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What did you do in the garage today?

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I just noticed your needle-nose pliers in the foreground of this photo. My 93 YO dad has a pair of Snap-On pliers like that & I covet them. My dad's pair typically can be found on top of his work bench ready for action. I have better, less worn pliers, but something about those pliers speaks to me. You seem to have an interesting mix of tools.
 
I drank coffee!!

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Not much of an achievement without a story, so of course there's a story!

I sometimes wonder what's in the water out in Ballinger. I'll tell ya what's in the water out in Ballinger. Coffee!!

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Our resident West Texas Wacko, aka CT, sent me some coffee from a small roaster out there. Free coffee is like gold bars these days!! So this is regular grind, but I use a grinder and a French press. That fine a grind in a press does NOT work at all!! So, time to turn on the Wayback machine.
Yes, Peabody, that's Mom's last percolator, think it was new in the early 70's.

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That's the Line of Terminal Velocity that Mom filled it to every morning with Folger's.

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With much stronger (I imagine) coffee, I stayed below a tic. That turned out not to be the right decision.

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But it was sure fun using the percolator again, and I'll continue while this supply lasts, adding probably 2T more in the morning.
Who needs a snooty drip machine??

The coffee? Super smooth and tasty. Probably my new brew! Thanks CT!! 😎
 
D.Allen said:
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I just noticed your needle-nose pliers in the foreground of this photo. My 93 YO dad has a pair of Snap-On pliers like that & I covet them. My dad's pair typically can be found on top of his work bench ready for action. I have better, less worn pliers, but something about those pliers speaks to me. You seem to have an interesting mix of tools.
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Bought lots of snapon tools years ago and still have lots of them , they are lifetime if you take care of them , the hand tools , I did have some issues with power tools so we dont have anymore of those . I made my living with tools since late 60s so I have no problem buying tools that are right . Transmission went back up under the truck yesterday , no pictures , its dark under there . You notice the homemade clamps , that trans build called for several special tools that I ended up making to do the job , the forklift was also required , fully assembled its a little under 400 pounds
 
Trying to prep for a Colorado trip in a few weeks.

Did the 10K valve clearance check on the '23 R1250GS. All the valves were in spec and towards the loose end of the window. Brake pads still have plenty of material left. I'll get the engine oil and filter, final drive and shaft serviced in the next day or two. Then fluids flushed and renewed.

Cam timing was slightly off. Here is the right side before pic. The machined surface (5A677C2-01R) on the cam should be parallel to the machined surface of the head at TDC.

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Here is the right side after resetting the cams to correct timing. The little doo hickey on the end of the exhaust cam is a compression release that holds one valve slightly open for starting.

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The whole cam assembly (left side), kind of complicated. The little beryllium-copper finger grounds the valve cover to the rest of the engine since the gaskets isolate it.

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Curious, what is the little insignia/emblem/design at 6:00 on the end of the cams?
Looks sort of like a QR code.
 
Yes, my phone will read it but can't do anything with it. I suppose some internal BMW use.
 
Nice work James. 10k valve clearance check? Seems a short interval for your basic pricey beemer bike.
 
Supposed to be every 12000 miles. I'll probably do at least a couple of multi day rides over next few weeks, so better to get it done.

BMW Motorrad really wants to generate parts and labor income for their dealers. A few hundred dollars for some special tools probably paid for themselves, already.
 
Got my 2nd Crown Vic (a 2011 Police Interceptor with 170,000 miles) picked up yesterday and started going through to find issues.

So far have found:
  1. Passenger front window does not work from passenger side, but works from main switch (no, window switch is not set to lock).
  2. Passenger front door will not open from inside, but is fine from outside.
  3. Rear drivers window does not work from any control. Also same door is very finicky on opening from outside, handle is loose.
  4. Vehicle is picky about going from park into gear. I have narrowed it down to something in the ignition switch.
  5. Had 3 soft codes (no light on), a P0316 code (misfire in first 1000 revolutions of startup) and a P0306 (cylinder 6 misfire), and a B1318 (R front door ajar switch).
  6. Headlight housings are glazed over. 1 rear tail light cracked.
So for repairs:
  1. For the front window, I removed the switch and sprayed some electrical parts cleaner on the connectors, plugged it back in, and it started working. Easy fix.
  2. For the door latch, I pulled the door handle off. Looking at door latch it seems to be sticking. Sprayed some brake cleaner on the latch mechanism, then some white lithium grease. Manually cycled it a few times, and it working fine now.
  3. On the rear drivers side window, I checked the switch (swapped the switch with the passenger side) and switch is fine. Check power to harness, it is fine. Pulled door panel off and check power at the plug when cycling the switch, it is good. Seems motor is bad, got one ordered off Amazon.
    The exterior door handle has no bolts holding it in place. Found some bolts that "fit" and put them in, works fine now. May or may not order correct mounting hardware, need to see what it cost.
  4. For the gear shift/ignition, I pulled it apart and could not find anything obvious that is wrong with it (but I have no idea what I am looking for). With 170,000 miles, the ignition switch may just be wearing out. I am trying to figure out the "trick" to get it to shift out of park constantly. I have always gotten it to shift, just not sure what jiggling around got it to go. I will eventually replace the switch, but it is like $100, so kicking that down the road.
  5. I had cleared codes before I left College Station, and no new soft codes in over 100 miles of driving with several starts and stops, engine seems to run fine. I plan on replacing the plugs soon, and have some coil on plugs on standby (they are the same coils that fit my F150). I also ran some fuel injector cleaner through it on the trip home.
  6. Headlight housings and bulbs ordered, taillight is not leaking, but will eventually replace it.
Have plans to change all fluids also. Fuel filter, trans filter, everything for an oil change is ordered. Will do a brake fluid replacement when I pull the tires to check the pads.
Tires are about 1/2 tread, 3 of them are 5 years old, so tires are not an urgent need.
It also has window tint on just the front windows for some reason. Will get the rears done once I get the window working.
Vehicle is from Texas A&M, was just a fleet transportation vehicle, not used for patrol/law enforcement (only 633 idle hours, most consider under 5,000 idle hours to be good).
Has carpet, cloth seats front (with built in armrests) and rear, power drivers with front bench, remote door unlock, and cruise.

Overall a pretty solid car for the mileage. I got it for $3350 total with buyers fees.
Off hand needs another $1000-1200 for registration, title, parts, fluids and tint, and I will have a pretty sorted vehicle.
Now need to decide if I want to keep it, my '02 F150, or both.


It is in better overall condition than the '03 Crown Vic PI I got my son last month for $2,250 (but it is 8 years newer, so that is expected).
It has 112,000 miles and appears to have been a detective vehicle.

His has some paint issues (a common thing with the white CVPI) with some minor surface rust, tires were over 10 years old so had to replace those immediately, similar door and window issues (down to just pass. rear window not working, need to look into it, not sure if just motor or entire window regulator), needed a battery, rear calipers and pads needed replacement, and needed a center console. Seems to run just fine and overall is a decent vehicle. Not concerned for him using it as a daily driver. No seat tears, has carpet, cloth front and vinyl rear, and tinted windows in good shape. Still needs spark plugs replaced and all fluids (besides brake fluid, that was done when we did the rear calipers) done.
Sad thing is, he will be into his almost what I am into mine for (but $500 of it for him was tires), and he does not have cruise control or remote door unlock.

If he was not being a jerk know it all 18 year old, I would consider a swap.
 
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My fords have had a brake lock since mid 90s , have to hold the brake down to remove it from park . My 96 F350 was finiky for a year or so , i would leave it in nueteral . And set the parking brake . One day I forgot and put it in park , I made sure the pin on the levar was in place real well and yanked it into gear breaking off the stupid stupid switch , all good now no more problems shifting gears . I can also remove the keys from the ignition switch on that truck . I really like that feature , Im not about to put a new lock in it .
 
Now that Ca
Cagiva 549 said:
My fords have had a brake lock since mid 90s , have to hold the brake down to remove it from park . My 96 F350 was finiky for a year or so , i would leave it in nueteral . And set the parking brake . One day I forgot and put it in park , I made sure the pin on the levar was in place real well and yanked it into gear breaking off the stupid stupid switch , all good now no more problems shifting gears . I can also remove the keys from the ignition switch on that truck . I really like that feature , Im not about to put a new lock in it .
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Now that Cagiva mentions it, I had trouble with an 07 Marquis getting out of park and I can't remember if I changed the cruise release switch or the brake switch (both on on/near brake pedal) and that cured it. Maybe I broke the cruise release switch when I was replacing the brake switch.
 
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blupupher said:
Got my 2nd Crown Vic (a 2011 Police Interceptor with 170,000 miles) picked up yesterday and started going through to find issues.

So far have found:
  1. Passenger front window does not work from passenger side, but works from main switch (no, window switch is not set to lock).
  2. Passenger front door will not open from inside, but is fine from outside.
  3. Rear drivers window does not work from any control. Also same door is very finicky on opening from outside, handle is loose...
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Cop cars are set up NOT top open from the inside, except the Driver's door.

It cuts down on potential escapes...
 
West Texas GS said:
The boys have to unplug the fridge in Steve's hangar to use the outlet for the pressure washer, and twice in a row forgot to plug it back in!!

This caused to hear about it TWICE, so I decided to install a new dedicated circuit for them to use!

Steve also had an extension cord run outside to power a camera, so I also put in a Weather proof GFI with in use cover for that!
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Circuits are easy, but good luck on replacing the boys.
 
Replaced the two 28"x28" windows at the house. Hurt my back moving the window a/c, but got it done!

Then helped Jerry with wiring in the new avionics on the K35 Bonanza. Pics of that later!

My back is not happy, so off to bed!
 

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Texas T said:
I assume you heard of the in-flight breakup of a K35 earlier in the month? Juan Brown discussed it on his channel.
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The autopilot on the accident aircraft does not have auto disconnect, and the correct action would have been to turn it off or pull the circuit breaker!!

It holds true that doctors are V tail Bonanza killers!! They have a high level of formal education, and typically limited to very little technical/mechanical experience.

The V tail configuration has very strict G load, cross wind and weight/balance limits. Violate ay single one of those and recovery is difficult to impossible!
 
Got a lot of the stuff taken care of on both the Crown Vic's.

I ordered new headlight housings and side markers for both. The '03 are the standard chrome ones, for the '11 I ordered blacked out ones (not tinted, just areas that are not part of the light reflector are black, since the car is black).
Huge improvement in both looks and I am sure headlight performance (which is poor to start out with).
I have been debating a HID retrofit on them (did it on my F150 and made a huge difference).

We also swapped grills, the '11 has a chrome grill, the '03 has a black honeycomb grill, and swapping them makes both look better.

I replaced a dash piece in the '03 that broke when I was taking it off (plastic is just super brittle). Actually ordered a Grand Marquis piece with "wood" inserts and put it in the '11 and put the one from the '11 in the '03.

Got the window motor replaced as well, not that hard, and about $30 for the motor.
So all 4 windows work (front passenger is a little slow), locks work like they should, and all door handles work correctly and not loose.

Started looking at the shifting issue, and the shift interlock in the column is a minor problem on these cars, they get gummed up and stick and become intermittent, then totally quit.
I found there is an override button under the column if it does not want to go, so I do have that.
Looking at it, I found I was able to get a spray tip to the solenoid area that moves and sprayed some electrical cleaner on it and actuated it manually several times (like 50 or so), then sprayed in some Rem Oil I had handy.
Not sure if that is the best combo long term, but it seems to have freed up the solenoid for now. Will see how it does, and if it starts acting up again, I will replace it then (have to remove the steering wheel to do it).

I also had to mess with my F150 a little. My son had been driving it for the past 6 weeks, and said the last day he drove it it was running bad, but the alternator also went out, so I figured it was just that. I replaced the alternator (lifetime warranty from Advance Auto) and everything seemed fine. My daughter borrowed my truck and said it is running rough, but no check engine light.
I took a look at it last night thinking maybe I left something disconnected when doing the alternator, but all looked good. No active or pending codes, but need to hook up my better scanner to see if there are any misfires, but not enough to set a code yet.
I started it up and started poking around and noticed the evap hose from the intake to the charcoal canister was collapsed on itself. Went to pull it off and it just started disintegrating. Ordered a new one last night and got it today. Replaced it, but did not fix the issue, will need to look deeper into it.

Getting too hot to do anything else outside now, so going to wait on doing the fluid change till Monday.
 
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I wired up the Admore Pro Lightbar on the FJR in a more permanent and waterproof fashion than what was supplied with the light. This was the first time I got to use my fancy new pair of ratcheting crimpers with the different crimping dies for different connectors. What a luxury that crimper is. I still need to reinforce the bracket I made to mount the light bar under the Givi plate but it's fine for now. Hopefully my temporary solution doesn't become a permanent solution. :lol2:

I also concluded my little saga with the Neutrino Aurora. Dan got me a new unit in just a couple of days but it took me a little while to get around to installing it. The new unit works well but I had to reach out to him to figure out which app to use with it and even he got it wrong. But his advice put me on the right path and I got it working. That's my one complaint about the Neutrinos in general. There are to many apps available for the different units that have been made over the years and it's not real intuitive which is the right one to be using. For example, I have an Aurora but the Aurora app doesn't work with it (I'm assuming it's still there for some older ones but I really don't know) and I have to run the Aurora Plus app even though I don't have an Aurora Plus (the Plus simply designates the model designed to work with Canbus iirc).

Regardless, I got it working and the only thing that's left to do is setup a trigger wire to turn the big aux light on and off with the high beams. If anyone just happens to know where the best and easiest place to tap the high beam circuit is on a gen 2 FJR please let me know. I haven't taken the time to go down that rabbit hole yet.

While I was doing the wiring I took the time to run switched power back to my top box so I can charge stuff inside of it or add lights to it.
 
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