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ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Dec 18, 2018 8:27 pm

deputy dawg wrote:
Dell Latitude E7440 using our standard Windows 10 image....I eventually came across the solution in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00xRSqyGnks (no sound)....Removing a screw underneath the keyboard fixed the problem. As soon as I did that the CPU started performing normally, and the guy who made the video claims he has fixed over 450 of these Latitudes this way with no side effects. I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation for this behavior, but who would have ever thought a factory-installed screw could cause such a specific issue?

Someone must have hit the infinite improbability drive, because you have landed in the portion of space where I have an autopsied E7440 carcass in the e-waste bin. Here is the area identified in the video:

Image

My best guess is that Dell designed this unit to a target size and weight and made cost-cutting sacrifices on the physical stress analysis. For example, a lot of these E7440s have a cracked bezel at the top of the keyboard, in-line with a hidden screw mount under the keyboard that indirectly secures the bezel to the bottom pan via the hinge steel. It is near the mounts for the left screen hinge, and the bottom-pan on the left side has less structure than the right due to the cutout for the cooling fan assembly. So the pan overflexes on the left side and the plastic bezel eventually fails at that point.

Here, as you can see from the pictures, the retention spring for the battery clip attaches next to the post supporting the problem screw. There's probably another stress point there and over time it warps the motherboard slightly and causes some kind of fault, which it then relieved when the screw is removed. Top side (under the keyboard shield) has a few SMT devices close by, bottom side (by the post) is fairly clear, no meaningful damage visible. It's not obvious to me what the exact failure mechanism is, but there you go.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Dec 18, 2018 11:12 pm

just brew it! wrote:
ludi wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
Repair fail....What am I looking for, if not the valve stem? What could possibly still be dripping? Do these things only go in one way? Do I need to take out the new stem and rotate it 180 degrees? I'm stumped.

Do you have any corrosion or similar debris stuck inside the valve body that is preventing the stem's O-ring from sealing tight?

This seems plausible. Corrosion or mineral deposits sound like likely culprits to me.

OK so Delta faucets have another piece inside the valve body that might need replacement: there's a spring-loaded seat that if it doesn't seal against the metal part of the body, water will leak through. And those ALSO needed replaced. Fortunately I got those with my kit. Unfortunately I didn't know what they were for until tonight so I didn't do it last night. But now it's fixed. No more drip.

This video helped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgdKVAGZUKg
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ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:40 am

Another year gone by, and another leaking toilet standpipe. Only wrecked a half-square-yard of interlocking flooring this time and lower access was open studs in the basement, so the repair it went faster than the master bath last year. It was an old 5gpf model I intended to replace soon anyway, in a restroom due for some additional light renovations, but (aaargh) not right before the holidays.

Granted this install probably lasted about 15 years, based on a best estimate of when it was last redone, but anyone who uses an ABS floor collar and secures it to a 3/4" plywood subfloor with exactly two screws deserves to be taken out behind the woodshed and properly switched with a green branch. There's no excuse for such stupid shortcuts. Nothing was obviously loose but the stool bolts weren't as secure as they ought to be and the whole assembly had flexed quite a bit during its abbreviated lifetime.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:13 pm

New Year's Eve I got my hands on an NES that was very glitchy for nothing. The guy didn't know what was wrong with it, but he threw it in with some stuff he had on CL that I actually wanted. It wasn't until this past Friday night that I took it apart to see if I could figure out what was wrong. As it turns out, one of the pins on the 72-pin connector got bent out of place and so the tile map was corrupted. You could turn it on and it'd start out OK but it got progressively worse over a few seconds and within 10 seconds it was totally hosed.

But that's an easy fix, a new 72-pin cartridge connector is $10. And then since this is a spare NES for me, I tried the expansion audio resistor mod. This article shows it very clearly, and it recommends a resistor in the 16k to 47k range. A post on the Everdrive forums used a three-way switch with two 47k resistors where you could add 47k or 94k of resistance.

I got the Weller soldering station y'all recommended to me, some 60/40 solder, and a kit full of resistors. Since I'm using an Everdrive N8 but the cart now has volume controls, I just put a plain old 47k resistor in it (and if a chip is too loud, I'll turn it down in firmware). You would not really want to do this with real Famicom carts, because carts with expansion audio chips have instructions on how to mix the audio with main system audio in order to keep volume levels even. With this mod, you lose that capability. So you should only do this if you're using a flash cart. Otherwise, use a 100k potentiometer and install it on the front of the machine so you can mix audio manually. It just varies from cart to cart.

Anyway, I'm thrilled. Baby's first hardware mod. Here's a pic: https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1082817194742960130
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liquidsquid
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:18 am

ludi wrote:
Another year gone by, and another leaking toilet standpipe.


A long time ago, while my wife and I were living in an apartment, a housing development was being built nearby. These were $300K+ houses (~1999) being touted as luxury homes. We took walks around there as we were interested in living there if we could pull off the price (we couldn't). I didn't feel so bad after I saw the homes being built.

Tile in showers directly on basic waterproof plasterboard, which is only waterproof on the surface layer. Tile directly on plywood floors. Standpipes directly on plywood. Roofs a bare minimum of strength with long beams over the garage that were sagging before the roofing was even added. Basements that literally had water squirting up out of the floor, even when it wasn't raining. The worst part was is this was salt water as there is a salt deposit only a few hundred feet below the surface there. Crap windows.

So we went looking for something with a little better foundation to it than to be stuck with a new overpriced house with a short lifespan. We wound up dealing with a huge bunch of different issues instead. Still, at least we have land instead of a postage stamp.
 
Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:05 am

liquidsquid wrote:
A long time ago, while my wife and I were living in an apartment, a housing development was being built nearby. These were $300K+ houses (~1999) being touted as luxury homes. We took walks around there as we were interested in living there if we could pull off the price (we couldn't). I didn't feel so bad after I saw the homes being built.

Tile in showers directly on basic waterproof plasterboard, which is only waterproof on the surface layer. Tile directly on plywood floors. Standpipes directly on plywood. Roofs a bare minimum of strength with long beams over the garage that were sagging before the roofing was even added. Basements that literally had water squirting up out of the floor, even when it wasn't raining. The worst part was is this was salt water as there is a salt deposit only a few hundred feet below the surface there. Crap windows.

If you're not familiar with McMansion Hell, it's an entertaining blog by an architect cataloging the horrors of exactly the type of construction you're describing: build it big, build it flashy, build it cheap and build it wrong. She also writes a lot about architectural styles and practices, it's worth a read if you're interested.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:45 am

Chuckaluphagus wrote:
liquidsquid wrote:
A long time ago, while my wife and I were living in an apartment, a housing development was being built nearby. These were $300K+ houses (~1999) being touted as luxury homes. We took walks around there as we were interested in living there if we could pull off the price (we couldn't). I didn't feel so bad after I saw the homes being built.

Tile in showers directly on basic waterproof plasterboard, which is only waterproof on the surface layer. Tile directly on plywood floors. Standpipes directly on plywood. Roofs a bare minimum of strength with long beams over the garage that were sagging before the roofing was even added. Basements that literally had water squirting up out of the floor, even when it wasn't raining. The worst part was is this was salt water as there is a salt deposit only a few hundred feet below the surface there. Crap windows.

If you're not familiar with McMansion Hell, it's an entertaining blog by an architect cataloging the horrors of exactly the type of construction you're describing: build it big, build it flashy, build it cheap and build it wrong. She also writes a lot about architectural styles and practices, it's worth a read if you're interested.

Our house isn't big or flashy, and has most of those issues! :roll:

I can also add: Bathroom light fixtures screwed into the drywall with no electrical box or conduit (electrical connection was to a couple of wires dangling out of the end of a loose run of armored cable). The fixture was also hiding a rather large, ragged hole in the drywall which looked like it had been made with a hammer.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:58 am

just brew it! wrote:
The fixture was also hiding a rather large, ragged hole in the drywall which looked like it had been made with a hammer.

When the light fixture is only 3 feet off the floor, you can guarantee it was an accidental hole. :lol:
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Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:42 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
The fixture was also hiding a rather large, ragged hole in the drywall which looked like it had been made with a hammer.

When the light fixture is only 3 feet off the floor, you can guarantee it was an accidental hole. :lol:

When I was a kid, I put my foot through the wall of the living room, about 2 feet off the floor. My father's solution was to hang a large framed print that covered the hole for the next 25 years. :D
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:13 pm

Chuckaluphagus wrote:
When I was a kid, I put my foot through the wall of the living room, about 2 feet off the floor. My father's solution was to hang a large framed print that covered the hole for the next 25 years. :D

My parents did something similar...when I was a kid, my sister spilled some red Kool-Aid on carpet that was maybe six weeks old. That night, we rearranged the living room and a chair went there, and it sat there for around 12-13 years. Fortunately it wasn't in the middle of the room. :lol:

bonus: the padding was still red when we pulled up the carpet.
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:26 pm

We’ve got a painting in the bathroom where an inwall medicine cabinwt used it be.
 
ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:07 pm

liquidsquid wrote:
Standpipes directly on plywood.

Nice to see them at floor level on new construction, although not always an option for existing rework. I've been using this to bridge the gap. In any case, I figure the minimum repair anyone should do is a brass or stainless steel repair ring and a minimum of four stainless screws into the subfloor. When I have access below, I use bolts with stainless threaded hardware and locknuts.
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liquidsquid
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:29 pm

ludi wrote:
liquidsquid wrote:
Standpipes directly on plywood.

Nice to see them at floor level on new construction, although not always an option for existing rework. I've been using this to bridge the gap. In any case, I figure the minimum repair anyone should do is a brass or stainless steel repair ring and a minimum of four stainless screws into the subfloor. When I have access below, I use bolts with stainless threaded hardware and locknuts.


I don't remember what I used for bridging the gaps, but I have marble landings for all the **** now, and the little trough around the rim of the landing prevents a lot of mess on the floor from kids who are completely unable to aim or lift a lid. The threat of imminent doom and dismemberment is not enough.
The rest of the floor is tile with cement backerboard. In fact at this point, if anything leaks, it will be contained within the room up to at least 1/2 inch deep. I didn't want to install a floor drain as that as too much work. But one of the first things I had to do in my house was rip out a ceiling below the upstairs bathroom and replace all of the joists and the plumbing around the toilet. Never. Again. I hate working over my head.
 
MileageMayVary
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:59 am

Debating tearing out the downstairs tub and replacing with a utility sink/shelf space.
Problem is that its all tiled so I would have to end up tearing out the entire bathroom and redoing the floor and all the drywall :(
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:41 pm

More simple console mods, fixing what Nintendo and Sega should have all along. This time it's the PSG channels in a VA2.x Genesis model 2. The two square wave channels were attenuated more than they should have been, making Master System and some Genesis games sound weird. In Streets of Rage 2, the second part of the first level had no melody line, and that's been fixed. Popped a surface-mounted resistor and bridged the point with solder, and now it sounds just about perfect.

https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1084865528718680065
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:48 am

I had replaced our master toilet a few months back, but it had started a minor leak in the waste area. I swapped out the basic wax ring with a "Danco Perfect Seal Toilet Wax Ring" which was amazingly simple to install. The longer bolts really helped too. I added some shims as the tiles aren't quite level, and life is much happier.
 
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:46 pm

MileageMayVary wrote:
Debating tearing out the downstairs tub and replacing with a utility sink/shelf space.
Problem is that its all tiled so I would have to end up tearing out the entire bathroom and redoing the floor and all the drywall :(
A full bath is not something to waste IMHO.
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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Feb 13, 2019 10:25 pm

This weekend, I finally replaced the leaky regulator on my air compressor. I had taken it apart and cleaned in a while back, which helped, but it would still leak down to about 60 PSI. Annoying to have the compressor constantly kicking on. The rebuild kit was like $30, and a brand new regulator was less than $40. Everything went fine except for the fact that the port for the pressure gauge was on the wrong side, leading me to install the regulator backwards the first time. Very odd behavior indeed, when you install it backwards. Once I figured out what was going on, I took everything back off, swapped port that was plugged, so the gauge was on the other side and put it all back together. No leaks! 8)

I was actually motivated to get the compressor fixed because of the next project I needed to do.

--SS
 
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:00 pm

My car has been getting noisy at highway speeds. Definitely coming from the front of the car and getting worse. It had gotten to the point where I could feel it in the steering wheel. The noise sounded like a worn, or separating tire, but the feeling in the wheel was distinctly sharper than that would cause. Due to having staggered tires, I can't rotate and the fronts tend to wear unevenly due to the camber settings for the sport suspension. I checked the tires and they were well worn on the inside edges, so I went ahead and had them replaced. And.... no change in noise. So that leaves the front wheel bearings. Ordered a set on Friday and they arrived Monday.

Luckily, I've been working on organizing the garage, so I can fit my car in sideways with ease. I actually had my wife's Durango in sideways this weekend, but that's another story.

Image

Part of the garage organization was a set of rolling tool cabinets. This project was an excuse (ahem, reason) to pick up a new socket and wrench set. I was going to need to get a 1/2" ratchet and three sockets, which was going to be close to $50. Costco had a full set, with 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" drive ratchets, SAE and metric wrenches and misc other stuff for $100.

Image

In the process of getting things set up, I found out my impact wrench had a manufacturing defect and the lug was too big fit in a 1/2" socket, even with persuasion. Looking at it closely, one of the sides had a significant bulge that looks like it was a machining error. Note, the impact wrench came with my compressor and had just been sitting in its box for years. This was the first real opportunity I had to use it. 10 minutes with the dremel and a 1/2" impact socket fits just fine now. :)

Got it up on jack stands and both wheels off.
Image

Getting it up on stands was an interesting exercise in itself. I have a low profile floor jack, that will just fit fully under the car, but then there is no way to operate the jack. The car has six jack points. There are four under door sills, along the frame. These are for the scissor jack that the car comes with. The garage jack points are centerline between the front and rear tires. I couldn't use the side jack points for the floor jack and I needed to put the stands there. I ended up using the scissor jack to get the front end up enough that I could use my floor jack on the front center point to get the car the rest of the way up. Not the most elegant process, but I don't have the vertical clearance for a lift in my garage.

Image
Some engineer somewhere or, more likely, some mechanic, had a brilliant idea. See that odd bolt in the picture above? It's just screwed into the rotor, with a spacer to set its max depth. Take it off, remove the spacer, and screw it back in and you can use it to jack the rotor off the wheel hub. Definitely important as they tend to get rust welded together and you really don't want to take a sledge to rotors you aren't replacing.

All stripped down.
Image

The brake caliper is hanging from the upper control arm to keep as much stress off the brake line as possible.

Can you tell which is the bad one?
Image

Image
I was actually a bit worried when I first put the car up on the stands and there was no play in either wheel bearing. Then I rotated the passenger side wheel by hand and felt much better. You could hear it grinding. When I got the wheel and brake rotor off, turning the bearing by hand felt like there was sand in it. I'm actually surprised it hadn't ground itself to bits. The driver's side felt pretty decent, even compared to the brand new bearings, but I replaced both to keep the wear even and to keep from having to do this again any time soon.

Started last night and got the first one done before going to bed. It took way longer than it should have, partly because I put the splash guard on backwards and had to take the new bearing back out to turn it around. Partly because I spent a while figuring out the whole jack situation. And partly because it took me a little while to figure out what the handy dandy parting bolt was for and get the rotor off. Did the second one this morning and it took about an hour. All in all, it was actually a pretty easy DIY. Any one with a proper set of sockets, a floor jack, and a torque wrench capable of 100 ft-lbs would be able to tackle it. Of course, I'm assuming that if you have the aforementioned tools, you have a modicum of ability to use such tools. :wink:

It's a whole new car! :o I knew it had gotten loud, but I hadn't realized how loud until I drove it today with the new bearings in. Quiet, and smooth -- so very smooth.
 
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:06 pm

Tuesday, I put a new float valve assembly in the master toilet. Took a look at the other toilet. It still has the original brass equippage. Next, I took out the very solid three holer kitchen sink faucet. I had to destroy it because the threads were completley corroded. Saw that I have four holes. Put in one of those flexible loop rinse/spray assemblys that can fit in a single hole. Tried to sell the wife on doing that and putting a small bar faucet in the center two holes for the portable dishwasher to attach its hose/drain. She nixed that so I put in the included three hole cover and installed the included soap dispenser in the fourth hole. We will be washing dishes by hand from now on. Thinking of adding an extension hose to the dishwasher so I can use it to wash (e.g. rocks for aquarium) in super hot water with bleach using one of the bathroom sinks for water and drain.
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:39 pm

SecretSquirrel wrote:
It's a whole new car! :o I knew it had gotten loud, but I hadn't realized how loud until I drove it today with the new bearings in. Quiet, and smooth -- so very smooth.

Nice! It's good to see that bearing assemblies have gotten simpler to change over the years. I have a 20 ton press for bearing work in the garage, it's too bad more manufacturers don't make the bearing assembly swappable.
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ludi
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:28 pm

SecretSquirrel wrote:
Getting it up on stands was an interesting exercise in itself. I have a low profile floor jack, that will just fit fully under the car, but then there is no way to operate the jack.

I variously owned two lowered cars in years past, which creates a similar problem. I learned very quickly that one needs to own a pair of low-profile ramps that can be tucked under the front tires, then driven onto, to buy that extra inch or two to clear the jack. Someone like yourself can probably imagine several ways to fabricate something involving e.g. spare lumber, but be sure to sweep the garage floor and have an antiskid surface bonded to the bottom of the ramps, or you can obviously shoot them out the back like a pitching machine.
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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Feb 14, 2019 10:58 pm

ludi wrote:
SecretSquirrel wrote:
Getting it up on stands was an interesting exercise in itself. I have a low profile floor jack, that will just fit fully under the car, but then there is no way to operate the jack.

I variously owned two lowered cars in years past, which creates a similar problem. I learned very quickly that one needs to own a pair of low-profile ramps that can be tucked under the front tires, then driven onto, to buy that extra inch or two to clear the jack. Someone like yourself can probably imagine several ways to fabricate something involving e.g. spare lumber, but be sure to sweep the garage floor and have an antiskid surface bonded to the bottom of the ramps, or you can obviously shoot them out the back like a pitching machine.


I got the low profile floor jack when I had my BMW 330i. It had the M package and only had about four inches of clearance under the door sills, where the jack points were. It was low enough that the only the front of the jack would fit. Luckily the there was a frame piece just inside the jack points that you could use for the floor jack and still have room to set the stands at the jack points. That care was a pain in the a** to work on. And don't get me started on the amount of money I sank into maintenance -- rebuilt the transmission, among other things. I still miss it though. At the time, "The Ultimate Driving Machine" was still true, at least in my book. I recently got to drive a 430i hard-top convertible and it was... underwhelming.

Image

The drive was great -- along the Pacfic Coast Highway from Pacifica to Santa Cruz and then back up through the hills on Skyline Blvd. But the car itself was rather lacking. It was underpowered and disconnected. I'll attribute some of the ride and handling to being a convertible, but the stearing was over boosted, and did I mention it was underpowered?

Anyway, back to the topic, I will probably pick up a set of ramps, though for the price I can get these, I'll probably just buy rather than build.

http://www.kovarindustries.com/coppermi ... 35_HDR.jpg

The next set of maintenance will be from the top though as I need to do the valve cover gaskets. They are starting to seep. So is the one of the transmission seals, but I'm going to let the mechanic handle that one. Also need to do the spark plugs and clean the throttle body on the wife's Durango, but that's and easy afternoon project.

--SS
 
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:58 am

I repaired an overstretched metal slinky - kid across the road stretched it so out of shape it wouldn't stand up any more. My brief internet searching came up blank, but I thought it was worth trying some basic blacksmithing / heat treatment. I tied it into shape as best I could with some stiff iron fencing wire and ran a sink full of water. Standing it directly on the flame of our gas stove, parts of it got up to cherry red temps. . Left it to soak at that temp for a minute and half / two minutes and dropped it in the sink. It's back to approximating slinky shape and behaviour pretty nicely. It did go matt dark grey in the places that got the hottest (something oxidised). I think I may have been lucky when the most distorted loop found a way to stick out into the flame flow and get red hot. I assume a slinky is martensite, and so needs a quench from above 750 C (1382F) to below 450C (842F) to regain its temper.
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Feb 15, 2019 1:11 am

atcrank wrote:
I repaired an overstretched metal slinky - kid across the road stretched it so out of shape it wouldn't stand up any more. My brief internet searching came up blank, but I thought it was worth trying some basic blacksmithing / heat treatment. I tied it into shape as best I could with some stiff iron fencing wire and ran a sink full of water. Standing it directly on the flame of our gas stove, parts of it got up to cherry red temps. . Left it to soak at that temp for a minute and half / two minutes and dropped it in the sink. It's back to approximating slinky shape and behaviour pretty nicely. It did go matt dark grey in the places that got the hottest (something oxidised). I think I may have been lucky when the most distorted loop found a way to stick out into the flame flow and get red hot. I assume a slinky is martensite, and so needs a quench from above 750 C (1382F) to below 450C (842F) to regain its temper.

Wow, wish I'd known that when I was a kid!

"What in the world are you doing there, Mike? That looks kind of dangerous... don't burn yourself!"

"Just fixing my Slinky, dad..."
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
SuperSpy
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Feb 15, 2019 9:45 am

SecretSquirrel wrote:
This weekend, I finally replaced the leaky regulator on my air compressor. I had taken it apart and cleaned in a while back, which helped, but it would still leak down to about 60 PSI. Annoying to have the compressor constantly kicking on. The rebuild kit was like $30, and a brand new regulator was less than $40. Everything went fine except for the fact that the port for the pressure gauge was on the wrong side, leading me to install the regulator backwards the first time. Very odd behavior indeed, when you install it backwards. Once I figured out what was going on, I took everything back off, swapped port that was plugged, so the gauge was on the other side and put it all back together. No leaks! 8)

I was actually motivated to get the compressor fixed because of the next project I needed to do.

--SS

I need to do this to my compressor as well. I have it attached to pair of auxiliary tanks for some added storage, and it leaks right around the optimal storage pressure for those tanks.
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Aranarth
Graphmaster Gerbil
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Feb 15, 2019 1:59 pm

I live out in the boonies here in west michigan.
As some of you know we have been enjoying some real winter weather here lately.

So just for fun right now we got 8" of fresh snow on top of 2-3" of wet snow that has now turned to ice.

In this bounty of winter weather my well decided to break.
I get water but as soon as the pump shuts off I got a water hammer effect and the pump controller started to arc like crazy.

Turns out the check valve at the bottom of the pump decided to let go so the pump hd to maintain pressure in the system instead of the check valve doing it for it.

I now have a new pump, new cycle stop, and 40foot of new pipe down to the pump.

Old pump was a cheap Myers and the new one is an all stainless Grundfos.
New pump is almost vibrationless and very quiet compared to the old one.

I heat by open loop geothermal so having a properly operating well and cycle stop means my electric bill should go down a little.
(Old cycle stop was not working properly and was giving me an 8 second cycle while the new one has a 2 minute cycle.)
The new pump has soft on, air pump detection, voltage adjustment, and matches pump output to water draw. very cool.

This was the most expensive valentines present i have ever bought my wife.
$2500!! (argh!!!)

Next year I think I'll just buy her a new wedding ring for $1k and save some money :D
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Aranarth
Graphmaster Gerbil
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:11 pm

just brew it! wrote:

"What in the world are you doing there, Mike? That looks kind of dangerous... don't burn yourself!"

"Just fixing my Slinky, dad..."


Nothing worse than broken slinky when your crush is around...
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
Old machine: Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 3ghz / 8 gig ram / Radeon 7870 / 240 gb PNY ssd / 1tb HD
 
Mr Bill
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:54 pm

I thought maybe the auger motor had died on my pellet stove but a visit to the store that sold it changed the diagnosis. She said its extremely rare for the augur motor to go bad. She told me to first check the vacuum tubing from the vent fan to the pellet stove pressure switch. Apparently the auger will only feed if the switch is detecting vacuum from the exhaust blower fan. Sure enough the tube had cracked. A quick run to Sutherlands hardware and their pellet stove section, provided me a "kit" of three foot 3/8 inch ID high temperature silicon rubber hose with clamps for $20. I hooked it up and bad-a-boom, the stove fired right up. The cat is bonelessly draped over his perch in front of the stove as I type this.
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notfred
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Feb 17, 2019 5:48 pm

During Snowmageddon (about 40cm) on Wednesday I was having problems with my snowblower. It's an ancient Sears Craftsman 8hp 25" model that I've for 12 years but I'm the 3rd owner. It would drive with the gears properly, but attempting to pull it back manually would cause the transmission to jam. I took a look yesterday and found the axle bearing on one side is half missing - just completely worn through and disintegrated. I also checked over the rest, belts were good, plug looks good. I've had a few problems with it running rich when warmed up so I checked and adjusted the carburettor. I ordered some parts yesterday while the stores were open, 2 new bearings, 2 new axle washers and 1 new bearing retainer based on one bearing is gone so the rest of the parts are probably pretty worn out. I have the original manual but the parts guy had fun trying to find the part numbers and what they were now as pretty much every part has been superseded, some 2 or 3 times over.

I spent today stripping down the axle. Unfortunately one wheel is completely rusted on to the axle, but everything else came off so I could get it out. Good thing I ordered all those parts because the other bearing is cracked and about to disintegrate and there is no sign of the bearing retainer clip. I hit the rusted wheel with lots of PB Blaster, and brought it in to the laundry sink to thaw it out as we are around -9C today. I was trying to use the other wheel as a slide hammer on the axle, but jerking that weight around in front of me did a number on my back and didn't budge the wheel at all so I'm just going to leave it.

Parts should be in about the middle of the week, so hopefully my back is in good enough shape by then to put it back together before the next snow dump!

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