Hello all and a belated welcome back to Essex DAFs.
Regretfully we must start our latest report with some sad news.
Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, Farmer George's wife Nancy suffered a heart attack. She survived it and was taken to our regional NHS hospital specialising in heart conditions. Last Friday Nancy passed away in her sleep. Naturally this is very sad news for anyone connected to Essex DAFs. I saw George last Saturday whilst he was tending to the chickens. He seemed to be bearing up well as he said with age comes expectations (they are both octogenarians) and so it wasn't a major shock to him, upsetting nonetheless. They had been married for 59 years and in all that time had only ever had one 'falling out'. I think there is a lesson in that for all of us. Naturally our thoughts are with George
The day prior, Matt had visitors in Mike Hodgson and friend Rob who seemed to enjoy their visit and Rob took a shine to Snowdrop - well, someone has to! ;D
Matt was otherwise engaged on Saturday but Martin and I travelled over to Central to spend another afternoon of frustration on the blue 66.
The intention was to examine the binding rear brakes to see what was amiss and rectify accordingly.
The answer was soon apparent. The offside drum released fairly easily to reveal a seized cylinder...
...along with shoes that were wearing down to the rivets.
The shoes were not a problem as a new set was found in the parts barn. Cylinders were a problem however. I'll now make you roll your eyes. We found a 33 cylinder with light pitting in the bore but otherwise sound which Martin cleaned up with some wire wool.
Only to find that it didn't actually fit as the dowel peg was ever so slightly different. So that was that and we made no further progress as the light was fading.
The weekend was not a total failure for me though as Rover received another MOT with advisories for low front brake pads and tyre treads and a small hole developing in the nearside sill. Don't you just love the new MOT certificates? Another sign of government austerity measures.
Sunday was to see Matt and Goldie arrive at Essex South early afternoon and after a quick cuppa we set off for Ken in north London.
Vee was there ready and waiting for us and we set about changing her lazy starter which thankfully had the desired effect.
At this point we were pleased to be joined by Eric Bhojani in his 55 estate as Matt had a cylinder head for him.
Unfortunately Vee's front end needed putting back together following Ken's paint work and so we set about doing that, although we couldn't get the bonnet to catch. Fortunately I had some roof rack bungee cords in Gavina's boot and these were set to good use holding the bonnet firm.
It was then time exchange paper work and folding...
...before giving Vee a cursory check over which revealed a non-functioning indicator. Cue lots of scrabbling around underneath and through the lens hole to find the disconnected cable. ;D
Finally we helped Ken move garage...to the unit next door. Ken lives in a lovely part of town where people were randomly using his garage door as a urinal and quite understandably he'd had enough of that. A recalcitrant hasp caused some initial problems but was soon rectified. Everything done we could finally park Goldie in the new garage.
And so we set off and Matt and I had a good journey home in our 33s. We left the M25 at Brentwood services to check all was ok and Matt headed home down the A12 whilst I attended to some business in one of the 'bad' parts of the badlands, that which lies to the west in the London Borough of Havering.
Matt was fortunate in having a couple of days off work at the beginning of this week and has managed to get Snowdrop started and running as well as her brake master cylinder stripped for reconditioning. I believe on Saturday he will be collecting some spares from Luton and tomorrow is Gavina's MOT time.
That's us for now!
Cheese,
33G.