Roundhay Park

Roundhay Park, Leeds.

Roundhay is a massive park (700 acres apparently) a few miles from the centre of the city. It is so big I didn't see all of it the day I was there (it was January and got too cold to stay), here's a few shots from what I did see :)

The lake

Waterloo Lake

Waterloo Lake from the woods

Ice sheets

Women walking dog

Duck

The folly (castle)

Entrance Arch

Into the folly

Inside looking out

Martin in the folly

Folly tower

Assessing climbability

Arrow slit windows

This building is a folly built to look like the gate house to a castle but actually used as a summerhouse for the daughters of the man who owned the land.

The Mansion

The mansion

Winter tree 

Across the park

Other views from the park

Barrans Fountain

Cricket pitch

Trees on a hill

Martin in the woods

Winter feet

Run and Jump

Root and legs

Black, white and shadows

:)

Protographing :)

Summer is over! And I haven't done most of the things I had intended to, in fact I didn't even get around to writing a proper list of what I was actually going to do this summer! Now that is a bit of an organisational fail! There is a still a bit of time left before university begins again, so not all is lost yet. Anyway, I digress.

I like taking photographs. I like playing around with camera settings and just pointing and clicking. I'm not a great photographer or anything, I don't even own a proper fancy camera, just a slightly broken Canon Powershot A540 that used to belong to my brother, and the camera on my Nokia N73. But hey, they do the job.

I usually have my camera on me and have taken thousands of photos over the last couple of years, most of which are now sitting on my computer. I've been meaning to do something with them for ages, I am only now though getting around to sorting them out. I'm thinking about publishing them to a photo-sharing website. I already have a Flickr account, however, the upload limit and storage capacity for free users isn't very much, so task number one is to find an alternative way to release them onto the web, preferably an alternative free way. Update when this is done!

Car stchuff

End of 2010 Update- The KA is no more! I am now the owner of a Renault Clio Alize, slowly going up in the world!

Here's a few things I've tinkered with on my Ford KA that I though would be useful to post. Hope it helps someone.

Valve cover gasket replacement. I noticed a burning smell when sat with the engine on, which seemed to get worse over time; one suggestion was that it was oil leaking from somewhere and dripping onto the exhaust and burning. Apparently one common and easy to sort out reason for this is that the seal around the valve cover, which I replaced. It seems to have fixed the problem.

Some Photos (taken on phone camera so not so good.)

Removing the valve cover, that big plastic bit, after unscrewed it required a bit of a knock with a spanner to come off

The old gasket was removed and the new one put into place, a couple of quid off Ebay

Then the cover is replaced and screwed back on. This is easier done if the clip to hold the HT leads is removed (red arrow.) A word of warning, these screws are torqued VERY low, I accidently sheared one off overtighteing it so currently the valve cover is only held on by three screws; it doesn't seem to have affected it but obviously it isn't ideal.

Outer CV joint.
The KA started making a slight grinding noise/feeling when going around corners, which can be indicative of a damaged CV joint. A quick inspection revealed that the rubber boot covering one of the outer joints had come away and was leaking grease, it obviously hadn't been off for too long and the noise wasn't too bad, but to be on the safe side though I decided to replace the joint. I have since driven a car where the CV joint was well on its way out, and realised mine probably wasn't damaged enough to actually need replacing, but never mind.

Some photos of the joint replacement.

Once the wheel is off and the brakes disassembled the clamp bolt (top) needs to be removed, and (using a crow bar or similar) the lower suspension arm (bottom)  levered away from the hub carrier (middle). This took some force since the two parts had seized together in however many years it's been since they were last taken apart (if indeed they ever have been.)

Next you need to get behind the hub carrier, push the boot up the drive shaft (out of picture), and free the CV joint from the drive shaft. They're held together by a circlip, which took forever and a day, sweat and tears to remove (even with circlip pliers). You have been warned.

Once the circlip is removed the drive shaft needs to be removed from the joint. Apparently it should just slide out easily, however, this didn't happen on my KA. So the hub nut was screwed back on and knocked a few times with a hammer. This knocked the drive shaft out (above) and prevented it getting damaged.

Hub nut after being hammered, much cheaper to replace than the drive shaft :)

The old joint (above) and boot can be removed

Pack the new CV joint and boot with grease (above) and fit onto the drive shaft.

Reattach hub carrier to the drive shaft and reassemble the suspension arm and hub carrier

Attach clips around the boot to keep it in place.

Replace hub nut and tighten to the correct torque, reassemble brakes, put wheel back on you're ready to go :)

Hope that makes sense!

Artwork and oddities on Warwick campus

I indulged in some photography around Warwick campus before I left; the university has quite an extensive art collection described more fully at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/art/

Powder blue Orthogonal Pavilion by Toby Paterson

3B Series I by Bernard Schottlander

Let's not be stupid now by Richard Deacon

The Warwick Dials by Richard Wentworth

Flayed stone III by Peter Randall-Page

White Koen by Lilian Lijn

Op Mobile No 10 by Nechemia Azaz

Foucault Pendulum in the physics atrium

Everything by Ian Davenport