13-10-2003 01:01									#1
	I was a teenage engineering apocalypse Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Regular readers will have gathered by now that disasters and maimings are but a step away when I decide to do some of that "real man" stuff that involves manual labour. Today was certainly no exception- in terms of pain and physical peril it was a pretty good one.

On the face of it, this should have been simple. My alternator belt shredded while I was driving home on Friday- this is no great catastrophe as I'm fairly good with motors and have fixed things like this before. So yesterday I went out to buy a spare and fix it. So far, so good.

I became uneasy when I saw all they had was Unipart spares. I've had trouble with these before, as they're never quite right for the job- they're designed to suit botch jobs across as wide a range of cars as possible in the traditional engineering spirit of "**** it. That's close enough". Still, it was all they had, so I bought one and went for it. I guessed it would be on the tight side so I adjusted everything I could to get as much slack as possible and had my big screwdriver ready to crowbar the bugger into place.

First attempt at levering the belt over the wheels- I was attempting to ease it over with a pushing motion, putting my weight into it. Just as I felt sure it was going to work, the screwdriver tip sprung out of it's purchase and I fell forward. Damage? Two skinned knuckles, a healthy show of blood and lots of muffled cursing along the lines of "'king thing! F'king get over! Y' f'k!".

Second attempt was a carbon copy. Again I'm falling into the works, scagging the same bastard knuckles and bumping the bridge of my nose on the bonnet prop. Now the claret's really starting to drip, and my language is now unrestrained by thoughts of the feelings of my family or neighbours. The word "mother****er" gets used, as do many genital references.

Third try. Another slip, but this time no further injury. However I'm starting to get irrational, and that's not a good thing.

Fourth attempt. This was the good one. Now I've reversed the purchase of the screwdriver and I'm pulling it towards myself. This was intended to reduce the risk of further injury to myself, but what it actually achieved was to turn my car into a weapon. I'm not buggering about now- I'm really pulling back on the screwdriver in an attempt to stretch the belt into place. Then I lose my grip...

The principles of leverage, and the impressive levels of potential energy of the alternator belt under tension, do their thing. The released belt snaps forward like a bowstring and propel the screwdriver out of the engine bay. It's doing about 150 mph and rotating end-over-end like some sort of ninja ****ing death weapon. In fact it's just like a throwing knife, only propelled with a force no unaided human arm could achieve. It flew across the street (fortunately failing to impale any passing kids through the head) and slammed into a neighbour's front door.

Full comedy value would have been achieved by it sticking in point-first and quivering like one of Robin Hood's arrows, but it didn't. It just bounced off, gouging out a chunk of wood in the process. That was fun.

I phoned the RAC at this point and left it to the experts.

	13-10-2003 01:15									#4
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:ninja:

	13-10-2003 01:21									#5
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I do feel your pain, though. If you're not certain, leave it to the pros. I have the burns to prove it.

	13-10-2003 02:15									#6
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Ya' know, they make proper tools for this.

	13-10-2003 02:16									#7
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Screwdriver?

	13-10-2003 02:35									#8
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Proper tools are for the weak. Real men use whatever they grab first, and hurt themselves.

	13-10-2003 02:39									#9
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Or impale themselves or others.

	13-10-2003 03:24									#11
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If those damn kids come lazily past on their rollerblades, paying no attention as they roll down the middle of the road - one more time - as I'm reversing the car onto the drive, I might have to conduct some experiments on the propulsion of sharp implements and the consequential headwounds.

	13-10-2003 04:11									#12
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'm completely a puss when it comes to working on cars and carpentry. I have no experience and want none. For some reason I've always been leery of these fields of endeavor, and despite the slight downgrading of my value as a male that disinterest in tools and cars has, I'm pretty stubbornly happy to leave the skin on my knuckles intact.

Strangely I'm not afraid of hard physical labor of other sorts, like digging or hacking down weeds, or chopping down trees etc. My landscaping is getting pretty extensive, and everything beyond the clay in my yard has been done by me and a friend of mine. I've planted 9 trees, 20 rose bushes, 12 lilacs, 3 butterfly bushes, and laid in tons of stone in walkways, stairs and beds. But one look at a rusted on bolt on a car and I'm reaching for my wallet to pay a mechanic.

	13-10-2003 04:20									#13
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well I know most of the workings of my engine. I'm just lazy.

I'll do small stuff like hoses myself. those are easy.

But I just recently had my serpentine belt done. Though that was kind of expensive. It only took the guy 2 mintues to do. Though much of that cost might have been the belt itself.

	13-10-2003 08:10									#16
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Funniest damned thing I read all weekend.

	13-10-2003 08:17									#17
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I bought a bunch of car repair tools - trolleys, jacks, you name it - about 6 years ago.

I looked at them last night, covered in dust, and thought - who am I kidding?

We're having a garage sale next weekend.

	13-10-2003 09:22									#18
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I won't touch car repairs. It's the big chink in my macho man image.

But I am pretty good at everything else, esp at fixing computers

	13-10-2003 09:46									#19
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The wrong part and the wrong tool - that usually produces grazed knuckles.

The worst part is when you swear and notice that a little kid is standing next to you and has just had their vocabulary expanded as a result.

	13-10-2003 11:34									#20
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Where I come from people like you are called "Bush Mechanics" and their motto is "If it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer".

	13-10-2003 12:49									#21
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I needed a laugh this morning .

	13-10-2003 12:56									#22
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Normally those belts have a tensioner spring which you can release or there is a screw which moves one of the pulleys so you can put the new belt on and then retighten everything.

	13-10-2003 12:58									#23
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shhh! don't tell him that!

	13-10-2003 17:31									#24
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Reminds me of the night I helped a friend with a burst water pump hose on his ('72?) Maverick. Because of the position of the thing and the darkness, we couldn't quite get it on right. Finally we gave up in frustration and slammed down the hood, forgetting about a bracket we had earlier swiveled out of place.

The bracket went right through the hood. Looked like a steel shark's fin.

The worst part was that my friend had to be constantly reminded of the mishap by friends asking how he got such a peculiar gash in his hood.

	13-10-2003 18:08									#25
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quote: The bracket went right through the hood. Looked like a steel shark's fin.

Kewlll! And on a Maverick!

	13-10-2003 19:16									#26
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I used to do all the maintenance and servicing on my motorbike. I had a MZ, all the way from East Germany c. 1989. Not too difficult as it was designed and built to be fixed with a hammer and to run on fermented potato juice.

Then I bought an Italian scooter with a three year warranty. Now I pay a very modest amount of money for a trained mechanic in a properly equipped workshop to do all the dirty work for me. Anyone want to buy a nearly full giant sized tub of hand cleaner?

	13-10-2003 19:52									#27
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hmmm, I think my worst disaster was connecting the battery leads to the wrong terminals. The burning alternator gave off quite a pretty cloud of smoke but I had to run away from the meltdown and um, eventual explosion.

Another good one was the day I tried to back the car out of the carport with the rear door still open. The tyre lever proved handy though for some on the spot panel beating so I could close the door again.

Or the time I nearly bogged the car on the shores of a lake. Would have been fun getting a tow truck down there with the whole town looking on and laughing at me.