The Tragic Tale of ElSuperPinto

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Or this glorious bastard I just found out about...

 
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ESP is in the new shop for the first time this evening.

I had a chance to replace the 9-year old dry rotted Firestone 205/55/16s with a set of good used Kumho 205/60/16s for free, so I did. You wouldn't think an additional 10mm of sidewall between the ground and the wheel would make such a dramatic difference, but it does. I ran this size on my '76 years ago, so they'll be fine, I only went with the 55s to save about $25 per tire.
 
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Gotta love free :banana:
We replace tires at 5/32" on used cars. One of these didn't quite hit 6/32" on the tread depth gauge, and the rest were barely at 6, so rather than the next owner of the Kia Soul they came from receiving a quote for tires when they come back for their first oil change and get mad about it, the used car manager and I decided to be proactive and put new tires on now. When it hit me what size they were, I asked for the old ones. ESP is lucky to be driven 100 miles a year, so 5/32" of tread will last a while. Bonus points for none of these tires having patches or plugs.
 
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It was slow as hell at the shop this morning, so ESP ended up in a bay getting poked and prodded, trying to get to the root of the fan failure.

I have one of these:


I know how to use it.

I chased that gremlin from the battery all the way around the circuit before I found the cause of the blown fuse. A broken solder joint causing high resistance. A solder joint... that should never have been there, the very kind I rant against, that was only done because I ran out of butt connectors. That broken solder joint introduced high resistance between the battery and the self-resetting 30-amp circuit breaker that is between the battery and the relay, causing an excess amperage draw when the fan engaged (triggered by the temperature switch that grounds the relay).

At first everything is checking out fine but the fan. I even removed the fan and tested it outside of the vehicle with a good used battery I keep around, and found it to have one hell of a voltage drop when triggered with the power probe, but it's only drawing 10 amps, so I'm going to investigate that further later on.

It was only by a stroke of luck that I even found the bad solder joint.

So much of this car is "good enough for now" fixes that it's about time one of them bit me in the ass, but it sure was frustrating. That entire offending wire has been replaced by 6 gauge cable with properly crimped and heat-shrink-wrapped ends!
 
That thread last week was prophetic. It covered using solder on a car and here we are with a real world example.

Glad it was an easy fix.

Good enough for now is the quote of the day. It's fine when we are young and just starting out. As the good enough for nows pile up and we become more forgetful it becomes a major hurdle. I cannot begin to tell you how many times that "good enough for now" is followed with " why the hell did" then "oh :poo: that's right" As I look around to make sure nobody saw that old "good enough for now" repair. Then proceed to fix it with another "good enough for now" repair. I guess I need a notepad to log those type of repairs now days.
 
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'good enough for now' usually happened on the way to or from someplace, the need to get there kicks in otherwise you would never thought to use duct tape and zip ties to hold the tie rod end to the spindle, then it's the drugs and booze (at said destination) that help you forget you ever did it
This may or may not be a true story :shrug:
 
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So much of this car is "good enough for now" fixes that it's about time one of them bit me in the ass, but it sure was frustrating.

Lots of "good enough for now" illustrated below. Honestly, the whole car embodies that philosophy.... :doh: (for now....)

So I went out there with good intentions earlier. I grabbed the new connectors, crimpers, strippers, heat shrink, and my heat gun. Popped the hood and grabbed a before pic for here just to show what a rats nest I ended up making everything when I installed the new tach and the new O2 sensor and AF gauge.

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So I start chasing some of these wires and find that I have a wire that runs down to the O2 sensor isn't attached to anything. I don't know if it's supposed to be or not, so now I need to locate those instructions and double-check that setup. Some of the other stuff is running under this piece and over that.... all the while I'm dripping sweat since it's like 99% humidity today and decide that that was enough. So I grab everything and bring it all back in, close the hood and come inside only to have my legs itch like mad because the mosquitoes decided I was on the menu tonight. Yeah..... it's all gonna wait. :cautious:
 
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So... To clue the rest of y'all in... I once told @General karthief that once you saw the picture of the II front end in one of the old Motor manuals, you'd see the front of a II as frog-eyed and never be able to un-see it. I recently picked up a copy of the 1980 Motor manual, which has all American cars from 1975-80 in it, so I snapped a pic and tried to send it to him in PMs, but it wouldn't go through. However, a screenshot of it would post to the thread.


As Paul Harvey said "and now, you know, the rest, of the story".
 
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