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What's made you smile today?

hi paj that 14 ins or 16 ins ransome villiers 2stroke brings back the time i had one back in the late 1950s villiers parts were availble from meetons at wimbledon good tip i learnt was to lace the plug tip with a lead pencil . sorry i have not been on before wife had covid and flu jab has now lost her menory and is mentail heath ward 31 miles away from home thank god i have agood panda regards mowermender70
Sorry to hear that, hope everything is good
 
hi paj that 14 ins or 16 ins ransome villiers 2stroke brings back the time i had one back in the late 1950s villiers parts were availble from meetons at wimbledon good tip i learnt was to lace the plug tip with a lead pencil . sorry i have not been on before wife had covid and flu jab has now lost her menory and is mentail heath ward 31 miles away from home thank god i have agood panda regards mowermender70
I'm so so sorry to hear that. A family member was taken with Postpartum Psychosis following the birth of their second child. - Before you ask, no, I never heard of it either. They, and a friend, couldn't figure out what was wrong and she was getting worse hallucinating etc so we went out to see if Mrs J and I could help. We had to call an ambulance which we followed into the hospital where eventually she was diagnosed (initially noone knew what was wrong) The medical people thought she'd had a stroke but the symptoms weren't quite right and it was Mrs J herself who suggested postpartum having seen one of her friends with it when we were young. She was temporarily sectioned and I spent many hours comforting the wee lad while Mrs J spent time with Mum. Maybe this is partly why he and I are so close now. Anyway, the mental facility were absolutely wonderful. She was in there for many weeks under 24 hour observation but is now, several years later, pretty much fully recovered. If your unit is anything like as good as that then your Mrs couldn't be in a better place. You'll both be in my thoughts so please do let me know how you both are.

Graphite on the plug tips/ I've heard of doing that on the Bantam to make starting easier but mine always fired up no bother so I never tried it. I always carried a couple of clean plugs in my jacket though as I used to over oil the mixture a bit to protect it from the flogging I gave the poor thing so got "whiskers" and general fouling from time to time.
 
I'm so so sorry to hear that. A family member was taken with Postpartum Psychosis following the birth of their second child. - Before you ask, no, I never heard of it either. They, and a friend, couldn't figure out what was wrong and she was getting worse hallucinating etc so we went out to see if Mrs J and I could help. We had to call an ambulance which we followed into the hospital where eventually she was diagnosed (initially noone knew what was wrong) The medical people thought she'd had a stroke but the symptoms weren't quite right and it was Mrs J herself who suggested postpartum having seen one of her friends with it when we were young. She was temporarily sectioned and I spent many hours comforting the wee lad while Mrs J spent time with Mum. Maybe this is partly why he and I are so close now. Anyway, the mental facility were absolutely wonderful. She was in there for many weeks under 24 hour observation but is now, several years later, pretty much fully recovered. If your unit is anything like as good as that then your Mrs couldn't be in a better place. You'll both be in my thoughts so please do let me know how you both are.

Graphite on the plug tips/ I've heard of doing that on the Bantam to make starting easier but mine always fired up no bother so I never tried it. I always carried a couple of clean plugs in my jacket though as I used to over oil the mixture a bit to protect it from the flogging I gave the poor thing so got "whiskers" and general fouling from time to time.
 
thanks everybody as i said back in the late 50s as well s the ransome i had allen and mayfield scythe howard 810 twin cylinder howard gem suffolk 17inspunch atco 24ins cylinder mower and later on a flymo 19 contractor leftmy job in 68 and started our own garden machinery business right up to i retired13 years ago.regret to say the wife no longer know me its hard doing 31 miles to see her and dose not no you they say she will be there for 6 months mowermender70
 
thanks everybody as i said back in the late 50s as well s the ransome i had allen and mayfield scythe howard 810 twin cylinder howard gem suffolk 17inspunch atco 24ins cylinder mower and later on a flymo 19 contractor leftmy job in 68 and started our own garden machinery business right up to i retired13 years ago.regret to say the wife no longer know me its hard doing 31 miles to see her and dose not no you they say she will be there for 6 months mowermender70
I don't know what to say friend. but remember we're here for you if we can give support.
 
Aye, we were joking about that just the other day. Apparently, when the cremation if all done (I'm going to be cremated) they put all the remains in a big centrifugal crusher - I think the bones etc still need to be pulverized?) From what I gather this machine contains some very big ball bearings which crash about and reduce everything to dust? I'm told that if they don't take the metal bits out - knees and now that hip too for me - before starting the machine it wreaks havoc with it? Don't know what the metal is? maybe the kids could ask for them back and take them down to the scrappie, get some beer money and toast my passing with it?
My mother in law promised I could have her titanium knees but the crem must have kept them. Its worth money too. Lol
 
Yesterday a young gal brought her horse up from a neighboring state to the complex for a meet and greet. His name is Graham Cracker. She uses him at the schools for the kids, that’s her business.
They had put up a notice at my place on the bulletin board she would be coming with the horse, so some of us went down to meet him. Very calm horse, use to being around crowds I suppose. All muscle at 1200 lbs.

It was nice she came out and the residents really enjoyed it petting him and she allowed them to give him carrots and such. Oddly he don’t like apples. She said he was a roper (cattle ranch) down in Mexico, but she don’t have papers on him, the vet who checked him out before she bought him said he’s around 10 ish. Paid 6k for ‘em.

Graham Cracker the horse-1.jpg


A little backstory on where I live and so maybe you’ll understand why some of the residents really appreciated it.
It’s subsidized housing through the government mainly for senior pensioners and any age if disabled. We have severely disabled people here, physically, (as well as some real nutters) and of course some of our seniors are up there.
We use to be strictly senior residence but they couldn’t keep the place full because they were dropping dead like fly’s.
My favorite thing about this place is my parking area , you will not see this at to many flats in the states. However quite dusty when the wind kicks up.

Carport.jpg


Anyway, it was a fun day and I got a picture with ‘ole Graham Cracker.
 
Mrs.Cheest, Buster dog, and I are on an extended road trip across the US south western states. So far, besides Illannoy, we’ve been in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and currently in Utah.

The main reason for the trip was to retrace as much of the trip we did in 1978. It was along US 66, in an Opel Manta, and before kids. There is even less of old 66 left now, prices are a lot higher, tourists are still a pain in the ass, the vehicle of choice is a diesel pickup, and we’re towing a trailer instead of pitching a tent.

Last Tuesday, we headed west out of Needles, CA, made a right turn and drove through Death Valley. After Death Valley, we turned right again, this putting us on the Lincoln Highway, aka, The Loneliest Road In America, aiming us towards home in Illannoy. We’re spending tonight and tomorrow night in Utah to visit a couple of national parks, then a night in the Colorado Rockies, followed by the Great Plains in Nebraska and Iowa. Enjoying places we’ve not seen in decades but looking forward to home and my own bed.

I’d post some pics but my iPad and Android stuff don’t always play well together plus the wI-fi and cell service is sketchy in the boonies.
 
Feeling better about spending hours cleaning up and painting some spare steel wheels over the summer.
Just had a Panda dropped off with a flat tyre. Took wheel off and it looked like it had spent a couple of decades under the sea.
Got compressor out and added some air.
Hissing noise, but no obvious puncture.
Picked wheel up and felt air on fingers.
Had a better look at the rim, prodding with a screwdriver.
Not a pretty sight...
 

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Feeling better about spending hours cleaning up and painting some spare steel wheels over the summer.
Just had a Panda dropped off with a flat tyre. Took wheel off and it looked like it had spent a couple of decades under the sea.
Got compressor out and added some air.
Hissing noise, but no obvious puncture.
Picked wheel up and felt air on fingers.
Had a better look at the rim, prodding with a screwdriver.
Not a pretty sight...
I have some 128 3p wheels that look better than that and they’ve been in a been in two cellars, a shipping container and a barn since I had the car up till 1986!
 
Weirdest thing is that the rest of the car looks very clean - even the rear beam is only slightly crusty.
I had suggested that all 4 wheels get changed over with some of my painted ones, until I realised I've only got 3 left.
Then I remembered why...
I've been swapping out space-savers ones on most of the Pandas I work on, as I've recently come across a few which were downright dangerous.
One left some of the sidewall in the wheel well when it got removed after a puncture, which was funny in a not-funny kind of way. As I've never seen the car without the boot being full of junk, I had never checked it.
This one came out of a Panda last week - the pink stuff seems to have been corrosive to rubber, and a couple of the yucky bits are actually bulges. If it had more than a few PSI in it it would probably have burst, but luckily it was almost totally deflated.
Strangely, the boot floor was immaculate apart from the pink goo (which took some shifting!)
Better find some more steelies to clean up, I guess.
 

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Feeling better about spending hours cleaning up and painting some spare steel wheels over the summer.
Just had a Panda dropped off with a flat tyre. Took wheel off and it looked like it had spent a couple of decades under the sea.
Got compressor out and added some air.
Hissing noise, but no obvious puncture.
Picked wheel up and felt air on fingers.
Had a better look at the rim, prodding with a screwdriver.
Not a pretty sight...
I have some steel wheels off my Punto you are welcome to have if you need a spare rim or two.

They are a bit crusty but certainly not as bad as yours, the tires are very old so I'd not recommend using the tires.
 
Lincoln Highway, aka, The Loneliest Road In America

Great story, I never knew it was America's oldest/first hwy., part of it runs right through my town, of course not called that anymore. I saw a documentary about it, how it got started, I don't think it was ever fully paved, it was more or less communities along the way marking it and perhaps some clearance. But it ran further then Route 66 and it's older. And it was funded by private company's and individuals and it was marked by the boy-scouts in most places.

Note: Route 66 was decommissioned in the 1980's, the Lincoln hwy. was never funded by the Federal government and the chief opponent against the car company's and private funding was Henry Ford, he never gave a dime towards the Lincoln hwy.
 
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I have some steel wheels off my Punto you are welcome to have if you need a spare rim or two.

They are a bit crusty but certainly not as bad as yours, the tires are very old so I'd not recommend using the tires.
Thanks for the offer Andy, but it's only a temporary shortage because I was too lazy to clean up and paint some more from the pile of take-offs over the summer.
The crusty ones aren't from one of mine - I wouldn't let mine get that bad before doing something about it. (Also most of mine are on alloys anyway)
I stole the full-size spare from my Active Eco to make up a set of 4, and I'll replace it with a freshly painted one when I (eventually) get round to doing a few more.
The 4 crusty ones are heading to the scrap metal pile!
 
Weirdest thing is that the rest of the car looks very clean - even the rear beam is only slightly crusty.
I had suggested that all 4 wheels get changed over with some of my painted ones, until I realised I've only got 3 left.
Then I remembered why...
I've been swapping out space-savers ones on most of the Pandas I work on, as I've recently come across a few which were downright dangerous.
One left some of the sidewall in the wheel well when it got removed after a puncture, which was funny in a not-funny kind of way. As I've never seen the car without the boot being full of junk, I had never checked it.
This one came out of a Panda last week - the pink stuff seems to have been corrosive to rubber, and a couple of the yucky bits are actually bulges. If it had more than a few PSI in it it would probably have burst, but luckily it was almost totally deflated.
Strangely, the boot floor was immaculate apart from the pink goo (which took some shifting!)
Better find some more steelies to clean up, I guess.
Becky has two pretty good rims and two really quite poor ones. I wonder if the poor ones have been mostly on the rear although they've been on the N/S since I've owned her. I've been thinking of getting a couple of used but good rims and taking them to the grit blaster in a nearby industrial estate, painting them and fitting the good tyres from the poor rims to them. Then, maybe later attending to the other two at some time in the future. Anyone know what "going rate" is to blast a wheel and undercoat it - which I believe is what this chap does.
 
Sorry Jock, no idea of current cost.
I looked for a local sandblasting place in the summer, but did not find any useful ones.
Couple of places offered to blast and powder coat them, but at a price about the same as a new rim.
All the old places I used to use for this kind of stuff seem to have disappeared completely.
I had to resort to wire brush and flap disc for the last batch.
(If anyone has any good suggestions for places that will just do a simple blasting job on wheels in East Anglia without trying to up-sell, please tell me - I hate wire brushing almost as much as I hate painting)
 
Sorry Jock, no idea of current cost.
I looked for a local sandblasting place in the summer, but did not find any useful ones.
Couple of places offered to blast and powder coat them, but at a price about the same as a new rim.
All the old places I used to use for this kind of stuff seem to have disappeared completely.
I had to resort to wire brush and flap disc for the last batch.
(If anyone has any good suggestions for places that will just do a simple blasting job on wheels in East Anglia without trying to up-sell, please tell me - I hate wire brushing almost as much as I hate painting)
Thanks for coming back on this. The impression I have is that a "proper job" seems to cost the same as buying a new steel wheel. I really hate the rust removal with wire wheels, emery, etc. and I've thought about a blast cabinet more than once but, until I bought my big compressor a couple of years ago I never had a compressor with enough "puff". I do quite enjoy the painting though. So, if I could find someone who'd do the blasting on the cheap I'd be happy to do the rest.
 
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