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.

Washer repair

 Last month I mentioned the demise of our AC and washing machine. I confirmed that the AC was dead and I was waiting on parts.

So the belt for the washing machine came through, $50 for the pair which is about right for two belts these days.

The aggravating thing about washing machines is that the belts live underneath. Here I've propped the washer up on blocks to ease access. You can see where one belt goes to the drum in the middle and another goes to the pump at the top right.

With the belt installed everything seemed to be working okay, the bearing for the drum is a little stiff but I figured we'd get a few months out of it. Right up until we hit the spin cycle and water sloshed over the drum. Pictured is the drum cover, it was nasty with buildup.

This is the seal that the cover rides on, it had a horrible skunge buildup. Fortunately some soapy water and a toothbrush took it right off.

Here its installed, you can just see the cover around the rim.

And with the top off because it still wouldn't seal. About now I was thinking that it was time for a new seal. I rolled up some towels and put them around the base of the washer to absorb the water from this wash. When the wash was done I found that the tub hadn't drained. Somewhere in all of this the pump had failed.

So thats it, I'm done. I was willing to buy belts, I was willing to buy a new seal (another $50) but I'm not willing to buy a new seal AND a new pump AND a new bearing in the transmission. That last one requires the whole drum to come out. My fear being that I'll ruin some 20+ year old plastics that aren't obtainable.

Today, with any luck, I'll pick up a Speed Queen TC5, the workhorse of the commercial washer world. It'll be way bigger than this apartment model and should last a good long time. Speed Queen washers (the TC5 in particular) are known for being repairable. Its about twice the price of a cheap washer but hopefully it'll be a good long term solution.

Sometimes stuff goes wrong

 Whew, what a week, and its only Tuesday.

Last week I taught 5am to 10am for the European market. Of the non-US class schedules we have its my favorite because it leaves the day mostly open. The downside is that I need to go to bed early so I can get up early. Thus I opted to head north and stay in Cushman house.

Work on Cushman house is progressing slowly but there has been progress. Expect an update on that soonish.

Anyway summer arrived while I was gone. We went from typical New England spring to the dog days over summer basically overnight and of course the big old AC unit in the house quit. I knew this was coming, the unit has been in the house the 20 years we've lived here. Further investigation shows that it's from 1983.

So Angie had to suffer through a week with temps in the 90's and no AC.

Then, the day before I came back the washing machine decided it didn't want to go into the spin cycle and instead would stink of burning rubber. Aww geez.

I decided the AC was, obviously, the one to tackle first.

Of course I started by just turning it on, it hums but doesn't do anything. The front plate comes off with just 2 screws. I don't know if this is daring or stupid but I reached in and gave the fan a spin and it came to life. Unfortunately if I turn it off and back on it won't stay running. Its due for replacement, I'm looking at mini-split heat pumps, with Prime day coming up I'm going to see if I can get some kind of a special deal there. The good news I suppose is that I can still use it if I need it.

Okay, well, moving on to the washing machine.

Another piece of equipment that came with the house so 20+ years old. This is actually a stacked washer/dryer but the basement is too short to have them stacked. Anyhow these old washers are pretty simple, there is a motor that drives a pair of belts and the issue is that the belt that spins the drum full of clothes is slipping. The larger question is "Is it just an old belt or is something wrong?" I dunno. I can spin all the pulleys and they seem fine. I can spin the drum but it spins hard. What I don't know is how hard it should be to spin. The belts are $50 so I just ordered them, they'll be here tomorrow and then we'll know more. If it works I'll make a more detailed post...

Learning about VW brake calipers

 The challenge in keeping up with the blog is remembering to take pictures of stuff so I have something to show you.

Remember our 2005 VW Golf TDI?

Pictured here at ChowdaQ in 2016 this is the car I've owned the longest. Actually it might be in the running for the vehicle I've owned the longest. I think I got it in 2015.

So the old Golf is hard on brakes, especially the rears. I've posted a bunch of times about doing brakes on that car. One of the things special about brakes on a newer VW is that the rear calipers need to be twisted as the piston retracts. An easy(ish) way to do that is with a tool like this:

And I've done it several times now, the tool quickly pays for itself and I don't think it was terribly expensive.

The problem is that every time I've done the brakes on this car I've ended up with terrible pedal feel and the parking brake didn't work well.

Recently the pedal started to pulse badly during braking so I knew it was time for yet another brake job. Fortunately the parts aren't too expensive so I ordered up new pads and rotors all around. At the same time I knew I'd have to address the parking brake which didn't work at all.

After finishing the brake job I knew I was in trouble, pedal feel was AWFUL. Pedal goes straight to the floor. I know what you're thinking "air in the lines" but I hadn't opened the system so where would the air have come from? Plus the parking brake didn't work at all.

So, since I'd never done it I figured I'd replace the parking brake cables. Not a terrible job and they're weren't too expensive. Sadly, after the job was done nothing had changed. So I decided to sleep on it for a couple nights.

Well, theres the problem. Sure, right. Let me explain...

What we're seeing here is the rear of the passenger side caliper. At the bottom left of the picture there is a pair of vice grips attached to the parking brake actuator. The actuator is fully extended in this picture, so its bottomed out but isn't causing the brake pad to contact the rotor.

When I retracted the piston I retracted it all the way so the new pads would clear. In doing so I've retracted the piston too much so the piston isn't moving enough to do its job. Disc brakes are self adjusting so eventually the piston would adjust itself but commonly the adjuster gets a little stuck. I could actually see that in the parking brake actuator, it didn't retract well. A little squirt of oil helped. I cycled the parking brake a couple hundred (no joke) times but it just wasn't adjusting, or at least not enough to matter.

Heres the fix, you're looking at the caliper standing on its side. The cube thing inside the caliper has little nubs on it to engage the piston. Normally to retract the piston you turn it clockwise while pushing it in. The other tool won't work for that since you need to turn counter-clockwise which would also retract the tool.

Here my thumb is pushing down on the cube thing while I turn it with a big screwdriver. It takes a lot of force but fortunately it only needs to move like 1/8 of a turn.

This was all terribly difficult to photograph so please excuse the terrible pictures. I wanted to get the calipers balanced so I set them so the pads just touch the rotor when the jaw is open about 1/4" which is just under half the travel. In retrospect I'd probably go a little smaller, maybe 3/16 or about 1/3 of the travel.

With all that done pedal feel is MUCH improved and the parking brake finally works as it should.

The state of MA requires a yearly safety inspection. The parking brake was keeping me from getting it. Annoyingly these days they give you a sticker for the month your previous sticker expired so although I had it inspected in May I got an April sticker. Oh well...

The floor continues

 The difficulty with the great northern estate is really the distance from the great northern estate to, well, anywhere. That of course means I can't be around as much as I would like to and thus everything takes twice as long as I would like.

So, you'll remember a couple weeks ago when I started refinishing the floor in the camp. When I left the floor had been sanded to 80 grit and the first coat of finish put down.

I used an oil based finish with the old-school thinking that it would be a tougher coating for a floor that gets kind of tortured. The satin finish is supposed to not show imperfections so bad as gloss.

The result looked okay but felt terrible. I think that first coat raised the grain of the wood and made it feel really rough and unpleasant.

I'd used the entire gallon on the floor and couldn't locally source any more oil based finish, the stuff I could get was all water based and thus incompatible with what I had already put down.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I'm back with 2.5 gallons of the oil based finish, honestly this is the size can I should have bought in the first place. If I'd looked around a little more at Home Depot I'd have found it.

Because of the delay I needed to sand to 220 grit. I did that with my old Harbor Freight palm sander. This wouldn't have been so bad except that the backs of my knees were still sore from the 5 hour slog getting the floor flat. My knee pad straps had really dug in. I should have taken a few minutes to rig up my sander on a stick so I could do the job standing up. Oh well.

Once again I had to clean, clean, clean all the dust left behind and finally put down some of the new semi-gloss.

Semi-gloss gives a balance between that nice shiny look and hiding any imperfections in the job.

This is the dried 3rd coat just before I put down the 4th.

So with 4 coats down I'd intended to give a couple days for the floor to dry and harden but Independence day intervened and I didn't have a chance to get back to it. This is probably for the best, the longer it can harden without getting walked on much, the better. I'll be back at it soon.

While I was waiting for the floor to dry I took a minute to clean the accumulated cruft off of the pipe that goes under the dam. When I first walked out to the pipe a frog jumped. Later as I was cleaning he came back. Frogs are common around the edge of the pond but I rarely get to see them, they jump away before I get close. This guy hung out for 10 or more minutes just watching me. He was pretty big for a frog in our area, maybe just a bit smaller than my fist.

Well that was weird, again...

 You might remember back in 2023 when the burner element in our stove failed. I was sitting near it and heard the "BZZZT" of the element trying to weld itself to the body of the stove.

At the time I replaced that burner with one from eBay that cost about half of the official replacement. I noted that it was thinner than the original but otherwise seemed to work fine.

That was true until last September. I was up north hunting moose with my dad when Angie texted that it had happened again, only this time it was worse:

Where before the shielding had only melted a little bit Angie wasn't as quick to get the oven shut off and this time it melted but good.

I jumped on the internet but couldn't remember the model of the stove. I ended up ordering the same unit again. Interestingly this time the replacement is thicker.

I have a good feeling about this one, its better built than the last one. I probably ought to buy the proper replacement now, these are easy to change so just keep the right one around until this one fails. I probably won't do that but its what I ought to do...

Well heres a stupid thing

 Dad has a 2017 Jeep Renegade. During their last trip to Caribou the external thermometer quit and set to 128 degrees.

When that happens the car suddenly decides "You don't need any cabin heat" unless you use the defrost setting which is 100% heat all the time.

So I jump on the google machine and find that the exterior thermistor has failed. Chrysler says you need to replace the passenger side mirror, $350. Fortunately I found a YouTube video with a link to the part required. Its too bad that the video stinks because its got good information in it.

Anyway the hardest part of the job is disassembling the mirror:

I really shouldn't make fun of the video creator too much because I didn't get pictures of the clip locations either.

With the back of the mirror off there is a little like pimple down at the bottom of the mirror that houses the thermistor. Digging that out with a little screwdriver caused it to totally fall apart.

Putting the new thermistor on is easy although I did break off all the extra plastic to get 2 clean wires I could slide heat shrink tubing over so there wouldn't be a short. I then potted the new thermistor into the little pimple with some silicone sealant.

Totally fixed the problem and the new thermistors were like $10 for 60...

Unfortunately the failed thermistor sets a persistent check engine light. I own an OBD-II adapter for my phone but it was, of course, at home. I'd bought another one for dad but he's lost it...

When we're up in July I'll reset the check engine light but the good news is that it doesn't seem to hurt anything else...

A refinished floor

 Geez its been awhile. I keep thinking "gotta write the blog" and keep not doing it. Fortunately a bunch has happened.

Most recently I refinished the floor at camp:

This is a good before shot, you can see, down at the bottom the damage from 60 years of usage.

The floor is not actually "flooring". Its just 4" birch boards and family lore tells that those boards were green when the place was built.

I didn't realize (but should have) that those boards weren't flat and because they weren't flat I couldn't just quick sand them like I'd planned. I had to buy 40 grit belts and cross sand (sand against the grain) to flatten the floor. This took 5 HOURS on my knees with a belt sander.

The 60 and 80 grit passes took 1 hour each (16x24 room) although during that last pass my knee pad straps sawed 1 inch square chunks off the back of each knee... No picture, trust me, you don't want to see this one.

I bought a new "WEN" brand corded belt sander for the job and it was flawless. That first pass produced 5 gallons of sawdust.

After sanding to 80 grit I took my old Harbor Freight palm sander around the outside of the room, also at 80 grit. I bought that sander to refinish a hood to put on Hammie my '83 240D when I bought it the second time. That'd have been 2007ish. I've gotten good value for money on that.

Then swept the floor 3 times, vacuumed the floor 3 times and ran a tack cloth over it 3 times. Even with all that I still pulled up mouse turds on the roller while putting down the finish.

This is after one coat of oil based finish. Unfortunately I was unable to locally source additional oil based finish so additional coats will have to wait until July. Because of the wait I'll have to sand again to 220 grit. I'll do that with the palm sander, it shouldn't take all that long, just enough to scuff and provide adhesion.

Well that was weird

 Growing up my family had a gas stove with a wall mount oven. The two were separated but both fired the same way, propane from a tank outside. Since moving out on my own I've only had electric stoves, our apartment had an elderly push button range, our house has a glasstop Whirlpool unit.

Not so long ago I was sitting in my recliner reading while dinner cooked, from the kitchen I heard "BZZZZT" and saw a bright light. Fortunately Angie was sitting by the stove, jumped up and shut it down.

Upon investingation I found:

 I'd never really thought about how an electric stove/oven burner works. Of course I knew that there was a wire that got heated but it had never occurred to me that of course that element has to be insulated or it will arc to the frame of the stove.

So what happened here is a failure of the coating allowing the angry pixies to get out of the element.

Looking online there are lots of options for replacement burners. The official Whirlpool replacement is around $60. Aftermarket get as cheap as $15. 

I went for a $25 unit. These are super easy to replace, two screws and then the two wires above, pull the failed on out and put in a replacement.

The new one is thinner than the original but it's otherwise the same size and hooked up the same.

It works perfectly, there must have been some kind of coating on it but that burned off quickly with just a little smell. As of this writing it's been working fine for 3 months. Chalk another one up for the do it yourselfer, cheap and quick replacement.

I hope I don't lose my membership

 In the Procrastinators Guild.

Over the last couple weeks I sealed up the hydraulic tank on my garden tractor loader project. I got the machine back in 2017, you guys might have forgotten about it. Checking back it looks like I haven't written about the loader since 2017 which is weird, we've come a long way...

Heres a shot from back when I got it:

Last week I reinstalled the tank, it had leaked where I added the hose fittings so I slathered the inside with POR15 gas tank sealer. It didn't leak overnight so yesterday I fired it up. It did NOT want to run but finally got going, smoked a lot but I'll be darned if it didn't work pretty good.

I moved some snow out of the shadows on our yard over to the storm drain which gets more sun.

Everything was going great until:

That's the upper bucket cylinder mount, or rather there should be a mount there. Apparently I'd only tacked it on and the tacks broke. I wanted to move the mount a little higher anyway.

While I was working I finished cutting the bucket down: 

I took 3" off each side of the bucket, bringing it down to 38" which is still about 2" wider than the machine. Took probably 25# off the weight of the bucket making it much more manageable for the machine. There's still some more to come off but it's much improved.

I'm going to take it over to buddy Ben's house for final welding, he's got a big stick welder so I can really burn in the mounts, my MIG works okay but doesn't really have enough heat for the job...

That which bears me

 About this time last year Angie and I took a trip to Pennsylvania. During the return trip my 2015 VW Jetta TDI started to make a weird humming noise at about 65mph. Interestingly if you went a little faster or slower the noise went away.

I ignored it up until about a month ago when the humming turned into a grinding noise at all speeds. Sounded like a wheel bearing to me. I jacked up the car and, yup, definitely a wheel bearing gone bad in the rear passenger side. I ordered parts and then had to order tools. The wheel bearing is held in by an 18mm triple square bolt. I had a 14mm triple square socket to remove the caliper bolts but not one any larger. I was unable to find one locally so Amazon sent me a set of Capri brand. Hopefully the set will have all the bits I need..

The bearing itself is really easy to replace, jack the car up, remove the wheel, remove the brake caliper with that 14mm triple square socket, remove the torx (t30? I forget) screw that holds the brake rotor on and remove the rotor. Then pound a screwdriver into the gap that holds the cap on. Mine was really stuck, took a lot of pounding.

Then use the 18mm triple square socket to remove the axle bolt. This was REALLY tight. It just laughed at my Makita 1/2" cordless impact. I put the 30 inch breaker bar on it and added a 24" piece of jack handle. Took a lot of body weight even then.

As you can see the old one was really grungy. There are two bearings there, the inner one was okay, the outer was pretty terrible.

Installation is reverse of removal, no tricks here. I torqued the bolt to 130ft-lb and then 90 degrees. Along with the locktite on the bolt explains why they were so hard to remove. These are torque to yield fasteners, single use only. I ordered a new bolt but the bearing came with one so I've got a spare for what it's worth.

A test drive shows that the noise is gone but now I'm thinking there might be another failed bearing in the front. I didn't check those since I only had the rear of the car jacked up, I did check the passenger side, it was silent.

Oh well, in a day or two I'll jack it up again and have a look see...

1 day, 3 lawnmower breakdowns, and a bonus breakdown

Buckle in folks, this is a long one...

 It wasn't so long ago I made a post on Reddit about my old Snapper lawnmower

I bragged a little bit about the buy it for life (bifl) mentality of the machine and how it's been faithfully mowing my grass since 2010. Interestingly I posted about it waaay back when I first got the machine but apparently never updated for when I got it running. I wonder if I used it in 2009? I don't remember.

Anyway, yesterday I went to mow the lawn after being away for 2 weeks. Mower fired right up, I made one half loop of the tiny front yard and the blade got loose on the spindle.

This picture is actually not from yesterday but from a month ago, I've been fighting this problem for awhile now. The blade is held on by a nut that is stepped which centers the blade and holds it on.

What has happened is that the blade got loose in the past and the step has gotten enlarged so it doesn't hold the blade. The fix is to carefully grind the step back so the nut can grab the blade again. Actually a better fix would be to make a spacer with a step out of some hardened metal that the nut can push against the blade. Yesterday I used the quick fix and ground a little more off the nut, back to work.

Made another half loop around the yard, heard a "thunk" and lost propulsion. This is another long term problem, the drive system on this machine is super simple, theres a flat plate on the end of the driveshaft, under the engine. The "transmission" such as it is, has a rubber drive wheel that runs perpendicular to the plate. Push the drive wheel into the plate and you go. Adjust where the drive wheel is on the plate and you go faster, slower or backwards. Simple system, easy to use, easy to work on.

The drive wheel is a wear item and regularly needs replacing as the rubber wears, apparently one time I didn't get the bolts tight enough and I managed to strip the holes. I'd put them back with locktite but apparently that wasn't good enough.

I decided I would make this a forever fix, tap the holes to the next size up (3/8 up from 5/16) and put nuts on the end of the bolts. I scrounged around and found appropriate nuts, bolts, washers and lock washers and got it all bolted up and locktited as you see above.

Problem: the nut on the end of the bolt needs to occupy the same space as the brake shoe...

Rats.

I experimented with custom thin nuts but it's no soap, there just isn't space, so in this shot you see the final, the nuts cut off flush. I was just thinking I ought to go back and peen the bolts so they can't back out but then I remembered that drive wheel is still a wear component and will need replacing, in fact it ought to be replaced next year. When I order a new drive wheel I'll also order a new nut for the blade spindle.

So back to mowing, this time I managed to get the whole front yard mowed when one of the front tires went flat. Fortunately I noticed it pretty much right away. In the past I've failed to notice problems like this and run the tire off the rim, these little tires can be a lot of work to put back on the rim...

Of course the tire had come off the bead so here I'm using a strap and screwdriver to force it back onto the bead. Once back on the bead I could get air into it but I could also hear it coming back out.

That's the upholstery tack I found in the tire. Well what to do now? It was after 2pm so our local hardware store was closed and I don't have a tire patch kit, or if I do I don't know where it is. I poked around a minute and managed to find a can of fix-a-flat. Does that stuff work? Well this time it sure did, I put way too much into the tire, rotated it so the hole was pointed down and put some air to it. Sure enough the leak stopped and I FINALLY mowed the lawn.

Interestingly the rest of the lawn was mowed without event, no issues at all.

Bonus: While messing with the tire my air hose developed a leak. The leak is right at the end, the part that gets handled/bent around the most. This is a Harbor Freight air hose that came on a retracting reel, it was cheap and I've had it 4 or 5 years. Recently I had noticed some weather checking on the line so I knew something like this was coming.

For now I've wrapped it in electrical tape. Does that stop the leak? Nope but it slows it down a little and makes me feel a little better about it. Short term I'll probably cut a couple feet off the line but that's just a temporary fix while I get a new hose...