Weekend Update.
Spent several hours retapping the oil drain plug in my dr’s daughter’s Beetle on saturday. The folks at Oil Express apparently used an impact to tighten it, the beetle was hemmoraging oil and when I went to check the plug it fell out in my hand. I’m boggled at the incompetence of some folks.
Anyway, thankfully to God, I found the correct oversize repair plug at The Zone, and got ‘er fixed. The engine still drips some oil, but it will, at least, no longer be in danger of spitting its plug on the highway and puking the oil out, causing the engine to sieze. $40 including the oil change later and she’s moving on down the road. beats the $1500 the shop wanted to REPLACE THE OIL PAN. THey said “Happens all the time. Someone put a steel plug in an aluminum oil pan”. For those of you who would have no idea, they ALWAYS USE A STEEL PLUG IN AN ALUMINUM OIL PAN. They were anxious to rip off a 19 year old girl.
My optometrist stopped by, also, his wifes new-to-her Benz M class is making a noise that annoys her. We take it for a drive and it seems to be squeaking amidships. The torsion bar suspension has a reactor arm that rubs against the frame and there’s a bit of rust under it, and it makes it squeak. So I put a bit of oil under it and it seems to improve. Mercedes wanted… well, you don’t want to know what they wanted to fix this. They wanted to replace the whole assembly.
Having an auto shop is a license to steal, I swear.
Took a moment from fixing other people’s shit to fix my own. The Exploder has had a malfing passenger door lock for some time. It is an inconvenience and an annoyance but nothing more, so I have ignored it. I am more and more concerned about someone getting in if I accidentally leave it open, so today I yanked the inner doorskin and checked it out.
Turns out the lock motor is working just fine, it just isn’t CONNECTED to anything anymmore. The rivet that originally held it in place has self destructed, so I disconnect the mechanism and drill out the rivet, put in a nutsert, and reassemble.
Sounds easy, don’t it?
The actual process was a lot like tuning a piano seventy feet away through a keyhole, with a sledgehammer and a piece of cheese. I finally managed to accomplish it, and now where there was once a rivet, there is a 4mm socket head capscrew. I assembled it all twice because I had to go back in and plug everthing back in that I had unplugged and forgotten to replug.
But now it works. And there was much rejoicing.
Finally, I managed to get the Cushman starting reliably. I have spent the last week futzing with the fuel tank- I cut a big hunk of rust out of the top, and with some good advice from Mr B , decided not to try to weld it. So I sweated on a patch, about 9″ x 17″. I ground the whole thing down and tinned it all with silver solder, then clamped and sweated it. And then fucked with it for three days last week trying to seal each little pinhole.
So i put it all back together and installed it, put in a gallon of gas, which poured on to the ground through a previously undiscovered hole.
I took it back out friday night, just before the storm hit, and sweated another small patch on the two previously undiscovered pinholes.
Then I REinstalled it, primed the fuel pump, and drove it out to the front yard. I parked it in the driveway and changed the oil, and it failed to start again. So I pushed it back into the backyard, and parked it. Today, I yanked the carb, and found that it had been varnished up pretty badly, and after cleaning and reinstalling it, the Cush started right up. And now the cleanup will begin and I can get this puppy earning its keep.
12 comments Og | Uncategorized
Whew. Busy weekend.
Some people do things because they CAN. With so many CANTS in the world, a CAN stands out like a sore thumb at an oyster opening competition.
You, Mr. Og, are a CAN of the highest order.
High praise, from you, teach.
By the way, I’m not seeking to imply all shops practice ripping people off, but enough do, that it annoys me.
[…] Og, on repairing a door lock: “The actual process was a lot like tuning a piano seventy feet away through a keyhole, with a sledgehammer and a piece of cheese.” […]
Some people do things because they CAN.
And then there are the people like me who do things because they HAVE to.
I can’t afford to go running off to a “professional” every time something goes wrong, so I do it myself.
And I usually even succeed, albeit after lots of trial and error…heavy on the error.
Which gives me even more appreciation for the skills of those who do simply because they can.
The local MB dealer here actually suggested the local independent shop to me, when I first got my old beater.
Seems they don’t want to spend their time working on 30-plus-year-old cars at $125 an hour, and would rather make the customer and themselves happier by referring to an indy.
I’ve used POR’s “U.S. Standard Fuel Tank Sealer” on several old cars and bikes – a bit messy and not particularly cheap, but it does what it is supposed to – seal the tank and prevent loose rust and such from getting into the fuel strainer. Did my ’69 Ghia tank over ten years ago – it’s still nice and solid.
It might be cheating, but that epoxy putty sold for fixing gas tank leaks works real good, too. My son’s ’63 Bug had pinholes all around the outlet fitting at the bottom of the tank. A bit of wire-brushing and some of that putty has held for over 15 years now. I did seal the tank after epoxying the holes…
I’ve used a product called Red Kote to seal the inside of rusty tanks and elminate problems from the particles. Also have used Bondo or Fiberglas body repair products on the outside of fuel tanks, some of which were pretty bad.
“Seal-All” works real well in some cases. Sheet metal screw covered with Sal-All right in the hole.
Actually, the sweated on patches worked fine. And I have a filter inline just before the electric pump, so it’s working ok. There are still about a billion little beads of silver solder floating around in there. LOL!
Ho come I’m getting the feeling that the work on the Cushman is really just starting?
I used to have an auto repair shop and some of the things the dealers did astounded me also. My favorite is a Nissan dealership that could not find a vibration on a pickup as it drove down the road. They replaced the tires twice and all 4 wheels and the vibration was still there. Took me all of twenty minutes to discover that the balance weight on the brake drum had been installed 180 degrees from where it should have been. I would have loved to be there when she went back to the dealership with that bit of information. Actually it was great sport to make a dealership look bad. Not very hard either.