Posts

Gracious good morning! We have been knee deep in tires for the past couple months. Last year, I bought a manual tire changer from my local discount tool store. To be honest, it was not a good one. While it does get the job done, it has required seemingly endless additions and modifications to either complete tasks, or repair the device after light use.

The Tire Machine

I bought a cheap tire changer. We tried it while bolted to ply wood. It did not take long to realize this was bad, and we jumped directly to drilling holes and properly bolting this down. The method the tool used to secure the wheel was the big issue. It took 2 uses for the “Star” piece to fail. The next problem was the pry tool. The tool while usable, was not as secure and safe. We had a couple tires with glued on plastic covers. The Star piece was insufficient. We drilled holes in the plate and bolted the wheel on. There was also a pin on the plate to attempt to universalize the tool. It also failed after a few uses. The holes and bolts led to pin removal. The Bead breaker failed after a few uses. Yes, there is a pattern here. weak steal.

The fixes for the Tire machine

We did try to fix the bead breaker with no success. The cheap steal still failed. We had to buy a bead breaking tool. It is a better design, but still not enough to make this easy. We have successfully used the new tool 15 tires and it still works. The machine had a flat pry bar for peeling the old tire off. We found that the pry bar is a problem and many people have devised replacement solutions. We went with a duck bill. This tool promises to both peel off the old, and peel on the new tire. Peeling off has been smooth sailing, peeling back on, has not yet worked for us. Luckily we have been able to mount all of the tires with a good set of irons.

The Jobs

To date, we have replaced single tires filled with nails and screws. A full set on a Hyundai, a full set on a Honda H-RV, a Full set on a Prius, 2 tires on an Explorer, and 12 random tires for a friend who does racing and off road driving. The Honda was a big learning curve. We had a situation where the tire would not set on the bead due to the way it was stored at the warehouse. No matter what we did, we could not coax this rubber onto the wheel. It was exhausting and frustrating.

Blower Resistor

Gracious good afternoon! I know it has been a while since the last post. I hope this one will keep us rolling in the right direction. Today’s problem was a bit on the fun side. I noticed when I had any of my internal climate controls on, the blower only worked when it was full blast. This was caused by a bad Blower Resistor like the one shown above. It does not look like much, but when you have this problem, it can make trouble. This little guy can make it so your cabin temperature is no longer adjustable, and since it only works on the highest setting, it can be noisy enough to drown out the music.

Replacing the part

By a wonderful coincidence, our mechanic in training just happens to be studying electrical problems in school. I Absolutely love it when things line up like this. So, Step one was to get the plastic cover off. The offending part was under the passenger side dash behind the glove box. The cover just had some of the friction pinch connectors to hold it in. We did take out two small bolts in error before we discovered the snap in connectors. No biggie, we just put them back where we got them. After removing the cover, replacing the resistor was pretty easy. It had two more 7/32 bolts holding it on and a plug with a finger release on it. Luckily the replacement we ordered fit nicely. Before we put everything back together, we tested to make sure everything worked. Since the old part made a rattle noise, we wanted to be sure that the rattle was gone and we did not need to order a blower motor as well before putting the covers back to save work later. Great news, no need to order more parts. It was also a wonderful day to be out working with my favorite mechanic on a beautiful fall afternoon. Have a great week folks!

https://dwits.biz

I was driving home the other night and noticed that since it was dark outside, I was having low visibility. Clear headlights are a good thing! I was shocked at how cloudy these had become, so I ordered some clear headlights online (https://www.carparts.com/) and was surprised at the ease of the job and how inexpensive this fix was.

Been a while

I know it has been a while since my last post. Winter comes with its own challenges. Here at https://dwits.biz it is my hope to stay with this for the long haul. I am glad for the few folks who continue to read for as long as you care to participate. My sincere thanks to any of you who continue to visit even though it has been a while.

The Work (Clear headlights)

Without further adieu, down to The Work. We had several tasks to complete today. What a nice day to work on the vehicles together and outside. Task number 1 was changing the tire on the front passenger side. Winter time, I had bought 4 tires on line and decided to try my hand at manual tire changes. This was not as bad as I anticipated. It is tough work, but not out of my realm. I spent a little less than $100 on a manual tire change tool and balancing tool which both have saved enough to pay for themselves. For the tire changer, definitely bolt this to the floor. Stability makes this easier. To be clear, I would not do this on larger tires. The small car I have only uses 13 inch tires. Task number 2 was to tighten up the arm rest in the old truck. Fortunately, last year, I purchased the T50 star head tool and left it in the truck. Once again planning has made things simpler. Those 2 tasks completed in short order, and we move on to the main Task number 3. This task was to replaced the cloudy headlights. Having done this many years ago, I was hesitant. This time, the job went super smooth and fast. 2 bolts and 3 electric plugs and all was well. Clear headlights once again gave the car a new face and, more importantly, I can see!

Another Starter

Well, we had another starter motor die on us. This time, it was on the Hyundai. The supply chain woes are affecting all of us. We had to wait 4 days for shipping. It was not helpful that this is a manual transmission and the manufacturer only had 1 in stock the whole country. Aftermarket parts are not always desirable, but in this case, we had little option.

Let’s get it started

We had an adventure with the motor mounted to the top side instead of the bottom. Me and my daughter made quick work of it. The biggest issue we had was the old one was pretty oily and slick. A little bit of soap and this was not terrible to deal with. Having a second set of smaller hands was extremely helpful. Of course the previous owner had used a new bolt on one of the sides, which made it slightly more difficult to get the threads started. I was also glad to not have to jack up the car and crawl around underneath.

Old cars

I noticed several things on this vehicle. We recently had the motor replaced by a smaller shop. I think they did a fine job. I can tell though that the savings appears in some of the little things. These are not critical to the running of the car. The air box was supposed to have 3 bolts. One of them rusted. so instead of fixing this, they left it out. Again, this not a big deal. Also, the bolt issue on the motor itself. The threads were slightly different, but not so much that prevented me from fixing the problem. When dealing with old cars, this stuff happens. We fought with the location of the mounting bolts a bit. The machines in charge of bolt locations did a great job hiding them. We did have to dismantle a couple bits and bobs to get through it. All in all, this was a pretty easy job. Have a great evening!

Getting a handle on things is what I am calling this one due to the plethora of handles Me and my daughter (our budding mechanic) just replaced. By now, if you have read any of the old posts, you know that my luck is just my luck. My dad’s name is not Murphy, but it very well could have been. We have older cars. That just comes with normal problems. We expect to be careful with things and to put in some extra time doing minor repairs. In this case, it is if both vehicles were following the grand conductor of the hit song “The ballad of the broken handles”.

The Truck

I came home from work the other day and noticed something strange on the kitchen counter. It was a long skinny black plastic piece that was in pieces from the truck. After a moment, I knew it was the inside handle of my old truck. Upon our next encounter, I asked,”So, which door was it?” I got a lovely story in return about the driver’s side door and how the handle just popped off that morning. Being one car down already, this was exactly the wrong news. Oh well, off to the wide wide world of web to, not only find the part, but watch a few videos to see if this is something we can tackle on our own. Sure enough it was, so I ordered what we needed (a nice upgrade from plastic to metal) and the price was excellent.

The Car

Round about the same week, both the passenger handle and the driver handle on the outside of the car broke internally. Same old song and dance. There were no upgrades to be had, but, I was able to find a factory branded set of outside handles for the car. Just in time, here comes the rain. After we scouted for a new Ark filled with all the little animals, we finally got a nice day, some time to do the work, and some sunshine.

The Work

We decided that since only one handle on the truck was in need and the replacement process only included one bolt that held the handle on, we should start with the truck. Of course the inter-web videos all made it look so much easier than it was. We ended up removing the inner door cover so we could easily get to the bolt. Thread locker gel made removal a bit challenging, but not impossible. As always, the first one takes 30 minutes, the next one took 5. For the sake of pacifying old Murphy, we went ahead and replaced both handles on the truck. It really went smoother than expected, so with the extra time, we tore into the car. This was a bit more challenging. Luckily the socket size was the same for every bolt. Also, the videos must have been on older models, because we found that the manufacturer left access holes for this job.

The interesting twist

We did have an interesting little issue where the bolt was ever so slightly too short to re-install. A quick old phone guy trick helped out. We took a tiny bit of wire and made a little clump. Then inserted this into the socket to allow the bolt to stick out just enough to get the threads to reach the hole. All of the handles on those two old vehicles are now in working order. I am so proud of my girl and how she was able to figure it out and fix all the things.

If you can believe it, My disposal got jammed up by a flying bolt. This is just too funny not to share. The other night, I was making some hot tea. We have a whistling kettle. The tops fit tight so the pressure can build and make the noise. There is a small nut and bolt that holds on the handle and it was a bit loose. Just my luck! I pull the top and everything flies out and falls apart. Every little bit was located with the exception of that last bolt. Too tired to keep going, I left it alone and went to bed. In the morning I started doing my dishes and found that my disposal was jammed up. Fixing this was an adventure I did not want to start that morning. I left it for a few days until another time.

As I thought more about this, it occurred to me that it might be that little bolt stuck in there. Sure enough, it turned out like a Seinfeld episode. That little bolt found itself free from its resting place and magically decided to fly over my head, across the kitchen, and right down the drain! Flashlight and wrench in hand, I went to work. I wiggled the disposal free and my little cursed screw jumped out and showed itself proudly. I hope you have more fun reading this, than I had experiencing it. Have a great Day!

We needed a new starter on the family car

Good morning folks. Happy New Year! The family car broke down. Luckily this time, it is just a starter motor. Earlier this week, the family car had difficulty starting for my wife on her way to work. We knew this was coming as it has been slowly degrading for the last several months. This was one of my first repairs as a teenager and this is also a golden opportunity to allow our budding mechanic to take on a bit of a larger job.

The Parts needed

The good news is that this job only required one replacement part. The starter Motor itself is not super cheap, but, by doing the work ourselves, we did save some money. Prices ranged anywhere from thirty-five dollars to seven hundred. I did a bit of searching and comparing between the factory sources and the local parts chains and came up with a good number that was still under a hundred bucks and managed to provide us with a factory branded starter. Keep in mind, this car has over two hundred thousand miles and I am a total believer in the parts that have proven to last that long. I certainly could have purchased a rebuild or an off brand to save even more. I have done this before when the wallet made steeper demands on what I could afford. The real truth is even in those situations, I rarely had to replace the off branded parts a second time. I also have had to replace faulty factory parts to find a good one. No one is exempt from this stuff. It truly can be a gamble each time.

The Prep

I spent yesterday after work cleaning out a space to put the car in the garage in case the weather did not cooperate. It is December for crying out loud. That being said, I am liking this spring weather in the winter. Whoever is tracking this sort of thing, please put me down officially to keep the nice weather all through the winter. I will certainly accept a longer riding season and fully plan to get the bike out on January 1 to honor an old friend and ride in the New Year as long as it is not raining. Yes, I have done this in 12 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. It is important. I may only go around the block, but, I do what I can to get out. Down to the work. We jacked the car up and slid some ramps under the tires for safety.

The Work

We watched a quick refresher video online to show us a few tricks that were very helpful. The video covered the wrench sizes we used so we had them staged and ready. Next, I had my daughter pull out the creeper for the old man to slide around under the car, and off we went. Each time we take a car adventure, I have her do as much as possible and only assist when some ancient wisdom is needed or if some brute force is required to crack things loose. Today was no different. As she grows, the bolts come loose easier for her. I only had to assist with the larger bolts that hold the starter to the engine. Personally, I am glad that this car had the starter in such a place where we did not have to remove the exhaust pipes to access it. She disconnected all of the wires, kept track of all of the nuts and bolts, and was able to remove the bad part with ease.

The new starter

After we had the old part out, we inspected it to assure we had the right size replacement and all looked good. I was very proud that she remembered to simply reverse the order and the new starter went in quickly and trouble free. The very last 10mm bolt gave us a bit of heartburn, but, I will accept that any day. Let’s get it started! Once we felt comfortable that we were done, we reconnected the battery and gave it a good few starts to make certain that the new part is working better than the old one. Of course, it did. I feel like this is a great way to spend time learning together and accomplishing something positive as a family and for the family. Time well spent ending out 2021. Have a great New Year celebration!

The Problem:

So I just had the engine replaced in my little Hyundai. It is a fun little car, but, like any other machine it breaks. Luckily I have a couple kids willing to help their old man find and fix little problems. In this case, I had been told a couple times from concerned drivers that my backup lights were always on. I did some searching and found that this is not too difficult for regular folks to tackle.

The other problem:

The other problem is mostly unrelated, but, I have a platform and will certainly use it. To fix the car issue, I was going to order the part online for half the price of what is available locally. The problem was that my credit card company turned off my card with no warning the day before black Friday. UGH! This has happened before. I simply call the number on the card and they typically tell me that it was due to the company blocking unusual purchases due to security. That is easy enough to navigate. This time, they informed me that they turned it off to give me an upgrade. Some upgrade. I cannot use my card to order anything online until the new wiz-bang card arrives. Long story short, they open each call with how much they appreciate my business for several decades, but in this case, I just have to wait. No offers to fix the issue or make up in any way them kicking me in the financial gut a couple weeks before Christmas. Tomorrow, I will be looking for a new company. In talking to one of the help desk people, I was told the new card should have been here early last week. It is totally still not here.

The Fix:

On this car, in order to get a wrench on the switch, we had to remove the air box and some hoses. no big deal, they were all 10mm so we did not even have to change sockets. We did run into a problem with having the right size socket. The new switch was a 15/16 size and my set stops short of this. I looked through some boxes of stuff that was left to me. I found a box end wrench, but the engine bay was exactly too small to allow that wrench to fit and turn. In other words, the wrench fit onto the switch, but I could not move it left or right. Well, off to the local parts shop. We found exactly what we needed for an excellent price. The short journey home had a couple nice slug bug exchanges and a couple laughs. We got home, removed the old part and installed the new one. Testing was simple and we found that our work was effective. Backup Lights restored!

Know How

We switched over to the old pickup truck because this summer was a hot one! My power windows have been quitting on us one by one. We fixed the power windows today and had a good time together. The only money we spent was on the magnetic tool we needed to fish out the bolt I dropped into the door. Ugh. Having been a repairman for 25 years, I can say with authority that the skill of seeing how things work can set you apart from the modern swaptronics person. Of course swaptronics is the practice of replacing related parts until success is achieved. This can get pricey.

The process

We removed the inside door carpets and then the inner plastic to show us where the motors were. After that I was supposed to be able to drill some dimples out to expose the bolts that held the motors in place. FAILURE! Not sure if I used the wrong bit, or just pushed it too hard, but, SNAP! The drill bit broke and I had about 5 more holes to make. This was only a temporary set back. I switched to the Rotary tool and cutting wheels. I did go through several cutting discs, but, those are really cheap and it made short work of it. Next, we found the right size sockets and removed the bolts. After dropping the first one into the door, I got wise and wrapped some wire around the rest of them as I took them out to prevent further drops.

Rebuilding the motors

Once we got the motors out, we had to pull off the cover plate. Once that was removed, we saw why the windows don’t work. The motors were filled with all kinds of broken bits. These were the remnants of the old nylon spacers that fit in between the spindle and the gears so the motor could move the windows. Many years ago, I worked in a test lab for just such a motor, so, I knew some tricks. All we needed were some items similar in size that were round-ish that could hold up to the pressure. No big deal. After searching in my bins, I found 6 nuts that would do nicely. Cleaning the debris out was simple enough. Then, we removed the little snap rings and this allowed for the spindle to be raised up enough to insert the nuts into the spaces. 3 per motor. I think even 1 per motor would have been okay, but hey, they were free and why not just add them all in.

Reassembly

Once we put everything back together, it was now a matter of reassembling the whole thing. I tried to take the easy road and simply replace the bolt I dropped, but no dice there. None of the local hardware stores could figure out what the size was. A visit to the big box commercial fastener store, they were able to determine the size, but, they would not sell me less than 100 bolts and then refused to take my cash. TERRIBLE! No wonder they are closing stores permanently. Anyway, I bought a magnetic goose neck tool to retrieve the lost bolt and was able to get everything working again without having to buy new motors.

Greetings! Some families play games and get ice cream. We do that stuff too, but we also get greasy together. To go back in time a bit, we were planning on leaving town and hours before leaving, an ignition coil blew on the family car. I know it’s not the bug. Having been planning this trip for 12 months, it is disheartening when the only car we have that will make the trip starts in with the problems. While I was at work, my beautiful wife took the car to have the codes read. Of course, they were vague at best, but this has happened before and I suspected it was a coil based on how it felt.

Keep up with the basics

During the process, we also found it was time to do the spark plugs. We already dropped the kids off at the grandparent’s house, so I was on my own. I only had 1 coil to test with, so as I changed the spark plugs, I swapped coils one at a time until the car ran good again. Success! We were off and running with new plugs and a new coil.

Success was short lived

We got about half way to our destination and the familiar feeling of misfires comes back to haunt us. Luckily, we passed by a big box auto parts store that offers free code scans. This time, the code was more specific to the cylinder that had the misfire (since the plugs were new and the other coil is now fixed). Armed with this information, we knew exactly which coil to replace. Alas, the store did not have any in stock, and neither did the one in the city we were visiting. No problem, we could make it the last few miles and order one in. Sure enough, they were able to ship next day to the store closer to us. So we got breakfast the next morning and borrowed a 10mm socket and wrench from the store and in 15 min all was right with the world. Or, at least the car.

More to the story

Included in the scan, we saw some more codes. The ABS speed sensors on both sides in the front, needed replaced. Having never done these before, I decided to wait until after we returned home to get into that job. I did this mainly to spend some grime time with the kids. I ordered a set of sensors online. They beat the box stores by half the price, so yeah. They sensors arrived on Saturday, and we all dressed for getting greasy. I had one kid do the right side (all by her lonesome and she completed the job easily and correctly), and me and the other kid did the left. Just in time for dinner, the car was shifting a bit better, but we still had the check engine light. Today after work, I pulled the battery and reset the codes. All clear, and a big thanks to my little pit crew!