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Workshop and fixit stuff

Started by Dave, July 10, 2017, 07:26:50 PM

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jumbojak

Had to do a quick repair on my brake light switch today. A piece of tape and a penny have me back to normal... ish for now. I'm glad someone noticed that the lights were on when they did. The car sat with the battery disconnected until I could get to it for a quick repair!

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

jumbojak

Going to try to find a replacement cv axle today znd try to get it on either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. New ball joints will be going in as well. Might grab a new boot for the other axle too but that should be okay for another week or so. I can fix that one when new front brakes go on.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Dave

Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

jumbojak

A twenty year old car keeps you busy. Or broke if'n you take it to a shop. I prefer to stay busy...

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

jumbojak

Well the new axle is in after I wasted an hour going to exchange the one I bought yesterday for the correct part. They sold me a driver's side axle in a passenger side box... and the ball joints didn't go in either. For one, all my adapters were too big and for two, I had forgotten how difficult it is to hold a press, steering knuckle, adapters, and a ball joint when you only have two hands. I'll get my brother to lend a hand on Sunday. And get to take the whole thing apart again.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Dave

Going to admit I have got to the point where I would rather pay the locsl service shop £60 to do ny oil and filter change than scrabble abiut under the car myself.

It was great before my self-employed mobile car mechanic neighbour moved, I swapped being his towed driver and other easy tasks for such small (to him) jobs. Admittedly when I was in work I did turning jobs and repaired (by welding) things like cracked generator brackets (or even made new ones) for him. Even made a few "custom" tools and new, small, wire looms.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

jumbojak

I've grown to rather enjoy the scramble. Figuring out how things go together is actually quite a bit of fun. Doing basic maintanance is a chore but an oil change only takes a few minutes and too many places that specialize in oil and lube are scam artists in Red Cap shirts!

What's really fun is diagnostic work and I've been doing a bit of that in my spare time using my pitiful excuse for a scan tool, and armed with knowledge from the likes od ScannerDanner and Matt Schrodinger. It's pretty amazing how much you can figure out with a $20 scanner that works through your phone and an understanding of fuel trims.

I have a $50 gift card through work that I'd like to put towards either an oscilloscope or a graphing multimeter. I asked around looking for an older, used Snap On graphing meter but all anybody wants to part with is their newer, fancier, and highly unreliable units. The Vantage MT 2400 is practically a unicorn anymore but the Vantage Ultra can be had new off the truck... frustrating.

The next option would be either a usb scope and be stuck lugging a laptop around or a handheld graphing meter that isn't very capable. I can't decide between just pulling the trigger on a cheaper usb scope that has poor software or waiting and buying a better one down the road a bit.

Hantek makes a decent scope but the software is problematic. Pico makes excellent scopes with fantastic software but are at least twice the price, and even then you are losing functionality. Fewer channels, lower frequencies, etc. Maybe I'll come across something in the meantime.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

hermes2015

I admire you guys for being able to work on cars. I am a dedicated do-it-yourselfer, but have always been too chicken  :chairhide: to try any engine work myself. On top of that, I always buy new cars and they have always warned me not to touch anything, or the warranty would be voided. That actually suits me quite well. Gives me more time to pursue my other interests.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dave

#83
^
^
Love the diagnostic stuff, just getting too old and infirm for the physical. Also no heavy jacking gear, ramos, pit etc.

Doubt that my delicate little single channel digital pocket 'scope would be much use in a car workshop environment!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

jumbojak

I just got done fixing our electric furnace today. With 20°F nights it has been rough the last few days and I finally got confirmation that the heat sequencer I purchased would work despite not being an exact replacement. I still have to drop a few screws in to secure everything but the $11 sequencer and $25 thermostat saved a $300 service call. So there was a small victory there.

Now I'm on the hunt for a few current clamps for my scope. A friend's project truck may have a blown head gasket - who woulda thought turbocharging an otherwise stock engine could cause problems ;D - and the scope method is much simpler than pulling all of the spark plugs. Plus, it's cool to check with just a laptop and a few leads.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Dave

Quote from: jumbojak on January 15, 2018, 02:49:56 AM
I just got done fixing our electric furnace today. With 20°F nights it has been rough the last few days and I finally got confirmation that the heat sequencer I purchased would work despite not being an exact replacement. I still have to drop a few screws in to secure everything but the $11 sequencer and $25 thermostat saved a $300 service call. So there was a small victory there.

Now I'm on the hunt for a few current clamps for my scope. A friend's project truck may have a blown head gasket - who woulda thought turbocharging an otherwise stock engine could cause problems ;D - and the scope method is much simpler than pulling all of the spark plugs. Plus, it's cool to check with just a laptop and a few leads.

If you are checking the HT I think there is also an electrostatic method where you wrap foil around the plug lead and shunt the output from that with a parallel capacitor or, better to get the waveform, a large series resistor. Can't remember the values or math now.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

OldGit

You can quickly check the HT by grasping a bared bit of lead. :)

Dave

#87
Quote from: OldGit on January 15, 2018, 09:45:29 AM
You can quickly check the HT by grasping a bared bit of lead. :)

With older cars just hold the lead! They get leaky over the years and you see some nice fireworks looking under the bonnet in the dark!

And some modern systems don't have a wire in them, just a carbon impregated thread. So you take out the plus, put the lead back on and hold the metal part of the plug. Put your other hand on any part of the car and get someone to operate the key. If you have to get back up off the ground again chances are you have HT on that lead.

You need the spark gap to develop the full voltage and the classical "h" shaped waveform.

Hmm, wonder what happens if you put a low energy flourescent bulb against the plug lead . . . ?
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

jumbojak

Quote from: Dave on January 15, 2018, 05:22:28 AM
Quote from: jumbojak on January 15, 2018, 02:49:56 AM
I just got done fixing our electric furnace today. With 20°F nights it has been rough the last few days and I finally got confirmation that the heat sequencer I purchased would work despite not being an exact replacement. I still have to drop a few screws in to secure everything but the $11 sequencer and $25 thermostat saved a $300 service call. So there was a small victory there.

Now I'm on the hunt for a few current clamps for my scope. A friend's project truck may have a blown head gasket - who woulda thought turbocharging an otherwise stock engine could cause problems ;D - and the scope method is much simpler than pulling all of the spark plugs. Plus, it's cool to check with just a laptop and a few leads.

If you are checking the HT I think there is also an electrostatic method where you wrap foil around the plug lead and shunt the output from that with a parallel capacitor or, better to get the waveform, a large series resistor. Can't remember the values or math now.

We're not checking the wires. There's only about six inches from the plug to the ignition coil and they were replaced along with the plugs during upgrades to save the coils any trouble. Bit of cheap insurance.

The plan is to use the first channel with a high current clamp probe on the starter wire and have the second channel packprobed into one of the injectors, most likely on cylinder three. Then we can compare the starter current draw across all eight cylinders to look for low compression and know exactly which cylinders are low by referencing the number three injetor pulse.

If needed, we can then pull one plug, likely again the number three, and use a compression gauge to get a hard number which can be used to calculate the actual values in all of the other cylinders. A challenging engine configuration makes this the least invasive and most reasonable way to test. Of it was unmodified pulling plugs and using the gauge wouldn't be a problem.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

jumbojak

Quote from: OldGit on January 15, 2018, 09:45:29 AM
You can quickly check the HT by grasping a bared bit of lead. :)

Kind of like tossing a charged capacitor at someone...

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz