Week Seven - The Landlubbers

This one is late because I was on vacation for the Fourth of July, okay?  You guys just won't leave me alone about getting these done on time, will you?  ;)
It was a great weekend.  I'm relatively unapologetic about putting off this blog post.

Last week was an abnormal week for me, but fun!  Paul went to help out with a camp for Brigade Air (www.brigadeair.org).  They're an organization that offers camps for teenagers who are interested in missionary aviation.  Paul brought back great news about a camper who was not a Christian, but acknowledges that he feels a hole in his life.  He's working through his doubts and headed toward commitment to Christ!
All that to say that Paul was gone.  Since the other two projects are well-staffed, I was assigned to building maintenance.  I got to work with Terry quite a bit throughout the week.  He's a good teacher, letting me make quite a few mistakes and making me fix them!  We were very productive nonetheless, and now both vans are up and running again!  One of them had been down for months, and the other for a few weeks, both for brake problems.  This one:

would not stop.  The emergency brake was your best bet for not ramming the back ends of the people driving in front of you when they stop.  Upon some extremely cursory investigation, we found that it was violently spraying brake fluid out of a hole in the steel brake line.  Ironically, a hole had been worn into the line by one of the clips that held it to the underbody.  Those clips are intended to prevent chafing that could cause a hole in the line...hmmm....
After some phone calls, we decided to buy some steel tubing and fabricate a new brake line by bending it to the right shape.  I messed up the bending.  Four times.  But I also learned that you can unbend and re-bend steel tubing at least once without compromising its integrity.
To make a long story short, that van's brakes now work fine!
Now as for this van:

its left front brake was failing to release, causing the van to veer sharply into oncoming traffic whenever you let go of the steering wheel.  Obviously no big deal.

This is a picture of the brake on the front left side after we removed the wheel to get access.  When we took it apart, the problems were fairly readily apparent.  The anti-vibration clips (You can just barely see them in the picture.  If I was thinking I would've gotten a better picture of them.) were installed backwards, causing the clip to rub on the brake disc.  It eventually bent the bottom clip enough to make it interfere with the brake pad, trapping it against the disc.  The caliper ended up being bad too, so we replaced that with an overhauled one.  It works now, too!

Once we finished that, I mowed the lawn and weedeated with an old weedeater that only barely runs.  It was fun and challenging!  The next day, we got a new (read: used) mower which Dave Shelly named "Guido."  I'll let you figure out why.  Here's a pic of it:

and a pic of "Guido" from Cars (friend of "Mater," see previous post):

We changed out all the fluids in it: oil, hydrostatic transmission fluid, coolant.  Changed the fuel, oil, and hydrostatic transmission filters, bled the fuel lines, switched the mower blades for sharpened ones, and greased all the proper grease fittings, all in one day!  That mower was very well designed for maintenance.  I was greatly impressed.

So not much aircraft maintenance last week, but I was able to help out with things that Dave wouldn't have had time to do without me.  I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to help the people out here.  I have enjoyed doing whatever I can to help make their lives easier.

Will

~ Cars 2 is out now, but I haven't seen it yet.  I assume Guido is in it.