You Must Be From Away

..but I’ll try and fix it.

I once had an MGB (preceeded by an MGA and succeeded by an MGB GT) which was  constantly in need of SOMETHING to be fixed and traditionally involved large amounts of money.

So I learned how to fix things, culminating in an heroic battle lasting days and at the cost of countless lives almost 2 fingers in which I triumphed over a slipping clutch by separating engine and gearbox and fitting a new one.

The repair that pleased me most was the fuel pump.

Parked the car at work and noticed a) a smell of petrol and b) an uninterrupted trail following the car. And then stopping.

Fuel pump gasket gone.

Called the MG dealer who got Disney-ish $ signs in his eyes and wanted a month’s salary – can’t get a gasket, have to buy a new pump.

Sod this for a game of soldiers.

Took the pump apart, traced the gasket onto a piece of cardboard, sandwiched it with aluminium foil and wrapped it up in cling film.

Still holding 3 years later when I sold it.

I now have a Saab.

2, actually, but The Boss lays claim to the convertible and I’m stuck with the 11-year-old-with-a-quarter-of-a-million-kms-on-the-clock one.

Especially when it breaks.

Driver’s windscreen wiper stops working in a snow storm.

Have a look at the wiper motor/crank arms/what-have-you and find a crank arm waving around manically, having fallen out of its bushing and not nudging the wiper blade arm backwards and forwards.

The female part of the bushing’s stuffed, can’t get a crank-arm from Saab (on back order – not surprising; they declared bankruptcy just now), can’t find a wrecked Saab to cannibalize and I was about to pull the arm from The Boss’s convertible when……

…rubber gaskets!

All we have to do is to pull the crank arm (3) up to the spindle frame (2) so that the bushing (bottom right, elbow-ey looking thingie) sits tight and everything zips backwards and forwards and nudges the wiper arm left and right.

Rubber gaskets.

One over the crank arm, one over the spindle frame and all held together with No 8 fencing wire.

Works a treat.

Not that it’s raining, of course…..