Working through the list

Of jobs that is. The Savannah work has had to be put on the back burner for now as completing the repair on the wing tip is lower in the list of priorities than some other things. Like getting my car back and re-submitting my house planning application to name but two.

So although we’ve been enjoying glorious weather once again, I’ve not been over to Malbec since I completed the initial work on the Savannh, either to continue with it or even to fly, sadly. And we’ve been having some wonderful mornings when I’d have loved to be doing the latter, but no such luck as other more important things have had to be addressed.

I went over to give my local car mechanic a hand with my car last Thursday. This wasn’t to help mechanically but just to be on hand when it was started. He is sure that the problem is down to the fuel injection pump and after stripping it and fitting new gaskets and cleaning out the old contaminated engine oil, he wanted to restart the engine.

But he wanted me to be there in case when it was started, it began to rev uncontrollably due to the amount of fuel that is still in the system and needed to be shut down immediately by blocking the air intake.

And that’s just what happened, except not while I was turning the engine over with him standing by to do the blocking, but the other way round! Luckily I knew what was going on and despite getting black diesel sprayed over my clean tee-shirt, I got it to stop before it went out of control. And sure enough, when we checked the new, clean oil in the engine sump it was again black from dirty diesel entering the engine.

On the upside, while it was revving up it didn’t sound as though the bearings etc had been damaged, but it was all too quick to be able to tell for sure. The outcome of it all was that it looks as though the pump needs a complete overhaul or replacement and to save wasting more time, I ordered an exchange unit with a 1 year warranty from a German supplier that’ll be with us with a bit of luck by Thursday 23rd.

Until then, apart from draining the engine oil once again, there’s little more that can be done on the car, so I turned my attention to the next most important item on the list, namely my house planning application.

Much has changed in the two years since I submitted my original application and dossier so to avoid any unwanted queries (and subsequent delay) I’ve been completely re-working both items, which has been something of a mammoth task.

But after working long hours including over the week-end, I’ve at last completed the job and will therefore be able to drop all of the material into the Mairie at Plazac tomorrow.

This will at last leave me free to do other things, like finishing off the work on the Savannah. But I also desperately want to get a few hours in in the Weedhopper and/or the X-Air while the weather is so good, and as I need to test fly the X-Air before listing it for sale, that’s something that I really MUST get done this week.

And if when the replacement fuel pump arrives it solves my car problems, that really will be the cherry on the cake after all these weeks. Here’s hoping anyway.