[Private_collector]

G'day Jacques,

I must be about due to write you another novel soon.

Can totally empathise with your experiences. My most frustrating episode of 'you just didn't listen, did you' was back when I had a local welder (what is it with welders?) attach a pair of land rover axle stubs to a length of steel tube, which would then become my gun carriage adle. I made a point of telling them to be sure to align the 6 holes in the two stubs with each other. The brake backing plates had to bolt onto those, so it was VERY important to me that this occur. Do I really need to say what they did? Yes, they were out by a good 10 degrees, requiring me to drill another set of holes in one of the backing plates. As a consequence, I don't go there any more!

On a happier note, the seller of my king pin kit has indicated he will send me another bushing, so unless it gets lost in the mail I have a good outcome. As it turns out, the seller is a pair of Gentlemen who deal privately in vintage vehicle spares. The fellow I have been corresponding with is the younger of the Father and Son in Law team, and is a very decent guy to deal through. Quite apologetic and honest! Their motivation is the preservation of vintage vehicle, so I admire them for that. Kinda restores you faith in humanity.......some of humanity, anyway!

The set of replacement wheels for my grey truck have been painted, last Sunday in fact. I placed them laying down on my trailer once able to be touched, then put a tarpaulin over the entire trailer, so they could cook through this working week. Cook they would have too, because we are already having mid summer type temperatures. Ghastly! I was initially at a loss for best way to paint the wheel nuts red while suffering least amount of damage torqueing them up. Came up with the decision to spray full coat of etch, then turn em upside and spray the red onto the bevelled edge. Once they are all in place, the rest of the nut will be brush painted. How it will go, anybody's guess, but I'll know on Sunday. That's when I will put them all together.