Posted by bronson
Tue, 13 Dec 2005 19:53:00 GMT
Holy crap it’s cold! I just spent an hour working on the heater core. Working on a car when it’s 30degF and snowing isn’t too bad but when it goes below 20degF my hands became useless. 5 minutes of warming them up in pockets gave 20 seconds of work time… not a good ratio.
I managed to fix the solenoid and the heater controls. The solenoid was actually not my fault – it lost some sort of plug. Spot of clear RTV and it’s as good as new. There are a number of different ways to insert the heater control plugs, all of which look correct from the front. Too bad I couldn’t manage to get a single screw threaded. Looks like work is stalled until it warms up towards the end of the week.
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:21:00 GMT
A few years ago I saw documentary on a team driving 3 snow cats to the south pole. While they were driving a hydraulic pump went bad. Within a matter of about an hour the spare was found, installed, system bled, and they were underway again. Pretty impressive.
I have done a number auto repairs in 50 degree weather (worst was when it started raining halfway through replacing the transmission filter, me lying in the gutter, Erik inside laughing his head off). 30 degrees and parched dry sounds about as bad as 50 degrees and wet to the core, right?
Well, somewhere between 45degF and 35degF things go pear shaped. I
was surprised. I am now a lot more impressed by that Antarctica team.
Tools feel wet all over even when they’re dry. I don’t notice this when using aluminum climbing gear in the snow; it seems to be specific to steel. Plastic-handled screwdrivers are great, chrome vanadium socket sets may as well be coated in oil. Maybe warm hands cause instant condensation?
Threading nuts is awful. The cold works against you in two ways: you can’t feel what you’re doing (is this the bolt, or am I trying to thread it on the corner of the dashboard?) and your fingers just don’t bend very well. And small nuts are infuriatingly easy to drop.
You need to jam your hands in your pockets every minute or so to keep them warm. This alone adds dramatically to the amount of time the job will take. Regular gloves make car repair close to impossible (too clumsy) but maybe I should try MechaniX…?
You can’t lean bare skin against metal parts for leverage. The cold just wicks into you. Keep some clean rags around for insulation.
You can’t really yank on things in an icy parking lot. Just try keeping your footing while getting a radiator hose off… I couldn’t get any leverage so I had to cut them.
I’ve been starting around elevenish when it gets warm and stop a little after threeish when it gets dark. The job is 2/3s done. I’m reasonably happy with progress. Working in the cold is actually not TOO bad.
Today, alas, I get to find out what sockets are like when it’s actually snowing. I’m intrigued. I’ll picture myself at the South Pole expertly swapping in a new hydraulic pump. Yeah. And I won’t picture Jack London.
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:33:00 GMT
Last night Cassie, Kristi and I went to see a lecture by Marc W. Kirschner on facilitated variation. Though we’d rather walk, we drove the two miles because the Rover needed to stretch its legs a bit. It hadn’t been used since the cross-coutry trip.
First we learned the hard way that you really, really do not want to drive into Cambridge on JFK at 6:30 pm. Then we heard a pop, steam started shooting everywhere, and the floor was covered in hot coolant. So we parked and went to the lecture. It was packed. We had to perch behind the stairs. It was a good lecture but, maybe because we arrived late, I didn’t understand enough to comment. I did think that Mr. Ten Minute Question should take his acid soil soapbox, worthy as it may be, somewhere else.
And dinner… Yes!!! A truly good Mexican place does exist in Boston. Go to the Border Cafe. Great chips, decent salsa, darn good meal. And they serve New Orleans food too. The remarkably weak ritas are unfortunate but that’s secondary in my book. Thank you Cheridy. (The other suggestions: El Pelon is a pretty good taqueria though their carne asada was somewhat stringy. We still need to try Picante.)
So, the heater core blew. Ouch. Well at least it didn’t do this in the middle of Nebraska. We drove back with the windows down, constantly stopping to fill the radiator, hot boxin like rock stars. This is, of course, how the less fortunate warp a cylinder head. Beware.
The heater box is the kind of repair that is straightforward enough when you’ve got space and at least a day to do it. But try to attempt it from my narrow parking spot? Pay someone the $500 labor to rip out the dash and put it all back wrong? Ugh. Not sure what I’m going to do… Bypass it for now and pray that the part arrives before the ice storms?
Posted in Living, Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:17:00 GMT
Brennan and I took a look a the fuel pump over the weekend. It’s trivial to diagnose when you’ve got the right tools.
The big problem? Over a year ago, I pulled the center console to install a motorized radio antenna (got rid of the worthless radio antenna embedded in the rear window heating element). When I replaced the console, I pinched a wire underneath one of the rear mounting bolts. Apparently it took a year for the bolt to wear through the insulation… Then it started blowing 10A fuses for two weeks, then it blew 30A fuses for a week, then it died for good. My fuel pump, replaced with almost 200,000 miles on it, was probably still running fine.
Two strange things remain:
The fuses would only blow when the motor was under 2000 RPM. If I could get it started without blowing the fuse, I could drive all day by keeping the engine racing. I can’t explain this at all… There should be basically no difference in voltage across the pump at 500 RPM vs 2000 RPM.
Replacing the fuel pump DID completely fix the problem for two weeks. I figure the old pump was drawing a lot more current than the new one, making it more likely to blow a fuse. But, this too seems rather strange. Short circuits can be really finicky beasts.
That explains why I was blowing the fuse so regularly. Except… wiring the pump to the dome light would have fixed this, no question. I should have been right back on the road. What happened? While replacing the fuel pump (in fading light, using a screwdriver and scissors, head spinning from the gas fumes…) I didn’t see that there was a tiny plastic cap over the outlet on the new pump. I managed to jam the cap into the fuel hose, stuffing it up for good. Brennan and I pulled the fuel filter and found that the pump works but there’s no pressure in the line. Blocked line. I would have figured this out if I’d had a fuel pressure gauge. You just can’t pull a fuel filter with a screwdriver and scissors to check. You need wrenches.
So, it was operator error. Twice. How humbling.
If I had removed that 4 cent part before I jammed it in, I would have probabably made it to Winters. At $300 for the truck and $120 for the vandalized tire, it was a pretty costly mistake. Arg! On the other hand, I loved visiting the Hills. Carter got to help fix the Rover and use tiedowns to tow things with his tricycle. It was a great weekend.
Read more...
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Sun, 06 Nov 2005 07:15:00 GMT
Why did my left rear tire get slashed some time on Wednesday? It was parked near Brennan and Eve’s house on a nice suburban street. Where do these lowlifes come from?
Then somebody, possibly the same person, phoned the police on Thursday asking to have an abandoned car towed. My car. That I’d parked there Tuesday morning. Since a car must remain a week before it gets towed, the caller clearly lied about how long I’d been parked there.
A few days ago, while unsuccessfully replacing the fuel pump, I found one of Brennan’s business cards under the floor mat and chucked it onto the dash to throw away later. The cops investigating the complaint saw the card and called Brennan. They said that if the card weren’t there, the Rover would have been towed on Friday afternoon. A few hours before I returned from Winters. The license plate is on the car, the registration is current, why can’t they just call me? Why does random coincidence have to save my butt?
Thanks to the police, I do know who called in the complaint. Mr. NextDoorNeighbor, it’s pretty stupid to give anonymous tips from your home phone! I don’t know if you are the person who slashed my tire, but I do know that you are the person who lied about how long I was parked there. I admit, I’m baffled. You don’t seem like the sort of person who would perjur himself over such a petty thing. Were you just having a bad day or something?
Unfortunately, you’re lucky. I need to leave for Tehachapi tonight and won’t be back for at least 6 months so I don’t get to confront you about the lie. If you DID slash my tire, I can only hope that karma pays attention to what you have done.
Now I’m 0 for 2 in the justice department. Criminy.
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:50:00 GMT
- 12:30 pm Oct 31: stop at the Valencia Shell for gas.
- 12:35 pm: blow too many fuses trying to start the motor. Replacing the pump motor had appeared to fix the problem but apparently only for a week. Luckily - 1:00: Buy a new fuel pump.
BP is in Valencia.
Stranded in Valencia, unpacking the car
(including gas welding rig) to access the pump.
- 3:00: replace fuel pump. Still blowing fuses. That must mean that the fault is between the fuse and the pump.
- 4:00: Wire fuel pump to the rear dome light. Yes! The fuel pump now works fine. Fuel rail pressurised. But the car still doesn’t start. There must be some other device critical to the engine hanging off that fuse. I need to replace it. Go buy more fuses from the Shell station.
- 5:00: Now everything is blown. The plastic on the new fuse has melted and bubbled but still flows current. Dawning realization that Shell has sold me a defective fuse. Something else in my electrical system is now blown instead of the fuse. That’s a show stopper. What a Halloween.
Darkness is falling. I need to be in Winters tomorrow. Despair!
- 5:30: Start calling around. U-Haul costs $360.00. That’s hard to justify, especially because I’ll be stranded in Winters at the end of it. The nearest minivan is in the Burbank Airport. I need to move all my stuff so a sedan just won’t do.
- 7:00: Enterprise has a truck! $70.00/day, unlimited mileage. Fantastic.
- 8:30: Visit Eve and Brennan for an hour.
- 9:30: leave Bakersfield for Tehachapi to grab the trailer.
- 10:30: There is a lock on the trailer (for good reason – there’s a crazy woman who wants to steal everything up here). But no key for the lock. So… Take the hitch apart. It was a stunningly beautiful night up there. Mountain breeze, stars everwhere.
- 11:30: All hooked up, time to leave.
Arriving in Bakersfield at first light.
- 1:30: Arrive in Valencia. The 3 hours of sleep I got the night before are beating me about the head. Pull into a parking lot and crash in the truck.
- 3:30: Wake up. Load the Rover onto the trailer. After struggling to use axle straps as a come-along, a guy shows up with a $50 portable winch. A few minutes later, the Rover is loaded. I gotta get me one of these.
- 4:30: Leave for Bakersfield.
- 5:30: Drop the Rover in front of Eve and Brennan’s.
- 11:00: Arrive in Winters. Now it’s time to start moving. Ouch. But, given the circumstances, the last 24 hours have gone pretty well.
Lessons:
- The Coleman Cold Heat soldering tool sucks ass. It’s got no thermal mass. It can melt solder, but it can’t make it stick to anything. It’s about as effective a soldering iron as a cold monkey wrench. Save your $15.00.
- The Silverado has a great engine but awful seats and suspension. Talk about swampy. I’m getting afraid that the SUV-addicted American car industry is going to have to learn the lessons from 1973 all over again.
Update: Added the photos.
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by bronson
Mon, 24 Oct 2005 02:20:00 GMT
So… The dealer wants $650 for a fuel pump because the car is so old that the part has been discontinued. Blue book for the entire car is twice that. Aftermarket fuel pumps only $200, but I need one today because mine keeps blowing 30 amp fuses (normally it takes a 10A fuse). Following directions on rangerovers.net, I managed to fit a generic pump into the Rover frame. Instructions below.
Here’s a pic of my very old pump assembly torn apart. Notice how there’s nothing inside the pulser (oval metal thing in the lower left). It looks like it’s just a rubber diaphragm that flexes a little to dissipate pressure spikes (it should be called an anti-pulser). I also tore the rubber off the black lump in the positive lead… I’m not sure, but it looks like an inductor to suppress voltage spikes before they can arc across a loose connector.
Read more...
Posted in Rover | no comments | no trackbacks
