What are you working on today?

Moved and restacked my 4 small woodpiles into one wood pile behind my shop. Not quite as bad as breaking and moving rocks! Previous location was temporary at best and just an eyesore. Still though......ugg. I mowed that now exposed area, cause just kinda weedy and nasty where the wood piles were. Lots of insects. Raked and picked up rocks. Fertilized the vestiges of lawn there.

Spread some mulch. On a bunch of trees. Bored a hole for a biggass stake to hold up a leaning doug fir, pounded stake and tied tree to stake

Mowed the property, watered the figs and and hops and the area where the wood pile was. That area went from dank to bone dry in a couple hours.
 
Drilling with the Goose-Pelican today.
460 RWS Tune kit- steel-aluminum bronze and nylon - spiked .128 Valve wire.


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Saga continues with my son's MK3 VW GTI. Ball joint bolts holding it to the LCA snapped and he came crashing to a stop. We got it towed home. Got the LCA and ball joint re-attached. Axle isn't fully seated so can't drive it - it came all the way out of the transmission. That's next this week. At least now we can move it around pushing it.
 
2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe 4.4TT, 53k miles. It came it with a blank Nav/I-drive screen, smoking exhaust and codes. Previous shop replaced o2 sensor but customer brought here because CEL came back on. Codes were for lean conditions and found left bank air duct past MAF sensor was loose - fixed. Noticed slight misfire - misfire graph showed cyl 4. BMW service guide states 60k mile spark plug replacement so going to do plugs and probably a coil on just #4. Exhaust smoke was under full power and little at idle. Found PCV allowing oil into the right bank turbo....will replace both PCVs and hoses associated since they are brittle plastic. The screen started to come to life again but just for a short time - the CIC module is bad. I can communicate with it via my Autel when it works then when it doesn't there is no communication. Online search shows its a common issue and planning on sending out for repairs so I don't have to program a new unit to the car.
 
Moved and restacked my 4 small woodpiles into one wood pile behind my shop. Not quite as bad as breaking and moving rocks! Previous location was temporary at best and just an eyesore. Still though......ugg. I mowed that now exposed area, cause just kinda weedy and nasty where the wood piles were. Lots of insects. Raked and picked up rocks. Fertilized the vestiges of lawn there.

Spread some mulch. On a bunch of trees. Bored a hole for a biggass stake to hold up a leaning doug fir, pounded stake and tied tree to stake

Mowed the property, watered the figs and and hops and the area where the wood pile was. That area went from dank to bone dry in a couple hours.
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new rad, water pump, idler, thermostat, hoses installed. The water pump was a slight pain with 3 bolt sizes and the ackward thermostat housing. topped off the coolant to see if anything leaks overnight. The dayco idler and hoses were the same visually as Lexus/Toyota OEM. Tomorrow will finish the fan, fan shroud and test for leaks. I decided not to replace trans oil cooler lines but will note it in service logs to re-do in 30k miles.

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This radiator is worthy.
 
Replaced the seat frame in a Sequoia today. I enjoyed it. A little agonizing prying out all the harness connectors and harness but I got it. A couple brake jobs, someone wanted their shield above the driveshaft replaced on a RAV4 so that was fun too. The shield was bent and hitting it so they wanted it replaced. We ordered the part a couple weeks ago just got it Thursday.
 
One of these Spicer 5-811's split three of four seals upon installation. Nice.

I'm leaving it for now. I have a new joint I can use for "parts" but at best it's 50/50 every time you try. I'm done wasting my time, hoping and crossing my fingers.
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edit: no, I'm not adding any grease for fear of it cracking the seal as it hydraulics out, but it doesn't actually matter. They fail anyway
 
Discovered today that the four wheel drive in 97 GMC farm truck was not working. I suspected the front axle actuator so with the 4x4 lever engaged, I checked power and grounds at the connector and had both.

O'reilly's had a new one in stock so installed it and now the 4x4 works. Truck only has 75,000 miles on it and this is the second time it's went out. It has the thermal version where as my 98 Chevy 4x4's have the electronic version and neither on them have went out and it's a better setup. I believe there is a kit where you can retrofit the new style actuator to the thermal version trucks but they didn't have it in stock and we didn't have time to wait for one.
 
Washed the 6 months of dust and dirt off the Legend. I've never lived in a town that's so dirty as Tracy.

Looked under the hood to check the coolant and oil levels. The front cam cover and head was more oily than normal. I always thought oil was sneaking out between the cam bearing cap and the cylinder head and was in need of resealing. It never dawned on me that it could be coming from the oil fill cap.

Removing the cap, I noticed (never really looked close before) that sometime before I got the car, someone had stacked an o-ring on top of the factory cap seal. :mad: It's like leaving the old oil filter gasket on the filter adapter and installing a new filter on top of it. Under pressure, this doesn't end well. Under spash, it just makes a mess.

Honda still has the cap seals available (I purchased two). It's rectangular x-sextion o-ring. The o-ring and old seal were so hard I used side cutters cut the o-ring off and a No. 11 blade point to lift the cap seal out of the groove.

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Nice easy day today. Oil change on a 21’ RAM 2500 quad cab 6.7 Cummins truck. And a rear brake job on Subaru Ascent wagon. Tomorrow lady boss (one with traverse) taking all us techs down to PNC PARK for Pirates vs Tigers game in a suite. Should be awesome and get great view of the burgh’
 
All on a '99 Ram 1500 4x4:
-new rear drums, shoes, hardware
-new (reman)steering box from CanCraft in BC
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-new battery tray from donor truck and new hold-down with stainless hardware and clip nuts (Amazon)
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-new repro cup holder from Amazon
old:
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new: (the owner knew it would be black)
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-new carrier bearing and u-joints (in spite of Spicer 5-811's cracking seals)
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Finally, I spent WAY too long getting a rusty draw bar out of the hitch. Very common in the rust belt, sure.....but here rust is not common and rarely severe. Regardless, don't leave your draw bars in your hitches or take precautions with grease or anti-seize. This is the sludge left in the hitch after lots of PH3050 and O/A
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All on a '99 Ram 1500 4x4:
-new rear drums, shoes, hardware
-new (reman)steering box from CanCraft in BCView attachment 170277
-new battery tray from donor truck and new hold-down with stainless hardware and clip nuts (Amazon)View attachment 170281
-new repro cup holder from Amazon
old:
View attachment 170279
new: (the owner knew it would be black)
View attachment 170280
-new carrier bearing and u-joints (in spite of Spicer 5-811's cracking seals)
View attachment 170278
Finally, I spent WAY too long getting a rusty draw bar out of the hitch. Very common in the rust belt, sure.....but here rust is not common and rarely severe. Regardless, don't leave your draw bars in your hitches or take precautions with grease or anti-seize. This is the sludge left in the hitch after lots of PH3050 and O/AView attachment 170283
That cup holder is too nice for that truck. Need to drop it in the mud then kick it around the yard a bit. 😄
 
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