service

October 2nd, 2011

I had a dream this morning.

 I was at a very nice coastal landscape point with perhaps a guest house / backpackers building with a great ocean view, where many foreigners gathered. I was with a witness who kept on changing into people I sort of knew and some I knew better and was in   essence totally unstable.

 While I am talking to her / him / whoever I see that there is a car over the sandy 90 degree edge and that half of it is under water – sea water, and that it was green-ish in colour or white or whatever colour it felt, and then I noticed it was over the edge and there was no water and I wondered how I could get it up one level onto land and then I noticed it was not a car but a bakkie (slang for small truck – south african slang) with a canopy and that it was not over the edge but flat on the sandy ground below and there were instances of water and that the water was coming back. SO I walk down to the bakkie and notice there is no water but evidence of mud, black mud to about 50 cm down and then sand ( as I somehow magically view a cross section of its depths cos a sinkhole wall has dropped the ground in a staright-ish line so I can view the details) and then the rational mind calculates that the car is stuck because of mud and when I get close to it I see it is a toy car no bigger than my hand and its not on a sandy bottom but up on a small incline. after I pick it up and start heading up the hill I see in fact I was mistaken in every instance and in fact I am carrying a tortoise and feel the swing of its little legs and I head up to the house with an ok feeling in my chest cos I am in service to the tortoise.

Finance required for business vehicle

June 12th, 2011

Urgent Finance wanted.

I have found a small pick-up  (Bakkie) for R 40 000.00. I do have a trailer and a beach buggy I am currently using for business with a back up motorcycle for cheaper trips – used whenever possible. The beach buggy is 31 years old and I am a bit concerned it will pack up one of these days. Fortunately I know the entire vehicle inside and out and keep it going. The engine is great.

The deal I want to make is this:

1)      You pay the motor dealer for the vehicle

2)      The vehicle goes in my name and gets insured

3)      We set up an agreement whereby I pay back the money (R 40 000.00 + interest)  at R 1 500.00 per month.

4)      Should I be able to afford more then I will pay more. The idea is to pay it off as fast as possible. Ideally I should keep 1 month in advance so in case of any adverse circumstances I will have a month’s leeway.

5)      We set up a contract between us, where it is specified should I default on 3 months payments that the vehicle is sold to defray expenses and that once you have been settled financially that the difference (left over money) goes to me.

6)      How do I earn a living?:

-          I am a carpenter, renovator, craftsman, improviser, designer. I do excellent work. I do better work than most the “professional” companies. I have a digital portfolio of my last 50 jobs.

-          I currently have the following jobs on my plate:        

  • Cabin boat floor replacement, engine service. Richard – Long  time customer. Busy
  • 2 x oak unit restoration Joan & Val-  Long time customer. Starting a.s.a.p.
  • 15-20 Bar stools. Kings pub Knysna  Andre -  Long  time customer. Awaiting quote.
  • Small leaking skylight repair job Rainer – Long time cust. Job waiting
  • Quoting on 12m roof for coffee shop - Nadine (New customer). Awaiting drawing & quote
  • Overhauling of motorcycle - Johan-  Long time customer. Busy. Awaiting parts.
  • Small job municipality- Lisa – New customer. Busy with prototype
  • Screen door for monkeys & mosquitos.  New cust Mary. Door made – Awaiting installation.
  • Small job wendy house fix - Richard – Long time customer. On hold. Too busy
  • Sash window overhaul  - Francois – Long time customer. On hold, Too busy
  • Constant ongoing – Sedgefield market, Woodmill Lane market Knysna. I sell stilts, medieval shields, swords, battle axes, rhythm sticks, boomerangs, etc. I teach children to walk on stilts, juggle, use rhythm sticks and ride a unicycle. An interactive stall. I am very popular.
  • The estimated total income from these jobs is in the region of R 10 000

 

Lastly – My home  circumstances have been a little difficult the last year or so, but I have had plenty of work.  I was renting a large house on a farm that had a workshop – had been there for almost 5 years. I was sharing the house with others and had to deal with their financial problems and landed up compensating for them. I had 2 other vehicles which I sold which both needed attention. I only received deposit for the one and never any payments. So I had to write the money off. Al so I was owed rent money and was never compensated. I am now out of that situation and am taking responsibility for my own accommodation.

I am optimistic, well known and liked and am just looking for someone to give me a gap and help me move forward.

I am inundated with work in the quietest month of the year for everyone else. I am so busy that I have to share some jobs with a friend who has a workshop in Knysna Industrial area.

That’s all I have to say.

If you can help I can send you the link to the dealer and you can see the vehicle & read the specs.

Raoul the owl

Wood Toys Knysna

January 14th, 2011
Samples

OK. These are just initial samples. I make new ones every week.

I also Make STILTS, BOOMERANGS, airplanes, cars, trucks, tetrahedrons, rockets – in fact I can just make anything out of wood. You mail me a picture & dimensions and CONTACT DETAILS and I can come up with costing. For the moment only South Africa but give me some time and I will take over world markets. Ha ha.
The site is under construction. So just leave details through comments for now.
Excellent – Raoul

 

Lampshade
The two Barons

Worth

August 22nd, 2010

Of what is our worth?

What do we take with us when we die? Why have we incarnated?

How do we value ourselves?

If I reflect back upon my life I see so much trial and error. I see myself trying to fit into various systems and sub-systems and each falls empty by the wayside. Each reveals to me an aspect of myself moving forward into time, with effort invested. So many come to nought, just rebounding of countless others, establishing some form of identity that says “hey, this is me” at that moment and then it changes and a new me is formed as I try something else.

We strive for recognition amongst our pears, we strive for acceptance in a fickle society where everything is false, where the bastions of our society are corrupt and immoral, where our identity consists of a house of cards stacked one upon the other, with little or no cohesion. This is our fragile ego, each of us constructing a bubble of protection around ourselves so that we can reasonably operate and survive.
Ask yourself what is important to you. Ask yourself if the life you are living is a fulfilling one. Is your value system determined by the media? And you, yourself who are you? How much space do you give others to be themselves? Without having expectations of them, without judging them. I fail sometimes, but I observe these failures and can at least examine them with the point of freeing myself from my conditioning. I am working on it but the conditioning has been overwhelming.

So then who am I?

I answer it this way. If I am building something then I am at that time involved in the creation of that particular object and it reacts with me as I produce it in 3d reality. I am what I am at the time that I am doing things and I am different with each task I am working on. As I interact I change.

I could be a lover, naked and close, embalmed in the intoxicating elixir of sensuality or then I could be alone in the bush cutting with the axe, in the semi darkness of a descending evening, but at peace with all and happy with my worked body. Finding contentment and challenges in the small things.

On the other hand I could be a creator of something and that thing would then exist because of me. I look upon my creations and understand the process intimately. But I am not my creations. The ethers work through me. I am only a channel. Thus said I find difficulty in accepting the charge of those creations on an ego level. It is what I do.

I am different in different situations. In meditation I am more part of the bigger picture, in action I am like a worker ant just doing without question. If I look at the bigger picture it is like I am trying to create positively in a place of darkness and it is a small light but a light nonetheless.

And what is happening to me now in this life is finally something I can work with. Having unflinchingly availed myself to so many obscure causes I find within me something new. Its not hope because we have gone past that, but it is yet a bubble of something inexplicable rising up through the void. It has no name and it has possibility and from it something is moving through me. I cannot accept this world for what it is, it is not what I came here for. There are those I interact with, they perceive in me value. My value is then balanced against a monetary exchange, which permits me to survive in a society that has gone beyond corruption and one that is embedded with a value system that is unacceptable. SO many fall by the wayside and cannot rise to the challenge because it takes more from them than what they can give. It leaves the masses in a state of apathy. It stifles their creativity and they then lead a life of mediocrity.

This is not for me. Yet I am too an extent a victim of my circumstances because I will not bend to that apathy and as a result find little place for myself in this world.
My balm is my work and it cannot continue for too much longer as my strength is vital and as my body degrades with age. I see that there, waiting for me, is the eventual collapse of my world. I think it waits for us all in this current society. In ancient cultures it was the opposite. The wisdom of the elders was revered and they were automatically supported. But here in this world my fall will be orchestrated.
Essentially I only have a few years to get organized. Good thing to have those years. Society is falling, and falling fast so this in fact compounds the situation as things get more desperate. How can you create long term projects in a short term society?

I have strength and wisdom and cunning and resolve. For these I will survive.

What about this false world? How do I navigate it?

The only thing I can reasonably do is break down the barriers between what is perceived as real and what reality actually may be. For this reason I explore the ethers in the regions of the unknown and the astral world reaches out before me, unexplored and unwritten. But yet it makes sense. It is the unflinching place of a great mystery called life, not the struggle to survive in an insane society, but a place of massive adventure and intuition.

Why, when we spend a third of our life in the astral world, is it not part of our society and education? What has science and religion done to our society other than disempower us? We are not reasonably allowed conjecture without proof. How can science prove the existence of other worlds when the doorways to those other worlds cannot be measured and are only accessible to the absolute few? When I tell people of my adventures some think me mad, but what I say is truth and not my truth. Empathetically I can take the feeling of these hidden places and give others a glimpse. Perhaps this vision is a curse because these places are so vast and infinite that I can never actually find a stable platform to voice them, but remain continually in a state of imbalance, unable to truly express the feeling of those places in words. Each exploration, every time I sleep, takes me further away from reality and closer to the unknown.

Eventually I must step through an open portal never to return to my physical body, this is my hope. My trap on earth is my emotional connection to others but especially to the feminine energy. The longing for proximity, our strongest desire in this incarnation, the force that overrides all else.

To the infinite possibilities I raise my empty cup and casting it aside throw myself backwards over the precipice of nothingness and for eternity I am prepared to fall.

A Cold Night

June 13th, 2010

Our Mysterious Source perhaps.....

Damn its cold In the valley. Snow on the mountains less than 2 hours away. World cup fever floods the small town as the French and Danish teams arrive. I love playing soccer but do not care for the millions that were spent.

The world according to me

Once upon a time, through circumstances mostly unknown, a blue green planet manifested itself along with a few others for company and later someone gave them all names.

As time played out so life forms emerged, species came into being, the stronger, more adaptable ones survived.

At some point, in the not so distant past, man appeared, “magically” – out of thin air so to speak. Must have been a great magician, a prestidigitator of some kind. “Sim sala bim” or “Abaracadabara”.

The most rational viewpoint I have of this is that either:

1)      Our species existed somewhere else in the universe and we were then brought here by interstellar craft.

2)     Extra terrestrials (aliens) landed on the planet and then genetically created us as a cross between the existing Hominids and their DNA. That’s why there is a missing link in the evolutionary chain. They did not do a very good job as 97% of our DNA is de-activated.

All the different races on the earth were probably genetic modifications of an original form. Almost an experiment so to speak. They were placed in different locations and left to populate and different cultures emerged.

Ok, so that sorts that out. Humans were on planet earth. They were hunters and gatherers but also a bit greedy by nature.  Man had seen wood float and the making of boats was a natural progression. Land was abundant, food was abundant, tools were manufactured and bit by bit the human species progressed and grew and grew.

Now, if we take a look at how nature works we can easily see there were a few natural laws in place. As the food source diminished so the population died out, abundant food meant directly propagation and as populations increased so the necessity for a larger space became a requirement.

Cultures became aggressive and took land by force. How preposterous it is to me that a nation can send ships to a foreign shore and then make a claim to that land. Somewhere along the line humanity lost its reason. Natural systems were ignored. Governments ran rife. The power of the individual was stripped away and in the place of individual rights social systems were developed allowing creative individual thought scant room to move.

Smaller cultures were incorporated into the larger and more powerful cultures. Religious philosophies and rules were imposed.

Powerful organizations took control of the land and resources and dished it out a little at a time. The Monetary system was invented. The trade and barter system was all but wiped out. Class and social orders were established.

The agricultural revolution created vast stores of food and so populations flourished.

The industrial revolution created vast economies and the monetary system became firmly entrenched. The debt and interest system came into being. Multi-national corporations took control of worldwide economies. Governments became front-ends for the economic giants. The technological revolution came into being.

The control of the masses was paramount to the functioning of the individual societies. How do you manage millions of people? Simple. Distract them using every means possible. Control them. Get them to behave in a similar, accepted fashion. Impose peer restrictions. The media is the main tool. The education system certainly lends a hand. Turn everyone into “happy campers” by keeping them entrenched in their comfort zones. Find a girl and settle down and have a good job and buy a house and a nice car and cool furniture and wear the right clothes and here are some rules people “don’t go for your neighbors wife and don’t take his possessions and if you do the invisible man will mark you down in his black book and then there is going to be big trouble etc.”. When you die of course, but if, on the other hand you obey the rules then a special place awaits.

Ha ha. So then what’s the answer? What is the solution to the mess this planet is in?

Obviously natural law must take precedent. Such as:

-          Protect the trees and oceans, they give us air. The internal combustion engine, the oil industry along with factory upon factory, as well as deforestation sorts that one out.

-          Protect the earth – It grows our food. We ignored that one too. Why, we have even gone so far as creating GM food with built in pesticides and seed termination technology – clever, patented seed that is owned by corporations.

-          Protect our water sources – we need water to survive. Diminishing resource. Hey put “sodium fluoride” (a known poison and by-product of the aluminum industry) in the water and let people believe its “calcium fluoride” – a natural beneficial substance. Its in 95% of toothpastes world wide still.

-          Do not overpopulate – we failed a tad on that one. I think its about 7 billion people now and there are more cows than people on the planet. The methane gas from the cows farting is a serious problem.

-          Compassion is vital. How can we have compassion in the growing mass of disgruntled and impoverished people? How does a hungry and cold person find the strength to have compassion?

-          Community – Value systems like kindness, honesty, fairness, wisdom and justice. We are in this together so we must work together. The elders were always revered in the old societies. Not today though. We have totally lost our community spirit.

Logically I would say we are way past critical mass. We have lost it. Totally.

So, we are taught concepts such as “as above so below” or the laws of cause and effect i.e. what you do comes back to you. We have been taught metaphysically that we are co-creators of this reality. Sure. I accept that. What we do has consequences. We are able to manifest things in this reality. Great positive things. Immense magical things. Yin and Yang. The dualistic nature of all things. Light and dark. But to the masses these concepts are meaningless as the daily struggle to survive continues unabated. It is getting more difficult. Anger is growing. The monetary system playing out means bankrupcy for the majority. Governments just print more money every year and every year currency in existence devalues.

So, we need a grand re-shuffle of our reality paradigm. We are currently in a severe downward trend. And all this explains only this physical world.

On the outer reaches of the fringe of society there are people becoming empowered with great knowledge and wisdom. Those, that are not caught up in the grand illusion. It is in this fringe I find myself. A way maker.  A person who will not compromise my ethics for money, who will not accept the global value systems. I will continue to map the boundaries between what is accepted as reality and what reality actually is. I will flout popular thinking. I will ceaselessly try to see what gifts I can bring from the other worlds / dimensions for the greater good of all and will do my utmost to de-manifest this reality.

The earth and universe is a great and infinite mystery and everywhere the answers are around us. We need not seek to colonize other planets; we need not seek to look what’s out there. We need to take stock and radically change everything. Everything. We need to look inside ourselves. We need to take responsibility for the part that we play. We need to acknowledge the divine beings we are.

Lastly, I hope that if we are indeed a genetic creation of a superior intelligence that comes from some extra-terrestrial source that they may come and lend a hand. Take responsibility for the monster they have created. Perhaps 2012 will be the global shift we are waiting for because if not then our future looks pretty grim. Do not accept what you have been taught. Question the motives. Empower yourself.

And down the hill we go, no helmet, no brakes……”wheeeeooooooooooooooo…..”

Dream to Lucid – 001

June 13th, 2010

It had not been his intention to kill them, rather simply to re-instate the balance, but somewhere the curtain between real world and dreamworld was lifted and he entered into a state of automation. He raged against all the injustices somehow foisted against him and pummelled away until the well was once more empty and he was standing, alone again, on a moonlit shore, in perfect harmony with the luminescent darkness all around him, framed by the rhythm of each crashing wave. He remembered when he fell before against the blows of numerous others. “Did I not die then?”, He questions himself and drifts into a reverie of remembrance as the gears turn and he remembers how it feels.

A sound permeates his thoughts, a dog is barking, He constructs the modality. What lies outside the room, in which he finds himself, the room with the now dead people at his feet. His energy goes, flows out, he sees other rooms, furniture and ornaments re-instate themselves, décor splashes itself onto shapes and rooms become lit. The building itself start to assemble, wrapped by a fenced garden, reaching into a suburb and exploding further into web-like road strands linking town to town and city to city until finally a crescendo and a wave of creation shoots out in all directions until he finds himself in his location on a blue and green planet in an ever expanding solar system. The implications wash over him and he stumbles, the dog is still barking. “THE DOG is barking! What dog?!? Where am I? Why is this place not familiar? Whats going on?!!??”

I awaken. “Shit!”. Another dream.  Im in my bed. I throw off the covers. I am not in my room. My bed is on the back of a white bakkie in motion. I locate myself again. The bakkie is driving near my mothers old place in Johannesburg. Momentary confusion reigns supreme in my world. Another dream? “Yes, it can only be a dream” I exclaim. But I am awake. I tell the driver to stop. He proves to be a reasonable man. His name is Arnold. He worked at the horse farm at one time. He stops. I climb off the bakkie. I start walking in the general direction of my sister’s house. Where else do I go? I prepare for a long walk. I find purpose in this. I wake up again. I open my eyes. Still in my bed, but in my room, real world earth. The dog barks a bit more. The room is lit with early morning light. There is activity by the bird stand. Across the river, in the dip below, and further out still, the hills abound. Cloudy, warm, no wind anywhere to be seen.

Altered States

June 13th, 2010

He sits. I sit.

I observe the moonlight in-between the branches and leaves. They are silhouetted by the light, I see the movement from the breeze. An effortless sway. Time filters inbetween then stands still. All movement ceases completely, even though I know there is supposed to be a response. In the moment, at that point the information starts to flow until I am immersed. No, not words. Images, feelings, entities reveal themselves. The world becomes a living thing. The ebb and flow of all is revealed by the asymmetrical dance (elliptical dance) of all that is. Everything that was learned before is no longer relevant. It is inconsequential before this vision. I cycle, my energy follows the rhythm, I am at one with all. I have no ego. No identity. I live in the flotsam and jetsam of interstellar waves. Before me a canvas painted like no other, colours linked to colours by embedded layers of patterned energy. Each leading to the next. How many are woven between the spaces. How I would like to stop and examine each but this is impossible. They have no number.

And here is another places. The doorway is through this place. The trick is to give in to the shift in perception. When it tugs follow it. Observe the changes and follow the tail. Very soon am I a giant or am I a microscopic dot? Any object is so close but impossible to reach. I am heavy beyond measure and I am compressed into microscopic space and at precisely the same time I am traveling in all directions at once. Expanding and moving outwards without stopping, stretching my consciousness until it no longer exists, until I am just a feeling in a place devoid of everything. Its one texture. Its endless. It is the place I was before. From that place the dream of this life was created. It is the place that has been forever and I have never left there, but here I am.

Another place still. Its not stable nor predictable but can be altered and is malleable. Entry always is followed by euphoria. Form exists but constantly alters like everything else. In it are things from this world but they do not have rules that bind them. Site is also a means of travel. Time and space are illusions. It is open to exploration but must be met with caution. In this place challenges with others must be avoided at all costs. Journeys here must be approached with wisdom and great intuition. Form can be changed with intent and is effortless. Energy and the ability to manifest is abundant. Unchartered waters. Also can exit with practice reasonably fast. Disorientation negates exit. Centered focus and calmness within, combined with imagining the real world brings it into existense.

Yet another place. Decide to follow short meditation. Focus the energies in my hands. Through action link the two hemispheres of the body, left and right through my hands. Activate the portal. Empty myself. Extreme peace. Stillness. Nothingness. I cease to be. With my minds eye I search the void, search for the energy. Open myself to it. Hold it. Center on it. Then its like a veil drops and a bubble of electrical energy rises up through my feet and courses through my body in the form of a series of pulses and rises out my head.

I can direct it with my hands and mind. It can do work. It can change reality. It can heal. Each pulse is followed by release of water from the tear ducts and the tears roll freely.

There are still other places.

Leap of Faith

June 13th, 2010

Hey – A mighty leap for man and small leap for mankind. ha ha. Mankind is a misnomer, it should be mancruel or manvicious. I think I should go over to the social side and add some more info. Try and figure out where exactly i am in the pic and did i indeed jump over all the tables or what?  Actual unmodified pic.

Cool, I’m heading over to the social…….

Changing a wheel bearing on a 31year old car

June 13th, 2010

How to change a rear wheel bearing on a 1979 beetle (beach buggy) without the luxury of a wheel puller but improvising with a small angle grinder.

This one caught me by surprise. I was being brave and decided to resolve an oil leak in my left hand wheel drum. Oil was affecting braking – obviously. All I had to do was make a new gasket for the bearing cover from the side shaft, or so I thought. I still had other carpentry work to do and I thought a little zen energy directed at my beach buggy before the carpentry work would be most well received by the old jalopy and myself, of course. Little did I know.

To remove the rear wheel hub is of course the first part of the job and unless you have both a rather heavy duty socket (I think it’s a size 36 – metric) and a solid pole for leverage I think you should just give the job a miss.

My friend Barricus has just such a lovely heavy duty truck wheel socket that takes a pole.

I did not have the LUXURY of a wheel-puller so had to improvise.

To remove the Hub:

1) You will need the following tools – Bricks (2 of will do), 36 socket, bar for leverage, pliers, vice grips, strong flat screwdriver, hammer, mallet or piece of wood 22 x 44 piece (about 10cm long will do) trolley jack (best) or other, a and a small angle grinder with a thin metal cutting disk.

2) You will need the following spares – A bearing (obviously), flat o-ring and aluminum washer for the inside of the bush and the necessary oil seals for the bearing housing cover. bearing / seal cover gasket (If no gasket it is not a difficult gasket to make. You could use some leather to make one if you don’t have a gasket) I re-used the old cos I did not have money for new ones.

3) To remove left hub – Put the bricks in front of the back tyres. Loosen the 5 wheel nuts but do not remove.

4) Jack the car up. If you are using a trolley jack then place the jack under the shock absorber. Remove the wheel nuts when the wheel is off the ground. Remove the split pin from the BIG drum nut.

5) Put the wheel back on. It is not necessary to tighten the wheel nuts and it is only necessary to put 3 on. Lower the jack.

6) Put the socket on the large hub nut. Make sure the bricks are in place. Put the hand brake on for this one. Stand on the bar for leverage if you must but I personally do not believe it makes rational sense to make the hub nuts so tight. I am sure there is a torque setting that is less than that needed to turn graphite into a diamond. With some effort the nut should come loose. The back wheel nut is NOT a left hand thread, so don’t make the mistake of making a tricky job worse.

7) Once the nut is loose – then jack the car up again. Loosen the hand brake or you are NOT going to get the wheel hub off.

8.) At this point you can pull the whole wheel off the axle spline or BETTER you can remove the wheel again and then pull the hub off the spline. You may need to encourage the removal by tapping with a hammer (not a mallet) Don’t lever it out with a screwdriver, you could damage the edges of the hub or the mechanisms inside if you are not familiar with them.

Part 2 – bearing removal:

1) Ok, so now you will see in the middle of the hub backing plate the brake shoes attached and in the center four nuts will hold the bearing and seal cover. They are size 14 metric. Easily removed. It never hurts to spray them with a bit of penetrating lubricant (q20 or similar). You can always tap tight bolts with a hammer but don’t hit them on a hex point but on a flat section – and only tap them. It sometimes helps break a rust seal.

2) Ok, so now the 4 bolts are out. Tap the bearing / seal cover with a mallet or use a block of wood and tap with a hammer. Should pop right off.

3) PS: Normally before I start removing seal covers I clean the hub completely and then blow it out with a compressor but if you don’t have a compressor then clean it with a brush and petrol. Although petrol can effect the break rubbers – causes them to expand, but I am reasonably sure that only prolonged immersion in petrol messes the rubbers up. A brief brush and dry with a rag probably wont do any harm. I’m not a purist – just want to get the job done.

4) You will notice a bush (A metal ring – thick) on the spline – This can be levered off without too much difficulty. Please note that it has a camphered edge on the inside and has a flat rubber o-ring and aluminum washer. I slightly damaged the washer but hammered it flat and sanded it between two blocks of wood covered in sandpaper to render it re-usable. I had trouble getting the bush off because it had been there for in excess of 15 years. I eventually sacrificed a wood chisel and tapped it in-between the bearing and the bush. It worked. I re-sharpened it later.

5) Now you can see the bearing. The part of the bearing visible normally has an inner ring, an outer ring – both metal and a plastic dust cover. You can just gouge it out with a screw driver. A thin one. Tap it into the plastic with a hammer. My bearing had part disintegrated. The ball bearing cage had broken apart so I just pulled it all out with pliers (easier with vice grips) until only the ball bearings were there. You can break the cage apart without too much effort – use a flat screwdriver and a hammer. Note: The cage consists of some flat metal strands that keep the ball bearings in the bearing at a distance from each other. Its just like a cage for bicycle bearings, only bigger. There is a little play in the side shaft (drive shaft) and you can pull it outwards about 1,5 – 2cm. This pulled the outer bearing housing out enough for me to grind a section big enough to remove the ball bearings. Don’t grind the axle spline dude, that’s not cricket. Once the ball bearings were out the outer housing just pulled out – yay.

6) With the bearing outer housing gone I ground a groove in the inner ring which was FIRMLY attached to the axle spline. I held the axle spline stationary with a vice grip attached to it and tapped the inner housing of the bearing with a large flat metal chisel until it started to turn. After that it came out without too much of an issue.

7) You can tap the new bearing in using the bush and the old inner bit of the old bearing. Try not hit the axle spline cos if you do and it gets damaged it will be more difficult to put the hub back on.

Hey, just reverse the procedure of the removal. I am definitely not going to type all the stuff out. Its almost 1a.m. and I have work tomorrow. Mail me if you want details but not while you are busy with the job. Before you do the job.

The demise of social order

June 13th, 2010

Society is basically in it death throes. We need to replace the monetary system with a fairer means of exchange. Essentially this is a radical topic and can be discussed ad nauseum with no solutions. We can all see the bad stuff and the proverbial “shit” that is going to hit the fan, the inevitability of our doom is upon us.

What amazes me is that it continues daily with little change even though all around us things are crumbling. The media is still discussing the economy as if its a positive thing. What a joke. I have had enough of all this nonsense.

Anyway, This is my first venture into blogging so go easy.

This is my second tester.