A belated log of the Chicken Wagon's life with us.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

While driving the car around I found that the RF brake was dragging pretty badly, the parking brake was inoperative, the brake fluid in the rearward reservoir is low, and the tranny was misbehaving rather scarily, at least at first. (Couldn't seem to solidly engage the final gear [4] unless I feathered the throttle.) That got better as the car warmed up. Sigh.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Thursday, February 22, 2007

What a grimy mess. For those who want to know, the tricks are to remove the crossbrace and the speedometer and kickdown couplings. That makes enough room in the area that you can use a wedge of wood to shift over the tranny to make a bit more room on the side. There is a rotating collar holding the connector in, that has to be persuaded to the right position, then the round plug (with funny angled boot) will pull straight out. Then you can remove the shifter linkage, yes the bolt must be entirely removed. (Same as for the speedometer cable.) With enough scrubbing in the area I found the two 10mm bolts that hold it in, one's above the shifter linkage and the other is above the connector. Then the whole thing pops off, and is ready for the solvent tank. (I didn't immerse it, just scrubbed it under the flow.)

While it feels kind of nasty for a switch, there was no sign of electrical problems. At least it's clean now! It's pretty solidly riveted together, in the absence of any overt problems I don't think I'll go in.

While under there I noticed that there are some (two?) missing rubber clamp buffers on the fuel lines. Will add it to the list. There's also some frame surface rust starting where the undercoating and paint is gone, partly due to a brake fluid bath. Must attend to that.

Friday, February 23, 2007

So, I hooked up a battery charger to the connector for the neutral safety switch (NSS) and ran the lights that way. Flexure and pounding did nothing, the lights just worked. Left with few other suspects, I drilled out the five aluminum rivets that hold the NSS together. (It is possible to have a pinched wire or something in the harness, but good luck finding that!) The inside of the switch looked good. A bit of crud built up in the bottom, if it was conductive it could maybe do some harm as the lamp switch contacts are very close to the aluminum cover there. But not so close as to make me suspicious. Otherwise the insides looked pretty good. I did notice that the 'hot' leaf for the lamps had more sideways flex in it than I'd like, if it got far enough out of plane it could perhaps contact the cover and blow the fuse, but that is really stretching it. To 'cure' this I put a blob of Shoe Goo over its mounting end, there should be no way once that is cured for the thing to flex much towards the cover. But I really don't expect this to have any effect. At this point I think I just need to put it all back together and see what happens, I'm running out of ideas. I am positive that the fuses blew upon shifting into reverse, I don't think it could have been anything else on the same circuit.

I'm going to have to purchase some suitable screws for putting the NSS back together, I don't think I have anything that will work.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Anyway, I determined to do the usual disassemble and clean job. Getting both pucks out is what is difficult, my grease gun and water trick can get one out easily, but sealing the hole up to pump out the other one is difficult. I end up putting the cleaned puck back in, but then getting it out becomes the problem. After much fiddling I got it out, slamming it out with compressed air when the other puck was loosely wedged in place. Both ended up loose, and I was home free. I hate doing that air thing...

The corrosion in the outer (non-sealing) parts of the bores was interfering with the installation of the pucks, so I'm trying the electric rust-removal trick on it in a bucket in the sink. I'll do the pucks too, just for grins. One of them looks a bit dinged up, I suppose I really should replace the entire brake assembly. But my spare is an ATE, not Bendix, and I don't want to get two new ones for a jalopy, as symmetry is supposedly important. Maybe I'll keep the need in mind for future trips to the U-Pull.

The pads were fairly well worn, and the pad sensors weren't even there. By combining the best of these pads and the used pads from the SDL I should end up with a passable set, at least for awhile. As was usual, one pad was worn a lot more than the other, the better one usually has quite a few miles left on it. I even have decent used pad sensors that I can install.

Oh, and the bolts I bought for the neutral safety switch are just a bit too short. Guess I'll get some more!

Monday, February 26, 2007

...At lunch I bought some more screws for the neutral safety switch. They'll be too long, so I'll have to grind off the excess after assembly.

...This evening I switched pucks, the one in the tank was rust-free, though there is more pitting along the edge than I'd like. As I said, this isn't a long-term repair. I dried it and set it aside. By morning the other one should be well done.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Friday, March 2, 2007

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Monday, March 5, 2007

There may be brake fluid leaking out of the LF caliper, it was hard to tell. I'm not impressed with the 'brake job' that the car had had before I got it!

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

I had a look and both axles should be replaced as the one that's not split is soft, deeply cracked, and ready to fail. I do have a decent pair of spare axles for it, so that's no problem.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

I then found that the fill plug on the differential is completely ruined. No matter, in the worst case I can replace the rear cover with a different one. (I'll try removing it while it's off the car.) I scraped off the worst of the gunk and then removed the differential mount and the rear cover. I was then able to remove the two retaining clips (using small vise-grips) to free the two axles. Out of time, I put the cover back loosely afterwards to keep windblown dirt out of it.

...At lunch I bought some Permatex Anaerobic Flange Sealer, and its spray-on activator. This is probably the same stuff the MB dealer uses, recommends, and even gave me a tiny bit of once. Expensive!

Thursday, March 8, 2007

I cleaned off the 'new' axle ends in the solvent tank, then installed them. As usual, the small pair of vise grips is all that was required to install the retaining clips. (Same as for removal.) One very important point: make sure the differential-end spacing washers from the donor car are removed first, and that you retain the spacing washers from your car. They're likely different thicknesses, and the correct spacing matters. I also reused the former retaining bolts and washers.

The buggered fill plug, however, promises to be difficult. In the worst case I can always swap the back cover (with decent plug) off the old differential from the Albatross. I played with it a bit but I ran out of time, so I again put the cover on with two bolts to keep the dirt out.

Friday, March 9, 2007

With that done I cleaned the mating flanges with brake cleaner and a putty knife. Then I sprayed the Permatex Surface Prep on both (should only do one says the goop tube—the spray can says to do both but I'm inclined to trust the goop's label on this, too bad I didn't read it first) and let them dry. The Permatex Anaerobic Flange Sealant is not the same as the runny orange stuff I once got from the MB dealer, it is thicker and purple. Oh well, I'm sure it's good stuff, it certainly cost enough. I ran a small bead around the cover and then bolted it down. At this point I was again out of time.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

...And off we went! Uneventful, except there was a bad shift or two. We got the license and came home, where I parked and left the engine running. I then checked the tranny fluid, and I believe it was very low. (But I am notorious for having difficulty checking the ATF level.) I put in 1/2 quart of ATF I had laying around, we'll see if it affects the shifting positively. While it was running I ran down the driver's window and put some weatherstrip glue on the torn part of the channel at the top. With it still down I let the glue get tacky, then pressed the torn strip back into place. I left the window down a crack so as to keep tension off of the channel until the glue fully sets. I then removed the sun-baked and cracked passenger seat (my wife won't need this right away) and set it aside. Out came the vacuum and I sucked up all the mouse poo from storage. I pulled all the carpets and the rear seat as well. The jury-rigged cupholder came apart, so I glued that back together. (My wife insists on that and a radio, nothing else is supposed to matter.) I then pumped up the spare tire and buttoned things back up. The remaining cosmetic items should be done over the next few days, but as of now this thing is a driver!

...Which my wife promptly used. She was quite pleased, except for the badly-cracked windshield. We also went to dinner in it, and it was quite pleasant. Quiet and comfortable, and no bad tire wobble. She and I noticed no shifting anomalies, so it looks like low fluid was definitely to blame. I'll dial that in over the next few days.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

...Many complaints from my wife about the windshield. Besides the cracking from road rocks it's also pitted from road sand. She also didn't like the level of illumination from the instrument cluster. (On a 123? Imagine that!) And she was annoyed to find that the Becker tape deck wouldn't accept a CD! Sheesh, honey, I don't know what you want. It doesn't wobble on the road and it has both a functioning radio and a cupholder. Were those not the main criteria? At least it's clean and quiet.

The windshield replacement job scares me, I hear it's rather difficult. I have a good used replacement and a new rubber seal. My big plan had been to pull the badly-cracked and chewed dash (for replacement and for repair of the center vent ACC pod) and, while it and all the associated window trim was out, to try tackling the windshield then. But I don't want to attempt any of this while the car is in service.

Monday, March 12, 2007

...Tonight while driving I had a serious transmission non-shifting episode. After the panic cleared I remembered that it's done this before, if you drive too much/fast with it held in first gear (as I often do in parking lots) it won't upshift once you take off unless you come to a complete stop for a bit. I'd forgotten, and on the road it would rev and not shift, then slip and not accelerate at all, etc. (Rolling while in neutral does not clear it up.) A total mess. Pulling over and sitting in park for a few seconds restored it to normality. This transmission is not right! But I think we can learn to work with it. My wife, however, will probably not notice this, its worst problem, because she uses the brakes rather than the shifter. (I use it to prevent upshifting when I don't want it to do so, I don't use it to force downshifts.)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The glove box door was down because the latch assembly had again gone 'sproing' and wouldn't work anymore. So I teased that back together again. What a steaming pile! I've never seen one of those 123 doors that works very well. The design would probably be good if it were all metal, but the plastic deforms too much and then it jumps track. I've got to tell her (again) to treat it very gently.

With the fraction of time remaining this moning I got the seat tracks moved over to the other seat bottom. But that was it.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

I also replaced the remaining rear side marker bulb with one my wife bought yesterday.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Really I think I'm going to have to find a good regulator to install into the car. While I haven't looked yet, the 'chunker' is one I believe that I worked on before, trying to straighten out the nasty pot-metal casting. It's either bent again, or has cracked where I straightened it out. Either way I doubt it's salvageable any more than this one I've been killing.

Of interest is that both the 450 SEL currently in the junkyard and this 300D, according to the EPC, use 116 730 21/22 46 (L/R) window regulators. Maybe I'll stop by the yard today and see if the regulator is still there and any good. Doubtful, but worth a shot.

...So I dropped by the yard after church. There was a swarm of guys stripping the 450, one of them had just bought a grey-market '80 380 SEL for $50. They'd had to yank it out of a swamp where it had sat for two years, the PO was going to enter it into a demolition derby. The new owner fiddled with it a couple of hours and got it started then drove it home. He didn't know too much about such cars, and appreciated knowing a few things about it. (Unfortunately his fuel pump packed it in as it sucked on the dregs of the tank, and the one from the 450 was long gone.) I tried to tell him that the steering column he was liberating from a 116 was likely no good in his 126, but oh well... In spite of the buzz of activity I was able to nab the appropriate window regulator from the car. Seriously warped, but still intact. We'll see how it goes.

Monday, March 19, 2007

As of today the short list is more-or-less done. Time to do something else for awhile. I promised my wife I'd build a shelf in the closet.

...My wife called me at work and during the course of the conversation I reminded her that the sunroof worked on this car. She was excited, as the weather was very good, and it turns out my son was really excited to have it open. However, when it came time to close it again, nothing. I came home a bit early to take care of it and found the switch not making good contact. I took it apart and burnished it so it worked again. I decided that this was also a good time to address the center tube lubrication issue that I missed the first time I had it apart. I didn't have to take everything apart, just the headliner panel, and the six screws/bolts and retaining clip that hold in the black drive bar. With that all out I could swab out the center tube of the drive bar, and I could also mop off the outside of the cable sheath where the drive bar's tube slides over it. (This being the lubrication point I didn't address the first time.) I then put some Lubriplate inside the drive tube and reassembled everything. It worked fine again.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Saturday, March 31, 2007

So, the Becker 599 Europa Cassette has a rear-panel DIN connector for external sourcing, but it's mono, not stereo. So that's out. Internally the cassette transport mechanism is a hinged subassembly. It unplugs and pivots out, then you pry the snap-ear hinges open a bit and remove the whole thing. Easy. Removed, you lose the four tape buttons and the dial/band-selector light. There is a four-pin connector (with only three used) and a three-pin connector on the main board for the transport. The three-pin is for the head: the center is common ground, the pin towards the volume control (black) is R, the remaining one (red) is L. It seems to be 'hot' at all times, even with the radio playing on the bench touching one of the signal pins results in superimposed hum. On the four-pin connector the big red wire towards the tuning knob is +12 V, the next one is a no-connect, the next (yellow) is switched by the transport to +12 V to disable the radio, and the last (black, towards the volume control) is grounded by the FF/REW buttons on the transport to attenuate the signal. Ground is through the metal chassis. It should be relatively easy to fabricate a plate of some sort to cover the tape button hole, and to rig some jacks into which to plug the CD player or her iPod. (The iPod is the real reason I'm going to this much trouble, an auto CD player is not expensive. Ones new enough to already have an iPod jack are expensive, and have 'steal me' written all over them. Unlike old Beckers. And if I'm going to operate it makes sense to do it on an old Becker of little value. And let us not forget that this is the Chicken Wagon, after all.)

I suppose that I need to plan out what I want to do. OK, in a perfect world the cover plate will have a mini phone jack for the iPod/Discman, a mini power jack for the Discman, a USB jack to power the iPod, and an incandescent lamp or bank of LED's to light up the tuning dial and band indicator and to indicate (by omission) that the auxiliary input is active. The USB jack requires 5 V, the Discman requires 4.5 V. As the Discman uses a 3 V non-rechargeable battery pack I suspect that the 4.5 V is not too critical, and that the Discman and USB power plugs can thus share 5 V. That means only a single 5 V regulator is required. USB calls for 500 mA, the Discman's adapter is rated about the same. If I make the cover plate out of metal it should be a nice heat sink for a 7805 regulator. Perfect. Now I need to scrape up some parts, it's probably time for a trip to Radio Shack.

...Did some research at Radio Shack, and did some surfing on the Internet for the iPod dock connector. Radio Shack has changed a bit since I was last there, not much in the way of parts anymore. Nothing compelling there today, though they did have a bunch of iPod accessories. Did better with the Internet, I found an inexpensive source for the docking connector, and found some specifications on wiring it. I think I'm going to have to mail-order any parts I need. More research is required.

Anybody ever noticed that there's a lovely iPod-sized blank spot in the 123's upper switch bank? You could put an angled docking socket there and the iPod would be perfectly placed for use. I doubt I'll do it, but it is an intriguing thought.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Monday, April 2, 2007

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Friday, April 13, 2007

However, as I worked with it and the faceplate it seemed clear to me now that my original plan to replace the tape button array with a socket panel will not work, there isn't quite enough room for the sockets I intend to use. (I sort of forgot about the plastic faceplate, it covers part of the hole.) So I moved on to Plan B. I traced and cut out a piece of sheet metal that exactly fills the hole in the faceplate that is the combined area of the tape hole and the button area, in effect making the bottom part of the faceplate a solid area. With some grinding and filing this will fit well, though I have to relieve some areas on the back side to result in a flush fit. (More hacksaw and file work.) I will then attach this panel (somehow) to the subpanel I have made that fits behind the radio dial and bolts to the old transport retaining points. (This subpanel will still be important in restoring the dial lamp, and as a heat sink for the 5 V regulator, and for providing electrical ground.) The jacks will come through the panel where the (larger) tape hole was. I was hoping to recess them a bit, but that cannot be with Plan B!

The parts came! That 2.5mm power socket looks awfully large though. May have to rethink that one.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

I filed and ground the filler plate so that it fits well, including necessary relief chamfers on the back to tuck into place. I then welded and cut the rear plate so that it no longer covers up the tape slot. I next need to figure out how to attach them together. (Then on to cutting the holes in the filler plate for the connectors. Scary.)

...I stopped at Radio Shack to check out their connector bin, and found a pair of power plugs that fit the CD player and their mate for the front panel. So I'll probably just cut up that cable I bought and put new ends on it, then use the RS jack in the face. Not quite as pretty, but at least it's a size I can use. And I really can't put this off any longer.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I ran the GPX portable CD player using the new power cord, and I finally thought to check its shock resistance. Not great, we'll have to see if it works well enough in the car. It also doesn't have a resume function, it starts over each time it's powered back up, or even stopped. There are other players out there, if this one turns out to be unsuitable. (The Sony has excellent shock resistance and a resume option, too bad it's no good for my wife's purposes.)

The power jack has a separate 'inserted' contact, I think I can use that to gate off the radio. (Need to invert it.)

Monday, April 16, 2007

I got the front panel mounted in place, I drilled through both panels and ran long screws through. Once everything was aligned I stacked nuts on the back side of the front plate to make standoffs. Without these spacers the panel bows when the nuts are tightened. I may or may not weld the bolts in place and grind off the heads on the front. We'll see how it looks once all the connectors are mounted, it may be that two more screw heads will be nothing to worry about. The front plate seems very solid, this is good. I then began marking it for the connectors. I've got to get this right, I don't want to ruin the panel, it's too hard to make another one! Current plans are to put in the USB power plug, the coaxial power jack, and the 1/8" phone jack, and to forgo the mini-DIN. That will require two cables to plug in for both the CD and the iPod rather than the single cable I had in mind for the iPod, but that's how it works out. I don't think there's room (on the inside of the tape slot) for another large-ish connector, and I want the USB connector for charging purposes.

The profile of the two sheet metal pieces is:

|
|o  <------- New dial lamp
-----
    |__|  <- Bolt intertie
    |  |
       |  <- Face plate covers all tape holes
       |
       |

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

In the evening I tried out one of the new surplus USB workspace lights. Pretty feeble, nasty, cheap things. May be good for a gag gift, but not going to be much of a car map light! In a dark room it does throw a tiny amount of light on the center of the keyboard, that's about it. Oh well, the radio's USB jack is really for charging toys, not lighting.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

...After work I fiddled with it a bit more. I installed the connectors, and ended up having to glue the one nut on its chewed stud. The glue accelerator messed up the face paint a bit, so I had to respray that too. It's still not perfect, but I really need to be getting this done, so it'll stand as-is for now.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Time to finish up the rear plate. I drilled holes for the new dial lamp and the mounting screw for the voltage regulator, then primed and painted (white) the interior lamp chamber. I mounted the 7805 regulator, put wires on all the connectors, and installed the plates. The 7805 is a metal-tab TO-220 version, this is important here because this is the main ground point for all the new accessories. I took care to ensure a solid connection. Continuity to ground on the regulator (which is through the metal and mounting screws) measured good. The stereo jack is a very tight fit given its nature and location, I hope I don't have trouble with it contacting ground.

The faceplate doesn't look quite as good as I had envisioned, but it doesn't look as bad as it might have, either. It's going to be good enough. By decree.

...After work I started wiring it up. I put in a basic 3-terminal 5 V regulator circuit, with all three protection diodes, an input electrolytic capacitor, and an output mylar capacitor. The 14 V grain-of-wheat dial lamp is hooked between the regulator input and the switched ground of the power jack. (I had to sheath the bare lamp wires using insulation stripped from some telephone wire, I used a dab of cyanoacrylate glue to hold the insulation in place at the lamp.) The switched ground is also run to the Becker's radio disable connector pin, the lamp acts as a pull-up resistor when the jack's in use. The USB jack's power pins are wired in parallel with the main power jack and to the regulator. Using the USB jack does not disable the lamp or the radio. I stuck a little notebook computer work light in it and it worked. I used loose DB-25 connector pins (sockets, really) to attach to the Becker's transport power connector pins. A dab of Shoe Goo holds the two wires (power and radio disable) in relative position, I'll do some more gluing to fake having a connector shell. (I have a close-enough mate to the three-pin audio feed connector, no need to screw around there.) The wiring is very haywire point-to-point rat's nest, but it should serve. No one will see it in operation.

With the circuit checked out and powered up the dial lamp worked correctly. You can also hear radio background noise cut out with the dial lamp. (No antenna, so no signal.) I plugged in the CD player and it worked! The line-out feed from the player is much too 'hot', I'm going to have to attenuate it. I used a 200kΩ potentiometer from the junkbox to turn it down and it worked much better. I'm also a bit concerned that the head feed from the Becker transport might be equalized in some fashion that is incompatible with line-in usage. More research is required, in the worst case I just have to trace out some more circuitry to find a better input location. I need to get out a decent speaker and my Sheffield test CD to do some more research. I've been using an ancient transistor radio speaker and a Carmina Burana CD that is much too quiet most of the time.

I checked the dial illumination in the dark and it looks good. I will need to tape off the former 1 & 2 track LED holes. The illumination is probably not quite as even as the original had with its plastic light spreader bar, but the bulb looks to be about the same and the illumination level is good.

Friday, April 20, 2007

I found my Sheffield test disc and a spare Radio Shack Minimus 7 bookshelf speaker. (They had a decent reputation for their size and cost back in the day.) Once I got everything wired up again it became clear that head equalization is definitely an issue. Pressure Cooker's Dish Rag sounded, well, limp. Muddy, in a word. I think I remember now that tape EQ is a big feature of the tape recording process. I dug out a 0.0047 µF capacitor and jumpered it across the attenuator, and there was serious difference. Probably too 'hot' now. More research is called for, but I think I can come up with a passable un-EQ attenuator circuit.

Surfing yields the fact that tape EQ is 6 dB/octave, due to the basic physics of magnetic recording. And that a simple RC network (one each) provides 6 dB/octave. So I was on the right track, and merely trying out a few capacitor values from the junkbox will probably be sufficient.

I found that the attenuation potentiometer was set at about 200Ω, out of 200kΩ! The junkbox had a plethora of 150Ω resistors, and several 0.010 µF dipped capacitors. I found that two such capacitors in series (resulting in about 0.005 µF) feeding the 150Ω resistor in a classic high-pass configuration seemed to work well. The audio sample tracks sounded decent, and the overall volume approximately matches the radio's. (I hate getting blasted when switching from one to the other.) I also checked the left/right channel assignment using the test disc, and made sure it was correct. I then wired it all up, more rat's-nest. It sounds good!

Now I just have to physically secure the circuitry a bit, especially the stereo jack and the internal transport power connector, then install it back in the car!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Friday, April 27, 2007

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Monday, April 30, 2007

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Trying to find a player that meets all my criteria feels like Highlander, "There can be only one." Unless there isn't even that.

...After work I stopped by Radio Shack and bought a power plug.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Anyway, with all the fooling around I ended up wrecking the power jack's switch, again, so I had to open up the radio and fix that. A lot of fiddly bending and prying. (I didn't have another jack.) When the smoke cleared everything was working again, but...

The Philips, while it does remember where it was, reverts to an unusable volume level every time you power-cycle it. POS. Also, there is an extreme amount of an intermittent farty noise coupled in from the motor, much more than any of the other four players I've tried so far. I'm thinking about returning this one, it's really not working out very well for our uses. I don't like the purely circular design, because it's never obvious where the buttons are on it. No 'front'.

I did notice that the Panasonic will remember which track it's on, but not where within that track. Better than nothing? It uses the same power plug as the Philips. However, it also has that wretched forget-the-loudness feature (pushbutton volume control rather than potentiometer), and as it's also missing a line-out jack it's not going to be any more satisfactory than the Philips. The cheap price of the thrift specials is a lot more palatable than the brand-new price of the Philips, given that none of them turn out to be what I want! (Even though they're non-returnable.)

I'm thinking I might just keep buying thrift shop specials until I get lucky. I can get a dozen or so for the price of that one Philips.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Returned the Philips to Wal-Mart. It cost too much for it to be anything other than completely satisfactory.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

It could be, in no particular order:

• Cracked fuel line sucking air
• Leaky primer pump sucking air
• Galled fuel filter seal sucking air
• Bad fuel pump
• Occluded fuel strainer or filter
• Algae

...When my wife got home she sheepishly admitted that upon reflection, she'd put 15.5 gallons, $50, of gasoline into the car, not diesel! She was in a hurry and was worried about running out of fuel, so she'd gone to a different station than usual. She was positive she'd done this, remembers "87" on the pump (octane), and noticed that it didn't foam up like it usually did.

Yeah, that'll do it. That also explains the new-found 'stickiness' of the primer pump, and the extra 'fuminess' I experienced when blowing through the main fuel filter. The large reserve capacity in the tank explains why I didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with the fuel: the dilution wasn't quite so bad as to make it obviously gasoline, nor to keep it from running. It explains everything. Fortunately the fuel system in this class of car is extremely robust, it is unlikely that there has been any lasting damage done.

She admits that she didn't really want to tell me what she'd done, but I'm awfully glad she did. I don't know how much time and money I could have wasted trying to find what was wrong.

Tomorrow I need to siphon out enough of the tank so that the three gallons of diesel I have in cans here can push the gasoline dilution down to no more than Mercedes' old-time recommended limit of 25%. That should get me to the gas station where I can fill it up with diesel, pushing the dilution down to something tolerable. Over time I can then use up this contaminated fuel a little at a time, that should keep the dilution from being harmful while not wasting the $50.

Anybody need 20 gallons of custom 'injector cleaner'?

Thursday, May 10, 2007

The car started fine but was a bit cranky at first and died once in the driveway, just as before, but by the time I got to the bottom of the hill it was back to normal. The 3.5 gallons was not enough to turn out the low fuel light. Fueling, including replacing the contents of the little cans, took 20.7 gallons, $60. That makes the contaminated fuel better than 3/4 gasoline. Maybe it'll run fine in the lawn mowers? We'll find some way to use it, that's for sure. The car is running perfectly well again. Looks like no harm, no foul.

I bought another two CD players at the thrift shop that's next to the fruit stand where I bought lunch. (They had about eight to choose from.) One has a dead drive motor, but the other one works fine. No anti-skip buffer, and it doesn't resume play. Oh well, I'll persevere!

Friday, May 11, 2007

The box of parts from Rusty came today, brake time!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Unfortunately, after jacking up the car I found that the rear calipers were ATE, not Bendix. Oops! Wrong rebuild kits. (The fronts were Bendix, and I thought I remembered that the rears were as well. I guess I should have looked.) I put a set of the pads on the scraping side and put it back down. Will have to order the correct parts.

I opened the wonky passenger door and it wouldn't close again, no matter the coaxing. So I opened up the door panel and removed the door check. It looked OK, but wouldn't move properly. Messing around with it blew out the side of the slider. It's dead, Jim. I dug out the spare check strap, it's one of the old pot metal ones, but intact. Put it all back together. Works fine again.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The tiller was empty, so I put some of the crud in it, too. It ran OK, but seemed a bit weak (though usable) and needed the choke on halfway to run smoothly. If we can use it up this way too we should be able to get rid of this stuff fairly quickly.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Another thrift-shop special, a Sony Discman of some sort, induced hideous amounts of chirping, shrieking motor noise into the audio chain. The worst yet, even with the new power filtering. We keep looking...

Friday, May 25, 2007

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007

With the sticky caliper all apart I got all the rust sanded out of the bores (outside the seal) so the pucks would slide easily again. (600 grit wet-and-dry under running water in the sink.) They now fit nicely into their bores and will slip out under their own weight. The rubber parts were actually in fairly good shape. I'll still replace them with the kits', but I will keep the old rubber for jalopy use. I blew everything dry to prevent rust and set it aside for tomorrow. A little WD-40 went into the clamps' Acme screws and the grease gun's guts. (Water displacement [WD: trial formula 40] is what it's actually for!)

I may want to paint the parts of the caliper where the rubber boots clip on. Perhaps they will seal better keeping it drier inside and helping to prevent further rust?

Tool fabrication took a lot of time so I was unable to finish the job; I had to take the truck (with camper) to work. Perhaps tomorrow. I did squirt PB Blaster on the hose fittings to let it work overnight.

Friday, June 1, 2007

The master cylinder came off easily, and once it was off I stuck a plastic tube (from my topside oil sucker) down in the booster to the bottom and sucked on the other end. A lot of nasty-looking fluid came out! It was definitely time to replace the master cylinder. I washed off the booster and blew it dry, then rattle-canned it black. There was a lot of paint gone because of the brake fluid leak. I then installed the new master cylinder and transferred the reservoir to it.

The calipers went back together easily. The big secret is to put the boots on the pucks before they go into the bores, otherwise it's a lot harder. Brake fluid is used as an assembly lubricant. I don't know if the orientation of the asymmetrical face of each puck is significant. I could find no information about this, so I didn't try to line them up with anything in particular. The calipers went back on the car, and the hoses were replaced. The PB had presumably done its job, the old ones came off easily.

Finally I enlisted my wife's help to bleed the brakes, which went smoothly. I then cleaned up the mess.

...Driving to work the brakes worked very well. No more squeaking and scratching noises, and braking power was even and good. Nice. At lunch I stopped at Schuck's and NAPA, but neither had the little rubber covers for brake bleeder screws. I'll liberate some more next time I go to the U-Pull, I'm missing three. It was hot out today, time to work on the AC! (It needs a charge.)

Saturday, June 2, 2007

I then checked steering linkages. All seemed tight, yet I could still wobble the wheels a bit more than I liked. I backed out the adjusting nut on the steering box 3/4 turn, about half of what I could back it out using only my fingers. (Which was definitely too far.) It's not really much tighter, but we'll see how it behaves. I don't think I went too far, but we'll see. If there's a 'notch' in the steering around center I'll know I definitely went too far and will have to put it back some. The steering box may be worn out, or I (working alone) may have missed something loose beneath.

I next drained the tranny fluid. I enlisted my 5-year-old son's aid to lie under the car on the creeper and tell me when the torque converter drain plug showed up in the access window while I rolled the car over via the power steering nut. Slick. I dropped the pan and found it pretty clean inside. The fluid in the pan was a bit murky, but not bad. Stinky, too, like mothballs. Fresh fluid smells more fishy to me. I removed the filter and put the new one on. (There's no way you can do this job without getting oil all over the place, no matter how careful you are.) I washed off the pan, and scraped off the grime on the outside. I mopped it dry and wiped it out with my hands to remove all lint and grit, and set it in the sun to finish drying. I put on a new gasket, wiped off the pan gasket surface on the bottom of the tranny, and reinstalled the pan. I then poured in three quarts of fresh fluid, started the car, and poured in another three and a half. No leaks appeared during this.

I took the car for a quick test drive and it drove normally. The transmission shifted as before. Sadly, there was no miracle cure. The steering seemed a bit tighter, and I don't think I've taken it too far. We then broke for a late breakfast. (My boy was still hanging about.)

In the heat of the day (80's) it was time again to charge the AC for the year. I put on the gauges (why, oh why, is that stupid high-side fitting on the bottom of the car?) and found there was still some residual charge, so there was no need to vacuum the system. I put in a can of Isopro, AC on, and then followed it up with a slow propane leak until the gauges looked right. Some time during this the auxiliary fan started up with a roar. Looks good. I put a mister on the condensor and got in and revved the engine to 2000 RPM . The vent temp gradually dropped to 45 °F, which is about as good as you can get in this car. I buttoned things up, and tightened the Schrader valves a bit before putting on the caps. The high side valve seemed a bit loose, perhaps that's where the last charge went. On a short test drive the vent temps got down to 47 °F which is OK. Not as good as the 38 °F that I'd gotten once, but tolerable. The AC seems to cycle on and off yet the vent temps aren't at their lowest. Probably the pressure (charge volume), or perhaps the gas ratio, is off a bit. If it's overcharged that should self-correct through the season.

With all this done the scheduled operations for this car (this year, anyway) are done. Now we'll just drive it, and I'll try to work on something else. Until something breaks!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Other than that, and its current cosmetic challenges, the car is sweet. Purrs down the road like a kitten. It is shifting better than it was, at least a bit, and the steering feels better. The brakes are now unremarkable. That is, you no longer notice anything, it just stops like it should.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

No, it doesn't really work, and takes a long time to sync up to a track. Bad laser?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

...On the way to and from work today the heater worked perfectly. (We're having a cold snap, no AC this week!) It's a little early to tell if the problem is fixed, but it's certainly a good sign. I know that the heater occasionally needed a jump-start by turning on and off the AC, yet the cold engine lockout switch tested good. It didn't need any such help today.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Friday, June 28, 2007

Monday, July 9, 2007

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Monday, July 23, 2007

Regarding the apocryphal warning against resetting the trip odometer while moving, having just become intimately familiar with the guts of the offending unit I can in no way see how resetting the trip odometer, moving or not, can place any significantly greater torque on the drive gear. If it does, the amount is nearly trivial and the drive gear is already about to fail. It takes considerable torque to roll over a bunch of dials at once, that drive gear is supposed to be tight.

...and it works. Good.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Saturday, September 22, 2007

There was a weird little intermittent screechy scraping from the left rear of the car while returning home on the freeway. I will have to keep an eye on this just in case it wasn't a small rock trapped in there.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Friday, December 7, 2007

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Well, today I followed her home, and OMFG, the left rear definitely has a problem. Even Daniel could see it, and he's no car expert! When we got home I took it off, and there's something like a 1/2" bend in the tire, the tread's now in a serpentine course. Shot to hell. These tires are the original Michelin Arctic Alpins that came on it five years ago (and they weren't new then), but they're pretty much worn out anyway. They're 195/70R14's, but we got a set of studded 205/70R14 Hankook tires (no wheels) with the 380 SL that should serve. Relatively few miles on them, the tread looks very good. I removed the bad wheel and put on a spare that I had on a bundt rim to get her through today, I'll send the load of Hankooks with her in the trunk to have put on at the next opportunity.

This evening she reports that the wonkiness (tire wobble) is all gone, and that the dash lights are almost tolerable in brightness.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Crap.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

She also reports that the car only got something like half the normal mileage this last tank. I've been smelling a bit of diesel around her car lately, I guess there's a leak. I popped the hood when we made the son exchange today, and I could see that the line from the fuel pump up to the filter was wet. This could be just the line, or perhaps the (new-style) primer pump could be leaking. A couple of the return lines are also wet.

Friday, December 14, 2007

I also filled the washer tank with some mixed-up 20/20 and a shot of isopropyl alcohol, and topped up the engine oil.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Monday, December 24, 2007

...This evening the driver's lock felt weird when I locked it at church. (And isn't that necessity an indictment of modern times!) When I got back out I couldn't turn the key. At least I'd repaired (long ago) the passenger door keylock, and could get in that side. I don't think it's just frozen, but we'll see tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The door lock works again. I think it was just frozen. I also think it could use some lubrication.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Friday, December 28, 2007

I also ordered the steering damper and idler arm kit.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Monday, January 7, 2008

She also took the time to point out to me that she hates the iPod-ified radio, always has, and wants a plain in-dash CD player. Oh well.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Friday, January 11, 2008

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Hmm, I guess this doesn't add up all that well after all. Most of it is fairly straightforward to address, but there's a few stinkers in there.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

I then took it apart and cleaned off all the grease and dirt, and found that one of the two large BB's was getting rough and corroded. I put it in the angle of one of the welding magnets and brought it to the wire wheel, and with some brushing and spinning I got it much smoother. I then sanded off the tracks in the solvent tank, dried everything off, and greased it all up. Getting it back together was (as always) a real joy. It didn't go too badly, I used a woodworking bar clamp to compress the BB's into the slider with it nearly in starting position on the track, and then used a heavy iron bar and the BFH to drive it into the track.

I put it into the door and tried it out. Not as smooth as new but tolerable. I then reassembled the door, everything works fine now.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

I didn't even get to change the filter, turns out I don't have one. Boxes of 60x filters, no 61x filters at all. I think I bought one, and that's what I used in '02. Next time. I'll do a short service for this batch, call it a sludge-removal stage, then change both oil and filter. Stupid.

Oh, and Jill pointed out a cut in the driver's seat belt, it probably got slammed in the door latch. I'll get a replacement next time I find a 123 in the junkyard.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Friday, November 28, 2008

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Monday, February 16, 2009

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I also noticed that the center belt in the rear has a nick in it, and the passenger-side rear belt's plastic handle is broken. Today?

...At the U-Pull today I picked up the two seat belts. I had to get the driver's-side rear belt, but it should swap OK if I just turn over the buckle on the belt. I also got the driver's-side door molding to replace the one that got driven over last December.

...In the evening I washed out the two new belts and hung them in front of the fire to dry overnight. They were filthy! While the one belt was all nice and wet and slippery I turned it over in the buckle, so it should fit into place tomorrow on the opposite side of the car.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Monday, March 9, 2009

I then added some ATF, because I have noticed some slipping at times. The dipstick (cold) showed low again, so I felt fairly safe here. I also refilled the washer tank and topped off the radiator with a little water, it was a bit low. I wonder when I last serviced the cooling system on this car? 'tis a pity I didn't start keeping good records earlier.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Saturday, April 4, 2009

At home I got the car jacked up before we had to go off for dinner. I'd hoped to get further along, but no...

Sunday, April 5, 2009

I then filled up the reservoir and took it on the road. It was much better, but still not as good as our other cars. So I began tightening the adjustment screw (CCW!) fractionally and then driving again. You do not want to go too far! I think I ended up about 1/4–1/3 turn by the time I decided I'd gone far enough, over about six tries. The car drives infinitely better than it did before, so I'll call the whole thing a success. I did have an oil leak on the low-pressure line, so I tightened that some more. We'll see if I got it, I may need to take it off and clean up something if it keeps oozing. I have a spare hose that came with the new steering box if I should end up needing it. (I kept the hoses on the donor box to keep dirt out of the guts at the junkyard.)

I'd say that's $35 well-spent.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Friday, December 17, 2010

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Monday, January 17, 2011

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Last night on our trip to a concert the sunroof was dripping on my tuxedo. At least I was the passenger and could fend it off. This morning it wasn't raining so I opened the sunroof and checked the front corner drains. (It was cold and the roof was sluggish, but operated correctly nonetheless.) I slipped a windshield wiper blade spine down into the front drain channels, and when I blew compressed air into them I could hear it coming out by the wheel wells. There was a piece of rubber seal about 4" long that was loose underneath the windbreak support rail on the dripping side. No sign of where it should have come from, nor one on the other side, so I removed it on the theory that it could have been impeding water flow and causing it to spill up over the rail when braking. I blew air backwards to the rear drains, but couldn't hear anything. We'll see if this little operation has helped any, the rains are due to continue for awhile.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Windshield glass replacement is imminent, I scoured the garages for the windshield seal I'd bought years ago and couldn't find it. Very distressing! (Though not all that surprising...)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I think I'm glad I didn't try this myself. (If I had I'd have done what worked for the Chevy: trim in the rubber before it goes into the car. OTOH I broke that glass too, but at least the trim was on.)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Monday, April 18, 2011

...And a bit was only one morning. It was shrieking again at lunch time, and was completely loose. I tightened it, went to the auto parts store, and procured some blue Locktite to douse it with. We'll see if that holds.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

...After work I cleaned out the car and ran it down to storage for the season. I disconnected the battery this time.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Friday, November 11, 2011

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I tried it out and the clock was easy to figure out how to set, even without the manual. The antenna goes up and down, and (nice!) goes down when it's on CD or Aux. The radio works and I set a couple of stations. I tried out a home-recorded CD and it worked just fine. The clock and station memory held with the key off. Yay, Alpine.

Hopefully this will eliminate the nasty noise that was coming from the general vicinity of the other seat. RIP, iPod-ified Becker, I wish I had never wasted my time on you.

Monday, November 14, 2011

It shifted oddly a couple of times yesterday, so I added 1/2 quart of ATF. (The dipstick [cold] showed low again.) I was out of time to do more, but I did notice that the oil was low and it was long past time to change the oil again. Jill really can rack up the miles when you're not looking...

I bought an oil filter at NAPA. $12.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I botched the filter install somehow, the cap isn't sealing. (The NAPA cheapie's O-ring was loose-fitting, and wouldn't really stay in place while installing the cap. I hate working in the cold and dark, it's hard to work and hard to see, even with a bright work lamp.) Black oil everywhere. In disgust I shut it down and went inside for dinner and to warm up.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

...When I got home I shoveled dirt over the big black puddle on the concrete. It started snowing while I did this.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

...The car drove well and the brake light business was gone. At noon I swapped cars with Jill, this'll be hers for the winter.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Sure enough, within 5 minutes she was ready to go but the car wasn't. We fought it awhile and really gave the battery a workout, I even went so far as to point a space heater down its throat but no good. It half-caught at times and really filled the air with a stinking cloud of vaporized diesel, but there was no running that night. I noticed that the glow plug light was no longer coming on, which was not a good sign. We finally gave up and she drove off, late, in a huff in the Frankenheap (not her favorite car, though it was all warmed up and has the happy Christmas lights); I put the battery on charge.

Friday, December 9, 2011

...After work I came home a bit early to get enough time to finish the job before Jill had to go to orchestra. I was able to get an open-end wrench on the bad plug and break it loose. It was a pain walking it out half a flat at a time, but I eventually prevailed. The new (used Bosch) plug went in easily and I got it all connected back up. (The block heater'd been on all day, the engine was pleasantly warm to work on though it was still about 25 °F outside.) I tested the plugs with the ohmmeter and all were good, then I used the Fluke current clamp and a bit of 10-gauge wire to feed power to them serially through the connector plug from the big fuse screw. All drew 20–25 A at first, dropping down to about 14 A over a period of some seconds. I then buttoned up the car and started it. No problems and less than half a second of cranking was required. It didn't really want to shut off, however, and I didn't see any problems in the vacuum connections from working on it. It's just really cold, and whatever leak it has is most unhappy in the cold. That will need addressing soon, methinks.

The car started for her just fine and off she drove... When she got back (late) she reported that all was well.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I also got out a piece of rubber vacuum coupler and patched the pressure line to the ALDA that I broke before. The duct tape had come loose, imagine that!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

The car started beautifully, of course, but I'd had the block heater on while I was working on it, and of course the glow plugs had gotten run a fair bit while sleuthing. (The battery charger was on it all the time, to replenish the losses.) And it was parked inside. I expected no trouble this time.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

I also think that the glow timer light is being overly optimistic, I suggested to Jill that she use the seat belt light instead as it runs longer.

I queried the mailing list, and three other 123-model cars had drops of 1.0 V, 1.3 V, and 1.7 V. Sounds like there's a bit of a spread there, but I wouldn't be proud of any of those figures. Perhaps MB skimped a bit on the wiring here?

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Jill said that yesterday the radio acted weird and cut off when the glove box was opened. I checked this morning, and it was indeed repeatable. Weird. I pulled the radio out and checked the wiring, and the +12 V switched feed dropped to about +6 V when the glove box was opened; the light itself didn't come on. The glove box light, radio, and cigarette lighter all draw from the same fuse. It turned out that that fuse was intermittent, though looked fine, so I reversed it in its socket and used Deoxit on it, and its neighbors; that cured the problem. It probably happened because she's using a new, cheap seat heater pad I gave her for Christmas and the fuses are old and have divots in the contact ends from vibration and age. I put the radio back, we'll see if it holds up.

While I had it out I used the Deoxit on the dome light switch, and refreshed the paint on the white stripe on its knob. I've wanted to do that for awhile.

Jill also had said that the windshield washer nozzles were clogged. I pulled the hoses off of them, poked them out with a dental pick, and blew backwards through them with compressed air. I also flushed the lines to remove any dirt that might have been in there. Unfortunately one of the 90° fittings broke when I pulled it apart so I cleaned it off with brake cleaner and tacked it back together with cyanoacrylate glue. (I should have warmed it with the heat gun before pulling on it.) I then mixed up some 5-minute epoxy and potted the break, and held it over a warm light bulb and rolled it around until the glue started to set (both to keep the glue coating even and to keep it from dripping), then I clipped it in place over the lamp to finish curing while I got ready for work. When ready I put it back together and re-aimed the nozzles with the pick. (Yes, I need a new fitting but I didn't have a new fitting on me, doing this got it back on the road today.)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Jill's new iPhone charger plug doesn't fit in the cigarette lighter socket, nor did the USB port on the radio seem able to charge it. I took a look, and she'd bought a 'mini' charger, which didn't have a round plug but rather an oval, and it didn't fit securely into an actual cigarette lighter at all. (I'm sure it's fine in a power-only socket.) I checked, and the radio was unable to charge the iPhone, it either doesn't have enough current available or it needs some kind of configuration on the USB plug that it's not seeing. The radio did power a USB memory stick, so it's not defective. I had a wall-wart power-only socket in the junk box, so I sacrificed it (sob!) and a spare cigarette power plug and spliced them together to make a short extension cord. (I used heat-shrink tubing to re-insulate it and make it neat.) With this in place the iPhone would charge without problem.

I then removed the Bosch 0 333 402 507 (MB 002 545 06 32) 12 V/5-Cyl glow plug relay from the car and opened it up. Besides the big relay it had the usual counter-wound 4:1 plug windings around a reed switch (tres elegant!) and some circuitry: five transistors, two thermistors, nine diodes, a bunch of resistors, two precision capacitors, an LM2903 op-amp, and two electrolytic capacitors (one 220 µF, one 100 µF) on a coated PCB. I pulled the electrolytics and tested them, but they seemed OK. I replaced them anyway, but I doubt it'll make any difference. I used hot glue to attach the new capacitors to the board for vibration resistance, the originals had also been glued in place. I filed the one pitted contact (of twins) on the relay on general principles, and put it back together as I was out of time. In the ~50 °F garage the GP light was on for about 5 seconds, and the plugs timed out after about 24 seconds. (The relay was probably still at room temperature inside where the thermistors are.)

The manual has relevant jobs:

• 15-705 Operation of preglow system
• 15-708 Installing preglow time relay with modified ventilation
• 15-710 Checking preglow system

The first one is actually the most interesting. The manual implies that at freezing the required preglow is about 7 seconds, which seems short to me. For now I've told Jill to wait at least until the seat belt light has extinguished, or for a slow count of 20.

Here is an approximation of the glow time/temperature chart from 15-705, for quick reference:

Temp (°C)	(°F)	Time (sec)
–30	–22	27
–20	–4	17
–10	14	10
0	32	7
10	50	4
20	68	3
30	86	2

Monday, January 23, 2012

Crap.

I drove back home to look at it, and it appears that if she had managed to miss the sign there would have been no damage at all. As it is, the door is pretty much destroyed. It completely took out the handle, so she has to get in on the passenger side. As befits a Mercedes, once inside she can get out normally, and slam the door shut. There's a small crease in the rocker under the door, but it's minor and can be disregarded, I see no other body damage. The key cylinder of the wrecked handle looks intact, so I should be able to swap it into a junkyard handle to keep the key the same.

Looks like I'm going to have to come up with a new door. I have Smelly in the woods, but it has no handles nor any other hardware. There's a 123 at the U-Pull, I'll swing by and see what it's got. The car's going to look bad (worse?) after repair, it's unlikely that the replacement will be the right color.

Jill also apparently needs ice driving lessons, she was holding the car in low gear to keep the speed down (good), but did not put the car in neutral once it broke loose (bad). (She should have hit neutral and recovered via steering, before pumping the brakes to slow down as best she could.)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The same car also had a pair of Bosch Euro headlamps. The glass was broken out of one and the reflectors were pretty degraded, and both had broken-off mounting ears, but I grabbed them, and their vacuum hoses, anyway.

There was a 1960 180 there, which is a homely little cuss, a 201, a 124 300D and a 140 S320. (All airbags were deployed.) Odd that there was nothing from the 70's. The S320 looked interesting, this is the first time I'd seen the double-pane window glass up close.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Saturday, January 28, 2012

OTOH I could just wait for a better door to come along, if I could get the bent door working better. (I'd planned on this possibility all along, the door itself was cheap enough that if all I got out of it was a handle and the piece of belt trim I'd still be happy.) Figuring I had very little to lose I opened up the damaged door and removed the remains of the ruined door handle, and started hammering the metal back out. I used a chunk of maple firewood that tapered down to about ½"×1½" or so, yet had a mallet-sized big end which I could hit. The thin tapered end reached through the holes in the door's inner panel, allowing me to direct the force better than a big chunk would. Being wood it's softer than metal and less likely to poke dimples into the panel. I had my son hold the door while I whacked away. I also used a big crowbar to pry and pound at the crease lines in the metalwork (the ones that belong there). I used various small crowbars of my acquaintance to hook through the door handle holes and pull out, trying to restore the correct profile in the area without doing too much further damage. That actually went fairly well. I removed the bottom trim strip and found that most of the damage at the bottom was to the strip itself, which is metal with plastic molded around it. (The strip comes off with one 8mm nut at the trailing edge, behind a snap-in plastic cap, and a hook at the front. I had to break it loose from the plastic retaining clips along the middle and then pull backwards to release the front hook.) I think I'll be able to restore the strip to usability on the anvil. (The replacement door's strip was pried off, breaking off both the hook and the retaining screw.) At this point the door opened and closed well again, you could use a finger to grab the latch release eye and pull the door open. The inner lock mechanism worked fine. It no longer scraped at the front as it opened. Pretty good for a first cut at the problem, I thought.

With this it was time to address the door handle itself. The replacement, naturally, had no key and its weather door was long-gone. But it was all there. The original was shattered into pieces, but its key cylinder was untouched. (The actuating rod was bent, however.) I found a bent siding trim nail in the metal recycling bin that looked to be about the same diameter as the roll pin that holds the actuating rod mechanism to the lock cylinder. I straightened that and had my son hold the handle against a makeshift anvil while I drove the roll pin out. (I had to straighten the nail a few times along the way.) Once the pin was out the lock cylinder pulled straight out of the handle. (Make sure the key is in the cylinder while you do this, and don't lose the lock's torsion spring as it comes loose! If you remove the key you could lose all the spring-loaded lock wafers, or at least mix them all up and no longer be able to operate the lock.) I then cleaned the lock guts with brake cleaner, removing the dirt and grime. I then re-lubricated the lock wafers with spray graphite lock lube. We then took apart the replacement handle the same way. Its lock was full of dirt and grunge, the missing weather door had obviously been necessary.

I tried to straighten the bent operating rod, but it was pot metal and broke, no surprise. The replacement had a differently-shaped end where it engaged the latch, but seemed to work OK nonetheless. I put the good handle back together with the original lock cylinder and the replacement's operating rod, we reversed the anvil/roll pin operation. Once it was together the key operated as it should, and I slipped the handle into position. It worked! I then tightened the three screws.

At this point the door was fully operational, but still could use some more cosmetic shaping of the metal, and the trim pieces repaired and replaced.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

I was going to touch up the paint, I'd found an old blue rattle can. I was going to spray in the cap and dab it on to the bare spots, but the can seemed flat. I stupidly decided the propellant was gone and punched a hole in the side to stick a brush into, and the can promptly liberated most of its contents onto us, and the car—the bulk of it on the door. Oops! We spent a fun time with turpentine removing it from the glass, the trim, and ourselves. I left it on the paint, it did mostly cover the door after all. I was able to find a little left in the can to use the brush on, for the inside and the weatherseal channel. I had to use a green can to do the scrapes on the inside of the door where I had worked on it. That can, too, had trouble—once it started spraying it wouldn't stop.

Both cans ended up in the garbage. I then straightened the bottom trim piece out with a couple of hammers. At least it was more or less straight, though the attachment channel was wrecked in one spot. I figured out how it went back on on the car, you slide the hook into the front hole, hook it over the tops of the plastic buttons and snap it down over them while working the bolt into the rear hole. It didn't mate perfectly, due to the remaining damage and the inability to clip over the button in the bent area of the channel, but it's not bad. Between the two doors' trim strips I found enough red snap-in trim buttons to get the replacement belt trim back in place. That masked the damage a lot, it being there and reasonable looking. (While I was in the area I re-attached the fender belt trim too, it had started coming loose. I tried pushing its depressed area out a bit from the wheel well, I'm hoping that'll help.)

I started to put the door back together, but the window didn't work. Stuck at the top of the track. Seems like the track might have gotten a tiny pinch in it, because once you can get the window down an inch or so it works fine. We were tired and hungry, though, so we stopped for the day.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012

I hung the muffler and pipe back in place, first using the handheld bandsaw to align the joint better, and tack welded the joint along the bottom, then I dropped it all back down from the car to weld over the top, then hung it back up permanently and finished the job. I used my $50 Hobart gasless wire-feed welder, it's portable. The job was not made more pleasant by the light drizzle that was falling the whole time.

Jill drove off later, and said that it was back to normal.

Friday, February 17, 2012

...Turns out the monovalve insert appears to be malfunctioning, we had plenty of heat until we got well on the freeway. (At speed, once it starts modulating the heater core temperature, the heat began fading. If you stopped the heat came back. Classic.) It would wait until we're on a road trip to exhibit these problems!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

...It did, sort of. But it is definitely in need of replacement! We left the heat on MAX, on low fan, and modulated the cabin temperature via a window. (If you let the monovalve cycle it tended to get stuck 'off'.)

Friday, March 16, 2012

In the evening I changed the oil. (Finally! Another 7kmi change, nothing to be too proud of.)

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

I did a quick survey, and it is possible that this could be the infamous B2 piston failure, though the symptoms don't line up 100%. (Worse would be a B2 band failure.) The inability to get moving at first, especially on a hill, but normal freeway driving does match up though.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Friday, May 5, 2017

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

I connected the battery, which I'd charged sporadically over the years, and the car started right up, even though the battery was weak and could barely turn the engine over. I brought it up into the yard and washed it, leaving it to idle during. Once clean (enough) I moved it over to the parking pad and put it on charge while I vacuumed and got it ready for (potential) sale.

Oddly, the gas cap is missing. It must have been stolen, perhaps when it was on the street at the shop.

Friday, September 8, 2023

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Sunday, October 29, 2023

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