Engine work part 2

We had a LOT to do to the car! Dad worked pretty much non stop for six days! I love this picture of John and Dad concentrating.
I don't know what John is doing - maybe he is inspecting our work! John is intent on growing some serious seventies side burns to match his seventies car. As long as he doesn't grow an afro and wear a tank top and bell bottoms I can just about cope!

These are the old fuses made out of porcelain. I have a big pack of spares just in case..... I would take a spare engine in the boot if it was possible because I just know something will go wrong and guess who will be trying to fix it yes little old me..... I can foresee tears and maybe a tantrum on the side of the road!

The engine in bits, the light you see is Dad's it is amazingly bright and you can stick it under the bonnet or on the side of the engine so your hands are free, I am definately going to get one!

This is the hole where the sump plug goes, it is very important as it keeps all the oil in the engine. We took it out to change the oil and the thread on the engine block was completely stripped so we couldn't put the sump plug back in. This was serious and could have scuppered everything - the annoying thing was that we actually had another sump but couldn't take the engine out of the car to change it - we didn't have the lifting equipment. We tried thread sealer but it didn't work. I then spent the day running around all the garages, tool shops and even tractor dealerships in Kendal (and may I add that everyone I talked to was extremely helpful - people in Kendal are lovely!) I eventually found what I was looking for - a heli coil or rethreader. So that was another hurdle overcome!

This is my best little helper Belle!

We did a lot to the car!

Here is the evidence that we did lots of work on the car! Just to remind you it is a Ford Granada Mk 1 Ghia, it is John's pride and joy!
This is the engine with most of the top of it. We have removed the air intake and the rocker covers. Listen to me talking as if I know all about engines! I knew not much at all before last week but I really have learnt a lot!

This is a difficult picture to make out but it is the hole where we took the leaking core plug out, it is just below the black pipe, you can see where water has been running down the engine block. This was horrible to get out and even worse to get a new one back in!

Thats my Dad's hand, that is where the core plug is, it is on a difficult angle. It was one of those jobs that if the engine was out of the car or up on ramps it would have been a five minute job instead of an all day job! We won in the end though!

Two little helpers! Kara and Jess (the greyhound) as well as John and Dad's feet!

My Dad deserves a huge thank you!

This is a slightly self indulgent post, but it is for a very good reason! As you all know we are going on the Cannonball Run this year. We are very excited but we had a few worries as the car had a new engine fitted this winter and there were a few problems - actually more like 50 million problems!!! Well I happened to know just the man for the job, it was just a case of getting him in the right place at the right time (I will explain why later) well my Dad arrived last Monday and was put straight to work with me as his helper! We finished the car last night (Sunday) we worked non stop! That is why there has been complete silence on the blog for a week! Dad and John on the way to a tea break! Meet Kenny Montgomery, he is a Marine Engineer and drives ships as his day job. I am his middle daughter, this is the first time in two and a half years that I have seen my Dad, whenever I go home to my parents house he is away we always miss each other. As you can imagine we have talked non stop for days!

Dad and me in our matching orange boiler suits, I have learnt so much, Dad is a very good and patient teacher, there was so much to do and even when I had had enough he carried on. Dad has spent a lifetime driving ships and is highly qualified, he has amazing stories to tell from all around the world. There really is nothing he can't do and he really encourages me to use my reasoning to work towards a solution. Dad is a perfectionist and will go to great lengths to make sure everything is spot on. I will do another post with details of all the things we changed/mended/hit with a big hammer!

This is the last ship my Dad drove, it is a tanker and he took it from Guangzhow (China) to Callao (Peru) it was not the best trip, lots went wrong instead of being a 40 day trip is ended up being 22 weeks! I think he was pleased to see the back of that one! John and I took my Dad to the train station this morning and once again I was reduced to a five year old girl saying goodbye to her Daddy as he went back to sea and cried buckets. He is going to hospital to have an operation on Wednesday so wish him luck. I cannot thank you enough Dad, not only have you saved us thousands of pounds, I know the work has been carried out to the highest standard. I am incredibly grateful and really appreciated the chance to have my Daddy all to myself for a whole week!

Are you ready for our BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

We are going on the Cannonball Run Europe!!!!!! We are going in our 1974 Mk 1 Ford Granada so that will be interesting! We are raising money for two charities The RFU Injured Players and Spinal Research. To find our more please visit our charity page http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html you will find links to our Just Giving pages, please donate if you feel able. We have been planning this for a couple of weeks now and honestly I thought I was going to burst with excitement, this really is a once in a lifetime experience! John and I will do our very best to raise as much money as possible, we will of course be keeping everyone up to date with our progress by blogging, doing videos, twitter and a webcam! I cannot tell you how excited we are (and a little scared!!) Wish us luck!

Where to find us.

I got to thinking the other day after I gave you the Facebook links that I have never done a list of all the different places you can find out about us. So here it is! First and foremost our website http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/ here you can find out all about us and of course order your ink!

Ok so you probably already know about this one (as you are here reading about it!) Our blog - we also have another two blogs though, both on our website. The first one is BLOG, NEWS AND TIPS and is similar to this (but slightly different!) http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/blog.html the other is very different, it is about our charity drive (as yet I still can't reveal too many details) http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html although if you visit just now it will let the cat out of the bag as we have put a certain logo on there!

We have two Facebook pages http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/KC-Inks/110791988941755 and http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Ink-Cartridges-UK/177969185563592 we put all sorts of stuff on there, competitions, giveaways, offers have a look you might be surprised!

We are also on Twitter - this took some getting used to (I still think we should be allowed to write a 3000 word essay on there!!) but at least my little tweets are entertaining (I think!) https://twitter.com/KCinks

And last but not least our Youtube channel. I gave John a new video to put up (editing is completely beyond me!) so that should be going up soon. We have a mixture of interesting, informative and downright silly videos up there, we are adding more all the time. http://www.youtube.com/user/KCinksLtd Have fun looking at everything!

Facebook links as promised.

Here are the links to our Facebook pages, yes we have two - I think it is to keep me on my toes! Have a look, we put lots of interesting things on there as well as offers, giveaways and competitions to enter, we have had some really great prizes over the last couple of years including a weeks holiday in France! So friend us and you never know what you might win!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/KC-Inks/110791988941755

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Ink-Cartridges-UK/177969185563592

We have winners!

We have winners!!! First prize (the espresso machine) goes to Lili Hurst, the Kodak Photo frames go to Neil Fletcher, Sarah Montgomery and Denise Helen Ward. They were picked out of all the people who friended us on our two Facebook pages, I will put up links in the next post. Well done everyone!

The suspense is killing me!!!

We have had some real ups and downs at work in the last week and a bit. We have had some bad news that has turned into REALLY EXCITING GOOD news........ I have to wait to have it all confirmed before we tell the world! I know this is annoying for you, but it will be worth the wait! I am so excited about this I couldn't sleep last night!

Wind up those clocks!

Did you all remember to change your clocks? Here at KC INKS all but one of us did.... we phoned Tommy at 9.15 and made him panic! Poor Tommy was full of the cold all weekend and never gave it a thought, luckily he is feeling better now - I say lucky because we all spent the day teasing him! Apart from Tommy (!) we are all on the ball and ready to leap into action and take your orders, http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/ place your orders and look for them in the post the very next day! We really are as quick as that!

Twin Packs!

We now have some twin packs in stock, we started getting them about two months ago but the supply has been a bit hit and miss so we decided to wait until it had calmed down before we told everyone we had them! It would have been awful if I had told everyone and then when you tried to order there weren't any!
We have Canon PG-40+CL41 £34.74. So you are saving nearly £5! PG-40 is £18.24 and CL-41 is £21.34. Of course we also have the refilled cartridges as well, here is a link to our website so you can have a look http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/index.php?p=toner_ink_finder&cid=8&pmid=570

HP also has a twin pack for HP350+HP351 £23.15. Saving a massive £7.81!!! HP350 £14.34 and HP351 £16.62. We also have the XL cartridges and of course the refilled cartridges as well here is a link http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/index.php?p=toner_ink_finder&cid=362&pmid=465 I hope this is helpful!

Things to make us happy!

I can't tell you how happy it makes us all here at KC Inks to get feed back (bad and good, but hopefully good!) So when we get an email like this one it makes our day! Here is what a lovely customer had to say.

Hello

I recently bought an HP printer and went to your site to see if you stocked the relevant inks. I found that you do. Now here is the good part! Before I could order them my printer ran out of ink so I ordered them around 5pm. I was amazed and truly grateful when the order turned up the following morning.

Thank you so much for your amazing service. I look forward to many years happy trading with you and I'll pass on your company details to my daughters and encourage them to use you too.

HK

We really do try very hard to give the best service we possibly can!

Our first BIG test...

If only the road ahead was as straight and clear as this one! We have had our first BIG TEST. I know you all think that surely it is the second one after all I wrote about a hiccup with Ginger just the other day.... Ginger can be mended! The tour company that we had booked the trip with have just cancelled! So we were faced with a decision to either give up or get on with it and organise it ourselves. Well we are not ones for giving up so we have started with the preparations! I am feeling a little daunted because now I have to plan routes, find hotels etc as well as organising all fund raising side! At least we have a bit of time between now and July, it will fly past though! We also have a charity blog page on our website now there is not much up there yet (yes it is another thing for yours truly) I will be posting all sorts of things on there in the coming weeks. Here's a link http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Blog.html Let me know what you think!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I thought I would go with a not so typical picture - it is from Cheltenham Festival! Four days of racing and hopefully good weather. With Danny in New Zealand we are not following as closely as we normally would be (he is John's son and a jockey in case you didn't know) The rivalry between who wins the most between English and Irish trainers is legendary at Cheltenham, so far this year Ireland are in the lead....

Introducing Ginger and our first hiccup...

I thought it was about time to introduce you to the most important(!) part of our team, meet GINGER! She is a 1974 MK1 Ford Granada and is John's pride and joy. She came into John's life last spring and he has lavished much love and car polish on her, he polishes the top and I do the bottom bits that he can't manage! And yes it is the same car that was in the Sweeney, we get lots of comments about that! Alas though we have had our first hiccup. We decided to put a new engine in Ginger and went to pick her up last Saturday. John was very excited, he hadn't even SEEN his car for a couple of months! We stopped to fill up with petrol and just as we started again we had an enormous backfire which managed to blow the exhaust apart at the seams! Luckily we were two seconds from the garage so it was straight back in, sounding like a tank! The engine seemed to be running fine but there must have been a reason for a buildup to cause such a big backfire so she is staying in the garage to find out the problem. Ah well thats old cars for you! Have a look at our charity page to find out why I am telling you about an old car! http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html

This week I have needed the matchsticks....

I am very sorry for the complete lack of any sort of communication via social media this week. I have not been slacking honestly! In fact the complete opposite, we have been working very hard on the website. The bad thing is that it is all "behind the scenes" work so you can't see what we've been doing.... but we have done a LOT!

I took a picture of my computer screen just to prove I am not making it up! This is a peek at what the back of the website looks like, we have been adding links onto each and every page on the website - every single cartridge and printer!

It is very boring repetitive work, we started last Sunday and have been coming into work early everyday since as well, this morning I was here before the car park opened! Luckily I didn't have to wait long. We are about half way through, roll on the weekend! Next week will be fun as well it is STOCK TAKE!!