A belated log of the SDL's life with us.

...

Friday, October 22, 2004

Last night as my wife drove home from orchestra rehearsal (late), a deer T-boned her in the SDL. She said she saw horns, so it was probably one of the larger bucks that are running around. (Scared too, now that it's deer season.) Took out the driver's side mirror glass (which scratched the side window as it slammed into it), put a small crease in the rear door, and wiped out the wraparound part of the taillight on that side. And put a very deep dent in the metal just in front of the taillight. Broken paint, etc. Messed up the hole where the light goes, so it wouldn't be watertight even with a new light assembly. The mirror housing look OK, at least. The side crease is probably a paintless dent candidate. But that bowling-ball sized dent in the back is trouble.

That car's a magnet for trouble it seems. We don't run comprehensive insurance on it, so this one will be on us.

Sigh.

Monday, November 1, 2004

Took the car to the paintless dent repair place, which had the best quote (by far) for repairing the body damage. First looks had missed the fact that the deer nailed the front fender, both doors, and the rear fender. And the mirror and tail light.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

The vacuum pump on the SDL is now making noises worse than the original (?) one I replaced 27 kmi ago that went 228 kmi. I did not remove the assembly basket, and I used the non-dam gasket. Same situation as that which had gone so many miles, in other words. It worked well and sounded good, but now it's making a bad clattery sucky noise, much like the original one did as it went bad. No sign of malfunction yet, other than the noise. But if it's bad enough that it alarms my wife, it's bad!

The car's in the body shop right now, but when it comes back I may keep the wife in the Chicken Wagon while I investigate the issue. I still have the original pump, whose only problem was a loose cover that perhaps I could secure. I also have a used pump that I could try, because I'm sure not interested in dropping $200 a year on vacuum pumps!

It seems odd to me that a failure could have been caused by the presence of the basket, since they didn't fail like this originally. The pump looks the same, except for the extra screws in the cover and the shrouded bearing. I left the basket in because I knew it'd get misplaced if it wasn't.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Got the car back from the paintless dent repair place, which also will do more traditional bodywork. They fixed all four dented panels: three paintless, and one requiring paint etc. Looks pretty good, probably about as good as the car did before. Total bill: $500. I still have to replace the broken mirror glass, the tail light lens, and the pinstriping on the rear quarter. 'Good enough' for 1/3 the price, sounds OK to me.

Also, the horrid vacuum pump noise is getting worse, so the car will be benched until I can address it.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

I finally had a chance to look at the noisy SDL, if only for a few minutes. I put it in the garage and popped the hood while it was running. It wasn't being too noisy at the time, but it wasn't sounding perfectly happy either. I can tell you it's not the cover on the (new) vacuum pump, but I'm not sure what it is. It's not the fan shroud rubbing the fan either. But what noise there was seemed to be more from the fan and/or clutch area, but that's really hard to be sure of. And there may or may not be more play in the fan clutch than there ought to be. I'll really have to dig into this some more. But, it's at the top of the list right now, so it should get dealt with fairly quickly.

The replaced-with-new parts list is: tensioner, fan, clutch, water pump, vacuum pump, belt. Not much left in that area.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

I got a chance to dig into the SDL this (long) holiday weekend. It is not the tensioner shock or its spring. Nor did it appear to be the vacuum pump, once I got the car warmed up so that it was good and noisy and had a little snoopy listen. Nothing was immediately obvious, so I removed the fan, clutch, shroud, and belt. Then I notice the smoking gun: the (new) tensioner was loose. The big bolt, in spite of being lock-tited, had worked halfway loose. I don't think that it had seriously chewed up the timing cover yet, I'm sure hoping that this is so anyway. At least, in the worst case I should have a spare timing cover from the wagon. That'd probably nearly pay for its procurement right there.

What disturbs me is that the 'new' tensioner now has a lot of slop in the bearing. As much as the old one that I replaced. (Though the old one's bearing is also gritty and crunchy.) The bearing is still smooth, but it's all greasy like the seal has failed too. I'm not sure what to do there, whether it's OK or whether I need to procure another one. (If I do, I might pursue just replacing the bearing in it.) Anybody got an opinion on that? How could its bolt working loose have caused bearing failure so soon?

What's this? More 'smoke'? Hey, another smoking gun! It seems to me that you shouldn't be able to grab onto the crank pulley and rattle it back and forth by hand. No, that's just wrong. The bolts holding the pulley and balancer to the big flange were loose, so I removed them. Many bolts were chewed through the threads by the rattling loose pulley. Now, that will make a bit of noise! The phasing pin is a little chewed too, but I think we'll just ignore that. I need to get some more bolts to replace the chewed ones, I might even have some in the parts car.

But wait, there's more. One of the bolts had lost its head, and was sinking into the flange under vibration. And had made it far enough out the other side to start milling a groove into the face of the timing cover! Aluminum flakes everywhere. Now that will really make a bit of noise! It hadn't gotten far enough to cause any lasting trouble, though. Good thing I took it away from my wife when I did! Completely explains the occasional nasty squeaking noise that would happen.

This poor car. Got a death wish, it does. I don't know if we'll be able to mount a successful suicide watch on it or not. But at least we'll be able to put it back together again with no lasting harm from this attempt. (As soon as I decide what to do about the tensioner.)

Saturday, December 11, 2005

I put the SDL back together. The (2) new belt tensioner bearings I bought were 12mm thick, to replace the (1) 30mm original bearing. That meant I had to come up with 6mm of spacer, which I made out of two 3mm thick fender washers in which I burned a bigger center hole with the torch. Messy job, and I probably need to re-do it at some time, since it turned out a little too thick and the circlip wouldn't go in. But I need a new belt anyway, and I'll tackle it again when it comes in.

The car runs fine. I stole 'new' bolts for the crank pulley from the 87 TD parts car. Also a plastic dust cap for the idler wheel. (The tensioner cap was gone.) I never knew I was supposed to have them!

Monday, January 17, 2005

Today the thaw hit, and the hill up to our house became a skating rink. I couldn't make it up in the Frankenheap (no real surprise there), and lost one of my new POS fog lights trying. (I recovered it, a bit of Shoe Goo ought to put it right.)

My wife couldn't make it up in the SDL either, and it has studded Hakkapeliitta 1's on it. That was more of a surprise. I managed to drive her up to the top in the 4wd pickup truck, but it was dicey. I walked back down the hill to take a stab at driving the SDL up, at least to the neighbor's driveway, rather than leave it on the main road all night. I take the hills a bit more aggressively than she does.

Anyway, a dog picked the worst possible moment to dart onto the road, no possible way to avoid it, and I hit it very hard. Lost the grille and the aux fan, or at least its shield, and may or may not have lost the AC condenser. Everything else looks OK. And yes, the dog is now an ex-dog. Very unenjoyable situation, especially as I think this is the second dog of these particular neighbors that I've run over there. [It's not their dog, it turns out.]

What luck we've had with that car. I think it's drivable though, and I plan to Shoe-Goo the plastic pieces together until they can be properly replaced.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

This morning I walked the road where I hit the dog, and found some more small pieces of the grille. Looks like I now have most of it. Can't work on either damaged car, because they're both at the neighbors' and not in our garage! It's still thawing, it's pointless to try to bring either car home in the morning. We'll just walk down to get the cars when we leave, go about our business, and by the time we come home the road should have thawed to usability.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

I removed the grille from the car and took it inside to glue together. Using Shoe Goo, I tacked all the pieces together and set it in a vise to hold it in shape while it dried. It's going to be a very ratty repair job, but it's only going to be for a few days. I told Jill to drive the truck instead today.

This evening, I straightened out the bent aluminum trim pieces, laid the grill down flat, and glued the trim to it more or less in place.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Installed the grille. It doesn't grab the eye anymore, though it's obviously messed up if you actually look at it. There are still several missing pieces, though they're small. New parts are on order, this gluing is just temporary to keep rocks out of the more delicate parts of the car, and to make it marginally more presentable.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Jill was complaining that the car unlocked slowly, and that she could hear a noise afterwards. I checked, and the pump was running for a long time after unlocking the car. Locking, it behaved as expected. Signs of a leaking actuator!

So I got out the MityVac, and more useful, an engine vacuum test gauge. (This measures both vacuum and pressure, unlike my [older] MityVac. The MityVac kit's fittings were useful, though. Newer MityVacs can measure and produce both vacuum and pressure. I'm thinking I should get one sometime.) I dug into the spare tire well of the car and liberated the pump from its nest, and teed the gauge into it. Then, I cycled the locks via the driver's door switch, while watching the gauge. Yes, it ran 'forever' on the pressure cycle. (Until timeout.) I corked off the pump itself and cycled it, and it built pressure/vacuum and stopped immediately. So, the problem was in the car somewhere, not the pump. (As expected, but it's good to test your assumptions first before going nuts tearing into the car.)

The next step was to go up to the 4-way splitter at the fuel door lock. I pulled off the fuel door lock connection and used a golf tee to plug it. No change. Next, I removed and plugged the connection to the trunk. Change! The locks behaved properly. Hey, if there has to be a leak, the trunk actuator is the best one to have. Also, it had been troublesome before, and I'd in fact sealed its body with RTV because of leaking. I think its time was up!

More digging liberated this actuator. I restored the other plumbing to its normal state, and plugged the line at the actuator. The locks still behaved normally, pinpointing the actuator itself as the problem.

Last year (?) sometime I'd found a 190E at the U-Pull, and had extracted from it all the parts of its central locking system (minus most hoses and wires, of course) to use as spares. I dug this out of the pile, and it appeared that its trunk actuator, though slightly different in appearance, would substitute for the SDL's. So, I tied it into the system, and it worked properly. It was fairly straightforward to install it, and after I had done so everything worked properly.

I buttoned up the car and told her it was fixed: for $2! (What I'd paid for each actuator at the yard.)

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Last week my wife noticed (bless her for watching closely!) the alternator light flickering on and off, so I told her to quit driving it and use something else until I could address the issue. (Chicken Wagon to the rescue again!) I figured it was the brushes going out, and that I'd need to change them. After all, that's extremely common.

So today I got time to look into it. Examining the situation, it appears that you need to get at the brush pack from the bottom of the car, so I jacked it up in preparation for removing the belly pan and taking out the brush pack for a look-see. While standing around at the front of the car woolgathering, and looking over the dog damage, I happened to notice that the belt tensioner spring looked funny. As in: half there. What an odd optical illusion, I thought. So I looked closer. Not an odd optical illusion at all, it had broken in half, and the bottom part was gone! The odd part is that the belt hadn't derailed. Not yet, anyway. So she hadn't lost engine cooling, nor did she notice a lack of power steering.

I'm thinking the earlier loose-crank-pulley situation had severely stressed this spring, which in conjunction with its age (250 kmi) caused its demise.

Now what's the point of having a parts car for your SDL motor in the woods, if you don't harvest parts off of it? So I again went to the 300TD, and snagged the tensioner spring off of it and put it on the car. There, done. I also fished the bottom half of the original spring off of the belly pan where it had been lying there quietly, then I let the car down and told my wife that she could drive it again if she wanted to. I didn't even lose too much time as a result of not going through a proper diagnosis procedure, just the time I wasted jacking up the car.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Yesterday the used eBay tail light was delivered, so I installed it this morning. Easy-squeezy, and no problems with the fit, etc. It looks good, and fits well, though in the bright sunlight the reverse lamp is obviously more yellowed than the other (new-ish) one. Thus ends the suicidal deer episode. Final tally: about $675. Stupid deer.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Before leaving for home from my parents house, I washed the car since it was so filthy. (My wife had been complaining for some time.) We were going to be taking off immediately so I left the keys in it. Mistake! My wife went to open the trunk to put in some stuff, and when she poked the button she heard the car lock itself. WTF? Ain't supposed to do that. No problem, except that the only set of keys we had with us, my wife's with the keyless remote, was now locked inside! (That'll teach me to leave my keys home when I fly.)

OK, that's a big PITA. With the help of my brother (the mechanic) we were able to pry the door frame open enough using a plastic wedge so that a piece of bent welding wire could be used to hook the knob, unlocking the door. Opening the door set off the alarm, but it was an easy matter to grab the keys and disarm it. This little side-event only cost us an hour!

One oddity is that the keyless fob no longer seems to work, though it lights up normally. Perhaps the keyless wart, which lives in the (leaking) trunk got wet? Will have to investigate when I get more time, but that's not going to be particularly soon. The car was so filthy because I told my wife not to wash the car until the badly-leaking trunk could be dealt with. The deer-broken tail light was obviously not the only problem. With all the shots to the ass this car's taken in its life, the trunk lid no longer fits right.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Yesterday's door-prying sprung the window frame enough that there was a small wind leak. I he-manned it back into place. Good thing my wife wasn't watching, it's a brutal procedure!

Monday, March 14, 2005

Having lived with no keyless entry system for about a month, to my wife's great annoyance, I finally tackled this problem. First I got out the spare fob, and found that it operated perfectly. Then I swapped fob batteries, for no apparent change.

Next I retrained the keyless wart with the two fobs' identities. (It's not entirely obvious when/why to do this from the manual, but I was able to eventually puzzle it out.) That did the trick. It seems that the keyless system went insane that morning when it locked us out, and lost the fob's identity at the same time. No real clue how this could have happened, it would take a lot of water to drown the keyless wart where it lives on the side wall of the spare tire well. Testing after the retraining showed no anomalies.

Since the weather has been so warm lately I think winter is over, so I swapped back the summer tires. Easier to say than to do! Still takes less time out of my life to do it myself than to go to the tire shop and wait for them to do it, even though it's free, and I get exercise too.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Put more PS fluid in. There's definitely a leak, last night it was groaning again, and this morning the level was down below the filter. I've been putting off dealing with this, but it's looking like I won't be able to for much longer.

At least last night at our concert, where I had to get into and out of the car several times, the keyless entry worked perfectly again.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

While filling up, I had my wife check the mileage since the last oil change. 5800! (Over my target 5000 mile number. As usual. Man, she really racks up the miles on this thing.) We were going home, and then immediately out again to a party. We expected to get back late enough that I wouldn't be wanting to do this job then, and by morning (when my wife was going to take a moderate road trip) the oil would be too cold to suck out easily. So, it was now or never! In a flash I fired up the topside oil sucker and had it vacuumed out while my wife was still inside getting ready. I popped the cap off the filter to let it drain better (I wasn't changing the filter this time, I usually only do that every other time) and it sucked out pretty quickly since it was so hot. Not hot enough to collapse the vacuum hose, however, so it was all OK. While in the area I sucked out the PS reservoir too, and put in fresh fluid. (With the leak it sometimes runs low and groans, and the fluid gets pretty mucked up then. It smelled a bit burnt, so I thought a change was in order.) It didn't take too long to dump in two gallon jugs of Delo either, and I was just closing the hood when she came out to the garage to start loading up the car.

She looked surprised, and was impressed at how quickly that job can be done. Yes, honey, there are a few reasons this car is superior to your old Escort!

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Picked up a set of decently-priced used Euro headlights for the car on eBay, complete with vacuum adjuster stuff. Someday...

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Today at lunch my wife opened the sunroof at my boy's request, and when she tried to close it, it jammed! Crap. We were able to fiddle with it enough to get it closed, but it's definitely broken now. That won't be any fun to put right.

Sigh. Death-wish SDL indeed.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Yesterday and today we went on a 380-mile road trip to Walla Walla, and I tried for an economy run: I kept it to about 2500 RPM, or a little less than 60 MPH. The trip down was on slightly slower secondary roads, while the trip back was on the primary roads but had the AC on (with minor [but adequate] cooling). The car seemed to like it, and turned in a respectable 30.2 MPG.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Installed the upgraded keyless entry system I bought for the car. Easy, and works great. Now both Jill's SL and this car can be operated from the same fob. The old keyless unit (still functional) was retired back into its box for later re-use (maybe). While I was there in the trunk I unplugged the sunroof motor so we won't accidentally forget that it's broken and jam it. (And with a three-year-old around, such accidents are much more likely!)

Also 'tested' the AC system. Again. Seems to be an annual event, though this year there was still a fair amount of residual pressure. Enough to cool a little, but not well. Got 45 °F vent temperatures during the test, although the ambient temperature was only about 80 °F. Good enough, probably. For whatever reason (capacity? H-bridge expansion valve?) this car never sees the low vent temperatures during the test that some of our others do, though the car is always perfectly comfortable.

Took the car for a shopping trip, and it worked well. It was a beautiful Friday, and I hit three stores and four garage sales (on the way back). The AC worked nicely, and the keyless entry system worked just fine. A success!

Monday, June 13, 2005

While out shopping, we heard a strange scraping noise once when starting off, it sounded like something to do with the front wheel. Couldn't find anything wrong, though. Howver, at the very next start there was an immediate loud scraping noise once the motor was started. I killed the motor and popped the hood, and found that the fan shroud had broken (at its thinnest point, of course) and was caught up in the fan. I was able to bend it out of the way temporarily. It should be repairable, but WTF!

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Removed the fan (a real knuckle-buster!) using an allen wrench socket bit and a box-end wrench over the shaft (no room for the ratchet wrench), and pulled out the fan shroud. Splinted the break in the shroud with two pieces of thick sheet metal, and potted the joint with Shoe Goo.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Installed the repaired fan shroud.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Wife picked up a screw in one of the tires somewhere. Took it off and dropped it off at Les Schwab, and they fixed it gratis. (We bought the tires there.) Guy said 'tis the season, and they're getting a lot of screws in tires now due to home improvements.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

This car's not getting driven much in high convertible season, but today I had it out of the garage so we could do some painting inside, and I washed the car. As the recycling was building up, the car was out, and it has a big trunk, I took it to town today to drop off the worst-full bins and do some shopping.

It was a pretty warm day, the car's thermometer said it was about 100 °F outside, and the AC seemed a bit puny. It has a slow leak to be sure, but more to the point it's hard to charge it properly on a less-than-evil hot day, so I added some more refrigerant when I got home. On the test drive it was getting 52 °F vent temps, which seemed better.

I also noticed that one of the brackets holding the AC condensor in was broken, probably from the dog incident. While it can probably be welded, it's obvious that I'd rather not! I smashed up a wad of epoxy putty and jammed it in there, we'll see if it holds. I don't want the condensor flexing back and forth with vibration and inducing any cracks in the operative parts.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The in-laws are in town, and this car's getting a workout since it'll hold everybody.

Friday, August 19, 2005

My keyless fob had stopped working this car, but Jill's still worked. As did the others, so it appeared that the keyless 'brain' had forgotten its training. So I got out all four fobs and repeated the training sequence. It's fine again. Weird.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Today turned out to be snow tire day. (It snowed last night.) This was somewhat of an inconvenient surprise, as my wife needed to drop a friend off at the airport in the early AM. My usual trick is to wait until the day I wake up to snow, and then swap the tires before going out. That didn't work today! She managed to make the trip OK on its fairly new all-season Toyo's, but she did report some skidding around. I did the swap after she got back.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Heard an intermittent noise from the blower that sounds like a leaf stuck in it. I hope that's all it is.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

My wife called me and said the instrument cluster was suddenly inoperative, but that otherwise it was working fine. She suspected a fuse and was worried about lights for her upcoming night driving, so I dropped by where she was parked and checked it out. Fuse #6! Blown solidly, with little black smudge. Odd, nothing seemed amiss otherwise. She wouldn't have really missed anything on Fuse #6 except the brake lights! I put in one of the spares and went on my way.

Thursday, April 6, 2006

I sat in the driver's seat for the first time in awhile today, and immediately asked my wife "How long has the seat been broken?" It lists to the left now, feels like a broken spring. She: "What do you mean?" Me: "Didn't you notice it go 'poink' when you sat in it and it dumped you to the left?" She: "Huh?"

I'm gonna have to dive into that before it pokes a hole in the seat pad. I sure wish she wouldn't flop down into the seat the way she does. Like a... no, I think I'd better not go there!

Friday, April 7, 2006

I pulled the driver's seat (what a PITA!) to find that yes, indeed, there is a broken spring. Fortunately it hadn't poked too far into the pad yet. The break was out in the middle where access would be easy once the motorized frame was removed. While I do have extra springs from the boneyard heated seats I procured (for the heaters, so I can put them in our SL's), installing them would not be a quick job. I decided that I could weld this break in place much easier.

To get the motorized frame off you have to be able to run it back and forth to gain access to the various screw heads. If you pull the plugs to the motors from the controller module you can see that two of the five contacts are much larger than the others. These are the motor connections, and it was an easy matter to hook a battery to them to move them, reversing the polarity as necessary. The fun part is in guessing which motor and plug is the one you need.

With the frame removed I laid old carpeting over the stump I use as a welding prop and the ground, so that the seat wouldn't be scuffed, and placed the seat for easy access to the bottom. Then I soaked a bunch of old towels in water and laid them over everything so that only the spring break (!) was exposed. That protects everything from flying bits of molten metal. The ground clamp was secured to one of the noninsulated crimps that hold the (coated) springs together. (I theorized that the coating was penetrated by the crimped metal. In fact it was.) Then I wedged the two broken ends together and hit them with the MIG. Zap! The ends were secured. This, however, is an insufficient fix as welding springs ruins their temper; I don't believe that this kind of fix would hold long by itself. What I did next was wrap the break in a bandage of mild sheet steel, a 1/4" strip that had been cut out of another project. I then welded the wraps together so that it is semi-solid. This, I hope, will hold it all together. (I have done similar fixes before and none have broken to my knowledge, but none have been subjected to she-who-must-drop-from-a-height for any length of time.)

I put the seat on the ground and sat on it, and it felt better to me. Reinstallation promises to be just as much of a pain as removal was. But it's time for breakfast.

...As the seat was out I decided to try to do something about the small tear in the bolster. It's gotten no worse in the years that we've had it, so I have hopes that a repair will hold. I used big wooden clamps to compress the bolster a bit, smeared contact cement on both surfaces I wanted to glue together and let it dry until tacky. Then I pressed the seam together. It held. I then got out the leftover cream beige Leatherique dye and painted it on over the raw leather. Looks pretty good, especially when compared to before. We'll see if it holds up.

Reassembly of the seat was a pain. The seat can go onto the motorized frame in two positions, one of them is not right. Believe it or not the seat can be run an inch or two farther forward if you put it together using the other set of holes. With enough fooling around I got it back together and into the car. It took a couple of hours, this is not a quick job. Much of the difficulty is because of the motorized seats. Manual ones would have much quicker to deal with.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Long past time to take the snow tires off, finally got a chance today. The changeover was uneventful.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

As the day was hot (92+°F) I got out the AC gauges. The pressure (and charge) was negligible, so I filled it, this looks like it's going to be an annual (or semi-annual) event, at least until the leak is identified and repaired. On a test drive the vent temperatures got to about 51 °F, not great but acceptable.

After recharging the compressor was definitely cycling when set on MIN, even though the vent temperatures aren't really that low. It may be that the evaporator temperature sensor is a bit out of whack, I've heard of this happening, but spot-checking it by getting a real thermometer on there is not easy. (I'm told that overpressure can also cause cycling off, so that might do it. The test refrigerant tends towards higher-than-R12 pressures in this car.)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

My wife called me from the road to announce that one of the wiper assemblies had just flown off the car! She eventually found it in the bushes and decided that it was missing the spring clip that holds it in place. At my suggestion, she lashed it in place with a plastic shopping bag, the flimsy kind. Great, we've got a road trip planned tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Cross-state road trip, 99+°F out there, AC on pulling a decent grade and the engine temperature never beat about 110 °F; not great, but passable. The AC was working very well the entire trip.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

On the way home we parked next to a well-used manual-tranny 240D in a parking lot in Lake Chelan. Fun to tweak my wife by 'looking' at it.

On the grades up out of the hole to Waterville the car again pushed 110+°F engine temps, though the AC was not on at that time and exterior temps were only in the mid-70's. Something in the cooling system is marginal, I'm pretty sure it's the radiator. Still, the car behaved well the entire trip, and even got 32 MPG on one leg over back roads diagonally up from Long Beach to Roy. (Bracketing fillups were in Astoria and Cle Elum, both sub-$3/gallon at Safeway stores.)

Got some interesting information on the electronic speedometer used in these cars:

The heart of the speedo is an ITT UAF2115 integrated circuit. You can see the whole datasheet for this chip at: http://www.datasheet4u.com/html/U/A/F/UAF2115_ITT.pdf.html

MBZ uses a small generator (frequency proportional to speed) instead of a circuit interrupter so there is additional circuitry to generate the required waveform. The best coverage I found was at: http://cleanflametrap.com/speedo.html. This link is actually for a 1991 120 MPH speedo but the circuit is almost identical to my 1882 85 MPH speedo. The main difference was my "setting" resistor was 59 ohms vs. 51 Ohms (connected between ground and pin 4 or pin 7 of the IC). Note that the data sheet numbers pins as if the 2115 were a 12 pin IC and the "cleanflametrap" link numbers the pins like an 18 pin IC. Also, it seems some of the resistors may be "selected" to tune the speed reading.

The mechanical part of the speedo assembly is impressive although mine was quite different from the photos of the 1991 model. But both contain a stepping motor that drives the odometer through a gear train and a separate ammeter that indicates speed. Both are connected directly to the 2115 chip except for electrolytic capacitor(s) across the ammeter that smooth the current pulses because are too quick for the mechanical needle to respond.

So I replaced the shorted capacitor and the speedo needle now moves when I spin the rear wheels on the jack stand. I'll road-test tomorrow and report.

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Some notes I received on potential sources for replacement AC compressors (not that I need one yet).
These cars have the 10P15:

I found a 10PA17C off a 90 Camry that I'd like to use. If I put the SDL clutch on it, it looks like it is a bolt-up if I can find the right manifold. The bolt spacing parallel to the shaft on a 10P is about 2" while the same spacing on a PA is about 2-1/2" to 2-3/4" Since both were used on MB, I think I should be able to come up with a manifold.

I like the 10PA17 because it has a bigger displacement than the 15 and I think it might cool better at lower speeds than the 15.

I didn't think anyone else on the list would care much about all this detail. I did get a 10P15C in case this experiment fails, and i also have the option of cutting the MB hoses and splicing on the Toyota hoses, since I got the fitting end of them also with the 10PA. If I am successful in the end, I will try to write up what worked for the list.

There are LOTS of 10PA in the PnP lot. Some look like they are in good condition. All the 10P compressors I saw look like they are 20 years old and either dead, or subject to seal failure in the near future. Looks to me that a 10PA conversion will give me a source of cheap compressors for awhile. ($25 each)

Thursday, August 24, 2006

RF tire's leaking again. I took it off to find a nail in it, so took it to Schwab where they repaired it. They noted that the tread is about half gone, which is more than 50% of the life used up, and that the tires will need replacing not too far off. I checked the records, and the tires are 3.5 years old, with 46,000 miles on the car since they were bought. (Some fraction of that on the winter tires.)

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Wife's been complaining that the keyless entry is not working (again). Thinking that the system had again somehow managed for forget its training I grabbed all four fobs and headed out to retrain it. Once there I found that her fob worked great, the lights flashed and all but the locks just didn't cycle. (They worked fine with the key.) "Oh yeah", she says, "the lights work fine." Thanks for telling me that to begin with, Honey! Anyway, I dug into the trunk and found that the red wire to the keyless unit had corroded off of the resistor that was inserted into the yellow line to the locks. Somehow there's been water getting into the trunk well. I resoldered the wire back on and the keyless system worked again.

I also noticed, and my wife subsequently reminded me, that one of the rear door courtesy lights had fallen out of its hole and gotten smashed when the door was closed. More to fix!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I glued together the pieces of the shattered courtesy light. It was all there, except for the light bulb itself. (And the missing tab that had let it fall into the door frame in the first place. I glued on a bit of metal to take its place, I can bend it to fit.)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Scraped up another light bulb and installed the repaired courtesy light. Ugly POS, but that doesn't matter, you can't see the lamp in use anyway.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

The lashed-on windshield wiper blade finally fell off. I tried to lash it back on, in the dark and the rain, but when it screeched on the glass again after the first swipe we had to turn back and get another car. I hope it didn't scratch the glass. (Driving in the rain at night without wipers was pretty annoying.)

Later, in the garage, I could see that the lashing was just fine, the problem was that the end of the rubber had come out of the wiper blade, in the dark I couldn't see that. Anyway, tired of the lash-up job anyway I drilled a small hole in the remains of the plastic clip that had broken, and used a screw to pin the blade assembly to the arm. It ought to stay put for an indefinite period of time, allowing me to find a proper replacement.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

My wife has reported that recently the keyless fob is no longer operating the door locks, though it does flash the lights. I tried the key in the trunk, and it doesn't operate the central locks either. So, the pump has again gone insane. I power-cycled it and it began operating correctly again. Apparently you just have to do this sometimes.

While I was there I figured out why I can no longer lock the trunk via the key: the male part of the auxiliary latch (an eyed tongue on the trunk lid) is missing! It normally depresses a blocking lever out of the way so that the lock pin can shift through the eye. With the tongue missing the blocking lever prevents the pin from moving, blocking the turn of the key towards lock. It must have dropped off somewhere along the line, I've not seen any extra metal parts around here or in the trunk. There is a paint outline on the trunk lid, we certainly used to have one. It may be that the body shop lost it, and I've not really noticed since then. Will just have to get another one from the junkyard (easy, but time-consuming), or dig into the rear trunk wall to remove or disable the extra latch (more difficult).

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

We swapped cars today, and while driving this one I noticed a weird little creaking coming from up front. Last time I heard something like this I'd finally figured out that it was the hood rubbing against its rear hold-down pin. I cleaned and lubricated these pins and the mating surfaces, we'll see if that does anything.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Snow tire day.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

My wife has been complaining of the brake pad lamp coming on intermittently, so we ordered new pads and sensors from Rusty over the phone while on our Holiday road trip. They ought to be waiting for me when we get back home, then I'll just have to make time to do it.

Monday, January 8, 2007

Installed new brake pads and sensors. Only one of the sensors had been nicked, it looked like there was probably about another year on the pads before they started scraping. Nonetheless, it's done. The brake fluid was nasty, so I did some bleeding while I was there. (You pretty much have to in order to prevent overflowing the reservoir when you push the pucks back to put new pads on.) I didn't have time to do a thorough job. The rotors are definitely ridged, probably next time they'll need replacement.

There is also something loose in the right-side tie rod business. By eye, I'd guess either the drag link or the idler arm. Will need to look into that soon. Maybe when it warms up a bit.

The power steering fluid was again out. I really need to track down that leak and fix it!

Friday, January 19, 2007

My wife has been complaining of the cold draft coming up the shifter due to its torn rubber boot. I opened the console to replace it with the new one I had procured some time ago for my SL, only to find (besides everything all being kind of glued together with spilled coffee) that the part, while close, is too small. So, the correct part's on order and the car, though driveable, is in a rather ugly state. I didn't put it back together, in order to save myself some work later.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

The new shifter boot came yesterday, so I installed it this morning. Ought to shut my wife up, who's been complaining about the inability to run the windows. Who wants to do that in below-freezing weather anyway? But I forgot about Starbucks' drive-throughs. Silly me.

Had some trouble reinstalling the shifter gate, and managed to damage its mounting ears. On top of that, in spite of my checking before I buttoned it up, its lamp is out so I have to open it up again. Sigh.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Replaced the stupid shifter light bulb. It's actually pretty easy, all you have to remove is the ash and storage trays. Two screws. Don't even have to lift the wood shifter surround.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

My wife has been complaining that the keyless entry isn't working again. I looked, and the wiring is again puddled in water and corroded away. I fixed it. Again. I don't know how many times I have to tell her that the trunk seal does not work well, and I doubt it can ever be made to work well. (The car has been hit in the rear at least twice, the body shop work is adequate, but not great. I have worked on that seal many times, it just won't seal well.) You can't take this car through an automatic car wash without filling the trunk with water. Yet that's what she does. Regularly. And she's always so proud of how clean it is then...

I dried the spare tire well, and cleaned out the drain holes. (The drain works, but that doesn't mean that water doesn't slosh around in there some. The drain has kept the keyless module and the door lock pump themselves from flooding, but the wiring still gets wet.)

Saturday, March 15, 2008

I took the garage door opener out of this car (it was clipped to the back of the under-dash panel, on the top side) and put it into the 190D, then swapped the cars, so that this car is now in the new garage center slot (the operating theater). It started easily enough, but ran really rough and smoky for a minute or two. I think I need delivery valve seals on the injection pump. It's also very oily all over, it needs re-sealing. And then there's the rest of the laundry list...

I found the beginnings of a mouse nest in the trunk, along with a huge pile of D-con poison. I also found a dead mouse under the car. I don't think there was serious damage yet.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I traded a good courtesy lamp for the broken and glued-together one that was in the left rear door. (The crappy old one is going to be an auxiliary trunk lamp in the 190D.)

Friday, November 7, 2008

Score! The U-Pull had in a 300SE, so I dropped by, even though the weather was miserable, with heavy cold rain. It had one rear taillight lens in excellent condition, now mine for $6. I also got its auxiliary trunk latch tongue, which this car has been missing for some time, and the two rear reading lamps (with the expensive bulbs) for $1 each. I also got one exterior heated mirror, for $7. They also had a 280SE (116) and it had its complete toolkit, though very rusty and the roll was rotted. That was free.

Monday, December 14, 2009

I swapped the Hakkapeliitta 1 snow tires to the SEL. Twice as much work that way!

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