Shocks and struts and struts and shocks

The salt is real. The rust is history.

A while back I decided to address a slight ride-quality issue I was having in my 1999 Toyota Camry 2.2L. In brief, it was clunkier that I'd like. Replacing all four shocks and struts was an effective step in solving the condition. While it probably wasn't worth doing on a 20+ year old car, I enjoyed the experience and I found a good price on the parts from Detroit Axle. As always, the first step is to safely raise the vehicle and remove the wheels. If your wheels have already come off, you may skip this step and go directly to purchasing a new car.

Pay absolutely no attention to the tool brand.

 In my case, the sway link here was rusted frozen something horrible. Following internet tips, I used a locking vice grip pliers to grab the stud shaft in order to loosen the nut on the back. Otherwise, the whole stud turns with the nut. Repeat four times all around the car.

German torque specification: "Gutentight".

 With a long breaker bar, the two big bolts broke loose from the wheel hub and I was able to remove them.

Russian torque spec: "Brokenov".

 This bracket holds the flexible brake line to the wheel cylinders on the drum brakes in the rear (and the caliper for the front discs) as well as the ABS sensor wire. One of the two bolt heads holding the bracket to the shock broke off, but we'll solve that later. With the shock and strut disconnected from the wheel hub entirely, go inside the car and remove the top mounting bolts.

Sorry, my car is usually a lot dirtier.

Access to the strut mount is behind the back seat, so the bottom cushion comes up. It just pops up off a tab on each side. Give 'er a good tug. 

Don't lose it. 

 With the seat out of the way, you have access to this bolt which holds in the shoulder cushion under the seatbelt.

She's come undone.

Again, a pair of small Japanese hands would have helped here.

 Over the should of each passenger is the strut mounting plate. Three nuts hold the strut in, not too difficult to remove, but they are awkward to get a wrench or a socket on. I ended up ripping the old insulating fabric out of the way and had to fight over the wire harness.

Y'know that thing that happens when you hit a bump really hard and your whole car starts riding funny?
This plate breaks through to the inside of the car because of rusted, weak steel.

 With the strut removed, we can see the inside of the mounting plate. The strut itself is a one-piece unit, so it comes out all at once, spring and shock together. You can service them separately, but it's a pain in the ass, takes longer, and more dangerous to play around with high tension springs. You might save on parts in the shop, but I bet you the labor hours goes up.

 The new strut/shock (they call it s quick-strut for the all-in-one assembly) is difficult to line up with the mounting plate above and the large bolts below at the same time with only one pair of hands. It's also heavy and awkward to move around.

It worked didn't it?

 I was wrong before. Both the bolt heads broke off and needed replacements. I spent part of the afternoon shopping at a hardware store looking for something similar and finding the closest match. The smaller bolt is very awkward.

Installation is the reverse of removal.

 That completes one side of the rear strut replacement. Same stuff on the other side, but everything gets twisted the other way.

Iron oxide futures are up.

 The order of operations on the front side are very similar, so the rest might look more like a slideshow with shitty captions.

Take the thing off the thing.

Unbolts the things.

Don't forget to put some threadlocker on the big ass bolts what fer keepin' the wheels on.

Et voilà.

I also used a wire wheel to clean up the crusty threads on those bigger bolts. I think the new struts came with new mounting nuts because they had nylon inserts originally. Torque everything to specifications (found online or helpfully included with the new parts). Nothing has fallen off yet, so I think we did good!

2003 Honda Cynic alternator replacement

I. Hate. This. Car. If I met whoever was in charge of this compact design I'd shake his hand, right before shoving it between the fender and the power steering pump in this engine compartment. It's just unbalanced and ugly in there. Maybe if I were a 6-year old with double joints and dislocated elbows it would be easier. Or a small Japanese man.

Also if it weren't sub zero degrees and windy outside. Truly, the middle of January is the best time to work on a car.

So this is under the hood of an '03 Civic EX. 

I'm glad for the opportunity to play around under there (under where?), because it has cemented my position that I'll never buy one for my family. And for an economy vehicle, there's nothing economic about the parts...

The symptoms were non starting but starter motor clicked. The owner had to jump it every time to get it started, but once it was on, ran normally. They were confident that the battery was brand new within the last 12 months, so we went with the next most expensive suspect, the alternator. I reasoned that the battery wasn't holding enough charge after being driven to crank the motor due to the alternator not alternating. I'm ashamed to say I didn't test the voltage with a multimeter, but I did use a "smart" battery charger with an alternator test mode (that failed). The battery did show good voltage and seemed to hold charge normally, but I bought the part anyway and went ahead with the install. If I have to go back in there to unfix it, c'est la vie. It's entirely possible the battery is just junk already (still under warranty) and was charging, but can't hold long it enough after a stop for a few hours. We'll see.

Belt-driven hydraulic power steering pump.

First, the top has to come off (*giggity*). The fluid reservoir is the red cap bottle at the upper right. It unclips from a bracket just by pulling straight up on the bottle. The pump itself is bolted in two places top and bottom. The top bolt, visible in the middle, is a three part piece of over-engineered nonsense. The little piece of offset extra metal cost someone their job, I hope. The wing nut is a tension adjuster connected to a horizontal bolt on the engine. The whole setup connects to a top bolt by the offset bracket.

Once the steering pump on top is loose, the bottom bolt has to be taken out. It's hiding behind the belt between the pump and the reservoir.

Another angle. I hate the way everything is squished in on this side of the engine. Slim box wrenches with longer grips would have been a help. I used 1/4" socket wrenches. I can't tell you how many times I dropped the damn tool straight down on the subframe. Need to invest in another magnetic tool retriever.

Nobody likes you, power steering. Go home.

Once I got the jeezless thing off, the belt comes loose and the reservoir can be moved away. The whole assembly with hoses and all can be lifted up and to the left and just set aside on top of the engine.

Always the small nuts holding me back.

Fun begins. Same deal here, two bolts hold it in place. One top, one bottom. Two wire connections are on the left (behind the AC low pressure line in photo). There's a small nut that holds the top wire on and the bottom wire is clipped in by a bracket and 4-pin connector.

Here's a closer look at the wire harness. The small black tab clips the harness itself onto the alternator body, and the green tip plugs in. Both the connections have rubber boots covering the clips and fasteners that have to be peeled back (*giggity*).

Top bolt, no problem. 14mm and a cheater bar, bust the sucker loose in a pinch. It doesn't actually come out of the car completely since it butts up against the fender well, but once it's out you can wiggle the alternator.

I didn't get any good images of the bottom bolt, but that's probably a good thing since I accidentally removed the wrong one and took out the whole adjustment bracket under the alternator. I should have only taken the adjustment bolt out and then removed the wing nut tension adjustment screw. If I'd known then...

This is where good knuckles go to die.

And I'll be honest here: It's now October. I did this so many months ago that I've completely forgotten how everything else went down. Long story short, I replaced the alternator and the car is still running. So... yay. In my memory, this was probably the most difficult alternator removal/install that I've done. Who puts the power steering pump above the alternator? The alternator is clearly going to be replaced first (if the car is worth more than a single shit). At least I didn't have to remove any significant structural components like the radiator support or subframe.

(Installation is the reverse of removal.)

The air conditioning doesn't

Condition the air, that is. The vents never blew cold from when I bought this wagon last year but I've got a mind to diagnose and fix it myself, since I'm an idiot and don't know when I'm in over my head. See, in my mind, everything that shipped when the car was new should work. So that's why I'm working on it.

Behold the majesty.

I can't find anything about this specific model of compressor, or even much as applies to this specific application. I'm going off the fact that the engine is an Oldsmobile-manufactured, 307 cubic inch (5-liter) engine and that Papa GM built many badge-engineered cars that don't have many significant mechanical differences. I think this radial-type Harrison compressor was the fashion at the time, as well.

Luckily, I have the shop manual that contains a really easy to follow flowchart of tests to diagnose the various climate control problems.

The first test was to check if the compressor was cycling (that it was getting the on/off signal to work). With the engine running, setting the A/C to normal and full-cold temperature setting and just watch to see if it's engaging or not. Mine wasn't, of course. So on to the next step.

Is the clutch physically capable of engaging? This is tested by taking some jumper leads directly from the battery and touching the electrical connectors on the compressor. Normally, when the compressor isn't... compressing... the pulley simply spins (free-wheels) on the shaft, turned by the compressor belt run by the engine. The clutch assembly is partly a big electromagnet that, when engaged, makes the compressor work. With the engine off, I connected the battery to the compressor and proceeded to did stupid thing.

Having reversed the connectors, I shorted the wires and blew up the diode on the wire harness and was gifted a pair of hot hot wires for a half a second before I could tug them away. From the image above you can see the thin leads where the diode used to be.

Sans stupid, I check the correct orientation and the clutch popped in and out with a satisfying thunking noise. You can see the clutch on the outside of the compressor move when it's jumped from the battery, so there's no mistaking that it works. The compressor belt wasn't torn up or worn down, so I don't think it was seized, but the next test was to look at the actual refrigerant pressure in the system.

According to the shop manual and my googling, the A/C system has a pressure switch that will prevent the system from engaging at low pressure. The refrigerant contains an oil that lubricates the moving parts of the compressor and helps prevent premature wear. If there's low or no pressure, the system will damage itself because there's no oil moving through the passages.

Here's where we get into the risky business and how I ended up in a pickle.

FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--

So I go out of my way to buy a tool (from the cheap tool store that shall remain nameless) that I probably will only use once and get down to checking the refrigerant pressure. First SNAFU: cars manufactured before 1994 (-96?) used Refrigerant-12 colloquially known by the brand name Freon. Then the hole in the ozone layer really became a thing and after that year, most every vehicle shipped from the factory with new environmentally friendly (friendlier?) Refrigerant-134a. This new formula of 11 herbs and spices doesn't cause as much damage to the atmosphere and still has decent cooling properties as a refrigerant gas. Older vehicles, like this wagon, could still be serviced with R-12 if they were originally equipped with it, or they could be retrofitted for R-134a (not recommended).

Since those days, R-12 is now tough to find at close to prices humans can afford, economically and morally. You can't go to your local parts store and pick up a can of this stuff like you do with R-134a, though you can buy cans from various dealers on the internet or imported from other countries that have fewer fucks to give than us. The irony is that R-134a is scheduled to be retired in 2020, so we'll have the same thing happen slowly with cars made in the past 20 years, too.

I digress. So the old systems have different fittings for their pressure hoses in order to idiot-proof the possibility of contamination with other refrigerant systems. I purchased a retrofit kit what contains new R-12 -> R-134a fittings and proceeded to install them so as to accurately check the pressure with this A/C manifold tool. That's when we skipped over TARFU and went right to FUBAR. See above.

This is the high pressure side fitting, broke threads clean off while I was torquing the fitting on the old aluminum. The little schrader valve spring sticks out and is basically destroyed. The good part of this was that there was no pressure and the lines were completely dry, so nothing was released into the wild to upset the delicate ecosphere. But now I'm in a special place where the car literally has no air conditioning, not just that it's in need of refrigerant, but mechanically; parts have broken the fuck off. 

The real kicker is that this particular part is all one piece of A/C service line that connects from both high and low sides to the compressor via an aluminum manifold. I'm on the case looking for a replacement!

Hang in there, baby.

Brakes are shot, transmission's a little loose, battery's dead, and the power steering leaks, but she runs good

Awhile back I worked on a 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT V6 with a bum power steering pressure line. Fluid leaks down from the line above the strut tower and drips back down the frame. 

Getting the vehicle running in the first place was a challenge because it wasn't at my garage, so I had to toddle off to get it, change a flat tire and re-inflate the rest, plus put enough P/S fluid to get it to do anything without burning out the pump. It hadn't been started since last summer, so it needed a jump, and the transmission wanted to stick in 4WD, too. After a spongy-brake drive down the road with a growling wheel bearing I had it parked in the shade and jacked up. 

Right above (behind) the driver side tower is where all the good shit is. 

Based on my internet research, the easiest way to tackle this was to go through the driver side fender well and remove the wheel, then the fender liner shield. The P/S line is behind the tower inside the engine compartment, but they're squiggly enough to make it easier to remove this way. The salt water and junk ends up not draining and sits against the steel lines causing rust and the eventual leak in the line I'm replacing. Apparently this is a common issue for these GM vehicles, and they always rust through here according to the internet. There are two lines that run through this location (a return to the radiator cooler and the pressure side, both connected to the steering rack), so I replaced both at the same time.

Underside of driver side bumper and radiator.

Disconnecting the return line was easy. Undo the clamp and pull it off the radiator P/S cooler. Fluid will go everywhere. If I'd known then... so don't do what Donny Don't does and put a catch pan or a rag over the lines. I used kitty litter and cleaned up after.

That's no flavored crust.

The lines were held on with about four of these clamps screwed into the frame. After undoing the machine screws, the lines had a little more wiggle and I could bend the metal clamps apart to take them off the line for reuse later.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

I kept the grommets and the clamps so the new lines don't vibrate too much and rub when I put it back together. There is one clamp that fixes the pressure line across the front, under the fan and next to the engine crank pulley, which was the second-hardest bolt to remove on this project. Two extensions and a universal joint socket worked to remove the screw from the top. 

Can you believe this shit?

Once I had all the clamps off, I disconnected the pressure line from under the P/S reservoir. It's a double flared fitting and a flare wrench only barely fits into the cramped engine compartment to loosen (no pics, sorry). I removed most of the fluid from the reservoir with a turkey baster, but it will go everywhere again.

At the other end, the two lines are connected to the rack by a bracket fixed to one of the lines. I enrolled in some automotive yoga classes before I got a socket on it.

You. Rusty. Fucker.

Finally, I removed the battery tray because you honestly need the room to remove the steering lines. There are a handful of nuts and bolts holding it to the engine compartment and I unbolted one of the horns forward of the tray to get at the bolts underneath.

So many nuts.

Might have to move the cable harness holders, too.

When I bought the replacement parts I learned there are two versions of the power steering lines and seals for the rack. One is the same as the factory and one is improved for "easier" installation. I used the easier one that comes with a separate bracket; gives you some flexibility in inserting the lines to the correct ports and fastening. There was a tip on a forum that a new bolt was needed with the revised design, as the factory bolt (M6x20mm) to attach the bracket has no threading on the very end and won't catch. I went to the parts/hardware store and picked up a few extras. The new design also uses o-rings instead of the press fit cup seals from the factory. The old seals had to come out, which I did from the top of the engine with a L-shape pick. 

Old bracket style. New version of line has a separate bracket.

Middle of image is the ports on the rack, deep in the belly of the iron beast. The old cup seal is visible in the driver side port.

New lines in place and the bracket fitted, ready to be bolted down.

 Installation is the reverse of removal, except stupid. Where the old lines could come out by pulling them over the strut tower and backed out from the top of the engine compartment, I had to twist and grunt and pull the new lines through from the top only. The pressure line is especially difficult because it's much longer and reaches across the front of the vehicle, plus I had to re-route it several times after it went over the wrong parts of the wire harness. I didn't get any images of that process because it sucks. The wire harness is mostly in the way and I ended up disconnecting many of the plastic hangers and even undid the three large data connections on the intake manifold up top.

My socket wrench just can't do the job without performance enhancing extensions. Basic sockets still be all up on it, tho.

Torqued for my pleasure. 

So shiny. Brackets go here.

 Once I felt confident the flare nut was tight on the P/S reservoir and the lines sealed at both ends, I reattached three of the brackets and skipped one big one behind the strut tower. I kept the big rubber grommet on it, however. After that, I simply buttoned everything back up and put the battery tray in, put the wire harnesses back in some sort of order. I won't say that it'll be the same as when it came from the factory, but she'll run.

In total, I probably spent a good 12 hours on this project over several days. The most frustrating thing was getting the old lines out and new ones in place. It wasn't a hard job, but I can see why a shop might quote 800 bucks P+L for the whole thing. 

Next steps

So what's next for the wagon?

Honestly, I don't know what. Here are some ideas, just so I have them documented:

• Carburetor rebuild
• More and more vacuum hoses replaced
• (extreme) engine rebuild (new crate engine/engine swap??)
• Valve cover gaskets replaced
• Oil pan gasket replaced
• differential gear oil checked/changed
• coolant flush and fill
• weatherstripping replaced
• window felts replaced all around
• front/rear bumper fillers https://www.steelerubber.com/body-filler-rear-4pc-kit-70-2892-75
  https://www.steelerubber.com/front-body-filler-70-1739-75

Progress! Almost ready... (and done)

I've put a sort of deadline countdown on myself, since I have a buddy's wedding coming up (edit: it's here) and it involves some traveling a few hours away. Why not take the wagon? So, I need it in road-worthy condition, especially since I'm carpooling some other chums to the party.

It's always been my goal to bring every maintenance item and wearable part back to square-1 condition. I don't know what has been done and what hasn't in the past 28 years, so this is just peace of mind and, I think, pride of ownership factors that make me toss possibly good old parts in favor of new ones. I've worked on the brakes, suspension, alignment, cleaning up the interior, fluid changes, greasing and regreasing parts, and especially all the under the hood parts I've replaced with new components. Luckily, or coincidentally, 95% of the parts that I've worked on have been used, beaten, and definitely worth replacing.

Lately, I repacked, and actually replaced the wheel bearings and races on the front hubs. These bearings are actually part of and attached to the wheel studs and the brake disc rotor. Since these rotors are pretty chewy, I might have saved myself some grief by simply buying new rotors. But instead, I decided to replace the bearings and races.

The outer races were the really tricky bit to bang out of the hubs. I tried all varieties of pullers and grapplers, but what eventually worked was an impact socket on an impact extension through the hub and a long screwdriver. The driver was braced on the ground and a woodblock for leverage against the edge of the bearing race underside the rotor, then the socket went through the hub from the top and rested on the screwdriver shaft. Some vigorous pounding from a BFH and a couple rotations of the rotor finally unseated the races. I mean, really vigorous pounding. As in, hit it with a hammer like you hate it and everyone it knows.

Then I had to hand-pack the bearings themselves. It was straightforward, but it was definitely messy. I think the only messier thing I've done is the transmission fluid change, and that was only because my drip pan wasn't big enough... Once the bearings and my hands were thoroughly coated with high temp grease, I installed the new races with a borrowed race driver tool from papa O'Reilly.

With the wheels mounted back on and the bearing seated, I was basically ready to go. However, there were a couple things I still wanted to take care of: the transmission fluid level was still bugging me because I couldn't seem to get a consistent reading. Eventually I asked for a clue on stationwagonforums.com, where I received some great advice from another poster.

It came down to running the engine without the overdrive active in town for a few minutes to warm up. Without overdrive, it won't reach higher speeds or get on the highway, so I kept it in town and did all this late at night. I pulled over and checked the fluid level. Still low, of course. Then, I just kept adding a bit at a time, probably a pint or so. I kept doing this until the fluid level came up to the bottom of the cold mark on the dipstick. "Fluid level is predicated on, and directly proportional to, temperature." Knowing that the fluid level will rise after being driven more, I went out on the highway with the shifter back in OD. After a few minutes, I pulled off and checked the level. Success! It reached the middle of the hot marks.

Satisfied with the transmission, the last thing I needed to tackle was getting the front end aligned. Since the ball joints and tie rod ends had undoubtedly ruined the previously ruined alignment, I wanted to get it close again with the new parts on. It's not critical because the tires are basically at the end of their life, anyway.

For the alignment, I went to Midas in town. They let me know that the bearings I put in weren't tightened enough (whoops), and then they did the alignment, no problem. Car drives like a charm.

Fuel for thought

Ahaha! I made a funny again.

Here's another quick fix to replace a consumable on this car. The carburetor is a Rochester Quadrajet, model E4ME... I think. The computer-controlled carb (aka "CCC") is the sick marriage of old-fashioned, gas-guzzling, mechanically-operated, "no replacement for displacement" carburetion, and later '70s and '80s EPA emissions requirements plus market demand for fuel economy in a big V8, high-torque family-mover.

The result, I'm told, is the best fuel economy possible from a carbureted engine (when tuned correctly, all else working properly). It's true! When I first drove this ride home from the seller across three states, I checked the mileage vs how much I filled up and it was very close to 25 mpg average (mostly highway). I think that's outstanding considering the vehicle's age, condition, and I was in a nervous hurry.

Anyway, one of the first things I bought to replace on the car was a fuel filter. I had my shop manual in hand and was ready to get to task. At first, I thought I had the right fuel line and proceeded to try to loosen the bolt. No dice. None of my metric (or standard) wrenches seemed to fit. No, I wasn't using a flare wrench like I was supposed to. Shaddapabbouttit. So, I ended up leaving it be (except periodically hitting it with some liquid wrench). Meanwhile, I did the ball joints, springs, brakes, all that jazz I already mentioned.

So finally, it came time. I realized I had the wrong fuel line. I was up at the back of the carb (closest to the windshield), which is, of course, the return fuel line. Silly me. Re-read my manual a little more closely and found the correct fuel inlet.

Here's the fuel line on the front of the carb. See how the flare nut fitting is all beat up and nearly round? Yeah, don't do what Donnie Don't does and fuck it up that bad.

There is a vacuum line or two you should take off before accessing the fuel filter, and you can also remove the vacuum fitting pressed into the carb body in the middle of the photo.

This is the fitting. Removal is easy with a pair of pliers to grip it and twist, while pulling away gently. Don't squeeze too much or it will bend and cause vacuum leak problems.

Ideally, using a 5/8" flare wrench and a 1" box wrench, you hold the box wrench (on the left) and turn the flare nut with the other. They should turn in the opposite directions, not the same, or you'll damage the carb or fuel line. Lefty-loosey!

Then the big barrel part comes off the fuel line.

Inside, there is a filter, a spring, and around the threads somewhere is a small gasket. Sometimes this piece is still inside the carb body. Don't lose it, or leaks might happen. I have no idea where you might find a replacement...

The old filter (middle) and new one. There's a check valve that should point toward the fuel line (away from the carb body). The filter should only seat into the barrel in one direction if it's the right filter. Originally, I kept the old check valve, but then I switched it for the new one after I had some unrelated difficulties. The vice grips were for handling that rounded flare nut. It was really on there!

So, there's the fuel filter on this Olds 307 engine and Rochester Quadrajet carburetor.