What are you working on today?

2015 Pilot had its first big problem. Wife calls me frantically yesterday, saying it's stuck in her aunt's driveway, and it won't go into gear. She turned it off and tried restarting, but it wouldn't start. Load up my tools, and when I get there, she tells me the battery light was glaring at her, but she kept driving, even as other warning lights like CEL, VTM-4, and ABS lit up. Ugh. Quick check of the battery voltage, and it's only 11.9 volts. Uh oh. Got it jump started, but the battery voltage is drooping. Great, alternator is kaput. Called AAA to tow it back to our house, and start reading up. Rebuilt alternators are not cheap. The YouTubes looked like it's not too bad to change an alternator. Got the battery recharged, and today the alternator seems to working fine. Already had the replacement alternator, so I'm thinking just replace it, since it clearly wasn't working yesterday. Get it out, and it's covered with oil. Sure enough, the VTEC solenoid on the front is weeping oil. So, another trip to Autozone to get a gasket kit for that, and it's back in business.

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Thanksgiving morning I swapped the Mobil 1 filter on my 04 Ford for a motorcraft in hopes of eliminating intermittent timing chain buzz upon cold start. So far seems good. Maybe the Mobil 1 filter had a weak anti drain back valve. If it does continue I'm going to chalk it up to possibly a tensioner bleeding off and 305k miles, and continue driving it. After that I attended a thanksgiving meal with my former boss's family.

Friday I pulled 8 hours at work, coring some 304 stainless. Yesterday I cut some small trees on the property and hauled them to the burn pile. Today, more of that as well as cutting some of it up for firewood. I have gas heat in the house and shop, but sometimes I like a nice relaxing fire.
 
Woke up to ~7" of snow here in central WI, finally a chance to test out the plow I installed on our Husky YTH22V42!

I installed larger 23" rear tires from a parts Husky, wrapped them in a new set of chains and changed the transaxle fluid in preparation for the season... I must admit that this little tractor really can push the snow! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm very impressed so far. I had to adjust the scraper bar up a bit as it was picking up loose rock from our back drive, aside from that it was a major boost in capability vs. shoveling by hand.
 
2015 Pilot had its first big problem. Wife calls me frantically yesterday, saying it's stuck in her aunt's driveway, and it won't go into gear. She turned it off and tried restarting, but it wouldn't start. Load up my tools, and when I get there, she tells me the battery light was glaring at her, but she kept driving, even as other warning lights like CEL, VTM-4, and ABS lit up. Ugh. Quick check of the battery voltage, and it's only 11.9 volts. Uh oh. Got it jump started, but the battery voltage is drooping. Great, alternator is kaput. Called AAA to tow it back to our house, and start reading up. Rebuilt alternators are not cheap. The YouTubes looked like it's not too bad to change an alternator. Got the battery recharged, and today the alternator seems to working fine. Already had the replacement alternator, so I'm thinking just replace it, since it clearly wasn't working yesterday. Get it out, and it's covered with oil. Sure enough, the VTEC solenoid on the front is weeping oil. So, another trip to Autozone to get a gasket kit for that, and it's back in business.

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More J35 alternators are lost to oil intrusion than any other cause. Did your replacement have a sticker on the box warning that the warranty will be void if oil intrusion is found to be the cause of failure?
 
With snow on the way and knowing PennDot loves to throw the rock salt down, I installed some PPF on the truck! :ROFLMAO:

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Temporary solution for a design flaw. I lost track of time and never got to properly PPF that area, so this was my only solution.

I did fully Wool Wax the frame and such underneath a couple weeks ago. Truck still smells a little funny...
 
With snow on the way and knowing PennDot loves to throw the rock salt down, I installed some PPF on the truck! :ROFLMAO:

pmf3OX5.jpg


AdFVWQs.jpg


Temporary solution for a design flaw. I lost track of time and never got to properly PPF that area, so this was my only solution.

I did fully Wool Wax the frame and such underneath a couple weeks ago. Truck still smells a little funny...
Who’s fancy Subaru do I spy?
 
I installed a Dorman oil cooler on my 2020 Wrangler 3.6L today. There is no easy way to drain the coolant in the JLU, so I pulled the lower hose and caught 99% of the coolant. It all went back through the overflow tank for the refill.

I never want to do that job again. It wasn’t hard on my 2014 Town and Country, but Jeep has too much stuff in the way of everything. I need to get some electrical connector pliers to help make jobs like this easier as well.
 
Installed bed rack on the Tacoma, over cab height. It will soon get a roof rack of the same height. Aside from being better at carrying tall lumber and ladder than the short bed, I could see trying a rooftop tent at some point. We sold the camper and I still tent camp but wouldn’t mind trying something different and off the ground. Animal encounter in august spooked me a bit. They aren’t as afraid of humans as they used to be. Bed rack looks better than I thought it would.
 
I installed a Dorman oil cooler on my 2020 Wrangler 3.6L today. There is no easy way to drain the coolant in the JLU, so I pulled the lower hose and caught 99% of the coolant. It all went back through the overflow tank for the refill.

I never want to do that job again. It wasn’t hard on my 2014 Town and Country, but Jeep has too much stuff in the way of everything. I need to get some electrical connector pliers to help make jobs like this easier as well.
Was it leaking? Oil or water?
 
2015 Pilot had its first big problem. Wife calls me frantically yesterday, saying it's stuck in her aunt's driveway, and it won't go into gear. She turned it off and tried restarting, but it wouldn't start. Load up my tools, and when I get there, she tells me the battery light was glaring at her, but she kept driving, even as other warning lights like CEL, VTM-4, and ABS lit up. Ugh. Quick check of the battery voltage, and it's only 11.9 volts. Uh oh. Got it jump started, but the battery voltage is drooping. Great, alternator is kaput. Called AAA to tow it back to our house, and start reading up. Rebuilt alternators are not cheap. The YouTubes looked like it's not too bad to change an alternator. Got the battery recharged, and today the alternator seems to working fine. Already had the replacement alternator, so I'm thinking just replace it, since it clearly wasn't working yesterday. Get it out, and it's covered with oil. Sure enough, the VTEC solenoid on the front is weeping oil. So, another trip to Autozone to get a gasket kit for that, and it's back in business.

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The updated valve from Honda is the only fix that actually lasts. I would do the "upgrade" before you lose the replacement alternator:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10172366-0001.pdf
 
2022 Chevy Silverado 5.3L/10L80, Has the worst converter clutch shudder I've ever felt on a 10L80....Rivals the worst 8L90 in my opinion!

Customer wanted a ATF exchange & some Lubegard shudder fix added....Ran 20 quarts of Dexron ULV through it & added the additive.....Drove it for about 30 miles & the shudder might be worse than it was:(

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2015 Mad Max Subaru was clicking in LH turns and had a torn RF outer CV boot. This was an OEM boot I installed almost exactly two years and 67k mi ago.

I wound up replacing the axle with a cheap ebay unit (long story). After replacement, it was still clicking in LH turns. It really sounded like it was coming from the left, but sound travels weird and I had just put a cheap axle on the RIGHT. Plus, conventional wisdom is that the OUTER axle is most likely to click in a turn, so symptoms while turning left should be the right axle -- again, just replaced with a cheap import.

Thus I condemned the cheap import and ran to O'Reilly Sunday morning to get an Import Direct aka Trakmotive-with-a-Grey-Poupon-name.

I installed the new fancy Trakmotive on the right and symptoms remained UNCHANGED.

SO, I installed the ebay cheapie on the left and Voila! no more clicking. I must note this left axle was the SECOND "heavy duty" GSP on this vehicle. THE FIRST tore the inner boot in short order. I warrantied and now this one had no torn boots but was clicking. @slacktide_bitog

The Mad Max Subaru getting new axles:
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Not much today. Topped up the ATF on the Trailblazer, needed maybe half a litre when at temp. Picked up some 0w30 for its upcoming oil change.

I removed the camper window to bring into the glass shop. A bird had went full tilt into it, taking out multiple pains of tempered, tinted glass. It was a balmy -10c, up from -24 the other day. Of course, as I was taping up some poly, I ran out of tuck tape. Went to town, got some more and of course the wind picked up. This made for lots of fun. I used a majority of my English swear word inventory. But its done and hopefully its repaired sooner than later.
 
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