my baby’s come home!

October 9, 2007 at 8:40 pm (bug, simple pleasures)

after coming to an auto impasse in june, my bug has been sitting outside my house collecting dust, making me feel both sad and guilty through my busy term. on thursday, mid-holiday, i finally decided on a course of action, and booked the nrma to tow bea to a new garage, one of my father’s friends who he said would let me be involved. friday morning i waved her off, in the care of a very understanding tow truck driver who told me many times what good care he’d take of her. yesterday was very busy and when i tried to ring i couldn’t get through, but this morning i called, and mark told me to come on over and we’d take a look.

the front wheels came off, the disc brakes were fine. the wheels rattled, but were easily adjusted. the master cylinder was fine, though the pedal has come adrift from its spring. the big nuts on the back wheels were hard to get off, he resorted to standing on a 2m long tube with me pushing on the brakes to stop the car rolling forward right over the chocks. underneath we found wheel cylinders dripping with oil.

mark made a call to a local parts supplier, and we were in luck. they dropped by two new wheel cylinders over lunch, and it was a fairly simple job to fit them, stretched out over a couple of hours by interuption by everyone who came past.

finally it was done, we went for a test drive round the gladesville streets, many of which i had never seen despite having lived there for 23 years. we found a servo, filled her up and pumped her tyres, and she was ready to go!

to say i giggled all the way home is a massive understatement!