A visit from ‘The Blind Man’

Saturday was a far better day than expected and very productive both inside and out. Little chance of any blogging right enough as it was ‘a late one’ under the ‘Egg Chariot’. What an epic a simple wheel bearing change on a Subaru Forester has turned into. I got the car for wifey on the way back from Birkenhead, we’d been looking for a Forester for a while and this one from Kenmure Car Sales http://www.kenmurecarsales.co.uk/  in Dumbarton seemed like a possibility. It had higher mileage than I was looking for but it was cheap and on the way home. So after catching the train from Liverpool to Barrhead, spending the night at Mum in Laws and buying a concrete floor polisher I went to look at a few Subaru’s.

I gotta say when I looked around it I wasn’t a 100% convinced it was the car for the wife but I was so impressed by the lack of ‘hard sell’ from Bradley Stein the proprietor and his willingness to tell me all its faults that I decided to take a chance. He told me it had a duff rear wheel bearing prior to me taking out for a run, handed me the keys and said ‘take it out for as long as you like’, leaving MiL and me to go for a whirl around Dumbarton.

That was it, I was ‘sold’ on the Forester, got a good discount for the wheel bearing and drove it away a happy chappie, straight up the road home. Of course after a 29 year old Land Rover anything is pure luxury but even with the wheel bearing growling it was still quiet and returned a respectable 35MPG on the way north.

The Subaru Forester rear wheel bearing epic

  So with £300 off the price of the car and a quality SKF bearing for £50 or so from Euro Car Parts in Inverness I was well chuffed. That was until I started removing everything months later and found everything was seized I ended up having to cut through several large and serious bolts, and Subaru in their wisdom choose to use a fine metric thread of 14mm which is not so common, especially at 270mm long! As it was becoming apparent that it was going to be major work and I’d be awaiting parts  I decided to do both sides and stiffen up the rear end for towing. The £50 job was turning into a major dent on the credit card

When I got the first bearing off it became obvious that the one supplied by Euro Car Parts was not even remotely similar, turned out it was a front one for a SAAB and in the wrong box. More delay but they did have two in stock of the correct ones and I planned to collect them on the way back from the abattoir last week. However the puncture put paid to that https://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/a-stay-of-execution/ . Phoned Euro Car up and got them couriered to Sconser, more delay and expense.  Decided to uprate to heavier springs and new shockers, they arrived 48 hours later! whereas the rear tie bar Polybushes that I ordered took a week to get here and only arrived last night!!! The eBay seller took 5 days to post them!!! However when he finally did (on Friday) they arrived 24 hours later, along with an inner tube I’d ordered on Friday morning, well done Royal Mail.

So, that was it, more than a week after starting the job I finally had all the bits to finish off the job.

 

The old bushes are the black ones and I damaged them when cutting through the 270mm bolt that goes through the hub carrier and lower tie bars. Polyurethane bushes are simple enough to fit as they come in two parts with a steel insert. You can push the bush in by hand then press the inserts in with a G clamp. Only problem being they were the wrong frigging bushes!!!! I was livid, almost a week to get them and they’re no even right!! The hole in the insert was only 12mm, not 14mm as required for that dirty great long bolt, nothing for it but to fit the old ones!

 

Now they require a little more persuasion, so I made up a puller from a large socket and some washers. By late evening I had it finished and tested and could at last go and admire our new blinds

The Blind Man cometh

I’ve never been one for blinds or curtains, I’m never in the house when the sun is out, we’ve no problem with ‘Peeping Toms’ and with triple glazing there are no cold spots. So, I just don’t see the point,

 

why would you want to cover them up?

Anyway, I was severely overruled in that department and before I knew it I was talking to Tony Stridgeon  of http://www.highlandblinds.co.uk/ Tony just happened to be on the ferry one day a few weeks ago and someone pointed him out. As soon as we got to Sconser he gave me a sample book and then after we chose what we wanted he came to measure up.

A couple of weeks later Tony emailed me to say they were here and yesterday he cam to fit them.

    

There are thirteen of them so he was at it until after 14:00 but they really do set the rooms off. I had my doubts about the living room, being allergic to tartan and thinking it would make the house look like a gift shop, but they’re actually very nice, honest. I hasten to add it’s the only room with kilts hanging on the wall

Well, that didn’t work, I was trying to take a picture of the blinds and the view but the camera can’t cope with the bright outside and the dark blinds.

Anyway, that’s in, guests coming around for dinner tonight so little chance of any action on here. It’s boodly awful outside so I’ve been helping the Hen Lady clean out the chooks.

Despite all that, and with an outside temperature around 6 degrees but feeling like minus 6 due to the wind chill. Despite that the solar hot water tubes are at 57 degrees and I’ve turned the heating on the house!