I think it was General William T. Sherman who said if he owned Hell and Texas, he would live in Hell and rent out Texas.

--G.
Having played Helltaker, I'm now inclined to agree, although possibly not for the same reasons.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

It's not so much the heat as much as the humidity. Really. There's times out here when, in the middle of summer, thunderstorms just pop up out of nowhere because the heat and humidity hit some kind of critical level and then BOOM! Thunderstorm! And suddenly it's flash flood warnings everywhere and you do not cross roadways where you can't make out the road itself. (Really, we have flood control measures here that'll make a Dutchman sit back and whistle.)

As for the sweating...

To wit; as of late I've been driving a rather noice 2013 Jetta with the 2.5l inline-5 engine and a five speed manual transmission. And a two-tone black-on-beige interior. (It looks swanky as all hell.) The engine, as befits a beast with overlapping power strokes, is wonderfully torquey at the low end, and the transmission has some absurdly long gears in fourth and fifth to leverage that.

The fly in the ointment?

The air conditioning is a temperamental bastard. And what's worse is that I suspect the fix is going to be heinously expensive. How can I tell? It tends to suddenly kick in when I brake or when the car hits a downward incline. It also seems to kick in sometimes when I'm romping on it a bit. Meaning that the engine computer, which tells the AC compressor clutch when to work so as to use that extra couple of horses for acceleration, is probably out of whack.

Currently I'm schlepping pizzas for Papa Johns - they've been a good fallback for me because the money is halfway decent and I always make sure that when I do leave, I do so on good terms. So yeah. The No AC thing is really starting to wear on me.

I'm seriously considering switching back to my old Saturn SC1. (Year 2000 - Third gen just before the facelift - meaning it has the late-2nd gen body styling with the awesome suicide door on the driver's side) It's rickety and in need of a lot of TLC, but the drive train is sound and the AC works.

It's actually kinda hilarious, because before I was doing Uber Eats in that old Saturn, and every now and then I'd give some guy who makes six figures a year a nostalgia attack, complete with the requisite "OH GAWD AND IT'S A MANUAL TOO!?" This despite the car being an obvious beater that has definitely seen better days.

Word to the wise: if you ever come across an SC1 or an SC2 (same car, more features and sixteen valves cylinder head instead of eight) in good condition? Jump on that shit. They're hardy little things that are fun to drive, and the engines are nearly impossible to kill - so long as you remember to check the oil regularly. (Saturns have a weird engineering bug they never quite worked out about the engines eating oil. It's not too terrible, but it can sneak up on you if you get complacent about it.)

In the mean time, I've been helping my folks get their beast of a 1993 Suburban up and running in exchange for their helping me get my rent and other bills back under control.

First to go were all the lock cylinders plus the ignition cylinder. Some dickwad crackhead broke into The Beastie, ruining the driver-side door handle completely. Lucky for us, folks in the apartment complex behind ours saw what the guy was doing - he was hitting up EVERY car in the lot, just working his way on up. He thought he was being real slick up until the police showed up.

But the bastard did a number on the doors, so I had me some hardware to replace. Fortunately, I found a complete set of lock cylinders online - which was great because up until now it was one of those stupid setups where you had separate keys for the ignition and the doors. Mom and Dad could not express how happy they were about this. Bonus in that we now have original keys for The Beastie - which we're setting aside as spares/masters from which all the copies are cut from.

Then I had to replace the turn signal and headlight dimmer switches - and boy oh boy, was THAT ever fun because of all the fiddly little bits you have to take out to get at the thing. Fortunately, I did this at the same time that I replaced the ignition lock cylinder, because screw doing THAT a second time! They were really surprised that I did all three of those in one go - especially the headlights. They weren't working before and Mom and Dad thought it was an issue with the wiring and would take a lot more work to fix. But a bit of research on my part revealed that a bad hi-beam/low-beam switch will effectively kill the headlights entirely in these beasts.

(Weirdest damn setup, too. The switch itself is not part of the turn signal switch assembly. Instead, there's a frickin' actuating rod the runs from the turn signal lever all the way down along the steering column, and the switch itself is near the pedals!)

Next up is overhauling the valve body in the transmission because it won't shift from 2nd to 3rd. At all. (God, I fucking hate automatics.) I can handle this because a large part of my job in the Navy was working on an electro-hydraulic system. The hard part is going to be actually setting up an ad-hoc shop space in my apartment.

And then I'm maybe going to replace all the shocks because holy hell this beast wallows like a pig. And probably the steering gear box, too, because there's damn-near one whole inch of play on the steering wheel. I have no idea how the hell my family manages this sucker on the highway.

But that's not even the worst part.

The worst part is that one of the previous owners fancied themselves to be an electrical engineer and tried their damndest to turn that thing into a cut-rate ghettomobile of a show car. It's so bad that we're just gonna hunt the parts yard for viable wire harnesses and get rid of everything else that looks like it doesn't belong.

I really got my work cut out for me.

DaemeonX

-------------------------

Update on the Burbie:

Turns out it's actually a fried 3-4 clutchpack. Someone failed to mention the bit about the engine taking off when it hits 3rd gear.

What kinda sucks is that the rebuild kit we ordered doesn't have the full set of replacement pistons that you want when fixing this issue. The originals were made of aluminum, so having these pistons crack and leak hydraulic fluid is a thing that happens often enough that the replacements are *always* made of steel. So we're waiting on those now. And I've ordered the replacement plastic check-balls, because the steel check-balls have an incredibly nasty tendency to get lodged into the ports on the valve body, whereas the plastic ones have just enough give in them to prevent this from happening.

I have managed to remove a great deal of the additional wiring Mr. Electro put into this thing. It is, to say the least, impressive to see what all I have removed from this thing. I'll post pics later of for those that want to see.

There's still a short somewhere in the system that requires us to start it up at least once a week to keep the battery from going dead, but that's not a deal breaker for us. And with all the useless crap I've removed from the electrical system, I should be able to track it down.

I have a solid shot at being able to fix the air conditioning in the rear. Preliminary testing shows that there is no flow of refrigerant to the rear unit's evaporator coils. Which means one of two things: the expansion valve is not receiving a signal and/or power to open, or the expansion valve itself is no good. Either one is an easy fix, though if the valve is indeed bad, it will necessitate a discharging of the entire system, and then a purge and recharge afterwards.

My folks believe this is a worthwhile expense to get the rear AC working again.

Since I've come so far with the electrical system, my folks now want me to install a basic bluetooth capable head unit inside the Burbie. Which is doable. They actually make complete kits to install single- and double-DIN units where the tape deck would normally be. I just need to get my hands on the original pigtails that the Burbie came with so I can actually use the install kit - which comes with a pigtail that plugs into the original pigtail.

Nice, eh?

Fortunately, new replacement pigtails for the stock OEM wiring are available on the cheap, so that's now in the list of Things To Do.

In other news:

One of my brothers got into an accident with the Jetta.

It looks worse than it actually is - the car will actually run and drive just fine, but the cosmetics on pretty much the entire front end are toast.

The accident was caused by someone suddenly pulling into the lane while doing a left turn, leaving my brother with absolutely no time to stop before t-boning his truck - a late 3rd generation Ford Ranger.

And then the bastard tried to run.

I only say "tried" here because, even though he eventually got away, we have his face and license plate numbers on my dash cam, as well as the accident itself.

Why yes, my insurance company -is- smelling blood in the water.

The nice part about all this is that in addition to basic liability coverage, I also opted for $25,000 worth of uninsured motorist coverage. We're just now waiting to set up the appointment to have the damage appraised.

I've been using my Saturn for regular delivery work, but just tonight it seems the water pump has bit the dust.

*Sighs* Just goes to show you, when it comes to me and misfortune, it never never rains, it pours. Suddenly being down by not one, but TWO vehicles in short order is just par for the course for me.

The good thing is that I do have the funds for the parts, and the parts are readily available. It's just that I'm going to be out of work for a day, and I don't have anyone to cover for me because I'm a closer and nobody who is available wants that shift.

Welcome to Hell, here is your accordion.

I mean, I can do basic maintenance, sure, but ... for example, a water pump replacement? I had parts left over. The thing ran! ... though the belt had a tendency to snap afterwards and I could never figure out why, I just know it didn't *before* I replaced the bad pump.

Things like that. I like to think I'm not an incompetent boob but evidence suggests otherwise :D

--sofaspud
--

One of the pulleys inside the engine bay is probably out of position. It doesn't take much. The most likely culprit is the water pump, either because you didn't remove all of the old gasket material before replacing it, or you used too much RTV sealant.

The only other obvious thing to check would be the spring-loaded belt tensioner.

If your car doesn't use that (instead, it uses a manual tensioner that works by using a jack-screw to adjust the position of one of the pulleys), check to make sure you're not overtightening the belt. It's possible to do so, and it will destroy serpentine belts faster than you can imagine.

Seconded, these are often a problem. Also, you might want to check and see if your car's belt arrangement has any idlers (i.e., pulley wheels that aren't attached to a tensioner or anything that needs turning, but just serve to keep the belt routed the way it needs to be). I've had two different cars that had one of those which froze and burned the belt off. That doesn't take long to happen when one of the wheels isn't turning. :)

(OK, it's not super-likely that an idler which was working before chose the occasion of your water pump replacement to freeze, but hey, stranger things have happened.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Boy-howdy, I'll say. I once had my serpentine belt in my old Ranger get absolutely destroyed when the lock-nut on the alternator came loose and...

...Well, let's just say that the pulley didn't come off, but once I knew something was wrong, the alternator's shaft could have been used as an extremely effective anti-vampire weapon.

I was just fortunate the damn thing was still under warranty. The look on the Autozoner's face when I brought in the alternator was amusing.

Back when we all lived in the same apartment in Waltham, Truss, Zoner, and I had to stop by an AutoZone to get something, and when we arrived we noticed a sign in the door, which read (apparently for the information of any would-be robbers),

ATTENTION: AUTOZONERS CANNOT OPEN SAFE

This immediately gave us the image of the store staffed by robot duplicates of Zoner, of approximately the quality level of the good robot Bill and Ted from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, who were unable to open the safe because their clumsy robotic claws couldn't work the combination dial finely enough.

"I AM SOR-RY. I CAN-NOT O-PEN THE SAFE." (clunk clunk whirrr)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Now I have this weird mental imagery of a muppet-like robo-Zoner whose sole purpose is to provide sufficiently Zoner-like remarks whenever the man himself isn't around to do it. And it's called The AutoZoner.

Would make music more interesting, I guess.

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

I could believe this. I had the help of a Chilton's manual but nobody with experience, so I imagine there are lots of little things that everyone 'just knows' that folks with no exposure don't realize are important.

Like in recipes that say "cream the butter", if you don't know what that means you might well go completely wrong with confidence.

>The only other obvious thing to check would be the spring-loaded belt
>tensioner.
>
>If your car doesn't use that (instead, it uses a manual tensioner that
>works by using a jack-screw to adjust the position of one of the
>pulleys), check to make sure you're not overtightening the belt. It's
>possible to do so, and it will destroy serpentine belts faster than
>you can imagine.

It was a '92 Ford Tempo and I did the work circa... '99, maybe? So whichever those used. The leftover parts as I recall were a couple of bolts and a widget of some sort.

With hindsight and experience under my belt I'm pretty sure I just cranked the pump pulley around to tension the belt instead of reattaching the idler tensioner...-thingy.

I mean I don't know *how* I missed replacing an entire part with the manual right there next to me, but that's my best guess.

--sofaspud
--

By now, though, it's probably a non-issue - your bigger concern is how it's eating up serpentine belts.

Water pump pulleys shouldn't be able to be moved around - the pump they're attached to should be fixed in the engine black once it's bolted in.

From what I've seen of a cursory look at Autozone's website, you either have a spring loaded tensioner... that is, if you got the 4 cylinder engine. But if you have the V-6, then your tensioner is part of the bracket that mounts the power steering pump. And that WILL use a manually adjusted mechanism that is similar to "just cranking the pulley around".

Sometimes it has a jack screw, and sometimes just a bolt that rides in an arc-shaped slot that you tighten down once you get the belt as tight as it supposed to be.

Those are a pain in the ass because you don't have a jack screw to make it easy on you - you have to pull the pulley until it's tight, and then while keeping it tight, tighten down the bolt that keeps it in that spot.

Too much or too little tension destroys serpentine belts. The general rule of thumb is to place a straight-edge along the length of the belt between two pulleys, and then use a ruler to measure how far you can deflect the belt (push it in away from the straight edge). Generally, you want it to be about 1/2", and definitely no more than 1". Really, 1/2" is the usual sweet sport, but check your manual to be sure.

If the tension is good, then give the whole thing a careful look with a jaundiced eye. Anything that looks like it might be out of place probably is. Also look at it with the engine running, making sure to keep all clothes, hair, and body parts away from the belt. If there are any issues, then you should see them at work this way.

Good luck!

As noted, this was back in the '99 range. That particular car, aside from eating belts on a fairly frequent basis, ran well and died an honorable death in 2014. (22 years is, I think, a fairly decent run for a shitty Ford Tempo!)

These days I drive a Subaru and don't dare attempt anything more complex than oil changes, myself. But then, these days I can fortunately afford to hire mechanics... usually. :)

--sofaspud
--

I check the oil weekly and keep it topped up as I can. As soon as I get the new promotion that my bosses put me in for I am going to look into a newer car or truck. Maybe even a sprinter van as I have vague plans that are solidifying into a US road trip within the next few years.

DaemeonX