A Tale of Two Astras

In my last post, I said I had a relatively long story about a pair of Astras. Today, I'll tell that, and provide an update on K'Lack. I don't have pictures, because, honestly, most of this story isn't mine, and Ang didn't take pictures. She really does not "live thru her phone" like most people. Meaning, she doesn't take and share pictures as she trips through life. She experiences the moment at that moment and then moves on to the next one, living in the now. On to the tale-

 

Astras

I have mentioned Astra a few times. I provided some backstory to how we found her and why the Astra is so important to Ang here (See Moving into Shop). Basically, a Saturn Astra is an Opel Kadett with a new name and Ang's first car was an Opel Kadett. When we were having to use the jump box often, she started to get down on it. Then K'Lack broke and Krista needed a car, so Ang lent her Astra while Ang drove the truck (and I drove Hapy). Krista didn't like Astra very much, and Ang got to thinking about buying a new car that didn't have all of these problems. So, I dipped into craiglist and found... another Astra. This time, it was the top-of-the-line model which had been driven / cared for by someone who really loved this car. Everything worked on it. It had less than 60k miles on it, and then it was ours. I think Ang drove it for about a week before she let Krista borrow it. We had it just long enough to name it Frankie.

 

Astra Heads North

It was around this time that a friend of Angela's (they have known each other since 3rd grade) found herself in a bit of a bind. Her housing of over 25 years was being sold out from under her and she needed to solve for housing in rural western Canada without a car. And so started an odyssey. Ang resolved to getting Astra as functional as possible. That meant getting the alignment done, the tires rotated, the oil changed, filters etc. with a plan to drive to Canada to help her friend. She got a full read-out of everything that was done and every minor thing the tech's found and added that to the file she took to Canada. Soon, her plan to drive there became a plan to drive there and give Astra to her friend. So, in her limited spare time in the evenings she learned how to export a car from the US and did all that paperwork.

 

Ang finished her usual workweek on a Tuesday evening and left from there northward on I-5. Astra drove great and she landed just outside Olympia at a Super8/Motel6 for the night. The following morning, she drove up the Olympic Peninsula and hopped the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria BC. Prior to leaving, Ang had done all of the vehicle export steps and had her paperwork in order. Unfortunately, her friend had not completed the import paperwork and was not at the border to meet her with that paperwork. So, the importing would need to take place in Nanaimo. Apparently because her paperwork was not in order, Ang was waved into the deep customs inspection area where they disassembled parts of the car and re-installed things. This included, for some reason, removing the wheels and putting them back on. Undeterred, Ang drove north on the Canada1, finding a motel just outside Victoria. The next day, she completed the drive north past Nanaimo to Courtenay where her friend lives.

 

Oh Canada

Importing a vehicle into Canada requires the vehicle passes an inspection. That seems totally reasonable as it prevents Americans (and others) from using Canada as a vehicle dumping ground. During inspection, they identified 2 lugs which were striped. Since the wheels had just been rotated and the tech's found nothing interesting, we have concluded that the customs folks jacked up the lugs during re-install of the wheels. For this reason, and the horn not working (it had been temperamental) caused the car to fail inspection. Angela's friend had 30 days to get the car fixed and re-inspected in Nanaimo or the car could not be imported. Since the car was officially exported from the US, she also couldn't come home. It was get fixed or get crushed time.

 

To Vancouver

Ang helped her friend look at some places to live and then Ang needed to get home. The original plan included her friend driving Ang at least as far as Nanaimo to catch the ferry over to Vancouver where Ang would catch the Amtrak to Portland. Instead, Ang bought a flight home, flying out of Comox (neighboring town to Courtaney. At this point, we learned that the passport id card is only valid for land travel across a border. If you want to fly, you must use the booklet, which Angela left here. While they let her board the flight from Comox, her flight from Vancouver to Portland was canceled. Instead, she would have to take a bus from Vancouver to Seattle where they rebooked her to fly home to Portland.

 

This travel all happened on the Sunday that one of the larger regional Canadian airlines went on strike. So, while her flight from Comox to Vancouver was relatively calm, the scene in the Vancouver airport was bordering on chaos. And, land travel options were disappearing fast as those with canceled flights because of the strike were vying for whatever they could find. This included bus and trains into the US.

 

Angela grabbed a Lyft to the train/bus station, ticket in hand, and talked to the ticket person at the counter. The computers were down because of course but the ticket counter person said that while her in-hand ticket was for tomorrow, the driver would let her ride today. That proved incorrect as the unpleasant driver had no interest in talking to anyone about anything other than accepting a ticket for that specific bus ride. So, now Ang found herself in a not-too-safe part of Vancouver, the afternoon turning to evening, no ride across the border, no personal transportation, a dead cell phone and no housing plan. As her phone charged at the nearest bar, we talked about options. That weekend there were multiple events taking place in Vancouver (the annual Pride parade and ComiCon, eg) so options were slim and expensive. Most options were far away from where she was and where she needed to be to board the morning bus to Seattle. The place we thought we found had no front desk and everything was done virtually. As she tried to book, the price kept going up. While wrestling with their booking site, she befriended someone who walked her to a place with an actual front desk and an available room. It wasn't big. It didnt have it's own bathroom, but it was expensive and had a lock on the door. It's funny how far down the bar goes as evening turns dark.

 

Thru Seattle 

Early the next morning, Ang caught another Lyft to the train/bus station and was through customs before 7AM. She hopped the bus, driven by the same unpleasant guy who wouldn't talk to her the night before. The bus was delayed passing through northern Washington to the point where she missed her original flight. I swear, you can't make this stuff up. Ang got a hold of the folks at United before the gate closed and got moved to another flight, freeing up her seat for a stand-by person. Her later flight was 4 hours later, but that provided time to unwind, and decompress a little bit before the final legs of her journey home. Still, spending 4 hours in the busy SEA/TAC airport is not remotely 'unwindy'. It is not comfortable, nor quiet, nor without lurkers so those 4 hours felt longer than the 8 hours we were stuck at Portland International Airport (PDX) last June.

 

And Home 

Fortunately, the flight was uneventful, boarding, leaving and arriving on time. Since she was now arriving at rush hour, she insisted I not drive the 60+ minute drive to PDX and instead meet her at a Tri-Met light-rail stop. The light rail from PDX is actually very easy. The train line ends there, so there is usually a train sitting there waiting for you to get onto. She had about 15 minutes of sitting before the train pulled out and then about an hour on the train. Then, at the stop one before the one I was meeting her at, all the westbound trains were held for 20 minutes because of an issue on the line well west of where she was getting off. Seriously, you just can't make this stuff up. I literally teared up when I saw her get off the train, so grateful her perilous adventure had come to and end. We hit one of our favorite local Japanese restaurants on the way home.

 

We learned last week that Astra has passed inspection, and she is wearing new Canadian license plates.

 

K'Lack Update

Ian found the issue that was causing us continued issues. He has lots of diagnostic tools and he found that the voltage range being sent from the crank position sensor was below the minimum for the computer to have a reliable reading. The part was new, and I installed it.... lying on the ground on top of wood chips. Apparently I did not seat the sensor exactly square in the hole. So, the sensor was pointing at a slight angle. When he removed the sensor to see what was going on, he saw the o-ring was pinched more on one side than the other, adding credence to the theory. He replaced the o-ring, cleaned out the hole and the edge before re-installing the same sensor. He was able to gain a better angle on the part and was able to seat it squarely. After multiple tests runs, he handed it over to me. Ang and I drove K'Lack exclusively for a few days, putting nearly 150 miles on it. K'Lack drove great, no codes were thrown, so Ang took it through DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) / smog testing. It passed, and with new stickers applied, we traded cars with Krista, putting Frankie back in our driveway.

 

I admit that at least part of the problem with getting K'Lack running was my long-lived dislike for the car. It has been the problem-child since it first arrived from Kai. Did I rush the sensor install? I don't think so, but I was lying in wood chips in the sun on a hot day. Perhaps, if I had had room in the shop to to the work, or made the room to do the work, we could have avoided some unpleasantness this summer.

Catching Up on Cars

It has been a busy Summer of car stuff. Some wrenching, some otherwise. In today's post, I will not try to cover everything, but there has been a lot. 

 

Oliver freshly cleaned

Before I begin, you may have noticed a new sticker on the right-hand side called "Electoral-Vote". If you aren't familiar, that is a site run by 2 history professors who started a site initially, I think, to analyze polls. I have been reading their page for well over a decade; maybe 2 decades at this point. From humble beginnings that aimed to provide insights into political polls, they are a daily site that examines the (mostly) US political theater. As the national political disposition has shifted right-ward, their political position has remained around or just left of where the political middle was during the Bush years. Now, that position is left-of-center (because, again, of the national shift) in the continuum of US national politics. As the primary season has ended, they are returning to their roots, looking at polls and providing the kinds of insights only 2 life-time history and statistic's nerds could provide. If you find that stuff interesting, check them out. Neither they nor I get anything money-wise out of my putting that sticker on my blog. They get clicks, I literally get nothing. Back to cars.

 

K'Lack

P0726 re-appearing

We will start with my nemesis car: K'Lack, the 2004 Jetta TDI Wagon that previously belonged to our son K. After driving it for years and logging thousands of miles, he needed to sell it off and get something that was newer? broke down less often? I'm not really sure, but at the end he was having transmission issues. Regardless, the trade-in amount he was offered was pennies-to-dollar value. So, we bought it for Kelley Blue Book value at the time (around $4500US) and took it directly to a transmission shop who was qualified to do transmission work on these 2000's-era automatic transmissions appearing in VW's and Audi's. Through the benefits of successful aging and poor record-keeping, I don't remember how much we paid them to rebuild the transmission, but it took literally months. If I remember correctly, it went into the shop in December and we got it back in March. It was around this time that our niece (another K, so I think maybe since all these "kids" are adults now, maybe I'll just start using their names), Krista needed a car. Her former car failed in some way I don't remember. We intended to sell her Flash. Remember Flash? He was a great 2001 VW Jetta TDI sedan, but he had a manual transmission. Loved that car, but a different niece needed a car, so when Krista was unable to drive a stick, Flash went to the other niece and K'Lack went to Krista.

 

replacing K'Lack rear caliper

Now, years later, and many repairs ranging from replacing the oil pan to a timing belt and camshaft replacement, K'Lack is currently having issues I cannot track down. It is throwing a P0726 code and after tracing wires and replacing the crankshaft position sensor, the issue persists. The code means a check-engine-light is lit which means the car will not pass emissions. It is also virtually un-driveable. It barely starts and at any point during a drive the car may suddenly shift into a too-low gear, causing it to buck. It is quite alarming and dangerous. I have date with a mobile mechanic, Ian, who has helped on some of Cedar's (that's "C" in all prior posts) cars. I hope very much that we can resolve this and get Krista back on the road with K'Lack. In the meantime, it is parked under a plum tree in the back near the shop and Krista is driving Boo's (okay, her name is Angela and I'll refer to her as Ang from now on) Ang's Astra.

 

Oliver

In the interest of getting Oliver, the 1978 MGB, out of the shop so I could move things onto shelves, I got Oliver running well enough to back out and idle-drive under a tree. I say idle-drive because the throttle cable had seized. Fortunately, parts for an old MG are not nearly as expensive as parts for new cars, so a after few bucks and about 15 minutes, the throttle cable was replaced, and Oliver could start and move around. Thrilled, I drove him out to the front and gave him a long overdue bath. His brakes were still a little squishy, so I moved him to the other side of that plum tree in the back and put his cover back on. I have to do a system-wide look at the brakes. They have been acting like they needed a bleed for a long time, no matter how much I bleed them. I think I must have a loose fitting somewhere that lets air in. I still intend to get him out and around, even with squishy brakes, before the Summer is over.

  

Hapy

cursed outlet flange

Earlier this year, I got Hapy put back together. I drove him out to Sheridan where Justin could do the injection pump re-seal. On the drive home, I popped the boosted air pipe and sorta limped home. But, after that, I took him on around-town outings and he ran great. He would start right up, have lots of pep, moved through the gears well. For almost all of the month of July, he was set up festival-style in the back, providing music, a hang-out spot and a groovy vibe. This past weekend, Ang and I had 2 different events. First, we had tickets to Joe Russo's Almost Dead (JRAD) in Eugene. JRAD brings the energy of the early 1970's versions of the Grateful Dead while performing everything and anything across their song catalog. I highly recommend to my DeadHead friends. The next day, I had an early-afternoon show in Rockway Beach, playing the NCAM benefit festival. I'll post on the festival later, but our adventure started and ended Thursday night, heading south to Eugene.

 

As I've mentioned before, Ang and I like to leave for events the night before, getting as far as we can in the cool dark and then vagabonding (boon-docking to some) in a random parking lot or on the side of the road to catch a sleep before completing the journey in the morning. Hapy likes the cool air and we really like awakening that morning most, or all, of the way there. The drive was relatively uneventful until after we got south of Wilsonville. I noticed that the rear window was getting blurry, and I had just washed it when we filled up. Growing concerned, I pulled off into the Charbonneau rest area near Aurora and glided into a parking spot. I went around back, opened the rear engine hatch and could see that the coolant bottle was empty, and I could hear steam. After moving the bedding out of the way, I could get the top hatch open and could see that the coolant was escaping from the cursed coolant outlet flange. I would later discover that the c-clip or "U" clip that holds the coolant sensor in place had a broken leg (so, really a "J-clip). If you look at the picture on the right, there ought to be a little plastic tab thing sticking downward from the bottom of that dark channel on the right side of the outlet flange. That would be the end of the "U" that's not there. Our trip to Eugene was over and I called for a tow.

 

trench filled

We waited for about an hour, and the truck operator seemed fine enough. He was nice, albeit quiet. In retrospect, he seemed less comfortable with Hapy not having a parking brake but Hapy has been on a flatbed lots of times without an issue. Until this time. I believe he did not strap the wheels down as tightly as prior truck operators had. I say that because Hapy seemed to move front-to back a little bit as he backed the truck into the driveway. I had not noticed that when he was loaded onto the flat bed in the parking lot. We rolled Hapy into place, and Ang and I called it a day, returning to Hapy the next day... when we discovered that putting Hapy in gear was not enough to hold him in place. Since it was enough to hold him in place on the flatbed, at least while he was getting strapped in, and this was over an hour after we had overheated, I conclude that the tow somehow messed up the transmission-to-engine connection (read: clutch). I wanted to see if the engine was locked up, so I put a 19mm socket on the crank end-bolt and gave the engine a short turn (like 15*). The timing belt moved, the camshaft moved with it, so I concluded no major engine damage was done. Or, at least, it's not frozen in place. That's huge, but I think I will need to pull the engine and transmission apart to fix whatever went wrong in between. With this knowledge, we called it a day on Friday and spent a lovely day at the beach on Saturday.

 

trench filled

Since I still had a trench running the length of the lane-way, I spent Sunday morning filling the trench. By the end of the day, Ang and I had flat-towed Hapy back to the shop with the X-Runner and 20' of trucker's chain, parking him out front. I need to clear some space inside the shop to put him, and get him in there. Then, I have the equivalent of a clutch job ahead. The last time I had to remove, separate, re-acquaint and re-install the engine and transmission, I vowed that I would cut a rear apron into the back so I could just remove the engine. Looks like that time is now. Regardless, Hapy will probably not make it back out on the streets this summer. Could I get it done before Summer ends? Maybe, but we have lots of things going on and I don't know if I have a weekend to dedicate to that right now. Besides, if I am going to cut, I want it well planned with a means of fastening what I have removed before I pick up an angle grinder.

 

EDIT: I was trolling through some of my old posts yesterday when I came upon Front is Front which clearly describes this same coolant sensor leak recurring, until I put the clip in from below. Over 15 years later, and I'm repeating myself. Had I remembered, or read, we would not have lost coolant, broken down, etc. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

 

Wrap

With Hapy's catastrophic failure, we are down to one operable car: The Toyota X-Runner, which Ang drives to work. She has a lingering bad shoulder from a skiing crash a dozen years ago, so driving a 6-speed in rush-hour traffic is really taking a toll. If Ian and I can't get K'Lack fixed, we are going to need to re-po the Astra and have Krista solve her car need another way. Generosity reaches a limit when another's convenience is literally causing you pain.

 

Well, that's where those 3 cars are at. I have a long tale of 2 Astra's to share another time. We have lots of active construction Ang and I are doing with our friend Ray, so I'll update on that, the Astra's and whatever else happens around here as things roll. I hope the reference to the electoral vote guys doesn't cross some no-politics line for you. I generally don't bring that noise in here, but elections are coming, and we all need to be as well informed as we can be.

 

Thanks as always, for following along. Until next time-

Entrenched

It's been a couple of months, and busy ones at that, so today's post will be a bit of a mish-mash covering the highlights.

 

Farm House Fireplace

fireplace surround primed

First, I am realizing that I never posted on our idea to change a blank wall in our living room to have a fireplace. We live on a street with overhead power lines, and we lose power once or twice a winter to ice and wind. We sourced a (Valon H5) gas fireplace and had it installed against and in the middle of that wall in March or April. Being near the end of the cold season, we only fired it up a couple of times. It does not have a fan, so we will be covered in an electrical outage, but we were impressed with how much heat it produces at a low setting and how far from the unit you can feel the warmth.

 

After absorbing that cost, we got our contractor friend, Ray, to do the side job of putting some kind of built-in around it. He did that work a day here and a day there, ultimately finishing at the end of July. I spent this last weekend doing the paint prep and brushing on a coat of primer. I expect to return to that work in a couple of weeks, sanding the primer fixing all the little holes and such that I missed and then applying more paint.

 

Shop Progress

closest thing to "before" image

In an inspired moment in late-July, I emptied the black rolling tool cabinet, pulled it across my hard-as-a-rock clay backyard and into the shop. Once there, I vacuumed it out, Armor-All cleaned it, set it in place and then returned its contents. That represented the last of the things that needed to move. I since have worked through most of the heap, putting like things together on shelving.

 

Electric Hum

While Ray was working on the built in, we noticed that our main electrical panel would hum when his air compressor fired up. We thought that was probably not good and showed him. He agreed and soon we had his go-to electricians over to see what we had going on. The humming breaker ought to have flipped, not hummed. So, soon we were getting the main panel replaced and some outlets fixed and some other lighting things solved. Once we were in that deep, Boo asked them what the incremental cost would be to running electricity out to the shop. Love her. They made us a great deal ($1600US for an active circuit, 60-amp sub-panel wired from the main through conduit in the trench), but the numbers hinged on the trench being dug, and the work starting about a week later.

 

Trenching

cave-in at the turn

This is the lead-in that found me running a 24" trencher on a Monday morning. The weekend before I had cleared all the mulch and other undergrowth, shrubs, etc along the approximate 100' path. I also needed to hand-trench around the french drain I had installed around the shop last summer. Once cleared, I marked the future trench line with spray paint. I rented a trencher from HomeDespot, not because I love that store, but because they had the best-by-far price (like half what everyone else offered) and they would deliver /pick up. So, with that trencher, I dug 100' of 24" deep trench. Considering how many Holly trees, wild roses and other things we have found in this yard, I was prepared for a long difficult day.

 

The trenching started difficult enough. I thought I would do the line from the garage down to the 90* turn south first. That meant starting the trench up against the garage where I found the first foot below the surface was bricks and chunks of concrete. Fortunately, once I was able to get that cleared, the rest of that east-running line was uneventful. I got as far east as I could go, setting my back up to the neighbor's fence and then wrestled the machine to face north. These trenchers do not turn at all easily, you have to muscle them by lifting and shoving. So, once facing north, I started trenching southward, leaning and pushing west to offset the slight pitch of the yard.

 

future trench line

The next 40 or so feet (almost 15 meters) were efficient. I did not hit big roots until I got to the apple tree just outside the shop's main door. Even then, I only need the sawzall to cut a pair of thick roots. The trencher took care of the rest. Once I got to the 90* turn west to get to the shop wall, I wrestled the machine so I was facing west, moved it up to hand-trenched section and ran it east until I hit the fence. Similar to the other end of the long trench, I could not connect the big trench with the shorter sections without trenching in both directions. This meant wresting the machine over a trench at some point. Inevitably, those moves caused cave-ins. Still, the main trench work was completed, so I ran the trencher out to where it was dropped off at the start of the rental and hosed it off.

 

After work on Tuesday, I was out at the trench with a disposable plastic "go food" container, hand scooping out the cave-ins. I discovered that my last "cave in" was actually an incomplete trench where it turned 90* south near the garage (see 3rd picture from the top). I had to finish that trench by hand. It was at that point that I really appreciated the trencher. The clay soil in the backyard is as hard as a rock at this time of year. So just clearing less than a foot deep, maybe 18" long trench was a considerable effort. I was already beat-to-shit from wrestling a trencher in nearly 90*F (32*C) heat the day before and Tuesday was just as hot.

 

black "rollie" in the shop

We passed inspection for the trench this week. So, I will be filling the trench back in and then I will be able to move cars in and out of the shop again. While I did not plan to lose access to the shop this summer, I am so grateful for having electricity, even if it is just a sub-panel with no outlets nor circuits. We will be that much closer to having lights without depending on a partially buried 100 foot extension cord running from the old garage. And, once the trench is filled back in, I only would have had the path blocked for maybe a month.

 

We had a different inspector than we have had with our other inspections. This guy was a bit of a hard-ass relative to the others and inauthentic. I only bring that up because what he said to me and what he put into his report were not the same. He said everything was good except he needed some detail around a ground for the water heater (which wasn't in the scope of the work, but whatever). The report identified a bunch of other things that he never mentioned and were also outside the scope of the work performed. Needless to say, I'm unimpressed and hope he doesn't inspect anything around here again. I would have no reason to trust what he says, and expect him to add things to his report after leaving, including things which may have nothing to do with what's within the scope of the permit. Inauthentic sucks.

 

Wrap 

This got long, and I never got to any car stories. There are a few. I'll post on them, and whatever new ones happen, next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-