Made my son cry
Discussion
Finally started the beast again today but the surprise and sheer volume scared my 2yo into crying. I thought he was ready for it but it was obviously too much for him. I felt quite horrible. 
Cheered him up though by letting him "drive" it... that's what he calls it when he sits in the driving seat and saws away at the wheel. He loves that, and he's been asking me since he first noticed the car in the garage when I was going to fix it. Bless him.
I'll take him for a spin tomorrow. We haven't had the patience (or time) to work out exactly how the proper Cerb child seat fits in the back (I don't have the bent pipe or plate of ally - which would be easy to make myself if I could borrow such from someone) so the last time we went for a spin I put his normal child seat in the front seat. That positions him up high which he loves. I don't go fast with him - he actually asks me to go fast until we reach a certain volume then he asks for "not too fast Daddy". Only 2yo remember. He's bilingual too (Mommy's Polish) - clever chap.
Anyway, I replaced the alternator finally. It's a truly horrendous job, not helped by my having a replacement which needed a pulley swap with the original. I took the advice from the other thread and took it to a local garage where they whizzed it off with an air impact wrench - for free (I'll get them to service my normal car now - a sort of thanks).
So, the next time you wonder at the prices charged by the independent garages for work such as an alternator replacement, or even a belt replacement, consider how long it'd take to do yourself. Me? It took 3 days in total. One to "undress" the top of the engine. One to get the alty out (that was a challenge) and today to put the new one in.
I'm sure familiarity with the process cuts down the time to something far less insensible than my record, but the money goes to compensate the poor devil doing the job for loss of skin on their hands, loss of finger nails and a general feeling of trauma. I could do it in a number of hours now, but I don't think I'd want to.
I also took advantage of being filthy already to look at more of the chassis (lay under the car) and am happy to report that although the powdercoating was an obvious afterthought on behalf of TVR and is now missing-presumed-useless from my chassis, the metal seems "integral". A bit of a scrape with a chisel to loosen the remaining sheets of powdercoating revealed quite a pleasant surprise. I've a couple of pots of POR15 which will be finding their way onto the rust over the next few weeks (I think it'll take a while to clean off the old powdercoating so I'll apply it in stages) and then I'll be able to rest easy until probably the Winter of 08 when I think I'll send it to DynoTorque for a proper body-off resto job. They've done an awesome job of BrummieWedge's and a recommendation is worth 1000 adverts in my book.
See you all around.
[Edit]: I didn't select the OT marker for this thread. I wanted the "cry" icon but my selection has been replaced by one that the website has made... it's obviously for my own good so I'll live with it.
Cheered him up though by letting him "drive" it... that's what he calls it when he sits in the driving seat and saws away at the wheel. He loves that, and he's been asking me since he first noticed the car in the garage when I was going to fix it. Bless him.
I'll take him for a spin tomorrow. We haven't had the patience (or time) to work out exactly how the proper Cerb child seat fits in the back (I don't have the bent pipe or plate of ally - which would be easy to make myself if I could borrow such from someone) so the last time we went for a spin I put his normal child seat in the front seat. That positions him up high which he loves. I don't go fast with him - he actually asks me to go fast until we reach a certain volume then he asks for "not too fast Daddy". Only 2yo remember. He's bilingual too (Mommy's Polish) - clever chap.
Anyway, I replaced the alternator finally. It's a truly horrendous job, not helped by my having a replacement which needed a pulley swap with the original. I took the advice from the other thread and took it to a local garage where they whizzed it off with an air impact wrench - for free (I'll get them to service my normal car now - a sort of thanks).
So, the next time you wonder at the prices charged by the independent garages for work such as an alternator replacement, or even a belt replacement, consider how long it'd take to do yourself. Me? It took 3 days in total. One to "undress" the top of the engine. One to get the alty out (that was a challenge) and today to put the new one in.
I'm sure familiarity with the process cuts down the time to something far less insensible than my record, but the money goes to compensate the poor devil doing the job for loss of skin on their hands, loss of finger nails and a general feeling of trauma. I could do it in a number of hours now, but I don't think I'd want to.
I also took advantage of being filthy already to look at more of the chassis (lay under the car) and am happy to report that although the powdercoating was an obvious afterthought on behalf of TVR and is now missing-presumed-useless from my chassis, the metal seems "integral". A bit of a scrape with a chisel to loosen the remaining sheets of powdercoating revealed quite a pleasant surprise. I've a couple of pots of POR15 which will be finding their way onto the rust over the next few weeks (I think it'll take a while to clean off the old powdercoating so I'll apply it in stages) and then I'll be able to rest easy until probably the Winter of 08 when I think I'll send it to DynoTorque for a proper body-off resto job. They've done an awesome job of BrummieWedge's and a recommendation is worth 1000 adverts in my book.
See you all around.
[Edit]: I didn't select the OT marker for this thread. I wanted the "cry" icon but my selection has been replaced by one that the website has made... it's obviously for my own good so I'll live with it.
Edited by mars on Saturday 28th April 22:03
my 2 year old son would be happy to spend hours in mine pushing all the buttons and 'driving'. he hasn't cried yet, but gets really excited when it starts up.
so your's speaks at two? hmm, mine just kinda grunts and stuff... then he knows about 4 or 5 phonemes.... ah, poor kid, just a bit slow in the speach department.
so your's speaks at two? hmm, mine just kinda grunts and stuff... then he knows about 4 or 5 phonemes.... ah, poor kid, just a bit slow in the speach department.
We're about to go seriously off topic but I love kids so here goes...
Yep, mine was walking at 12 months and started talking in grunts a little after that. At about 18 months he had a limited vocabulary but he was experimenting with complex statements by using what words he knew in different orders. Made sense when you understood the context.
Now at 2 years and 4 months he's like a much older child to talk to. He understands normal conversation, and for some time I've had to watch what I say around him. I swear a lot away from home, but with respect for my wife I try not to at home, and any slip-ups are noted by our boy and regurgitated later. Fortunately I've only slipped with the odd "blimey" but even that sounds wrong coming from such a young-un so we've explained that it's wrong and I am practicing at biting my tongue and thinking before speaking.
My wife's Polish and she only speaks Polish to him. He has a Polish nanny 3 days a week and my parents the other 2 days (and us in the evenings and weekends) so his bilingual skills are totally fluent and fluid. He doesn't think when switches from one language to another. It's just as natural to him to do that as it is for me to speak in only English.
We all like to think our kids are above average, but I believe it all levels out over time. Other kids in the area that we know are not as well developed with language or reasoning but they out of nappies where ours isn't and has no interest to move away from them (he gets enough opportunity and motivation from us), and he still holds his dummy dear to his heart, often creating a fuss when we take it off him (we only let him have it in bed at night).
Swings and roundabouts (he loves them too
).
More on topic... he loves cars. At 16 months he told us that a car parked in a car park was "like Nanny's" which was bang on (same make and model, even different colour). He can name several types of car and always spots a car which is like one of the family member's. He knows the new shape mini, TVRs in general, Mercedes, Land Rovers (all models) and one or two others associated with people we know. His seemingly greatest thrill is to sit and "drive" one of our cars on the drive, pressing all the buttons and sounding the horn. We have to double check the car's settings before heading off to see if the headlights are pointing at the ground, indicators or hazzards are off, radio volume at 100% etc etc... and now he has found that the seatbelts are fun to pull out all the way and that there are a dozen or so interior lights in my wife's Merc which have been left on all night on occasion.
I wish I could have shown him the Caterham we had before he'd turned 1yo but I wouldn't have felt safe taking him for a ride in it. There's no side impact protection in one, and he's our most valuable possession. The Caterham was an absolute gas, and he'd have loved it, but I shudder inwardly at the thought of what would happen if someone hit us in it. Not worth the risk for me.
Yep, mine was walking at 12 months and started talking in grunts a little after that. At about 18 months he had a limited vocabulary but he was experimenting with complex statements by using what words he knew in different orders. Made sense when you understood the context.
Now at 2 years and 4 months he's like a much older child to talk to. He understands normal conversation, and for some time I've had to watch what I say around him. I swear a lot away from home, but with respect for my wife I try not to at home, and any slip-ups are noted by our boy and regurgitated later. Fortunately I've only slipped with the odd "blimey" but even that sounds wrong coming from such a young-un so we've explained that it's wrong and I am practicing at biting my tongue and thinking before speaking.
My wife's Polish and she only speaks Polish to him. He has a Polish nanny 3 days a week and my parents the other 2 days (and us in the evenings and weekends) so his bilingual skills are totally fluent and fluid. He doesn't think when switches from one language to another. It's just as natural to him to do that as it is for me to speak in only English.
We all like to think our kids are above average, but I believe it all levels out over time. Other kids in the area that we know are not as well developed with language or reasoning but they out of nappies where ours isn't and has no interest to move away from them (he gets enough opportunity and motivation from us), and he still holds his dummy dear to his heart, often creating a fuss when we take it off him (we only let him have it in bed at night).
Swings and roundabouts (he loves them too
). More on topic... he loves cars. At 16 months he told us that a car parked in a car park was "like Nanny's" which was bang on (same make and model, even different colour). He can name several types of car and always spots a car which is like one of the family member's. He knows the new shape mini, TVRs in general, Mercedes, Land Rovers (all models) and one or two others associated with people we know. His seemingly greatest thrill is to sit and "drive" one of our cars on the drive, pressing all the buttons and sounding the horn. We have to double check the car's settings before heading off to see if the headlights are pointing at the ground, indicators or hazzards are off, radio volume at 100% etc etc... and now he has found that the seatbelts are fun to pull out all the way and that there are a dozen or so interior lights in my wife's Merc which have been left on all night on occasion.
I wish I could have shown him the Caterham we had before he'd turned 1yo but I wouldn't have felt safe taking him for a ride in it. There's no side impact protection in one, and he's our most valuable possession. The Caterham was an absolute gas, and he'd have loved it, but I shudder inwardly at the thought of what would happen if someone hit us in it. Not worth the risk for me.
Edited by mars on Sunday 29th April 14:34
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