Everyone knows that a can of WD-40 is an incredibly handy thing to have in your toolbox. Between that and duct tape, you should be able to at least approach a solution to all kinds of issues. But two men in the United Kingdom have shown us just how valuable it can be.
When faced with the decision to pay £50,000 in repairs or buy a £3 can of WD-40, they decided to go for the WD-40.
WD-40 truly is a miracle spray.
The strong-smelling water-repellent spray has been on the market since the early 1950s and is the perfect compound for lubricating stiff and creaky stuff.
Two U.K. men used it to restore an old church tower.
The clock on the tower at Grimsby Minster in North East Lincolnshire has been out of commission for the past 12 years. While not many people use church towers to tell the time anymore, it’s still nice for the community if the clocks are functional.
The repair quote was high.
As The Sun reported, after receiving an estimate of £40,000 to £50,000 (about $53,250 to $66,600), church officials faced a dilemma: find a way to raise tens of thousands of pounds to repair the clock, or just let it stay broken.
Two local men saw another way.
Rick Haywood and Jay Foley were doing maintenance on the bells and took notice of the broken clock.
“We found various dead pigeons gumming up the bearings,” Haywood said . “Some of the bearings were very dry.”
Dry bearings, you say?
As we all know, there’s something that’s perfect for fixing up mechanical stuff that’s all dried up: our old friend, WD-40. On further inspection, the two men found that there were three components that needed work: minutes, hours and seconds.
First step: clean out the dead pigeons.
“We got the dead pigeons out and it slowly ticked along after we greased it and cleaned it out,” said Foley. “We gave it grease and WD-40 and managed to get it running.”
All it needed was some grease.
It’s still an old clock running on old components, but a liberal coating of WD-40 is all it took to get things running again.
Right now, the clock is about two minutes slow because of the time it took to get things aligned.
WD-40 was the economical option.
The church was staring down a bill of tens of thousands of pounds to get things operational again, but in the end, all it took was a couple of maintenance guys and some WD-40.
The church’s warden is overjoyed.
“It’s amazing because you would not believe how much hassle you get when a church clock is not working,” said church warden Chris Daniel.
Is there anything WD-40 can’t do? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
h/t: The Sun
