Down And Dirty Under The Old Truck

 Drive an old vehicle and you will have to deal with brake repairs. A brake line was dripping on the old pickup and another adjacent line was nearly rusted through. After removing both of those lines, the entire brake system was full of air, so after replacing the lines we began bleeding at the far end of the system and worked our way back. A patient assistant is a must, and you must get out from under after several pumps to replenish the brake fluid in the master cylinder. You may have to touch up the bleeding after you have made the full round, but you can do this. The old beater is back on the road today! Replace the protectors on your bleeders to keep them from clogging with road grime. (PS, This is the easy part after removing rusty brake line fittings and assembling new line into your system!) (PPS, Do NOT use incandescent trouble lights under your vehicle while working with brake fluid! That stuff will light up your garage. The Studebaker garage in Swedesburg, Iowa caught fire many years ago when a light bulb broke. The mechanic was under a car and barely escaped.)

As Soon As I Said It, I Knew....

 ...that I had jinxed myself!  Susan and I were going out the driveway for a shopping trip to Mt. Vernon, and I realized that I had left my leather gloves behind. I didn't want to go back and told Susan that I had forgotten them, then said, "Well we just won't have a flat tire today." So, after Kroger and on our way to Aldi my phone rang. It was our neighbor lady who was also in Mt. Vernon shopping. She had a flat tire, and was pulled over at the Taco Bell. Susan agrees that it was totally my fault.

We  found a large bolt stuck in the tread, too big to plug, so we changed to the little spare. It didn't take long and she headed off to the Ford garage for a new tire. (Our neighbor loaned me some jersey gloves from her car!)

Well, That Wasn't Too Bad

You can see where the water pump was leaking down the return side. I am glad I caught it. It had pulled all the antifreeze out of the overflow tank, but no harm was done. The old truck now has a new water pump, new serpentine belt, new idlers, a new lower radiator hose, and new antifreeze. If you drive an old truck you always have something to do!

 

Well, Dippersticks!

 NAPA will have a water pump for me Monday. Oh Well, or words to that effect. 

Changing Your Headlights, Just Like It Was A Century Ago!

 Today it is more like it was in 1923! Back then, headlights had bulbs, and you would carry a few extra under the seat in your Ford. Then headlights modernized and we had sealed beams. Now we are back to bulbs. What's old is new again.

Tuesday Torque: Torque Goes Both Ways!

 It takes torque to stop or go, and you gotta pay attention to those brakes. Drum brakes are not much fun to work on, but it is necessary now and then, unless you trade for a new car regularly. It looks like twenty-seven years is about the life of a wheel cylinder, judging from the old Chevy and other cars I've worked on. A common failure in years past was to have a piston blow out of a brake cylinder, and that was back when all four wheels were on a single hydraulic circuit from the master cylinder. As brake shoes wore out, cars needed to have the adjustment taken up on the brake shoes, but people would neglect that, letting the brake pedal get closer and closer to the floor. Wait a little too long and a piston would pop out of the cylinder. Self adjusting brakes have made that problem a distant memory.

Got It Back, Looking Better Than New!

 We give Fender Mender in McLeansboro, IL Two Thumbs Up!

I Found Work...

.

...So I had to write something...If you drive an old truck you always have something to do. The left rear brake cylinder was dripping a wee, or a bit more than that. We also just changed the master cylinder again. Gotta change the other side, too, then do the front wheel bearings and brake pads.

 I gotta say that I really don't enjoy doing drum brakes. The last bit where you hook up the springs is always a challenge. This time I ran a strap around the new shoes and that was a great help in holding things still while I wrestled.

The best brake job I ever did was on a 41 Willys Americar. I bought it in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and drove it 30 miles to home. The brakes were weak. You had to plan your stops well in advance. I popped the drums off before driving it again and found that all but one of the pistons in the brake cylinders  were stuck. One brake shoe was doing all the work. I rebuilt those cylinders and the master cylinder and had good brakes again. 

I let that beauty go when I was going to college. A guy in St. Louis bought it and he was tickled to get it. It's a crime to take one of these Willys bodies and put it on a dragster.

Tuesday Torque: Derek Gets His 1963 Buick Wildcat Ready For The Auction!

Twelve Months On Gravel...

 ...does not make a good year! Gravel eats them up.

Two new skins this week, then Back To The Old Grind!

Shade Tree Mechanic Saves Hundreds Of Dollars With...

...his doggy toenail trimmer! Really! WOW!



Back To The Old Grind!

Almost Like Old Times

I opened the garage Friday morning to take big Jack outside, and there was Tom, our contractor with his trailer up on a jack and one wheel off.  His right side spring broke about two miles before he got here, and luckily, the wheel did not quite rub the fender.  I volunteered to tear it down so he wouldn't lose a day working on our projects, and went to the farm to grab a few tools.  Tom called the trailer place in Mt. Vernon and they had parts in stock, so I got a new spring, shackle bolts, and had it back together for him with no sweat.  Take a good look at the breaks; this trailer was running on one leaf for some time.  The shackle bolts had significant wear, so Tom is going to rebuild the other side as preventative maintenance.

Grasshopper 727 Lawnmower Review

Our Grasshopper mower is in its fourteenth year of mowing grass at two homes, and we just did some repairs to keep it going. Here is the rundown on the repairs and maintenance we have had to do on this machine.



The gearbox in the mower deck is the only part of this machine that is cause for dissatisfaction.  Grasshopper could punch a hole in the skidplate assembly to provide access to the oil plug.  Maybe they don't do it because they don't want their customers working under the deck.  There is probably a liability risk if they tell people to do that, and then a deck flops down on the person checking the oil.  It looks like a good modification, though, if you want to make your maintenance chores easier.

Does Your Car Want You To Have Good Abs?

This warning light came on and I was wondering if I should start doing crunches, but it is much more serious than that. The anti-lock braking system started kicking in and it even caused noise on the AM radio when I touched the brakes. I checked with a mechanic and learned that this can be an indicator of a wheel bearing that is beginning to wobble, so I scheduled maintenance right them. Turns out this was just a faulty sensor, and that is a relief, but don't put off checking your car if one of the warnings lights up. A wheel that decides to lock up at 65 mph could be fatal. 'nuff said.

Now That's Country!

Country dirt, that is.

We've lived in the country for a long time, and I know better, but every time we have a flat I have to contend with a pile of dirt in the spare.  The spare should be dropped every month or two and the dirt and gravel washed out, but it always waits 'til I have  a flat.  The cable on the old Chevy is just long enough to hook up and let down when the tire is directly under it, and a load of twenty or thirty pounds of rock and dirt is no fun at all.  You have to block up the tire, dig dirt out of the middle, and break the frog loose from the center of the rim. You're lucky if you get to do it in on a hard surface.  Life's not all bad; there was still air in it!

Listen To Your Ford!

Once upon a time, every shade tree mechanic serviced the wheel bearings on his car, and the bearings usually lasted through the life of the car.  Well, new cars have bearings (wheel units) that you don't service. You run them 'til they die, and then you replace them.  You will know when the time comes with grinding noises, or alarms, like we just had with our '08 Ford Explorer.




The scary part of this part failure was how the car let us know something was wrong. No bearing noise, no wobble in the steering, but in turns the ABS system began applying the brakes, and would grind us down to a dead stop while we pushed on the gas. We were lucky that it didn't kill us, given all the ice we are driving on. When I figured out what was stopping us, I pulled the ABS fuse and we were able to drive again, but still had the RSC (Rollover Stability Control) alarm going off every few minutes.

The service manager had us come out in the shop.  He shook the wheel and told us that it wasn't safe to drive unless we had the wheel unit replaced.  We got out of there for about $500, and it's nice to have the car driving quietly with no alarms. 

Do You Trust Your Grease Monkey?

...Don't.

I have always done most of the maintenance on our family vehicles, but I tend not to crawl under my work truck.  Those vehicles have always gone to a garage for oil changes, brakes, tranny service, and etc.  Recently I noticed a bit of rear end noise when starting out, and checked the differential.  It was down about 1/2.  I have been using a couple of garages for service on this truck, and because there was no evidence of a leak, it is obvious that the rear end hasn't been checked by either garage for several visits. 

Get in the habit of looking under your car and checking the differential for evidence that you mechanic has pulled the plug and checked the oil level.  It just takes a second, and it can save you a bundle of money and aggravation.

Are You Being Green,...

...or are you getting the green wienie? Here we see a couple of filters from rigs with Diesel engines. Both of these filters have had bio-diesel running through them.  The first is in warm weather, and there is a whole-lotta crud growing in that fuel.

This filter has gelled bio-fuel, during a Southern Illinois winter, which isn't cold enough to gel pure Diesel fuel.(Photo Credit for gelled fuel: Jason Jones)

A few years ago, I was driving a new work truck, and ran into an old friend who was driving a similar truck.  He asked if I had used the E-85 fuel, and I hadn't.  He proceeded to tell me that he had, and the fuel filter kept plugging up with snotty stuff.  It seems that the alcohol draws water out of the air and messes up the E-85 fuel.  Bio-Diesel has similar problems.  It gels in cool weather, while regular Diesel has to get really cold before it does that.  Bio-D also grows crud in it that clogs filters.  It seems that we are being fed lies from our betters, and it is screwing up our lives.

Way back, when we heard that refrigerants R-12 and R-22 were making holes in the ozone layer, I smelled a rat.  After we were changed over to R-134, we all had access to the internet, and the truth became easy to find.  The holes in the ozone layer are naturally occuring at the poles where the magnetic field around our planet curves in, allowing the solar wind to erode the upper atmosphere.  That is why auroras occur, centered around the poles.  NASA explained it very well on Spaceweather, although they didn't mention refrigerants.  We're getting it again...

...There is a new refrigerant that is being promoted, and I don't have a clue why, unless maybe the patent date is about to run out for R-134.  The problem with the new one is that cars tend to burn to the ground if a refrigerant leak occurs.  You know, propane is an excellent refrigerant, and it is probably cheaper than any other refrigerant out there, and it can burn your car to the ground, just as well as the new one that you will soon be forced to buy.  Somebody has spent a bunch of your money to develop this, and you will be buying the newest chemicals on the block, whether you want it or not.  We could go back to ammonia and have people gassed by leaks, without causing fires or ozone holes, or we could go back to R-12 and R-22, which really never caused ozone holes, and didn't burn or gas people.  The one thing that is clear in all of this is that we are being lied to, not just by our government, but also by companies who go along with sleazy politicians so they can hold the bottom line, in spite of government harassment.

I've Changed A Lot Of Tires...

...and never worried about torquing down the lug nuts. I've used impact wrenches, tire tools, and breakover bars, and never had a problem; but times have changed. I grew up with steel wheels, and they have quite a bit of give if you overtorque the lug nuts. The nuts may be hard to remove, but no real harm is done. Cast wheels are a different animal, though. There is no give in cast wheels if you crank the nuts down too tight, and over-tightening stretches the studs, rather than bending the center of the wheel. The importance of torquing your lug nuts came home to us recently, when I had a tire repaired. One of the wheel studs spun and fell out, and this is how it looks:

The arcs across the back end of this bolt show the progression as the bolt pulled apart as we drove around in blissful ignorance.  We thought about how this could have happened, and we have figured out that the damage was caused at a tire shop in Mt. Vernon, IL.  We needed a flat fixed last summer; had to replace the tire, and had both changed on that axle.  We were back the next day, because the new tires didn't match the diameter of the tires on the other axle, and the 4WD was kicking in.  So...all four tires had been run down by an impact wrench, instead of being hand tightened the last bit.  What would you do?

We don't want the wheels to fall off of our buggy while we motor down the road, so it is in Ford Square's garage now to have all of the wheel studs changed.  We are also getting new lug nuts as long as we are doing this much.  A torque wrench will be going in the back end of the car, just in case we need tire service in a garage where the workers don't have one of their own.   If you have cast wheels on your car, buy a torque wrench, use it when you change a tire, and keep it in the jack compartment.  Watch the guy who takes your wheels off and on; insist they use a torque wrench to tighten the lug nuts.

Pain In The Glass

We went touring a few weeks ago, and as we motored through Marion, Illinois, a tiny rock flipped up by the car ahead of us nailed a spot on the windshield.  It took out a chip, and two cracks started moving out; one going up, and one going down.  Luckily, we happened upon an auto parts store in two blocks, so we eased into the parking lot, went in the store and bought a windshield repair kit.  These kits consist of a tube of cyanoacrylate glue, and an application system to put it into the crack to stop it from spreading.  After carefully wiping off the glass you apply a pad with adhesive on both sides, and the base for a syringe.

 Squeeze most of the glue out of the tube into the base, and then apply suction with the syringe for at least ten minutes.  The partial vacuum pulls air out of the cracks so the glue can migrate in.

Remove the syringe and pull the plunger to the top of the barrel, then put it back on the base and push the plunger down to the catch.  This step applies pressure to the glue to give it a push into the bottom of the cracks, and you are supposed to let it stand for about twenty minutes.  Remove the syringe and base, then use the remaining glue on the top of the crack.  Let it sit in the sun for a while to cure, and you are done. 

We have used these kits on other cracks, and we generally have been successful in saving the windshield.  Even if it doesn't work, you will only be out around ten bucks, and will save hundreds if it works.