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Post by the light works on Oct 30, 2017 19:30:40 GMT
it could be worse. the minivan developed a fault in the TCU. it would occasionally get the gear selection wrong - which usually meant downshifting to second gear at road speed.
the good news is it could be restored by turning the car off and back on again. - but we still paid to have a rebuilt TCU put in.
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Post by the light works on Oct 30, 2017 19:31:39 GMT
Anybody that owns a Jeep knows the hit the dashboard trick. all it does in mine is fix the gauges. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 30, 2017 19:48:35 GMT
Anybody that owns a Jeep knows the hit the dashboard trick. all it does in mine is fix the gauges. On mine, it fixes the gauges plus the speedometer, airbag light, check gauges light, check engine light, tachometer, upshift light and brake light. One good wack last about 90 days. |
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Post by c64 on Oct 30, 2017 21:22:16 GMT
all it does in mine is fix the gauges. On mine, it fixes the gauges plus the speedometer, airbag light, check gauges light, check engine light, tachometer, upshift light and brake light. One good wack last about 90 days. Before the wack, the fuel gauge was kind of logarithmic. I became used to that very quickly. Now the fuel gauge seems to act normal - should I be worried? |
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 30, 2017 23:58:17 GMT
Before the wack, the fuel gauge was kind of logarithmic. I became used to that very quickly. Now the fuel gauge seems to act normal - should I be worried? The fuel gauge on one of my Cherokees works normally from full to about 1/2, then it pegs full until about 1/4 tank and then works normally again. At least it works normally when needed most from 1/4 to empty. It's not worth dropping the tank to fix it. |
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Post by the light works on Oct 31, 2017 0:43:08 GMT
all it does in mine is fix the gauges. On mine, it fixes the gauges plus the speedometer, airbag light, check gauges light, check engine light, tachometer, upshift light and brake light. One good wack last about 90 days. had a friend with an old datsun that it filled the fuel tank. |
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Post by silverdragon on Nov 1, 2017 10:17:56 GMT
Had a 7.5 tonner out back in the lat 90's that had an "Intermittent" fault on the dash...
I didnt know?.
All I got was a dash full of warning lights and buzzers sounding, and the brakes start loosing pressure, so pull to side of road and phone the client {Agency driver for the day as usual]
The sent recovery vehicle.
Three hours waiting....
"Oh I know this one, it does that now and again, you need to hit the dash hard to reset [something or other didnt understand that term?..] "
Anyways, he starts it up, and "Hammers" the dash with a fist that has been honed by tightening the wheel nuts on a 12 tonner with just two fingers....
The thing shuddered a bit, and then settled down.
For about 30 seconds.
"All you got to do it just keep hitting it... you OK with that?.."
Erm... NOPE?...
How do I know there isnt something serious wrong with a dash that could be hiding something more serious?.
Anyways, we decide he can drive the thing back to base and fix it, I will drive his recovery vehicle.
The transport manager" Why didnt you just carry on with it?... "
Indicating I should have stayed out and done the half a dozen remaining deliveries over about 100 mile in the thing....
Erm, NOPE?..
If the "Fault" starts venting the brake pressure in that it activates a controlled emergency stop of the vehicle if it senses a fault, I aint wanting none of that, especially if I am too busy avoiding sudden sheeps or Kid on a Bike when it all goes off, and aint got time to kick the dash....
I never did get to go back there and find out of they "Fixed" it.
However, I did used to drive an old Mini that had a speedo that could occasionally start wandering from side to side and needed a whack to get it to behave?.
Turns out that someone has moved the cable before I owned it to do something or other and had "stretched" it a little too much that had partially detached the inner core bit that spins round from the cog that drives it?.
Took 10 mis re-routing the cable and tightening up both ends and it worked perfect.
And then Ford disease.
Anyone who has ever driven a ford in a "Mixed" climate knows the old problems of the contacts in the rear light clusters that started to rust from day one, and the bulb that worked intermittently, and having to regularly about every six moths scrape the contacts with a screwdriver and run the contacts on the bulb up ad down the trouser leg of a pair of jeans to get all the rust crud off them, and then they work perfect until the next time it rains?.
There is a perfect fix for this.
Dissemble the light cluster and "tin" every contact with a small blob of solder, preferably silver solder, if you have it, it only takes a small blob and the thing works perfect.
My current car is on LED lights, I changed them all out, and the rear light cluster, I have noted, is all aluminium coated contacts.
Less rust that way?.
Aint had to change a bulb in about two years since I converted.
Except for some reason, I cant find a LED conversion for the halogen headlights.....
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Post by the light works on Nov 1, 2017 13:29:59 GMT
the trouble I had of that nature was the speedo cable was routed a little too tightly, and it would stick just a little - and when it got enough torque, it would catch up.
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Post by silverdragon on Nov 2, 2017 9:51:31 GMT
the trouble I had of that nature was the speedo cable was routed a little too tightly, and it would stick just a little - and when it got enough torque, it would catch up. Funny you should mention that. In another vehicle with similar problems, a mechanic got under the dash, in the days when you could just sit in the drivers seat upside down and do that without having to unscrew half a football field of plastic first, unscrewed the cable, handed it to me, "here hold this", squirted a goodly amount of WD40 down it and told me to just hold it there a sec... 10 mins later, he put it back in place, and it worked perfect. It need greasing now and again?. Shame that knowledge doesnt come in workshop manuals. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Nov 2, 2017 16:06:12 GMT
the trouble I had of that nature was the speedo cable was routed a little too tightly, and it would stick just a little - and when it got enough torque, it would catch up. Funny you should mention that. In another vehicle with similar problems, a mechanic got under the dash, in the days when you could just sit in the drivers seat upside down and do that without having to unscrew half a football field of plastic first, unscrewed the cable, handed it to me, "here hold this", squirted a goodly amount of WD40 down it and told me to just hold it there a sec... 10 mins later, he put it back in place, and it worked perfect. It need greasing now and again?. Shame that knowledge doesnt come in workshop manuals. That was a common problem and fix back when speedometers were mechanical. Most every shade tree mechanic knew it, but you are right about never seeing it in a shop manual. Today, most speedometers are electrically driven. Even the one's with needles. And wires seldom need oiling. |
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Post by the light works on Nov 2, 2017 16:20:18 GMT
Funny you should mention that. In another vehicle with similar problems, a mechanic got under the dash, in the days when you could just sit in the drivers seat upside down and do that without having to unscrew half a football field of plastic first, unscrewed the cable, handed it to me, "here hold this", squirted a goodly amount of WD40 down it and told me to just hold it there a sec... 10 mins later, he put it back in place, and it worked perfect. It need greasing now and again?. Shame that knowledge doesnt come in workshop manuals. That was a common problem and fix back when speedometers were mechanical. Most every shade tree mechanic knew it, but you are right about never seeing it in a shop manual. Today, most speedometers are electrically driven. Even the one's with needles. And wires seldom need oiling.  |
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Post by GTCGreg on Nov 2, 2017 16:41:19 GMT
That was a common problem and fix back when speedometers were mechanical. Most every shade tree mechanic knew it, but you are right about never seeing it in a shop manual. Today, most speedometers are electrically driven. Even the one's with needles. And wires seldom need oiling. OK, I take it back. Sometime wires do need oiling. But I've had some bad experience with De-Ox spray. I had a sound board that had noisy pushbutton switches. A LOT of them. Something like 400. A friend gave me a can of De-Ox spray and said to just spray the switches and it would take care of the noise problem. I did and it did. The problem was that about a month later, the stuff got so gooey that the switches wouldn't pop back up when you pressed them. I tried every type of contact cleaner known to man but nothing would get the switches moving again. I ended up scraping the entire soundboard. |
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Post by the light works on Nov 2, 2017 16:48:38 GMT
OK, I take it back. Sometime wires do need oiling. But I've had some bad experience with De-Ox spray. I had a sound board that had noisy pushbutton switches. A LOT of them. Something like 400. A friend gave me a can of De-Ox spray and said to just spray the switches and it would take care of the noise problem. I did and it did. The problem was that about a month later, the stuff got so gooey that the switches wouldn't pop back up when you pressed them. I tried every type of contact cleaner known to man but nothing would get the switches moving again. I ended up scraping the entire soundboard. that would be a case of the wrong product. silicone spray would have been the product for that. |
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Post by silverdragon on Nov 3, 2017 7:59:51 GMT
OK, I take it back. Sometime wires do need oiling. But I've had some bad experience with De-Ox spray. I had a sound board that had noisy pushbutton switches. A LOT of them. Something like 400. A friend gave me a can of De-Ox spray and said to just spray the switches and it would take care of the noise problem. I did and it did. The problem was that about a month later, the stuff got so gooey that the switches wouldn't pop back up when you pressed them. I tried every type of contact cleaner known to man but nothing would get the switches moving again. I ended up scraping the entire soundboard. that would be a case of the wrong product. silicone spray would have been the product for that. I was watching a watch maker in action. He was doing final assembly, and in that, he was applying oil where needed. With a brush with what looked like a single very fine hair on it?. Someone noted that bottle of oil looked incredibly old... "I have been doing this job 50 yrs they gave me that when I first stared?." The amount of lubrication needed in small mechanics that have very low friction anyway, is incredibly small, less than a tenth of a drop is too much. Sometimes not even that... In one small daily use object, it was common practice in the last century, to oil it with "Nose oil". That is, rub the part down the side of the human nose, and the oils on the skin alone would be enough to lubricate it fully. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_sebum |
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Post by the light works on Nov 3, 2017 14:29:40 GMT
that would be a case of the wrong product. silicone spray would have been the product for that. I was watching a watch maker in action. He was doing final assembly, and in that, he was applying oil where needed. With a brush with what looked like a single very fine hair on it?. Someone noted that bottle of oil looked incredibly old... "I have been doing this job 50 yrs they gave me that when I first stared?." The amount of lubrication needed in small mechanics that have very low friction anyway, is incredibly small, less than a tenth of a drop is too much. Sometimes not even that... In one small daily use object, it was common practice in the last century, to oil it with "Nose oil". That is, rub the part down the side of the human nose, and the oils on the skin alone would be enough to lubricate it fully. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_sebumcabinet makers also use it. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Nov 3, 2017 14:33:55 GMT
Just don't use too much or your nose will start to squeak. And next you know, it will be out of joint and then you may really get into trouble.
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Post by silverdragon on Nov 4, 2017 10:11:51 GMT
Just don't use too much or your nose will start to squeak. And next you know, it will be out of joint and then you may really get into trouble. He nose some awful puns doesnt he?.. |
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Post by c64 on Nov 13, 2017 21:44:28 GMT
Funny you should mention that. In another vehicle with similar problems, a mechanic got under the dash, in the days when you could just sit in the drivers seat upside down and do that without having to unscrew half a football field of plastic first, unscrewed the cable, handed it to me, "here hold this", squirted a goodly amount of WD40 down it and told me to just hold it there a sec... 10 mins later, he put it back in place, and it worked perfect. It need greasing now and again?. Shame that knowledge doesnt come in workshop manuals. That was a common problem and fix back when speedometers were mechanical. Most every shade tree mechanic knew it, but you are right about never seeing it in a shop manual. Today, most speedometers are electrically driven. Even the one's with needles. And wires seldom need oiling. Back when my dad still had owned his carpenter shop, he he often tried to fixed his delivery truck himself. When the speedometer had stopped working, he had replaced the speedo cable. He was very proud that it had worked until he had a boot full of gearbox oil. Turned out that the core is a spiral and when installed upside down, it pumps oil out of the gearbox into the dashboard. |
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Post by c64 on Nov 13, 2017 21:56:25 GMT
Just don't use too much or your nose will start to squeak. And next you know, it will be out of joint and then you may really get into trouble. Here is a clip of an old Werner movie: They are on vacation in an US made car which started to develop a very nasty noise. So they had stopped at the next garage. The owner asks him to orally reproduce the sound they need to get rid of... And just for fun, a nice montage: |
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Post by the light works on Nov 14, 2017 5:48:20 GMT
That was a common problem and fix back when speedometers were mechanical. Most every shade tree mechanic knew it, but you are right about never seeing it in a shop manual. Today, most speedometers are electrically driven. Even the one's with needles. And wires seldom need oiling. Back when my dad still had owned his carpenter shop, he he often tried to fixed his delivery truck himself. When the speedometer had stopped working, he had replaced the speedo cable. He was very proud that it had worked until he had a boot full of gearbox oil. Turned out that the core is a spiral and when installed upside down, it pumps oil out of the gearbox into the dashboard. I'm calling this one out as fishy. if you have a coil, and turn it, it will "carry" in the same direction, no matter which way around you install it. now it may have had directional seals in it. |
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