sod's law

The first law of machinery is that when you need it most it breaks down and that is what happened today. To be true it's been a long standing problem that has got worse. The JCB is crucial just now as we are backfilling the foundations and blockwork ready to lay floors. It won't start. This is because it is middle aged and like all of us things start going wrong in middle age, wear out or just break completely  and don't function as they should. It's the solenoid. I've bashed it with a hammer and it did start this morning but then it wouldn't go this afternoon so I stripped it off the JCB and showed it to Mark. Mark is a whizz with anything mechanical. I had some advice last night from Graham after we finished  playing at the ceilidh along the same lines. Graham  is also a whizz with anything mechanical - he scratch built a wind turbine before they became trendy and rebuilt the engine on 'Jamie Boy'. Graham is like Vie, a genuine role model. He is in his early 80s now and was the ferry skipper for very many years. Anyway I have stripped and cleaned the solenoid with advice from MArk and Graham and I'll put it back on tomorrow. If it doesn't work then we'll have to get another one. Luckily there is plenty of other work to be done so it won't really hold us up this next week.