What did you do today?

[Dan Dubeau]

Got the wife's car tore down to diagnose a misfire yesterday. Code is injector circuit high and misfire (p2154 and p0303). After checking plugs, swapping coils, and checking compression I'm pretty sure it's an injector, and I'm pretty sure it's out of my wheelhouse now. Her new van comes in on the 3rd of Jan (ordered months ago) and we can borrow a car till then. All the garages around are pretty jammed right now, and I'm not even sure I want to fix it. It's a 2012 equinox (3.0l) with 340k km on it. The underbody is really starting to go, but prior to this it ran and drove like brand new. It really doesn't owe us anything, but I was still hoping to drive it for a few more months to a year if I could. Driving old high mileage vehicles is like sitting down at a blackjack table and continually saying hit me every month. Between that and my truck (2010 sierra with 300k) we've been gambling for a while and I think we finally busted out.

Also ordered all the remaining material (refractory, fire brick, ceramic blankets, etc) I needed to build a Propane forge, electric heat treat/burnout kiln, and a propane foundry yesterday. Enough projects to keep me busy for a while.

[Dan Krager]

Did this for the new machine. Made the accordion way protector from rubberized fabric over posterboard. Not hard but very tedious.

[mattthemuppet]

kept plugging away at Full Metal Chicken. I still have 2 1/2 days to finish it!

[reggie_obe]

Got the wife's car tore down to diagnose a misfire yesterday. Code is injector circuit high and misfire (p2154 and p0303). After checking plugs, swapping coils, and checking compression I'm pretty sure it's an injector, and I'm pretty sure it's out of my wheelhouse now. Her new van comes in on the 3rd of Jan (ordered months ago) and we can borrow a car till then. All the garages around are pretty jammed right now, and I'm not even sure I want to fix it. It's a 2012 equinox (3.0l) with 340k km on it. The underbody is really starting to go, but prior to this it ran and drove like brand new. It really doesn't owe us anything, but I was still hoping to drive it for a few more months to a year if I could. Driving old high mileage vehicles is like sitting down at a blackjack table and continually saying hit me every month. Between that and my truck (2010 sierra with 300k) we've been gambling for a while and I think we finally busted out.

Also ordered all the remaining material (refractory, fire brick, ceramic blankets, etc) I needed to build a Propane forge, electric heat treat/burnout kiln, and a propane foundry yesterday. Enough projects to keep me busy for a while.

Sufficient fuel pressure?

[Cenedd]

Made the accordion way protector from rubberized fabric over posterboard. Not hard but very tedious.

Nice....and a custom fit for your lathe too presumably. Got any links to references on how?

[Dan Dubeau]

Sufficient fuel pressure?

I don't know. I don't have the test equipment to check and I don't think it would be a pressure issue, as that would affect the system as a whole right? This is only dropping one cylinder (#3). My scan tool says "fuel injector group c supply voltage high". Anything beyond that is where my knowledge and ability to diagnose run out. It's a direct injection engine, so from what I gather from the internet is it's a high pressure system, and is buried down under the intake in the heads. I'm afraid I just don't know where to begin, nor have the tools and equipment to go any further with it right now.

I love a good diagnostic puzzle as much as the next guy, but I think i might just have to hand this off to someone more qualified.

[reggie_obe]

I don't know. I don't have the test equipment to check and I don't think it would be a pressure issue, as that would affect the system as a whole right? This is only dropping one cylinder (#3). My scan tool says "fuel injector group c supply voltage high". Anything beyond that is where my knowledge and ability to diagnose run out. It's a direct injection engine, so from what I gather from the internet is it's a high pressure system, and is buried down under the intake in the heads. I'm afraid I just don't know where to begin, nor have the tools and equipment to go any further with it right now.

I love a good diagnostic puzzle as much as the next guy, but I think i might just have to hand this off to someone more qualified.

Don't know, had a lean bank 1 code and after all was said n done, it was the fuel pressure. But I was also having injector issues.

[Dan Krager]

Cenedd, These accordions cost less than $10 for two starting with two poster boards 28" x 15", 3M 77 spray adhesive, and a lightly rubberized fabric. The time consuming part was laying out, creasing, and folding the posterboard. This video uses a paper to illustrate, but on a panel this big, the posterboard is unmanageable as he does it. I simply measured, creased with a dry ball point following a straight edge, and folded alternate scores opposite directions. Then I laid out the "drops" being sure the center span would cover what I needed. The start of the drops is drawing (not score) two lines at 90° to the long folds as far apart as the long fold scores, in my case 1/2". That forms a line of squares where the drops begin. Using a drafting square, i scored 45° lines zigzag fashion in the squares across the sheet. Then comes the tedious part of folding the drops. A small aluminum angle iron under the sheet helped a great deal, almost making the drops form automagically. Then I flattened the posterboard and sprayed the adhesive on both board and fabric and let it dry. Then using a series of dowels to keep them separated while lining things up, I pressed the center of one edge into contact and pulled the dowels out gradually pressing the layers together from center out. It requires more patience than skill. With the fabric attached, the folds need some encouragement the first time after laminating, but again using the angle iron (corner up again) helped a LOT.
DanK

[Cenedd]

Thanks Dan Krager I'll check that out when I have some spare patience....it's been seriously erroded already today :-/

[Bob Engelhardt]

We have a small auxiliary freezer. When stuff gets piled too high, it starts sliding off (angle of repose is small ). To stop this & allow much more stuff to be stored on a shelf, I built a slide-out basket. It'll be easier to find stuff, to. It's probably obvious, but the material is one of those wire shelves. Just one to see how it works, then 3 or 4 more.

[Tim The Grim]

The Mrs. graduated from UTEP an likes to have a “Pick” on her car. You can’t find them in stock anywhere these days so I made her one for Christmas.
The Add…
and the one I made. .
she’s happy.

[Bob Engelhardt]

The Mrs. graduated from UTEP an likes to have a “Pick” on her car. You can’t find them in stock anywhere these days so I made her one for Christmas.
...

Nice! I think the "on her car" bit should be as a hood ornament.

[reggie_obe]

The Mrs. graduated from UTEP an likes to have a “Pick” on her car. You can’t find them in stock anywhere these days so I made her one for Christmas.

she’s happy.

University Texas El Paso? Miners?

[Tim The Grim]

Yes that is correct.

Today was the tryout of the new “Raptor” swing. My granddaughter approved.
Now I need to upgrade the ropes.

[Dan Dubeau]

After a busy couple days of "holidays" I finally got some time to head out in the garage tonight to do some welding and clear some projects off my plate. I got about about 2 minutes in to fixing a hockey net (thin rusty tubes) for my FIL with the mig and I'm out of gas. DAMN. Ok maybe i'll just tig it. Not really a "tig worthy" project but what the hell, it'll be fun to get some practice. I got less than 1 minute of weld time before the argon also ran out. I wasn't about to try stick welding them . Oh well, the only good news is that the local tsc store actually has some bottles in stock (or so the website says) for exchange and they're on sale right now.

I wish I would have known earlier as I was out running around doing errands today and would have brought them. The valves must bleed off very slowly or something or maybe those bottles must be a little porous lol. I need to call around next week and try and get bigger bottles and save these little 80cf ones for weekend emergencies. This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last where I get screwed by an empty bottle when I need it. This is the first time I got stung by both though..... They just never seem to last as long as I think they should.

My forge refractory came in this morning too, but I have a couple welding projects to get through before I start on building that.

I also picked up a couple 4' led shop lights today on sale at princess auto and boy what a difference in light they make out there. I only bought 2 to try them out ($22 each), and they're really nice an bright, but the online reviews for these ones aren't that great for durability/longevity so I'll look into some other brands, but I'm definitely going to replace the rest of the tubes in the near future.