The book, An introduction

Ok I have no idea how this is going to run but I know that untill I finish you are going to be giving it no, bulldust it cant happen you're lying.

its made more difficult because the story should contain lots of words that are probably not filter friendly.

If it hadnt actually happened to me I'd never have believed it possable and even after its happened to me I am still left with the distraught feeling that either I've had a fleeting glimpse from an alternate reality planet constructed in a plural zone where the predominant species is most definately the golgafrinchian planetary idiot (yes thats the obliatory guide quote) or that I've been set up and am now just waiting to pick up the "MR Flabbergasted" award at this years adults only version of candid camera.

Ok think back (or cheat and go read it again) to the first post where I mentioned a story that winds up with a man looking at a man and asking himself "did the sane man I know as my friend just say what I think he said" or whatever it was that I put to text. Imagine if you can the kind of event that it would take to make me take a long hard look at myself, albeit a happy to help any good looking young blonde who starts a conversation with my most dreaded phrase "you're a mechanic right" but still able to walk in a straight line inebriated shaded kind of look, and try to put into context the preceeding event.

I guarantee you you cant invert your thinking caps, get drunk stoned and watch every weird video on the internet mash it all together and you couldnt come up with this. Even though I know this must be the single most elaborately set up prank that has ever been played on me and that as I describe it to you you will be thinking what I thought for a couple of days after the event until the shocking truth dawns on you. I will reveal that truth at the end... As always Names, dates, places and faces will be omitted. The first three because they aren't essential to the story and the person in question whom I have no adequate means to define does deserve some modicum of modesty and faces because I suck at ascii art.

lets start with me in the place you'd expect to find a mechanic/driver after a long days driving in support of, what for a promise to retain names to protect the innocent we shall call, a not insignificant **** trip. Sitting on the back of the trailer with a cold drink in my hand and yes, by drink I mean alcohol. Lets have me be approached by what I shall refer to as "a cute blonde young lass" for that is near enough to what she was, her hair colour while not accurate in fact for this story is accurate in predisposition the rest of her description is accurate, she was cute, she was young and she was most definitely female.

But Dave I hear you say you know that murphy owes you (well I know you're going to think it anyway its that kind of a story and situation), have you not heard of shims, girlie men, cross dressers. Youve been on the internet surely youve seen some gasket porn at some time she might have been a hee. And you would be right Yes he does and Yes I have and I maintain my time honoured stand in that regard I treat them as I would religious nuts, politicians and homosexuals. I dont care what they do so long as they do it well away from me. but No she was not and the reason for that will become clear even though at this particular point in this particular narrative her true gender could well be masked by several hundred thousand dollars worth of surgery.

Lets not delve into the chain of thought that I was having right at that particular point when the cute blonde whose approach did for my eyes what a night in a strip club would do for a man whose just been given a free night off of celibacy for it does nothing to indicate my alegation to being a happily married man. Instead let us take up the story from shortly after those words that usually lead me dreading the next installment of my miserable existence where we find me walking along after having paused only briefly to check the level of the content in the bottle in the cooler in my hand thinking "....we go aga... hey she looks just as nice leaving as she did rocking up, I could follow that all day"

The story, well her story, more her question which I have forgotten to mention being all swept up in memories of perk nipples, smooth cleavage and very very nice legs is as you have no doubt already guessing am I a mechanic and would I give her a hand but more along the lines of can i just briefly show her how to do something as the other mechanics are either busy, drunk or both, Shes been given what she needs she just needs a hand with it. Its already been established that Ive implied yes because Im rolling along behind her admiring her ass.

shes making some noises about needing a hand to apply some sealant to which I paying no attention to as we head around the back of a building to her car and sure enough there sitting on the hood of the car is a tube of loctite 510. I kick in the mechanicing side of my brain and start thinking of the things that you might use a flange sealer on on a normal car and Im getting a very short list when she asks me if I can show her how to use that. "easy just open up the joint put a bead down press it together and torque it up as per normal"

Aparently thats to hard so I give it the "simple enough, pop the hood hold my drink and I'll show you how" which draws "its not under the hood" leaving me thinking its got to be transmission, diff, fuel tank or something. "fair enough show me and I'll have a go at it for ya if I can" "its not on the car" which leaves me thinking its got to be a gas stove or something with a leaking fitting which also leaves me wondering why shes got a flange sealant when she really wants loctite 567 which is a thread sealant and good for pretty much everything else besides. I give it fair enough Im still happy to have a look at it and see what I can do to help just show me where it is.

She tells me its embarrasing to which I promptly reply "Im confused" "promise not to laugh or tell anyone" I run the whole gambit of expressions from slightly off track to completely befuddled ending at "higher brain functions ceased" when she drops her strides, points between her legs and says "its this"

For those paying attention this is how I now know what earlier on in the narrative I had only previously assumed was what I thought it was.

"umm we need to talk." Why the honesty function of my high cognitive abilities had to kick in first I'll never know and just assume that yes murhpy has once again leveled the books.

so once shes got her pants back up we talk.. heres her full story.

Her boyfriend had gone off to do the washing and had found that her shorts were somewhat wet and passed comment on it to which she had told him that all the corrugations had made her flange leak, "when you say made your flange leak you mean (insert hand rolling motion here and mouthing an O)?" (meek nodding of head, facial colour change and 3 fingers up boyscout salute style while looking at shoes) and he had made comment that if she wanted to stop it from happening again she could go and see a mechanic and get some sealant for it and here we stand, her making the tube of 510 look very faded while trying to work out which part of her body she wants to hug the most and me leaning on the bonnet of the car trying to hide behind the bottle by sending its contents down to check out its predecessors condition (yes, a guide reference)

"best you get this back to the guy who gave it to you and tell him that its been fixed" as I walk off with a grin that would leave the Cheshire cats orthodontist a nervous break down.

And now here I sit typing out the story I promised a naive, not much over 18yo girl I wouldn't tell to anyone to highlight a point about my life and the things that you will read here. The very scary truth of it all. The truth that I promised I would point out waaayy back in the 5th paragraph.

This stuff just does not happen but its just so exceedingly stupid there is no way you can be making it up.

welcome to my life.

:eek2:

:rulez:

:angel:

:lol2:

loctite 510 Flange Sealant and a hot blonde in the same paragraph got me laughing before I even finished the rest of the story. lol :D

Yes its my turn, Ive gone and awoken the monster, It was the wifes fault. Ive bought and registered another Series III.. I can hear you thinking "Yeah, And, So? Whats the problem, you love your old slow retro diesel vehicles, reliabley huffing smoke and noise and burning anything this side of wax."

This is a different beast, very very different, so different that I cant even work out from what it was all put together but its got the neurons and synapses firing and thats got the potential to be interesting.

Without getting into the whole "I told you you should have done it this way ages ago" or "What would I know, Ive only run 3 businesses before" sides of the argument some 6 maybe 8 months ago the SWMBO started her own business and has found that no, since you dont have a heap of tax records you cant have a loan, lease the gear or much of anything else so its time to research how to get a cash injection for the business.

Now about 6 months ago some random chick approached my wife and asked if Big red was for sale. back then that was a big No. I had plans for the last vehicle we were going to buy. I'd already done all the ground work for Big red and the total cost for all the mods I wanted to do to get her up to where I wanted it to be was $3.5K for panel works, engineering, new seats, framing and painting. Then someone goes and posts up a set of pics and a "you mean like this?"

Great now I own a new landy. a petrol huffing beasty. importantly a V8 petrol huffing beasty that in the words of the mechanic who sold it "just needs the timing to be redone so that it gets enough advance as the vac unit is now hard up against the water pump" and fails to make mention of how it also needs the linkage between the strommies replaced and they need tuning. tuning to the tune of 9 inches of mercury pressure difference between the 2 carbies. yes thats a lot, a lot a lot.

IT also means I get to curse the stupid changes in rules and regulation from state to state, In SA where the vehicle was last the only engineering required was for the welds on the chassis and when I called the engineer up here to sort it all It was a case of yeah, should only be a couple of codes for the engine change and that'll run you a couple of hunderd. 7 mod codes and a grand later $670 for roadworthy and rego after that and hey its registered and Im driving it to work. we can sell big red, the business gets a cash injection and I get to fix more landy stuff, everyones more or less happy.

Now as I mentioned the v8 is a tad tired, low on power but basically workable which to me is no problem because I've been thinking, no dramas rip out the 8 pot and drop in a suzi, or a deutz, or a GM, or a cat, or any number of other diesels. Right up until someone bailed me up in the carpark at work. The fateful conversation started with a pretty innocent, "hey that looks alright, whose is it?" Me driving other peoples landies on base while I sort out bodgies on them is almost as common as me grabbing a gas axe and hammer with pretty much the same end result.

"SWMBO's"
"Nice, its got a good note when you got into it, whatcha got planned for it?" (yes leaving well enough alone is also not something Im renowned for)

Now at this point I hadn't seriously considered anything beyond squaring the maintenance and giving it a tune up. Heres what I said.

"oh the usual for something like this, work lights, the wife wants a stereo, aircon and an entertainment system for Alex, Fridge, tool mounts, GPS, 2 way, compressor, bed, cup holders extractors into a 2 straight exhaust down the chassis rail, high compression injected heads, Cam, port, polish, LPG injection kit, lockers, rear winch, we might paint it blue when its done"

I get the sneaking feeling that somewhere deep inside the petrol head parasite has gotten a sniff.

oh dear.....

Heres to most of you at this festive time of year I hope you, well almost all of you, enjoy the tidings and the joy the new year can bring. To One person on the planet that I'm currently, ummm a bit miffed at, Enjoy your holiday you wont like the return.

See I like to think that pretty much the whole of december is the time of year to be kind curteous and helpful to people. The time of year that when you see the old decrepid bloke fishing cans out of the trash that you pull up next to him and offload the 6 month stash of shim stock thats been building up in the trayspace and threatening to short out the batteries if you take a speed bump a touch to agressively then decide bugger it, load the guys can stash in the back drive him to the recycle center, help him unload take him back to where you found him then give him an extra $10 so he can get a decent feed in. A time when a phone call at "nearly time to put your son to bed" oclock asking if you can come out to the local motor bike park with some fuel for someone whose run out, easy enough mower fuel jerry in the back and off I toddle. Hell the last one is pretty much a year rounder for me. Since I've mentioned it you know its happened and the last time was about a fortnight pushing for a month ago. The recipiant of the fuel is the person this particular bout of nasty is aimed for.

Now up untill yesterday I thought everything was on the level, It wasnt. we left home at about 0800ish hours to drive out to charleville in the new rover with the trailer on the back. we pulled into the servo with the maccas for me to fuel up and so SWMBO and Alex could have brekkie and a bit of a play.

I dumped the jerry of fuel that had been returned into the tank and then filled the tank and the jerry again running with the logic that the fuel had been sitting around for a few weeks and that Its better to use the fuel and have fresh stuff in the jerry for when I dont have as much fresh fuel to mix with it. All said and done and I got 50m from the servo before the engine died.

Now this is a vehicle that Ive just spent the last week doing all the checks over fuel pump flow and pressure, fresh filters and oil, about 1000Km on the clock while I was tuning it up. I check the spark figuring its an electrical gremlin. nope I check the fuel flow to the carbies yep the hose is pulsing nicely. Give it a hit of startyabastard and it fires then dies... Hrmmm... carbies, I was expecting it and had the carbie kits on board, oh well what I should be doing in charleville on sunday I'll do now on the side of the road. I Break the fuel line union.

The fluid that comes out drops onto the exhaust and fails to evaporate. A penny drops. Thats not petrol like behavior I turn on the pump.... Water. About 15L worth. And a clogged filter, no problem drain the tank till the fuels coming out clear swap the filter thats now collapsing, hold the throttle flat and run it on start ya bastard till it tries to run, choke it and rev it till its trying to go again.

About 2k Later Its dead again, Im out of filters and the filter has collapsed again. Fortunately Its trying and on a combination of the startermotor the little bit of fuel that the pumps actually shifting into the carbies,the choke, first and low we get to the servo that Im about 100m short of. Buy new fuel filters drain the rest of the water out of the tank and we're away. When your on the side of the road draining bulk water from your fuel tank remember if the drain bung is in the middle of the tank and the car is leaning over water will remain in the portion of the tank that is lower than the drain bung.

now Ive had time to think about this. Where did the water come from. Pretty sure it wasnt the servo because
a, I've filled there before and never had a problem
b, I was about 3rd in line for the pump the place was busy so if they had had a major water contamination by the time I got there it should have been gone.
c, there was a surreal absence of cars that had stopped because of water in the fuel in the immediate area of the servo.

The fuel jerry.....

The smarmy git who I did the favor of bringing out the fuel has given me back a jerry of fuel with mostly water in it and some fuel so that it smells and looks like petrol when you look down the neck of the jerry.

15K later and the fuel pump has died, its hot as hell and when pulled dropped a lovely emulsion of fuel and water. Fortuantely I managed to pull it up in front of one of those melon stands you see every now and then and while I was jury rigging the fuel jerry to the roof the owner has come down and given me a lift to repco in gatton to get the bits I need to get mobile, With a new pump, new fuel, new filters and a bit of fresh fuel line you think that would be that. Nope, now its running on about 1/2 a carb so I turn around and we head for home to swap rovers. Its now after lunch time Im nearly $400 out of pocket for fuel filters and a pump and Im not even 70K from home.

Now Ive made a phone call to someone I know he knows who I also know doesnt like the idiot (curse you expletive filter) but still happens to have a key to his garage and yes, this sounds like his idea of a practical joke. hrmmm....

Anyway its about 1500 and Im just finishing a shower after the quickest cross pack weve ever done (thats right folks 2hrs to drive back the same 70K I did before) we're back on our way to charleville, now those who know me know that its not possable for me to ever do a run to charleville without breaking something. If its on a vehcile, you name it I've broken it on a run to charleville. If I havent then put it on a list and start a pool for when I am going to break it. As you can imagine with 700+ ks to go now in the vehicle thats ment to be garaged because Im selling it, all the days breakdowns after stepping out of a cold shower still sweating because of the heat and with forcasts of thunderstorms in the area Im driving into (which is known for spot flooding with rains this time if year) and the fact that when I get there I have to unpack half the trailer to dig out xmas pressies then build one of them before Xmas morning The stress level was kind of up there , Saying I wasnt in a good mood is an understatement.

It happened, sure enough the inevitable break something. The trialer light, one number plate pop rivet and a piece of rope. Heres a hint. IF when you pull up into the servo and see a big green trailer the same basic rules of physics that applies to cars applies to the trailer. I know you all know that 2 vehicles cant be in the same place at the same time and while technically a trailer isnt really a vehicle its near enough that in the world of basic physics the same rules apply. A ****y little hyundi whatever trying to drive up to the fuel bowser is not going to make it into the same space as is occupied by the trailer thats coupled to the big four wheel drive. Well it might have if I had the ramps out and the load space empty but Im pretty sure that the Xmas pressie I had for Alex that was in there is more of a car than the hyundi MCZ. spare light on, tie wire number plate tie the rope, pay, laugh (not in that order) and drive away. Stop, get maccas. Keep driving to charleville safe in the knowlodge that I have now had the idiot and breakage quota for the trip so now nothing else can go wrong stress level Zero. ahhhhh cofffeee...

its 0crap I still have to put the prezzies together hundred hours on christmas morning, Big Red has answered the call, the trailer is unloaded, the box is on the patio and I break open the box marked, toy ride on 4x4 with the check mark in the box marked Blue. Wen you get it out of the box ITs big......

how big?

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...009/12/372.jpg

That big, Theres not as much packing in the box as I thought, thats me with my size 64 melon laying under the front hooking up electrics. And the wheels arent even on yet. I service things at work with worse ground clearance than this. Finish, shower, crawl into the bed, Alex crawls over to snuggle and sle

but Thats all a cheerful digression away from MR "doesnt know whats in for him in the new year..."

Im going to pull his motor bike apart. And I dont mean take the seats and tyres off. I mean Properly take it apart, just like before it was put together.

Piston rings off of the pistion yep thats a given.

Chain off yep but Im not stopping there, Im going to take the chain apart, each and EVERY single link of of each and every pin out of each and every roller, and not just the drive chain, the cam chain as well.

Wheels too and Im not stopping at just taking the tube and tyre off of the rim we're going to despoke it. Lets not mess around here its a given that I'll be taking the valve core out of the valve stem but Im going for meticulous attention to detail Im going to take the rubber seal off of the core, the spring retainer plate, spring and the retainer pin apart as well. Hell hes going to be lucky If I leave the stickers on the fairings. The best thing is when he gets back I'll be on an exercise and my partner in crime will be posted.

Why, well for two reasons. Firstly revenge is a dish I like to serve Cold and in large portions. Secondly and by far the most important he needs to be taught a lesson his bikes not important for him to get around on its not even road registered its a toy. I'm not the only one hes pulled annoyting practical joke on and me and some other mates have pretty much had enough of his ways. Thats enough for a bit of fun but this last one is a step to far and what was mildly distracting or annoying has become dangerous. Put it this way, What If yesterday morning Id been in a bit more of a rush than I was and instead of thinking "I'll use the fuel in the jerries and refill to make sure that I have fresh fuel if I need it" was thinking "Im in a rush and I have 20L of fuel in the jerry already" What would the outcome have been IF I bombed up from the jerries halfway between barcaldine and Charters towers?.

end of the day.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...009/12/366.jpg

It was all worth it.

I hope you've all had a merry chistmas full of cheer and family love, and to almost all I hope you have a better year than this one.

to the one special person.

Mwaahahahahaaaaaaa..........

Jesus, I want some of what he's smokin'....http://planetsmilies.net/smoking-smiley-5427.gif

dave, whilst i love your work, may i suggest you employ several packs of zipties instead? one unpopular apprentice had it happen to him up here, got back to his bike to find it more or less resembling one big ball of zipties...... 2 guys had spent an entire shift putting zipties on EVERYTHING.....

everything that you could fit a ziptie through, had one through it.... every link on the chain, woven through the spokes, EVERYWHERE

then again...... leave that for phase 2, take his bike apart, and promise to leave it in one piece next time......

First may I suggest you refuel everything he owns with the fuel he gave you?,....

If he is away you can say, I had this fuel and I refuelled his gear as it was his fuel but I needed the jerry can....

what can he say???

I suggest that you could get in trouble for dismantleing stuff...but truely Id love to see his face when he gets home.....

"hello is this the police?, someone broke into my shed, without leaving a trace and dismantled my motorbike to meccano level...."


have a good new year you and your family and thanks for helping all (but one) of those that you have!!

cheers
digger

its just murphy....

according to the less than impressed land lord the bike was sold the day that I took him the fuel (or then abouts the exact date of each action is a little fuzzy) and it was out for a demo ride.

The bike was sold to a mate of the landlord (who is a not insignificant maouri looking bloke) to give to his son but the thing dropped its guts on xmas day.

a conversation ensued and some facts came to light and would I mind having a look at the bike.

end of the day..

hes been evicted and all of his stuff is going to be moved into the storage shed he rents (mates rate deal as the landlords brother runs the storage site). I doubt very much that the fridge and freezer will be emptied first and theres no power in them sheds.


Not sure which way murphy called this one.