2002 in Pictures, Part 1

2002 in Pictures - part 1

Winter and Spring

Last year, since the aborted trip to Scotland our lives had been dominated by refurbishing the house. We had done the bathrooms in time for the 2001 festive season. As soon as guests had gone we returned to windows. With a big garage we could carry on whatever the weather but in order to paint the finished frames we spent a fortune in heating. To the left is a frame in the process of having its sealed unit fitted - a tricky business.

We are trying out big and little pictures in these pages and where they have coloured edged you can click on the picture to see a bigger version. If we run out of web space we may have to stop.

The the glazing tape (like Bluetack) is unforgiving and since the opening frames had sagged a bit they needed holding square with blocks clamped to the bench. Then the sealed glass unit has to be placed with an even gap all round.

A little light relief came by on the 31st January in the shape of a Mink (we think), right. This creature wandered round for a while then disappeared next door.

Ever since we have lived in the house, we have needed a back door. It has two on the front but apart from the french windows we did not have an access to to the back garden except through the garage which can be impassable if the cars are in it. At a party we saw how a neighbour solved the problem. Once the really cold weather had finished in March, we finally got round to it and the initial job of hacking through the wall is shown left.

Building work is always messy and, despite efforts to seal the work area with polythene, brick dust got everywhere.

Spring was quite warm and work on the windows and painting proceeded apace. Our Wisteria put on its best show ever.

We got involved with the Parish Council and David was persuaded to volunteer to fix the Jubilee Seat, left, on the village green. Sadly, seats do not seem to have a long life expectancy in our village but this one has lasted until December, which is longer than some. We had a little ceremony around it on the evening of 30th May which was warm and pleasant.

On the way back we snapped good views of the Church and the old Manor House.

On our "year out" towing the caravan, we we were greatly troubled by the starter solenoid overheating. The red arrows on the picture, left, show the problem. The exhaust passes less than an inch from the solenoid and, when towing up long hills, the radiation makes the solenoid very hot . The problem was made worse when we stopped, by the loss of cooling air and "heat soak" from the manifold directly above. First, we needed to get an idea of the scale of the problem and fitted a thermocouple under a hose clip, as can be seen.

We made a trip, with Mother and sister Pat, to Manchester and used the trip to note the temperature. A long slow climb over the Snake Pass had the the temperature over 90C and it rose a further 10 degrees when we stopped. This was with an ambient of no more than 20C and with no caravan. It is likely that on our long hot towing climbs in Europe we had the solenoid well over 150C, which is too hot.

We were going to Manchester to see Mother's brother Harry, shown below teasing Spadger the dog. Harry had been approached by George, the son of a cousin, who lived not far away. Despite this, neither they nor we had ever met. George had many old pictures that he was trying to sort out.

We had a great weekend with an outdoor brunch laid on by Harry. Mother was able to fill in some of the gaps in George's family history. In return, some of the uncertainties were removed from our photos.

After Manchester, the world. Well, to start with Scotland. Now we planned to return to last year's unfinished business and really do Scotland. First there was the starter. In Sicily we had tried to get it off to look at it, but could not budge the bolts. Now the bolts were just finger tight. The last garage in Giarre had not tightened them enough. This explained the harsh vibration that had developed of late! On examination the starter was fine, so the next stage was to make and fit a heat shield that would hopefully cure the problem that had plagued us. Below left is the finished heat shield, sitting on the drawing of the metalwork. The design was an iterative process, undertaken by cutting and forming bits of cardboard till they fitted. An extra plate was fitted to the engine on two conveniently located tapped holes and the engine mount. On this the top of the heat shield was bolted and, as shown below centre, the bottom of the heat shield was fixed to the solenoid with a hose clip. Below right is the view from the top of the engine. The starter and solenoid are now shielded from "seeing" the manifold or the exhaust pipe and now hopefully the hot start problem was licked.

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Last updated: 07/12/02