Turning the air blue

[gs.davies]

This evening I’ve used more expletives than possibly ever before, and I’m a well known user of profanity.

Whilst approaching what appeared the home straight and bolting a head down, I took the rocker nuts up to the 25 lb/ft as specified (and the adjusters were all well clear..) and the one by number four cylinder did that horrible little shimmy that threaded things do when they soil themselves. Undeterred I removed the offending stud and prepared another. However, on further inspection it seems that the threaded hole in the head (a previously nice 295) has given up the ghost, necessitating the imminent insertion of a helicoil.

At this point speedwell, clipper, island, surf, teal, Tahiti and pageant all descended. And other later shades. As well as some ones found on other marques.

Sometimes this old car lark is a simple straightforward compete and utter *#*%^^{ pile of ######## #%^^*#***^^% #%%]#^#** innit?

[AndyPen]

At least it is fixable I guess, but yeah, they do bring out the naughty words with me too - perhaps that's a good thing???

[gs.davies]

So… I thought this was a good time to put the Janspeed head on. Valve guides are well worn but maybe all eight on button might do the job..?

Nope.

This head will only take then in the inlets, I need them on all eight thanks to a backwards cam bearing. I only want it to get me through this season. Car has other ideas.

IMG_8890.jpeg

So, with nothing else motivating me, I painted the Janspeed head and John will fit a helicoil to the 295 on Monday…

Oh. What could have been..

IMG_8891.jpeg

[Julian Harber]

They like to just make sure there is some pain before you tame the beast - it will be more enjoyable when you hear it purr . . .

[Peter Laidler]

I'm in the Harber camp (above) only we used to call these mechanical hiccups '.....character forming episodes...'

If you really want to know about swearing......, I mean REALLY foul mouthed swearing, you ought to set about changing the clutch slave and hose on a Mk7 RCSport. You might have heard it from deepest Gloucester

[Pete]

Yep I went through a few choice words doing similar on a radiator swap last week. Note to self : dry build it with the 2 piece cowling on the bench first to make sure it all goes together. Schoolboy stuff I know but I was rushing.

[Polarsilver]

Cheer Up, can assure you the challenges we have with Mk1 Minis are nothing, as a comparison ..repair an Audi URquattro they were reportedly hand built cars & today almost all Audi Spare Parts are NLA.& if they become available, then i need a mortgage .
The bonus with our BMC built Mini,s is 99% Parts Availability @ sensible prices .

[gs.davies]

Things didn’t improve today. Went to change the oil on my daily, luckily I double checked the oil filter I’d been sent before dropping the oil only to find it was the wrong one…

Not been my weekend

[Peter Laidler]

Not my weekend either...... Got to remove the brake master cyl and servo to get access to one of the clutch master cyl nuts. Hands shredded, nails torn away But the good - or bad - news was that I learned some more of the foulest language now echoing around Abingdon

[MiNiKiN]

My granddad was a passionate swearer, and my granny always told him off for that, because "he wouldn't get to heaven" once the final invoice was due, she said.

Guess the heavenly judge made an exception, as grandpa was a really good-hearted man, though. As it happens it must be a genectic thing, as I too tend to swear a lot, when things don't go the way intended. Funnily my "expressions" air in English, though being of german mother tonque

['S'-type]

I gusss this thread confirms that your're never far from Murphy's Law, in one form or another, in Mini ownership.

Murphy's general laws

1 Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2 Everything takes longer than you think.
3 Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
4 If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5 If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
6 If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
7 Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8 If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
9 It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
10 Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.

There are lots of variations of course.

But the real grumpy ones among us reckon Murphy was an optimist