What did you do to your other car(s) today?

[1st 5er]

Loaded SUVie with all the solar and wind generating paraphernalia
for the trip to Fredneck Acres in hopes of brewing my coffee Friday morning off the grid.

[davintosh]

We had a bad car day at our house today.

First, the F150 has been out of action for a few days after stranding me earlier in the week, and I haven't got around to figuring out what its problem is.

So I took the e34 to my early meeting this morning. On the way home, it's humming along nice as you please, then suddenly the tach goes to zero, and I coast to a stop. What the heck?

Crank and crank and crank, and nothing. Called my son for rescue, then after I hung up I tried the starter again and it started. Smooth as ever. Drove a block and it quit again. Couple more tries and it started; cool. Said a prayer and continued on, getting a mile closer to home before it quit again. After several more tries it started, but quit one more time before I got it home.

Once in the driveway I left it running, popped the hood and trunk, and while I'm listening to the fuel pump, the engine quits. No stumble, just like somebody turned the key off. I messed with it the rest of the morning and got nowhere. Crap.

So, since I can't have two vehicles down, and since I'm not getting anywhere with the e34, I decide to tear into the pickup to figure out what the problem is. After checking several things I discover that the distributor rotor isn't turning as it should; instead of a smooth rotation, it's jerking around like its got the hiccups. What the heck? I reached down and find that I can turn the rotor with my hand, and can hear the camshaft turning in the engine. Uh-oh. After some Googling I found this video explaining what the issue is; the teeth on the plastic timing gear(!?!?!?) on the end of the camshaft disintegrated. Just. Great. Time to cut my losses on this one. Bye, truck.

Who the heck comes up with this crap? A plastic gear on something as critical as the camshaft?

Looking back through this thread, it's obvious my "other cars" are far too interesting, and featured far too often here. I obviously need to be a bit more choosy when car shopping.

I got this thing buttoned up and back on the road the other day by replacing the crankshaft position sensor. I'm not quite sure how that goes bad all of a sudden like that, but... Thankful for another relatively easy fix.

[e28Sean]

I approve of this post.

I'm glad you approve.

[gadget73]

Calipers and pads on the Mark VII. Caliper got sticky on the right side. Pads were glazed and cracked, but no grooves or other problems worth talking about on the rotors. Cleaned them up with a Rolloc disc and just bedded the brakes in. Napa would have had my rotors for a week before they could be cut and I just don't have time for this to be apart and in my way for that long. Works fine, amazingly the rotors are not warped. Not super impressed with pedal feel, may still have a small air bubble in there. It felt fine until I forced the ABS to fire, so possibly the bubble was in there.

[funfunfer]

Moved the golf cart out of the garage to make room for the Miata that my younger son just bought. "I just need a place to store it until we get our new house finished." (Here's how much I know about the Miata: it's black, it's first gen.)

[tschultz]

Got the TO bearing replaced and put it back together the other day so that last night I could get it on the ground and start it. I also installed new wheels/tires which I have been itching to get on there.

[davintosh]

Looks like your driveway is properly populated with '80's BMWs. Your wife must love you very, very much.

[tschultz]

Looks like your driveway is properly populated with '80's BMWs. Your wife must love you very, very much.

I'd say so, yes! Even one or two in my side yard as well. Something I may need to do something about

[gadget73]

Power steering lines done on the Continental. Replaced the rack bushings while I was in the neighborhood since they had turned to jelly. Its kinda nice not having the car tramline on worn out roads.

[tig]

Detailed the 911. Ready for the All Porsche event at XXX Burgers in Issaquah tomorrow...



Pulled these damn things off the Tacoma. Hate them. They are useless. They stick out too far and actually make it HARDER to get in and out of the truck. Julie hates them too.


Too bad, because they did look nice. I'm going to try to find something more svelte.

[RonW]

Fixed the OBC switch on the E46. Again. As usual, just a broken wire. The same part on my E28 lasted twice the years and twice the miles.

[tig]

Final prep:

All detailed and ready for the "All Porsche Day" at XXX Rootbeer in Issaquah, WA today.

[oldskool]

Switch out the linen for tobacco and then we talk. Until then . . .

[gadget73]

Fixed the cruise on the Continental. Some hack managed to pull the harness out of the grommet, and ran it between the grommet and the firewall to make sure the wiring got all chewed up. Replaced the servo with one that had a good harness and grommet, works absolutely perfectly. As a bonus, that slight draft from under the dashboard is gone. Also started work on fixing the AC system. Drier is an unknown, so going to try to match that up today. Compressor clutch plug disintegrated when I unplugged it. Damaged compressor is out.

[vinceg101]

E39:
Last Thursday: New Tires (Dunlop Signature HP's) after this happened the previous weekend:


These were the two rear tires; one came apart at speed on the freeway and the other was on its' way to doing the same thing.

Yesterday: Prepped the car from major surgery: Entire Front and Rear Suspension Overhaul: Emptied it, packed parts, and washed it.

Today: Just dropped the car off along with many boxes of parts:


Shop (PS Racing in Burbank, CA; a Porsche shop but Doug Weaver, owner, is one of my hangar-mates and just did my other hangar-mate's E39 Touring) will have it the rest of the week. Estimates are close to 40 shop hours for the entire suspension system. A lot, but at 178,800 miles and 16 years it needs to be done.

[gadget73]

yikes, how old were those tires?


AC system back together on the Conti. Its sitting under vacuum leak-testing currently. If its holding when I get home from work, I'll call it good. Needs a low side fitting, the conversion one was junk. Can't find the drier, seems to be engine-specific and no listings exist for it. Failing a better option, I'll just vacuum the BS out of it and hope for the best. All the parts are used anyway, I have no money into fixing this besides some O-rings and one electrical connector.

[vinceg101]

yikes, how old were those tires?

2 years and +/-22,345 miles.
I've never had such an experience with Kuhmo's before; I have already started a claim with Tire Rack.

[a]

I generally run the Rat around the casa in 4 low with the hubs unlocked . Today, I locked the Rat's front hubs and pulled out a 20' locust sapling. The tap root was over 3' in the ground where it broke.

[gadget73]

AC repair failed. Held vacuum overnight, charged it, had 36 degrees at the vent, then something let go and most of the refrigerant leaked out in a couple minutes. On the upside I found and fixed some other problems with the system so once I figure out the leak I should be good. I also found the drier, someone on ebay had one.

[Das_Prachtstrasse]

Replaced the duck gasket and coolant expansion tank on the e34 this afternoon. That gasket never gets any easier but was a definite cause of the oil drips on the driveway, it had split around the bolt with the nylon washer ring (which had also failed) Double whammy. Expansion tank was purely cosmetic and 'while I'm in there', gave some sort of satisfaction to the eyes after an hour of bruised knuckles.

[e28Sean]

It's soooooo preeeetty!

[Mike W.]

It's soooooo preeeetty!

And why am I not surprised given what his other cars are like.

[Mike W.]

E39:
Last Thursday: New Tires (Dunlop Signature HP's) after this happened the previous weekend:

These were the two rear tires; one came apart at speed on the freeway and the other was on its' way to doing the same thing.

I think it's something about E39 suspensions. I had a wear pattern very much like that, but not quite so extreme on one tire. The inside edge was trashed but the rest of the tire looked ok. Asked the tire store to give me their opinion as to if an alignment was needed, but that request, along with some other things, got lost in transit. I just did one tire since the rest were in excellent shape. Fast forward a year later and another tire looked like that. This time it was 4 tires and an alignment. With over 200K on E39s before that I'd never run into that before, although many speak of poor tire wear on the chassis. A coworker couldn't keep tires on his and had the shop take as much of the negative camber out of it as they could. Looked odd afterwards. I tried to explain it was toe causing the problem, not camber, but couldn't get him to understand.

[gadget73]

Figured out my AC problem. Condenser had crap in it, plugged the orifice tube. Must have blown the pressure relief valve while I wasn't watching the gauge and I just didn't hear it. Pulled the tube, was working on flushing the condenser last night. I don't think a compressor blew up, it looked like mostly sludgey oil, possibly from mixing types or trying to fill it up with stop leak. No evidence of metal.

[vinceg101]

I think it's something about E39 suspensions. I had a wear pattern very much like that, but not quite so extreme on one tire. The inside edge was trashed but the rest of the tire looked ok. Asked the tire store to give me their opinion as to if an alignment was needed, but that request, along with some other things, got lost in transit. I just did one tire since the rest were in excellent shape. Fast forward a year later and another tire looked like that. This time it was 4 tires and an alignment. With over 200K on E39s before that I'd never run into that before, although many speak of poor tire wear on the chassis. A coworker couldn't keep tires on his and had the shop take as much of the negative camber out of it as they could. Looked odd afterwards. I tried to explain it was toe causing the problem, not camber, but couldn't get him to understand.

Specifically it's the E39 factory Sport Suspension that is guilty of massive tire consumption; it's a well documented and BMW admitted issue. One preventive measure is dial out the rear negative camber (as well as making sure the toe is correct also) by a few degrees; it helps but doesn't solve the problem. There is a point at which if you dial it out too much, you defeat the ride performance; I have to research that before next week when I have to re-align everything.
My former mechanic (he just retired last week ) used to un-mount his tires and reverse them every 15K miles or so to even the tread wear out since the inside lines would be worn unevenly by then.