Transit almost ready to fly

Bought a new battery today, $165. Great!
Bought 5L of 5W-30 full synthetic oil for ~$35.aud (1/2 price). Great!!

Installed battery. Ran van up to temperature so I could dump the old oil while extra runny...and the lower radiator hose blew. Blarrggh!! It's the first time I've run it since I changed the thermostat housing over. (old one fell apart while doing electrical work around it on a previous repairs mission) Not impressed!!

...moar partz needed...

Expecting a new oil filter, fuel filter, air filter in the mail tomorrow. New headlights in about a week. Still need to ream out two stripped bell housing threads and insert some high tensile bolts right-through with nuts. Some noises I'm still not happy with concerning the gearbox. Wish I'd replaced the pilot bearing while everything was out. Hmmm...Gonna own a hoist one day.

Transit headlight polishing

The Transit headlights clearly aren't going to pass the Road Worthy Certificate Inspection. I hit them with a headlight polishing kit that I got cheap while visting the .US, but there are issues with the inner concave side that are too difficult to address.

A vast improvement, but not good enough unfortunately. The photo doesn't really portray may of the issues other than looking better than before.

I've ordered new replacements. Not cheap. :(

DIY spanner

I'm getting cheap with the home made spanners again. 35mm socket is ~$35.aud retail. No thanks.

The transit forums are full of dudes who have broken or rounded off the plastic oil filter cap...this should solve any problems created by pipe wrenches or shifters on a plastic hex nut.

Expensive Anti Perspirant Salvage Operations

Yep, I'm doing what it looks like.

It takes about eight old stubs to re-load an empty one. They cost ~$5/ea here in .au. This makes the waste cost at around ~40-50c each time I throw them out, despite using them to the limit of the holder-piece at the base.

It handles a bit like wax with a slightly lower melting temperature. It cools down and releases from the sides of the cartridge just fine. Winning.