The Landblogger

Where did I leave my pants?

I would have been about 9 or 10 at the time, so no sexual connotation to losing my pants here... One of the first times I went skidooing as a kid, I ended up on a short sleigh towed behind 'Uncle Ben' on the skidoo because my two sisters wanted a ride and there just wasn't room on the skidoo for me too. A short distance from the house you had to go through a slight ditch and a hedge to get into open field. The break in the hedge was no big deal for the skidoo, so away we went... However, it was a bigger deal for me on the sled behind as there were several stumps of old hedge sticking up a few inches. As I was towed through — quite quickly, since the skidoo was already out of the hedge and on flat ground — my snow pants caught on the poking out sticks and proceeded to strip me clean of the snow pants, trousers, long johns, socks and boots and left me in my undershorts. Not so bad except for it being well below zero and Uncle Ben accelarating through the snow. It took about a half mile before they noticed something amiss, and a wee bit more time to defrost my cheeks...

Explaining stories that need to be told

I've considered doing this for a long time... My wife rolls her eyes and mentions a story — something about budgies — she just doesn't believe about my past every time I start to tell one of the real life tales of the crazy things we did when we were a bit younger.
We were crazy enough as kids that I simply don't have to embellish these stories to make them sound like tall tales. They're unbelievable to start with. But anyone that's familiar with YouTube knows about the crazy things that kids will do, so I think this'll make my stories much more believable. Why am I writing them down? Well, when alzheimers kicks in, maybe it'll help my offspring remember I was a crazy fun loving guy. Sound pretty morbid? The furthest thing from my mind was morbidity when we were young and stupid.

200tdi progress

What with long hours and being out of town for work much of the time, the progress on the 200tdi project has been a bit slow. Here I sit in a hotel, while my engine and the Range Rover that is awaiting it is languishing in the shop.
The 200tdi turned into a full rebuild with machining of the head, full valve grind, and honing cylinders. Not badly worn, but when you take it part way down, you may as well do a thorough job.
I did get an chance to make some forward progress last weekend, with the new bearings seated and tested for appropriate nip, and the newly polished crank installed and torqued into position. I also re-ringed all 4 newly cleaned pistons, and checked, then reconnected the rods to the pistons. Unfortunately the progress on the bottom end stopped there and the pistons soaked in oil over the weekend as I didn't have a half inch drive 15 mm 12 point socket, required to torque the rod nuts properly. I picked that up Monday morning and as of 7 PM Monday night the 4 pistons were in place and correctly torqued. I also reassembled the head after its valve grind, along with lapping the valves, checking spring tension, installing new seals and .030 shims to ensure the springs have close to original tension. New head bolts arrived with new piston rings the week before so it should go together easily.
I was impressed at how heavy-duty the bottom end on the 200tdi is. Far more so than the Peugeot 2.5 TD that I have in my series truck. I'm looking forward to this engine lasting a long, long time.
This weekend, I'm hoping to complete the bottom end and get as much as possible finished on the top end as well. I'm currently scrambling to find an oil pump skew gear as the current one I have is a bit worn and the manual recommends replacement if you can't mesh it back to its original position with the camshaft. Since it's well worn this is a non-issue as it needs to be replaced.
I'm itching to get this engine in the truck and see how it does powering along the full-size Range Rover.