dropping an engine and gearbox and trimming a hedge with a chainsaw - what more could one ask for from Christmas?

Christmas 2007 has been very low-key and I've had a good time. We headed to the Diamond Hell for six days and were mostly immersed in family.

I managed to duck out on the Saturday and it took me about two hours to drop the engine and gearbox out of Simon's Poleizi VW bus. This vehicle is the reason for the GTI languishing on my drive. The bus has been blowing water out in the engine bay. Given that it's a waterboxer motor it could have been for a variety of reasons - sheared head stud, blown seals etc etc. As it turns out there was a filthy great crack in the head. As I'm not prepared to work on the street, or flap about trying to a) figure out what had happened and then b)resolve it on the street, after a cursory inspection I chose to drop the engine and gearbox out. This went fine up until the van made a bid for freedom off the jack, on to the axle stand, which then broke. Did I mention that it was on a bit of a slope?

The engine and 'box were half out at this point. It seems the starter solenoid took the brunt of the fall, so I've bought it up to Bristol to get that part replaced. Once I've MOTed the Golf it looks like I'll be selling that now. This makes me feel slightly guilty about taking it in, as it was due to go to a good home, now any home with a small quantity of cash will do.

The second 'project' over Christmas was my parent's Seat Leon, which rides like the dampers are sticking. This is sub-optimal on the IOW's roads, so after some mithering about whether the Leon wheels would fit (thanks to ChrisS for making my mind up!) I swapped the wheels on the Passat on to it, to see if the taller profile tyres would make any difference. They didn't, so I spent another hour swapping all of the wheels back. Unfortunately there are no suitable jacks at my parent's place, so I was working with a pair of widow-makers. Thankfully this was on level ground, so nothing untoward happened, but I wouldn't want to spend too much time with the jack out of the Leon!

The 16" wheels resolved the Passat's looks a lot better, but the ET50 vs ET37 offset made the car look quite 'pinched'. There are pics in the photos section on diamondhell.com.

without wanting to dampen this post too much with work stuff I now have Now is Gone and Wikinomics, which I'll be reading shortly. I'm hoping they're not just common sense with a dash of hyperbole as I'd like some pointers either to indicate that I'm working in the right direction in work, or to point me in the right direction!