continue for more reindeer pictures. click here for the alligator

Continue reading "robo-reindeer" »

Posted by Scott Korb at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the HVAC blower motor and fan from a GMC. I'd always heard the fan called a squirrel cage. Now I know why. I've also heard it called a hamster wheel, but I never found evidence of a hamster... though I did find a mouse once.

Posted by Scott Korb at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My friend Lewis bought a military auction HMMWV (humvee) engine... 6.5 liter diesel.
It came in a big military crate, vacuum sealed with a dessicant bag, ready to be drop shipped from 10,000 feet.

well, sort of.

I guess they found a problem and that's why it was for sale.

We made it run inside the crate. That was awesome.

Comments are under pictures. The right sides of the pictures got cut off but if you click on them they should come up in a pop-up (disable that blocker for now).

HUGE intake manifold! There's an EPA sticker which mentions a national security emissions exemption. I'll try to get a pic of that later. done. click here for sticker pic

We ran 24V to the injector pump (help me out here Lewis) and 12V to the starter. 4 batteries in all.

...about the starter. The military crate needed slight modifications to accommodate it.

more after jump

Continue reading "national security" »

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I had to change the thermostat in Althea AGAIN. Above you see two thermostats... one ~18 month old thermostat made in China, and one new one next to it made in Japan. Can you guess which is which? They are both for the same car. Weird huh?

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question248.htm

I did not choose to put a cheapo unit in my car last time so much as my car ran hot and the cheap one was available within the hour. This time when Althea ran hot I waited a day for delivery, waited 5 days to install, and paid three times as much. I expect it to last 10yrs this time. Totally worth it.

A more important event took place today but is completely unrelated to cars. My friends Lewis and Russell came over and fixed the rotten part of my roof facia. They are awesome and have probably bought me another 3yrs before I need to replace my roof.

Posted by Scott Korb at 7:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

picture from 1998 volvo service manual

Posted by Scott Korb at 12:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

click on pics for bigger

more pics after jump

Continue reading "kitty" »

Posted by Scott Korb at 10:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

AKA "air vent cut off diaphragm"
This little guy keeps a valve closed when vacuum is supplied or held to it (engine running). When the engine is shut off the valve opens and fuel vapors are directed into a charcoal canister, rather than vented into the atmosphere.

When the diaphragm is perforated like mine is, and engine vacuum declines (when you hit the go pedal) the valve opens and creates a huge air leak. So no go with the go pedal.

I found the description of how this system operates (when working properly) in the emissions section of my service manual

and figured it out from there.

Unfortunately I cannot find a new diaphragm. Honda has discontinued this part, it's not in the rebuild kit for the carb, and I can't find it in the aftermarket anywhere.

So my choices are to either paste up the rubber with some sort of bonding agent and hope it works, or eliminate this part of the emissions system (all emissions systems must be in place and APPEAR to work)

So for now I'm using a less perforated diaphragm scrounged from another carb and MrHanky drives a whole lot better.

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

More power AND better gas mileage? Sign me up!
Less complicated? Better still!

BUT it wont pass NC state inspection.

Vehicles in NC under 35yrs old, but built before 1996 must pass a safety inspection including a visual inspection of emission equipment. All emission equipment must be installed and appear to work.

I installed a WEBER carburetor on my 1982 Civic. It has one electrical wire for the choke (optional), one ported vacuum line for the distributor, and one manifold vacuum line for the power brakes (optional).

Damn if I cant get through an inspection. Actually, I can, but I need this car to be user friendly.

So I had to put this monstrosity back on it:

Continue reading "unintended consequences" »

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

more photos (click on below picture)

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

click for bigger

I made this tonight after work. It was actually a fairly uneventful day. This piece is not directed towards another person. It's been in my head awhile, and tonight it came out.

-scott

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

windshield washer pump for Suburban

It's not just GM
I see this kind of thing all the time, but it is (or was) usually Canada, Brazil or Mexico... which could be considered in America (north, south or central)

If your 17 digit VIN number starts with a one, your vehicle was assembled in The United States of America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Identification_Number

after cut/paste and read the above site, know my 1990 Civic VIN starts with a 4 but the sticker on the original radiator brace read MFG BY HONDA OF CANADA

if someone has a more accurate list of VIN MFG codes please let me know.

(edit: oops. I was wrong... my VIN starts with a 2 - Canada it is)

Posted by Scott Korb at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

customer at work today... Jeep Cherokee

I wanted to put a yellow smiley face on my old '77 dodge van, but i never got around to it.

For those interested, that jack o'lantern is painted on the rear differential cover which is affectionately known as the rear pumpkin cover by some automotive enthusiasts. The mole on his left cheek is a rubber plug for checking/filling the fluid level. That's a big mole. He should have that checked.

Posted by Scott Korb at 8:59 PM | Permalink

I have the instructions to make it more smoothly.
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Posted by Scott Korb at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My friend Lew keeps bees. Today is his birthday party. I don't know how to make a bee, so I made this for him instead. He plays drums too.

Posted by Scott Korb at 2:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hot as in it has heat now. Above is a picture of the interior of Elizabeth's 1990 Honda Accord with the dashboard and heater unit removed.

I'm told this car has never had good heat, even when it was new.. so it was kind of a leap of faith, in myself, to tackle this job. It acted like it needed a heater core. There is no way to prove it in this scenerio except to replace it. I tried to flush it. I spent a bunch of time to prove every other thing to be working correctly. I reached the end of my internal diagnostic flow chart, as well as several of Honda's charts, before I decided to spend a weekend replacing the heater core in this car.

After I got the heater core and heater unit in I put some new foam around the vents and some new sealer on some parts where the dash fits. You know how sometimes when you tun on the vents in an old car and little bits of foam dust comes out? I replaced that foam with new foam. Yayy!

So at this point Elizabeth came over to help. I asked her to come over to help me get the dash out, but I got it out myself earlier than expected. There's no way I was putting it back in by myself when there was help available.

She saw the car as in the above picture and asked "Is it supposed to look like that?" I said "No. It's supposed to have a dashboard in it." She was just in time to help put it back in.

So here it is now, with heat.

Using process of elimination and gut experience only feels good once one is vindicated. Then it feels Great!

Continue reading "HOT CAR" »

Posted by Scott Korb at 9:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I did a brake booster swap on this today by customer request. I changed it from the factory electric brake assist booster to a vacuum assist booster.

1987 Buick Regal Grand National Turbo FI V6. 60,000 miles. This thing is still worth more than your almost new Lexus.

Posted by Scott Korb at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My mother lives in a gated community with speed bumps. She abhors speed bumps and is actively defiant towards them, keeping a steady speed whilst steering as far to the right as possible so as to strike the horrid things with only the left side of her car.

Althea is the given name of the 1990 Honda Civic hatchback which bore the brunt my mother's war on speed bumps for nearly 20 years.

When she gave me Althea I replaced the shocks/struts and a few other things needed. Everything seemed fine except when I hit speed bumps. Weird, right? It made this awful noise like a child rubbing a balloon to torment others.

Anyway, I figured out it was some rubber bushings on the left upper suspension arm making the noise. They weren't "bad" per se, just annoying.
"How annoying were they?" I hear you ask.
They were so annoying....
Well, that was something I tormented myself over.
I hated that noise, but it wasn't causing any other harm than making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Do I replace just the bushings, or the whole arm? Do I buy it from Honda or ebay? Exactly how much time and money is this noise worth to me?

Last September (over a year after discovering the noise) I decided to spend the money on buying the whole arm assembly from Honda. It cost at least three times as much as just the bushings, or an ebay arm, but I decided I was worth it. It would take less time to install, and I knew it would fit correctly. When the part arrived I placed it in the passenger compartment so I could glare at it every time I went over a bump. I finally installed it today. It took all of about twenty minutes.

Althea is now quiet and the expensive part can continue to be glared at in the above picture rather than on my passenger floorboard. The arm was actually only about $120 from Honda, but I can buy almost a complete suspension for my car off ebay for that ;)

Now, about this other box of new parts I have for Althea... the receipt says June of 2009....

Posted by Scott Korb at 5:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So that's a picture of Althea today. This hood could have done well on Dreya's red car. I hope I can find a gold hood someday but this one was available and only cost $20. The new windshield washer nozzles cost more than that.

The left headlight assembly is new as is the side marker light. There is a 'T' shaped brace in front of the radiator which I replaced also. For some reason I had an extra one lying around. It has a sticker which proclaims that it was made in America. The old one said Canada, which I've heard is in North America.

Anyway, with a little help from a sledge hammer, a prybar, and a block of wood, it's mostly back in place, though a bit wrinkly. At least it should pass inspection.

Posted by Scott Korb at 1:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If the above youtube video does not show up on your computer, here is the URL to copy/paste.

http://www.youtube.com/user/apogee360#p/a/u/0/Jaufp49rvb8

Posted by Scott Korb at 7:42 PM | Permalink

My friend Robin has a 1999 Toyota Camry. It was given to her with about 200,000 miles on it because "it needs a transmission"

So she took it to someone who I'm told "cleaned out the screens" and it worked fine... for a while. Then it didn't. She took it back and they flushed the fluid to no avail.

So she told me lots of different things about the transmission and the way it acts and what different mechanics told her about it. I fully expected to replace this transmission. So did she. So did at least two other mechanics who looked at it (I'm told).

Now I don't think I'll have to.

From the way it acted when I drove it I figured the torque converter clutch solenoid was stuck. Also the check engine light was on. I did a little research and removed the part in the above picture to test it. There is a little check ball in it that was stuck. Basically this keeps the engine and transmission locked together almost all the time so the car bucks like hell when you slow down.

This valve is supposed to allow flow from pressure to drain (in picture) but only when voltage is supplied to it. It was allowing flow all the time. So I hit it.

bang bang bang

click

ta-da-- little ball got unstuck.

good ol' 20th century Earth technology

Soooo... I'm gonna replace this valve if i can find one (it is proving to be surprisingly elusive).

I bought a code reader while I was in town today. I figured it's about time I owned at least a cheap one. The code on this Camry is P0770 "shift solenoid E (shift solenoid SL) malfunction". That's what Toyota calls this little solenoid valve which controls the torque converter lockup clutch. I think they used to call it a TCC (Torque Converter Clutch) solenoid valve. That's what i would call it.

Posted by Scott Korb at 6:57 PM | Permalink