Roads to Joy

I’ve often had cause to remember the adage, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! But sometimes, as with our beloved Harry Hymer’s side front bumper, it is most definitely broke!

It was a disagreement with the gate as we tried to squeeze through the narrow passage beside our new-to-us house. That altercation didn’t slow us down on our foray into the deep south to pick up a loom in pieces, but it certainly made me sick as I ruminated on my impatience.

Worse, however, was the realisation, after a few unsuccessful attempts, that sourcing a replacement wheel arch trim piece was going to be near impossible. Even if I found a new part, the Hymer components are guaranteed to be out of our price range. I thought I should have to piece the arch together with superglue, bolster with strong grey duct tape, and hope for the best. A bodge job if ever there was one, it looked like.

I did a bit of further investigating, however, and found a likely trail in the Classic Hymers Technical facebook group. A highly recommended enterprise in Derby actually creates replacement parts with a glass fibre mould for ageing motorhomes. All I had to do was to glue the broken bits together so a mould could be made.

I set to work to get the remaining part of the wheel arch trim off of old Harry, and then proceeded to superglue all the little pieces of smashed bumper together. I did have to pop out to the driveway to sift through more gravel to find all the tiny shards, but in the end I was so relieved to have got the thing together. Realising, however, that the eventual package would be too bulky to try to send through the post, I left the trim in three large pieces for more convenient packing.

And posted the box to the mould-maker this morning. He notes, kindly, that he will finish the glueing, and then create the mould. He’s charging me a very fair price for the work, and we can’t wait to get Harry back into a relatively intact presence.

So my joy this late morning is the relief that there is a strategy for fixing a badly broken bit of a mechanical thing that is an increasingly beloved old friend. And maybe, if someone else with a vintage Hymermobil should find themselves on the wrong end of a similar altercation, the mould for their wheel arch will be ready for them!

Life does carry on in strange and wonderful ways, and there are many kinds of joy to be found, of silver linings in the darkest sort of clouds.