What did you do "IN" your garage today?

[Beerhippie]

I got started building a roof rack basket for the Brick.

Then the pilot on one of the water heaters for the pub needed to be restarted. Got that done and showed the kitchen staff how to do it.

Got back to work on the basket.

Then the floor drains in the pub kitchen backed up. Got out a drill pump to get enough water out of the way to use a snake in the drains. The pump didn't work--it's been used ONCE. Grabbed one out of my personal tools, which had also been used once. It didn't work. Ran to the store to buy another. It worked! I guess these POS' are single-use only?

Got out the new 25' drill-powered snake I bought last week week. It worked for about ten feet, then broke. Having a great day so far.

Broke out the BIG cart-mounted 75' power snake. Got about ten feet in and couldn't go any farther. It's been more than a decade since I've had to do this and I've forgotten the secret sauce to cleaning these drains. Tried again from a different drain--got a little farther, then nothing.

Meanwhile, the kitchen manager called a local plumber. He can be here tomorrow. I recalled that there's a cleanout in the crawlspace under the pub, but I can't get down there while we're open as the trapdoor to it is at the bottom of the stairs in the pub. Plan on being in early to get down there.

The plumber suggested to the kitchen manager to dump some lye drain cleaner down the drains--which doesn't do **** to kitchen grease. Now the lines are full of lye and I can't open the cleanout in the crawlspace. One of the founders of the brewpub almost lost his eyes by opening a drain line full of caustic--I don't need to repeat that.

Pub had to close for the evening as we can't cook in a kitchen with gray water on the floor.

Total CF.

We had a little talk re: I'm NOT on call 24/7. I'll be gone camping a LOT this spring-fall--in places with no cell reception. We need to figure out something else. Oh, yeah--and talk to me BEFORE dumping caustic chemicals down the drains!

But I finally got the front half of the Bubba roof rack basket pretty much done:



That began life as a warehouse pallet rack shelf. We downsized our rack system a few years back and the shelves have just been in the way since. Boss OKed me using a couple of them for a new basket.

When the second set of side rails arrive, I'll add a second piece of shelving to make a full-length basket:



With the basket to one side of the roof racks, I should be able to fit a solar panel on the other side.

 

[dscheidt]

Is that the one to change the courtesy lamp?

I'm pretty sure it's required to oil the radio.

 

[swsman]

Today amounted to cleaning up and putting away the tools from the car repair project.

 

[Mike65]

This past week I was getting an engine miss on my 05 F150 w/CEL on. The codes said I had two cylinders misfiring. I received the coils I ordered & replaced them & the spark plugs while the coils were out. Runs great now.

 

[bugnut]

@kaymccampbell images on your phone from the thermal do hicky look pretty good. Android friendly? Flavor? TIA

 

[SMOKEYBEAR]

Oil pump on the Mercury is complete...some how. Tested my tools, ability and patience. The old lines were tough to remove, may be the originals since 2007. I ended up trimming them a bit to get a better seal on the new pump. Completed the oil pump prime sequence, ran it on the hose..runs perfect and zero leaks. Took the time to clean the rest of it up well since I had the lower cowls off. Serviced the grease points on the engine, inspected the belt and tension pulley. Greased the vertical sliders on the hydro jack plate. Jack plate needs some more attention, it's moving to slow. It happens over the winter when the grease hardens and isn't be used regularly.

 

[kaymccampbell]

@kaymccampbell images on your phone from the thermal do hicky look pretty good. Android friendly? Flavor? TIA

They say Android n iOS friendly. Works on Judy's old galaxy. It's made by Thermal Master. $130. You can go down an awful hole and spend thousands on a flir thermal cam for the perfect whatever. I wanted useful. I saw the vids on this one and figured I'd return it if it didn't measure up. It has, so it's a keeper.

 

[TheClaw]

Finally put something on the wall in the new shop. Started moving tools from the old tool boxes into the new ones. Put the shelves together

 

[PhantomEB]

Finished up my on call day with one garage cleaned up, bronco battery back up to snuff via the online maintainer, replacement muffler painted up.


pretty sure I gonna have to pull the flexible section out to get them to mate At the front crossmember of my rock sliders then start to plan for my thru the quarter Panel side exit.



Sourced out 5” wide Aluminum from my metal rack which I will turn into a pair of exhaust trim rings On the quarter panel. This truck pretty much will be able to be driven by braille as everything tucked up nice and high.

 

[Beerhippie]

Back to wrestling a 100' power snake. I seem to have gotten about 75' and stopped. No idea if we made progress on the clog. Testing it right now.

Now I have to figure out how to get all the snake back in the cage....

Happy day of rest y'all!

 

[Beerhippie]

I think we got it! Ran a sink for fifteen minutes, no rise in level. Ran two loads through the commercial kitchen dishwasher--no problem.

35' of the big power snake before I couldn't go any further.



Add this to the list of "tools you absolutely hate but really need".

Here's the apparently single-use drill pump, number four:



It, too, goes on the list--not because it's unpleasant to use, but because it's a POS.

Now maybe I can have a little bit of weekend... fingers crossed.

 

[Beerhippie]

I have all the cable unreeled from the snake, letting it dry in the mid-winter spring sunshine. I need to pick up another can or two of cable oil and oil the cable before I put it back on the cage--and figure out how to put it back without the massive tangles I had to wrassle with to get the cable out.

Advise appreciated, plumbers.

 

[micromind]

I think we got it! Ran a sink for fifteen minutes, no rise in level. Ran two loads through the commercial kitchen dishwasher--no problem.

35' of the big power snake before I couldn't go any further.



Add this to the list of "tools you absolutely hate but really need".

Here's the apparently single-use drill pump, number four:



It, too, goes on the list--not because it's unpleasant to use, but because it's a POS.

Now maybe I can have a little bit of weekend... fingers crossed.

That type of pump does not do well when run dry....even for just a few seconds.

 

[Beerhippie]

Pressure washed the power snake cable. Let it sit out in the sun and breeze--it's been over 60F with breezes from 15-45 mph today--then oiled it and packed it back away neatly so it actually feeds next time:



You can see where previous employees have managed to put a couple of permanent kinks in the cable. Those are a PITA to stow back away. I think I'll cost out a new cable for it.

Turns out, the trick to getting the cable packed away neatly and without kinking is to NOT use the power drive--just shove it in there so it lays in neat coils.

I had to have someone hold the snake cart I built last fall while I fought the cable out of the cage/spool, so I took the tiny locking casters off the front and replaced them with pads:



The cart balances nicely on the rear wheels for moving it.

Getting the water and boiler ready to brew tomorrow.

Beer thirty is in sight!

 

[larry4406]

Pressure washed the power snake cable. Let it sit in the sun and breeze--it's been over 60F with breezes from 15-45 mph today--the packed it back away neatly so it actually feeds next time:



I had to have someone hold the snake cart I built last fall while I fought the cable out of the cage/spool, so I took the tiny casters off the front and replaced them with pads:



Getting the water and boiler ready to brew tomorrow.

Beer thirty is in sight!

I sure as hell hope they pay you well!

Literally the **** you do there!

Probably easier to make a list of things you don’t do.

 

[Beerhippie]

That type of pump does not do well when run dry....even for just a few seconds.

It was advertised as "self priming", which it is--once.

 

[Beerhippie]

Literally the **** you do there!

Fortunately, it was only kitchen drains this time--no actual sewage--just rancid kitchen grease.

Planning to use some of my accumulated PTO next week to get some of my **** done--wrenching on my vehicle fleet; finish getting moved out of my old office--the end of the month is Saturday.

 

[niget2002]

More laser fun. Got the laser mounted on the new z axis, 3d printed a new mount for all the electronics, and wired up most of the electronics. Still need to wire up the z stepper, the air solenoid, and figure out how I want to get a Z endstop on the the device for setting z height.

 

[M.Brane]

Got some more stuff stripped off the Smashed Truck™ cab. Pretty much ready to remove the doors/hood, and start cutting it up so I can gradually feed the pieces into the metal bin at work.

 

[Beerhippie]

Yep, that's what I was expecting to find in there. Seems like it should be pretty resistant to running dry for long enough to prime. I think I'll lube it with some silicone great, glue it back together with some ABS glue and see if it works.

 

[M.Brane]

Can you say "Plastic fatigue failure"?

 

[Beerhippie]

Can you say "Plastic fatigue failure"?

Can you say "MIC POS"?

 

[BreeStephany]

Spent 20 minutes giving the old 2000 Tahoe a little bit of a technology upgrade.

A couple of years ago my father gave me and my partner a well taken care 2000 Chevy Tahoe with 140k miles on the odometer to have a 'backup' vehicle.

I did a lot of the service work to this over the years for my father outside of the routine lube work. New universal joints on the drive shafts, new brakes, new fuel pump, new spark plugs, new thermostat, etc.

It runs great other than having a few gremlins in the HVAC controls that I eventually need to figure out, but living in a much larger city in Oregon these days, not having navigation was a downfall to driving it around town.

Its smaller than my 2016 long bed Duramax, so finding parking is much easier with this than the truck, but just going off of my phone mounted on the dash was a downfall.

I decided to finally give it a little upgrade and got a new head unit for it. Got the 1.5 to 1 din adapter, a harness adapter and an inexpensive but very decently built head unit for it for under $200. Spent 10 minutes building the harness adapter and mounting the head unit in the dash adspter, 5 minutes pulling the dash trim off and pulling the old unit and another 5 minutes clicking everything back into place.



Routing of the new backup camera is going to be a little more involved, so I didnt get around to that today, but the unit is in and worked right the first time.

I will say, OEM harness adapters are a MUST for simple, "done right the first time" auto audio upgrades. Made it so simple to build the harness inside, take everything out to the car and just click and go.

 

[Beerhippie]

Yep, that's what I was expecting to find in there. Seems like it should be pretty resistant to running dry for long enough to prime. I think I'll lube it with some silicone great, glue it back together with some ABS glue and see if it works.

The experiment was a success. The results were negative.

 

[SRU1436]

Disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the valve body (which has a lot of parts inside it) on the turbo 350 rebuild. This is my first transmission rebuild, the complexity of an automatic transmission blows me away, and people infinitely smarter than me came of up these.

 

[kaymccampbell]

Cleaned, flung, put away, reorganized. Burned a bunch of little drawers for an Advent tower that someone gave me. Opened the burner's panel to check board Rev for a potential firmware upgrade.

 

[rcktpwrd]

In and out of the garage about 10 times to get tools and hardware.
Took down an old vertical bind setup and installed a new curtain rod in the bedroom for the window/door to the patio that we never use.

 

[Jgaz]

Bent up a tray that I‘ll use in my traveling tool kit project.

First time I’ve really used the fingers I machined to make the Harbor Freight 30” brake into a poor man’s finger brake.

 

[GrayFlattop]

Disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the valve body (which has a lot of parts inside it) on the turbo 350 rebuild. This is my first transmission rebuild, the complexity of an automatic transmission blows me away, and people infinitely smarter than me came of up these.

Complexity from back in the day. I remember the first time I opened one up - it made my brain hurt. Automatic transmissions have moved far beyond the turbo350.

I had the distinct pleasure of working with power train and transmission engineering teams for many years. The amount of brainpower that goes into designing, developing, validating and manufacturing something like the 10R80 is mind boggling. A few hundred thousand square feet filled with engineers in cube farms. I remember waiting for a conference room to vacate - the dozen or so engineers in there were focused solely on the endurance test results of planetary gear bearings. Similar groups all over delving into the minutiae of every assembly.

It was glorious when things went right. Brutally stressful when they did not.
I certainly do not miss the last part and now I couldn’t summon the energy for the first part.

 

[SRU1436]

Complexity from back in the day. I remember the first time I opened one up - it made my brain hurt. Automatic transmissions have moved far beyond the turbo350.

I had the distinct pleasure of working with power train and transmission engineering teams for many years. The amount of brainpower that goes into designing, developing, validating and manufacturing something like the 10R80 is mind boggling. A few hundred thousand square feet filled with engineers in cube farms. I remember waiting for a conference room to vacate - the dozen or so engineers in there were focused solely on the endurance test results of planetary gear bearings. Similar groups all over delving into the minutiae of every assembly.

It was glorious when things went right. Brutally stressful when they did not.
I certainly do not miss the last part and now I couldn’t summon the energy for the first part.

Sounds like a fascinating experience.

 

[Fordguy1964]

I spent another 5 hours today organizing parts. I'm amazed myself at how many parts I have. I pick up another trailer load this weekend. That will all need to be blended in to the stuff I already have. In some ways I dread the extra but in other ways I can't wait to get it. Now that the garage is becoming organized I am gaining shelf space. Labeling there boxes and the shelves is making the mess more manageable. My gout is almost completely gone for this round. Hopefully it will stay gone for a while.

 

[Fordguy1964]

Simply going thru my pile of Tshirts. Some had a second thought to go back into circulation, some are getting donated to the Homeless mission down at the Church(only place I know where the clothes actually go to the Homeless), and rest into the shop rags bin.

Retire a T-shirt? Blasphemy! I have some t- shirts in my collection that are over 35 years old. Mostly concert Ts but also car show Ts. My wife has been trying to sneak some of them out. I keep the rotation for the most part fresh. I guess that is how I have them last as long as they do. Up until about 6 years ago I still had my Led Zeppelin concert T from the 70's and a Rush and Frank Zappa shirt from the early 80's.

 

[rd65]

I had to plumb a test system at work that had over 600 threaded stainless joints (fittings made in China) from 1/2" to 3". Our engineer said to use some soft-set garbage and no tape. I argued, but he was adamant, so half of the joints leaked. I told him to go away and let me fix it. I spent four weeks replumbing it with lots of cheap Teflon tape and Rectorseal Tru Blu. The pressure in the system alternates every 3 minutes from zero to 5 bar for 8 weeks per test. No leaks in the seven years we've had it.

Engineers can be irritating most times, just take your clipboard and coffee and get out of the way.

 

[Metallitubby]

Used the new label maker to start labeling the bolt bins. Put some of the ladyfriend's plants in from the cold.

 

[LeonardY]

Continuation of yesterday but I actually got something done.

I've had an idea for where to put my battery chargers.

There room for a five inch high drawer that will still allow the lid of the tool box to open.
The drawer will be about 18 inches deep. I figured I can place my chargers in the drawer and open it when I need to charge batteries.
I will never leave batteries in the charger after they are done charging. The drawer won't be able to close while batteries are being charged. I won't be storing batteries in it. Batteries live with the tool that they belong with. The exception is the yard equipment. Since those live in the shed. I'll keep those batteries in the garage.

I had to move the tools out of the way to get at the plywood. It's not ideal storage for plywood but it's all I have. I have to go fish whenever i need plywood. It does help that I usually have a pretty good idea whats piled in there. Not sure how I remember but i do.

I pulled out a number of pieces to find what I needed.

Untangled the power tools to get the cabinet saw out to use. After a couple of hours I made this.

It got late. I cleaned up shoved all the tools back and blew out the garage. Put the cart back in.
I'll put the drawer in place tomorrow.

 

[rd65]

My brother in law had given me this 05 Ski Doo SDI about 3 years ago. When I first got it I put new pistons and rings in it, new used stator, new used magneto flywheel, rebuilt the rave valves, had the injectors cleaned and I had it running good. But the recoil on it would only catch about half the time so I bought one from market place and put it on, it didn’t work at all lol, so I set th snowmobile aside and didn’t look at for 3 years lol.
Last week I decided to take a few days and figure out those rewinds, rebuilt the original rewind that I had in a box, installed it. Machine wouldn’t start so I ended up draining the tank , had to clean the injectors again and change a fuel tank grommet that the pick up tube goes in, changed the in line fuel filter, go it back together today and it’s working again.

Ski Doo have never been able to make a recoil starter worth a ****, just like Polaris and their snowmobile gas tanks.

 

[rd65]

This past week I was getting an engine miss on my 05 F150 w/CEL on. The codes said I had two cylinders misfiring. I received the coils I ordered & replaced them & the spark plugs while the coils were out. Runs great now.

Went through 2 set of coils in my 06 F150 5.4. Aftermarket dont seem to be any better than stock.

 

[swsman]

Went through 2 set of coils in my 06 F150 5.4. Aftermarket dont seem to be any better than stock.

Parts like that OEM used to be the ticket, sadly with the parts quality dropping off a cliff, it is a moot point anymore.
A **** shoot really.

 

[rd65]

Not as much time spent in the shop as I had hoped, but that always seems to be the case. Saturday - checked out cordless trimmer for battery replacement. More research needed. Removed water pump bolts from F350 engine, wire wheeled the paint off, reinstalled and sprayed with satic clear. I had painted them engine color but they didnt look good on the bare aluminum water pump. Installed new trans mount and dipstick tube oring on C6.
Today - stuck bore scope down spark plug holes on the 400 to make sure there was no rust anywhere, looked good. Sprayed some light oil in cylinders, gapped and installed spark plugs. Spent half an hour trying to find plug gap specs in the factory service manual, no joy. No internet out there, so came inside to find the specs. Started on getting the rad support out, looks like that might be fun. Got the headlight buckets and grill out, all the plastic mounting tabs are still in place. Sprayed dont core support bolts with penetrating oil. Wont get back to it until next weekend most likely. Glad to finally be making some progress on that project.
BTW are these dead areas in the bulbs repairable? I have quite a few like this.

 

[Mike65]

Went through 2 set of coils in my 06 F150 5.4. Aftermarket dont seem to be any better than stock.

My 05 is a 5.4 also.