Ebay delivers and more project progress

With plenty of time on our hands we retirees can afford to wait for items to be delivered.  Ebay items purchased from China can take up to a month to arrive, but they are considerably cheaper than anything locally sourced.

When we were on the Llangollen in winter 2015 Jan bought a Casio digital watch in Ellesmere.  The strap broke just before last Christmas.  A new strap bought in Australia was considerably more expensive than purchasing the same model watch from Hong Kong on Ebay.  Postman Gary delivered it today along with a few packages for me.  I’ve bought a 64GB micro SD storage card for the dashcam.  The temporary card was too small and rapidly filled with video.

I needed to ensure the card was compatible with the dashcam (some cards aren’t) and the seller needs to be carefully vetted as there are plenty of fake cards out there. 

I’ve been wanting to make some test leads to replace those “lost” in our Australian housepack.  The original leads were purchased for $1 when we were living in Singapore and proved to be very useful.  It was possible to purchase leads already made but I’ve some spare cable.  For $4 I was able to buy 20 insulated clips from China on Ebay.

I braved the heat and made up the leads on the assembly table in the afternoon.

Bunnings (B&Q equivalent) had some black Sikaflex in stock which enabled me to do further work on the 4x4 radiator insect screen.

I smeared Sikaflex through the fibreglass mesh to make a bonded exterior edge and then used more to bond the foam tape to the mesh.  It doesn’t look pretty but then it’s going to be covered in flies and grass seed.

Postman Gary also delivered on of the filters I’d ordered from Ebay for the Dyson vacuum cleaner.  Dyson stopped supporting our model in 2015 so any parts have to be obtained from 3rd parties.

I didn’t know this filter existed (real men don’t read manuals).  I managed to remove the top off the filter housing using the plastic trim tools purchased for the 4x4 (A in the above photo).  The old filter is inside the yellow ring (B in the above photo).  Apparently it’s supposed to be white and replaced annually.  As you can see, it’s black! <eek>  Perhaps this isn’t surprising given the Dyson is 10 years old.  The new filter is too big (arrow C)   so it will need to be cut down.

The last job of the day was to check whether the 16 inch steel rims I purchased will fit the Isuzu 4x4.  The vehicle came with 18 inch alloy rims and I was slightly concerned the smaller steel rims wouldn’t fit.  They are off a Holden Colorado.

After removing the 18 inch rim and tyre I did a test fit with the 16 inch steel rim.

The smaller steel rim clears the brake calliper and fits onto the axle studs.  I also checked the offset and it’s the same as the Isuzu.  Everything is OK so I’ll start looking for suitably sized outback tyres.