By Jeff Glucker
Today is Tuesday. This past weekend was a long one, which means you likely had enough time to get out there and do something fun with a vehicle. Did you break away on two wheels? Maybe you put four wheels into the dirt? Perhaps there was just some serious wrenching progress achieved? Whatever the case, we want to hear about your vehicular fun from this past weekend.
For me, I drove from Orange County way up north to Thunderhill raceway. The 24 Hours of LeMons was my destination. Team Huevos Rancheros was prepped for battle. We had a few issues, and wound up on the trailer earlier than expected but we still had fun. More on all that later this week.
For now, sound off below with whatever you did over Memorial Day weekend…
I went to a wedding. I was selected as the driver of the getaway car for the bride and groom. The groom’s brother pulled the getaway vehicle up to the path, put it in park, and…the shifter cable came off. Had to go with a standby getaway vehicle instead, since the bride and groom were ready and nobody wanted to fix the cable wearing wedding duds.
Not that it was a special weekend here, but the closest I got was packing up all my magazines ready to move; 8 boxes worth.
Deep contemplation of how I re-wire the cooling fan on the trans am. It’s either a wonky relay or the motor itself, and I tested the motor with a straight simple circuit and “couldn’t replicate the issue”.
I had a blower motor resistor module go bad and run the blower motor constantly, whether or not the key was on. Obviously that meant unplugging the module when the car was parked, to keep from draining the battery.
One pleasant spring day, I figured I would just ride with the windows down, and not bother to reach under the dash to plug the module in. The car nearly overheated in traffic. The cooling fan circuit routed through the HVAC, so that the cooling system could adjust to a bigger heat load when the compressor is running.
I replaced the resistor module and the car ran cool again.
Yeah, that’s the rub. Part of the a/c system uses the suspect relay, but the compressor is working fine, all else is a go. So, I’m thinking I put in a redundant relay for the fan only. I have had success wiring something a time or two, just enough to give me a false sense of confidence.
Start by replacing the suspect relay?
Excellent advice. Or swap relays with another system on the car, and see if, say, the wipers become intermittent when you want them on constantly. Except don’t drive in the rain like that.
I get your larger point, but appropriately enough, the wipers don’t work either.
Well, sure, if you want to slow down and not employ my standard “ready, fire, aim” approach.
I actually have considered replacing said relay, but don’t have the courage of my convictions that the relay itself is the problem, only a hypothesis, it could be one of several other points of failure along the way. I feel a higher level of confidence that I could once again have a functional cooling system with what I can execute and not also kill my functioning a/c in the process by diving in there.
I am coming to the conclusion that perhaps my lack of time/patience doesn’t suit this hobby so well, but I keep at it in fits and starts.
In aid of isolating the problem, does the relay get power, and is there continuity from the relay to the fan motor? Does the relay trigger have power at the appropriate time?
The “signal” from the temperature switch in the manifold and the backup manual ground switch seem to throw the relay when the fan gets power, but power is only getting through to the fan motor intermittently, so that’s why I blamed the relay, though it could be a bad connection, but wiggling them all caused no change either when working or not.. Wiring the fan directly to the battery makes it run no issue.
For what it’s worth, my truck’s a/c blower worked only for very short durations. I figured either the blower motor or resistor. My son took it to an a/c shop that had a FREE AC CHECK sign. Their free check concluded either the blower motor or resistor; $175 repair either way.
I looked at the parts on Rock Auto. I could replace both parts for $125 if I wanted to DIY. I was about to do that, but then I looked on the forums, and changing the blower motor required removing the whole dashboard, and was a 5 hour job. I figured that for $50 more, I would let it be that a/c shop’s headache.
I took it into the shop. This time they did an exact diagnosis instead of a “probably” one. Traced to a bad relay. $85 out the door, turnkey sure beats $125 DIY wrong repair.
I worked Monday for double-time pay so I could have more money to spend on cars.*
*And by ‘cars’ I mean van and motorcycles, mostly. Last time I owned a car Jalopnik and Hooniverse did not exist.
Had another installment of the Grandview Memorial Day Parade Car Club, aka a bunch of folks with cool cars my dad has harassed into driving in our town’s parade every year. Participants included a 48 Daimler, Auburn sedan, dad’s 67 Sunbeam, an Avanti, some MGBs, X1/9, MG TF, and a TR3.
Zowie. Did they all finish the parade? You just need a late ’70s Jaguar, a Stanley Steamer and a Lancia Beta and I think there’s some kind of prize they give you for having that much cockamamie all running and driving at the same time.
Yeah those particular cars do the parade together every year, and they usually get to the end no problem. I need to upload photos for the fellow Hoons.
Definitely need photos!
I suspect the route is downhill…
I replaced the serpentine belt, tensioner, and ildler pully on my Mazda. Also went for anice long drive since the weather was nice.
Unless spending 12 hours in a minivan loaded to the brim with mountain bikes, fishing poles, campfire gear, and progeny counts as “car related”, then no.
A minivan is ‘car-related’. 🐸
Mmmm… more “car-adjacent”.
Definitely related – common ancestor if you go up the family tree!
Didn’t the current car status memo put the van above the SUV and thereby closer to acceptable levels, by association and comparison?
Of note, my next set of tires for the minivan are going to be all-terrains. Traction with the stock tourers is dismal. I may even put the white letters out, just to tick off my wife.
I rode one of the new Royal Enfield bikes, and really dug it. Also dumped my own bike after hitting a patch of mud in the street, but things happen sometimes.
Well as noted in the Friday post yes I did something automotive related this weekend in that I bought a car and one that I think most will agree is Hoonworthy. A 2003 Mercury Marauder 300b in Dark Blue Pearl, the rarest color of them all with only 328 made, and certainly fewer survive. See that thread for more details if desired.
I do have to say it is easy to get used to the mod cons. For the last 11 months I’ve become quite used to having a proximity key, parking sensors, back up camera ect as my MKZ and the wife’s C-Max have all of those things and more. The CVPI of course has none of those things but the fact is I think I’ve driven it 2 or 3 times since the first of the year.
I do need to do some work to it. The last owner didn’t know the keypad code so the door panel needs to come apart to read the code off of the module, I want to do an oil change and put some other tires I have on since it came riding on a set of winter tires.
I was with Jeff and Tim Odell at Thunderhill.
Tell them how you hit the fuel pump switch…
little bit, yeah https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23a26f316b74f52c84841d8c0aff3c8f5d54b7d9fe36da486a558299a5dfa747.jpg
fuck yes!
We put a roof rack and kayak mounts on our CX-5 so we can haul our boats to the lakes
I attempted, and again failed, to repair my ancient Scag zero turn mower. I do think I’ve finally got the problem as bad diodes in the engine harness. We’ll see this weekend.