Top tip, use wifey's Tesco points for Pizza Express or Prezzo tokens. £1 worth of Tesco points = £4 worth of food.
When we go out with Tesco vouchers I tell the wife and kids to have anything they want and usually rack up a bill of over £120 but only have to pay for the drinks.

Great to see you back!!
I'd be up for a work party - life permitting!
Had a strong liking for fiat 500's myself. Fitting 18stone of me into one is the biggest issue I have with them

Rich

Another top tip folks is the chef and brewer tokens. £2.50 gives you £10 of tokens

Oh i think there may well be a party day Rich and its good to be back.

Humpty Dumpty Day.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Tue, March 14, 2017 21:16:18
I get up really early in the morning for work which in itself is ok. I like to see the start of each new fresh day before most folks have even stirred in their beds dreading the alarm clock and after sneaking a quick peak at the clock dropping back off for a few more snug minutes of sleep.
The problem is when I take a holiday. My body does not seem to want to just relax into the warm sheets of my bed in the morning. Nope, it prefers to just keep the normal routine going regardless and as such I found myself reaching the bottom of a cup of in bed well before 7am this morning.

Wifey had already left for work so unable to steep in my own bed warmth anymore I decided to have a poke around The 110 to see what I could up to with it today.
There has been a job I seemed to be pushing back (insert running away from there) for some reason each time I thought about it. This was making up some exhaust mount brackets.
I don't know why I was so averse to getting this particular chore done but seeing as I had put it off at least half a dozen times I figured that today was the day.

There were only three mounts in all to fabricate up so off into the garage to the old chocolate tin pile I went. There are probably for or five large chocolate tins in there, the type you get at Christmas that the contents seem to disappear from incredibly quickly. This odd effect is usually accompanied by a sick in your stomach feeling due to a large sugar rush. By the time they hit my garage they are bone dry and what tends to happen is any part, nut, bolt, metal, brace, bracket and something small and potentially useful end up being chucked in them.
This is a god send in such situations as having to make up three exhaust brackets from scratch!
A good rummage later had me with enough bots on the workbench to make a start. With some whacking, bending and cutting I soon, about three hours later, had the brackets made up and fitted. Not too bad really as they were all made from stuff other folks would just chuck away!



It's so nice to have the exhaust actually sitting where it is supposed to be! SImple things eh.
With that done followed swiftly by a cheese on toast sort of lunch I decided that I may as well start putting the odds and sods back into place on the old boy.

I fettled the rear number plate back into position.


Then seeing as funds are very tight at the moment I cleaned up the headlight surrounds and an old grill that was in the shed using some WD40.




I will be replacing these with new items in the future but at the moment they will have to do.
Upon closer inspection it turns out that most of the light lenses are cracked or damaged so I need to source a second hand set of these along with another Discovery 1 power steering box. Going to have to be later in the month though as funds are ridiculously tight at the moment.

A quick lick of paint on the bonnet wheel brace along with a cheeky coat on the light bar and it was time to call it a day. Then I had a quick scramble in the parts shed to see if I had a horn because I had forgotten all about that! Turns out I had on old Disco one in there which when tested on a car battery let off a convincing noise load enough to pass an MOT. That'll do nicely then and should get fitted tomorrow....

www.nickysmith.me

You can get a complete set of the side/stop/indicators including bulb holders (ie 8 little round ones)for about £20 on eBay, yeah they're britpart but they can't get plastic lenses too wrong..............can they?

Sounds like a plan to me Jam

Yes, it's cheaper to replace the entire lamp unit. In fact those dome shaped indicators and side lamps are incredibly good value. Similarly for the headlamp surrounds and grill. I got tired of trying to freshen mine up with oil of various kinds and those products that are supposed to make your trim look black again. I put a new set on for less than what I must have wasted on Back to Black et al over the years.

Looking good now it's all back together.

Tough Day. Lots Done.
The 110Posted by Nicky Smith Wed, March 15, 2017 20:05:26
Once again I found myself sat in bed looking at the bottom of a brew thinking about The 110.
I had to go and buy some nuts and bolts for the brake back plates and seeing as it was such a nice clear blue sky sort of day I decided to take the motorbike out for a spin to Paddocks. So at 7:45am I found myself cruising into the Derbyshire countryside, there are far far worse places to be in the sunshine.
The rolling green hills past me by along with the all of the signs of spring arriving. The daffodils are everywhere and the trees waking up in bud once again, it will only be a matter of a few weeks before we find ourselves sat in warmer weather and the heating turned off.

Since the bike crash I have to admit I seem to have become a bit pants on two wheels. I still enjoy it but my gear changes seem to be all over the shop and don't get me started on my road positioning. The little Bandit needs to come out a bit more often I think so I can get my eye back in once again.
Surprisingly there was not a queue at Paddocks and I was in and out in under five minutes...this has to be some sort of record surely! A quick hop back onto the trusty stead and I was headlong back into a different route home enjoying the sunshine and dry roads.

All too soon I was back home and ready to get cracking with sorting out the back brakes on the Land Rover. I didn't want to do it I have to admit here and I very nearly walked away but something said to just get stuck in.

Wheel off then armed with a large hammer the drum soon submitted into rusty cooperation falling off onto the floor with an almighty clang!
That was the neighbours up then whether they wanted to be or not.
As I looked up into what was exposed the amount of dirt and muck in there was astounding! There was also some sort of unidentifiable slime that I did not want to be playing with for too long so an old rag was brought into to play then promptly dumped into the wheelie bin.


The hub was next which came off with no issues on this side unlike the other side which snapped a bolt in it. That took some serious heating up to remove I can tell you, I thought it was going to be a drill and retap affair but it seems the Landy Gods were looking upon me favourably today. They must have been pleased to see the sunshine as well.


Brake pads then the caliper were soon stripped out, even the brake pipe came off of both sides without snapping! That seems to be just about unheard of to me but why look a gift horse in the mouth eh. The back plate fell off in a rusty heap after a bit of a gentle tap with a 4lb lump hammer and I was left with nothing but the stub axle in situ.


Time to put all of the new shiny bits on then.
The back plate along with the pre-fitted new caliper, I mean why struggle once the plate is fitted? May as well sort it out before hand to get the dripping brake pipe back into place asap.


Now it was time to battle with the brake pads and new springs. The ends of teh springs needed a small grind down as they were far too long on the hook end but soon found themselves sitting where they should have been. You may notice in the pictures that there is a set of pads laid out under the The 110 exactly as they came off of the old back plate. I do this to make sure I don't end up fitting the pads upside down or in the opposite way they should be. Helps to remember which holes the springs fit into as well.
Looks great with shiny new bits on though


Making sure the pads were sitting in the right place I fitted the nice new brake drums too, be rude to scrimp at the very end wouldn't it. In all honestly I figured that if I had to do this job I may as well do it right. The I also fitted all new bearings and seals onto the hub before refitting, who knows how old the the ones that were in them were.


So there you have it the back brakes are done. I didn't want to do them and they took all day but I am really glad I have got them out of the way.

The only stop I had really was for lunch. My neighbour popped around so I figured we may as well ave an egg and bacon cob with our brews. As we chatted away the conversation came around to the subject of scrapyards and how we miss them.
We are both old enough to remember hunting around acres of rusty steel looking for the model of car we wanted then rummaging through it hoping the one part that we wanted was still fitted to it.
And lugging your heavy toolbox around the place. Then carrying that along with all of the extra parts you had removed "Just in case" you needed them when you were fitting the part you actually had to do.
We came to the conclusion that we missed scrapyards. Many a happy hour were spent looking for that extra bit of gold in the motor you were happy to hunt through.
It's a shame that most scrappies these days have already removed the parts and put them onto a shelf. Yes it is easier and quicker, less tiring, less work, cheaper, cleaner, warmer and generally less hassle but I did enjoy the hunt...


nickysmith.me

Wow - very shiny, just embarrassed at the thought of what's under my rims...! Excellent thread as always. Cheers, A

Thanks Agew I doubt it will stay shiny for very long!

Hopefully she will be door handle deep in mud soon!!!

Rich

Errr nope lol

Hair Growing...
Musings Posted by Nicky Smith Wed, March 29, 2017 09:57:25
I have sat here for the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to write this and I am still none the wiser so I shall just get on with it.

You may have noticed that I have been a little quiet of late and that is because my little sister passed away quite unexpectedly and suddenly a few weeks ago.
We as a family are still grieving, and will be for who knows how long there is no set time limit for these things, but the time has come to do something to help channel that pain. We wanted to do something positive.

Let me give you a little about my sister because she was an exceptional young lady. She was 39 years old and had a condition called Williams Syndrome. This is a missing chromosome disorder that affects each person with it in similar but also drastically differently severity ways.
This made Karan more than special to everyone she met. There was only love to give from her perspective and once you met her you were a friend for life. She never moaned about the hand she had been dealt in life and took pleasure from the simplest of things like just sitting and watching the world go by.
Karan was one in a million and as our Dad has said "If everyone looked at the world and loved the way Karan did, it would be a much better place"

Nothing will replace her loss nor take away the pain of losing her but that does not mean we cannot do something positive from this.

We are going to set up a charity in her honor. This will focus on taking her friends from the day work place she attended, all of which have their own special needs or learning difficulties, out regularly for different events. It could be a trip to the seaside or an outing to the panto at Christmas.
The reason for doing this is quite simple. Karan had a better social life than most of us and loved nothing more than to be out and about in this big wide world with either family or friends....sometimes both. It brought a huge smile to her face and those that were with her so we want to carry on handing those smiles and that happiness out.

There are lots of different fundraising activities in the pipeline but the first and foremost is the fact that I will be growing my hair.

"Why is that a special event?" you may be thinking. Well I hate to have long hair. By long I mean anything more than a few millimeters because it literally drives me mad.
So what better way to begin and set things off than pledge that I will grow my hair for exactly one year starting from Sunday 26th March 2017.

There were suggestions of growing out the beard at the same time but I think I can only push my luck so far at work! Instead I will become a long haired silver fox with a weekly Sunday photo taken for you all to poke fun at!

Now feel free to make some pledges of money to this, in fact I actively want you to do this publicly until the charity is up and running properly with the correct donation pages set in place.

Seeing me turn into a long grey haired uglier bugger than I am now must be worth the price of a chocolate bar or two from you good people!

I thank you in advance for all of the help that I will be continually bullying you into on a regular basis!

I'm really sorry to hear that. Hope your charity goes well. And have fun growing your hair. Once it's collar length or so, you could probably get people to sponsor you to shave your head as well, like folks do for cancer charities.

It's amazing how you have turned such a tragedy into something positive!
A great way to keep your sisters memory alive and raise awareness and cash for a deserving cause!
Let us know how to donate / sponsor etc and count me in!!
Great to see you back here!!
Rich

Thanks folks I will be hitting you all hard for pledges as we get set up properly!

Really sorry to hear about your sister, we mostly think of disability in a negative way but from what you've said she could have taught most of us a thing or two about living life.

Oh she could of indeed. If everyone approached the world in her Happy to see it way with the only focus of people being the actual people not what they looked like or who they prayed to or what social cirlcle they were from, the word would be a bloody fantastic place to be in!

min200 said:

Oh she could of indeed. If everyone approached the world in her Happy to see it way with the only focus of people being the actual people not what they looked like or who they prayed to or what social cirlcle they were from, the word would be a bloody fantastic place to be in!

Click to expand...

LOL, my Mrs says the same about our Springer. It's great you have such nice memories of her.
I used to work in the local schools and often in special schools for disabled children. I always loved going to them because of how great the children were and they were such positive places to visit.

Bits & Bobs.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Mon, April 03, 2017 19:03:29
Now you may think that I have not been doing a deal on The 110 but you would be mistaken. The evenings have become warmer and the daylight is lasting longer so I have been merrily pottering around the old wreck getting it closer and closer to it's finished point over the last few weeks.

I have fitted a full set of new lights! I was just going to replace the lenses but when I saw that the whole unit costs only a few quid I decided why mess around? Now the old bay has a full set of shiny new lights fitted.
These even work as well thanks to the knowledge and help of a friend who came over and played in the cold dark night time under the car port until we had them all shining up in the darkness. Thanks fella, you know who you are

The floors along with the tunnel needed refitting so I had a happy couple of hours yesterday afternoon playing with those getting it all fitting just right. Beer stopped play though when a neighbour turned up and we sat admiring The view from the car port with a couple of cold ones in hand.

The power steering header tank needed fitting so this has been done on the passenger wing just tucked up to the front maximising the space on the nearside. There were a couple of brackets to make up here and there as well as securing the rear brake pipes now the brakes themselves have been rebuilt.

I am still looking for a turbo oil feed pipe and a couple of bits and bobs but finances are tight so until a couple more bits are sold off they will have to wait.

Realistically I can see it being ready for MOT at the end of the month which would be fantastic! Providing of course that nothing else gets buggered up between now and then...

Sorry for the short update folks but with everything that has happened of late I seem to have lost my writing spirit! Work is stupid busy as well. Got to keep you all in the loop though now the end is in sight!