What are you working on today?

Not really doing the work, but if I had the space I definitely would. Very excited about the arrival of the new cylinder head for my Shadow's 3.0. Hoping I can put the smoke-at-startup issue to bed with this little beauty.

The gaggle of incompetents that had my car for 5 months put a remanufactured cylinder head on the left side to cure multiple oil leak issues, by my request, after I grew impatient of the tinkering, and more tinkering, to no avail. The right side is behaving beautifully with its new head gasket. Unfortunately I ended up with a left head full of bad valve seals. Hoping I can finally have it all... a drip-free driveway and no killing of innocent insects.
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Slow day at work. I was working on the rusty Nissan Rogue the whole day mostly. It’s rusty and the sway bar end links are being a pain and the rusty bolts on the brakes too. Also didn’t know Nissan used 18mm unless stuff has been replaced before. But hey it knocks off the dust from the 18mm because I don’t use that size on Toyota. Hopefully the other side and the rear does better because my fingers still hurt. I snapped my Allen head but off and slammed my fingers into the backing plate. I couldn’t hold the sway bar end link with vise grips it just wasn’t holding. Since it’s used luckily I can adjust the time on it I’m doing more than .8 hours.
 
AutoMechanic said:
Slow day at work. I was working on the rusty Nissan Rogue the whole day mostly. It’s rusty and the sway bar end links are being a pain and the rusty bolts on the brakes too. Also didn’t know Nissan used 18mm unless stuff has been replaced before. But hey it knocks off the dust from the 18mm because I don’t use that size on Toyota. Hopefully the other side and the rear does better because my fingers still hurt. I snapped my Allen head but off and slammed my fingers into the backing plate. I couldn’t hold the sway bar end link with vise grips it just wasn’t holding. Since it’s used luckily I can adjust the time on it I’m doing more than .8 hours.
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Was it white ?
 
Rebuilt the carb on the Jonsered 2050. Didn’t want to idle once warmed up. A little junk in it probably all it was but replaced the gaskets and diaphragms anyways. Didn’t change the needle or spring, needle had no wear.

Wired up another power point in place of the cig lighter in the Dakota. Wouldn’t make a good connection and kept shutting off the bluetooth adapter. Nice to have back on switched power.

Took old red for a ride. Similar to the chainsaw doesn’t want to idle once warmed up. Will run fine if you crack the choke a little. Had to do that to get home. Once I figure out the carb the engine will probably be shot. I’ll try to clean its carb again but I have a couple times. Maybe the cheap carb is just junk.
 
New tires have arrived for the MG. Not very encouraging when there seems to be ONE brand of 155-80R13 available, Kumho. Reviews look decent though, and I ordered them from Tirerack. The one local shop who can pull up that size only shows Kumho as well. Got an e-mail from Tirerack wanting to confirm that's what I really wanted, because it's not the OE tire size. Yes, most Midget owners I've come across run 155-80R13, because the OE 145-SR13 is expensive and hard to find, and these are pretty darn close to the same diameter so the speedo still reads right on.

Needed to check the balance of the existing wheels, because I had to buy a bubble balancer. No shop around here seems to be able to do that anymore. The one shop I found 22 years ago (yes, the tires really are that old) who could balance them is no longer around. Turns out they are spot on, though I didn't realize at first that the shape of the stamped steel wheel means the cone is sitting on the corners of the cutouts and not in the hole. Uh oh. Well, despite that, I set all 4 wheels on the balancer, turning them several times, and as long as the tip of the balancer is centered in the hole, the balance is 100% repeatable and they are right on the money. Fingers crossed when the shop swaps them the balancing isn't too difficult. I don't drive it on the highways or go autocrossing in it, so even if it's not perfect I'm sure it will be more than adequate.

P.S.: The oil stains on the inside are left over from a leaky axle seal from a while back, it's been fixed.

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Rusty Nissan used car. Had to cut the sway bar end links off and then snapped off one of the slide pins/bolts in the caliper so had to replace the caliper. I got screwed on the .8 hours for the sway bar end links but it’s ok the rest of the work made up for it. Replaced front rotors and sway bar end links, rear pads and rotors, oil change, wipers, two new bulbs and one tire and the brake caliper.
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Moving a flat tow setup from one '17 JK to another '17 JK
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The top holes at the tow bar are a PITA. I actually felt like a genius hoarder because I had four Subaru hitch carriage bolts leftover along with the rectangular washers and the fish pulls to feed them through. The old hardware here was 1/2-13 and so is the Subaru (Curt) hitch stuff.
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I still have to run the harness and brake pedal controller
 
AutoMechanic said:
Slow day at work. I was working on the rusty Nissan Rogue the whole day mostly. It’s rusty and the sway bar end links are being a pain and the rusty bolts on the brakes too. Also didn’t know Nissan used 18mm unless stuff has been replaced before. But hey it knocks off the dust from the 18mm because I don’t use that size on Toyota. Hopefully the other side and the rear does better because my fingers still hurt. I snapped my Allen head but off and slammed my fingers into the backing plate. I couldn’t hold the sway bar end link with vise grips it just wasn’t holding. Since it’s used luckily I can adjust the time on it I’m doing more than .8 hours.
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Nissan started doing that a while back, Don't work on many Nissans so it still messes with me every time I do. They use 16 & 13mm headed fasteners as well which I don't think any other Japanese manufacturer does.
 
Busy day and alot of driving lately.. tired but it’s a good tired. Drove to grandmas to help clean the basement. It’s been 7 years since grandpa passed and all sorts of wood has soaked up water since then… nasty. He did alot of woodworking. Kinda sad and hard to get rid of stuff but his memory will live on with a few pieces.

After that was done followed dad out to the burn pile. Wired up a brake controller on his F150 real quick, Ford makes it easy with the adapter provided. Survived 20 years without being trashed.

Went to the new place and measured.. measured for the east side gate entrance. Putting in a 12ft gate. Think I’m ready to start setting post tomorrow. Kinda hard to set it straight when the original fence is 3ft off the line up front but right on in the middle. A foot off on the west side 😂 Neither place is straight.
 
Wednesday
2008 GMC Sierra 1500 4.3/4L60E
Vacuum extractor dipstick tube transmission fluid change, pan pull rear differential fluid change, oil change, tire rotation

1973 Chevrolet ElCamino
Replaced radiator, radiator hoses, repacked front wheel bearings, changed oil

Thursday
Nothing

Today
Shooting club 😎
 
More Spring maintenance, this time on the wife's car.

Intake valve cleaning, oil/filter, air filters, exterior cabin air filter, and changing the bottom bumper trim (tall parking lot dividers and a low front bumper don't mix) they were in pretty bad condition.

Special shout out to the Hengst Blue cabin filters, The only filter I've ever actually noticed doing its job!

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Endless little fights.

Wife's 19 Prius needed the exhaust heat exhanger bypassed because it was leaking coolant into the exhaust. Known problem, looks like a bad head gasket but isn't. Got it on the QuickJack (tm), did the work, QJ leaked oil at a steady drip onto my garage floor. Luckily I have a lifetime supply (almost two gallons) of hydraulic oil I bought for my wood splitter and its tiny 1 pint reservoir.

Looking into it, the elbow connection to the hydraulic cylinder was completely missing the o-ring. Got a 280 pack of miscellaneous O-rings, stuck one on. It holds oil now!

Because the Prius was in the shop, wife was driving the spare 09 Camry and then I got a turn. TPMS light was on and the tire had 10 PSI when I left for work. Pumped it up to 40 and crossed my fingers on the assumption that it was a recent, fast leak because she would have spoken up about the light the day before. Turns out she thinks the light is normal, because it's on during winter tire season. :mad: So the leak was slower and I made it home from work the same day with the light still off. Did a soap spray and found the sensor base to be the source of the leak.

So I pulled the car on my newly repaired QuickJack, lifted it without leaking a drop, pulled the tire. Had a leftover sensor from my now-sold 06 Prius that matched the car. Popped a bead, cleaned the surface, replaced. Pumped to 45, soaped, holding steady. (y)

So my philosophy of having a spare car, spare parts, hoarding, forward thinking, two-is-one kept me barely above water.
 
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Our exercise group did a 30-man workout in a neighborhood culdesac and then spent the morning doing a full tilt on an elderly couples yard. Pretty sad story but the guys did a ton, cut down several trees, trimmed so much overgrowth. He had a 2005 Corolla he recently pulled out of storage and that was my project. By storage I mean a grove of pine trees. All tires flat, windows covered with debris which had decomposed to mud. I got it running, did a topside oil change, drove it timidly to a gas station, filled the tank and topped everything else off with quickmart fluids. PS was dry so it got the STP juice with stop leak. Little Toyota four cylinder settled into a sewing machine rhythm. Drove it back and hooked the Good Samaritan who arranged the whole thing with a group who will take care of the tar-like stuff in the master cylinder (safety item).

Drove to a friends house and did oil changes and a battery install for her mowers.
 
Both front CVs on '08 Escalade. The interweb is full of guys tearing down 80% of the front suspension but all you need to do is remove the two bolts at bottom of strut and rear-most two nuts at top. Loosen the third nut most of the way and pull the strut forward, then the axle will come out easily
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Same failure mode on both:
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I'm using the GSP "heavy duty" replacements. I can't determine if they use TPE at both boots as any description I've seen is vague but says "boots."
 
jjf729 said:
2009 Honda CR-V Passenger rear door lock actuator.

Replaced with SKP part from RockAuto.

Took me about 2 hours to do. When the other side starts making angry noises, it should go faster.

South Main Auto has a great YouTube video for doing this swap.
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If you're like me, just enough time will go by before the next one that you'll forget how you solved any of the challenging bits of the job! 😵‍💫😁😇
 
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