What are you working on today?

Test fit the 38 gallon rear tank in the 86 F250 today. I’ve got a few things to tweak so I’m happy with it but otherwise it’s going to work great. It will come back out so I can clean, prep, and paint the inside of the frame. I just wanted to make sure it would fit before I was working around fresh paint. The rebuilt injection pump and new injectors came in yesterday. Still have to come up with an electric fuel pump and build a bracket to attach the pump and both filters. I’m running everything on the frame with new lines. I got a right hand shock mount in and it is going to solve my interference issues on the left side of the axle. The left shock can now point forward and pick up the stock 86 upper bracket.

Got the skidsteer, dump trailer and dump truck greased with Schaeffer 219. I’ll have to tear the hubs down of the dump trailer soon, I jacked it up to grease the EZ Lube hubs and all 4 of them are looser than I’d like. It’s only a year old and had a pretty easy life so I assume they were originally set up that way.

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Argh.....today was first cup seal Hades on the p/s lines of a '12 Silverado. Apparently these often leak at the rack/line juncture. I got Precision (Sunsong) cup seals from O'Reilly because they were readily available, but they were sooooo tight.

I'm not a hydraulics expert at all, but I don't understand the point of cup seals when an o-ring will do. Furthermore, these cup seals seem to leak more than systems that just use o-rings. But what do I know.....

To add insult to injury the Sunsongs are ~$22 ea, meaning after tax you're in nearly $50 for two tiny pieces of rubber. I had to drive it home so hard with a drift and hammer I think it's now sealing more by mashed rubber than "cupped" seals. BUT it doesn't leak!

Next was Service AdvanceTrac on a '14 F350. It's the fairly well documented issue of the connector above the parking brake pedal. Communication error between ABS and RSC. I can scope at the RSC and see when it occurs, but I can't recreate it no matter what.

I may just overlay the two wires at the connector (C210) but I'm loathe to hack up factory wiring without a REALLY GOOD reason. [HEAVY SIGH].....I'm off to cry myself to sleep
 
MParr said:
Not today but on Wednesday I changed out the factory spark plugs in my 2020 F-150 2.7 Ecoboost. The worst part was getting the original plugs out. I used a 1/2" ratchet with 3/8" reducer, magnetic wobble socket, and assorted extensions. At one point, I thought that I would need my 1/2" Proto pull handle.
Yesterday, I sharpened 27 lawnmower blades. Today was rest.
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Did you go ahead and replace the rubber boots?

When I did the plugs I bought new boots, delco I think, from rock auto, specific to my year, make, model, trim and engine. They did not fit, so I reused the old ones. Within a month of being disturbed, I started having misfires. I swapped two coil packs for the cylinders getting the errors. Sold the truck. New misfires popped up the day I sold it, which made for a lot of fun working the trade. What I learned later was that the boots are wear items as they will begin to allow arcs through them and misfires. Just keep an eye out for it.

by simply moving one hard pipe on the passenger side, ford could have given clear straight drop-in access and no rubber 6” boots would have been required. Passenger side was inexcusably lazy design.
 
D60 said:
Argh.....today was first cup seal Hades on the p/s lines of a '12 Silverado. Apparently these often leak at the rack/line juncture. I got Precision (Sunsong) cup seals from O'Reilly because they were readily available, but they were sooooo tight.

I'm not a hydraulics expert at all, but I don't understand the point of cup seals when an o-ring will do. Furthermore, these cup seals seem to leak more than systems that just use o-rings. But what do I know.....

To add insult to injury the Sunsongs are ~$22 ea, meaning after tax you're in nearly $50 for two tiny pieces of rubber. I had to drive it home so hard with a drift and hammer I think it's now sealing more by mashed rubber than "cupped" seals. BUT it doesn't leak!

Next was Service AdvanceTrac on a '14 F350. It's the fairly well documented issue of the connector above the parking brake pedal. Communication error between ABS and RSC. I can scope at the RSC and see when it occurs, but I can't recreate it no matter what.

I may just overlay the two wires at the connector (C210) but I'm loathe to hack up factory wiring without a REALLY GOOD reason. [HEAVY SIGH].....I'm off to cry myself to sleep
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Disconnect the connector and hit it with Deoxit. I've solved my share of intermittent issues with a healthy dose of terminal cleaner/protector.
 
I've had this old Modis as an inexpensive 4 channel scope and it pulls 2nd Gen Ram ABS codes when nothing else can.

I bought it used (of course) and the "down" button has always required that I push so hard it makes my thumb hurt for hours. Today it just quit going down altogether.

I had purchased a cracked (dropped) Modis on ebay last year for this exact reason, hoping to have a parts donor. I gave $80 which seems high but I figured if the button(s) were good it was worth it to me.

Today I finally swapped in the new membrane and keypad board and am pleased to say it works! No more whining about my painful thumb, opening up more time to whine about other things!
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Changed the coolant in the RAV4. What a weird procedure. Need to run the engine at 1500+ rpm to get the valves to open to bleed the system. Takes about 20 minutes. Car Car Nut has a great video on the procedure. Lost a 10mm socket and extension down in the bowels of the bay or wheel well. That was to remove the over flow reservoir and I couldn't disconnect the electric connection so I put back where it was. Waste of time and I lost the socket and extension and wasted more time trying to retrieve them.

Went to Harbor Freight this morning for replacement and my wife dragged me out of there kicking and screaming. Lol. They have a lot of cool stuff and my wife said they stepped their game up. It was very clean and organized and a very friendly employee was on top of things and very helpful.
 
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Received and installed the 2.375" stainless butt connector to join the new resonator to the existing pipe on project Volvo. I really like this style clamp, I've used them on several projects and they ALWAYS seal up.

Next up, our '06 Kia Spectra got a new NTK upstream oxygen sensor. The original started throwing a random P2251 at times, I figured 20 years and 87k miles was more than fair our of the OE unit.

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Identical to the original, minus the OE part number stamp.
 
14Accent said:
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Received and installed the 2.375" stainless butt connector to join the new resonator to the existing pipe on project Volvo. I really like this style clamp, I've used them on several projects and they ALWAYS seal up.
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Is this your stick-shift volvo? How is that project going? I think those cars are super cool, you just don't see them anymore.
 
bdc101 said:
Is this your stick-shift volvo? How is that project going? I think those cars are super cool, you just don't see them anymore.
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Indeed it is! It's just starting to get nice enough here in the Midwest to get out in the garage and tinker, I wanted to get it road-worth before spending a bunch of money and time on body repairs. I've also been waiting and buying parts as inexpensively as possible to keep project costs in check.

So far, I've installed:

New front quick struts/end links (left front strut was slightly bent)
New left rear lateral arm (bent by Copart forklift :rolleyes: )
New exhaust resonator
New cabin filter
New fuel filter
New Bosch OE plugs
Replaced burnt out bulbs

I haven't had the car aligned yet, but it drives extremely well with the new suspension components. The clutch feels strong, the brake pads are ~70% up front and ~90% rear, but the parking brake is weak so I'll have to pull the rears apart and likely install new parking brake shoes and hardware. The A/C is empty and there's oily residue all over the compressor discharge hose, so it'll get a new one while the bumper is off and access is easy. Other than those minor repairs and a good cleaning, all I need to source are a front bumper, left fender, and left headlight and I'm off to the races.

I did run into my first real issue today: whoever last installed the wheel bolts torqued the absolute snot out of them. I managed to get 3 out of 4 wheels removed, only to shatter my breaker bar on the right rear. I had the weight of the car on the ground, wife inside standing on the brake pedal, and was still able to get a touch of wheel spin before the ol' Pittsburgh bar gave up the ghost. My next plan of attack is to bring home my induction heater and see if I can't get a little temperature in there without damaging the wheel. I've had some stuck ones before, but this one is going to be a fight.
 
I love it... never heard of a lug bolt stuck so hard though... you would think it would have broken the bolt before it got that tight! Super jelly, I always wanted one of those Volvos.
 
Screwed a set of plugs into an oil burning '11 Sonata 2.4
Intermittent P0304, gee I wonder why 🙄
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All keys lost on a 2012 Prius, this time they sprung for the deluxe job (I ordered the door key)
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Inner door + a door lock barrel and a flight of semi smart keys for a 2009 Land Rover LR2 🤔
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Yesterday was an old friend, a 2011 Avalon
The power door locks haven't worked for at least two years, and a $1,200+ Drivers side junction block assy (Body ECU/Fuse Box) was too much
A nice gentlemen on eBay makes a bypass kit for $165, only 10 wires to hook up
You lose driver's door priority, but the savings is worth it
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Now all the doors lock/unlock, and the prox sensors in all the door handles work properly
No more incessant beeping, or having to manually unlock the rear doors like some 19th century peasant 😒
 
Supervised the younger teenager mowing the yard while I trimmed, later supervised the other teenager pressure washing both grills, all the cars and the shed. Did a extended 30 mile ride on the old Yamaha, perfect just perfect. Then supervised the older teenager in changing in 5 wipers on two vehicles, he sorta got it. Put the tether on the Dakotas gas cap and changed the muffler. Probably shouldn’t of touched it, not quiet now! But it makes all the right noises now. The stock exhaust made it 26 years and was almost done. Now going to supervise the youngest and hand washing the BMW.
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14Accent said:
I did run into my first real issue today: whoever last installed the wheel bolts torqued the absolute snot out of them. I managed to get 3 out of 4 wheels removed, only to shatter my breaker bar on the right rear. I had the weight of the car on the ground, wife inside standing on the brake pedal, and was still able to get a touch of wheel spin before the ol' Pittsburgh bar gave up the ghost. My next plan of attack is to bring home my induction heater and see if I can't get a little temperature in there without damaging the wheel. I've had some stuck ones before, but this one is going to be a fight.
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I had this happen on a JK with factory alloys. I just heated the lug nut with the blue wrench and it came apart. Sure, some heat "deflects" to the surrounding wheel but not enough to matter unless you're really stupid about it.
 
2015 BMW 335D:
-serviced front diff, t-case and rear diff. On the latter two you have to suck it out because a drain plug would be a bridge too far for BMW.

You get to remove the 15,000 screws for the splash shields with 8mm, 10mm and T27 TAMPER PROOF Torx....ya know, for all those wiley individuals who can slip under a 335 and TAMPER with things. :rolleyes:

He ordered the diff fluid from Turner and paid $72 per HALF LITER of unicorn blood, meaning these three bottles you see were $216 plus whatever fees.
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Now, one of the best tips I read for the t-case -- and it was in YT comments of all things -- was to put some copper wire in your extractor so it holds shape. I had some old 10ga Romex and lopped off a short piece of the ground wire. This worked absurdly well for a free upgrade!
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Big side job. 2008 Series 60 14L 515hp putting combustion gas in coolant. Not the EGR cooler. Pulled head and found gasket blown in multiple spots. Measured liner protrusion and they are at the very low end of spec or under, at flush with deck or a half thousandth+ below. Needs counter bore job, luckily I know a guy. Kicker is it only has 115,000 miles. Never been overheated according to owner. Very unusual with such low miles

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