soggy snails

It's one darn thing after another, sometimes, with the Moggy. I'd been waiting for the weather to get better before putting the nice new tyres on the front. And a sunny day duly came along, last week. So I did the portside wheel, cleaning up the brake pads while I was at it ( a quick rub down with sandpaper, to deglaze them). Then I found that one of the starboard brake cylinders was sticking, which explained the squeaky noise and general sense of slowness that I'd been meeting lately.

So I squirted some penetrating oil around the piston, and hit it a bit with the rawhide mallet, andput it back together again so that I could drive over to the Morris centre for some new cylinders and brake pads.

Yesterday morning looked a bit fresh and windy, but I really wanted to get the job done. So I started.
And it started to rain.

I put the new brake pads on, and then couldn't get the drum back on over them. Because I'd repaired the snail cam adjuster, exactly(ish) one year ago,

...and the added thickness was OK for a part-worn brake pad, but didn't give enough adjustment for a new one.

So I took the new brake pads off, and cleaned up the old ones as best I could, and put them back.

And put everything back together, and bled the brakes.

And it was pouring down.

Reminded me of my last trip in the North Sea, working on the gun deck on a stormy night in March, with the ship rolling and water sluicing down on me from the helideck above every time it rolled. And I wondered what strange fate had led me to this.

So I lugged all the oily, dirty, soaking tools up to the kitchen, and wiped them dry and sprayed them with WD40, and balanced the tool boxes on top of the oven to dry them out, and threw all the clothes into the washing machine, and stood in the shower until I started to feel warm again.

And looked for a new snail cam on Ebay.

And when it arrives, I can put it on and then put on the new brake pads.

Keeping a close eye on the weather.