Car Troubles

Ford Pickup Truck Being Repaired

Stopped by Heaton Automotive today to talk to Eric about my broken pickup truck transmission and I spied this Ford pickup truck in the shop. What kind of repair requires lifting the entire cab off the chassis, I enquired. Cylinder head replacement was the answer. How bizarre. It used to be that a job like that could be handled by man with a box of wrenches working alone in his garage. Things have changed. I suppose that with the number of complex systems tied into the engine, and the engine compartment being shrunk, it's quicker and easier to pull the cab off. It obviously makes access to the engine easier. You shouldn't have to make a repair like this very often. For most trucks it might never happen.

Last week my truck went all the way to San Francisco and back without any problems, other than the air conditioning compressor blowing up. But then I got in the other day to go pick up some lunch and the automatic transmission quit. Driving down a quiet residential street and the dang thing shifts into neutral. Try second and it engages for a few seconds and then it disengages again. Fiddled a bit and not it seems to be working okay, but then I go around a corner and it just quits completely.

Cutaway Automatic Transmission

Looking on the internet I find one story about how it might be a cracked filter that is letting air into the hydraulic pump, which would pretty much cancel all motation. On the other hand, the truck has 150,000 miles on it. I had the transmission rebuilt once before when it had around 70,000 miles, so there is a good chance that it is just worn out. However, I've never had a transmission fail so completely and so quickly. Usually I get all kinds of signs and portents for weeks before it becomes undriveable, and then I can still drive it to the shop. This time it quit so completely I had to have it towed.

Replacing the transmission with a rebuilt unit and fixing the A/C would cost $3,500. Scrap value of the truck is about $300. If I decide to keep it, it is also going to need a paint job and a couple of dents fixed, not to mention a couple of tires, all of which is going to push the bill past the five grand mark. It might not be worth it. Meanwhile I have the Hyundai. Looks like it might be the end of the road for this truck.

Redding California, Part 3

Broken Serpentine Belt
It was lying in the bottom of the engine compartment. I pulled the broken ends (green squiggle) up so they could be in the picture. Notice the rubber debris embedded in the compressor pulley (center). I suspect that happened when the belt broke.

After we unloaded the truck last weekend, I pulled it out of the garage and parked it in the street. I noticed that the A/C pulley wasn't making it's usual screaming noises, but I figured it had just worn itself into a happy place. It wasn't until a couple of days later when I looked under the hood that I discovered that the serpentine belt had snapped. That was a lucky break! (heh) The A/C compressor bit the dust like 800 miles ago, and the belt could have decided to snap any time after that, but it held on until we got home. If I am going to be that lucky, I should have bought a lottery ticket. But with the way the gods work (the gods of the lottery, the gods of broken cars, the gods of highway travel, etc.), I probably wouldn't have won enough to cover the tow I would have needed if the belt had broken on the road.

Since we already had one major expense this week, I decided to put off the $700 A/C compressor replacement, but to keep the truck drive-able it needs a belt. A discussion on a Dodge truck forum clued me in that you can get a shorter belt that could be installed without engaging the A/C compressor pulley. So I went to NAPA and bought a belt for a truck like mine, but without A/C. Oops, no, it's too short. So I go back to forum, find where the part numbers for the 'special' belt is mentioned, and take those numbers to NAPA where the counterman is able to translate these numbers into a NAPA number (25-070901), which leads to a belt and a $7 refund. Whoo hoo!

I thought about replacing the compressor myself, after all I can buy a compressor kit from Amazon for a couple of hundred bucks. But then I still need a vacuum pump and gauges and while I could buy these devices for another couple hundred bucks, the quality is not all that great and I am liable to end up with a substandard installation that will have to be revisited in a couple of years. Better to belly up to the bar and let someone who knows what they are doing, and has the right equipment, tackle the chore. Besides there's the whole psychic agony thing that comes from contributing to global warming by releasing freon into the atmosphere.

Redding, California, Part 2

I took two days to drive to San Francisco to pick up younger son. It only took us one day to get back. Somebody was in a hurry to get out of California.

Lim's Cafe, Redding, California

It was really hot. It got up to 105 degrees in Redding Friday.

I got up at 6AM, showered, packed and was at Jonbert's by 7. We had reconnoitered the route the night before, after dinner. I've been to San Francisco before and I had Google Maps on my laptop, so with a some diligent studying I was able to find my way there. It did seem kind of far, but I live by the freeway, both literally and figuratively, so my travels usually consist of a short jaunt to the freeway, a period of zen autopilot on the freeway and then a short jaunt to my destination. Not this time. No freeway, it was all cross town traffic and it went on for dozens of blocks, dozens I tell you. I haven't driven that far in a downtown area since, umm, I suppose it was the last time I was there.

Front Door of 300 Hyde Street, San Francisco, California

I find a legal parking place a couple of spaces down from John's front door. We're a little paranoid about this, though I am not sure why. What can happen if I don't pay a San Francisco parking fine? Can the long arm of their law reach across state lines for such an infraction? In any case it's not a bad spot as far as distance to the front door, but there is a smear of shit on the sidewalk just there. We shortly get tired of walking the extra dozen paces and avoiding the shit stain so I pull the truck down to the corner and park in a red zone. I saw at least one police car come by, but they didn't seem to be the least interested in my flagrant infraction.

The apartment looked to be somewhat more organized than it was the night before, so maybe this is not going to be a disaster. We started loading stuff into the truck. The apartment was on the third floor. I made maybe a dozen trips up the stairs which was more than enough. Jonbert probably made 50. I was occupied with packing his stuff into the truck, which is just as well. He has got an infinite well of energy. Me, I am already tired just thinking about it. We got most of the stuff in the truck. We left a couch/futon on the sidewalk. I expect that some bum will have a cushy place to sleep for at least one night.

Fancy Building across the street.
I was impressed that someone would bother to high light the details on a building in this neighborhood. I do not understand anything about this area.

The sidewalk in front of the apartment is a hot spot for the homeless, and a person standing there is a target for their wheedling. Some of them are just begging, some are incomprehensible, and a few claimed to want a job. I'm working, this is an economy venture, so no, I am not hiring any help, not that I saw anyone who I thought I might be capable of carrying anything bigger than small bag of crackers. Didn't see anyone I would trust with anything more valuable either.

IKEA Mattress Foundation

We ran into a hitch when we discovered that the IKEA hex wrench that we needed to disassemble the bed frame had already been packed and loaded into the truck. Spend time on a fruitless search of stuff we hoped we were done with? No thank you. Stopped in the two bodegas on the corner. They had an impressive variety of stuff, but no Allen wrenches. I grab my bundle of tools (Vise Grips, adjustable wrench, 4-way screwdriver and pair of slip-joint pliers) and head back upstairs. The bed frame is wood. It has a fabric cover which comes off easily. Since the wood is covered when the bed is assembled, any damage I inflict on the wood frame will not be noticed. So I set to using my Swiss Army knife as a chisel and the Vise Grips as a hammer. I gouged out a space around of the heads of the countersunk lag bolts and then used the Vise Grips to grab the head of the screw and unscrew it.

We were loaded and on the road by 10:30. Stopped in Marin County to check my knots and the ropes and found that the chairs and table I had lashed to the top were doing their best to escape. The back of one chair had broken loose, but it had gotten stuck before it fell off. I redid the knots here. Just going around a piece once will keep it attached but not in place. The wind is relentless. The table and chairs had been pushed back a couple of feet in the few miles we had traveled so far. But the retied knots held all the way home.

Routes into San Francisco from the North

Traffic was heavy all the way to Mt. Shasta. Mostly it was flowing along. The section between San Rafael and Vallejo was kind of tedious with several patches of stop and creep. It was still better than going through Berkeley and going over the Bay Bridge. We went that way last time I was here and it was wretched. I don't know if my new route was any faster, but it didn't seem as bad, perhaps because there were only two lanes of cars creeping along, not a dozen like you get in the approach to the Bay Bridge.

Interstate Freeway at Emeryville

John was playing music with his smart phone. He is getting music beamed to his phone from Spotify via the cell phone network. This worked until we got in the Siskiyou Mountains on the Oregon border. My old truck has a cassette player and I have thing-a-ma-jig that looks like a cassette, but it has a wire dangling from it. Plug the wire into the phone and the fake cassette thing into the radio and we have tunes filling the air from my brand new, recently installed speakers. Did I know I was really going to need new speakers? I dunno, but it was a fortuitous decision I made.

Siskiyou Moutains

We got stopped for speeding somewhere north of Mt. Shasta. Mr. Highway Patrolman said we were going 84 in 65 zone. The speed limit for most of the route so far , which was in the flats, was 70 MPH. It was only when we got into the hills that it dropped to 65, and we had only been in the hills for short while, no more than an hour or two. The officer asks for our papers (you know, the regular car stuff). I didn't find an insurance card, but the officer asks me what company I am with, and that seemed to be good enough. Does this mean that they have a computer that keeps track of that stuff? And a copper can access that information from his car? Or was he using his own good judgement to let us slide? (Yes, of course it was good judgment. I am a good citizen after all, never mind what all those dirty commies are saying.) The best part was that he didn't give Jonbert a ticket, just a warning. I think it had some effect. I don't think he broke 75 MPH the rest of the way home.

Mt. Shasta, shot from the truck.

Somewhere about the same time the air conditioner started threatening to explode and, if not kill everyone in the immediate vicinity, at least render the truck immobile. I am not sure whether something inside the compressor broke, or whether the bearing in the compressor clutch failed. When the A/C quit on Thursday I had turned it off and I hadn't heard anything more from it. But now when I start the truck I hear this gawd awful cauter wailing from the under the hood. It sounds like something is really about to break. Well, if it breaks we'll be in a bit of a jam, but it ain't broke yet and it might not, so we push our luck and drive on. Besides we've been on the road for eight hours and we are road zombies. All we can do at this point is drive. It turns out all right. After a minute or so the screeching goes away. Or maybe we just can't hear it over the rock and roll which is turned up high so we can hear it over the wind buffeting we get from driving 80 MPH with the windows wide open. This happens most every time we stop, but we're in Oregon now so we don't have too many more stops to make.

When we got home we left the truck running while I made space in the garage for the truck. It was about quarter to 11 by now and we really don't want to unload the truck right now. I also want the truck in the garage in case the next time I need to start it the A/C really does explode.

Jonbert drove most of the way. He had been out whooping it up with his friends the night before and then had spent most of the night packing and cleaning. Claims he got a couple of hours of sleep. Now he moves his furniture downstairs and then he drives to Portland. (Okay, I drove for two or three hours somewhere in the middle.) I don't think I ever had that much energy, but maybe I just don't remember.

P.S. The apartment was about 300 square feet which tiny and the rent was $1600. While the place was mostly roach-free, the roaches on the sidewalk definite gave the place an unpleasant cachet.

Redding, California

Lim's Cafe, Redding, California

On my way to San Francisco. Got here around 7PM last night, to the hotel that is. I got to Redding hours before that, but there was no sign of the Travelodge. Stopped and asked locals for directions and they sort of got me closer, but then I stopped in a Comfort Suites and they had an internet equipped computer so I was able to pull up Google Maps and presto, the Travelodge was only a couple of miles down the road.

Had dinner at Lim's (above) which is just a couple of doors down the street, easy walking distance. Wasn't sure how hungry I was, and didn't know just what kind of place Lim's was. It looks like it could just be place that caters to the local alki's, but it turns out to be a real restaurant with real food. I had the almond chicken and it was fine. They brought me a big platter that I did not think I could eat, but I served myself one small portion after another and eventually the whole thing disappeared. Lim's has been in operating out of this same building for 60 years.

The A/C on the truck gave out mid-afternoon. I think the compressor has bought the farm. Horrible squealing noises from under the hood, bad smell from the vents and the cold air wasn't all that cold.

Listening to John Grisham's Street Lawyer on the way down. It's all about the homeless and how the govenrment and big corporations are out to screw them over.  Everywhere I stopped yesterday there were one or two or a few people down on their luck, hoofing it to somewhere. Kind of grim.

Springs

It looks like I am going to be driving my pickup truck to San Francisco in a couple of weeks to pick up younger son and his stuff. In that case there are a couple of minor problems I should take care of before I go. They are minor annoyances around town, but on a long trip they could very easily become aggravations. I can put up with the occasional annoyance, but aggravations need to be dealt with.

So today I decided I would tackle the collapsed drivers seat cushion. First step is to pull the seat out of the cab so I can see what I am dealing with. Shouldn't be too difficult, I pull the two 18 mm bolts in back and two 13 mm bolts in the front, grab hold of the seat and heave . . . and nothing. Oh, look, the center jump seat is attached, and if it's attached on this side, you can bet it's attached on the other. This means I will have to remove both front seats and the jump seat as one assembly. Fortunately Osmany is next door, so I pull the other four bolts and we haul the seat out. I pick up on the driver's side and crouch-walk across the cab, but when I get to the far side I am kind of stuck. Somehow we get the seat out without anyone getting killed. I think this was mostly due to Osmany being the man on the spot.

Turn the seats upside down and the first thing I notice is that this is a very unstable arrangement. Bungy cords from the mounting holes and around the seat backs calms things down. Now I can see that the springs on the driver's seat are all loose, so perhaps we need new springs. I take the one that I found rolling around loose on the floor several months ago and head over to NAPA. Counter man roots around in the back and comes up with a box of springs, but none that match, so I head over to Lowes to see what they've got. The only springs I find there are screen door springs. I might be able to cut one of those up into several shorter springs, but they are going to be much weaker, so I would need many more. I pass and head back to the house.

Broken joint between cross tube and side rail

I take a closer look at the seat and realize there is nothing wrong with the springs, the cross brace that the springs hook onto has broken free of the seat frame and is simply rattling around loose. Shit. The cross brace is like 3/4 of a tube about one inch in diameter. The ends sit in holes in the side rails, or very close to it. The cross brace was welded to the side rails, but the welds have broken.

My first thought is to get a couple of Stanley right angle brackets, drill holes in the side rails and cross piece and bolt it all together, but that is going to be tough. The old welds will have to be ground off and space is tight.

Cross tube held in place by broom sticks. Security screw in center, two springs hooked on.

Then inspiration hits. An old broom stick cut to length would fit inside the tube and through the holes in the side rails. I cut two pieces about seven inches long, slide them into the tube, put the tube back in place and then slide the pieces so they are just projecting through the holes in the side rails. There is bolt hole in the center of the tube, I put a quarter inch screw in there and secure it with a nut. That will keep the broom sticks from sliding back out of the side rails.

Repair Complete

I use a quarter inch drill bit to gouge out a recess in the broom sticks to allow room for the hooks on the springs. Hook up the wire supports and springs and we're good to go. It might not be the best or most durable repair, but it was really cheap. I did have to sacrifice my favorite whacking stick, but all in all, a good trade.

Speakers, Part 2

Driver's door complete, passenger door was much quicker and easier. Imagine that, once you have figured out what needs to be done, doing it again is a piece of cake. Only thing is I forgot to write down how the speaker wires are connected. If they both end up being connected the same way, then they should be in phase. If not, they will be out of phase. I wonder if I will be able to tell? Another thing: the locking tab on the speaker connector has to be pulled up, not pushed down like all the other connectors.

Now I look at the speakers in the back and, shit, this looks like a huge pain in the ass. There are no screws in evidence, except for the seat belt bolts. Google turns up Club Cab Rear Speaker Install, that gives me a couple of clues, like just pull on the back panel above the rear seat backrest and it will come off. It takes some forceful tugging, but it does indeed come loose. That gives us access to two (2!) Philips head screws that hold the side panel on. The screws come out but the panel is still firmly installed. More forceful tugging separates it from the truck. 

At least one big fat Torx screw that holds the front seat belt needs to be removed. I used a socket that I bought a zillion years ago when I did the brakes on my 1989 Chevy Celebrity. I knew I needed a big one, but I didn't know which size so I bought four. The one I needed now was still in it's shrink wrap packaging. I had never needed it before.

Once the panel is off you are home free, so to speak. The speaker is revealed and it's fairly straight forward to replace it. The hole is just slight smaller than the speaker, so if you center it, the holes for the mounting screws will intersect the speaker hole, so I offset it just a tad, maybe an eighth of an inch, and I only used 3 of the 4 screw holes. The screw hole at the bottom edge of the speaker missed the sheet metal completely, but the edge of the speaker caught the edge of the hole, so it's mounted good and solid, though not mathematically perfect. I sealed the speakers to the body with some old silicon bathroom caulk I had lying around. It shouldn't make any difference, Dodge didn't make much effort to seal off these speakers.

Putting the side panels back was a colossal pain. There are a bunch of places that need to be engaged. Some of them just slide together, but some will only go together if you hold your mouth right, and that takes some doing. But I eventually got all the little hooks and whatnot engaged and got the panels back in. Only problem was the plastic pushpin on upper rear of the drivers side panel. That one did not want to go. Get it all lined up and push and it folds over. I eventually lost it down one of the holes in the body and decided to just leave it. Now that everything is done there doesn't seem to be any difference between the drivers side, which is missing a pin, and the passenger side, which isn't.

Curious thing is I was only able to work on this project for about an hour at a time before I was tired out and needed a break. The work wasn't that hard, not like breaking rocks in the hot sun. I think it was because I was using muscles I normally don't use, and contorting myself into positions I don't get into.

Speakers

Pyle PL63BL 6.5-Inch 360-Watt 3-Way Speakers (Pair)

Before I get started on building my dream car, let's see if we can make a minor repair to my truck. It came with a semi-fancy audio system from the factory, meaning 4 regular speakers and a couple of tweeters. A few years ago I let younger son borrow it and when they came back the speakers were blown. Sure, it could have been age and normal wear and tear, but when there is a teenage boy involved, well, you figure it out.

The blown speakers make the radio pretty much unlistenable, and since I'm still driving across town a couple of times a week, not having any tunes was kind of a bummer. The trip to Miami and my Thunderbird fantasy finally pushed me over the edge and I decided to do something about it.

I could have taken it to an audio shop, but it probably would have cost a minimum of a couple of hundred bucks, and being easily suggestible I probably would have opted for the upgrade which would have been another hunert bucks. But I'm in cheapskate mode and I'm trying to fix things around the house, so let's see if we do this our own self.

The easiest solution would have been to buy the original speakers. That way they would bolt right in and the electrical connectors would plug right it in and the whole installation would be easy-peasy. But OEM speakers are a little hard to find (maybe they have them in stock and maybe this listing was posted 15 years ago and nobody has bothered to update it since) and a little expensive (like $50 each). Okay, we'll buy generic speakers and suffer the hassles that every kid who ever upgraded the speakers in his car suffered.

I finally got started on this project this afternoon and it was fraught with all the pain-in-the-neck hassles that I expected. I started with the drivers door and the first thing is to pull off the inner door panel. There are five screws, three Philips head and two Torx. Pull those out and now you can lift the panel and pull it loose from the door. Except not really because of all the wires and the door handle latch. The door handle (in the inner door panel) connects to the latch (in the door) through a steel rod about an an eighth of an inch in diameter (1/8"). The rod has a right angle bend on the end that goes through a hole in the end of the door handle lever. It is held in place by a clever little plastic clip. All you need to do is unclip this clip from the rod and the rod will come free. Dang, it's a tough little clip, but with some forceful finger action I persuade it to let go and our last mechanical connection comes free.

Now all we have are the wires, and there is more than one. I can't remember how many exactly, but they are all these modern plastic connectors with a latch that you press to release before you can pull them apart. That all went fine until I got to the power window / door lock connector, which has like a dozen wires. Cannot see how this one comes apart. Google provides a clue: remove the switch from the door panel first. At the top of the switch there is a little metal spring clip (this in on the inside of the door panel). Using a screwdriver I was able to push it down which allowed me to pull the switch from the panel. At first I thought it was one of those nasty spring jaws where you push the switch into the panel and the spring clip is like the inward facing teeth on a shark: they grab hold and let you go farther in, but you cannot pull back. But actually it's not. It's part of the switch, not the door panel. Pushing the switch into the panel causes the spring clip to compress, but once the switch is in place it pops up, locking the switch into position.

Now we have the door lock switch hanging loose and we can get a good look at the connector, and there, on the door panel side, where we couldn't see it before, is the locking tab! I use a medium size set of Channel-lock pliers to squeeze the release tab, grip the connector and pull it loose from the switch. We finally have the panel free of the door. Glory Hallelujah!

When I take door panel off, a sound insulating pad falls off on the floor. That is going to have to be glued back in place. Do I have a suitable glue? I root around and finally find a can of contact cement that I used on a kitchen table project 25 years ago. It is still at least semi-liquid, so it might work, if it doesn't eat the door panel. I put a dab on the panel and on the pad. We shall see.

Anyway, we are finally where we can think about replacing the speaker. It looks simple enough, there are three big Philips head screws holding it to the door but taking them out does nothing. The speaker is still firmly mounted to the door. Using my pocket knife and a screwdriver, I pry it loose. More screwdriver work and I pry the speaker loose from the plastic spacer that holds it half an inch from the door. Everything is sealed: the spacer is sealed to the door, the speaker is sealed to the spacer, the grill is sealed to the speaker, and there is some kind of cushion that seals the grill to the door panel. Geez, they sure went to a lot of trouble to seal all this up. Is it worthwhile or necessary? Somebody sure thought so. Maybe we should try to replicate all this sealing.

Meanwhile there is the electrical connector. The factory speakers have a factory connector that mates with a connector on the wiring harness. My economy speakers don't have this. Splices will have to made. Perhaps I can salvage the connectors from the original speakers, that way I can make up a pigtail that will plug into the existing wiring harness, which means I won't have to be soldering stuff while sitting on the floor in the garage. Getting the connector loose from the speaker is not too tough since the speaker is shot and we can pull the cone back so we can access the lock tab that holds the connector in place. Desolder the wires and the connector is free.

Now all I need to do is:

• make up a pigtail,
• glue the pad to the door
• glue the spacer and the grill to the speaker. Probably ought to screw the speaker to the spacer.
• screw our glorious speaker assemble to the door, and
• mount the door panel.

Then I get to repeat for the other door. And the back seat speakers. Happy Father's Day.

Frozen

Frozen out of my truck this morning. Couldn't get the key in the driver's door. Fortunately, it's an American Car so there is a key lock on the passenger door as well. This one the key went in, but it took forceful wiggling to get it to operate. It eventually unlocked, but the door would not open. Frozen shut. It's been raining for the last 3 months, and the truck is parked outside, so it was pretty well saturated. Last night it got cold enough to put frost on the ground so all the water on the door gaskets froze as well.

Alignment

Replacing upper and lower ball joints on 2001 Dodge Durango 4x4
This is what was NOT done to my truck, so it didn't cost me a bunch of money.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the inside edges of the front tires on my truck were getting a little worn. This concerned me because the truck has 140,000 miles on it and once upon a time the Dodge dealer told me I needed to have the front end rebuilt to the tune of $1500. Gack! What if that's what it needs now? So I took it to Les Schwab and talked to the counterman. He recommended a couple of tires and an alignment. I thought, no, just rotate the tires and take a look at the front end.
    I have to wait a couple of hours to get my truck back, but I figure that's okay. They have paying customers there, they are busy, and I'm asking for some free service. That isn't the usual Les Schwab model. Normally I would expect something like this to be done in five minutes. But it's okay, it's lunch time, I'm hungry, I can walk down to McDonalds and get me a Big Mac and fries for lunch.
   I'm standing in line at McDonald's with bunch of teenagers and I noticed a dad with a couple of little kids, maybe five years old. He's trying to keep them corralled but they aren't having any. They go up to the counter and one of them starts mashing the buttons on the PIN pad and I start having one of those 'get off of my lawn' moments. Little good for nothing rug-rats. I'm working my way up saying something when the ring leader of this pack of two turns around, looks me straight in the face and gives me this great big smile. Shit, there goes my tirade, right out the window.
    My truck still isn't done, but I have my book, Flashman at the Charge (an insider's look at the Charge of the Light Brigade) and the action is hot and heavy. I don't know about the historical accuracy, but it's an entertaining story, and if you aren't careful, you might learn something.
   Eventually my truck is done and the bill is $350 and I'm all WHAT?!?! Seems they put on two new tires and aligned the front end, which is not exactly what I was expecting, but the important part is that the front end didn't need any parts replaced. It just needed to be adjusted. I was going to have to get this done eventually, I just wasn't expecting to have to pay for it today. Fortunately my credit cards aren't completely tapped out.
    So what was the deal with the dealer telling me I needed to have the front end completely rebuilt? Think maybe things were a bit slack and they thought they saw a mark in need of fleecing? Doesn't speak well for the Dodge dealer, especially since that was five or ten years ago and my truck had many fewer miles on it.
    The other interesting bit was that the only thing that apparently needed adjusting was the toe-in, and it wasn't off by much, maybe one degree. Everything else was fine. I did have my local mechanic replace the tie rod ends a few years ago and he had to do it twice. The first time he got them backwards. Nothing wrong until you try to make a sharp turn and then you get this rubbing noise. OK, just don't make sharp turns, but it's a pickup truck, and while it is not a behemoth, it's still bigger than your typical econo-box and getting into parking spaces uses all of its steering capacity. So they swapped the ends. I suspect that they just tried to reinstall the rod ends in the same position and skipped the whole re-alignment procedure and they miscounted the threads when they did the swap. It wouldn't take much, after all it was only off by one degree.

Turn Signals

1999 Dodge Dakota Right Front Turn Signal Assembly

Turn signals started flashing double quick time a couple of weeks ago. How to get to the bulbs was a bit of a puzzle. Nothing obvious from the outside and no access from the inside. Found a YouTube video that tells you to take off the headlight first. Wrong! Well, unnecessary anyway.
    Open the hood to gain access to the rubber splash shield that is clipped to the lights. Unclip it from the turn signal. You can leave it clipped to the headlight.
    Now unscrew the one small retaining screw. It's right by the lower right corner (that is the truck's right, not yours) of the headlight and accessible in the gap between the turn signal and the headlight. You will need a small Torx screwdriver. The screw has a small diameter, but is kind of long. Once you have the screw loose, the turn signal assembly will slide straight out until it reaches the end of its wires. It takes some fooling to unclip the light bulb sockets from the assembly as the wires are a little short and there isn't much room, but it can be done. The sockets 'unscrew' from the assembly, that is, you turn them a quarter turn anti-clockwise and they will come out. Putting them back is just the reverse.
    Don't forget to clip the splash shield back into place.

Previous post on this subject. I knew I had worked on this before, but I thought it had been on the rear light.

Turn Signal Repair

3157 Bulb

New improved stuff means new improved problems. Left front turn signal on my truck flaked out, started flashing double time. I shouldn't complain, the truck (Dodge Dakota) is 14 years old and this is the only light that has given me any trouble. It pulled the same trick a few months ago, so I figured it was burned out and needed to be replaced. When I inspected the bulb I could not find anything wrong, so I plugged it back in and it started working, so never mind.
     Now we're back and I pull the same bulb out again, and again it looks fine, but plugging it back in
doesn't fix the problem. At this point any ordinary mechanic would have replaced the bulb and been done with the problem. But since I bothered to look at the bulb, I wonder if maybe there is some other problem, like the socket is disintegrating or something. So we futz with it, and lo and behold, pushing the bulb halfway in causes it to light up, but pushing it all the way in causes it to go dark!
    Closer inspection of the bulb reveals what looks like scorch marks on some of the contact wires on the base, and the wire is rough to the touch, not smooth like the other contact wires that are shiny. Looks like a marginal contact was exacerbated by arcing. Scraping at this roughness with a pocketknife does not alleviate the problem, so I pull out a file and file away. It took quite a bit of filing to get rid of all of the rough patch, but it solved the problem. For now.

P.S. I didn't take a picture because I didn't, and I should be able to find a picture of this bulb out there on the internet easy enough, right? You wouldn't believe how many pictures of the wrong turn signal bulb are out there. A zillion at least. Even this one isn't perfect. This one has a plastic base, the one in truck is all glass.

Catalytic Converter

A very pretty 318 engine installation, to compensate for the rest of this story.

Younger son calls me on his way home from work yesterday. The truck is acting up, it's hissing and it won't go over 45 MPH. We talk a bit and rule out the basics like overheating, running out of fuel or catching fire. He drives it home and we take a look. Nothing obvious, so I start it up. It hesitates bit on starting, which is not normal, but then it idles okay. But it doesn't sound quite right. And there is that big hissing sound. I rev it up a bit, and it does speed up, but reluctantly. Hmmm. Shut it off and then I realize the one big clue is what was missing: the throaty roar of a V-8 engine. A quick search on Google clues me in. Now I put two and two (or clue and clue) together. What was the first clue? The catalytic converter has been rattling to beat the band for several months now. It only does it at idle, once you get going it stops, so "Converter Plugged" could very well be the problem, i.e. something in the converter has broken off and is plugging the exhaust pipe.
    This sounds like a job for a muffler shop, so this morning I try and call Ed's Mufflers. They did a brake job for me 20 odd years ago. That's funny, I find all kinds of listing's for the place, but no phone number. I finally locate one, but when I call the number has been disconnected. I could have sworn I just drove by there the other day. Oh well, we'll call Hortnagl. He's farther away, but he was highly recommended, although that recommendation was 20-odd year ago. He confirms my diagnosis and then starts inquiring about the vehicle. I tell him it's a 318, and he says there is no such engine in that truck. He gives me a choice of a six or an eight with some metric displacement. Okay, fine, it's the eight. He should be able to fix it today so I drive on over. "Drive" is optimistic, coax is more like it. It won't go 35 until I let off the gas which allows it shift into drive. It's happy as long as it is not turning much above an idle. 2500 RPM is only a dream of past glory.
    Mr. Hortnagl runs a little one man shop. He's been there for 33 years. This is the first time I have ever used him. After talking to him on the phone (he has a bit of an accent) I assumed his preference for metric displacement was because he was from Europe where everything is done in metric all the time (except for England, where everything is done in bonnets. Or spanners.), but no, that is not the case. Along about 1996, American car manufacturers dropped the cubic inches and started using the metric system to define engine displacement, and being immersed in the automotive trade he went along with the new convention.
    Well, that's all well and fine, but calling 318 a 5.2 liter doesn't make it a new engine, it's still a cast iron 318 cubic inch V-8 from 1957. Or 1967, if you want to be picky. So Mr. Hortnagl has adapted to the changing automotive world while I am the old fogey stuck reliving past glories.
    Earlier I was thinking that the design of this converter was poor in that it would fail in this manner. Then I realized it might have been done deliberately. If the converter is so old that it is falling apart, then it probably needs to be replaced, but no one will bother replacing if it isn't causing any problems, so voila! Let's have it make a problem. No testing, no bureaucracy, and it doesn't kill the car completely, it just makes it really annoying to drive. Genius.

Here is a view in one end of the converter. You can see a grapefruit sized chunk of the catalyst honeycomb inside. It's totally loose and free to roll around in there.

    Only problem with this is that emission testing here doesn't really test the emissions any more. They used to have probes they would stick in the tailpipe and actually sample the actually exhaust gases (actually!), but now they just plug in their computer to the vehicle's computer, and two computers hash it out and decide whether you are worthy or a sinner.

Here is a smaller chunk of the catalyst honeycomb that fell out on the floor. If you hold it up to the light and hold it at just the right angle, you can see light through the holes. I tried to take a picture that would show this but I couldn't get an image on the camera's low resolution screen that showed light through the holes.

    So if the catalytic converter has worn out, then it wouldn't be doing it's job anymore, so how come it passed emissions testing last month? Maybe there aren't any sensors downstream from the converter, but that seems contrary to the draconian emission policy we have saddled ourselves with. In any case, I didn't see any sensor when I was looking at it last night, but Mr. Hortnagl says there is an O2 sensor down there. Somewhere. I'll take his word for it.

Driving

Just the coolest looking car in the world.

Drive home the other day, coincidentally during rush hour. The on ramp to 217 Northbound from Lake Oswego was backed up to beat the band, so I thought fine, I'll just take the side streets. It won't be any quicker, it will take just as long or longer than creeping along at 5 MPH for infinity, but at least it will be different. And there were a couple of occasions where I was actually able to go fast enough to catch a bit of a breeze. It was warm, and I was one with the heat. I got to stop and sit at many traffic lights, and I started turning off the engine when that happened. I am not sure why. I doubt it saves more than a nickel's worth of gasoline, and it puts extra wear and tear on the starter, so I can't justify it from an economy standpoint. But when the engine shut off I immediately felt calmer. Weird.
     Taking the Sunset Highway to Hillsboro it's generally pretty smooth sailing, at least if it's not rush hour. After you pass 185th Avenue the road narrows from three lanes to two, and things start to get a little more clogged up. I don't think it's just the narrower road, I think it's a cultural thing. People who live in town, in Beaverton anyway, are go-getters, they don't have as far to drive and are not so concerned about mileage. People who live farther out are more economy minded and so restrict their speed to 55 in hopes of getting that magical number of miles per gallon they so fervently crave. Or at least a larger percentage of them do. Anyway it's really weird. The farther out you go, the slower the traffic goes. I am afraid that if I tried to drive to the beach, by the time I got to the pass over the coast range traffic will have come to a stop.
    The reason kids have more wrecks is because they are playing the odds as they see them. Kids have been down the road a hundred times, and nothing happened, so they think nothing is ever going to happen, so they press their luck. People who have been down the road a thousand times are more likely to have seen something happen that could have caused them trouble. It didn't kill them, so they are more cautious. The more you drive, the more potentially troublesome events you have witnessed. If they don't kill you, they should make you more cautious.

Update August 2015. I think the catalytic convertor was on the way out. It was causing some unpleasant rumbling in the exhaust system, which is why shutting the engine off made me feel calmer.

Westbound

I got back from Denver almost six weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to finishing my report. I wonder why that is.

We had a vague idea of visiting Dinosaur National Monument on the way back, so we headed West out of Denver on Interstate 70. It's been a long time since I've been on this road. My wife and I drove to Winter Park using this road 20 odd years ago, and Matt I drove to Los Angeles this way 40 odd years ago. Matt and I had a real good time. (Can you believe it? Blogger's spell checker doesn't like Los Angeles.) Going up that first set of hills, trying to maintain speed while carrying a load of furniture, the truck had to work a bit. At one point I had the engine at redline, the throttle wide open and the transmission upshifted. Bang! That was a little unnerving. I eased off a bit after that.

There are three tunnels on I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction. The first and longest is the Eisenhower Tunnel built in 1979, so it wasn't there when Matt & I made our trip to LA. Reading the Wikipedia article I discovered that there is a height restriction on this tunnel, which may explain why we saw so few trucks on this route. For a while I wondered if we were going to see any, but as time went by we saw a few.

I used an old, paper, Gousha road atlas to navigate. It's been sitting in my bookcase for umpteen years. It is dated 1985, and we discovered no discrepancies between the map and the roads we traveled. That didn't used to be the case, back when the Interstate Highway System was still under construction.

The next morning we got off the Interstate at Loma and started up State Highway 139 toward Dinosaur. Loma is a fine town, full of streets with names like L 7/10 Road. We stopped for gas and donuts. Three other full-size pickup trucks, all hauling stuff, stopped for gas while we were there. The other drivers were all wearing Oakley sunglasses and blue-tooth earpieces. I was the odd man out with my compact truck, $2 sunglasses and a hand-held phone.

Hostess mini-donuts, Squirt and hot dogs were staples of my diet on this trip. The Hostess man must have just been there, because the Hostess rack was overflowing with packages of mini-donuts. Guess I'm not alone in my preference for road food.

State Highway 139 is a two lane blacktop with hardly any traffic. There were some switchbacks going up to Douglas Pass where we stopped to check out the view.

When we got to Dinosaur, we drove into the Monument using a road marked "No Fossils". It seemed to take forever to drive all the way to the end, but only a few minutes to drive back out. It was about 15 miles one way, a mere nit in the overall scheme of things. We stopped at the Echo Park overlook. I used to be really impressed with these views, but now I look and I think how grim and forbidding it looks. Lots of rocks, no water or shade. Well, okay, there is a river at the bottom of the canyon, well, you hope there is anyway. You can't see it from up here, and it's a couple of thousand feet down. Be a hell of a hike to find out the river is dry. Just thinking about it is making me thirsty.

Our next stop was a campground in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. We grilled some hot dogs for lunch. The campground was way up above the lake.

After that it was back on the Interstate. The next day the tarp decided to break loose and start flapping in the wind. We stopped 2 or 3 times to try and fix it before we finally pulled into a store in Wendell, Idaho, and bought 100 feet of cord and ran a zig-zag over the top. 


By coincidence I stopped for gas near Boise at the same place I stopped on the way out. Maybe that's not so surprising being as there is only one gas station every six bajillion miles out here. When we crossed the border into Oregon gas prices jumped up 50 cents a gallon, and for some reason, the bugs really started flying. We had to stop every hour or so to clean the windshield, it was so bad. We considered stopping for another night, but by then we were in Pendleton, and shoot, we're practially home, so we pushed on and got home around midnight.

The next day we're unpacking and I inspect the damage to the tarp. It was really big, so we had folded it over a bit to contain the excess. All that flapping in the breeze had worn a hole in it, and where was the hole? In one corner, where it wouldn't be a big problem? No, because of the way it was folded it was right in the center.

Battery Terminals

I cleaned the battery terminals on my truck today. First time I have done that since I don't know when. When I was a kid it was one of those fix-or-repair-daily kinda chores: buy a dollar's worth of gas, check the oil (it was always low), and scrape the crude off the battery terminals. The truck is 13 years old and on its' third battery. Back in olden times batteries died slow lingering deaths, kind of like cancer. You could do things to prolong their life like add water, put them on the charger, clean the terminals, or even replace the cable ends. But about 20 years ago or so something changed and a battery's demise became a matter of sudden death, like a heart attack. One moment it's fine and the next time you get in and turn the key it's dead. You can play around, get a jump, charge it, go through the motions, but it's not going to help. Face it, Jim, it's dead. Money might have something to do with it as well. Back in the good old days a battery cost a couple of days wages, so if you could get even another week or two out of a battery that was significant. Nowadays a battery costs, hmmm, well, they still cost a chunk of change, but it's more like half a day's wages. Or maybe it's just that I spent so much time fiddling with batteries that I just don't care any more. It's dead, Jim, get a new one.

Yesterday my truck was acting cranky. Normally you turn the key, the starter turns the engine over and it starts pretty much instantly. Yesterday it was cranking kind of slow and it actually took a couple of seconds to catch. Today was even worse. I had to give it some gas and keep the RPM's up around two grand to keep it running. This isn't right. Last time I had the hood open (when I got back from Denver I thought I should probably check the oil. 110K miles and the oil level is fine. I was shocked) I noticed that there was a bunch of corrosion around the positive battery terminal. Well, perhaps time has finally caught up with it. So I cleaned the terminals and drove to Cornelius to drop off a load of old computer stuff and now it seems fine.

Valuable! Arrggg! How can you forsake me?

Computer Drive Connection, Cornelius, Oregon
Computer Recycling

Snow

It snowed here Monday night, and it stuck. The streets were icy yesterday morning. They have pretty much dried out, but it is still very cold, down in the 20's. The doors to my truck were frozen closed this morning. Probably because it doesn't have rain gutters. Stupid, new fangled designs.

Update February 2017 replaced missing picture.

Dodge Dakota Serpentine Belt Tensioner, Part 2

Here's the photo that explains everything. You can see the new mounting bolt for the new tensioner because it's nice and shiny, not like the old one which was pert near invisible being all black and ugly looking. So the smart thing to do would have been to take the nut off this one bolt, rather than taking off the whole bracket. Assuming there is room to get a wrench on it, and I think there is. See Part 1 for the whole gruesome story.

Update February 2017 replaced missing picture.

Dodge Dakota Serpentine Belt Tensioner

Notice the very slight difference in angle between the arm that holds the pulley and the pin directly to the left of the mounting stud. Not much, maybe 10 or 15 degrees.

About a week ago I was giving John a ride to school in the truck. It started squealing shortly after we left the house. It sounded like a bearing going bad, but it's had squeaking problems before, so I drove on thinking it would stop in a bit. It didn't. It squealed all the way (12 miles) to school and all the way back. I was saying my prayers that it wasn't going to blow up and leave me stranded.

Got home and took a look and the belt is loose. All the pulleys and bearings seem to be in good shape, just the tensioner has lost its' spring. I might have been able to save myself a little trouble if I had only taken the tensioner itself off, but the bolt that holds it in place is obscured by the supporting bracket, and the three bolts that hold the bracket in place are in plain sight.

However one of the these three bolts is behind the dipstick tube, which means taking the tube loose from the alternator, which wasn't too bad, but putting it back in was a real trick. I mean it's in plain sight, but you cannot get your hand in there to put the bolt it. It took some real finagling to get it in the hole.

Tensioner support bracket mounting holes.

Taking the nut off of the tensioner itself might have been slow (it's a long bolt), but I don't think it would have required the dexterity of Houdini to get it back in.

Hooking wrenches together to
get more leverage.

Putting the belt back on required compressing the spring, and these springs are strong. I put the box end of a combination wrench on the bolt holding the pulley on, and then put the loop at the end of the handle of an adjustable wrench over one of the claws. That gave me a lever that was long enough to make it easy to compress the spring. (This is a picture I found of a similar arrangement.) It works in most cases, though if the bolt is really stuck, and you apply enough torque you can bend the claw of the combination wrench.

Update February 2017 replaced missing pictures.

New Tires

I've been stalling on this as long as I could, but today I need to go to Beaverton, it's raining and my truck is the only vehicle available. Normally I go to Les Schwab, because of their attitude I suppose. But we only have one income now and a set of new tires from Les is going to run better than $700. It would be $800, but they're on sale. Carothers Tire has been advertising used tires on TV and I'm thinking if I could get a set of decent used tires for $100, or shoot, even $200, it might be worth the hassle. It takes me two tries to muster up the gumption to go deal with these guys, whoever they are, but today I finally did it. Compared to Les Schwab, the place is a rat hole. Grubby, beat up, no amenities, but I am not here for genteel conversation. One of the guys leads me back to where the tires are stored to take a look at the used tires. They are pretty sad, and not much of a bargain either, something like $240 for four. Well, we're here, what have you got in the way of new tires. Here's some pretty ones for $500, and here's some heavy duty ones for $580.

Pretty tires for $500, street tread, not mud grip, no white lettering. Sounds good. So now I have tires. The last tires I had were the bargain tires from Schwab and they had the mud grip tread and they were noisy. I park on the street along the curb, so white lettering is a no-no. It inevitably gets rubbed against the curb and starts to look pretty wretched. Putting white lettering must cost something, so why buy it if it's going to cause trouble? Black walls should be cheaper, and cheaper is what I'm looking for. And the guys working there were just fine, no BS, very pleasant to deal with.

While I was waiting I walked uptown to get something to eat. I settled for a scone and a cup of coffee at The Stratford House. Big improvement over Saturday's coffee. Okay, I still had to pour it myself, and the price was $1.35, which wasn't much better, but I did get a ceramic cup and a place to sit inside out of the cold. Take that, New Seasons.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.

1999 Dodge Dakota 4x4 Starter, Part 3

The starter on my truck started flaking out about 4 months ago. I started carrying a whacking stick in the cab to rap it if it acted up, but after four or five times, it started behaving. Evidently, just carrying the stick around was enough to convince it to behave for most of the summer. A couple of weeks ago it started acting up again, and whacking it wasn't helping. The time has come to replace this turkey. Once more into the breech my friends. This time I was little more determined. I took over the whole garage. Moved the bikes to one side, and banished the cars to the driveway. Pieced together a 20" extension, put on the socket and the breaker bar, wiggled them into position, got the socket on the bolt, crawled under the truck and heaved on the breaker bar. Nothing. Squirm around, try and get a better position and try again. Still nothing. Go looking for a piece of pipe to use as a cheater. I used to have a three foot length of one inch water pipe that I used for problems like this, but I gave it up several years ago, and now I can't find one. Never a piece of pipe around when you need one. Was just about to go and start harassing my neighbors when I remembered the torque wrench. It is only about six inches longer than the breaker bar, but it might be enough. Go through the same shenanigans again getting it in position and pull, and this time I am rewarded with a mighty CRACK! The problem bolt finally broke loose. Unscrewed by hand after that.

Box wrench on the nut on the lower mounting stud

Naturally I had taken all day to get this far, so when I leave for the auto parts store it is five after five. They are probably closed, but we'll give it a shot anyway. I get there and there are three cars in the parking lot and couple people standing out front talking. Maybe they are still open. I get out and one of the guys tells me they are closed. If you are closed, what are you guys doing standing around here making the place look like it's open? Leave already, meatheads. I don't say anything out loud, I just mutter under my breath until I get to Autozone, which is open till 9PM. Now that's my kind of store.

The only other problem I ran into was getting the new starter back in position. The bottom screw is actually a mounting stud, and the top bolt has to go through a transmission line mounting tab, so I had to tip the front of the starter up so as to get the top end of the flange up under the mounting tab and then slide the lower mounting hole over the stud. Other than that it was a piece of cake, relatively speaking.

Update April 2020 replace dead Picasa slideshow with image and link to Google Photos album.