So I was going well, and putting stuff back together when I dropped a small gear shaft from the speedo cable into the open hole in the gearbox, from whence it came. Now I had to partially remove the sub frame after all, so that I could rotate the gearbox and get the thing out...
Prior to starting the job, and because I really don't like crawling around under cars with bits of asbestos shit falling over me, I decided to buy myself one of those trolleys that you lie on, and push yourself under the car with your legs. Now I could have bits of asbestos shit fall on me without having to crawl!
However, there are 6 wheels on the trolley, and two of them are in the middle...which makes sense mechanically, but if you're not careful, you can trap your arm between the wheel and the concrete. I did it 3 times, each subsequent one being less severe than the one before. I must have learned, because after these, which all happened in the first hour, I didn't do it again. I doubt that I ever will now.... here's what I'm left with:
The first one was like it was for Gill and the moment when she knew she'd broken her wrist... I thought 'Ah, that's going to be a bruise then!'... and...it was!
When I finished the job this morning, we went down to a place called Coolangatta which is about half an hour down the coast from Surfers Paradise. I'd heard from one of the lads at Channel 7 that it was a safer place to swim than most of the other beaches down the Gold Coast because there's a headland that stops the rip tide undercurrent that characterises the whole of that long stretch of beach. The problem with long straight beaches here is that they can form gutters a short way out from the shallow water that the kids are playing in, and the water in these gutters flows strongly, and often out to sea. Its a serious and significant problem for strong swimmers let alone kids and relatively weak swimmers like myself.
In fact, the cross currents were quite significant, and there were deep holes that left you dangling, so the kids spent most of their time in the sand, and gripping with all their strength to my boogie board in the shallow surf whilst I tried to tow them. We all had a lot of fun...
....and THEN we went to the DRIVE IN MOVIES!!! There's a place called Yatala, back up the coast about an hour, that has the last drive in movie house in Queensland. We planned to go there, and I'd been told to get there early and take folding chairs. We got there almost an hour early and got a good spot, but another 15 mins would have been too late, and we'd have been relegated to the edges. People typically go there in a Ute or a 4WD and turn the back to face the screen so that they can get comfortable in the back of the car on a mattress or similar. You hang the speaker in your car or you can tune in your radio to a frequency they broadcast on, and take advantage of the superior sound in modern cars. We just had the standard metal speaker between us. Watching a movie under the stars is a giggle. We all got snuggled up and blathered with insect repellant after we'd had chips and sweets, tea and coffee from the well stocked cafe. If you click on the picture, you can see that a white car between the ute and the Holden in the row after that has got kids on a mattress on the roof-rack!
Here's the web site... http://www.drive-intheatre.com.au/ (or you can click it in the side bar)
Tomorrow we might go to a bookshop....but we've not decided.
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