Well geez

 Continuing the theme of everything breaking, here's this week's foolishness.

Monday: 

Sure looks like we got our money's worth from those brake pads, huh? This is our 2018 RAM 1500. Unfortunately, it started making noise while we were away in Maine.

Anyway, brakes, especially front disc brakes, are pretty easy. Well, until...

Those of you who have been here before will recognize the effort here. In short, the rotor was stuck to the hub. If you look at the braking surface, you'll see a bunch of dents. That's where I hit it with a hammer. You can't see that I'd already heated it with the torch. Yes, the hub got a little scarred up. No, I'm not going to do anything about it. The other side was pretty much exactly the same, although it shed a lot less rust while I beat on it.

A real bastard of a job, but not really that hard. My local Federated Auto Parts supplier, shout-out to Fisher Auto Parts, had the pads and rotors on hand for only $25 more than Rock Auto. Rock needed 3 days to get them here, and I feel better about buying local anyway.

In other news, Tuesday:

 This is the pipe from the intercooler to the EGR on our 2005 VW Golf TDI. Just above the VW symbol, you can see a little bent metal clip. That's what holds the pipe to the intercooler. After 20+ years of restraining 13+ psi, something has worn down, and it'll no longer hold the pressure. Its real exciting when the pipe pops off. There's a big pop accompanied by a smoke screen from the tailpipe. Meanwhile, the engine sounds like it's on the verge of explosion.

 Fortunately, the aftermarket has addressed the issue. A simple metal bracket with 2 bolts, 2 spacers, and a new O-ring. It's not really an O-ring since it's not circular in cross-section, but they call it an O-ring, so whatever.

The holes for the bolts already exist in the EGR, so this is a pretty quick fix, made only a little longer by forgetting to put in the O-ring. I did put a little blue Loctite on the bolts. I'll check them when I change the oil, but I don't think they're going to back out. 

Okay, last one- well, two, I hope... Wednesday:

 

 

This is the output pipe from the kitchen sink. The side that doesn't have the garbage disposal. The circle on the right used to be the nut that held it in place. It tore apart as I tried to tighten it.

The circle right under the pipe is the "Tailpiece washer" which was somehow messed up. I don't know what happened to it, but it wouldn't seal anymore.

I'm sorry I wasn't good about taking pictures. As you might guess, I'm a little salty about this...

Anyway, the tailpiece is the bit that attaches to the strainer what drains the sink. I damaged the old one getting it apart, and the instructions for the new one specifically mention the tailpiece washer but, annoyingly, the replacement tailpiece doesn't include one. Fortunately, on my second trip to the hardware store, I mentioned it to the clerk, who knew what I was talking about and where to find it. I was going to bodge it back together with a bunch of sealant. I still used a bunch of sealant. There was a zero percent chance this was going to leak again.

 Okay, I wasn't going to take a picture of this one, but I figured we ought to be complete...

Looking down into the toilet tank...

The hose is the filler for the tank. It jets down into a tube. I don't know why. When I was a kid, the riser pipe had holes in it. Now they all seem to have a hose. A couple of days ago, there was a little pop, and the toilet got louder while it was filling. This exact thing happened at Cushman house back in May, but that hose just has a little clip. This thing is way over-engineered. Apparently there was some kind of tab inside the cap that held it to the tube under it. The tab broke, and now nothing holds the hose to the tube. I haven't even tried to buy a replacement. I suspect it only comes as an assembly. Two quick holes drilled, two zip ties installed, and we're done. I probably didn't even need to drill the holes, but the zip ties I had in my hand were too short, and I didn't want to go back to the garage for longer ones. I'm not even going to cut them off.

*Sigh*

On a positive note, after Wednesday's repairs, we went for Chinese food. Winchendon finally has a decent Chinese restaurant. If you're ever passing through Koi is worth the stop.

Oh Google...

Today Google announced its going to end Picasa starting in May. I've been using Picasa for a couple months now because Google Photos won't give me a clear link to my pictures thats suitable for using in this blog. I wrote about it back in December and the problem still exists for the same reason.

So what Google is going to do is make Google Photos effectively useless to me. If that goes down the way it looks like its going to I'll probably go back to Photobucket. I left them because their website is insanely slow... I should ask around and find if going the paid route with PB is faster than their free system. If thats true it might actually be worth it.

More on Manila

Actually I'm in Makati City but being that its one of the cities that make up metro Manila its the same thing.

Anyway I got here Thursday night around 11pm, I had a car service deliver me to the hotel which was real nice considering I didn't spot the currency exchange in the airport and thus didn't have any local currency. The hotel Citadines Salcedo is a nice hotel in the european style. The room has a card reader by the door which turns on the electricity for the room, you leave your room key there when you come in and take it when you leave although I've already forgotten it once and locked myself out.

It took me awhile to get to sleep and then had a hard time sleeping. Even though I was exhausted my body knew it was daytime back home and just wouldn't let me sleep. I finally got a couple hours snoozing before I got up to have breakfast. I wussed out and didn't try the Chinese breakfast which has some kind of chicken and a century egg. I'm told century eggs are kind of like aged cheese. I don't like cheese and I'm not super excited about eggs either so it just doesn't seem like a good idea. On the other hand when am I going to get another chance? Instead I had the cinnamon bun french toast which came with some of the best bacon I've ever had.

After breakfast I slept some more and then headed out to try and get some money changed. It turns out that Friday was Independence day here in the Philippines so the banks weren't open. There are private money changers but I couldn't find any. Out of desperation I tried an ATM which then ate my card. I called my bank and got the card canceled so fortunately nothing was stolen but its even more uncomfortable not having that fall back. I also didn't want to use my Visa card since I've had bad luck with them shutting the card off when I'm out of the country. Turns out this was a good idea. I'd forgotten to tell them I was traveling until I was in Tokyo, fortunately my cell phone uses wifi so it was easy to tell my bank I'm traveling. Sadly when you do that they then call home and you have to talk to them again before its really okay. Angie texted me to tell me they had called so I could call again and finally get it straightened out so that PROBABLY won't be a problem...

I spent a couple hours walking around malls looking for money changers and not finding them. I went through three different malls the most interesting being the Greenbelt which is actually a series of normal indoor malls linked by outdoor sections which were mostly restaurants. There is some security in these areas like I told you about yesterday but they didn't really mind me much. In one of the outdoor sections I found some really cool koi ponds:

There appear to be feeding systems where the fish are clustered and they're just going crazy for it.

In the Glorietta mall I found this:

Its kind of a sad little place with a couple coolers, LED lights and strangely some stand mixers... I didn't even go in but maybe I'll go back and get some more pictures, the Coleman guys on Facebook thought the picture was pretty cool.

In the end I never found any place to change money and was too nervous to use my Visa card so I couldn't buy anything. Finally late last evening I got a room service pizza which was pretty terrible but held me over, the nice thing is that since I was up during a time I'd normally be sleeping I never really got hungry.

Today I did much better but I'll save that for my next post.

Ignition et al

This was supposed to be a happy little story about using the right tool for the job, then things got out of hand...

Remember the other day when I did a great job troubleshooting and got the sunroof and interior lights fixed? Well at some point during that the horn, turn signals, flashers, wipers and washer quit working. Apparently this is a fairly common problem with the mk3 Jetta and a simple fix in replacing the ignition switch. The switch itself is cheap but unfortunately the one screw that holds it is in the most obnoxious place possible which requires pulling the steering wheel and the whole lock assembly. In the picture above I've just put my new 5 ton 2 arm puller onto the sleeve that adapts the steering wheel to the steering column. I'm sure theres a special place in hell for the guy who decided to not make the hole in the steering wheel the same diameter as the steering column and then only put a little tiny flange on the spacer. See the big wrench (1 1/16") below the puller? Its giving the puller something to pull on. I had to buy the puller because none of my 3 arm pullers would fit...

After I got the sleeve off I didn't realize that to remove the lock assembly I had to unlock the lock and managed to rip the assembly apart. Whoops! Fortunately a local junkyard had a replacement, I actually bought the whole steering column because I managed to bugger the threads on the end too, it was quite a morning. Here's a shot of the junk car I pulled from:

Now the new lock assembly came with a different lock tumbler but I don't want to have to use two different keys on my car so I want to transplant the tumbler from one lock assembly to the other. VW apparently never thought anybody would ever do this so they didn't make the lock tumbler removable. Fortunately they used a standard lock tumbler barrel so all you have to do is drill a hole in the lock assembly and stick in a pin. Well the instructions from VW are fairly vague so when I drilled the old lock assembly apart I had to also cut a groove to find the lever to push on.

Since I knew where to drill I did a much better job on the second one. Thats good because this lock assembly is staying in the car.

Anyway after considerable swearing I got the new steering column installed, this is a really lousy job because the column only goes in one way with 39 ways to do it wrong and you can't really tell which of the 40 possible positions you're in until you find out you did it wrong. Meanwhile you're standing on your head under the dash.

So finally, finally the new column is in, the lock is keyed correctly, the new ignition switch is in and ARGH, the horn, wipers, washer, lights, daytime running lamps, and high beams still don't work.
I went back and tested the original ignition switch and the one from the junk car, all act the same. So I guess it wasn't the ignition switch at all. Oh well, at least it was cheap.