Mornin’, folks. 🙂
My heart is certainly not free and easy. It’s actually really heavy at the moment, but I’m up, going, and being productive and proactive, so that’s positive. 🙂
Squirrel–Saw this article yesterday–one of only a few reasons I moved away from Utah (another big one being how crowded Utah is and how quickly it’s just getting more and more so). Anyway, just just an FYI to my Utah peeps out there.
I’m looking forward to a future where we don’t pollute our air. I know they aren’t even close to a panacea, but I’m looking forward to fully-electric cars and getting rid of ICE vehicles and equipment altogether. There are some amazing technologies coming out. I believe there was a recent patent application for a sodium-ion battery. That. Would. Be. Awesome. Supposedly they’ve figured out a way to massively increase the energy density and power output of sodium-based batteries. So good because it’s one of the most abundant metals we have and is super cheap. Cross your fingers. We’re on the cusp of some amazing things (if we can keep from killing each other in the meantime).
Squirrel 2–(but in a similar vein). I was cooking my morning vegetable bowl. Why do frozen foods come in non-recyclable packaging? Walmart, I believe, has committed to making the packaging for all in-house packaging recyclable by 2025 (not that I love Walmart, but I’m as one of the largest retailers, I’m glad they’re making the move). Is it a technology problem? A cost problem? Guess I’ll do some reading there. One of the things on my change-the-world work list is to have all packaging for everything be truly biodegradable/compostable, not just recyclable. Zero-waste living. That’s one of the goals.
Lots to do. And I think in a lot of ways it’s up to those of us who might be a bit better off financially to effect the change, as often times its new technologies that are needed to make the changes, and frequently new technologies are more expensive and not in the budget for many people. To be clear, I don’t advocate the forceful taking of money from those who are more well off, via taxes or whatever else, but I do feel it the right thing to do to use the money i have to support progress in areas that are still mostly unaffordable to a large chunk of the world.
…
Wow. I’m tired. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I walked through the front door after getting home from work. Man, I hit a wall.
I’m exhausted.
I got out to work a little late again, but not too bad. Did four cars and got home about 7 p.m. First car was replacing a starter on a 2016 Ford F250 6.6 diesel with over a half a million miles on it. That went decently. Not amazingly, not terribly. Just decently. That was the story with pretty much all the cars for the day.
Second car was a misfire/no start diagnosis. The check engine light had begun flashing while driving (a tell-tale sign of a dead misfire on one or more cylinders). But then not only was the check engine light flashing, but the engine actually died, which is not normal for a simple misfire issue, even one with a dead miss (meaning it’s misfiring every single combustion cycle). It had rich codes for both banks, a multiple random misfire code, and a catalytic converter code.
But when I went to try to start the Suburban (2000 Suburban 5.3 motor), it cranked for a brief second or two and then slammed to a stop.
The motor was completely locked up.
Generally, when that happens it’s catastrophic engine damage, and that’s where I was heading because that’s what it’s always been, but it was a little weird the way it all happened. Thinking the truck was going to need a new engine, I called my buddy Miguel and was asking questions about how much a motor swap would be, and then I told him what was going on, and he suggested that maybe the engine was hydro locked (so much fluid getting into the combustion chamber that it locked up the motor, as fluids don’t compress). He said he’d had it happen once before to him when a customer bought cheap injectors from online and wanted them put in, but one of them was stuck open. It completely hydrolocked the engine.
So I proceeded to pull the spark plugs out, cylinder one, then three, then five… When I pulled the plug out of cylinder five, it gushed gas out of the plug hole, as if a water bottle glugging as it’s poured out. It was nutty. So much gas came out. So that answered that question. It was hydrolocked. So with that plug out, I went to crank the engine over again, and it turned a bit, but then it locked up again. So I pulled all eight plugs out, and on cylinder 6, I got gas spraying out as I hand cranked the engine.
So… two fuel injectors stuck open. That’s… really rare for two to go bad at the same time. I’m betting one had been bad but not bad enough to cause a dead miss, and then the other just stuck open and dumped fuel.
The main question now is whether or not the force of the engine coming to an abrupt halt when it hit the gas was enough to bed the piston rod or damage other internal components. We won’t know the answer to that until the injectors are replaced and the engine is started again.
Anyway, that one was a bit of a trip.
Third job was replacing on alternator on a car where the husband had tried to do it himself, but he took off parts that didn’t need to come off, and the part they’d bought was poorly manufactured, so after I put it in, it wouldn’t bolt down properly, so that took a while to get acceptable. Anyway, when all was said and done, I had one bolt left over that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the gentleman had removed it from, and there was a nut and stud that wouldn’t got back on properly, as if it was missing a metal bushing or something. So I wasn’t able to finish the job because the husband wasn’t home to tell me where he took the bolt from, and it looked like an important bolt, so I didn’t want to risk starting the engine even though everything else was back together other than the one extra bolt and the nut I couldn’t cinch down properly because… apparently something is missing. So I left instructions for the husband to follow to finish the job up once he gets back. The hard part is all done.
The fourth and final job was actually supposed to be my third job, but it didn’t work out with the other jobs getting in the way. But on my way back home, after thinking we were going to need to reschedule for another day, I noticed that she’d sent a text asking if I could still come by tonight but in a different city. When I looked at where she was, it was only 3 minutes away from the gas station I’d just filled up at, so I swung by.
She also had a flashing check engine light, but this one was simpler… ish. It was a p0303 code, meaning misfire on cylinder 3. When I examined the engine, I noticed that the spark plug wire to cylinder 3 wasn’t fully seated, so I pulled it out, realized it was bent a little bit, and I also looked inside the spark plug well and saw that it was full of oil, and that the plug and wire were both fouled pretty significantly.
So it looked like we had our answer: the oil leak at the tube seals allowed oil into the spark plug well, which fouled the connection between the spark plug wire and the spark plug. So I spent a good while cleaning out the spark plug well, getting the oil out, and I also cleaned out the plug wire, getting all the grime and nastiness out.
When I went to put the plug wire back in, it wouldn’t seat onto the plug properly, having been bent too wide. So I grabbed some pliers and bent the innards inward. The problem with doing that is that it damages the rubber boot, and the rubber boot is what keeps the spark inside the wire instead of jumping to the wall of the spark plug well and causing… other issues.
So I grabbed an old piece of rubber… I think it was probably an old coolant line, and I cut it and wrapped it around the damaged part of the spark plug wire, so it had thick rubber again where the rubber had been damaged. Then I used electrical tape to wrap it tightly, so I could get it to fit in the plug well, and boom, it worked! The current stayed in the boot. The rubber wrapping did the trick.
First time I’ve ever done that before. 🙃
That at least makes it so she can replace the wires at her leisure when she’s got some more money, as money is tight for her right now.
But… problem… started it up, and the misfire was still there. 😕
So I’d temporarily resolved two problems, but the dead mis was still there. So then I grabbed a tool and checked the spark at cylinder 3 coming out of the coil, and it looked weak, so I checked it coming out of cylinder 2 on the coil, and it was so strong it shocked me, so… that answered that. Bad coil.
Thinking ahead of time that the issue might be the coil, I ordered one, so I had it with me, swapped it out, fixed the misfire, and I left her with instructions to change the plugs and wires herself, and I gave her a quote to fix the oil leak, should she want to.
Now I’m home. It’s just after 8, and I’m crashing.
Making progress. Good stuff.
Hope y’all enjoyed your day.
Lift the World
Sacrifice a little today for a better tomorrow.
~ stephen
Lift the World 