Tool Joy

[shermarama]

It's so nice doing a job with the right tools. I just replaced the glow plugs on my car (two of which weren't working, it turns out, I assumed it was only one) and it took about half an hour, because whatever I wanted to do I had the right tool for it. It cost me a total of seventy quid to buy all the tools and parts but it would have cost that much for a garage to do the job, and I've still got the tools, and I know they were good quality parts. In an ideal world I'd have a proper workshop with all the tools I want in it but since I haven't got anywhere to store them in your average rented place, and because Tom used to destroy and scatter anything resembling a tool kit in very little time, and also because for about eight years I could borrow any tools I needed from work, I've resisted buying things, but recently it's been getting to the point where that's a false economy. Or at least that's how I'm rationalising it, anyway. Still, my car starts instantly again now.

Comments

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

how do you know glow pugs are failing?

[shermarama]

The car was being difficult to start from cold, but then running fine once it had been going for thirty seconds or so. The only thing glow plugs do is preheat the fuel when starting, so that made sense. Also, glow plugs should only have an internal resistance of about one ohm, so the dodgy ones were easy to diagnose with a multimeter once the leads to them were disconnected.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

thanks