The grumpy thread

[Lacquer Peel]

[bub2006]

Or buy a big bar and do it the old fashioned way!

[michael1703]

Keith Gold size 5 GRP will take two ff helmets easily.

Size 3 panniers were colossal! (Great for A1(?) size artwork)

Keith gold boxes crack but givi monokey e46's squash nicely.

 

I must have worked for most courier companies in London but never worked at delta

[Cavcraft]

We bought one of those really basic 'walk round' tyre fitting things from Machine Mart, just about does the job. I still have a TL (bead breaker) bar somewhere and a large lump hammer. Steel wheels are easy, alloys are a nightmare.

[dave21478]

i must need my fuckin' head examining.

 

i've just spent £250 on a pair of genuine Rover Austin-Rover Metro wings. Got Rover stickers and holograms still stuck on and everything!

 

and Marvin doesn't even need new wings (yet....)

 

Experience with Kerry's Metro has been that pattern parts CAN be made to fit, eventually, reasonably well where as a genuine wing drops straight on, and the swage lines etc will match up without any extra buggering about.

 

As i've got a spare pair of pattern wings already, i'll sell those on to help pay for the proper ones i've bought.

 

as i say, i iz idiot.....

 

also the Thailand bombing, didn't they pick up some ouji chinese muslim refugee type who they accuse of doing the dirty deed? 

 

Normal.

Im collecting spares for a car I havent even bought yet.

[dave21478]

19th of June in the south of France and I have lit the fucking log fire, its so cold. Its been pishing down for literally months. The odd clear day or two has done nothing to dry things out and the rain is a constant fine drizzle that soaks into everything, interspersed with biblically heavy thunder storms. Rivers are flooding, ground is saturated and its just fucking miserable.

I cant get the Metro or the Panda out of where they are parked.....the Metro gets 8 feet before bogging down in the mud. The Panda would probably manage it but I dont want to churn the lawn up any more than it already is.

This is supposed to by pretty much the busiest time of the year for me work-wise, but I am sat on my ass looking out the window at the rain instead. Oh and if Im not working, Im not earning. Brilliant.

[HH-R]

I've never, ever, had a successful online transaction with Verified by Visa or Mastercard Securecode with any card provider. I FUCKING HATE the bastard.

 

Also: car insurance. Was £289 on Friday or something. Go to buy today, can't - got to click recalculate. £5 more today with the same details. I wanted to buy online so I didn't have to use the phone and talk to someone, but Hastings still makes you fucking ring them up to say you don't want the renewal that's nearly double the price. I also now need to contact them again to tell them that they don't have carte blance with my card for a continuous payment authority like I did last year, something you have to allow them to do to buy their insurance. For "refreshingly straightforward insurance", they're pretty frustrating.

[Eddie Honda]

Keith gold boxes crack but givi monokey e46's squash nicely.

 

I must have worked for most courier companies in London but never worked at delta

Nothing that bit of matting and a splodge of resin doesn't sort out (mate did GRP roofing, so had loads of materials in the garage)

 

Delta became City Sprint around 1998. They used to dish out KG size 1 panniers and size 3 top boxes along with the obligatory radio and pager.

 

I already had the size 3 panniers and size 5 top box which I bought when I was working for Apollo in Glasgow (Later Hayes Apollo). The size 3 panniers are the same bottom half as the size 2, but with a taller 6" lid. The Kawasaki cast rack was chucked and a two piece one made by a mate from 1/2" square tube, old gudgeon pins, 20 B&H and an all-nighter. The panniers were pulled in as close as you get whilst retaining a pillion seat (fat-arsed birds need not apply) and had to clear the exhaust. The rear indicators where ditched for shorter-stemmed ones to fit in the gap and I fitted a standard (portrait) number plate (2 liner as it was a low number). The top box was fitted long-ways over the pillion seat as it would have been to high/far back. When carrying a pillion it was removed, or if circumstances dictated and empty, turned 180 degrees on its two mounting bolts to hang out back.

 

The fairing is a Mk5 Acrybre Products Wedge. (Formerly Churchgate Mouldings, Acrybre sold on to Skidmarx) The absolute widest point (by a couple of cm) was the upper fairing at the front and the widest point lower down were the panniers. Filtering on the bike wasn't too difficult at all providing you kept the thing bolt-upright and aimed well. The panniers often attracted comments about their size, including from the plod, but were great for carrying lots of crap instead of calling in a van.

 

The fairing I first fitted to a GPZ305, one of my fucking stupid ideas. (Interesting* to ride in the slightest breeze)

N48PGG 004 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

KG Size 5 on a SV650. Secondhand pillion seat bought and bolted to a block of wood under the vinyl. Box could be swapped over quickly for the original pillion seat. To the right you can see the framework for those megaboxes (from the GT550) attached to a GT750.

DSCF0001 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

For ultimate crashability, Craven Equipment Corcordes are pretty decent.

[myglaren]

I've never, ever, had a successful online transaction with Verified by Visa or Mastercard Securecode with any card provider. I FUCKING HATE the bastard.

 

Also: car insurance. Was £289 on Friday or something. Go to buy today, can't - got to click recalculate. £5 more today with the same details. I wanted to buy online so I didn't have to use the phone and talk to someone, but Hastings still makes you fucking ring them up to say you don't want the renewal that's nearly double the price. I also now need to contact them again to tell them that they don't have carte blance with my card for a continuous payment authority like I did last year, something you have to allow them to do to buy their insurance. For "refreshingly straightforward insurance", they're pretty frustrating.

Only twice had a problem with the Visa verification, once when I forgot my password and guessed it (wrong ) and then buying a phone from Tesco but their computers went haywire.

 

As for Hastings, I was about to insure with them.  May reconsider that one then.

[Dave_Q]

Surface dressing.

 

You know, that thing where they lob a load of gravel down on a thin layer of glue or something instead of ever actually fixing the roads.

 

Whoever invented it needs a slap. Been out on my pushbike today, the stuff is a nightmare to ride on, uphill or down.

 

Not to mention the damage to cars from the loose chippings.

 

In this case there wasn't anything wrong with the roads they've done either.

 

Just stop it.

[Bren]

Women.

 

Me on the phone to wife "I'm lost."

 

Wife "where?"

 

Me "If I knew that I would'nt be lost would I?"

 

National geographic often point out that large swathes of Siberia and northern Canada have yet to be fully explored - they need to include Chorley as well.

[HH-R]

Only twice had a problem with the Visa verification, once when I forgot my password and guessed it (wrong ) and then buying a phone from Tesco but their computers went haywire.

 

As for Hastings, I was about to insure with them.  May reconsider that one then.

 

They've been OK, other than the renewals process is stupid. The best company I've been with for not having to talk to anyone was Swiftcover. Most changes could be made through the website, they even encouraged you to do this by making it gratis but charging an admin fee if you rang them. They want an extra £100 a year though :/

[Tamworthbay]

If you don't want to talk to anyone go with quote me happy, problem comes when you actually WANT to talk to someone and the fuckers don't want to know. They should be called quote me happy but piss me off the rest of the year.

[myglaren]

One of my daughters was with Swiftcover and couldn't get a no claims certificate from them when she changed.

[254575]

ugh.

 

steel wheels with tyres are the hardest things to dispose of. not allowed at dump, scrap man wont have them if they have tyres on. I've also had no success with ebay listings for 99p 

[myglaren]

Tried Swiftcover and turned down.

 

One of the problems is overnight parking - my son works nights and it is in their secure car park overnight but there is no provision to explain this.

[Tamworthbay]

One of my daughters was with Swiftcover and couldn't get a no claims certificate from them when she changed.

quote me unhappy day to use the new quote as evidence of no claims, only problem is that no other insurer will accept that. Dickheads.

[Cavcraft]

Facebook 'for sale' pages can an be useful for old steels and tyres, people often want them to put on cars they're scrapping so the can keep their lots.

[beko1987]

ugh.

 

steel wheels with tyres are the hardest things to dispose of. not allowed at dump, scrap man wont have them if they have tyres on. I've also had no success with ebay listings for 99p

My local tip allows 4 a year, with paperwork to sign. Thats how I got rid of the 3 old ones from the zxq

[jakebullet]

Ebay cheapskate bastards. I've put on some surplus (read shit colours) pool ball sets for £8 a set delivered. Some twunt has just bought 3, and then messaged wanting a discount on them. Ignoring they're cheaper than anyone else, it's not like I can stick 3 boxes weighing 2.5kg each in the post for the same delivery price as one box. I'm prolly going to get a neg for daring to make a fivers profit in total.

[Noel Tidybeard]

do you list a postage discount?

 

some post discounts are only about 25p per item anyhoo ;-)

[Bren]

Ebay cheapskate bastards. I've put on some surplus (read shit colours) pool ball sets for £8 a set delivered. Some twunt has just bought 3, and then messaged wanting a discount on them. Ignoring they're cheaper than anyone else, it's not like I can stick 3 boxes weighing 2.5kg each in the post for the same delivery price as one box. I'm prolly going to get a neg for daring to make a fivers profit in total.

Respond with two words. Fuck off.

[philibusmo]

It's quarter past 2 in the morning and I'm wide awake in a hospital ward of coughing, snoring sleep talkers.

 

I'm just about to be hooked up to an IV drip and my system is full of morpheme, tramadol and ibuprofen. This is all due to an accident at work yesterday at about 3 in the afternoon.

 

I was in a machine called a Crendon Squirrel, similar to a hydraladder which is a bit like a self propelled cherry picker. It's controlled by foot pedals in the cage to drive it and change the height of the cage. My job involves building structures over the tops of kiwi orchards of hail cloth stretched over cables winched to about a 1.5 tonnes of tension up on wooden poles about 5.5 meters in the air.

 

I was driving the squirrel under the kiwi vine canopy which is about 1.7 meters tall

The plants are trained across wires at this height, supported by steel box section sat on top of wooden poles.

 

I was going to slow down as I was entering a tighter section to manoeuvre when the drive pedal stuck down and slightly right and sent me at full tilt into the poles, while the cage shot upwards as I had just tapped the other pedal to stop the cage scraping the ground. Effectively all the controls jammed solid and I had no control over the machine.

It pushed me up into the canopy and bent me over backward over the back if the cage and then dragged my chest, face and neck across the wires and vines. My left arm got caught between the top of the front if the cage and a metal box section and was pushed forwards from the wrist, almost to the elbow across it whilst also being pushed upwards into it. It was crushed, twisted and snapped between the top of the cage and the beam.

 

Luckily one of my colleagues managed to hit the emergency stop on the side if the machine as I was struggling to find the one in The cage while bent over backwards. He then reached up into the cage and hit the up and down pedal until it unstuck and lowered me to the ground.

 

The upshot is that I have a clean snap across the left radius, a chunk if bone smashed off the wrist end of the ulna, a big puncture wound and crushing from nearly at the elbow to the wrist and possibly a bone at the base of my hand broken too but it was difficult to tell from the x rays.

 

I'm in pain despite all the drugs in my system, my left thumb doesn't seem to be working and I'm under observation to make sure I don't have complications from the crushing before they set my arm in the morning and asses just how serious the damage is to my wrist.

 

It was a freak accident, i've been driving these machines for the past 5 months without incident and it was recently serviced and had been working fine up until that moment. I'm certain it wasn't operator error and I don't blame the company as they'd taken all reasonable precautions.

 

I'm just a bit miffed that my arm is royally fucked even though I am thankful that it wasn't worse. I have two puncture wounds to my neck from where it was dragged over the wires and vines right next to an artery which would have been far more nasty and possibly even fatal.

 

On the plus side, being bent over backwards at about 90 degrees has fixed a small twinge I had in my upper back.

[purplebargeken]

Glad your back is better mate, saves on osteopath bills!

 

Shitting Nora, as the saying goes. You were bloody lucky that it wasn't much, much, much worse, although what you have is bad enough. Hope the drugs keep the pain at bay and wishing you a speedy and complete recovery.

 

Ken

[trigger]

Fuck me man your lucky/unlucky. *delete as appropriate.

 

I wish you a speedy recovery, i hope there will be a investigate into the accident and your company will sort you out for loss of earns and everything.

[xtriple]

You lucky bastard! Back fixed for free

 

Seriously though, it does sound like you were lucky (in a very unlucky way) as it could have been an extinction level event for you.  I hope your arm is not too bad (though it doesn't sound great ) and repairs properly. Bet you are going to get expensive metal bits in there - makes you much more attractive to the scrap man when it comes time for final weigh in

 

Get better soon.

[saucedoctor]

Holy fuck, that sounds grim. Get well soon sir.

[M'coli]

In the name of the wee man, that's some set of events you've been through, and still face with the setting of the bones etc. - I'm glad you're alive to tell the tale.  When you get more aware, I hope you have some fit (and expert at their job, obviously) hospital staff to take your mind off things.

[philibusmo]

In the name of the wee man, that's some set of events you've been through, and still face with the setting of the bones etc. - I'm glad you're alive to tell the tale. When you get more aware, I hope you have some fit (and expert at their job, obviously) hospital staff to take your mind off things.

I'm hoping to get another x ray today as the radiology department seemed to be staffed by the residents of castle anthrax from monty python and the holy grail!

 

I think that what I find most annoying is that after looking for ages for a fun, manual car in NZ the spending 3 days changing the clutch on the Metro (update coming soon) I only got a couple of weeks of use and now won't be able to drive a flipping manual! I might have to sell it and get an auto.

 

Edit: thank you so much for your sympathy as well. I know I've met a few of you but the warmth of strangers from the internet is very touching. I love this little beige corner of the internet.

[hairnet]

phil?? the fuck??

 

least the break is clean on the arm but wrist breakages arent fun

 

hope it sorts itself