What are you working on today?

[dumkid]

Pu

Drove across the state on Saturday in the recently refurbished Grand Caravan. On my way to give my estimation of my brother’s Chrysler Town & Country. My Dodge went the 300+ miles flawlessly. As it should.

On the way I noticed a nice, shiny, recently detailed Honda Odyssey minivan on the freeway. It caught my eye with how clean it was until they hit the gas going uphill. Yow! More blue smoke belched out of that tailpipe than a wildfire! Poor guy behind it got momentarily blinded I’m sure. The owner is not keeping up on the right things on it I guess.

My analysis of the Chrysler: oil pressure is nonexistent. I’m thinking a used engine swap, but I promised that I’d drag it home and do a proper evaluation in my home shop with all my tools vs. a cursory analysis in his garage down there.

Towed it 300 miles on a rented UHaul tow dolly. I was going to come all the way back, grab my flat bed trailer and go all the way back but renting it one way made more sense. The dolly was a good option vs the flat bed, but I could have gone either way.

I’m going to offload it this morning and get the dolly back to UHaul locally. I have a direction I’m going in on this that occurred to me this morning: sludged up oil filter?

Put some lucas engine pudding in the Chrysler and see what happens.

 

[jetman]

snow blower, womans work Leadville, CO. spring hasn't sprung here yet

 

[D60]

snow blower, womans work Leadville, CO. spring hasn't sprung here yet
View attachment 206630

Pfft Leadville has 3 months of summer and 9 months of winter!!!

 

[BrianF]

I tore off the wiper motor after a day of pushing more snow. Will see if I can get another through warranty but if not, I cleaned it up and epoxied the broken part. If it holds, great. If not, I'll buy another.

 

[meep]

I tore off the wiper motor after a day of pushing more snow. Will see if I can get another through warranty but if not, I cleaned it up and epoxied the broken part. If it holds, great. If not, I'll buy another.

View attachment 206707

View attachment 206708

Nice work, though my guess is that won’t hold very long without some real kind of mechanical reinforcement, such as drilling and tapping for a super thin threaded reinforcement, or exterior splinting of some kind. It’s pretty wild to see that’s where it broke…

 

[wander2039]

In between 4 loads of laundry (winter and jacket washing day) worked on a couple nagging issues. The daily commuter bike’s front brake has had an annoying and embarrassing squeal for a few months. Even with Kool stops and proper toe. On a whim took some 180 grit sandpaper and wedged it in between the pad and rim surface. Did about 10 revolutions each side, removed a lot of glazing. Silence finally, just hope I don’t hit the brake too hard and attempt to fly.

Got a burst of energy after dusk so took a look at the cluster in the Festiva. No lights in cluster even though everything else worked. On a whim decided to test the negative side and it came to life. Just going to add another ground to the chassis, not worth spending more hours figuring out the weak spot.

 

[Kennedy01]

Yesterday I did some brush removal and burning at one of my bosses rental properties. More of the same today. Tomorrow we're going to repair a damaged door at one of his wife's air bnb's. Kind of nice to get out of the shop for awhile.

 

[D60]

2008 F150:
-Oil change
-Transmission spill 'n fill (so easy with Dorman pan)
-Customer states: odd squeak noise. Found the squeak, it was really wedged in there! Had to drive it out with a drift and hammer

 

[THORROMIG]

Icon with silicon ? Need new wipers . Let us know how they perform . Thanks

They are called Bosh Envision -- 35 bucks a pop at Autozone. They gave me 10% off though. Rained here today really good and nice/quiet and clear soo far.

 

[Kennedy01]

Yesterday I did some brush removal and burning at one of my bosses rental properties. More of the same today. Tomorrow we're going to repair a damaged door at one of his wife's air bnb's. Kind of nice to get out of the shop for awhile.

Brush burning got rained out, so we fixed the door today. I'll burn brush tomorrow.

 

[snarl]

How deep is that groove?

2008 F150:
-Oil change
-Transmission spill 'n fill (so easy with Dorman pan)
-Customer states: odd squeak noise. Found the squeak, it was really wedged in there! Had to drive it out with a drift and hammerView attachment 206800View attachment 206799

 

[D60]

How deep is that groove?

Eh probably not more than .005" but I got to looking at the rock afterward:

 

[clinebarger]

Just finished a heater blower motor and heater core on the Impala. The motor was getting really noisy and the core was 57 years old. It is a horrible job, you need to remove the inner fender to replace the blower motor and access one of the heater core box nuts. Hood is off, outer fender and rad support needed to be loosened off in order to wrangle the inner fender out, battery and battery tray is out. That means a bunch of old delicate trim had to be removed as well. Front right tire is off as well. I will reassemble the sheet metal this week, I have the interior back together. Glove box had to come out as well plus all the heater cables, ducting etc. to remove the heater box. I feel like I had half the car apart. Luckily the car is clean and dry, all the fasteners came off easily, nothing stripped or broke. I went with the OE style brass / copper core from Summit Racing, they carry a great product line in OE style cores and the blower motor is a regular Four Seasons from RockAuto. I have used the aluminum jobber cores, they work but the fit is not great. This OE styled one fit perfect, I was able to use the original core retention clips etc. Everything was tested prior to install and after install. If it leaks in the future before I am dead... I'm not doing it again. I have done these cores / motors pretty much in every vehicle in my signature, same awful job, but I am too old for this now. My body is sore.

Even worse on a factory A/C car

 

[marc1]

Even worse on a factory A/C car

Yes for sure. At least there wasn't an evaporator core / POA valve etc. in the way on mine. I am glad it is done and, most of all, glad I did it and was careful.

 

[RAR]

NOT my Grand Caravan, but my brother’s wife’s Town & Country…

Picking up OE parts today since I suspect the sensors are faulty, or sludged, or just out of whack. . The gaskets and o-ring were none too fresh either. Job was done two years back by a small shop.

I’ve gotten the removal of the intake down to 10 minutes, give or take a minute or three, and that’s being deliberate and taking my time

 

[cptbarkey]

d722 is purring like a kitten. a bit of buttoning up to do, idle adjustment, rear axle leak, FEL testing, but the hard part of the bx2350 project (now technically a bx1850) is wrapping up.

 

[wander2039]

Worked on the RV mechanicals for a change, ordered a new rear trans mount and idler pulley. Trans mount was a bit squishy but still in one piece, couldn’t move the trans with the new one though. The idler pulley wasn’t that old but chirped when cold. Had a little play so don’t know. Replaced it with a GM professional replacement but funny enough had all the same markings as the one I took off So much for buying what should of been the higher quality piece.

 

[D60]

2000 Xterra 3.3 V6:
Customer compliant: randomly stalls and may not restart immediately. I drove it about 24 miles to my shop and it literally died in the last half mile on my private dirt road -- very considerate!!

It also stayed dead to allow me to tinker with it. At one point I unplugged the main distributor plug and plugged it back in, just for giggles. It started immediately after that.

I drove it the last ~1/4 mile to my shop and while idling found if I pulled up on that plug just enough to barely feel the plastic flex the tiniest bit it would die.

I love a smoking gun.

Replaced distributor with Duralast Gold. Wasn't thrilled but OEM is nearly impossible to get for these anymore. It already had an aftermarket in it anyhow.

Glad I threw the timing light on it afterward. Turns out it had been sitting around 5* BTDC and it's supposed to be 15

I also discovered the new champion for most over-engineered electrical plugs: the spring-loaded Nissan design!!!!

 

[bigjl]

Oil + oil filter and air filter changes on my BMW 745Le and Smart For Four this weekend.

Bosch filters for the Smart.

Mann filters for the BMW

Same oil for both Shell HX8 5w40 as it meets LL04 and RN0700/0710

 

[Kennedy01]

Brush pile was still too wet today, so I was back under a hood again.

1992 GMC Sierra 1500 5.7 V8
Replaced the oil pressure sensor, and the attached pic is how this one greeted me this morning. The old sensor had a metal sheathing that these sensors typically don't have, and the oil pressure sensor socket that fits 99% of them didn't. I had the pull the distributor out to gain enough access to get a crescent wrench on it, and instead of the sensor breaking loose, the stalk it mounts in that screws into the block, broke. Fortunately I was able to extract it with an ease-out.

2002 Pontiac Grand Prix
3.1 V6
Replaced serpentine belt and belt tensioner, spark plugs, plug wires, air filter, fuel filter and changed the oil

2000 GMC Sierra 2500 6.0 Vortec
Replaced #7 ignition coil. I'll be doing plugs and wires on it tomorrow