Mr Mechanic

Today has been a wasted day work wise. I kinda accidentally installed the Zero Hour expansion pack to command and conquer which resulted in a lot of wasted time playing the new campaigns. The main part of the day consisted with me fiddling under my bonnet, something I don't do very often and for good reason too but it was fairly necessary in this case.

Today also saw me put on my mechanic's hat, one that doesn't fit particularly well and involves a lot of guessing, cursing and time. When I got in my car earlier today to go shopping, a load of water splashed into my passenger foot well, almost as if a bottle of water had leaked from my glove compartment. Slightly unnerved by this I decided there was nothing I could do about it until I got back from the shops. I needed milk for cereal amongst other essential ingredients for the various baking projects over the Easter weekend.

I vaguely remembered that the Halfords mechanic told me that there was a pool of battery acid underneath my battery so immediately the worst thoughts struck. What if the acid has corroded its way through and has left a hole in the car from under the bonnet to the passenger foot well (directly below the battery). I tried looking for any tell tale signs of where the water might have come from by removing the glove box and having a look around. That in itself wasn't an easy task because all of the screws have Torx heads (the star shaped ones). Thankfully, being at home means I have access to a garage full of tools and amazingly a ratchet screwdriver and bit set that fitted perfectly. That done, I still couldn't see where the water may have been coming from so there was only one thing left to do and that was to take the battery out and have a look underneath.

Given my past experiences with doing this, I was not exactly relishing the prospect of having to remove - and then put back - the battery but if there was a hole in the car then it would need to been seen to ASAP. Digging out the most enormous socket set - that being the only one with a large enough bit for the battery bolt, I set to work and had the battery out in less than ten minutes. I was pretty impressed and amazed at how easily it actually came out - especially as the Halfords guy made such a fuss about it. Then I saw the next problem. The last time I did this was with my mum and we were forever losing tools down the gap underneath the battery and so had to keep removing and refitting it each time. After this happened about three times, we decided that stuffing it with newspaper would mean that the tools couldn't get down and would instead fall within arms reach. It worked but now it came back to haunt me. It had got a bit wet and hot from being there for over a year and had started to decompose a little. I spent the next hour or so cleaning it all out and then scrubbing the metal just in case their had been a leak. I couldn't see anything even remotely suspicious but whilst I was in there I thought I may as well. Putting everything back together didn't pose too much of a problem either until I dropped the spanner down the hole. Thankfully I hadn't screwed anything in yet and ended up sticky taping everything else to make sure the same thing didn't happen.

Whilst the battery was out, I decided to attach it to the charger and make sure it was fully topped up ready for the long period without use that will inevitably come from being back in Sheffield. Whether I can get it all reattached and working again after leaving it overnight remains to be seen but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now ready for the test when I attempt the same thing in the Summer with my brother's battery.

Final bit of new from today is that I will be going to the Reading Festival for the Saturday this year. With a bit of luck it will be a bit more exciting than Leeds but we shall see.


As promised, here is a picture of my lemon fudge cookies from yesterday.
They taste a lot like lemon cheesecake for some reason so until I've had another crack at the recipe to make it a bit more biscuity I shall refrain from posting it up here just yet.