|
Great progress! Love every update.
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2021 05:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 01:05 |
|
|
Sorry guys, no update, just trying to keep this out of archives. I've been busy as hell, just not on this car. I can't remember all the things I've been doing. Mostly house stuff along with car stuff for myself and others. Over the last 3 months I did: Motor mounts on my wagon Fixed the taillights and power seat on my brother in law's 940 wagon Fixed broken tailgate hinges and wiring on my sister's 240 wagon Demo'd the lovely awning on the back of my house Got the house re-roofed Fought back more blackberries Fixed a clunk, a loose fender flare, and a broken tailgate hatch on a C30 for a nice retired nurse who gives my dad a testosterone shot every month as a volunteer Fixed the ice maker in my rental unit fridge, fixed the toilet and sink and shower in prep to rent it out Finished washing the siding on all 4 sides of the house Began a Volvo C30 6-speed project for a friend, first steps were timing belt, cooling system refresh, PCV refresh, and CV axles. Next is aftermarket wheels and coilovers with a side of adjustable control arms, and then exhaust. He's going to drive it like that until he's bored and then I'm trying to talk him in to an AWD conversion and k16 turbo for 400+ HP. Repaired the slider rollers on the windows that open and close the most in the house Cleaned out the hall closet of 30 years worth of old bedding and towels, some of the pillowcases were ones I used in grade school. I donated anything that was clean and kitschy or vintage (or both) and turned the rest in to rags. Cleaned the pantry and donated/recycled all the surplus cookware that I'll never use. Kept anything good though. On top of that my dad ignored his temp gage and blew the engine in his 2000 V70. I asked him to put it aside until I can get to it but he keeps pushing forward "on his own" which means he constantly passive-aggressively drags me in to helping him and his handyman. Had to troubleshoot and help make his other car road-ready. Mostly diagnosing a blown fuse and bad contact, as well as a lightbulb or two. Oh and his power steering cap disassembled itself into the reservoir somehow, fortunately it's only 2 pieces so I was able to fish them out with a coathanger. Oh, and my daughter had her first two instances of car trouble since I got her V50 4 years ago. The battery that came with it finally died, the morning she was leaving Denver to drive back here to school. Then once she got here, for some reason the driver's CV shaft worked its way out of the transmission and stranded her less than an hour from my house. Towed it here, I just popped it back in, it's been fine ever since. I feel like this is less than half the list but yeah in addition to working full time and doing 100% of the rest of the house maintenance, cleaning and grocery shopping I haven't carved out time for the 122 like I said I was gonna. But the major maintenance and cosmetic items that were deferred on the house will be done soon and I can relax a bit. And as of last week I've already been back in Oregon for a year. I was in a pretty major depression the last 2 years I was in Denver, so it feels real good to be motivated to do poo poo again. I'm doing at least one chore or another every single night and weekend for the most part. It used to be rare that I did anything, now it's rare that I don't. I still get lots of social time with my friends too, and a lot of it is doing chores and projects together so that's great. I guess I did do one thing on this car. A couple weeks ago I dug out my bolt bucket and scrap metal boxes from the shelf that's blocked by a car. That way I can make those brackets I was talking about. Thanks for sticking with me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2021 07:03
|
|
|
What a tremendous list of stuff done, 122 or not it’s very motivating
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2021 07:20
|
|
|
Yeah that's a poo poo load of work and I don't doubt that's not half of it. Cars and houses both suffer from accumulation of deferred maintenance.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2021 07:21
|
|
|
I got a thing done on the 122! And bonus goon meet content: I met the spyder!  After spending a few more than 7 minutes in rotary heaven my intercooler mounting bosses and upper brackets were tacked on. Here is a crappy picture of the pin sitting in the bushing exactly as it should:  One small problem, this weld bumps the corner in the lower sheet metal. I'll have to grind or smack one or the other.  Here are the upper brackets, now all I need is to make a simple L bracket that goes from there to that core support insert on both sides.  That happened a month ago and I was holding off posting until I got my brackets made but it's just not going to happen any time soon so I figured I'd go ahead and post what I have. The spyder is a great guy, we spent over an hour talking and me drooling over his shop and about 5 minutes tacking these parts on. But now that they're test fit I can finish out the intercooler completely. But I also got a christmas bonus, and it was time to upgrade all the speakers in my daily wagon. One thing that frustrated me about my new garage is that there's a drat support post right in between the cars. Fortunately it's at the front wheels, so you don't bash it with the door but it means if you have a project where you want all 4 doors open on the car with the ability to walk around it, you can't just drive it in to the center of the garage like I used to at my last house.  Until I realized that because of the side parking, I can just back in sideways and get the same result!  So this allowed me to install the speakers all weekend with the car doors open and the garage door closed. And I'm still not done, but at least the amp and fronts are all in. Just have to do the rear doors and subwoofer. And last but not least, my car has the same technology as the Takata airbags, even though they're not Takata. So Volvo is doing a full replacement for every P2 platform car, from 99 to 09. But they're not doing model specific colors, just charcoal gray.  Thanks for the horrible looking safety upgrade assholes. So now I get to go shop for a charcoal steering wheel that is hopefully as mint as this one. And I'd gladly upgrade to the 3 spoke wheel except those airbags are bad too, so I'd have to get a new one for that also. Anyway, that's what's been going on at the Volvo house. Sorry for the garage brag but hey, I'm 50 and this is the nicest garage I've had to work in since I lived here in high school. And I didn't own it then so I got kicked out whenever my dad had a project, even though I was doing all the project work. GUESS WHO'S KICKED OUT NOW, DAD?!? Boy does that unpainted drywall look like rear end. I gotta do something about that. edit: Also sunday is sadly the 7 year mark for this thread. The car has not run for 7 years. I've owned it for 12 and a half. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Dec 16, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 09:27
|
|
|
LloydDobler posted:And last but not least, my car has the same technology as the Takata airbags, even though they're not Takata. So Volvo is doing a full replacement for every P2 platform car, from 99 to 09. But they're not doing model specific colors, just charcoal gray. That would drive me insane
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 15:09
|
|
|
That's a hell of a list of things done! And yeah, I'd be looking for a gray steering wheel before everyone else does, or find a matching vinyl paint. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 15:30
|
|
|
opengl128 posted:That would drive me insane Same, holy poo poo that's a dick move on Volvo.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 16:31
|
|
|
IOwnCalculus posted:Same, holy poo poo that's a dick move on Volvo. Agreed. That looks terrible. It may be possible to have it dyed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 16:45
|
|
|
It's the buttons that are really the worst part. Volvo in the past has done gray hubs on tan wheels and made it look like a design choice, like how my center vents are gray. I might just try to source those.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 19:21
|
|
|
Can you go get another airbag module in the original colour and swap the bits around? Depends on the car, but on some, the "airbag" unit is an airbag module with a front trim that can just be unscrewed or unclipped.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 20:02
|
|
|
Possibly, my buddy wants to try that on his R because the R cover has special details. I looked at mine and it might be possible but I didn't even think of trying it. I would have removed mine because it's mint. Now I'm kinda mad at myself. Also decided to change the thread title because this thread turned into an overall life dump a few years ago with the R.... And I made a foolish impulse buy and bought a 6 speed manual for the white wagon. REAL interested what that'll feel like with the stupid low end torque the 2.5T has. And with the way things are going right now, I'll be able to afford to at least wrap my C70 if not fully paint it. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Dec 17, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 20:52
|
|
|
So it's been a slow winter, I've been working on further cleaning up my yard, I hired a bulldozer to flatten all the mounds left by the basement construction in 2016, and remove the scrap concrete that was piled up in the back. So the yard is starting to look fairly normal. I also remodeled my guest room, repainted everything and got rid of my brother's lingering B.O. smell. I still haven't fixed my dad's engine, and he added a car back to the property which really pissed me off. One of the 4 cars we got rid of, he sold to a friend. The friend decided he wanted a wagon so my dad bought a wagon and traded it to him, so the car came back, much dirtier and with new problems for me to fix. I'm not happy about that. No progress on any of my own cars except oil changes, a new head unit for the wagon, and my old faithful C70 had the ignition cylinder lock up on me. I tore it apart:  First you have to drill 4 holes to get access to the internal ring clip to remove the lock cylinder. You also have to have someone help because you have to push in from all 4 sides simultaneously. My daughter helped out.  Then you have to drill out a spring loaded lock pin on the side, and the big steel plate with a leg on it in the above picture will come out:  There was a small piece of aluminum that fell out and got lost on the floor, but I think it broke off of the corner of this part, right by the other spring loaded pin:  So now my car has no steering lock but it has nothing to jam up the key either. It still has a software immobilizer so anyone who knows how to steal it isn't going to be stopped by a steering lock anyway. Fixed just in time for summer! The winter was long and depressing, I hope I speed up getting through some projects and get something done on the 122. Motivation is at an all time low for some reason.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2022 02:20
|
|
|
I was fighting with my dad over his cars and it occurred to me that moving home has had one terrible side effect: I'm not responsible for just 4 cars anymore, it's increased to 9, just in my family. Add to that my friends (one of whom I talked in to a Volvo project) and it's no wonder I burn out and don't work on my 122. And the house is taking priority over cars as well. I powerwashed the moss off the back patio:   It looks gross in the picture but the grass is all green again after 2 mows. I also fixed the cover on the HVAC tubing. This was the state of the house when I moved in:  And the yard is now inviting, although I paid guys to do it, I fuckin hate yardwork:  Before:  Then this week I unlocked another long-overdue achievement: Before:  After:  The company that installed it wanted $650 for an opener with installation so I set about installing one myself. I put my new brake jaws to work in my beautiful vintage Wilton vise that I think dad inherited from my grandpa:  And made some brackets:   To hang the opener from rubber isolators:  I made them much wider than necessary because I was worried about metal to metal contact, but the rubber squishes out enough on tightening that it wasn't needed. And I made them this way so the rubber is in compression and not just hanging the opener by whatever molding or glue process the factory felt like doing that day. Related but not necessarily: After dinner last night I was drinking whiskey and feeling good. I asked my daughter if she would go sit outside with me, and she agreed. So we went out and just talked for like 2 hours on the freshly washed patio watching the moon pass across the sky, smelling the summer air and bonding. Almost 2 years in, the house is officially christened in my opinion. Before, the back yard was a piece of poo poo where nobody would want to spend time. When I first moved home I had no idea how big a deal this would be to me, but I feel very satisfied. We never used that back yard in my entire young life. Now I have to do the same to the inside, which will take considerably longer and cost considerably more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2022 20:21
|
|
|
LloydDobler posted:To hang the opener from rubber isolators: I fire guess the door is in the background of the picture? Does the torque of the opener move it on the hangers?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2022 00:01
|
|
|
It jiggles a tiny bit, only what the rubber allows and they aren't super soft. The brackets are bolted tight and don't pivot. And all the force goes through the main rod and acts against the door header, theoretically you could hang the motor end from ropes and it'd still work fine. The truth is, this opener is so quiet that I probably didn't need the rubber but it was only 8 more bucks and an hour or so of time to put them in and it makes me feel clever. I did this once before at a previous house that had a super loving loud opener that would startle you when someone opened it and it worked really really well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2022 01:22
|
|
|
I have the opener that attaches directly to the shaft and it's so nice and quiet and saves space. More expensive though! Modern belt drives are really nice.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2022 02:34
|
|
|
Lloyd is your opener a belt-drive unit? I don't have any isolators on my belt-drive Genie unit and it is quiet and smooth enough that a fixed mount is fine. My home office and our daughter's room are both above our garage and the amount of noise and vibration from a door open/close event is minimal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2022 16:11
|
|
|
Yeah it's belt drive. The old one was a literal 60's chamberlain chain drive and between that and the heavy wood door on metal rollers it was like an earthquake when the door opened. I shopped for the quietest unit and then doubled down with the rubber isolators. And the garage door has nylon rollers, and is foam insulated. Basically the car starting is louder than the door opening now. Kia Soul Enthusias posted:I have the opener that attaches directly to the shaft and it's so nice and quiet and saves space. More expensive though! Modern belt drives are really nice. I wanted one of those but my door is super low clearance so the rails don't have any slope to them, which lets the door fall down when the opener releases the cable tension. They basically told me it wasn't recommended due to that, I'd likely have cable unwrap problems.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2022 23:06
|
|
|
Nice work on the house. Now let's see that engine swap in the old wagon!
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2022 01:00
|
|
|
Let's open with some fun: I have a grandfather clock. Of all my parents' furniture and weird antique poo poo it's the only thing I wanted, and my dad granted it to me a few years ago. As in, he wrote it in to the will that it was mine. But, my dad was reckless with it. He had the weights swapped on the wrong chains. He never got it serviced. My drunk rear end brother fell against it in 2019 and would have knocked it over but my mom was smart enough to tie it to the wall with a literal eye screw and string (in case of earthquakes). Keep in mind, my mom put the string on in 1984. She died in 2015 and my brother fell on it in 2019. All he did was knock the glass out of the door and break the pendulum hinge. It was fixed before I moved home but I've been playing with it. I now have it running so when it strikes 12 it actually hits 12 on my internet connected electronics (which as you all know are tied to NIST's atomic clock) at the 5th chime out of 12. And it's been this way for months. It's been a stupid goofy project of mine, tweaking the pendulum, making sure I don't forget to wind it, etc. As a nerd I'm absolutely stoked. it has some weird quirks like it doesn't ring at the half hour for 3 or 4, haven't really documented which. Like theoretically if I disassemble and fully clean and lube it, it should work 100%. But as of now it's a machine with some personality. German, of course. I dated it based on the manufacturer's logo between 1925 and 1935. And I have it running loving dead on time. Like it loses or gains maybe fractions of a second over months of operation. Am I shooting for it to turn over 12 on the 6th stroke? Part of me says yes but reality says Nah, gently caress it. Picture of said clock. We love it because it's not all ornate and austentatious like many old grandfather clocks are. It's simple and clean.  This quarter in "why isn't Lloyd working on his god drat 122?" July: Spent a week on vacation. August: Diagnosed and fixed the starting problem on my friend's Element, it was the ignition switch. hosed up recommending him a new starter, he blew $600 at my suggestion. In my defense, it was one of those "hrm sounds like you need a new starter" and he went to a shop and said "my car friend says I need a new starter" and had them change it. The switch was $18 and took 10 minutes to change. Got the house doors and eaves painted (which required prep from me including screen door removal, weather strip removal, replacement of one door frame and removal/replacement of all door knobs) but raw wood is now weatherproof and the improvement in curb appeal is dramatic. Before pics are above. Final:  Yeah I need to power wash the driveway moss again. Dad half-tore the bumper off his C70 on a parking stop, so I had to reattach that. I diagnosed, repaired, cleared the codes and sold a C70. It was the weirdest thing, it was throwing a TCU no communication and ABS general failure codes, with a side of SRS light. I googled each code furiously, and on one of the ABS codes I found a single post on a Volvo forum where a guy said "I mysteriously had this code and it turned out to be dirty ABS sensors" so I had my dad's helper check the rear ABS sensors, and they were filthy as gently caress. He cleaned them and miraculously all the codes went away. Unbelievable. As far as I can tell the dirty sensors didn't throw a sensor failure code but instead caused the ABS computer to fail to boot up correctly, which affected the transmission computer. Regardless I was glad to be rid of it. The thing that pissed me off about this car is that it was one of the five for-sale cars that my dad had when I moved home. We got it sold, and after half a year the owner decided he wanted a wagon instead. So my dad found a cheap V70 at auction and TOOK THIS CAR BACK IN TRADE. He bought an additional car after I'd just spent a year clearing out the extra cars. And of course I was the one who had to diagnose its problems and get it loving fixed and ready for sale. Brother in law threw the timing belt on his '93 940. Fortunately non-interference and a quick and easy job, including seals and replacement covers it only takes around 2 hours. September: My closest friend from Denver had his brother pass away from a random heart attack at the age of 43, and he was living in Portland. So my friend came out for a week and we dealt with some possessions and remains and such, and to not make it a total bummer of a trip, we spent some vacation time too. It was his first time in the Pacific ocean. We ate great seafood and sprinkled some of his brother's ashes in various places. Replaced my Sister's exhaust on her '90 240. Tuned up my nephew's 940 after he said it started stalling at stops. He had never tuned it up in 9 years and 25k miles, and it was unknown how old the previous tune up was. I touched the #3 plug wire and it just fell off the plug. Now it runs smooth as glass w/no stalling. Put an Elevate exhaust on my buddy's C30, and adjusted the coilovers for extra low in the back. Weird though, they're maxed out and it's still not quite as low as the front. This is as low as we can get it, don't know what to do there. OTOH it's not terrible.  And lastly, fixed the driver's window in my neighbor's XC70, she had just run the window up and down with the regulator arms out of the guides until it bent the poo poo out of one of the arms. I'm sure it's a relief for her, but maybe don't keep using the window when it's obviously broken. I'm most proud of getting the house painted, it is now fully protected from weather and also looks about 5x prettier than it did when I moved home, I'd like to believe I'm not the ugliest house in the neighborhood anymore. I don't need to be the nicest, this house is too fuckin big for that, just not the worst. It's kind of an interesting neighborhood, the houses as you enter are all real nice, and then you get in and it starts to mix it up a bit. But right after I moved home, this place was nasty enough that someone disposed of a twin sized mattress by throwing it in my front rhododendron. When your house is ugly enough to be someone ELSE'S trash, you take note. Had a great summer with my daughter, moved her back to college, got some hand-me-down patio furniture, built some fires and christened my now clean rear patio. In the end, I don't know what's wrong with me, why I find myself working on other people's cars more than my own. I spend too much time online and in front of the TV, and not enough in the garage. I still feel overwhelmed by the house and taking care of my dad, even though he's still mostly self-sufficient at 85. Hopefully I figure it out. TL:DR life is busy and overwhelming and I'm just rolling through it. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Sep 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2022 09:19
|
|
|
LloydDobler posted:This quarter in "why isn't Lloyd working on his god drat 122?" it sounds like your life is solely comprised of every single person you know constantly breaking things, and then you madly running around and fixing it for them this is relatable to me, and probably everyone else here, except to a much lesser extent. how the hell you deal with all of that stuff without being 110% overwhelmed and just curling up into a ball is beyond me
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2022 23:05
|
|
|
I just read Spyder's thread and I feel entirely inadequate. He does more in a weekend than I do in a month. But yeah the overwhelm of it all makes me take my free time and squander it. I gotta fix that somehow.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 06:08
|
|
|
LloydDobler posted:I just read Spyder's thread and I feel entirely inadequate. He does more in a weekend than I do in a month. But yeah the overwhelm of it all makes me take my free time and squander it. I gotta fix that somehow. yeah spyder's my go-to example of how much i suck in comparison, considering how hard he works (long hours in healthcare, iirc) while still having time to have a family and raise kids and also fix his house and also fix like, a dozen cars in the same amount of time that i fix one thing on a car, maybe, if i can muster enough brain so yeah basically im in the same boat as you, which is probably not reassuring
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 06:42
|
|
|
Dude is a machine. It's ok to not be working 100% of the time and making progress on stuff IMO. I get too worn down and then just want to be lazy again when I do that. Everything in moderation.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 13:36
|
|
|
LloydDobler posted:
Hey this is really sweet and it's good. Congrats. Also we all have the same 24 hours, but we don't all have the same life. I have two fenders I would like to be sanding but I decided to go to trivia, karaoke with my wife, a concert, watch a movie with a friend, and watch football. I literally have no time because I'm prioritizing my social network this year. Do what makes you happy and prioritize it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2022 01:07
|
|
|
Dug up an old picture of my '85 240. God I miss that car.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2022 04:55
|
|
|
Justa Dandelion posted:Dug up an old picture of my '85 240. God I miss that car. I grew up in a series of 240s and one 240 wagon. I killed two through my own stupidity - one cracked head after overheating it repeatedly, and one electrical issue by not replacing a headlight lens and allowing the bare bulb to get wet and ugh… I really want a 240 again, but they’re going for insane prices now, I’m better off with getting a 10 yr old v70 or whatever instead. Really I just want the funky door handles.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2022 22:15
|
|
|
Nystral posted:and one electrical issue by not replacing a headlight lens and allowing the bare bulb to get wet and ugh… I refuse to believe something like that can kill a 240. The thought has occurred to me to get a 240, they're just about to start becoming cool again here. Being in Sweden, they are still plentiful and reasonably cheap, but having been "the peoples car" for a couple decades most of them are pretty worn down and can have stupid amounts of rust. The really nice and unmolested ones seem to go for about $6-8K, but there are lots of decent ones for under $2K. Probably won't actually happen though. If I'm doing a Volvo project, it will be turning a 544 into a track toy with modern drivetrain and suspension, in the livery of my childhood rallycross hero. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2022 16:43
|
|
|
Nystral posted:I really want a 240 again, but they’re going for insane prices now, I’m better off with getting a 10 yr old v70 or whatever instead. Currently rocking a 10 yr old v70 wagon lol. Not the same...
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2022 22:16
|
|
|
Justa Dandelion posted:Currently rocking a 10 yr old v70 wagon lol. Not the same... The first-gen V70/850 is pretty neat, but still not the same as cruising around in a proper Volvo 245DL Iron Pig. Preferably the 4-speed manual with electronic overdrive.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2022 22:48
|
|
|
My favorite was my 745, but my 93, end of line, full featured 245 was pretty nice too. If I could have a project car, I’d buy my brother’s white p1800es.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2022 01:28
|
|
|
Time for an update and effortpost. I've gained between 5 and 10 lb per year since 1995. Every time I hit some new weight I'd say the next number was the limit. When I hit 250 I'll diet. When I hit 275 I'll diet. I'll never weigh more than 300 lb, that's it. 310. 325. 340. I hit 365 right around the time of my last post and I finally decided that it had to stop. My 52nd birthday was this week and I just succeeded in losing the first 65 of my extra 180 lb. Here's a before and current. The before was taken right at the peak of my weight in August 2022. I tried to match the same pose in the same shirt for reference.  But that's been my main project all winter, counting calories and learning to be disciplined and not cave in to boredom and being a little hungry. On the plus side it's vastly improved my overall emotional stability and mood, I'm much happier and motivated than I have been in a very long time. Working on my body feels a lot like any of my car projects where I have goals and drive towards them. I continue to spend more money than time on my house, I got the trees all trimmed, these are the two favorites, flowering cherry and magnolia. They just finished blooming.   Got my gutters cleaned, as you can see in that picture the front gutter is 1.5 to 2 stories up on a 6/12 pitch so I'm way too chicken to clean it myself, as was my dad. So it had decades of leaf compost built up in it. Took the cleaner almost 2 hours to clean out 60 feet of straight gutter. Added a gutter to the rear awning as well. Bought a unit of barkdust to spread around as the first one from last year is thin already, waiting on friends' kids to come shovel it for summer money but so far they're slacking. Might end up doing it myself, it's not like it's hard, just takes a day.  Also spent a few weeks fishing network wire through the floor and adding ethernet outlets to my office and hallway so I could install the wifi router in the center of the house instead of one end. Upgraded to gig fiber and ditched cable. Then I put a patch panel and switch up high in the garage with 2 hardwired wifi extenders servicing the downstairs apartment. The last step is to wire my living room surround sound under the floor and up through the walls instead of under a rug and across walkways. Haven't done that part yet. Those wires run along the baseboard with one running under the carpet so it's lower priority. My dad spent most of the winter with his cataract lenses fogged over, didn't know that was a thing until he complained that he literally couldn't read anymore. Turns out cataract surgery isn't permanent and needs maintenance. So I spent the winter as his driver for physical therapy and doctor appointments, which he needs fairly regularly at 86. My sister helped occasionally. His vision is fixed now and he insists on driving himself places, although there will come a point when I pull his license, immediately if he has one more incident like backing into the fence or dragging his mirror down the side of a car. Again. In addition to that, I've worked on my friends and family cars more than my own, as I have been for the last 2 years: Replaced all the exterior lights on my brother in law's '93 940, it's old and the plastics were hazy and brittle. The rear bulb sockets had melted due to poor electrical connections which only made those connections worse. Also his car would run out of gas at 1/3 tank, finally investigated and found the fuel pump was installed crooked. The mounting flange is on a 45 degree angle so if you don't have the pump clocked right it's not sitting at the lowest part of the tank, or in the baffle box, which it's hard to get in. Whoever did it last did it wrong. It took me 2 tries to correct it, I got it in straight on the first try but knocked the pump off its bracket on the way in so it still wasn't right. My nephew's 940 sprung an exhaust leak so I replaced the manifold to downpipe gasket. My sister's '90 240 developed a really bad idle that I spent several weeks trying to diagnose, replacing the idle air motor, MAF, engine temp sensor, and throttle position sensor before giving up. It took an old school Volvo shop an additional 3 hours to diagnose it back to a partially failed crank position sensor. I have never seen them fail like that, they're usually good or bad and when bad the car straight up doesn't start. At least it wasn't something obvious but I spent like a month of free nights working on that poo poo. My basement apartment's washing machine died, the circuit board got fried by a power surge after an outage from a winter storm. Took me a minute to diagnose. Ebay appliance scrappers to the rescue. Swapped the rest of the bent door on my neighbor's V70, they were slamming it shut misaligned for so long that the catch broke internally and wouldn't open anymore. I was able to pry open the door panel from the top and pull the cable with pliers to get it to open one last time and then it wouldn't close. New one works great though. My daughter's V50 got new headlights and window tint, and for that I learned how to strip window tint with a steamer. The glue had failed and it was all bubbled up so the steamer just loosened the rest of it so the tint didn't tear as I removed it. Acetone cleaned up all the residue, so each window took about 30 minutes and there was no harm to the defroster. I also pulled her headliner because it had failed and the cloth was falling down everywhere blocking visibility. I'm halfway through fixing that, was just waiting for the weather to clear so I can scrape the foam and re-glue the new fabric in lower humidity, which I will do soon.  This is the only pic I can find of the bubbling from back in 2019, and it had spread 100% across all 5 rear windows.     My dad tore the bumper off his C70 on a parking stop again (actually my sister did that while driving him to the doctor) so I dug in to find out why it was so easy to pop off. Turned out my dad did what he always did and when he replaced the bumper in 2008 he used the foam insert from a V70 just assuming they were the same. They're not. And when it didn't fit he just held it on with the fenderwell screws and sent it. I had to trim about 1/2" off the face to get it to seat properly, but now it's very firmly attached using all the clips and screws, and I trimmed every deformed edge that hung down to grab a curb. My dad finally sold the 240 project which was the last of his projects that were here when I moved home. So now the only cars that are here are his and mine. Still 5 cars but I can manage that. I did a leakdown test on the junkyard engine he bought for his V70 (visible to the left in the above picture) and it looks great. So I was about to start installing it except... My current project for someone else is a 2010 corolla with only 58k miles that was owned by a friend's boss's elderly sister. She tore up the fender on her own carport and quit driving. Then she left food in the car, so mice got in. She had a stroke and passed away in 2015, the car was last driven from one house to another in 2018. I didn't take any pictures of it before we started cleaning, my buddy dove right in as he runs a janitorial/carpet cleaning business by trade. He soaked everything with an enzymatic cleaner that much to my surprise has already masked or killed the pee smell. I put a little ATF in each cylinder before we tried cranking it.      But it isn't starting reliably, probably due to the 6-7 year old gas. We did get it to start with ether, which I was just using to test for spark. Surprisingly it fired up and ran great but only once. I suspect it would have died if we gave it any throttle. We're going to swap out all the gas before trying again in earnest. The cool part is if it does run he gets the "friend helping get rid of it" deal and it'll be his son's car. Kid turned 15 this week. It does have some mice chewing damage and we really really really really hope this is the extent of it, but we'll be searching as best we can and patching as well.  If all I have to do is de-pin a few things and heat shrink I call it a win. And if at any point we run into an insurmountable problem we just don't buy the car and his boss has to sell it to someone else, all we lose is a few hours of diagnosis and a little cleaning. Last, for my birthday present to myself I got almost all of the dings pulled on my C70 and V70 last week. In terms of dings the V70 is now perfect, the C is maybe 95%. No pics as they're really not visible in pictures. There were a couple that were blocked by internal structure and also too minor to really spend time on. Frustrating but hey it's 20 years old. My "nice" car is 20 years old. Ugh. I did buy some hardware for the 122, with a plan to do something but again it's a lower priority sadly. TL;DR same as before, life is kinda busy. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Nov 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2023 00:30
|
|
|
drat dude. Nice work on the weight loss, that's great progress! Also holy poo poo at the amount of car fixing. Mouse damage is the worst. I filed a comprehensive claim to get it fixed on the first 3 series, and when the claims rep called she asked about the moose damage! No, just mouse. Much different call if it was a moose!
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2023 13:35
|
|
|
A few years ago I had a 2005 Outback that I bought from the owner of a subaru shop. It was to be his girlfriend's car, and he'd taken care of absolutely everything mechanical. He'd gotten it for a great price from one of his clients, who'd had insurance replace _all_ the dash wiring because of mice damage. The claim on the carfax was a couple of grand. They're destructive little fuckers. For peace of mind I ended up stripping the interior, pulling every panel I could, pulled the seats and carpet and wiped down the floor, the panels, and used a rug doctor on the carpet just to make sure there weren't any surprises. Or smells.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2023 21:52
|
|
|
Quarterly update. Weight loss still going good, I'm down another 23 lb from the last update, 88 lb total. The loss is slowing but still happening. Hopefully 275 by the end of the week, under 200 in another year. Really slowing down on activities overall, been enjoying the hell out of my convertible and that's about it. List of things done though: I paid my friend's kid to spread the barkdust, they did a passable job although in the end it didn't save me any money and took 3 months where my landscapers would have had it done in a morning. Got both my main cars PDR'd finally, and the improvement is remarkable. I used to notice a dent or two every time I walked up to my convertible and having them gone is transformative, even with the scratches and things that remain. Finished my daughter's headliner which was a much bigger ordeal than it even felt like, I think I ended up putting a total of 7 hours into it. And it didn't come out perfect, which is disappointing except it was my first time so really how could it. It's not hanging down so she's very happy with it also knowing that she didn't have to do the work or pay for it. But it was a ton of work: First you scrape it into little sticky pills:      Then you hit it with a brush:   Spray glue and lay down:    Curse the wrinkles:   Curse yourself for forgetting to leave a chunk large enough for the sunroof panel:   Had to remove the glass to get to the sunroof shade panel screws, seems like there coulda been an easier way but in the end this wasn't too bad.  Then literally the next time she drove it she freaked out because it started shaking like crazy. Turns out her shocks completely failed in unison and I haven't been driving the car enough to notice, and she thought something was off but didn't know how to identify it. So at exactly 62 mph one of the front wheels self excites and goes into a death bounce. Also her car has the single model AWD rear shocks which mount differently than all the others so nobody makes an aftermarket shock. $200 each from Volvo. So 3 hours and $700 later it's back on the road with perfect stock handling. Continued helping my neighbor with his XC70, did a quick swap of the cam solenoid and position sensor and got it out of limp mode. I helped move a friend across country, that was fun. Packed it right to the max and still had to throw away and donate a ton of their poo poo.  Made a mini vacation out of it and the trip was actually super uneventful. The truck cruised beautifully at 75, fully loaded with car on trailer. No sway or anything. Got 9 mpg and it did incredibly good engine braking on hills. We'd get up at 6, drive for 12-13 hours, find a hotel about an hour from stopping and just eat dinner and pass out. Only one hotel was sketch, no issues though. We were so far ahead of schedule that we went to Niagra falls on our last day of driving, only touristy thing we did.  Took 4.5 days total to go from Portland OR to Montpelier VT, then spent 3 days dinking around and seeing the sights. Thumbs up for Smuggler's Notch Distillery, enjoyed a couple bottles of their goods before I left. Then 4 weeks later the entire area had record flooding, lucky my friend's new place is on a hill so no issues for him personally but what a mess. Some slight progress on the Mouse turd corolla, turns out the starting problem had nothing to do with anything, it would have ran fine on the 5 year old gas. When we couldn't get it to start again ever, I started researching the immobilizer. Found out where the light is, down on the console. Put the key in, tried starting, sure enough the immo light was on. Stuck the other key in, light went out, car started. So the main key with the alarm fob built in, which logically is the one we always defaulted to, has lost its coding to the car. There are 4 keys with it, 3 OEM Toyota and one aftermarket, and it's the aftermarket key that works. We used it once by sheer chance. So since that's settled we've moved on to hardcore cleaning which led us to discover this:  That's the main nest, under the stereo in front of the shifter. After cleaning it out, it appears that's the SRS central module, and there are 3 plugs going in to it. The left plug is fine, which is good because that disappears up into the dash harness. The center plug goes to the driver's seat, and has one wire chewed. The right plug goes to the passenger seat and all 10 or so wires are chewed through and the harness is completely severed. Local pick and pull had 3 of this generation corolla, and all 3 had these wires. So we stripped out the harnesses, to splice them in before the next update. After that it just means more cleaning and stage 0 stuff. Oh and of course a fender and bumper, all of which were stripped off the junkyard corollas. Other than that I helped a friend of my dad's change his steering rack, this was involuntary and caused a huge fight between me and my dad. Basically I already am stretched thin by helping my friends and family, which I want to do, and then I'm guilt tripped into helping this guy who my dad thinks is capable of doing things on his own but can't ("just let him use the garage, he'll be in and out.") He gets in over his head and if I want my garage back I have to help him finish. This time he had a disabled car in there for a total of 7 days while we waited for parts. So this is the last time I'm allowing him to use my garage for working on his car, and of course that's the fight. This was my dad's house for 37 years, so it's hard for him to get used to how his friend isn't allowed to use it at his discretion. The last major thing going on with me is taking care of my dad as he has now turned 86, his mobility and energy level has really taken a nosedive this year and soon his overall health will start to fail. I've removed too much of his responsibility and enabled him to just sit still all day, which of course is the dream except all he does is watch TV and snack. So he's 86 and weighs 300 lb. As someone who just lost a bunch of weight I'm really in awe of how he can even still stand, and I'm saddened by how much energy he'd actually have if he wasn't hauling 100+ extra pounds around. He's started getting bedsores, and I have had to tend to those all summer. We did eventually find the right treatment and equipment to get them healed but it's been a major mental toll on me where I have to see to his needs daily without a break. He used to go on a 3 day church retreat every year and this year he didn't go, so I didn't even get that break. The only break I've had is when he got a bladder infection and had to go to the hospital for a couple nights. I did sign up for this but it's taxing work. And it's not even that tough, I'm really anxious about how it'll be if it gets tougher. And again, putting the daughter through her final year of college, managing all the household stuff like toilet repair, bills, groceries, cleaning, and working full time to pay for it all, yeah once I get a free minute I just zone out in front of the TV. So I'm kind of in holding pattern mode doing small stuff until I get some things off my plate. TL: DR; Dear diary, adulting. Oh, I did give myself some joy, I discovered the Lego thread in HCH. So I dug in to my old Lego collection and built every space set I could assemble before updating it with a brand new set that Lego released just for me. Yes they know their audience and easily vacuumed $100 out of my wallet after like 35 years dormant in this hobby. I posted more pics in the Lego thread if anyone wants to see more. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2023 07:36
|
|
|
Wow, that's a lot, even without (much) car stuff. Montpelier VT, huh? Job at the State, NLG, or BCBS? There's like those three employers there unless you're commuting to Burlington and uh, VDOT's stand on keeping I89 plowed is "god never intended man to put a road through here". Yes, that's an actual quote from when I was driving from Burlington to Montpelier daily. I grew up there at least.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2023 18:06
|
|
|
More than anything, congrats on the weight loss! I've helped a couple of friends move multiple states before, but never cross country. And I will never help someone that insists on renting U-Haul again, it's always such a clusterfuck (very much a Seinfeld "that's the point of a reservation" moment as you spend half a day trying to find your drat truck, in multiple states, before finally finding the only one within 300 miles, and it's half the size you reserved). I'll pay the extra money to make sure the truck is actually there (Penske has yet to let me down on rentals, their fleet management SUCKS for leasing though). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Sep 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2023 18:31
|
|
|
Alarbus posted:Wow, that's a lot, even without (much) car stuff. It actually seems like they've suffered a lot of flight and both of my friends had multiple job offers at their desired salary before even moving. My buddy started working the day I left, his wife had been there working for a month already. Seems like anyone with basic work ethic can get a fair paying job if they go there right now. randomidiot posted:And I will never help someone that insists on renting U-Haul again, it's always such a clusterfuck... That's probably the most surprising part of this trip, was how completely uneventful it was. Everyone did what they said they'd do, the hotels were cheap but not lovely, food was good everywhere we went, truck didn't lose a drop of oil or coolant or tire air in 3500 miles, nobody stole the cat, etc. (Uhaul actually welds a rebar grid around the cat.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2023 23:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 01:05 |
|
|
LloydDobler posted:It actually seems like they've suffered a lot of flight and both of my friends had multiple job offers at their desired salary before even moving. My buddy started working the day I left, his wife had been there working for a month already. Seems like anyone with basic work ethic can get a fair paying job if they go there right now. Yeah, I grew up near Burlington. It was meh for employment then, and Dean drove out a lot of business. poo poo, in 2007 when I started the hr rep got a bonus based on how low they kept the starting salary. My boss was livid and fixed it over the next five years, but... it was largely a captive audience. Plus, geographically, it was between Kastein and Sockington, so the rust was "a problem". 😃
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 05:36
|
|