argh what am I saying, nothing I could do would make me look like the Big-O, sadly as I age I look more like Arthur Brough (Mr Grainger in Are You Being Served) than anybody more desirable.