All speeds ahead

Back in November I noticed that the second speed on the blower motor in my 2010 Dodge Ram 1500 didn't work anymore.

All the other positions worked but not the second one. Interestingly this very same thing happened in my '96 Dodge Dakota back in the day. You might also remember a similar problem with Angie's 2006 VW Golf. Holy Toledo that was all the way back in 2016. For the price of the thermal switch (about $1) that was a really good fix! I notice I was a little nervous about it but its stood the test.

I lived with the problem in the truck for awhile. I had planned on buying a new truck in the fall but with the world doing what its doing I've switched into money save mode for the foreseeable future.

So I searched around a little and discovered the problem was probably the blower motor resistor. Rock Auto had one for about $25 delivered so I ordered it up and in less time than I expected (good job Rock Auto) the part had arrived.

 Here we are up above the passenger's feet, its just two phillips head screws to remove the old resistor pack.

 Well theres your problem lady! Theres definitely supposed to be more resistor pack in that resistor pack! The resistor pack sits in the airflow from the fan to keep it cool. Over the last year or so the 3rd brake light was leaking water into the cabin of the truck. The 3rd brake light on this truck is high on the back of the cab. I goobered it with sealant and it doesn't leak anymore. It took me a long time to find the leak because it would either leak down the rear window and under the back seat or down the A pillars at the front of the truck and onto the front floorboards. I spent a bunch of time sealing the windows before I figured it out. So I think the high humidity is what caused the issue, probably combined with some of that water going down the vents.

This is the replacement part, its actually the second one I ordered. The first was supposed to come from Amazon but what arrived was a "Speed Sensor" of some sort. The seller refunded my money and removed the listing, I suspect they were selling a part they didn't actually have...

Anyway with the new part installed the blower works correctly on all settings. The replacement took me maybe 2 minutes. I love the quick fixes!

Oil changing fool

Spring is in the air and those spring showers keep coming. Actually it rains every week, its rained every week since June 2018 and I'm a bit tired of rain. I spent 2 weeks in California recently and it was nice to be able to go a whole week without it raining. It did rain one day but one day in 11 is better than 6 out of 7 we've been having recently.

Anyway it turns out that our whole fleet needs oil changes at the same time. I started last weekend by putting away the snowblower, that gets 5/8 quart of 5w40, I had been using Mobil 1 but since the '98 Jetta is gone I don't need to carry that oil anymore. The Golf gets Lubro Moly which is way overkill, heck the Mobil 1 is probably overkill but its what I've got around and its only 5/8 quart a year.
Next was the lawnmower, my 1965 Snapper Comet 30.

Thats an old picture but it hasn't changed much. I've been using Mobil 1 15w50 in that only because I had a gallon jug of the stuff left over from the '78 240D. When that jug is used up (probably next year) it'll go on a diet of 5w40, again it got 5/8 quart. After changing the oil I challenged my neighbor Bill and his son Jeremy to guess how many pulls it would take to start the old girl. I guessed 3, Bill said 2 and Jeremy said 6(!). It started on the first pull but I couldn't get the choke off fast enough to keep it running, I turned off the choke and it ran good on the second pull.

After I mowed the lawn I turned my attention to the 2010 Dodge Ram. That gets Mobil 1 5w20, the thinnest of the fleet. It got an STP Extended use oil filter because Autozone had a sale for that and the oil together. It takes all of the 5 quarts that come in a jug. I'm continually amazed that the thin oil is enough but I trust the Chrysler engineers, its made it 135,000+ miles so far with no real issues, certainly none related to lubrication.

I didn't have supplies for the Volkswagens and the day was getting long anyhow so I cleaned up for the week.

Today, a week later I started with my Jetta, this is its first change with us and as its at 60,000 miles I bought a 40,000 mile service kit from ID parts. I figured I'd feel silly if the air filters had already been done but I'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.

One thing I don't like about VWs, the 2015 in particular is that you HAVE to jack it up to change the oil. The 2005 Golf you could potentially do without jacking with a vacuum oil sucker, but on the 2015 the oil filter is underneath so theres no way to change it without jacking it up.
The Jetta gets VW spec 507 oil which is pretty uncommon, I don't think FLAPS (Friendly local auto parts store) carries it although I bet my local Federated Autoparts would get it if I asked. I got Lubro Moly 5w30 (the only weight that meets 507) from IDParts. My research online suggested it'd take 4.5 liters, my car seemed thirsty, it needed the whole 5 liter jug, the IDParts kit included 6 liters so I've got a spare, in the last 10,000 miles the car hasn't needed a drop.

Since I had it I decided to do the air filter and the cabin filter, both are easy, the cabin filter is very easy.

In both pictures new is on the right, both clearly needed changing. When I pulled out the cabin filter a bunch of leaves and pine needles came out too, I'm glad I did it.

One hitch in this job, after I was done and everything was buttoned up and I was moving the car so I could work on the Golf, the check engine light came on. Rats, its never good to have done a service and have the car worse than you started with. I had an idea what was wrong so I jacked it back up and pulled the underbelly panel back off.

This guy is an auxiliary water pump, notice the little electrical connection, that has to move so you can get the oil filter out and I'd completely forgotten to plug it back in when I was done. Hopefully that'll teach me. To reset the check engine light I had to pull out my wifi OBDII dongle, my VCDS cable won't work with this car, and fire up the Torque app. I needed to remember that for the dongle to work you need to acknowledge that there is no internet access, so frustrating...

After my experience with the Jetta changing the oil in the Golf was really easy and quick, the biggest challenge on that car is the metal skid plate. I noticed its dinged up pretty good, I'm thinking I should probably grab one for the Jetta too, both cars are pretty low...

Tire rotation

I'm terrible about remembering to rotate tires. Recently I'd noticed that the rear tires on the Ram were getting kind of worn down. We've put nearly 20,000 miles on the truck in a year so thats not unexpected. Knowing that if I don't rotate them it'll seriously impact their lifespan I knew this needed doing and yet somehow I kept putting it off. So at this point its a bit like closing the gate after the horse is out but I still dragged out the jacks and did the deed.

Having an air compressor and impact wrench makes this job way easier than it would be otherwise as does having a couple jacks. I lifted up the rear end with my floor jack and used the 12 ton bottle jack to do the front one side at a time.

Then tragedy struck, I cross threaded a lug nut and couldn't get it straightened out. The nuts are soft so they don't bugger the studs which are much harder to replace. So off to Autozone where I bought their ONLY Dodge lug nut, lucky day for me.

One annoying thing about tire shops and mechanics in general is that they put the wheels back on using the impact gun. Oh they'll tell you "I just barely seat it with the gun" but when you go to remove you find there is no frickin way. I'm lucky to have a four foot cheater bar that will take just about anything apart (200# guy on a 4 foot bar gives you 1000 lb/ft) but on the side of the road with only a lug wrench this would be a big deal.

When I put wheels back on I snug them up with the gun and finish with a torque wrench

Sure the tire monkeys finish with a torque wrench too but they don't turn the nut with the torque wrench, they just confirm the nut is at LEAST as tight as the wrench is set to. If the nut doesn't turn before the wrench clicks its too tight already. I've never made them back one off but I should, I usually just bring the car home, bust 'em all loose and do it the right way.

With the lugs all set by torque wrench I can bust 'em loose easy with the lug wrench and they won't accidentally come loose while driving...