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Father Ted

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Passat offside driveshaft DONE.

 

I thought I knew what I was doing this time after unnecessarily breaking the upper arm balljoint pinch bolt doing the same job on the nearside, but there isn't enough clearance on the offside to manoeuvre the driveshaft free without touching one of the four (!) balljoints, the only one that budged was the rearmost lower arm balljoint and that thankfully created enough clearance.

 

TL;DR, working on anything to do with the suspension or driveshafts is a nightmare on a B5 platform car.

 

With two new driveshafts there's still a vibration from the drivetrain but it's nowhere near as bad as it was with two original & knackered driveshafts. Hopefully it's MOT ready now.

 

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Oo, driveshaft work. Always fun. Would you lose alignment on a Passat by pulling the knuckle from the strut?

 

I did that on my Trajet a couple weeks ago when I fitted a new CV boot. Figured it wouldn't affect alignment terribly, as it's not adjustable.

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Boot before

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And after

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The left front wheel bearing has started rumbling, so I'm looking to replace that within a couple of weeks. I'm going to replace the inner CV joint while I'm at it, as I need to pull the shaft for replacing the bearing anyway, and the knocking in the joint has got progressively louder during the last couple of years.

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Spent most of the day sorting a rear fog light problem on a Citroen Relay (Ducato / Boxer / Sevel Sud) chassis cab. It has a Roger Dyson load bed and LED rear lamps with a junction box at the rear of the bed.

 

The wire to the lamp itself had corroded off and after some chasing back in the wiring harness the splices were secure. However, when the fog lamp switch was pushed battery voltage was present on the wire for 3 seconds and then it dropped to 0v, or 10v when the wire was disconnected.

 

A mixture of French badge and Italian electrical design had me checking all sorts of connections and fuse boxes.

 

After much circuit testing and head scratching it appears that the CAN system senses load and to work correctly a 12v / 21w bulb needs to be present or simulated. With a bulb in the circuit all worked well, even with the LED lamp in parallel.

 

A resistor pack had been wired in by Dysons but years of UK roads had fried the insides. A rewire with a new resistor pack has the lighting system worthy of an MOT again. But seriously, why do CAN and electronics have to be so unpredictable.........

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I love eating game, such strong meat. You could've done the poor bird justice and roasted it or given it away... beautiful birds, small brains.

 

 

For reasons I have already explained, neither were exactly on the cards.  And having been driven around in the grille of a Ford Focus for at least two days does rather bring forward the possibility of it being somewhat spoiled.

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I had pheasant for the first time last week, because it fits neatly with my wife's New year's resolution to be mostly* vegan. (For environmental reasons, and someone bought us it so it needed not be wasted)

 

It was delicious and the only disappointment was that the carcass had to be binned once stripped because feeding birds to our chickens† doesn't seem sensible.

 

* See next footnote

 

† our chickens and their eggs don't count, we grow or would otherwise waste nearly everything they eat

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Rover had a flat battery today.  Last time I put it down to lack of use - 30 miles in 2 month - so I was a bit concerned that a very recent long drive about wasn't enough to charge it up.  Connected jump leads to the Princess again and... why are the headlights on?

 

Well.  That would explain the flat battery then.

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I had pheasant for the first time last week, because it fits neatly with my wife's New year's resolution to be mostly* vegan. (For environmental reasons, and someone bought us it so it needed not be wasted)

It was delicious and the only disappointment was that the carcass had to be binned once stripped because feeding birds to our chickens† doesn't seem sensible.

* See next footnote

† our chickens and their eggs don't count, we grow or would otherwise waste nearly everything they eat

I made stock with the carcass and then did a risotto with it, waste not want not :-)

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A close family friend gets phesants from a shoot that happens locally to us. Over the phesant shooting season there are *thousands* of phesants shot, and they are all available.

 

They get fed to dogs, stripped for meat, frozen and kepts for a bit, etc.etc. There are always more than we can deal with.

 

If anyone localish wants any (next year now) then they are welcome to some birds. Rather embarrasingly we had to bin a depressing number this year as they weren't stored properly and went manky.

 

Got a fair few frozen ones too.. could bring to shitefest for an impromptu barbecue.

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