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.

More Moving

Today's post follows the last one, sort of. Today I focus on moving stuff basically from one storage location (the attached carriage-house-sized one-car garage) to another (the tool shed or the shop floor). In re-reading it, there is really a lot of history context with some moving stuff mixed in.

 

But First 

most empty since 2022

Before I get into it, I understand that a blog about fixing cars really ought to, you know, talk about fixing cars sometimes. I get it. I really do. I like working on cars, and when I have time, space and a car that needs fixing, that's how I prefer to spend time. Over the past 2 years, I have spent a great deal of time focusing on creating the space for that to happen. In light of that, I think it is worth noting that I understand the economic space many of us are in. Costs for everything seem to climb more every day while our respective salaries and wages are flat. Affordability may be a catch-phrase for politicians, but for the rest of us its a daily life reality.

 

When I look back on the last year of posts talking about getting a shop built, I recognize how tone-deaf much of that must feel to those in real financial difficulty. I totally understand that. Please consider that I started this before the election in November of 2024 and had committed to $22k of steel building before the tariff wars started in 2025 and had the concrete poured, building installed and the doors started before trump attacked Iran this year, sending our fragile economy skidding into the ditch. I had already started down a path which could not be easily changed before things got really bad.

 

Now, Boo and I are in the same financial binds as most of the US: income flat, outflow increasing. Accordingly, I will not be getting any new-to-me cars/projects nor really invest much in fancy new after-market parts to install on any of the ones I have. What does this mean for a blog about fixing cars? Well, it kinda means that I won't be posting as often and when I do it will be more about repairs than about some new thing except for the parts and bits I collected before we bought the farmhouse in 2022. I have boxes of interesting things that I never got to, like a 2-1/2" universal exhaust kit for the bus, a 3rd brake light idea for the bus (from junkyard parts), a trailer wiring package to go with the tow hitch, etc. So, there will be things. And, of course, I still have the locked up engine on Nina ('64/'65 Beetle) to free, a bunch of little things to finish on Oliver ('78 MGB) and a disassembled '79 280zx (Zed) to put together. Most of that work would require very little in terms of parts.

 

Garage

acquisition day 2022

This 1948 farmhouse has what I would call a carriage-house style attached garage. I say that because only the smallest of cars could possibly fit with the door closed. Oliver, the MGB, could fit. Astra and Nina could fit. That's the end of the list. Hapy is too tall and probably too long. The XRunner is definitely too long. I think even Zed is too long. Further complicating the garage is a fixed work bench along the rear wall that protrudes almost a full meter off the wall and the laundry machines near the front, narrowing at least the feel of the width of the space. I think Astra will still fit, but it will need to be mostly empty.

 

Shortly after we bought the house, before we had meaningfully cleaned anything, Boo and I scored a solid wood, full kitchen's worth of era-correct cabinets from the rebuilding center for $420US. The rebuilding center is not a store room; quite the opposite. Everything you buy must leave the store that day or it's theirs again. So, we lasso'd Boo's ex-husband (and his mini van) and some helpers (our local kids) and ran all of the cabinets over to the farmhouse. And slammed them into the garage on top of one another. The fate of that garage had been written the day we bought it: it would be the staging area for building supplies until the house was livable. Those cabinets were the first but far from the last. And then it continued to be the store room for all kinds of things. Until now.

 

farmhouse at winter solstice

With the shop taking all car-related stuff and car-related tools, almost a third of the stuff in the garage was moved. Over the last weekend in May, I moved everything home-repair related out to the now empty and clean tool shed. That represented almost another third of the stuff that used to be in the garage. As I cleared an area of things, I shop-vac'd all the dust bunnies and old cobwebby string-things. What remains in the garage are camping gear, ski gear, holiday decorations and household goods storage. The rafters are still full of lumber. So, I have to clear that to somewhere and then there is a bunch more vacuuming of ick. I have a couple of extra kitchen cabinets which need to move to the shop and I still have the big black rolling cabinet that needs to move too. Once those three big items move, we can park Astra in there. Boo had been gone for the weekend, baby-sitting our little grand-niece (A) while her mama was at a wedding. When she returned and saw the garage space, she immediately started envisioning a project space for herself. I love that, and if we do it right, we can still move things around and park her car in there between projects.

 

Car Stuff

There has been some car stuff, though. Hapy is my "daily driver" again, getting me to and from a show with Brenda on Sunday. Astra, now that her alternator is keeping her all charged and start-able has started complaining about her power steering. It is making a low hum most of the time and actual turning has gotten harder at the extreme edges of the range. I checked fluid (nothing on the stick: that's bad) and topped it off. I expect one of the rubber hoses is failing so I will need to do a deeper diagnosis this weekend. For now, though, the added fluid appeared to quiet the hum a little bit and the steering is better until the last bit. It could resolve as the air works its way out the hoses, but I think there is an active leak so it will only get worse before I find and fix. Work on Saturday! Yeay!

 

Wrap up

Yep, that was an unusual post. There is a considerable amount of economic uncertainty around us. For some, it is the loss of discretionary spending while others are dealing with food or even housing scarcity. We all can feel some foundational insecurity, maybe while filling your tank or grocery cart, paying utility bills or thinking about how to keep your kids safe this summer. I see it in faces. Fewer smiles, more worry-lines. It is a hard time for most of us. So please, let that person pull in front of you, give everyone a little grace. Grace is free. So are hugs and smiles and waves. Everything else seems to be more expensive than it was yesterday and the shorter-term future looks like it will be more of the same.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Moving Into Shop

It has been a busy couple of weeks spent mostly moving stuff from the tool shed into a big heap at the front of the shop. I did get to wrench on Boo's car, Astra, though. Today's post is mostly about Astra, but the pictures show the move of stuff as I didn't get my phone out to take pictures of Astra's alternator replacement.

 

Weather the Weather

shop heap

One of the best parts about living in the Pacific Northwest are these incredible spring days. When I first moved here decades ago, we would enjoy what I called "the weather donut hole" in April. It was a short, maybe 2 week period, when the rains stopped and we got these just gorgeous sunny days. Then, we would descend into another 2-1/2 months of rain until July 5th. Through the wonder of climate change, our spring weather donut hole has grown. Maybe 10 years ago, it would last most of April. As recently as 2 years ago, the donut hole never closed, and we did not get much more than 2 or 3 days of rain a few times before the summer dry season hit. This year is looking more like 2 years ago did, with mostly clear and dry days with a few passing rains to knock the pollen out of the air. While I worry about summer fire season, we make the most of these below 25*C (80*F) sunny days with daylight lasting until 9PM.

 

So, with that backdrop, I had a meaningful car repair to get after.

 

Astra's Backstory

Boo replacing Dude's starter

Well before I met her, Boo used to drive an Opel Kadett. Always generous, she let some friend use it and never saw it again. Years later, when I met her, she was driving a gold Saturn sedan (named "Dude"). She loved that car, doing everything she could to keep it on the road. Again, a friend of my dad needed a car for a while. This friend was running errands for the less-physically able in my parent's building, so she loaned him Dude. It was stolen, and when it was recovered by the police, the ignition and steering column were destroyed. With considerable sadness, she let the car go to police impound auction. She had owned Dude for 18 years.

 

Fast forward a few years and I'm driving along and find myself behind a 4 door hatchback with a Saturn symbol on it. At the next red light, I snapped a picture of it and sent it to her. We were in the market for a new car after the GoRo disaster and had been talking about a Mazda3 or maybe a small SUV. The Saturn appeared to be an intersection of her appreciation of the looks, lines, mileage and size of the Mazda3 with her love for Saturn. I started investigating and learned that the Astra was built with Stellantis/Vauxhall, owner of Opel and original manufacturer of the Kadett. In fact, the Kadett evolved into the Astra. So, the Astra was really an intersection of her beloved Saturn, her equally beloved Opel Kadett and her appreciation of the Mazda3. Of course, now I had to find one. The Saturn Astra was only available in the states for 2 years (2008 and 2009), and not many were sold. We lucked into one outside Salem for literally $2kUS and after applying another $1k of repairs and tires, it has been a fantastic family member.

 

tool shed "empty"

She is not without her issues, though. Sometimes she does not want to downshift and just groans in a too-high gear. This is reset with a restart, but that's not easy in traffic. Over the last 18 months, though, the battery had been not charging enough on shorter drives to start again. She priced having someone replace the alternator, after having it checked, and the $800 price tag lead us instead to get a jump pack to jump start her when she didn't want to start on her own. This lasted over a year until a couple of weeks ago I took on the task of replacing the alternator. By the time I got to step 3 or 4 in reading the online "how to", I understood why shops were giving her a "go away" price.

 

Alternating Astra

In January, Boo and I planned for a trip to the east coast the week before Memorial Day. We were going to visit my sister and her family and then see our son K2 (currently serving in the US Navy at Quantico). Then the trump administration decided to pick a war with Iran, airline prices spiked and our plan was scrapped. Thanks trump. Nature hates a vacuum, so what would have been a trip to the east coast became an opportunity for me to spend up to a week fixing her car with no drive-to-work pressure.

 

shelving starts

The challenge with removing and re-installing an alternator on the Astra is that the alternator only fits out the left front (passenger-side) tire well. Even then, it doesn't fit easily. So, the process is you get the car up on a jack, remove the wheel and the inner wheel well just so you can approach the serpentine belt and alternator. Disconnect the battery. I put the battery onto a charger while I did the rest of the job. I found removing tension on the belt tensioner especially difficult because of the required body positioning to access it and the steel supports blocking direct access. I used a spanner-on-a-spanner (yes, it's cringe-y) for sufficient leverage. If you reuse the belt, mark the belt direction. With the belt off, you can get at the 2 alternator bolts. With the alternator loose, reach around the rear and unplug the 2-pin socket. It has a latch holding it on. I palmed a small bladed screwdriver around everything and got the latch to release without breaking it. Then, remove the nut holding the main cable to the rear of the alternator. At this point, some folks have posted that they have been able to worm the alternator through the wheelwell. They must have a different engine than we do (2.0L). I needed to remove the air box and then the engine mount bolts underneath it, so the engine on the left side was no longer attached. I did set up the TravisJack under the engine so it didn't lower at all. Then, the engine itself needs to move as far forward as you can manage it. I just grabbed onto it from over the radiator and pulled. The alternator drops down and out behind the engine and out the rearward end of the wheelwell opening. I found that if the alternator is in the same orientation as it was when installed, it does come right out. Any other orientation and it will get stuck. Yes, this happened to me many times until I figured it out.

 

end of day 1

With the old alternator out, the install is mostly the reverse. Alternator enters the wheelwell oriented as it will be installed. I plugged in the socket and nutted on the thick cable before then attaching the alternator to the engine. Next, I put the serpentine belt back on. It has maybe 20k miles on it since it was replaced by the yard we bought the car from. With the belt tension restored, I moved the engine back into place and re-connected the mount. Then, I put the airbox back in and returned under the car to put the inner wheel well back on. I finished up with putting the wheel back on and the battery back in.

 

I had read online that this was a 8+ hour job, so I had set aside 2 days, hoping that I'd be done by Sunday in time to see our friend Maldarine play a show. It took me 6 hours, start to finish, backing her out of the shop and the lane way back into the front well before dark on Saturday. 

 

Moving In

With all the extra time I now had, I decided that I would get as much of our summer project done as I possibly could. I figured that it wasn't raining and every nice summer day I could save by doing things now, would make for a better summer. This year's project is getting everything car-related into the shop and everything home-repair related into the tiny shop (tool shed). Then, the only stuff in the garage is camping and ski gear, leaving plenty of room for Boo to park Astra when the fall rains return.

 

partway day 2

I had started with the garage, moving the red rolling tool cabinet before I even had the doors installed. This renewed effort was about getting anything else car or tool-related from the garage into the shop. This included my jacks and stands, the hypersonic-cleaner and lots of random parts. All that remains is my big black rolling tool cabinet. I hope to move that this week.

 

Next, was the tool shed. I regret not taking a genuine before picture. The shed was so full, the back half was out of reach, blocked by stuff. So, those large items blocking the floor were first, rooting through them a little bit looking for junk before moving the keeper-bits to the front of the shop floor. I noted that there was evidence of rodents, so I spent the next few days wearing a dust mask, shop-vacuuming a lot, and generally moving at a slower-than-hoped pace. I would vacate a shelving unit, dismantle and wash it, move it, and finally re-assemble it inside the rear of the shop. Most of the stuff that were on the shelves ended up in a heap at the front of the shop, or a heap for the dump. The exceptions to this were solvents and cleaners, which went onto freshly cleaned shelving, and everything painting related, which went into an old kitchen upper cabinet the kids used to use for skate and snow gear repairs and parts.

 

Those with a keen eye will see (in the shed heap picture at the top) that I put Zed on furniture dollies so I could move him around a little bit. These dollies are the $30, 1000# max variety found at Harbor Freight. The genuine car dollies I've seen cost up to 10x that much. Are they 10x better? Unlikely, except they work on heavier cars. I was able to move Zed by myself, one end at a time, so I could fit a shelving unit against the wall beside him. I used another pair of those same dollies under the paint cabinet.

 

paint cabinet on wheels

Boo and I agreed that the Tetris I did to get Zed's entire interior onto the high shelf in the tool shed could not be easily repeated (see the upper deck in the tool shed "empty" picture above), so that stuff stayed. Otherwise, the tool shed is clear of car stuff, the shed is cleared of all evidence of rodents and the shop vac has been emptied and washed. Next, I will be moving home-repair stuff from the garage.

 

Wrap Up

This got really long, but a lot gets done on a full week stay-cation. I hope to get after the big black rollie cabinet and the garage-to-tool-shed over the next couple of weeks. Then, our summer project will have been completed before summer even arrives. We all know nature hates a vacuum, so that time will be filled by something. And that something will probably be either home improvement or car-related. Once that happens, I'm sure I'll post about it. Until next time, thanks, as always for following along-