2009-01-12 Ross Gran Tour Bike Reborn

This Ross started out a while ago as a silver 10 speed Gran Tour II and ended up being converted to a painfully hip flip-flop singlespeed. Various parts were purchased in the process but the frame and some other stuff came from the original discarded Ross. The paint job is the tar-like bumpy undercoating for cars, probably this one.

2009-01-12 Refurbished Dell

This Dell was picked up a while ago but we only really got to grips with it today. It is a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 PC, so plenty useful enough for most people.

After some parts shuffling (cdrom was working but slow) we attempted a clean OS install but it failed with a big fat bluescreen. It seemed like a memory failure so we used knoppix to conduct a memtest. That failed hugely so we pulled one memory card out and tried again, hence success! After the install we threw in a new piece of memory into the empty slot and failure again, oh no! Maybe the slot was bad? A few false starts and then close inspection revealed dust bunnies in the RAM slot. Shopvac action and all is fine. This presumably explains the reason for discard, previous owner put extra memory in some time after original purchase, in doing so crushed accumulated clumps of dust into the slot rendering the machine nebulously useless, hence to discard.

Update: Sold on the list of craig.

2009-01-08 Topeak Bike Seat

This was attached to the Gary Fisher bike. It is probably better to try and sell them seperately rather than together so we unscrewed it. After a quick wash this will be off to the list of craig, complete with the suitable rack under it.

2009-01-08 Gary Fisher Big Sur

This fine bike is Gary Fisher Big Sur, which is apparently something halfway fancy. It had been dropped in the scrap metal with the Topeak seat attached. The bucket loader had grabbed it by the front wheel and tossed it in the big can, ruining the front wheel. We rescued it, put on a new wheel (and tube) and will sell it on the list of craig forthwith. Reason for discard appeared to have been a flat front tyre, the tube was missing and the tyre was off the rim. It had a weird junky seat with it but we tossed this Trek seat on for the pic and will throw on a spare Gary Fisher seat later.

Update: Sold within 12 hours of being salvaged. In other news we have available one Gary Fisher front mountain bike hub.

2009-01-06 Trail a bike

Yet another Trail-a-bike, this one slightly more used, or at least older, than the last. This is also missing the little coupling hitch on the front but after a clean and some new (old) handlebar grips it is ready for the list of craig.

The traffic cone is nothing to do with the bike, it is just allowing it to pose in the rough orientation it is intended to be used in.

2009-01-03 iBook

A 12 inch iBook G3 missing battery and power supply. Upon testing absolutely nothing occurs when attempting to boot. This will probbaly be parted out for ebay at some stage.

2009-01-03 IBM Pentium 4

An IBM dual 3Ghz Pentium 4 in nice shape except missing memory and hard drive. Some memory from inventory allowed us to test it using knoppix and it seems fine. The addition of a HD will make this a fine element in a certain distributed computing task. Pic shows the scavenged memory installed.

2009-01-03 Fuji Touring Bike

A pretty fancy Fuji Saratoga touring bike with triple chainring, spare spokes mounted on the frame, and lots of lugs. It is really rather nice but we have no use for it. It is already on the list of craig but super special deep discount available to readers of this page if they should want it.

Update: Sold within 12 hours of initial pickup.

2009-01-03 Cast iron griddle

A Lodge cast iron griddle with ridges on one side and smooth on the other. We do not really need this so it may be available. Two pics, one showing each side.

This may already have been snapped up.

2009-01-02 Snowblower

It started snowing again today so of course we are on the lookout for snow clearing tools. Most conveniently we found this Snapper Snowblower. With the choke on and a couple of pumps on the fuel bulb it started first time. It has half a tank of fuel. The reason for discard seems to be the fact that the drive belt to the snow chomper on the front seems to have stretched and does not engage properly anymore. A quick adjustment on the moving idler pulley that engages said drive and it works fine.

The previous owner seems to have kept it well serviced, the oil was clean, the plug is new and the joints had fresh grease on them. But maybe we will throw it away once we have finished the fuel in it...