What did you do "IN" your garage today?

[bmwrd0]

I remember driving around the Berkeley hills with my brother in his Vanagon Synchro. Going up the 20% grade on Marin St. took first gear in that thing.

 

[wolfhawk73]

Grabbed a shovel as I was walking through so I could clear 14" of the white stuff from my driveway. Jesus, I'm glad this happens in eastern NC only about every 30 years.

 

[wolfhawk73]

 

[Jgaz]

Damn! That’s serious snow for southern Michigan let alone NC.

 

[M.Brane]

Played garage Tetris. Not a lot of difference, but a little better. Transferred some stuff into the sheds. More room to work when I actually get around to it. The ongoing process of better organization, and the never ending fight against FSD.

 

[pancholasvegas]

Usual routine this morning - fired up the heater with some coffee and got to work. Started off with swapping out to a new flow meter on the argon tank after a mishap took out the old regulator a couple days ago…

My goal today was to get a good run at getting the last panel / graft weld done so that we could have most of our drivers side ready for mockup. I started off by getting everything in the same plane and aligned with each other.



I apologize for not having more photos, but what followed was a lot of measuring, setting up the laser, setting up again, etc. and then fully taking it apart, again, laying it out and scribing the lines and then making the cut.

After the cuts were made, I started lining it up to tack & ultimately **** weld, hoping to fuse as much as possible.



No sense sitting around and thinking - threw a couple tacks on it..



Sewed up - couple spots I poked some holes but I’ll come back and fix them up.





Couple small spots to finish, but we had dinner plans. Next time I can play in the garage, I’ll hammer and dolly a bit and do some dressing on the welds after I button up a couple small spots.

Next it will be moving on to either building the roll pan, or removal of the opposite side to start building the bracing to tie it together.

 

[kaymccampbell]

Fixed some chipped nails. Played printer enclosure Tetris. Cat5 cable Tetris, too. Vacuumed. Thought. Made a huge mess. Started smashing Dielectric Breakdown Models with Diffusion Limited Aggregation Models to make a Lichtenberg emulator/simulator. My Python is improving. I really want to be able to scrap my Lichtenberg machine.

 

[Metallitubby]

Organized some (not all) of my hardware collection into the "new" bolt bin/organizer. Time to make some labels now.

 

[Beerhippie]

Diddly. Squat.

Didn't touch a wrench, hammer or any other tool. Didn't even check my work email.

Took a drive. Bought some cool old tools I have no use for.

Felt nice for a change!

 

[jimkinney]

The only thing that makes parts more expensive than adding the word "Jeep" to them is adding the word "Vanagon". Throw in "Subaru conversion" and the price inflates exponentially.

For Toyota's it's TRD. Replacement front rotors for my 2013 X Runner with factory TRD big brake kit are now unobtanium. Ended up with some Lexus parts, much cheaper and work just as well.

 

[jimkinney]

That's honestly what I expected the root cause to be here, but the bushing deflection is minimal. This one only has 45k miles on it and is bone stock, which IMO, means nothing should be worn out, but oh well. I'm not a Jeep guy either...I just have four of them.


My old SBC-swapped CJ-7 didn't have this issue. New cars are dumb.

Last Jeep I drove was a 61 Willy's back mid 70's. Very stable, but couldn't pass a gas station with a 327 and 5.13 gears. Belonged to a friend.

 

[Beerhippie]

Last Jeep I drove was a 61 Willy's back mid 70's. Very stable, but couldn't pass a gas station with a 327 and 5.13 gears. Belonged to a friend.

My '48 w/Chrysler flat-head six not only couldn't pass a gas station, but it couldn't pass much of anything else.

No problem with death-wobble, unless you took your foot off the gas--then, HANG ON!

 

[Not Bob]

Far from finished, but have the rough shape of my -70 brake pedal mod done enough to try on for size today. Should work well with my hockey stick foot,(fused ankle) and also clear the front side hack strut.

 

[Metallitubby]

Took a break from organizing nuts/bolts to remove the wheels w/ slicks from the Pikes Peak ILX in preparation for taking the car to the dyno for tuning.

 

[Deutchewelder]

I mounted a vise in my cheap welding table using a trailer hitch receiver thanks to a YouTube video

 

[dwasifar]

Oil change on the Crosstrek. Made an unaccustomed mess. Fortunately not on the concrete; I put a big sheet of cardboard down under the car when I do this.

Popped open the used oil filter for inspection. I bought a 12 pack of Pentius jobber filters a few months back and this was the first one I'd used. For $2.85 apiece, I'm surprised at the quality. Metal end caps and core, nice tight even pleats, coil spring, thick can, heavy base.



I was using Champ until I got a filter cutter and discovered they were constructed like OCoD Fram. Sadly, the Champs were USA and these Pentius are China. But that's the way it seems to be going; if you look at YT filter teardowns from people like Whip City Wrencher, the filters from Vietnam, Korea, and China are beating the USA manufacturers on quality now. Case in point: I took an AutoExtra (Wix-made private brand) off my wife's car a couple of weeks ago, and discovered the pleats were spaced so wide near the seam that they'd torn loose from the end caps. I'd rather buy USA, but I want my oil filters to, you know, filter oil.

For comparison, here's an earlier photo of the Champ filter:

 

[swsman]

It was a 55* day.
Had mom drop by and did some maintenance on '12 Fiat 500.

Fresh oil and cartridge filter/Oring.
Replaced Oring for oil separator.
Tire rotation and adjusted the pressure.
All wheel bolts got bench grinder wire wheel treatment.

Next project will be a Baja Designs DR650 headlight that came in earlier today.

BIke is getting closer to being ready for a Montana trip I have been planning for a couple years now.

 

[Methodical]

I started assembling the material needed to install a 10' winch system in the garage and getting my thoughts together on the best method to install to the ceiling. I have most of the items but need a few more. The winch will be used remove the pickup bed from my pickup truck and of course for future use. I received the hangers today so I tested them to make sure they fit the strut channel and I identified the best installation location to remove the bed and at the same still be in best location for other work.


10' 12 gauge strut channel (got it)
Strut channel hangers (got it)
Winch trolley wheels (got it)
Vevor electric hoist (waiting)

 

[bulletpruf]

Rocky and I disassembled a few T-10 transmissions and got one most of the way rebuilt.

 

[budo55]

Fixed some chipped nails. Played printer enclosure Tetris. Cat5 cable Tetris, too. Vacuumed. Thought. Made a huge mess. Started smashing Dielectric Breakdown Models with Diffusion Limited Aggregation Models to make a Lichtenberg emulator/simulator. My Python is improving. I really want to be able to scrap my Lichtenberg machine.

Was your python sick? 🫣

 

[zanyad]

Was your python sick? 🫣

In case you didn't know, Python is a programming language. Seems like Kay is adding it to her repertoire.

 

[jmdirk]

Diddly. Squat.

Didn't touch a wrench, hammer or any other tool. Didn't even check my work email.

Took a drive. Bought some cool old tools I have no use for.

Felt nice for a change!

That's what I should have done. Diddly squat.

Instead it turned out to be one of those days.

Wife was out for the day so I figured I would some due maintenance done on my 2106 F150. Mostly fluid changes. Rear diff, trans fluid and filter, coolant. But also had to do rear pads on.

Straightened up in the workshop a bit to make space around the lift to work, go the truck in and up on the lift. Figured I'd start with the rear diff so that the RTV would have time to cure and I could refill it after I finished everything else. The second bolt on the diff cover snapped like it was made of cheese. Only the second bolt, and it's still sealed, so I figured, ok...we'll skip the diff for now and move on to the other things. Frustration level was probably 2/10 at that point.

I should have stopped right there, gone in the house and spent the afternoon playing video games. But nooo...I decided to press on with the trans fluid and filter change. Now of course, dropping the pan on a trans is never fun and always results in fluid dripping everywhere and running down your arm as you try and undo bolts etc. Getting the pan and filter off, replaced and reinstalled wasn't too bad - other than the normal frustrations. But between the broken bolt, having trans fluid in my armpit, ice water from melting snow dripping down my back and seemingly bumping my head on the tires, lift arms, suspension components, etc, frustration was probably getting to be about 4/10. At this point, I go to find my fluid transfer pump because, with modern vehicles, why bother with easily accessible dipsticks up in the engine bay. Let's put the world shortest dipstick just above the pan. Now, I'm not the most organized guy in the world - far from it. But I could have sworn I had a little transfer pump sitting on the shelf. But after searching in all the logical areas, it's nowhere to be found. May have lent it out to a friend, or it's just somewhere that I'm not thinking to look. But at this point the frustration is building again. Thought to try and jury rig something, or just a funnel with a long length of hose. But with the length of hose I had available, I didn't relish the idea of putting up 7 litres of trans fluid through a 1/8 tube. At this point, it's about 7/10, I'm getting impatient and since the truck is not a daily driver, I decide to abandon the refill until I can buy (or locate) a pump.

So on to the coolant change. Coolant capacity is supposed to be about 17L. Locate the petcock and start the drain. It's slow but coming out. Figure it'll take a while to finish, I might as well start on the final job which is supposed to be a simple pad swap on the back brakes. For whatever reason, this generation of F150 goes through rear brakes surprisingly quickly. Dealer confirmed it the first time they told me they were getting low and seems to be a common issue on this truck. Any way, get the caliper off, remove the old pads and hardware. Put the near one on the sliders and go to press back the piston of the caliper using my little pistol style piston tool. It won't budge. Not a huge surprise though, it's kind of a cheapo tool, but usually does the trick. Anyway, switch a c-clamp and it does start to move a bit, but it's tight. I mean really tight. The handle on the C-clamp bending tight. Caliper is basically seized which I really should have anticipated. The pads on one side were worn quite a bit further than the other so I should have known there was an issue with the caliper.

So at this point, I'm pretty much done. Been at it for probably 6 hours. Probably 8/10 frustration. Cursing myself for being disorganized and unprepared, wondering why I bother. Coolant has stopped dripping but only about 4L or 17 have come out. Not that I expect to drain the full capacity, far from it. But more than 1/4 you would think. But I gave up at this point. Headed into the house for dinner and to order parts etc.. Meanwhile the truck is still up on the lift with 4 different maintenance jobs in varying stages of incompletion and spent virtually all afternoon without accomplishing a single thing.

 

[Hooked]

@racecougar Worse case of death wobble I ever had was a 97 F350, 1 ton, leaf springs. The track bar bushings were the cause, showed up after a lift was installed. Not worn , just the lift changed the geometry and wear on those bushings. Not sure a Jeep has a track bar on coil springs.. I'm not a Jeep guy.

The only case of death wobble I've experienced was on my 94 F350 2WD. One mounting bracket had cracked and a bolt was missing from the other side. I had a devil of a time figuring out the problem. It's been 10 years (+/-) since it happened so I don't recall the details but I was just lucky to have shined a light in the right location at the right angle to have seen the crack.

 

[wolfhawk73]

Damn! That’s serious snow for southern Michigan let alone NC.

And eastern NC at that. In this area, everyone remembers the big snow storms. Last one like this was '89 when I was 16. Our rivers were frozen enough to walk on in spots then. Before that '80 and '73. Dad drove my poor mother on unscraped roads to the hospital to give birth to me in '73. Thank God he had a '71 Land Cruiser at the time versus her Dodge sedan.

 

[BD55]

Finished up our Home Assistant dashboard. First had to make a recessed area for outlets and a the Raspberry Pi. Then built a frame for a touchscreen monitor. Still need to do a lot of work with integrations but the primary functionality is there. My wife wanted something that could pull from a shared family calendar, had the weather, showed and tracked the kids’ chores, and another calendar for meals so she didn’t hear the dreaded “What’s for dinner?” from everyone. I’ll be adding other dashboards for home automation stuff, but that’s mostly for me. We had initially bought one of the smaller Skylight calendars but it was expensive, clunky, and the app sucked. We wanted a bigger screen with more customizability. I tried figuring out MagicMirror, which was pretty cool but just doesn’t easily work with touchscreens. Then I tried DAKBoard, but it didn’t have all the functionality we wanted and was subscription based for more features. Home Assistant is open source but primarily geared for home automation, so I’m not using it exactly for what it’s intended, so I’m needing to do a little bit of finagling to get it to work (plus there’s a bit of a learning curve for a noob like me).

Tried to show the walnut coloring best I could. The camera’s white balance was thrown way off by the bright screen

 

[Beerhippie]

^I guess that the technology of my youth--"notes stuck to the fridge with magnets (later supplanted by Post Its)" is considered obsolete?

 

[BD55]

^I guess that the technology of my youth--"notes stuck to the fridge with magnets (later supplanted by Post Its)" is considered obsolete?

Haha, we tried that for several years and it was just too hard to keep everything organized. But I am a sucker for automation and integration stuff also, so I didn't push too hard to keep trying the manual method.

 

[rd65]

Moved a couple of things around in the shop. Cleaned up the Handy Lift so I could get back into the F350 C6. Didn't get very far, installed the shift shaft seal. Couldn't remember how it all went back together, couldn't get the old shop laptop to boot up so I could look at my manual on CD. Called it and went inside with the laptop so it could have internet access, shop is too far from the house. Watched a couple YT videos and now I am all set to forget it all by the time I get back it. I did locate Mrs' usb CD spinner and downloaded manual to my house laptop. Will try to download to shop rig tonight.

 

[bulletpruf]

Moved a couple of things around in the shop. Cleaned up the Handy Lift so I could get back into the F350 C6. Didn't get very far, installed the shift shaft seal. Couldn't remember how it all went back together, couldn't get the old shop laptop to boot up so I could look at my manual on CD. Called it and went inside with the laptop so it could have internet access, shop is too far from the house. Watched a couple YT videos and now I am all set to forget it all by the time I get back it. I did locate Mrs' usb CD spinner and downloaded manual to my house laptop. Will try to download to shop rig tonight.

What year on the F350? 4x4 or 4x2? What engine?

 

[rd65]

What year on the F350? 4x4 or 4x2? What engine?

80 F350 DRW 4x2, 400, C6, 410 gear. Engine has been out for five ( ) years now. Engine is done, Comp XE262H, 670 Street Avenger, long tube headers. Just need to quit letting other things get in the way.

 

[Itinerant]

Labeled some drawers and put stuff in them.




Cleaned a gasket surface.




Ran a couple of carb bodies through a cycle in the ultrasonic cleaner.

 

[Beerhippie]

Fixed leaking faucets in the kitchen. No one mentions this **** 'til all the various faucets are flowing freely when shut off, so it took a while. Ordered more T&S Brass rebuild parts.

Installed some new, WiFi-enabled clocks in the brewery. Supposed to be more reliable than the old radio ones. Time will tell.

Took another drive in the Brick, still in trans break-in period. I'm getting forced to drive some backroads I haven't driven in years--not even while hunting occult yard sales.

Rented a storage unit very near here--half way between the TG shop and Rocky's shop where I've been wrenching on the Brick for the last month and a half. Got a start at moving **** from the TG shop over to the storage unit, starting with all twelve of my spare mounted tires. My back hurts.

I believe it's now Beer Thirty.

 

[CoogarXR]

Tore the whole garage apart looking for a 9004 headlight bulb that I knew I had when I moved the contents of the garage. Couldn't find it. Went to Walmart and bought a new one and installed it in the Explorer.

Im sure I'll find that other bulb any minute now.

Cramming all my **** into this tiny garage is really a pain. I can't find anything. ****'s 10 layers deep. I can't wait until I get the new one built. Im dying over here lol.

 

[Beerhippie]

Tore the whole garage apart looking for a 9004 headlight bulb that I knew I had when I moved the contents of the garage. Couldn't find it. Went to Walmart and bought a new one and installed it in the Explorer.

Im sure I'll find that other bulb any minute now.

You know, they come in twos and both have the same amount of wear... you'll use the other.

 

[jblnut]

Backed my finishing disk in the shop to get new blades ….. again …….


To say I’m displeased with this set of blades is an understatement. They have around 400 acres on them and are garbage to the point they are unusable. At least a dozen are cracked and broken like these two.


I mean I know how this happened (likely hit a rock) but why !? What a bunch of junk. I tried to save a few bucks and get aftermarket blades but it didn’t work out so I picked up a set of factory EarthMetal Case IH blades at the tune of almost $7,000. Not sure what I’m gonna do with the hot garbage that is this set. Maybe I’ll make a bunch of disk blade cookers or a whole bunch of feet for bench grinders.

 

[bulletpruf]

80 F350 DRW 4x2, 400, C6, 410 gear. Engine has been out for five ( ) years now. Engine is done, Comp XE262H, 670 Street Avenger, long tube headers. Just need to quit letting other things get in the way.

Ok, I've seen that truck before; maybe in my F350 thread. Anyway, that's an awesome truck and if you ever decide to sell it, let me know!

 

[M.Brane]

Rocky and I disassembled a few T-10 transmissions and got one most of the way rebuilt.

Always good to have help in the shop. Mine are fairly worthless in that regard. They're good at begging for snacks though.

 

[rharman]

Did a quick fix on something that's been bugging me for months.

I bought a new HP printer/scanner/copier/fax mid last year. The reviews all mentioned the paper tray. God knows why but, for some reason, it doesn't have a detent or stop for setting 8-1/2x11 paper. Seriously? Just relies on friction. It does have a stop for legal size and another size (A10 maybe?). So, sometimes when you push the tray in, it slides out of whack and you get error messages about "wrong size paper loaded". Ugh!

There was a good spot with a recess on the bottom half of the tray so a little love from my drill press, an 8-32 nut super glued to the bottom, and a screw from a binding post took care of that. It'll stay at letter sized 99.9% of the time for our use. If we need legal, it's a 30 second changeover. Binding post screw is ultra low profile so no issues with the paper on top of it.

The printer has been great but HP really cheaped out and goofball engineered the paper tray.

 

[M.Brane]

HP = Horrible Pile.

 

[esben57]

Carrying on from #75,592
Took the VW polo to auto electrician who diagnosed the airbag control module faulty. He closed for the holidays and a few weeks ago had another look. Two days and a used module, the damned thing would not code to the car. Took it away along with the original module.
Had a trawl and found a place 50 miles away, sent it off but they were unable to test it.
Now then. They gave it to DHL to bring it back who brought it to the Depot near me. Then sent it to Newquay. Newquay is 300 miles away.
Eventually got it back and found Airbag team just a few miles away. They cured the internal fault in minutes. Wished I'd known of these earlier.
So today I've took some of the interior out of the VW and swapped the modules over. The chap at airbag team will code it to the car or clear the fault code FOC - Monday.
If you need any airbag repairs in the UK try Airbag Team

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Finally fixed this morning. Went over to Airbag just missing the traffic, cleared fault and all working ok.
Next job trying to find what's causing battery to drain. It will need another new battery but I obviously need to find the fault first.
Digging around I found an insurance black box. Over here young drivers have them. Records driving habits and charges accordingly.
This box had been in car years (I didn't know). You could see a small light on behind a kick panel so I took the panel off. There's this box with a light show permanently flashing. Chased the wires and it was taking power from the headlamp switch, not fusebox. I checked a fuse at a time.
See what happens now.