How to change your battery the right way

The girlfriend's car is getting harder to start, and this is due to the battery being over five years old or so, which is about all you will get out of a battery on average.  A battery is not that difficult to change out, but if it is done the wrong way, you can do some serious damage to your car.  Here is the right way to change the battery in your car.  I am using a 2006 Accord for this demonstration but you can apply this principle to any car or truck.

Step one is to locate the battery in the vehicle.  Typically this is under the hood, but in some cars it can be in the trunk or under the back seat.  If you just happen to drive an older Dodge Viper, it is actually behind the rear bumper under the car.

Step two is to remove whatever hold down assembly being used to hold the battery in place.  In this case, it is a metal bracket retained by "J" bolts.

 Once you get the retaining bracket out of the way (It's the metal thing in the center of the battery) You can remove the NEGATIVE cable.  If you cannot readily identify the negative cable, you can look at the battery itself, which will have markings on it, typically POS and/or a + sign for positive and NEG and/or a - sign for negative.  Remove the negative cable and mark it if necessary.

In this case the negative cable is the one on the right.

The positive cable comes off next, and in this case it has a red cover to identify it.  Once this is done, the battery can be removed.  This battery has a cover that goes around it, which is easy to remove.

The installation is the reverse of removal, but something you need to remember is that the negative cable is the first to be removed and the last to be installed.  Also, do not ever connect the cables backwards (positive to negative and vice versa) because you will do damage to the vehicle, like frying the alternator, and the battery could potentially explode.

So, how can you tell if your battery is getting weak?

Listen to the engine start.  You should have an idea of what it is supposed to sound like on a typical day.  When the battery gets weaker you will be able to hear the delay in getting the car started.

You can also have the battery tested at an auto parts store, some of which will do this for free.

Lastly, make sure that the alternator is working at capacity, which is typically at 14 volts or so at idle.

Door Speaker replacement

After having to get the truck to pass inspection by putting a lot of work to it, I decided that it was time to address another issue that has been a thorn in my side, and that issue is that only the right side speakers were working properly. The drivers side speakers, on the other hand, either did not work or worked poorly, and the result was that no matter what you were listening to, other than talk radio, it sounded off. 

My first thought was that someone had replaced the stereo with an aftermarket one and had gone and blown out the left channel.  Listening to the music, however, I was able to detect a faint noise coming from the rear door speaker, which told me that the wiring was intact and the left channel from the radio was intact.

So these panels come off with a few screws being removed, but in this case you have to pull up on the door panel slightly before pulling it out.  If you do not do this, you will break off the tabs that seat the panel and end up with a panel that will not stay on.

When I opened up the rear panel, I was greeted with this:

On the left is how a speaker is supposed to look.  On the right, not so much.  This speaker had a little bit of noise coming out of it but not really enough to be intelligible.

You can see that the paper cone on the right hand speaker has ripped and separated from the frame.  This kind of damage suggests that a lot of bass was put through the speaker at a very loud volume.  Speakers, like everything else, have their limits, and these limits were clearly exceeded.

The front door was an entirely different matter, as I discovered a couple of things, like the tweeter (small speaker used to reproduce high frequency noises) had been disconnected, and the cone of the speaker just fell out of the door once the panel was removed, which would explain why there was absolutely no noise at all.  This tells me that someone tried to fix this before, and either could not or gave up for whatever reason.  The garbage inside the door also suggested something stupid went on at some point... 

Yep, so the speaker just fell apart there.  Three screws hold the speaker in place to the door frame.  These come out fairly easy.

Once the speaker is out, it's easy to separate the speaker from the frame.  Push those two tabs at the top out to the side and use a screwdriver to pry up on the speaker frame enough to clear the tabs.  Repeat this two more times and the speaker is out of the spacer.

On the top is the speaker frame spacer.  To install the new speaker to the spacer, I used a quick setting sealant, usually for oil pans and such, to hold the new speaker in place, as shown in the bottom picture.

Above is the new speaker with the sealant in place. I let it cure for half an hour or so before installation.  Supposedly it cures in five minutes or so but I could not see taking any chances with this.

TOP: This is the factory speaker connection. BOTTOM: I cut out the speaker connection and added these convenient terminals to connect to the aftermarket speaker.  The days of not having proper terminals on any wire end are long gone. You can blame progress for this, but to me bare wires being used as a wire terminal never really made any sense.

So now, you reinstall the speaker and this is a good time to make sure that it actually works before you put the door back together. Why? Because it is far easier to make repairs without taking the whole door apart again.  

So there you go, finally a fun project that adds no horsepower but increases driving pleasure...

String trimmer loss of power cause and repair.

Our subject today is how to fix your string trimmer when your laborers decide that they are going to misuse and abuse it to the point where it loses power and does not run at full tilt. 

A little backstory here: The company I work for bought several brand new string trimmers over the winter, most of which were impressed into service this spring, which as of this writing was less than 90 days ago.  Over the past week or two, several of them have come into the shop with massive power losses as the chief complaint.  What's the first thing I have noticed?  The guards have been modified. 

Tying the guards back to get a larger arc to cut down more weeds is a common trick employed by landscape laborers to get the job done faster, but it comes with a cost, and that cost is massive carbon buildup in the very small (less than 100cc) cylinder bore.  Essentially, allowing the string to come out longer than the factory intended places a drag on the clutch and the rings of the piston.  Drag means extra heat, but not necessarily more fuel being burned, and this is what leads to the carbon buildup.

In this first picture, you can see that some goofass has taken it upon himself to tie the guard back closer to the shaft and therefore allow more trimmer line than necessary (or designed for) to be out at one time.  This trimmer has a very small engine on it, and all this will do for you is screw that engine up over a very short period of time. So the first thing I am going to do is...

Cut that line and make sure that the guard has not been completely messed up.  I also cut the excess line off because of the drag I mentioned earlier.  Which would you prefer? Either get the job done a little slower or not get the job done at all because I am busy fixing the machine you screwed up?

Top picture in this set of three shows you the allen head bolt that needs to be removed.  The second picture is of the muffler heat guard, which just lifts out of the way. Now in the third picture, this is the muffler.  Two 5/16ths nuts and two lockwashers  per side and the muffler will lift off. There will be a gasket behind the muffler which can be lifted out.  You might have to move (bend) a metal shield behind the muffler to get the gasket out.  The bolts slide out on either side.

It is hard to see in this picture but there is sufficient carbon build up to slow down the exhaust gases upon exiting the engine.  Remove the spark plug so that the piston moves up and down freely, and when the piston is at BOTTOM dead center (all the way down and just barely starting to return to the top)...

...I use a small battery terminal brush to clean out the carbon. Then I blow it out with compressed air as shown.

You might have to do this a couple of times to get as much carbon loosened up and blown out as possible.  The next step after this is to reinstall the spark plug, find a spot where you will not catch anything on fire, and start the engine.  be forewarned, there will be sparks flying for a couple of minutes.  This is more carbon leaving the cylinder. Run the engine at full throttle for about a minute.

Reassemble the muffler assembly reversing the steps previously outlined and test again.  You will definitely hear a difference in the engine. Tightening the muffler down will force the metal piece back into place, if necessary.

This is written for an Echo string trimmer model SRM 266T.  Other makes and models look similar but essentially all work in the same manner.

Dodge "rocking seat" repair...the right way.

The truck has a problem that is commonly referred to as a "rocking seat" issue.  What happens is that when you accelerate or hit the brakes, the seats will move forward and backward.  This is a problem not only from a comfort standpoint, but it is enough to cause inspection failure.

The issue that causes this problem is that Chrysler decided to use rubber bushings in its seat tracks, which break down over time due to the grease they used to lubricate the seat track. It seems that their engineers forgot that petroleum based products rot out rubber.

Dorman Products has a repair kit (Part number 924-073) that is supposed to remedy this issue.  I decided to document this repair mostly because the other ideas of using washers to fix this just did not sound right, look right, or, as I found, work right.

You will need:
-3/8" drive ratchet and/or 1/2" ratchet
-18mm, 13mm, and 16mm sockets in the drive you are using
-1/2" combination wrench
-T25 torx driver
-Dorman repair kit (part number 924-073)


Step one: Remove the seat. 

Move the seat as far back as it can go, and remove the two bolts that hold the front of the seat in place.  Move the seat as far forward as it can go, and remove the two bolts that hold the seat in place in the back.  Use the seat controls to raise the seat as high as it will go and then remove the bolt that anchors the seat belt to the seat frame, lift the seat and disconnect the wiring for the motors, heater, etc. (There are two sets of wires and they are color coded.)

This is the rear seat anchor bolt.  It is a fine thread bolt so using air tools is not recommended.

The seat belt anchor spot to the seat frame.

These are the wires. One white plug, one green.

I moved the seat to the cargo area to finish working on it, that way I am not dragging the parts I need to install all over the place, and this brings us to part two: Remove the worm gears.

Turn the seat upside down and, using a T25 torx driver, remove the two small bolts that hold the bracket in place that allows seat movement.  Then, using a 1/2" wrench, remove the bolt that holds the worm gear in place. You may have to slide the seat track down and/or up to coax the worm gear out of the seat track.

Interesting that one of the little torx head bolts is missing...this tells me that this was attempted before.

This is the bolt that holds the seat track in place.

Step three: Disassemble the worm gear assembly.

The worm gear is essentially a long threaded bolt with specialized ends on it that allows the seat to move back and forth. There is an aluminum bracket with rubber bushings in it that needs to come off of the assembly.

This is the bracket and also where the bushings are supposed to be...these rotted away.

If you take a close look at these worm gears, you will see that someone decided that installing washers to take up the space was a good idea....right up until the worm gear was rendered useless when the washers apparently destroyed the threads.

On the left, worm gear with bushings that are no longer there.  On the right, worm gear with damaged threads.

When you remove the block in the center of the bracket, you will take notice that the block has a flat side and a pointed side.  The pointed side needs to be facing up.  This is also a good time to clean up the block and bracket.

Part of the rebuild kit.

The rebuild kit contains eight of these nylon spacers and two bolts. Reinstall the metal block (pointed end up) into the aluminum piece, then install one of the nylon spacers on one side of the block, which is actually a specialized nut. You might have to persuade the second spacer to go in, which can be done by either tapping it in with a small hammer (and notice I said "tap" and not "beat the shit out of") or lightly sanding the face of the spacer, constantly checking the fit.

Once you have done this procedure to both sides, you must make the position of the brackets on the worm gears the same on either side, then reverse the steps to reinstall the gears, and then the seat.

It might be helpful to mark the worm gears as to which side they go on and reinstall them in that order.

After installation, I found that the rocking issue is gone.  The kit cost about $25 with shipping, but you might be able to get it through a local parts dealer for a little cheaper.  My local parts dealer didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about, so I opted once again for parts geek and their yet to let me down or piss me off delivery time and service.

As far as time goes you can count on spending about 30 minutes or so per seat.  I would take the time to go ahead and clean out the area under the seat (I found another $1.56 under my driver seat alone) as well as make sure you have the time to get this done in one shot.

You get what you pay for

So today I decide to leave work for lunch, mostly because there are times I just don't want to be there.  After getting some iced tea there I am, sitting in my now street legal Durango, and some old dude decides to bang on my passenger side window.

My first thought was aggressive panhandler and that I should just kick his scummy ass for touching my truck.  I was kind of right...

It turns out he wanted to know if he could fix the dents on the passenger side of the truck, for the princely sum of...ready?  Eighty-five dollars.  I told him no, you cannot fix those for $85, and I just got done spending all my money making the damn truck pass inspection.

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Him: No I can fix those right here for $85.

Me: No, I don't have $85.

Him: Well how about $65.

Me: No, I don't have money and you cant fix those properly for $65.

Him: Well I can follow you to wherever you are going and...

Me: If you follow me anywhere I am calling the cops.

Him: Well how much money do you have?

Me in irate-and-fucking-done-with-this mode:

NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING BUSINESS HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE, NOW FUCK OFF!

Is it possible to have a dent removed for $85? Well, possibly.  I cannot imagine it being a dent much larger than a half inch wide or so.  A dent that is, well, just a dent without creasing the metalwork maybe can be done by one of those "paintless dent removal" outfits for that price. Don't get me wrong I am not trying to knock one of these outfits, but I have admittedly never used them because I usually could care less about minor dents.

My dents are about fist sized, and in the case of the right rear door the metal is creased.  Frankly if anything I would just replace the door and call it a day.  Same with the fender.

I tell you this story to tell you another story, and that is that you most certainly do get what you pay for in this world.  Do you want a decent paint job? Decent paint jobs can be had at Macco sometimes for as low as $299.00.  Think you will get rust repair with that? Think again...their ads all say you will not.  Same with bodywork.

The same can be applied to tools of any trade.  In this case, hand tools that you pay a little bit for are going to last longer, have lifetime or forever warranties, and probably are not going to break in the middle of the job you are trying to do.  This is why I prefer to buy my tools from NAPA (Irwin, napa professional, lisle) Sears (craftsman, lisle) Home Depot (husky), Snap on and Matco.  When you go cheap, a lot of times there is no warranty, no guarantee, and in the case of Harbor Freight (from personal experience) good luck getting replacement parts.

The problem with things like a "decent" paint job, "decent" hand tools, and "decent" almost any other service is that your vision of "decent" will greatly differ from the roadside paint and body man's "decent".  Or to put it another way: To properly repair the one dent in the rear quarter of my truck, some dent pulling is going to be involved.  This may remove most but not all of the dent.  What is left will have to be covered in body filler, sanded, primered, sanded again, primered again, top coated with matching paint and then clear coated. The sanding alone is going to take time because you have to use more than one grit (roughness) of sandpaper.  My truck might look silver but it is actually called by Chrysler "bright platinum" and there is a bit of metal flake in the paint. (google that)  Do you think the roadside guy has that in his car?

The bottom line is this: quality costs money in many cases. Probably in most cases.  If you want a proper repair, you should expect to have to pay for it.  I am not saying to go to the most expensive repair shop out there but I am saying that while having your brakes replaced for $25 per axle might sound like a good deal, no way in hell is that job going to be done right by someone with any sort of experience, or a shop for that matter.  It's been my experience that getting work done on the cheap is a lot like rushing through a job just to say you got the job done, in the sense that down the line you are going to end up spending more money to get it done right.

My brother once commented on my facebook page that if you have the money to do something twice then you have the money to have it done right the first time.  Think about that for a minute.  Let's say you go and have your brake pads replaced, but since you decided to "save" money, you bought the cheapest pads out there.  What happens when you have to replace them in a year?  Presuming that you are not stomping on the brakes every time you stop, you now have to pay someone to replace the pads, you are without your car for a time, and you are shelling out money that you could allocate for something else.

Now let's say you actually spent money on those pads. Again not stomping on the brakes at every stop, you could get two or three years out of those pads, possibly more.  There are those that will say that you end up spending the same amount of money with buying more expensive pads and not replacing them as often.  I offer that you are leaving out the time it takes to replace them, the money for the labor to replace them (which is the same no matter what brand of part you decide to purchase) and the down time on the vehicle.

The bottom line here is that you get what you pay for...and tell roadside hucksters to fuck off when they accost you.

Paying someone versus doing it yourself

Those that follow me on the facebook probably know that my Durango did not quite pass the inspection mandated annually by the state.  The state does not require that the shop that does the inspection do the work, but they do require that the facility give you a written list of what is wrong and you typically have between 14 and 30 days to make the corrections.  Of course there is an estimate of how much it will cost to make corrections, and it reads to a total of $1281.75.

First item: wiper blades.
Their cost (including labor) $41.98
My cost $18.00
SAVINGS:$23.98

Wiper blades are one of the easiest things to do, as the vast majority of them snap in and out.  Considering I replaced mine about two weeks before the inspection I think this is just extra money in their pocket.

Second item: Front shocks (both)
Their cost (including labor) $219.98
My cost $55.98
SAVINGS:$164   Running savings: $182

The labor per hour at Firestone is $106.00, which tells me that their shocks are $56.99 each.  My shocks (Monroe gas-a-matic) are $27.99 each and it took me less than 30 minutes to install them both.  Don't get me wrong, I know it costs money to operate a shop, which is why labor rates are what they are.

Third item: right rear tire replacement.
Their cost $152.40
My cost $161.98
SAVINGS:$-9.58 Running savings $172.42

Ok so I spent a little more on this than Firestone's price, but then again they wanted to replace my brand new wiper blades at a cost of $41.98.  I was able to get my tire replaced the same day by a tire outfit down the street from my job which helped out tremendously.

Fourth item: Front driveshaft reinstallation
Their cost (including labor) $697.59
My cost $30 (for replacement shaft to transfer case bolts)
SAVINGS $667.59 Running savings $840.01

I had removed the front shaft to make the broken transfer case last a little longer, and frankly had not gotten around to reinstalling the shaft.  That being said, the vehicle does not require a front shaft to pass inspection, as the law states that the vehicle must be able to move forward and backward.  The presence or absence of the front shaft does not affect this.

Fifth item: Right front side marker lamp lens assembly.
Their cost: undetermined
My cost: $26.83, including shipping

Firestone was not able to give me a price for this job because they could not look it up, however, I can presume that they would at the least charge me for the factory part, whether or not I actually got the factory part.

The part I got from parts geek is a reproduction part admittedly.  It does fit, however, and it does work.  My biggest problem with having to replace this is where it was broken there is no bulb to damage or burn out.  No matter because the truck looks better with the new part.

So, the total cost of doing this myself is $262.79. This alone is a savings of just over $1000.
If I were to do this for someone else, there would be $300 in labor at $60 per hour, which while I do not have a shop, I do feel that my time is worth something.

With this, there is something to be said about being able to do at least some of your own maintenance and repair on your vehicle.  Don't get me wrong, there are some that do not know how, or are uncomfortable doing this sort of work, or maybe they or you just don't want to do it.  This is all fine and good, but to save yourself money, in this case substantial money, this is a good start.

Shocking, isn't it? (Shock install tutorial)

(Warning: contains locker room language)

So one of the items that supposedly did not pass the state safety inspection were the front shocks.  The place that did the inspection wanted around $220.00 to install new shocks up front, but you know what? That's a bunch of bullshit considering they are under the impression that it takes one hour to install them both.

So, I did it myself.

Step one: get the front of the vehicle off of the ground so that the front tires do not touch the ground.

See this thing? Remove it.

Once you have the wheel off you will be looking at the brakes and suspension components that live there behind the wheel.

See that thing in the center? That's the shock absorber.

The factory manual I picked up insists that you can use locking pliers or the flats of a wrench (hint; it's a 1/4 inch wrench) to hold the top of the shock in place while you loosen the nut, but it was not working for me and nobody has time for that shit anyway, so I used a cut off wheel to cut the nut and the upper rod off.  Just go at a 45 degree angle and use a hammer to break the piece off.  Fair warning: See that hose toward the top? That's your brake line, so if you are not careful you can cut that too, and that will suck.

Cut off wheel to the rescue! Note the not cut brake line...

So at the bottom of the shock there is a 18 millimeter bolt that securers the lower part of the shock to the lower control arm.  Use a 18 millimeter socket and impact gun or ratchet to remove it.  Then pull the shock out of the upper control arm and out of the vehicle.  It is important to violently toss the old shock into the garbage can at this stage.

New shock...

This is a Monroe Gas-A-Matic shock and the supplied hardware kit that comes with it in a convenient little bag which I tore open and tossed to the side, which incidentally is also important to this being a success.  You probably want to make sure you have all this stuff before you cut off your old shock, though...driving without shocks is going to be really difficult.  There should be a shock, two rubber isolators, two metal end caps, and one 9/16" nut in my case.

The purpose of the shock absorbers is, besides absorbing shock, to control the up and down motion of the suspension on your car.  In effect, they act as a sort of motion limiter and they dampen the movement of your suspension as you drive down the road.  If you tried to drive without them, you would be bouncing up and down so badly that your tires would most likely come off the pavement and this is never a good thing, unless you are the Duke Boys or have one of those stupid cars with the hydraulic shit that makes your car hop and jump.

Have all your parts? Good! Let's get them installed!

Look at this picture very carefully, important plot point here.

You need to slide one of the end caps and one of the rubber bushings over the top of the shock as shown in that order.  Then, only after this is completed, you need to compress the shock (you can actually do this by hand, believe it or not...not so much with a strut) and place the shock into the area between the control arms where it came out of.  The top of the shock will start going up very quickly so while it is doing that, get the 18 millimeter bolt and place it into the bottom of the shock and then thread it into the mounting point where you unbolted it from.

The bolt goes into the bottom of the shock and into the mounting hole, like this.

You might have noticed that there is a hole for the top of the shock to go into.  As it raises up make sure that it is centered in this hole.  The bushing will help to center it and you should be able to move it a little if it is not quite there.  Place a rubber bushing and metal end cap-in that order- over the shock rod.  Now is the time to install the nut.  In my case, since this was a new shock and not the old one I could use a 1/4 inch wrench on the flat sides of the top of the rod and a 9/16 inch wrench to tighten down the nut. 

For my application, your torque settings are as follows:

Top nut: 19 ft/lbs.

Bottom bolt: 80 ft/lbs.

For your application: LOOK IT UP!

Repeat for the other side.

When you are done, it is extremely important to yell "FUCK FIRESTONE!" because if you did this right, you spent maybe a half hour total of your time and only $55 to $60 of your money, which is way cheaper than $220.

And now you have new shocks installed...

...fuck firestone.

DISCLAIMER: Don't come bitching to me if you yell "FUCK FIRESTONE!" and get in trouble, especially if you are doing this in your parent's garage or at work where in my case the mean mechanic that paid tons of money for his shit will not let you borrow his tools because he doesn't know you and thinks you look like a crackhead.