Tools We Have Known (Not The Human Kind) :)

Have you tried cracking nuts with it?

If it works, you'll at least have found a use for it.

I got a leaf blower this fall. It is a battery power, 40 V Ryobi setup. Sunday morning we got about 1/2 inch (1 cm) of snow. I decided to try it out for snow removal.

www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-150-MPH-150-CFM-40-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Leaf-Blower-Sweeper-RY40410A/204322580

I found that for cars and concrete sidewalks, it worked just fine and was a lot easier than shoveling/brushing. It took a bit of time to get a feel for how to direct it so I wasn't blowing it back onto area I just cleared. it would blow the snow, clearing a good 12 to 18 inches of sidewalk in front of it.

However, it did not work well on my gravel driveway. It would only clear about an inch of ground at at time.

End result, if you are fully paved, it will work very well for you, but for me it looses some value. Bot for that amount of snow I am not too concerned about driving on it and it easily clears the sidewal to prevent it from icing on me. Took me 15 minutes to clear the walk and cars, but I can probably do it faster next time. It also about half of my battery charge.

I am planning playing around with this come more throughout the winter to see how useful it is.

I tried my old leafblower on snow a few years back, and found it wanting....
Wanting a Shovel.

The thing works as long as its fresh snow.
As soon as you get partial melt or very hard freeze, or both, it was bloody useless.
As my drive is on a slope, I have found salt and grit works, melt the snow away, and let it run off.

Pressurise what?.. it freezes "Down to the bones", if its a car park in Leicester, thats Richard-the-third bones, if its any other council car park, its just Richard the Thirds.

Saw this on the web and just thought it should be posted somewhere, in honor of home repair:



Anyone know of an easy way to install windshield wiper bushings on the linkages to the motor? I had to do 4 yesterday, and became convinced that anyone doing it for a living must have a tool for that other than a pair of needle-nose or channel locks...

I think the manufacturers build the assembly and install it before the dashboard goes in.

I wonder if you took it into a dealer, they wouldn't just replace the entire arm that has new bushings already pressed in from the factory.

The problem I recall having, wasn't so much getting the new one in, it was getting the remains of the old one out. I tried drilling it out but it just spun. Ended up using a bench grinder to remove the flange from one side of the bushing and then it came right out.

This probably belongs in "needing to vent", but, heck--I started here, I'll finish here.

Yeah, these were the ones inside the bodywork. They connect the wiper to the motor.

4 of the $%$%^$ things. 3 disintegrated, and the last was on its last legs--but it's sort of to be expected. It's a 86 Dodge cargo van, and 30 years have taken their toll. The last one still in place should have been white nylon, but instead was a yellow, brown, and black cracked mess. Just flexing it caused it to crumble and join the remains of the others inside the cowl.

The new bushings were all plastic/nylon. Self lubricating, I suppose. They're supposed to just pop on and off with a click. Yeah...right...pull the other one, it's got bells on it...

So, pull off the wipers that had frozen to the stems (PITA #1), pull the cowl that covered the wiper mechanisms (PITA #2, as it was dented by something long ago), remove the linkages...

I used spray silicon lube on the bushings and started to insert them into the linkages. That required a lot of bad language, of course (PITA #3). Channel locks and an old set of needle-nose (with rounded jaws) helped, along with a lot of lube.

Then try to get the bushings back on the motor and the two wiper bases (PITA #4). Get one side connected, and it pops off when you connect the other because you didn't notice it wasn't fully inserted, so back to square one. Finally get the wipers connected, and then you notice the wiper motor link is behind a piece of bodywork and you can only move it by turning the motor on and off in bursts, hoping to get the thing clear of the metal. Luckily, I have lots of different pliers, and eventually I found something that sort of worked..I think.

Then, try to get the !@#$% cowl back on. The dented, deformed cowl that was a female canine to get off, and now just doesn't want to go back on (PITA #5). Lots of bad language, again, followed by bending the thing into shape.

While I had it open, I fixed the broken wiper fluid lines...almost. They had never worked, and the reason was that someone had unplugged them so the sprayed water into the body. Not to useful...

I say almost fixed it because I got the driver's side routed properly, then the fitting on the passenger side (which had been crushed) disintegrated.

Now, it waters the car in front of you if used. I think I'll pinch it off (PITA #6).

By some miracle (and a lot of lube) I got the wipers mounted correctly at their home position with only a little effort. They seem to work, so now I'm waiting to see what falls apart...

It helped I had a Chilton manual for the van. Weird thing about that manual: I got it about a week after I got the van, when my wife found it sitting on the porch of a thrift store in a distant town she was visiting for the day. She said it looked like the van, and she was right. It was the only manual in the store; it was eerie.

Of course, I do refer to the vehicle as the "Murder Van" because it looks like something the police should be on the lookout for. My wife thought I was being overly dramatic until she saw it parked under a solitary streetlight in a parking lot at night, at which point she said she was glad I owned it to keep it out of the hands of the next serial killer...