Tag Archives: fiat punto

Sunday 17th November 2013 – NO FOOTY … GRRRRRR!

And I checked before setting out, too. I rang up Fabien who has now taken over the running of FC Pionsat St Hilaire from Bernard, so I am given to understand, and he said at first that today’s 2nd XI match at Charensat was on. But shortly afterwards, he rang back to say that following a mid-morning pitch inspection, the game was off.

Seeing as it was Sunday, I wasn’t feeling too much like a 13:00 start anyway, especially as I didn’t crawl out of bed until abou 10:30. So that was the cue for a leisurely morning.

The afternoon gave me several possibilities – I could see if there were any clubs in the vicinity (Le Quartier, the Goatslayers, St Maurice etc) were playing, or whether Terjat or St Marcel’s matches were on, or else I could stay in and do the rock programmes for Radio Anglais. Common sense and logic suggested that I did the radio programmes and so for once, I took my own best advice (not like me, I know) and dashed out January’s rock music. So that’s out of the way.

This evening I was summoned to appear chez Liz and Terry so that Liz and I could do the rehearsals for our recordings on Friday, and I could have a quick glance at the Fiat Punto that has ground to a shuddering halt (might possibly be that a big end cap has come off, although it’s significant that it started to go wrong after a local garage changed the water punp – has someone dropped a bolt or a spanner down a waterway?)

Liz also sprung a surprise on me – could I help her translate some technical information about the work that is done in a casting foundry. That 18 months I spent in an in-depth study of the evidence of the Tay Bridge disaster, during which about 100 pages was spent in discussing foundry practice and principles, stood me in good stead here, that’s for sure. And I’m not really complaining because Liz also sprung on me an apple crumble and vegan custard together with a doggy bag to take home, as well as another supply of vegan cheese from the UK.

On the way there though, I noticed rather ominously that the sides of the Puy-de-Dome, the Mont Dore and the Puy de Sancy are well-covered in snow. Winter is drawing inexorably closer with every day.

I’m also having a little change of procedure about the bateries in the barn right now. As you know, the charge controller has packed up in there (the second in as many years) so I’m by-passing the charge controller with a flying lead with crocodile clips on each end. Anyway, the battery that I’m using is fully-charged and I don’t want to overcharge it by leaving it coupled up all day, but before all of these charge control issues there were three batteries that were, well, not too bad, and they gradually lost their charge in the absence of a charge conroller.

What I’m doing then is to charge up for just half an hour the battery that’s there, and then swap over the charge to the three precious ones. If we have a good week or so of decent weather it might actually put some charge in them. Who knows? But it’s worth a try.

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Monday 29th October 2012 – I’VE BITTEN …

… the bullet and lit the fire up here this evening.

Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C – that’s about the limit for heat but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday’s pizza and garlic bread to cook.

It’s cheaper (like “cost = nil”) to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that “barmy”?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.

Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat for winter 2012, it’s also the first day of no bottle gas.

A bottle of gas for cooking costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That’s about €0:16 per day that I’m saving.

Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I’ve saved €1:60 per day on heating – a total of €1:76 per day in total.

The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. And as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.

A shrewd move, purchasing this woodstove.

We’d been radioing today, and that wasn’t without incident.

Radio Tartasse at Marcillat en Combraille forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along.

But at Radio Arverne in Gerzat the wheels fell off completely and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.

But there’s a reason for that.

Liz didn’t have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something or other.

Walking outside beating the bounds of my property here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can’t sleep – that’s a new one, isn’t it?

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceOn the way back from Liz and Terry’s as it was going dark, I stopped at my favourite spot – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne – yet again.

We were being presented with the most magnificent sunset as the sun slowly sank beneath the heavy clouds.

If ever a moment called for the camera, then this was it.

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceIt was even more interesting to stand there in the dark and watch all of the lights swich on one by one, like some kind of carpet of bulbs spreading out across the landscape.

And of course it called for a repetition of that well-worn old saying –
“Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Les Ancizes is on fire”.

And that’s not all of it either. I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz’s car.

It’s been a busy day today and I’m off to bed now – thoroughly exhausted.

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Thursday 9th August 2012 – WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY!

And I’m not just talking about the weather either, although that was certainly superb.

This morning was an early start and that found me in Montaigut-en-Combraille with Terry and Rob where we spent a pleasant 90 minutes visiting a semi-derelict building in the town.

We have big plans for this – well, actually we don’t, but the whole purpose of being there this morning was to measure it up and then draw up big plans for it.
Never mind a cunning plan, we will have several cunning plans for this place.

While Terry and Rob went off to chat amongst themselves I went off to the mairie to have a chat with the mayor of Montaigut-en-Combraille about what our intentions are.

Surprisingly (or maybe not, because times are changing in France when there is a question of foreign money being invested in these small semi-abandoned rural towns) she was quite co-operative and gave me loads of help, even introducing me to her deputy who was the kind of person who would really take an interest in this kind of project.

Back home, I started to turf out of the lean-to all of the accumulated breeze blocks, large stones and so on that I won’t be using again up there so that there would be plenty of space for me to move around.

But then the weather intervened – in the sense that by 13:00 the batteries were fully-charged and the water was heating up.

With all of this surplus energy around, out came the big drill and YESSSSSSSSSSS I finally pushed the core drill right through the wall and into the house.

I’ve even managed to feed the plastic pipe through the wall and so now, next time that it’s too wet to work, I’ll be running three sets of cables through the tube – a 230-volt power line, a 12-volt power line and a 12-volt light line, and then starting to wire everything up

This afternoon I was round at Liz and Terry’s doing the rear brakes on her car. Pretty straightforward of course but I was having issues with fitting the springs what with a lime burn on my thumb – how I managed that on Monday after all this time without one is another one of those total mysteries.

So tomorrow I’ll be fitting the woodwork for the windows and painting it all (I still have tons of this excellent LIDL wood treatment stuff), and then sorting out some wood to make a fascia panel across the exposed ends of the roof chevrons to keep the weather out of the ends of the chevrons.

That wood will be painted too.

I’ll measure up for the glass fit what guttering that I have lying around, and then on Saturday I’ll go into Commentry to buy the glass and the rest of the guttering.

Coming on in leaps and bounds now!

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Friday 3rd August 2012 – I DIDN’T DO …

… anything at all on the wall today.

At about 09:30 while I was working on my website Liz rang to say that the brake parts had come for her car.

So after working on the website until lunchtime I made myself a few butties and then had lunch in Caliburn on the way down the road.

Of course, when there is a choice of 4 or 5 types of rear brake shoe it’s easy to choose the wrong one, isn’t it? That’s what we found out after we had dismantled one side of the car.

But at least it gave us an opportunity to look at how it all worked and to give it all a really good clean.

The front brakes were another matter. We had the right disc pads and after the retaining pins had been freed off, we set to work. Or at least, we tried to. The outer right-hand pad was seized in the caliper and looked for all the world as if it had never been used.

That took quite some freeing off but eventually I managed.

Then after spending a while freeing off the piston and cleaning everything off, a little copper grease lubricated everything and it re-assembled quite nicely.

As for the left-hand side, I removed the retaining pins, and as soon as I did that, the friction lining off the outer pad fell off the car, leaving the backing plate behind.

No wonder the car was making strange noises and doing weird things when Liz applied the brakes.

All of that needed a really good clean and the piston in the caliper freeing off, and then it all went back together quite easily

Anyway, now it all works fine, stops like it’s supposed to, and all the strange noises have gone. I’m glad I did all that.

Liz cooked a nice tea and made me some spicy tomato chutney to bring home as a reward. That was really nice.

But seeing what passes for garage mechanics around here, I can see me turning the clock back to where I was in the late 1980s.

What I need first of all is a little workshop.

I shall have to do something about that. I may well be on to something here. 

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Tuesday 31st July 2012 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… all day and so I missed the glorious weather.

142.2 amp-hours in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus electrical energy that I create, meaning that the water temperature rose from 44°C to off the scale (over 70°C) during the day.

And it was still over 70°C when I came back at 22:00. That must have been hot.

But today I was at Liz and Terry’s finishing off Liz’s car.

And we reassembled it and much to everyone’s surprise, it fired up straight away and ran (so Liz says) better than it has run for a while.

We took it for a test-drive and it seemed to be fine, although the brakes are a little “hit and miss”, so we ordered new brakes all round and we’ll fit those when they arrive.

We also changed the dampers on the back as they were rather soft and there was a pair hanging around.

And here’s a surprise!

Too much slack in the 19mm socket, and yet an 18mm was too small. This led to a rummage around in the old toolbox and a 3/4″ AF socket was produced – and that fitted perfectly.

Imperial bolts on a 2000 FIAT – who would ever have thought that!

Anyway, Liz reckons that the ride has stiffened up considerably and that is good news too. As a reward, she cooked a good dinner and made some vegan chocolate brownies for me.

The car had better run alright after all of this.

-1

Tuesday 24th July 2012 – CALIBURN DIDN’T FLY …

… home as quickly as he normally does from Liz and Terry’s this evening.

Hardly surprising – there’s half a tonne of stones in the back.

You know how I’m rebuilding the wall of the lean to and how I’m running out of stones – it just so happens that Terry has a barn-full that need moving

So having had an early start at … gulp … 06:40 this morning I was round at Liz and Terry’s for shortly after 09:00 and we set to work to dismantle the engine on the FIAT.

And while it was comparatively straightforward, it took absolutely ages because there are all kinds of complications – cables and wires and plastic housings in the way and to take one thing off you need to remove two other things and to remove those two other things you need to move four other things, and so on. 

Highlight had to be taking off the plastic shroud that covers the timing belt cover.

Undo all of the screws and still the blasted thing won’t move.
Jack up the car and take off the wheel to see why …. ahhh, screw actually holds on the plastic mudguard.
After much manoeuvring, off comes the plastic mudguard, to find that the screw we are looking for is just half an inch away from the mudguard screw, but the mudguard is covering it so you can’t see it until you take off the mudguard. Why they couldn’t put the screw through the plastic mudguard from the outside to save us half an hour’s work I really don’t know.

So guess what I’ll be doing with an electric drill when I come to reassemble it

Yes, not reassembled yet. But everything is cleaned and smoothed down and ready.

What’s holding us up is that for doing many things, such as taking the plugs out with the cylinder head in situ, it’s near-on impossible and so seeing as we have the cylinder head off, we’ve ordered a full service kit and we’ll change everything before we reassemble it.

That way, it’s all done and dusted, and ready for the road. 

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Monday 23rd July 2012 -171.4 AND 160.1 AMP-HOURS …

… of solar energy in bank 1 and bank 2 respectively might not be a new record (although it isn’t far off), but 154 amp-hours of that being surplus and hence being diverted into the dump load (the hot water tank) – now, that definitely is.

And having emptied out the hot water from the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load, which was still at an indecent temperature and filled up the tank this morning with cold water, that brought the water temperature down to just a mere 39°C.

And by the time that this 154 amp-hours of solar energy had finished, it was enough to push the temperature of the water off the scale – ie over 70°C.

Now that is impressive.

The temperature of the water in the solar shower tank may well only have been 30°C, but 5 litres of water out of the dump load took it right up to 38.5°C and I had yet another lovely shower.

And I’m all clean now, just for a change.

Mind you, I wasn’t half dirty earlier on.

This morning, after my 07:00 start (despite only going to bed at 02:30), a leisurely breakfast and an hour or so on the laptop, I went round to Marianne’s to move the International Library from her friend’s garage to an empty room at François’ at Barrot.

That was enough to make anyone filthy

From there it was off to LIz and Terry’s to pick up Liz and then off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Arverne.

And as well as the 5 that we had planned, we needed to do a 6th as Bernard had somehow managed to lose the one for this week. And it’s not very pleasant in the heat up there in their attic.

That’s it, really. Quite busy but nothing much to show for it.

I’m off to bed now, another ridiculously early night as it’s another early start tomorrow.

I’m changing the cylinder head gasket on Liz’s car.

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