Turning Wrenches

[bbgirlmichelle]

Warning... I'm talking about fixing vehicles in this post, if that kind of stuff bores you there's no point in reading on. If a girl and her Daddy fixing a vehicle from the 70's interests you, read on and enjoy

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I'm sore, in a lot of places above my lower back, but mostly in my shoulders and neck. It hurts to use my arms. It's a temporary condition though, and totally self inflicted. This weekend I took the time to do a bunch of maintenance to my 36 year old camper van. Yes it's actually older than me.

My dad taught me to work on vehicles when I was a teenager. I wasn't very interested in it then, but I love to fix things, it's always been a passion of mine so I love to get in and figure things out. I'm extremely grateful for the education he gave me and continues to do so all these years later. In this case the van wasn't really broken, but it had a number of things that needed attention which haven't been done in the 3 years we've owned it.

We're going to be camping every weekend in August plus a full week, another weekend trip and a week-plus long trip in September and hopefully a month long trip in November.

So the items we decided to replace in the van this weekend were:

• Spark plugs

• Spark plug wires

• Air filter

• Belts

• Wiper motor

We decided to start with the belts, since they looked to be the most iffy part of the job. To start, I loosened the pivot bolt for the alternator then tried to loosen the adjustment bolt *SNAP*. The bolt sheared off flush with the alternator. Well, we can't do anything about it while it's in the engine compartment, so lets get that out of there. We called up the parts store and they had a new alternator in stock for $80, the old one was looking very old, so for that price why not replace it. Since we had all the belts loose we checked them all against what the parts store sold us and found the fan belt was the wrong part, so we took care of that and got the right one while we got the new alternator.

So, back from the parts store, we put the new alternator in and successfully replace all 3 belts, thankfully the power steering adjustment bolt was a lot easier to loosen.

On to the air filter, well at least that was easy

Next we decided to do the spark plugs and wires. I taught Daddy how to change plugs and wires on a V8 engine, one at a time. Pull a plug, pull a wire, gap the new plug, install and install the new wire. Repeat 7 more times. Thankfully I learned this technique before finding out the hard way that it's not fun to try to find out where your plug wire goes in your distributor cap

In between these different jobs I'm working getting the old wiper motor out. It seems that the 3 bolts that hold it to the firewall are seized, time for some liquid wrench and more liquid wrench and even more liquid wrench... Well, we got two of the bolts out, the third one is way at the back and I don't have a long enough wrench to get at it, and I can't get enough turn on my socket wrench to loosen it. Guess I'm waiting for my Dad to get home from his weekend away to see if he has any ideas or taking it in to my mechanic

Ever since we've owned the van, it didn't like staying stopped while in gear. Basically it would stall when you stopped at a red light. I knew how to handle it, so it never caused me a problem, but I mentioned it to my Dad and he told me about the adjustment screws on the carburetor, so I looked at the book and learned something new. There's low idle and high idle adjustment screws on the carb. Followed the instructions and yay, it doesn't stall anymore I think I still need to do more adjusting on the high idle, it stalled today after starting it up, had to give it a bit of gas to keep it running.

My dash lights weren't working and I noticed that there were only 4 screws to pull the instrument panel off, so why not. There's a connector that connects to about a dozen pins in the circuit board that runs all the instruments and lights. 3 of the pins are broken. Guess that could be the problem.

I pulled out the multimeter and started figuring out which trace/pin was for what. The one for the lights was one of the broken one soldered 2 of them back on, the third was beyond repair and really not worth my time it was just for a single light on the speedo, which had 3 (now has 2) lights. The bulbs were cheap 69 cents a piece so I replaced all of them while I was in there.

Now I have dash lights, all of my instruments work and the V8 engine purrs at idle and roars at wide open throttle. I'm still sore, but the van deserved the effort we put into it, it's taken us on a lot of fun trips and to lots of fun places.

Daddy does a pretty good job passing wrenches

Well, he's the one that actually got the alternator out of the engine compartment and he got dirty and greasy too.

*huggles*

Michelle (The diapered girl that can fix her own car)

[drynot]

I am a mechanic by trade and there is something particularly satisfying in doing all your own maintenance work IMO. I know it isn't for everyone but just knowing a thing or two about cars can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars down the road.

[square_duck]

HEY! I have an old van too....wann work on it?? .

Didn't think so I have done work on it already, a lot of neglected stuff that my dad never bothered with, because he didn't care, and left it for someone else (IE me) to bother with and spend MY money on:P

Anyways, as said, doing a lot of your own stuff is actually a lot of fun and satisfying! I also wonder how many people here IE Kids) even know what a carburetor IS!

My van work I've done (or had done)

*Replace both heater hoses (one blew out when I had it smogged last) and I did that.

*replace a lot of the dash instrument lights that were burned out...that was kind of cool!

*lube the shift linkage detent, since it was REALLY hard shifting the thing into gear or drive, The detent had dried out, so I buried it in lube and grease and it works just fine!

*Replace the left front flexible brake line (had a mechanic do this because I didn't have the tools or experience.) and the origional line had swollen and not allowing the fluid to flow back and forth, making the caliper and pads drag on the rotor. Burned up the right side a few years ago when that side brake line swelled and practically locked the brake!

*also had said mechanic replace the thermostat, because I suspected the one that it had wasn't working. When the above heater hose blew, I was on the freeway and the thing over heated and I never got a warning light. I replaced the lights earlier...remember? so it should have worked. Replace the thermostate and VOLIA...The thing works great...

I hate taking care of stuff thats been neglected....it sad and such a pain, but I do a lot of what needs to be done, one step at a time.

I still need to replace the battery tray, as the origional is way past rusted away, and I need to replace a few other things and change the oil..(BFD ) But mostly it needs body work and paint...thats for later.

It's fun though, and I'd like to use it as a camper as well. Has a 40 gallon tank, so I can go most anywhere

As long as I have the $160.00+ to fill the thing up that is :rollseyes:

[Repaid1]

Love to work on cars when I can, heck I like to turn a wrench or screwdriver on just about anything.

To the OP I would have just jumped the connection or wire to the bad pin of the speedo light, to one of the other ones that worked

[bbgirlmichelle]

I am a mechanic by trade and there is something particularly satisfying in doing all your own maintenance work IMO. I know it isn't for everyone but just knowing a thing or two about cars can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars down the road.

Yeah, it is satisfying when you can do your own maintenance. What's even more satisfying is when you can take a vehicle that won't start and get it running again. I try to do as much of the work as possible on both my car and van, the car is a bigger problem at times though. It's a 96 and has one of those computers in it, which doesn't always tell the truth. My mechanic actually has the technology in his shop to diagnose things that my little hand held scanner won't/can't.

Love to work on cars when I can, heck I like to turn a wrench or screwdriver on just about anything.

To the OP I would have just jumped the connection or wire to the bad pin of the speedo light, to one of the other ones that worked

I may yet do that, but I got to that job at the end of the day, after all the other fun above and I just said screw it, 2 lights will work for now, at least it's better than driving around with a flashlight on the cowl to check fuel, temp and oil pressure every few minutes like when I had no dash lights. Plus, one of the plastic light bulb holders is broken and won't keep a connection to the dash anyway and I don't have a spare, so 2 it is

*huggles*

Michelle

[bbgirlmichelle]

HEY! I have an old van too....wann work on it?? .

No

Didn't think so I have done work on it already, a lot of neglected stuff that my dad never bothered with, because he didn't care, and left it for someone else (IE me) to bother with and spend MY money on:P

Anyways, as said, doing a lot of your own stuff is actually a lot of fun and satisfying! I also wonder how many people here IE Kids) even know what a carburetor IS!

Probably not many, most probably don't even really know what fuel injection is

My van work I've done (or had done)

*Replace both heater hoses (one blew out when I had it smogged last) and I did that.

I blew one of the heater hoses on this van back in december, it took until June for me to get around to replacing it. Too cold and crappy weather. I had to do it in June to get it smogged and insured.

*replace a lot of the dash instrument lights that were burned out...that was kind of cool!

Was it illuminating?

To be continued...

[bbgirlmichelle]

*lube the shift linkage detent, since it was REALLY hard shifting the thing into gear or drive, The detent had dried out, so I buried it in lube and grease and it works just fine!

*Replace the left front flexible brake line (had a mechanic do this because I didn't have the tools or experience.) and the origional line had swollen and not allowing the fluid to flow back and forth, making the caliper and pads drag on the rotor. Burned up the right side a few years ago when that side brake line swelled and practically locked the brake!

That sounds like fun, I blew a pad (get your mind out of the gutter) while coming down a mountain pass last summer on my car, metal on metal for 100km. Pulling up to a stop the border lineup using my ebrake was fun The next day I picked up new pads and rotors for $80 and replaced them all.

The funny part about that one was the first pad/rotor took an hour to install, the second took 5 minutes.... "Oh, that's how it's supposed to go together" while my parents and Daddy watched.

*also had said mechanic replace the thermostat, because I suspected the one that it had wasn't working. When the above heater hose blew, I was on the freeway and the thing over heated and I never got a warning light. I replaced the lights earlier...remember? so it should have worked. Replace the thermostate and VOLIA...The thing works great...

Be very careful with the overheating, there really only 2 things that will kill these older engines, heat and oil problems. Keep the oil clean and the engine cool and it'll just keep going.

I hate taking care of stuff thats been neglected....it sad and such a pain, but I do a lot of what needs to be done, one step at a time.

I still need to replace the battery tray, as the origional is way past rusted away, and I need to replace a few other things and change the oil..(BFD ) But mostly it needs body work and paint...thats for later.

It's fun though, and I'd like to use it as a camper as well. Has a 40 gallon tank, so I can go most anywhere

As long as I have the $160.00+ to fill the thing up that is :rollseyes:

Yeah, I priced out my drive down to Anaheim in November, at $4.00/gal getting 10MPG it should cost me less than $500 each way. We could fly for less than that, but where's the fun Camping in November where it's warm while we're usually starting to get frost at home is going to be awesome!

*huggles*

Michelle

[square_duck]

Was it illuminating?

yes very!

[chad334]

My truck 1992 Chevy Truck smokes a lot as the valves seals are worn and really the whole engine needs torn down and rebuilt. I have another good engine we took out of my dads truck that I'm gonna put into my 1992 Chevy 1500 truck.

Then, I'm gonna set in and rebuild that motor. Don't even need a manual. I can tear down and engine and rebuild it without a problem.

The truck has 159,000 miles on it. I plan and hope to take it a million or more. lol

My dad gave me the truck for my 18th Birthday. So it's special to me.

Chad

[Guest]

I build all my bicycles and motorcycles from scratch. I won't ride something I didn't build myself.

[babyscoot]

considering a few exceptions <like the race car> i only drive pre 80's vehicles. sold my 64 nova last year still hurts to think about it!!!! building a new one next year for NHRA stock eliminator a 96 camaro blah blah blah enough of that

back on topic i love working on older rigs, this week i have to do a tun up to a 64 AMC rambler one of my favorite brands of automaker, also this week my truck gets a new carrier bearing, and valve adjustment boy is that messy! its also getting a reaseal and a new oil pump. its got 98,500 miles originally i love my old 76 chevy truck 3/4 ton 4 speed 350 oh yeah carb rebuild to!

[Repaid1]

considering a few exceptions <like the race car> i only drive pre 80's vehicles. sold my 64 nova last year still hurts to think about it!!!! building a new one next year for NHRA stock eliminator a 96 camaro blah blah blah enough of that

back on topic i love working on older rigs, this week i have to do a tun up to a 64 AMC rambler one of my favorite brands of automaker, also this week my truck gets a new carrier bearing, and valve adjustment boy is that messy! its also getting a reaseal and a new oil pump. its got 98,500 miles originally i love my old 76 chevy truck 3/4 ton 4 speed 350 oh yeah carb rebuild to!

On the Valve adjustment, my dad showed me his hillbilly trick. I had a 70.5 Camaro split bumper Z28. The engine was pretty built with roller cam, roller lifters and roller rockers. This was before they made those really nice lock bars. So I had to adjust the damn valve gap about every 4 days. Probably should have been done every damn day but I was too lazy Race engines...ehhhhh.

'

Anyway. Had a small block chevy in it, 383 bored .30 over. So we went to the junk yard and got a set of old stock valve covers. Which he took and cut out the top half off. I had the nice spin down T head valve cover bolts. So I would just spin the 4 ends down to hold the things in place. He had a homemade one,. but I know you can buy one just about at any parts store. The bump start switch where one wire goes to battery and the other to the start bolt on the starter. Not turning on the ignition we would find TDC. And adjust Cyl. 1, then bump start it around to the next cylinder in firing order and adjust it. The Modified Vlave covers keep the oil from laking all over the place, but still allow the tools to unlock and then tighten the rockers. HillBillys are actually pretty smart.

[babyscoot]

yep thats how i used to do my valves in my mechanical cams, on the hydraulic cams thought it alot messier. having to start it squirting oil all over oh well, haha. my dad also used the old have a valve cover trick. i just sorta forgot about that. im pretty old fashioned most everything i drove had a solid cam instead of a hydro one. and i do know what you mean about the stud girdles. without them the valves will go out of adjustment a little more often. poly locks helped alot of that also.