one monkey typing

The minivan is getting 23 MPG again, same as when new. It had gotten as low as 16 MPG in the last year, then went to 18 MPG when I ran two bottles of fuel injector cleaner through it a month ago. Last week I dumped half a can of Seafoam into the crankcase and ran it about 80 miles; it has 120K on it and I figured there was plenty of sludge and gum built up in there. I then did an oil change, switching to full synthetic, and then drove to Chicago and back. The Seafoam treatment seems to have done wonders, the engine is far quieter than it's been in years. The full synthetic probably doesn't hurt either and I'm hoping it will keep the engine from getting sludged up.

I also (nearly) completely rebuilt the rear brakes earlier this week. The hand brake is now working again for the first time in years and the brakes are more responsive than they've been since that tow truck driver towed it 15 miles with the handbrake on years ago. The only thing I didn't replace back there was the right hand side hydraulic cylinder, because it didn't really need replacing (the left one did) and the hydraulic line and the two bolts were very stubborn and I decided to just skip it until it actually needs replacement.

I switched the Malibu to full synthetic at its oil change in May as well. There's so little difference in price anymore, and the Taurus had a significant repair and I think its final demise (for us anyway) caused by extremely sludgy oil (a result of being driven on short trips almost all the time) I figure it can't hurt.

Wow, eBay to the rescue. I picked up the three broken bits for the front end of the Malibu for about $100. Locally just one of them was $200 and the three together would have probably pushed > $350. Total time for the fix should be about 3 hours.

Not replacing the hood right now, because I can't put a new one in the winter weather in primer or it'll rust, and I can't really paint a hood in the current weather either, too cold. The existing hood isn't too bad after some jumping up and down and punching (literally). I'll probably replace the front bumper cover at the same time.

I still need to straighten out the hood latch, it's shoved back almost into the radiator.

I put my new Nokian W240s on the bike today, it was time to give in to the inevitable. On a quick trip down the driveway, wow, are those things noisy. Very aggressive studs. I'll see how they roll tomorrow.

Odometer: 25958

The rear left brakes on the Fusion have been chewing up pads. 3 pair in 60K miles, one pretty badly done in in only 6K miles. Last time I determined that something must have hit the pad bracket and made the pads bind, creating the equivalent of a stuck caliper (I replaced the caliper and it made no difference. Since the bracket is cast iron, I don't want to just start whacking on it, so I ground down the slide tab on the pads a little. Apparently not enough though, the pads went down to the metal in only about 10K miles. The other side is still on the original pads, and there's still life left in them.

So today both sides got new pads, the left side got enough ground off the pad guide tabs so that they glide smoothly (about the same as the other side, maybe a little easier), and also a new rotor since rotors are cheap and the original had pads go down to the metal on it twice. It still looks recoverable by turning, so I'll hang on to it if I ever need another.

I also washed the bike, relubed the chain (lots easier with the repair stand), and found that the power cable for the light system was frayed AGAIN. This time before putting on a new cable I'm putting on an experimental super-duty strain relief made from a couple inches of split vinyl hose wrapped around the tail of the connector and the wire and filled with epoxy. We'll see how that lasts. I also ordered another 3 cables from DealExtreme, they're $3 each there so if I have to just keep replacing them every 4 or 5 months I guess I can live with it.

Looks like the brake pads on the bike are probably good for another 1000 miles.

For some odd reason, I've seen a LOT of people I know in cars driving past me and giving friendly beeps. I'm having to refill the air horn canister weekly now. I did actually use it last week as intended, a car in Dexter was backing out of a parking spot right into my path, and I was doing about 25 (the speed limit there) at the time.

Odometer: bike 23829, car 58475

The dealer said the van needed three things - new brakes up front, new front sway bar bushings, and a coolant flush.

This morning I drained about 2.5 gallons out of 4 that it supposedly holds. It really didn't look that bad; dark green but not horrible. Given that a full flush requires removing the thermostat, which is almost inaccessible and requires buying a gasket set to replace, plus a lot more dinking around and getting antifreeze all over the place, I decided that changing half of it was good enough. Maybe I'll do the same again every couple of years.

The bushings - yeah, they're a bit loose but not horribly degraded. As far as I can tell, they're not really bothering anything, just making some noise on bumps. Meh, I can live with it. They're not hard to change on this car though, they're right there. Maybe I'll do them sometime next year.

Brakes - yeah, they were bad, not quite metal but really close, and lots of rust. These were factory pads with 110,000 miles so it's about time. The inner side of both rotors were a little bit grooved but not too bad, the outer surfaces both dead flat. Given that they're held on by screws that I'd have to drill out (which isn't really a big deal, I've been told that mechanics almost always drill them out and they don't need to be replaced, they're just there to make manufacturing easier) I opted to just let them and the new pads duke it out. I bought a basic $27 semimetallic pad set; I've never found that the "premium" pads which are $40 are worth it. Certainly not the $50 or $60 ceramic pads. I guess if I were driving like some of the morons on the expressway I might benefit from ceramic pads.

Anyway, all that's done. Just as well, as I'm driving to work these days.

Full replacement of rear brake pads and rotors on the 97 Taurus today. Took about 45 minutes total once I had all the parts. Yesterday we flushed the system full of fresh fluid (first time ever)

Interestingly enough, I bought the parts at Murrays, came home, and had TOTALLY the wrong rotors. I had 4 lug vented rotors instead of the 5 lug solids that I needed. I went back and they looked it up again, and said "That's really weird, that IS the right part number." They went in the back and got two more boxes, we opened them up and those boxes had the right part in them. It looks like there happened to be two boxes mis-packed and I happened to get them. They were still factory taped.

The salesman exchanged them and gave me 15% off for the mistake (8 bucks).

I think the pads had been changed back at about 60K, but the rotors were original (and looking bad, mainly due to rust).

Odometer: 128850

Once I got things together, it took about an hour to put the new sensor in, put the exhaust system back up and put all of the O2 sensors back in again.

It's running as expected now, but after 5 or so months not moving, it sounded BAD when I first took it out. Every wheel sounded like someone was dragging a screwdriver across a rusty steel drum. We drove it about 50 miles yesterday (to Murrays and back twice, once to get new wiper blades to replace the ones that simply rotted off while sitting there, and again mainly just to get drive time for L, and to go back to Murrays and get some of those plastic tabs used to hold the cowl cover on.

It'll probably seem weird for a couple of days to not have a car on ramps right outside the door.

I drove to work today so I could go over to Harbor Freight and get some serious destruction going on. I've had it with the rounded off nuts keeping me from finishing the work on the Taurus, they're coming off even if it means I have to tear the studs out. So I bought an air chisel and a die grinder for good measure. These are really cheap tools over there, so the grinder at $12 was cheaper than driving over there again, at least if my time is worth anything.

However, on the way home from work, the rear brakes on the van started making bad noises. So I wound up going home, grabbing the 3rd car, driving to Murrays and getting new shoes for the back of the van. I wound up doing the rears, which are drum brakes (which I don't like) in the dark, in the rain. I found that the hand brake mechanism on the right side was very stiff, and probably wasn't working very well. That also means that the adjuster on that side wasn't really working, since setting and releasing the hand brake is what drives the adjuster.

I broke a lot of scale off the handbrake lever on that side, and slathered it with anti-seize gunk, so hopefully things will stay smooth, though I don't know if the handbrake cable is free. The shoes were a little more worn on that side.

Once I got the parts, the job took about 75 minutes, though of course I spent a few minutes of that looking for tools. Would have been faster and less of a pain if it were on a dry sunny day.

The adjuster was working just fine on the left, which of course meant I had to back it off to get the drum off. This is my least favorite part of working on drum brakes. Luckily, last time I had them apart I took a picture and I was able to look at that to remember where the release was and what direction to turn the star wheel. I had to bend an old bicycle spoke to get to the release with the star wheel tool in there.

When I took it out for a short test drive, they felt a lot better than they have in months.

It's supposed to be getting cold again soon, so I may not get to the Taurus again for a while.

Data: New brake shoes on the back of the Windstar @ 104500 miles

Well, the check engine light was extinguished for the first time in years by a visit of the Taurus to the dealer earlier this year. So it makes sense that now other stuff wants attention.

The speedo has been acting wonky on rare occasions for 6 months or so. Usually it requires driving long enough for the engine to get very warm, and be doing over 60. Well, it got worse recently, and half the trip out today was spent with the speedo at zero, while travelling at highway speeds.

Then on the way home, the accessory circuit started erratically losing power. This powers the interior lights, the wipers, and a few of the warning lights. They were flickering a lot of the way home.

Oh yeah, and at least one of the brakes needs a new rotor. And the radio's been cutting in and out for a few weeks.

Ah well, this car gave zero problems for about 100K, and relatively little since then. I ordered up a new vehicle speed sensor, that's PROBABLY the problem with the speedo. $45, and I don't think much trouble to install. The brakes are an easy job too. The erratic power, I dunno. Depends on if it is flaking out when I try to test it. If so, almost certainly trivial, but electrical problems have a bad reputation for being real bears to find.

Heard from the dealer; the misfire was just a plug boot that slipped off. On this car that means TWO cylinders out, a V6 running on 4 cylinders. Since they just had the intake manifold off, they're taking the blame on this one. The smoke, they don't know but they say there's a bit of a leak on the pan gasket where it may have hit the exhaust manifold. They tightened it a bit, but since they put that pan gasket in a couple of months ago, they'll take the hit on replacing that too if it turns out to be a continuing problem.

This is all good since I had to authorize an $82 diagnosis fee (which I now don't have to pay), and I'm pretty sure they spent more time on this than they did on the original service. They JUST called me at 1:15 and they were already working on it at 7:30 AM when I stopped by to sign the OK. This dealership has always been totally fair and really reasonable with their pricing.

I don't have my bike rack or an old junky blanket in the car, so I'll have to go home first and get driven there to pick the car up. My bike won't fit in the car without disassembly and lots of greasy spots on the upholstery. We took the van to town for the parade yesterday, I guess if I'd been thinking ahead I'd have tossed the bike rack in the back, and thrown that in the car for use today.

This should be interesting. The Taurus has been throwing engine codes for years, but they're generally unimportant ones like engine running lean, which I assumed was a vacuum leak. I fixed a couple of large vacuum leaks several years ago and that helped. I used to have a misfire code but I replaced the plug wires. Also the EGR system was throwing codes a few years ago, but everything tested OK. I did notice at the time that there seemed to be a lot of crap in the EGR passages; a toothpick shoved in there came out coated in black crud.

RING - They just called up. Bad O2 sensor (I'd kind of suspected that; it's common. Also, yes, the upper EGR passages are all crudded up. In order to clean them they need to pull the upper intake anyway, so that'll expose and fix any vacuum leaks there. And they have updated software for the PCM computer that they'll flash in for free.

Also they're going to hook their magic machine up and do an upper-end cleaning; they'll put in some weapons-grade solvents to blast loose carbon. I asked them to do the injectors while they're at it, I know the same machine can be hooked to the fuel rail port and clean that up. At 130K and a lifetime of 10-mile trips on the cheapest gas in town, a good injector flush won't hurt, and it's like an extra $20.

The couldn't find the source of the erratic speedometer readings; their scanner said nothing about it. I may set up a camera pointing at the speedo and take the thing on a trip to Ypsi or something; I have a bunch of stuff to take to recycling over there. I'm wondering if it isn't just a bad connection on the vehicle speed sensor though, and they may accidentally fix that in the process of wiggling wires.

Also they were a little baffled about the rough idle problem I reported; sometimes at a light it'll just decide to start running rough, once or twice bad enough that it stalled. It does it for about 30 seconds, then it just stops. It's like a switch turning off and on. It's rough enough that it could be 2 cylinders, which could be a bad plug wire (this model has 3 coils for 6 cylinders, so a break in a wire results in 2 cyliders misfiring).

I wouldn't be surprised if that problem is there at higher speeds too, but wouldn't be as noticeable.

All told, less than $600 unless they find something horrendous when they get the top end off. Just about where I'd guessed it would be really.