4-Wheeled Friends to NewOldHouse

On it's surface, one would not think moving some cars from one house to another, especially when the move is less than 500 feet would warrant an entire post. Well, let's remember that Murphy's Law is always present and these are cars which have not moved maybe for months, maybe since last Summer.

Site Preparation

during site prep

Before I could move any more cars, I needed to set up a place for them to land, even temporarily. NewOldHouse doesn't really have a driveway other than a small concrete pad in front of the attached garage. A single car can fit on the pad, but if that car is any larger than a compact, the old-skool flip-up garage door would not open. Earlier in this NewOldHouse odyssey, ToyoTruck got stuck behind the house while we were spreading wood chips. So, absent a hard surface, and having a significant mud bog practically everywhere else, determining a viable spot posed it's own challenge.

Boo and I decided we would ignore the mud for a moment and consider where, ideally, the cars would sit. To reduce the tendency for the vehicles to sink into the ground, I measured, leveled and placed 4 larger patio blocks where the tires would go. Under the patio blocks, I added a thin layer of sand to reduce the risk of the block breaking. Last, to protect the underside of the older vehicles (Hapy, the 1972 VW camperbus, and Oliver, the 1978 MGB) I laid a tarp on the ground. This should reduce the moisture-effect which increases underside rust when you park on dirt.

To side-step the mud, we waited until we had a couple of dry days and moved the vehicles once it was clear that the ground was dry. And so the adventure begins.

GoRo Goes

rare March sunny day

I started with the car I thought would be the most troublesome: GoRo, the 2009 Audi A4. GoRo had a rough winter, like the rest of us. After one of the overnight freezes, the outer handle for the driver door broke. So, to get in, you need to either get in the passenger side and reach over or open the rear driver-side door and reach through. Either way, it is annoying, but workable. A couple of weeks later, the hood latch broke. Fortunately, it happened after it unlatched, but one should not drive with the hood unlatched for safety reasons and we don't want to latch the hood because then it's stuck closed. So, GoRo has sat for a couple of months waiting to get repair-attention around the move. While it sat, the battery ran down. I hooked up a trickle charger overnight the night before and then it started up the morning we wanted to move it. I moved GoRo into the street-adjacent spot next to the wood-chip driveway so once it is fixed it can easily come and go without interrupting the driveway flow. Our old friend Courtney, of MobilePDX, will be fixing the hood release and driver door latch so GoRo can be put back into regular service. I could do it, but I do not have the hours in the day to get it done remotely soon.

Hapy not Happy

flatbed again

The last time I drove Hapy, it was to Pizzario, a small wood-fired pizza place in downtown Hillsboro, to sit-in on a Wednesday-night jam. That was 2-November. If I remember correctly, he started and ran great, but inside was really cold. I contracted CoViD19 that night, so my memory of how he started is kind of fuzzy. Anyway, he had been sitting with a trickle charger on his battery so 4-1/2 months after he was last driven I expected him to start right up and we would have a heroic drive to NewOldHouse. Maybe we'd take a victory lap or pickup something to eat while we were savoring our success. Nope. Instead, his starter made a horrible loud grinding noise. I concluded that the starter failed, and the little gear in the starter was not protruding all the way into the bellhousing and therefore failing to mesh with the teeth on the flywheel. I was immediately reminded of when we moved into this/existing/old house from the rental next door, and ended up selling 2Dot0 because moving it was just one too many things to manage. Obviously, we are not selling Hapy. Instead, I got AAA to put him on a flatbed for the 500 foot move. The driver was a champ and did his best to get Hapy close to his prepared spot, but overhead wires limited him. So, with a come-along and 15+ meters of chain, our friend John and I moved Hapy into place. I may try hitting the starter with a hammer a couple of times to see if that re-enables the starter, but I vaguely remember some after-run from the starter last Summer indicating that it was starting to die. More than likely, I bought a lower-grade starter as the replacement, and it just failed prematurely as cheap parts do. Even if the hammer-trick works, it would just be delaying the inevitable and he is in a good spot to replace the starter, so now that I've typed all that, I bought a replacement, higher quality, starter and will swap it in.

Oliver Shifts

almost there

I have struggled with the idea of parking a convertible outside. After losing 4 canopies to wind and snow this winter, I felt my considerable fear was warranted. I moved forward with it for 2 reasons. First, I have no choice. We need to get out of the old house and the garage at NewOldHouse is full of kitchen cabinets. So, there is no room inside. Second, we have a neighbor around the corner who has parked his brand new Mazda Miata MX5 in his driveway all winter. His car is fine and arguably worth considerably more, at least in terms of replacement cost.

Similar to Hapy, Oliver has been on a trickle charger all winter, so I figured his battery was good and he would start up. At some point during the few days prior, someone had unplugged the trickle charger and his battery was completely flat when I went to move him. I put him on another charger, and put gas into his tank. The charger did not resolve his battery, and I had to replace it before turning the key wouldn't immediately flatten the battery. I got a group 24 Duralast battery from Autozone and learned that the old battery was actually a group 35. A group 35 is smaller. I figured the PO probably did that for easier install, but I have read that the group 35 does not have the same pop at start. I'm not sure that's actually true, but it is usually best to install the correct group battery for your car regardless of what the interweb experts say. Anyway, with the battery replaced and some gas in the tank, starting was still not immediate. The fuel I put in the tank needed to get pushed by the fuel pump up to the carb, and fill the bowl. I worked the butterfly at the carb to get some atomized fuel into the intake and with a billow of smoke he started up.

in place

I drove Oliver over the NewOldHouse, wishing his registration was updated so I could take a longer spin. He drove well with no noticeable exhaust, shifting easily. His throttle responded right away, implying the carb-leaning adjustments I did last summer to eliminate the bog worked. Perhaps he is ready for another run at Oregon DEQ. Since he still has a leak under the windscreen and the rains have not yet left for the summer, that run has to wait. I parked Oliver next to Zed, behind the house. All 4 of his tires are on patio blocks set on top of a tarp. I covered him with a "Gold Shield 5L" cover from CarCover.com to keep him dry.

The picture on the right was taken before I put the cover on, obviously, but you can see the tarp on the ground and the patio blocks. Now that the cover is on, it drops down almost all the way to the ground so the tarp and blocks are mostly not visible. Since he was moved and covered, we have had rain (because, of course, it's western Oregon) and the cover has kept Oliver dry and the cover did not appear to even look wet while it was raining. I'm not sure how that works.

That's it for today. While the effort to move these three was in some cases significant, and they all need some kind of repair, I am thrilled to have them home. Thanks, as always, for following along-

The Wagon Returns

Quick post today, I think. Before I start, Hapy 21st birthday to T. It has been an amazing ride, and you have grown into an incredible person. So hapy to have had you in my life, my friend.

Some Background
Late last fall, I remarked on how many cars we removed from our driveway in a short amount of time (See Herd Thinning). One of those cars, K's 2004 JettaWagon has returned. Back then, it had sat for almost 18 months because of transmission problems. He was collecting money to do a 5-speed swap, but that proved too elusive. Between the changing prices for a kit from folks on TDIClub to difficulty finding someone willing to do the job (much less at a reasonable price), he resolved to fixing the transmission and selling it. $1500US later, the transmission is better than new and one of the front axles has been replaced.

On the inside, the driver seat had lost some of the leather on the seat bottom cushion. Based on his conversation with an upholsterer, that was probably caused by a faulty seat-heater. This news gave me immediate pause, since I have just completed the seats in our beloved Oliver. I will just make sure that the seat-heaters are on an ignition-switched circuit so they shut off when the car does. Anyway, K had the driver seat re-upholstered in a fairly-close color match. It's not perfect, though, and both Boo and I can see the difference. Which wouldn't matter if we hadn't been the ones buying K's car.

Snow Flashback
You see... years ago, when Boo and I shared that old condo we hit the mountain a lot. Pretty much, if we had the boys, we were going to play in the snow. The condo was just too small for anything else with 4 boys. One of those night-ski nights was especially icy at SkiBowl. I wiped out trying to navigate off of the Lower Bowl run onto Low Road when I hit solid ice (See Holiday approacheth). I landed on my left elbow and even now, over 6 years later, it still doesn't feel quite right.

That same night, Boo came flying down Lower Reynolds and as she entered the "whoopdies" near the bottom she hit some ice and landed on her back and backside with her right arm reaching back, hurting her shoulder. Like my elbow, her shoulder still isn't right. It was so close to the holidays, but we wanted to have her shoulder checked out. By the time she could get on-schedule for an MRI, it was Christmas Eve, so we didn't exactly get the A team. I have long concluded that the initial scan and scan reading was not done well, but every subsequent discussion starts with a specialist saying "they didn't find anything on the MRI", not bothering to look at the results themselves. That's the American medical system at work. Anyway, since her shoulder acts up from time to time, driving a stick-shift in rush-hour bumper-to-bumper, rubber-banding traffic greatly aggravates it.

2dot0
For a short time, we had a nice Jetta sedan with an auto-tranny, but the hated 2-dot-slow engine See Welcome 2dot0). Boo drove that, and greatly appreciated the non-stick for her shoulder. She loves to drive a manual, mind you, just the hurt shoulder really took away a lot of that joy. Remember that I failed to recognize the state of the timing belt and it snapped days before we were scheduled to move (See Oh Snap). So, we sold the car pretty much for what I'd paid for it, leaving Boo back in a stick-shift car. Until now.

JettaWagon
When K started talking about selling his car, Boo and I talked about helping him out, and helping ourselves along the way. Flash has over 210k miles on him. His interior was a horrible mess when I bought him, and the body has taken a lot of abuse. The JettaWagon, on the other hand, had about 130k miles on it, and was in incredibly nice shape; much nicer shape than Flash was when I bought him. So, we bought it. Now, Boo has a auto-tranny TDI JettaWagon.

Like with any new acquisition, there were a few things that needed to be fixed. The battery in the remote is dying. The brake lights all fire up when the headlights are on. The leather seats don't match. That's it so far.

I replaced the single-filament bulbs that had been installed with dual filament ones and the brake/tail lights work properly now. I did note that in the book for bulbs at NAPA, they incorrectly reference a single filament bulb. So, this is probably common for DIY folks.

Anyway, rambling post today. More car content is being generated. Maybe, if the weather is willing, I'll be able to pull the cover off of Hapy and evaluate him for Summer fun. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Oh SNAP

A couple of weeks ago, I had the $500 Jetta suddenly stall in the driveway. Today's post covers the root cause investigation.

P0341: cam position sensor
P0422: o2 sensor

Stall

So, Boo is standing in the driveway next to her idling 2001 VW Jetta (named 2dot0) when it suddenly stopped running. There was no special noise, nor did it gasp on it's way down. It was just running one second and not running the next. My mind ran through a few scenarios, but I landed on electrical because of how quickly it shut off.

What You Should Do

Since a gas engine runs with the correct combination of fuel, air, compression and spark, These are the things that should be checked, and checked in that order, before you start swapping parts... even if you think you're sure you know what's wrong. If you have a more modern car, get a code reader and pull the codes from the computer. Sometimes, the computer won't give you a code for a while. I didn't get these codes here until after I'd figured out what was wrong through the steps below. The P0341 code confirmed my findings.

Fuel

fuel pressure regulators
(new on right)

Simply put, verify that you have fuel at the injector. To radically simplify things, I verified that I had fuel at the fuel pressure regulator by removing the regulator and letting the fuel pump cycle. I had fuel bubbling over. Pulling an injector can be difficult, so for me, this demonstrated that I had fuel at the rail. The probability of all 4 injectors clogging so badly that the fuel wasn't making it to the chamber was so low, I ruled out fuel, but replaced the fuel pressure regulator anyway since the old one fell apart on extraction (see picture).

Air

Check the air filter. It is completely clogged? It's probably not the issue. Check the "snow snorkel" that runs from the air box to the outside. Sometimes something can get jammed in there (like snow), preventing the engine from getting air. Remove some intake piping between the air box and the metal bits so you can see the little gate on the air intake. When the foot pedal is moved, does the flap move? You're probably getting air. This would be a good time to check the air sensor. This usually would throw a code, but to verify it isn't that sensor, unplug it and try to start the car. If it starts, that sensor is bad. The car will run without the sensor, but badly. Sometimes this sensor can prevent a start, but that wasn't the case with me. I ruled out air, and put everything back together again.

This is where I should have checked compression, but I was convinced it was an electrical thing, so I skipped ahead to Spark. Don't. Checking your compression is easy, and it reveals some very interesting info about your upper end, the mechanical timing and, possibly, a lower end issue.

Compression

2.0 ignition coil

Grab your compression tester (they are pretty cheap, if you don't have one) and test your cylinders one at a time. It's best to remove all four plugs, and test each cylinder multiple times. Take care how you manage your plugs and wires so you don't set yourself or your car on fire nor do you lose track of which wire goes where. Unplugging the coil is the simple solution. Anyway, if you get any reading under 100psi, try squirting a little oil into the cylinder and retest. If the reading is better, your rings are going and you'll need a bottom end rebuild soon. Start saving. If the reading doesn't change, its a valve-train issue. Assuming all of your reading are within 15% of each other and they are all above 100psi, move on to fuel.

Had I done this step before Spark, I would have found all 4 cylinders at 0 PSI, indicating a broken timing belt. This was verified by removing the timing belt cover and not seeing the belt. Yikes.

Spark

Remove the spark plug that's easiest to get to. In the 2.0 engine, that's #4. Take care how you remove the plug wire. Now, with a partner turning the key, hold the plug against the engine block (forming a ground) and watch for the spark. No spark? Could be your issue. I was way overdue for a tune up, and the plug socket fell off the plug wire when I touched it, so I concluded replacing plugs and wires was a good idea. 2dot0 still didn't start. I should already have checked compression, but still, I should have stopped here and gone back to it. I continued down the electrical gremlin path instead.

The new plugs and wires didn't do it. So, I got a new coil. And then a new battery. And finally a new crank position sensor. Still no start.

Realizations

no, I'm not a Packer fan

It wasn't until I got to this point that I reverted to the compression tests and learned that I had just thrown over $100 of new parts plus a battery into a large boat anchor. The timing belt broke, throwing off the timing and causing the valves to hit the piston tops. The engine was effectively blown. Tiny fragments of valve and piston will work their way into the deeper recesses of the engine while the breaking belt could have damaged rollers or the coolant pump. I sold the car for scrap and its gone.

Watching 2dot0 get towed away, I ran a quick accounting. I bought the car for $500, and had it running for another $30. Since then, I only bought tires and oil, so that's probably another $600 or so. Rounding up, I was probably into that car for $1200 before it broke and then threw another $300 into it. That's $1500 for a car including maintenance for 18 months minus the salvage I was paid, means it cost me less than $70/mo. Since you can barely rent a car for a weekend at that rate, I think we did extremely well. I just wish I had performed the timing belt maintenance.

That's all for today. After 2dot0 broke, I served my penance for not doing the timing belt by riding mass transit for a few weeks. Today was my first day back driving to work. It is such a luxury, though I do kind of miss the light rail. Thanks for following along-

A Sound You Hear That Lingers In Your Ear

After driving 2 different vehicles without a radio for a while, today's post covers the little effort needed to get some tunes happening.

Back to the Future

we shall call it "DARK STAR"

1985 was an historic year. It brought us the first Back to the Future movie, Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and the Escort radar detector. Some things from that era have lived on (like the Back to the Future movie) and others, like the old radar detector, are probably sitting on garage shelves waiting to be discovered. In a very similar scene, one of Boo's friends found an old tape-deck stereo she used to have in her old Audi back in high school (in 1985). It was pulled when the car was sold, dropped back into it's original packaging and set on a shelf. Fast forward 30 years, and it was re-discovered.

The Sound of Silence-ish
Not having a use for a 30 year old car stereo, Boo's friend gave it to us. We have a couple of vehicles without stereos, leaving us to listen to the engine (what we usually do in the bus) or to rig some portable speaker solution (what we usually were doing in 2dot0 aka Dot). Boo and I had done both over the years. In fact, the bus hasn't had a stereo in it since I bought him, so even the concept of having music is foreign and awkward. I tried to get the 1985 stereo to work in Dot, but 1985 technology just doesn't install into 2001. With T driving Flash more than anyone else, he wanted a new stereo that he could one day move to his own car. That totally made sense, so we found him one and had it installed into Flash. This freed up Flash's original stock stereo. Now, we have 2 stereos. Kismet.

1985, meet 1972

it actually looks kinda okay 

Since I couldn't get the gift stereo working in the new-to-me Jetta, I figured I'd try to wire it up in the bus. I had already run power from the auxiliary battery to the radio hole, with an intention to "one day" have a radio. The old radios, though, are different than the modern marvels of today. Instead of shipping with a cartridge-like plug in the back, they have a bundle of thin wires back there. Some simple splicing later, and the radio is wired with some donor speakers sitting on the cab floor. Just like that, I have a radio. Now, there's speakers to mount, and more wires to run for more sound, etc, but as of now, I can listen to the radio. With one of those cassette tape -to- headphone jack input converter things from Radio Shack, I can route music from my phone into it. Wow... driving with music is neat.

Old Plastic
Of course, with a 30 year of radio, something isn't going to go pear-shaped. After installing the head into the dash, the little plastic volume and tuner buttons broke during re-seating. That was an easy fix with a couple of old-skool knobs from Radio Shack (I got the tape cassette thing at the same time). Oddly, those 2 knobs represent the most chrome on the bus.

Dot music

When the installers (Car Toys on Canyon in Beaverton, OR) removed the original stereo from Flash, they cracked a bunch of the plastic face. Adding insult to injury, they didn't mention it, so we didn't see the broken face until we got home. There wasn't much they could do about it, except apologize. They basically explained that the plastic was old and brittle. Having just broken the knobs on a stereo 15 years older, I couldn't exactly argue the point and the new stereo was installed very nicely. We had intended to take the old Jetta stereo and pop it into Dot, they being virtually the same car only a model year apart. With careful use of electrical tape, I was able to get the face to hold together and onto the head unit. This past weekend, I plugged the stereo in, entered the unlock code, and slid the stereo into the console of Dot. If you zoom in far enough in the picture here, you'll see the electrical tape surgery. That stereo can come out one more time and then its recycler-bound. Here's hoping that can wait a while.

The Sound You Hear
Just like that, half of the fleet went from no sound to music-capable. Fun stuff. That's it for today. As I make little improvements to the speaker set-up in the bus, I'll flap about it in future posts. In the meantime, this is a very "Agile" way of going after a problem: do the bare minimum to see if you're on the right track. Once you get buy-in on the concept, harden the solution. As you can see from the picture below, I'm still collecting feedback on the idea. The looks will be addressed later. I'll enjoy the music in the meantime. The old engine drone, that used to linger in my ear for up to an hour after driving a long distance in the bus may devolve into memory now. We'll see.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

the large magnets are actually holding the speakers in place :-D

Welcome 2dot0

While searching for parts for Flash (the TDI Jetta recently wrecked by T), I found a perfect parts candidate.  Or is it more?  The one on Craigslist was a year younger, but had 192k miles on it.  A gasser with a 2-dot-slow engine, it was the GLS model with a tan leather interior and a bruise-free white exterior.  The biggest drawback: the owner believed he had blown the engine, and had left it untouched since mid-February.  Today's posting is the adventure we had with this listing / car.  Found on Thursday, I wanted to get there right away, which meant driving up the next day.

Oregon -to- Washington Friday Afternoon Traffic
First things first, the parts-car-candidate was living on the far North East corner of Vancouver, Washington.  Since I live in central Beaverton, that represented a 40 minute drive without traffic.  On Friday afternoon in the Summer, it can take considerably more time.  Like almost 3 hours one-way.  Fortunately, I drove Dude (2000 +/- Saturn) and his A/C was working fine.  Still, 3 hours of bumper-to-bumper rubber-banding traffic is hard on a clutch leg.  When I got there, the owner's wife had chosen to happy-hour with her friends, so the owner wasn't really able to focus attention on what we were doing as he had to manage little kids.  Turns out, she hadn't signed the title so it didn't matter if he wanted to do the deal or not; he couldn't.  So, after agreeing I wanted it and that he'd hold it for the weekend, I set back home into the reducing rush-hour traffic.

Haul it Home, Eventually
I got up the next morning (Saturday) and called AAA to see if I could get a tow from Vancouver.  After I was assured that the wait time would be around 30 minutes, and to call back when I was with the victim, I set off back to Vancouver.  Unlike the afternoon before, the drive this time took 40 minutes, even with a detour down Columbia Blvd. to avoid a 2-lane wreck just south of the Interstate Bridge.  I re-contacted AAA at the car and was given a 45 minute expectation.  Perfect.  The owner and I exchanged pleasantries, money and forms, then pushed the car into the street.  I climbed into Dude to wait for the tow truck.  And wait.  And wait.  After an hour, I contacted AAA to see what was going on. and I was given a revised time of another 75 minutes.  Crap.  The alternative: hire another tow company and hope AAA would reimburse it.  By the time the tow truck arrived, I had sat in front of the old owner's house for 3 hours.  I gave the tow guy directions, explained my need for food, and we set off separately.

I only stopped for about 15 minutes to eat, but that was enough of a head start for the tow truck to get to my house, drop the car and leave.  Boo was there to catch it, fortunately.  She and I pushed 2dot0 into the garage so I could consider it's engine's health.

2dot0
The prior owner had told the tale of how the car had fallen into its current state.  It seems that the early February snow storm I mentioned in Front Bumper (part 2) played a major part in 2dot0's demise.  He had driven to the community college for class and had been wrestling for traction in the snow when a large white cloud of smoke came out from under the hood.  He quickly wheeled into a parking spot and killed the engine.  He figured the engine was seized and had the car towed home after the snow cleared.  Because of the weather, getting that tow was a long wait; way worse than mine.  He was unable to get the engine to hold water, so he gave up on it, bought a different car and listed it to make room in his driveway.

$40 Later
That's where we come in on Sunday.  I did the same thing he had been doing: pour a little tap water into the overflow bottle and see if/where it comes out: slightly behind the front driver's wheel.  With a bare hand feeling for where dry meets wet, I was reminded of my diagnosing issues with the cooling leaks on Hapy.  That was the moment I realized it was the same coolant flange which had stymied me with the bus for a year.  Off to O'Reilly's Boo and I went to get a replacement flange and G12 coolant.  On removal, we could see that the old flange had split at the collar almost halfway around the underside.  I put on the new flange, topped off with tap-water to verify the leak, and presto! no leak.  Now the real test: try turning it over.  It started right up, but it blew lots of smoke.  I feared a failing head putting oil into the combustion chamber.  Still, we pulled 2dot0 out of the garage and I took a test drive around the neighborhood. It ran very well.  Brakes grabbed a little bit, but the steering was sure.  The engine had some pep (for a non-turbo 2.0) and the smoke went away.

Get Legal
On Monday, 2 days after having the car hauled home with a "blown engine", Boo and I went out to dinner in 2dot0.  The following Friday (after getting insurance), I drained the water and filled the cooling system with G12 coolant and distilled water.  Then, embraced more risk with a drive down the highway to the DEQ.  We passed, though I hadn't filled the system entirely with coolant and the temp ran high on the way home.  We didn't overheat, though, and we found a shade-tree under which I was able to top-off the system safely.
This past Friday, I ran the paperwork through DMV and got Oregon plates.  Between DEQ, DMV and the parts at O'Reilly, I spent over half of what I spent on the car.  For any other purchase, that would sound really bad, but this was a $500 car.

Now what?
So, now we have another car in the stable.  The question is, "what do we do with it?".  With such a high-mile engine, top-end work is inevitable.  Maybe bottom-end too.  We decided that since it hadn't had the benefit of many miles of trust-building, it will be my 2-miles-to-work car when the weather turns rainy.  T will continue to drive the dependable TDI (Flash), and we returned Joan (really large SUV) to Boo's ex-husband.

That's it for today.  I'd heard of folks getting a really great deal on a car, but after buying and selling over 10 cars, I'd never had that kind of luck.  Until now.  The stories are real.  Since I was looking for a parts car, getting a working car wasn't on the radar, but that's what I got.  I'll post next time on how we resolved the parts we needed to get Flash looking better.