EightBit posted:

You might not get all the sludge up like that. Draining by pulling the plug tends to flush the pan pretty thoroughly.

Autoexec.bat posted:

It depends, if your engine sludges at all or otherwise has crud in the pan the pump will likely not get it out as well as the traditional method since you don't have the mass of oil pushing it out. Plus you won't know if any metal shavings are on the plug magnet. If your car(s) are not ancient like mine I can't see it hurting anything.

Dennis McClaren posted:

Autoexec.bat posted:

B4Ctom1 posted:

Does anyone know how to tell which 2003-2008 Honda Odyssey models are the 5 speed auto with 4WD and which are just the CVT/2WD without climbing under them? Is there an emblem or model designation? A button on the dash? I cannot tell this female friend who is shopping to climb under and look for a rear diff or half shafts.

Autoexec.bat posted:

I was a bit confused by this question since US Odysseys are basically a different vehicle than the international variants. Here 2003-2008 covers 2 different body styles which all have 5 speeds and I believe are all 2wd. I think you'll need to let us know what country you're in.

B4Ctom1 posted:

This is very valuable information to me. I am in the USA. I was just worried and trying to avoid her getting a CVT model. And I was misinformed on the all-wheel-drive thing. Are there any CVT model’s in that era?

Breakfast Feud posted:

I've learned the hard way cars from The Good Old Days^TM that don't have any of that awful, complicated computer stuff are actually way more complicated to work on.

A buddy got me to help with his 70s Yamaha and it was a nightmare. Mercury switches, timers, lights that had to blink while while also acting as the DRLs sometimes.

You're right in your approach I think. Don't touch anything even adjacent to the spark control computer.

Autoexec.bat posted:

I did some more exploring into my fan not shutting off issue and traced it down to a part called an After-Run Relay which turns out has also been part of my problem with the fan occasionally not working. Problem is the part was only used for one year and is virtually non-existent. The part only pulled up one google result by name and less than a dozen by part number. My question is is there a way to put a regular relay in it's place and disable the timing function? The one I have has a small circuit board in it on top of a traditional relay (which looked pretty well burned out). Here's a picture of the diagram.


Link

Jumping the violet wire to hot will jump start the fan when it doesn't feel like turning on and it will stay on until the battery is disconnected either way.

Autoexec.bat posted:

I don't think the Odyssey ever came with a CVT in the US, and a quick google confirms that. Apparently the JDM/AUS etc ones had CVTs and 4wd, but neither are on US market units. I did find a couple private sellers on autotrader claiming to have a "4wd - front" version but 3 in the entire country means it's likely a mistake.

shovelbum posted:

I think the CVT was limited to the Civic in that year range. The CVT in those Civics was allegedly quite bad though I have a 1998 still happily running on its first CVT, albeit with a noisy juddering start clutch, that has been that way since I bought it in 2005. You definitely can't count on them having been fed the right fluid though, I wouldn't buy one again just because of that.

Autoexec.bat posted:

I ended up tracing the blue wire, it is disconnected so no power is on it. I was wrong earlier.

Christobevii3 posted:

I bought a 1982 Mercedes 300d for $500. Changed the battery and starts like new. Brake reservoir is low so going to probably get a bleeder and change the fluid, pads, and shocks at once. Got 4 new tires coming.

What else should i check besides basic fluid changes? Should i attempt the front and rear windshield gaskets? They're quite rotted but don't have a welder to repair rust i may find.

shovelbum posted:

Lol trying to figure this thing out is killing me, if you yank it can you please dissect it for our education?

Christobevii3 posted:

I bought a 1982 Mercedes 300d for $500. Changed the battery and starts like new. Brake reservoir is low so going to probably get a bleeder and change the fluid, pads, and shocks at once. Got 4 new tires coming.

What else should i check besides basic fluid changes? Should i attempt the front and rear windshield gaskets? They're quite rotted but don't have a welder to repair rust i may find.

Autoexec.bat posted:

Pray to the lord of vacuum lines because you will need his blessing. I think those even used vacuum lines to control the HVAC and central locks if it is what I think it is. Also make sure your brake hoses haven't constricted closed, it's old enough for that to be a problem. Other things to check on a car that old include: ball joints and other steering bits, hazards and other lights incl reverse, cooling fan , timing belt if it has one (water pump and thermostat too if it is bad), fuses as some POs don't put the right ones in, and finally plugs and wires esp since the wires are prob worse than they appear.

I would have someone else do the windshield gaskets, they are not fun on any car and if they are leaking look under the carpet for rust. If it is really rusty under the old seal it is either $$$ or lots of bondo and silicon to try and seal it.

Willfrey posted:

79 datsun 280zx. Pulled it out of a field for 200 bucks, replaced the fuel pump and it ran pretty good. Ran it briefly one day, the second day I let it idle for about 20 min. Satisfied I ordered some rims and a few other things figuring it was good to go.

On the 3rd day I went to start it and heard a godawful racket from the motor. Stopped trying to turn it over. Drank some beers, scratched my head and attempted to start it again. I ran it for maybe a minute, horrible sounds and running very rough. Turned it off

Removed the valve cover, discovered the #4 exhaust valve is stuck open. So the horrible noise is probably the piston nailing a bent over valve. If I have to completely rebuild the motor I'll probably just cut my losses and sell the thing. Can I get away with pulling the head, fixing the valve, and casually ignoring the piston damage? Or would that be a waste of time (I never intended to restore the car, was going to just have fun with it and treat it like a 200 dollar car)

0toShifty posted:

You either have a horrible drain, or a bad battery cable. Wiggle the cables on the battery and make sure they don't move at all. The other ends could be messed up too, see if you can follow them.

I've seen vehicles with weird lights getting stuck on - like the sun visor, glovebox or trunk lights. Aftermarket stereos and subwoofer amplifiers are also notorious for drains if they're installed improperly.

Do you have access to a voltmeter?

If you do - check the voltage at the cables on the battery, and then check it with your meter probes on the tops of the posts themselves. If you have around 12v on the posts but not the terminals, then your problem is the terminals. If you have 12v on both, your problem might be either on the other ends of the cables or the starter itself. I know you just replaced the battery and alternator, it's not uncommon for all three to kill each other depending on how weak each was before the craziness started.

A 12amp charge for an hour should be able to start almost any car though. I suspect cable or starter problems.

Breakfast Feud posted:

It's going to take way more than an hour to charge your battery. After an hour you may have put 12A into the battery, who's total capacity is something like 48A. Maybe if you were trying to start a little Japanese sedan with light oil you'd have some success with an hour of charging, but a Durango? Probably not. It takes a load of amps to make the motor turn and you'd have to be insanely lucky to charge it for an hour and get it to start on the first half-crank.

Does you Durango have the external voltage regulator? In Dodges there's a trifecta of parts that get replaced far too often and it's the Battery, Alternator and Voltage Regulator.

Make sure you alternator is (still) charging the battery. The Dodge regulators that come built into the alternator are apparently for poo poo and lots of people jump them out and put inline regulators. Even then, it's not uncommon to go through 3 or 4 regulators until you get a "good" one. Don't bother getting the cheaper one at the store either, their failure rate is insane.

Breakfast Feud posted:

I would be very careful mucking around with meters near the starter. The amperage present there is in DANGER levels, don't go poking around with a horror freight meter.

Breakfast Feud posted:

With harbor freight meters the probes are not rated for what they say they are. The fuse is likely beefier than the few strands of wire in the actual probe, and the rubber is...lacking. It's prone to cracking at the point where the wire goes into the probe.

wesleywillis posted:

get new rotors you cheap cocksucker

wesleywillis posted:

I know the answer is going to be " get new rotors you cheap cocksucker", but I have to ask anyway.
I've got a pulsing when I stop. Funny enough, I feel it in the car, not from the brake pedal which is usually where I feel it when the rotors are hosed.
The most likely culprit is the front rotors since they've been on the car for a few years, and the rears were replaced this summer.
I had the wheels off recently to check/lube the caliper sliders and took a few fractions of a mm off the pads with some sand paper, but since I was trying to do it quick and dirty, I never bothered looking at the rotors.

They're likely too thin to be machined and still be within spec, but I was thinking this: Could I take them off and use an angle grinder with a wire wheel attachment to get rid of the high spots?
If I've read, and remembered correctly, a lot of times, the pulsing is a result of a thin rear end layer of pad material getting transferred to the rotor surface and sticking to it.

Would a wire wheel attachment be able to get rid of the pad material, while not removing any metal from the rotor itself?

Eventually, I'd need to replace the rotors anyway, but I'm hoping that this cheapskate idea will work and allow me to wait a bit, like till the summer, while also preserving my front pads, which were replaced in the fall.

quote:

The procedures are very similar between manufacturers. With respect to the pads, the bonding resins must be burned off relatively slowly to avoid both fade and uneven deposits. The procedure is several stops of increasing severity with a brief cooling period between them. After the last stop, the system should be allowed to cool to ambient temperature. Typically, a series of ten increasingly hard stops from 60mph to 5 mph with normal acceleration in between should get the job done for a high performance street pad. During pad or disc break-in, do not come to a complete stop, so plan where and when you do this procedure with care and concern for yourself and the safety of others. If you come to a complete stop before the break-in process is completed there is the chance for non-uniform pad material transfer or pad imprinting to take place and the results will be what the whole process is trying to avoid. Game over.

In terms of stop severity, an ABS active stop would typically be around 0.9 G’s and above, depending on the vehicle. What you want to do is stop at a rate around 0.7 to 0.9 G's. That is a deceleration rate near but below lock up or ABS intervention. You should begin to smell pads at the 5th to 7th stop and the smell should diminish before the last stop. A powdery gray area will become visible on the edge of the pad (actually the edge of the friction material in contact with the disc - not the backing plate) where the paint and resins of the pad are burning off. When the gray area on the edges of the pads are about 1/8" deep, the pad is bedded.

alnilam posted:

What is the point of the button that turns the cruise control system on and off? Does the system consume much power? Did it used to? Is it a historical/legacy thing?