Work Log
This page is intended to document my mechanic-ing activities. If you find any of it useful.. cool!
9/16/12
Got a deal at newegg.com on a Nettop computer with a 60GB SSD for $160! Built it up with Windows 2008R2 server as the home domain controller, OpenDNS server, news client, media server and outside VNC access. 1.5 TB storage attached via USB3. Running a Turnkey Linux LAMP/Cake stack and business DNS server in Virtual Box. All this in a box about the size of a paperback book (thinner actually).
Had a very hard time getting Tversity working again with my Netgear MP101 uPnP music players. I have two of these darlings that harken from 2002-ish. Working fine before the rebuild. Completely unreliable after. Tversity has gone pay-only so I tried a bunch of other stuff to no avail. Tried Serviio. Tried mediatomb and gmediaserver on the linux vm with an NFS share to my NAS. Finally found a beta firmware upgrade for the MP101s and the last free version of Tversity (1.9.7) and between these two and some online recommendations for editing the Tversity MP101 profile, I'm off and running again! Had a bit of a snag with upgrading the firmware on the MP101s. Had to install the old Netgear Media Server software on an XP box. Then had to rename the "upnp" dll in the add-ons directory to make it stable. With this in place I was able to put the beta firmware upgrade on the server and upgrade the MP101s
9/1/12
Its been a long time since I added anything here.. let's see, what have I been up to?
Mark and I did a rear-end job on Cyngus our 60's Pearson Triton. New rudder (two layers of 3/4" marine plywood laminated with epoxy, several coats of epoxy sealer and then several coats of fiberglass with epoxy resin), new stainless prop shaft, new stainless rudder post, rebuilt pintles with neoprene sleeves, new prop shaft to transmission coupler, cleaned and repacked stuffing box, new stuffing box hose & clamps, rebuilt the bronze rubber post head and had the prop repitched and cleaned up. New rudder is about 15% larger than the original as recommended by Alberg. She sails and motors better than new!
Acquired a 1990 Dodge W250 with the 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and an 8' electric/hydraulic plow. Have gone thru the shocks, bearings, seals and brakes all around the truck. Need to do some brake lines. Fixed all the lights inside and out. Rigged up an 8000' SmittyBilt winch on the rear trailer hitch for pulling me back on to the road this winter.
Tom and Kevin and I built a 28'x32' attached two-car garage on our Murdock place.
Finally had the grounds around our Murdock place smoothed out and loamed for grass and a garden. Had the driveway finished up with blue stone and the white stone layed 4' wide completely around the house, with landscape cloth underneath, to save from having to install gutters. I hate gutters.
Got some Goats to keep the brush down. They were a family's pets that they had to give up hence I may not eat them.
6/7/09
Emma's friend is going to sailing camp down in Lincolnville this summer and Emma is now more interested in sailing. Need to get the O'day idgeon commissioned and maybe even setup on our Great Pond mooring. She could take the kayak out to it and sail and Mary could probably get the kayak up to the lake on top of her focus. I think the Widgeon needs paint and some new stainless hardware on the forestay. Will have to uncover her and take a look.. Sounds like a good project to get Emma involved in. I think I'll put it in the garage today. I believe I have a can of Easypoxy red paint for the hull. Might as well use it!
6/6/09
Pushed out the last of the stumps for the house on Murdock. Case 450 is a little lean for the job, but as long as I worked around the stumps and cut off their roots first, I could get just about anything up out of the ground.
6/6/09
Had to move the Murdock brush pile because it got too close to the woods for safety when burning. Was very careful and very paranoid about the danger of being pierced by a stick while pushing the pile. Now I know why fully-enclosed glass cabs are standard on newer dozers.
6/6/09
Put the first coat of Easypoxy paint on Cygnus' cockpit today. Brenda and Joyce had put two coats of primer down first. Joyce painted the ceiling of the v-berth and head today. Miserable, windy, and sticky job. Got a bit of a sunburn too.
Put a regular 100psi oil pressure gauge in the Case 450 dozer on the torque converter pressure line. 50psi when cold.. 35-40 when hot (both at full throttle). Worked the dozer pretty hard today digging out stumps and the torque converter temperature gauge, which I thought was broken, eventually came up into the green range (it hadn't ever moved before today). The only gauge not working is the transmission oil pressure gauge, which reads to something like 300psi. Not sure I'm going to bother fixing it. Saw a gauge on eBay for $70.. pretty spendy. Have 12 hours on the new Hobbs now.
6/4/09
Put the 3/16" flax in Cygnus' stuffing box. Amazingly well-done instructions found here were helpful for preparing me. The SB feels much better and tighter than it did. The shaft is definitely worn under the flax and if it still leaks too much or gets hot after I tighten it enough for the proper drip rate, I'm going to put a new prop shaft on next year's maintenance list. Cygnus is going in the water next Tuesday! I'm taking the afternoon off to be there to adjust the stuffing box and then take her to Falmouth with Joyce if the weather agrees.
6/1/09-ish
Bought a 6x10 enclosed trailer to use for hauling tools and materials to the Murdock house site. Bought a set of shelves at HD and split it into two short shelves for tool storage. Going to use wood blocks but to hang handtools on and maybe elastic cord to hold them in place. Would like to put all my woodworking and construction tools into the trailer to clear them out of the garage and have a standard place for them to live. A little concerned about the effects of moisture and condensation on the seldom used tools. I think I'll give them a WD-40 rubdown before winter storage.
5/30/09
Over the past couple of weeks I took the villager manifold apart and put it back together again. I think the vacuum sucking noise and bad idle were due to a bad BPT valve (next to the EGR). Ran good when put back together. Still some exhaust noise. Looks like the front manifold has two broken studs, which were hanging on by a thread. Pulled the manifold (much much easier job than the rear). Broke another stud getting the nuts off, but it was easy to turn out with a vise grip after putting it through 3 heat/cool cylces with the oxy-acet. The other two had broken off a good 1/4 below the surface of the head. I was determined to not have to pull the head so I did everything very slowly and carefully. (I also notices some spare unused threaded holes in the head that I contemplated putting studs in and fabricating some kind of strap to hold the manifold down.. combined with Copper RTV, I figured that might work). The two remaining studs where both of the cylinder closest to the distributor and I had to unbolt the compressor and hang it up out of the way. This gave me barely enough room to get my right-angle drill in there, but I did. I drilled both out but couldn't budge them with the easy-out. Scared I would break it, I didn't put anything on it for leverage but a small wrench. At this point I figured I'd drill them out larger and shoot a couple of helicoils in. Lo and behold, in my tap and die drawer of the tool chest was an 8mm x 1.25 helicoil kit I'd last used (I can only imagine) on a volkswagen beetle exhaust manifold stud at least 20 years ago! I drilled and shot helicoils into both holes. (had to cut the helicoil 21/64 drill bit down with the torch in order for it to fit). Put the whole thing back to together with a regular exhaust gasket and the two compression ring gaskets at the top of the cat header and she purrs like a kitten! Inspected at VIP t and I'm be all set for another year!
5/20/09
Worked on Cygnus today by myself. Finished commissioning the engine, the new thermostat is working well. I put a bucket in the cockpit and ran an extension hose from there to the water pump intake hose. Then I ran a garden hose into the bucket to keep it full while the engine was running. Checked for any water leaking into the oil.. looks clean. Ran it for at least 30 minutes.
Removed the Head door. I've always hated it. We will replace it with a curtain which will make it much easier to move around the boat.
Replaced the head inlet seacock hose and started installing a vented loop siphon-break into the line.
Shampooed the cockpit and started sanding it in prep for painting. The gelcoat is just about gone on the horizontal surfaces so I think we will use a high-build epoxy primer on them.
Installed a toggle switch on the dratted ironic electronic battery health monitor. The damn thing drains the battery it runs from! This way we can turn it on only when we need it.
5/17/09
Working on Cygnus with the girls. Routing out cracks in the cockpit fiberglass to take some flex epoxy. Installed the new thermostat with it's spacer from Moyer Marine. Went in very nicely. Going to test run the engine on Wednesday. B put a nice coat of unepoxy on the bottom after J scraped it.
Here's the order for the cockpit cleanup.
Done - Route out cracks
Done - Shampoo cockpit and rinse
Some - Wipe all fiberglass with dewaxer
Some - Sand all of cockpit with 100 grit. Careful not to cut down into the fiberglass weave where the gelcoat is very thin (seat hatches)
Rinse with water and brush and let dry
Wipe cracks with dewaxr
Expoxy cracks and let them cure.
Scrub expoxy topcoating off
Sand epoxy smooth
Shampoo
Wipe with dewaxer within two hours of priming
Paint horizontal surfaces with high build primer
Prep for Gloss?
Paint with Gloss
(wondering if we should use a high-build expoxy primer before painting)
5/16/09
Put the rest of the Villager back together and she runs! Can't believe it. Anyway, she's running a bit rough and I'm sure I hear a vacuum leak on the top/back of the intake manifold, but I can't find it. A shot of ether back there smooths it right out so I'm sure something is open but can't see what. Going to pull the manifold off again to make sure I didn't leave anything unplugged.
5/14/09
I forgot that with my a/c manifold set there isn't a can tap. Picked one up today and charged up the system. Working cool and no leak.
5/12/09
Received the vacuum pump I ordered from Harbor Freight. Mary's Focus lost its A/C this Spring. Looks like another bad hose-routing situation (like the dozer). Low-pressure hose back to the pump was rubbing against a piece of engine sheet metal and wore thru! Unfortunately, one can't get this particular hose anymore. Have to buy a whole new hose assembly, with both the high and low hoses and a new accumulator because they changed the coupler. Decided to try mending the low hose with a 5/8" copper barbed male-male connector and double hose clamps on both sides. After running the vacuum pump for 30 minutes, left 30lbs of vacuum in the system overnight and it's still reading -30lbs this morning. Looks good! Will get some 134a today and put it in tonight.
5/6/2009
Mercury Villager - broken rear exhaust manifold bolts continued.
Ok, the drill worked for all but one stud. What a pain. Tried everything, even tried the welder and nut trick. That may have worked if I had started with it, but after drilling, it was too late for the welder.
Decided to pull the head. What a job, the intake manifold must have 30 hoses and wires connected to it. Got the whole thing apart and it probably was a good idea since the timing belt and tensioner look like they really want to be replaced too. With the head off, still couldn't get the the one remaining stud out. Picked up a used head from a junk yard, a gasket kit on ebay, a timing belt & tensioner on ebay, and a set of TTY head bolts on ebay. I figure I saved about $300 over parts locally. Have everything back together except the upper intake manifold.
5/5/2009
Sprung a hydraulic leak on my 1976 Case 450 dozer while building a driveway in Murdock. Looks like the main hose off the pressure side of the pump up to the blade spool valve was rubbing on the right-side brake/clutch valve and wore thru. Pulled it off (had to buy a 1-1/4" wrench) and took it to Traction Supply in Augusta and they made up a new hose for $60. Put it on and added 3 gals of Case TCH oil to the hydraulic tank. Off we go!
4/6/2009
Mercury Villager - broken rear exhaust manifold bolts.
What a job this is turning into. Took an afternoon to get the rear manifold off. Trick was disconnecting the EGR pipe at both top and bottom connections. Manifold was warped and 3 of the 6 studs snapped off in the head. Had the manifold machined flat in Hallowell. Ordered and received 6 of the new stronger manifold studs from Nissan (1/2 the price of the same thing from Ford). Drilled and ez-out'd two studs from the driver side rear exhaust port. The center two studs did not break. One of the center studs came out with the nut. The other will need to be persuaded out. One of the passenger side port studs snapped off in the head a while ago (lots of carbon on it). Very difficult to get to. Bought a new close quarter angle headed drill and some stubby drill bits. Tuff to keep it going straight in. Halfway thru it and stopped for the night.
3/1/2009
Saturn 2002 SL - High idle and missing
Throwing cyl 1 misfire and high idle codes. Tracked down to badly leaking intake manifold gasket. (common issue). Original gasket made of thin paper. New gasket 3x thicker. Bitch of a job getting the intake manifold off. Unbolting the power steering pump (remove the drive belt and pully first) and moving it out of the way gave me enough clearance to remove the manifold. Bolts are wicked tuff to get to, but got it all back together and she's running sweet and getting 39mpg again (warmer weather helps too).
11/27/2008
Sansa C250 Music Player
Got this cool little player from buy.com for $15 shipped (refurb). The shipped firmware doesn't allow one to select the usb connection as a regular MSC (mass storage device) instead of the new MTP protocol (which doesn't give you a drive letter) This doesn't really matter except if you want to run Rockbox http://www.rockbox.org, which requires the MSC connection for copying music to the device. Also, installing Rockbox appears to have broken the manual way of forcing the C250 to connect using MSC (1. Unit off, 2. Move HOLD switch to right, 3. Hold down the << button, 4. plugin usb cable to computer) Found an alternate way of getting the unit to connect in MSC mode. Connect normally. While connected, find the device in computer properties | hardware device manager. Update the driver for the device. Do not allow auto update. Instead select from known drivers. Then select "Mass Storage Device". Wait for drivers to update and finish. Disconnect C250. Turn off and back on. Reconnect. Now see your C250 as regular drive letter. Fortunately I bought TWO and I'm going to examine and backup the unaltered unit tomorrow, just in case I want to return this one to factory state.
update 12/1/08 - Found a slightly older firmware online and was able to booth the C250 in recovery mode. (Hold REC button with HOLD on and while connecting cable). This works for putting any firmware on the unit and the ver. I found allows the MSC USB connection to be specified in settings.
11/18/2008
2000 Ford Focus SE Wagon
Misfire after engine warmed up and at higher RPMS (>2000). Computer throwing code P0301 (Cylinder 1 misfire). Replaced plugs, plug wires and ignition coil pack.. all to no effect. Checked compression.. all good at 168-160-160-165. Problem went away after blowing clean the MAF sensor in the air intake hose (between air cleaner and intake manifold) and tightening the clamps holding the air intake hoses together (they were very loose). Speculating that higher RPM's generate higher vacuum in the air intake system thereby allowing air to be sucked in around the loose clamps, bypassing the MAF, which detecting a lower amount of air being consumed, leaned out the mixture leading to misfires.
11/1/2008
2000 Ford Focus SE Wagon
Car jerks side to side at speeds over 40mph, especially on curves or when pavement is irregular. Feels like the car is being blown around by high cross-winds. Replaced shocks and front springs (was time anyway) with no effect. Checked steering components and other suspension parts for wear or looseness. Everything is very tight except passenger-side rear forward control arm inside bushing looks a bit chewed up. Noticed that front tires are matched set but rear tires are two different types, with two different tread patterns and the passenger-side rear tire appears to be mounted backwards (sidewall etching instructs "mount facing inward" is actually mounted facing out). Put winter studded tires on the car, problem gone. Conclusion.. something to do with the summer tires. Probably the mismatched or mismounted rears.
update 02/25/2009 - The wife ruined her winter studded tires by running off the road and ripping a sidewall. I put the all-season tires back on the car (with two new tires replacing the mismatched pair) and the problem returned. Checking that rear control arm showed a lot more wear in the bushing. Replaced the control arm with a junkyard part (the bushings are not individually replaceable) and the problem is finally gone!
8/1/2008
2002 Saturn SL
Bought an Audiovox CCS-100 aftermarket cruise control. Big job to install. Installed servo in engine compartment outboard of battery. Ran control cable into cabin and attached directly to gas pedal. Installed magnet bracket on tranny bolt on driver's side, just below inner cv joint. Installed magnets on the cv joint itself and aligned with bracket and detector. Hooked the tach wire of the CCS-100 to the white wire connected to the coilpack (per some other internet research and my Haynes wiring diagram for a 2000 SL). Set the CCS-100 for manual transmission per instructions. Works, but cuts out randomly. Checked the wire with an alternator-type tachometer and noticed that the signal seems a little rough. Speculating that the logic in the CCS-100 that detects significant RPM changes and disables the cruise setting (in case you push the clutch in while under cruise control) is getting a false positive from the white wire. Set the CCS-100 for automatic transmission and cut-out problem went away. Have to be careful to not apply clutch while under cruise-control or the unit pushes RPMs thru the roof as vehicle speed drops.