Mostly fixed..

So a few things have happened this week.

Most of the week was fairly busy but uneventful. I gave Stu a lift home on Thursday night – well, that was the plan.

Now my car has been a bit ill for a while. Some time ago, coming down a particularly step hill, I suffered from the joy that is brake fade. This damaged the disk and caliper seals so I bought replacements and two of the lads from the team were supposed to be sorting them out – problem is scheduling, trying to get me, the car and both of them in the same place at a convenient time has been difficult. On top of that, about 2 months ago, an odd rattle turned out to be the universal joints on my propshaft. Money and scheduling both consipred againts getting it sorted, and that’s what caused the joy that was Thursday night.

Coming through Whitchurch, there was a distinct clunk and I immediately knew that something was wrong, as the rattle became a distinct shake. I pulled over quickly and ducked under the car to find that the universal joint had become so loose that the propshaft had worn to the point where it had come off at one end. Arg, bugger! Thankfully, I’d offered Stu a lift and he came to my rescue. We walked to the train station, where I remembered why I drive instead of taking public transport as we waited over an hour for a train to arrive. He took me home where I picked up some tools and we headed back to the car to try and at least remove the damaged propshaft so that I could drive. No joy on that front, the nuts just weren’t in the right position. Even my trusty gaffer tape failed me (see, Sean, you can’t fix everything with gaffer tape). So Stu dropped me off home, and in the morning I rang Ian from Promec, my trusty Landrover experts. He came and picked up the car from Whitchurch, took it back to the garage and by the end of the day, I was driving away complete with a new propshaft, and lighter by about £200, which is pretty reasonable considering.

So having had the chance to see my brake discs up close, I decided that I had to do something about them. So, with apologies to Jon and the team for this weekend, I called Dad and on Saturday morning I headed over to his place. Over the course of the weekend, we dismantled the necessary bits and changed the brake disks, change the pads, reconditioned the calipers replacing all of the seals and pistons and changed the oil and filters. Coupled with the new propshaft my Disco’s feeling very loved at the moment. I’m very glad that I did change them – you can see how worn the old disk is. Although Landrover don’t specify a minimum thickness for the disks, this is probably a little thinner than you want it to get.

Driving home tonight, the car felt and sounded great. It probably still needs some TLC, but for now at least it’s running again. I’m a bit miffed I missed Thursday night, but such is life. I was looking forward to the debrief to be honest, although the next debrief might be interesting – we had a callout on Friday while I was stood by the car with Ian in Whitchurch. Could be a repeat customer, but I need to get some more info first.