Sunday 19 February 2012

Wild weekends

Every so often life starts dealing cards from the bottom of the pack.

As I previously mentioned our Citroen C5 expired in a cloud of steam, needing the head removed and skimmed. So that was one vehicle off the road.

Next Saxo came over all flakey, the clutch slipping and the brakes seized. Locals only till some  serious thinking was done, not a lot of MOT left, was it worth doing?

So we were pretty much left with the VW which, fair play has been as reliable as an anvil. So as she and I set off for a meeting, all was well in the world. Then it refused 5th gear.

Odd, so back into 4th, strange, wasn't having third either, or first, or reverse. This was starting to feel REALLY expensive. Anyway we limped home, investigations would be made in daylight.

Next morning a bit of fiddling, there seemed a hell of a lot of movement in the gear stick as the engine was revved. The truck was not jumping out of gear in 1st 3rd 5 th it was being pushed out by the movement of the engine. Strange....

But anyway it was Saxo time, limping over to the garage, put it on the pit and a very borderline call, for the cost of repair we could get another probably newer car, decisions decisions....

All academic we were still carless.

Limp home then limp back in the T4 - diagnosis of fault 30 seconds. Open bonnet and  there it was or rather there it wasn't. One of the bolts holding the gearbox to the chassis had decided to abandon ship so the engine and gearbox were crashing about under the bonnet. Of course the gearbox had also dropped so everything needed to be lined up before any bolt could be replaced. To give a little hint, VW recommend taking the other bolts off in order to remove the gearbox.

Jacking the gearbox up, with me stood on the body bouncing up and down we sort of got it lined up. And, with me dangling into the engine room with Wayne the mechanic getting to the other side of the bracket from underneath we got a nut and bolt on and tightened everything up.

Result then!!! No need for a full on recon gearbox.

So Next came the Saxo, I found a VTR with less miles and 5 years newer 50 miles away so this morning was devoted to a drive and haggle session. At the end of which we were the new owners of another Saxo VTR quite a nice one too it seems.

A brisk drive home...

Just as well, no one son had learnt the hard way why you should wear goggles when wearing the grinder. A lovely 4 hours in casualty to round off the day.

Thank goodness for relaxing weekends, they so set us up for the week ahead.

R  

        

  

1 comment:

gz said...

Eventful to say the least!