Fuel Filter

So, on the past long weekend my driver and me have bought and changed the fuel filter. It was spoilt because of the bad quality diesel sold on Russian petrol pumps. Last week the temperature fell below zero and this resulted in a condensate forming in the fuel tank. Water reached the fuel filter and the car was displaying an error continuously on the computer screen. The challenge was to locate and understand which one of the two filters was affected. It could have been the one under the hood or the one which is situated at the exit of the fuel tank. Obviously, as the fuel tank was under the car it would be quite difficult to change the fuel filter there, as we have not got such equpment, which could lift a 2.7 tonne car to a height of 2 metres. So we knew that the system was interconnected but the fuel filter at the exit of the tank is much stronger and  universal and rarely needs replacing and therefore we hoped that be replacing the one under the hood the error on the screen would disappear. Under the hood it was situated under the second fuel pump, which extremely difficult to unscre. We had to borrow an electric scew driver from the electricians to do it, as by ordinary human hands and a spanner it was impossible to do. We changed the filter, which is quite small in size( I expected it to be bigger) and th error disappeared. Again, I have enriched my knowledge of automobile mechanics. Our future plan is to monitor the condition of the car and if something breaks try to fix it without the help of official Toyota workshops, which by the way do not always do the job and just leave the old filter but reset the computer with a special program. The old fuel filter is displayed above. ( a clean one for a landcruiser is supposed to be grey)

Reparing again..

This year in july my fathers car turned three years old and the warranty finished. We travelled to Tver' in summer and a small stone hit the windscreen and formed a crack. Untill october the insurance company was finding a place where we could repair our car and they told us to go to an unofficial Toyota workshop, claiming that it is reliable. After we got our car repaired thei we noticed that thee new winscreen allowed wind to pass through on the top. On day it rained and the water went thriugh, down the "torpedo" and floded the comfort blocks of the car. This resulted in the wipers turning on randomle, headlights not turning off and other electronic issues.Then my driver and I went to the Toyota official workshop and asked how much the repair would cost and they said approximately 92 thousand roubles for three blocks of comfort. We decided that they were lying to us because water could not simply kill the entire brains of the computer, so we decided to fix it ourselves:) We dismantled the entire floor and part under the hood and tried to dry the computers. We used fans. It was an extremely difficult task as the car had lots of protection against ordinary people trying to repair it themselves. We spent about 1.5 hours to dismantle it and then we put the fans on. We managed to expose the steering an put some oil on it so that it works better. The main difficulty was to lovate these computers and finding the right ways of deassembling the car and then putting all the parts back as they were. I have learned alot about how to locate where wires go and how to carefully deassemble car parts and not brake them. Photographs helped to remember where some parts went( but thise were not on my camera, my photos are above) I also understood how to lubricate car parts. Our next step will be replacing the fuel filter which is under the fuel pump. I will update on that as well.

International Day

On the last day of school, 19th October we hosted the International day. Each country was allocated a room and activities were run. However someboody had to organise the GYM for the concert and prepare the dining hall and obviously it was the job for the year 13 students. We organized the stage and some musical equipment as well as the tables and cloth and serving the food to teachers and students. After everybody ate we cleaned the dining hall and enjoyed the concert. Unfortunately this was my last international day at BISM but I hope that we can be more organised and waste less time, while organising the upcoming events.

Gear Changing

Our family has several cars. The oldest one is a Mercedes C200 Kompressor, which was bought in the year 2001 and unfortunately the selector of the automatic gear broke down. When the gear was placed in Reverse the car did not move and when it was placed in Drive the car randomly turned gears on, which in many case resulted in dangerous rev's. So the problem was in the Automatic gear selector, which was to be changed. Me and my driver have bought the selector and changed it. It was very difficult to do this, as the entire front interior had to be removed. We used the C-class construction book to find the places where the panel was fixed in position. This was possible because my driver is a auto-mechanic. This procedure took us about three hours. Now the car works well and we hpe that no more parts will have to be changed in the future 5-6 months at least. The picture o the right shows the old selector.

RC- modelling

Recently I have dried my car, taped some parts in order to isolate the wires from the water and I have tried another launch. The weather was wet, which gave me an opportunity to test my new construction out and it worked to a certain exten, however I have noticed that the ariel is not working well. Perhaps there is a probem with the receiver component. Now the car is a bt more water resistant than before and my aim is to get it ready for the winter season, film a short video and fix the signal problem.
Perhaps it is not clear on the photograph but an isolation layer of tape is presnt on the wires near the engine and the purple receiver.

GYM

I have continued going to the school GYM 2-3 times every week. As I have previously mentioned, my aim was to increase the weight I can lift, while bench pressing, but at the moment I only managed to increase the number of repetitions I can do with the 70 kg mass. In order to increase my muscular mass I have decided that I need a more protein-rich diet in order to encourage muscular growth. I will be continuing to attend the GYM 2-3 times a week and I will also do 3*30 push-ups everyday before dinner ( wide hand positioning), as I believe that this will help me achieve my goals quicker and the reason why I want to do this exercise before dinner is to ensure that the protein in my food will be used up for muscle growth and not some other purpose. My aim is 90 kg for the end of year.

Helping at Parent's Evening

On the 9th october I stayed back after school to help parents, who do not understand English with translating from Russian to English so that they would be able to understand what the teachers have got to say about their son/daughter. I also served tea and coffee. Thsese were simple but important tasks. Perhaps it would more intersting if I would have to translate German or Hindi, which do not know as well as English and Russian. I will be trying to help out at the other parent-teacher meeting that will take place later this year to provide a service to the school.