Ethanol problems again.....

 problems again with leaving gas in a piece of equipment.....

this time it is a craftsman blower.....another name for equipment made by this manufacturer in this shop is "crapsman".......there is a chronic unavailability of parts and if the parts are available they are usually of low quality.....we ordered jackshafts for a craftsman riding lawnmower several years ago at 175$ apiece time two jackshafts and installed them, the customer took the machine home, driving the machine off of the trailer to start cutting his lawn they seized up....the customer brought it back to Mr. Fix-it, we dismantled it and found that there was no grease packed into either jackshaft from the factory.....they were sealed so there is no way we could have greased them if we tried........i am off on a tangent....back to the blower...............

This customer left gas in this trimmer.....it is 2 cycle gas.....i don't think it would have mattered either way, but the carburetor was compromised, the internal parts of the carburetor were damaged, the rubber parts and any aluminum was pitted by the chemical reaction.....which means a new carburetor.

So, we have a trimmer that costs $100.00 brand new.....Mr. Fix-it has put a $40.00 carburetor on it, changed a spark plug , and a few other basic stuff and thrown an hour at it anyway. Never mind the research to get the part number for the new carb and you basically have exceeded the cost for a brand new blower......

welcome to our "throw-away society"...

more humor......

funny one....

It was the first day of school and a new student, the son of a Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher greeted the class and said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said "Give me Liberty, or give me death?"


She saw only a sea of blank faces, except for that of Toshiba, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775," said the boy.

"Now," said the teacher, "Who said 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth?"

Again, no response except from Toshiba: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863."

The teacher snapped at the class, "You should be ashamed. Toshiba, who is new to our country, knows more about it than you do."

As she turned to write something on the blackboard, she heard a loud whisper: "Damned Japanese."

"Who said that?" she demanded.

Toshiba put his hand up. "Lee Iacocca, 1982," he said.

Grammas Bernina Sewing Machine

My grandmother is 92 going on 42....she is a ball of fire.....

She still works part-time and sews alot....she sews for a local pet supply store , usually cat nip toys....her latest product for them was red lobsters...the color sticks with Mr. Fix-it because when he finally convinced Gram she could trust him with her BERNINA, thats all he found loaded inside all the panels her removed to try and figure out why the needle was striking the base plate. There was so much residual red felt that it was forcing the needle forward striking the base plate...

Gram brought this same machine to the local Bernina dealer last year they charged her $162.00. It still did not work as she had hoped. It took the prospect of another large cleaning bill to convince her to let Mr. Fix-it look at it.....

Mr. Fix-it took all the access panels off the machine. He used air gently to blow all the fabric dust from all the dark corners he lubed what needed lubricating and put it all back together, noting that 2 bulbs were burned out. They are a special bulb, acquired from the dealer only...of course. We called the dealer , they are about 20 miles away. We went there, they could not locate them, and all their tech's were at sewing machine repair school in Kentucky (is there such a thing?)

It took us another trip several weeks later to secure these bulbs. We got her 2 extras also. Guess what they cost each?  $4.....OMG...

We are going over to Grammas later today to install them for her...Mr. Fix-it called her to let her know we would be over.....she said "It's about time!..."  and "am I going to owe you for the repair bill?"

This is a rare picture of smiling Gram and our niece, Tal.

Toyota Highlander front wheel bearing growling.....

Finally after the holidays and school vacations have passed we are finally to squeeze in what we anticipate to be a 2+ day job replacing the front wheel bearings on the 2003 Toyota Highlander we diagnosed over a month ago.....

The first thing to come off is the nut for the sway bar link......what do you think happens? Well, we are in the liquid calcium capital of the world....New England. They are rusted in place....we have to cut them off.....the truck came in on Thursday and we purchased all the parts we thought we would need, but there are going to be parts we could not anticipate such as these sway bar bolts. We have a very good rapport with out local Toyota dealer, so we get him on the telephone right away and let him know what we need and we will probably be calling him again before the day is out. 

Next the caliper bolts come out and it is tied off entirely to the inner fender liner , the ABS sensor is disconnected....and

Notice the bearing assembly to the right , only one side was growling, but a good rule of thumb is to replace both because just when one is done the other side will go bad, MURPHY'S LAW.

Mr. Fix-it uses the 20-ton press his grandfather built and his father painted in the 50's to push these rusted bad boys out and hones out the residual rust and starts re-assembly. Remember from an earlier post that we use anti-sieze in this shop religiously. So we paint it on and all is re-assembled. The only other victim in this scenario was the dust covers for the ABS tone ring. Apparently at the local dealer once they rip them off, they are very soft, almost aluminum -like and technicians cant be bothered to reinstall them ?^&*&...why not? I think they hope ABS sensor goes bad so they can get more work into their shops. It takes another minute or two to reinstall them and only a few dollars apiece to replace them.....we are not looking for any more in the shop right now, so we aren't going to try and create it.....

Putting this back together goes more smoothly than taking it apart. While the strut tower was out Mr. Fix-it also changed the castle nuts along with installing new stainless steel cotter pins so when the lower ball joints go bad, and they eventually will, he can get them out easily.  Because with it all together it would be almost impossible to get these rusted parts out....a little preparation ahead for a job that will probably be done down the road.

Toilet, Tenant, Time.... Too Much and Too little......

Too much to do and too little time to do it......

I went into the basement of one of our rental houses, a house Mr. fix-it and I also live in.....there is water coming through the floor and it sounds like the water is running......I am somewhat panicked. Since getting new tenants 1 year ago we have had to deal with an array of problems.....the tenants are very nice but a bit absent-minded.....

Last week I had to call them to tell tham that their bedroom window was open about 6 inches to the outside, it was in the single digits and snowing outside , it did not seem to bother them that it was freezing outside and all their heat was literally getting burned up and was flying out the window.....
In the summer they were running the two 5000 watt air conditioners in their windows while other windows in the apartment were wide open.....?*(&^^
Several weeks ago I went downstairs in the front hallway to get the mail, it was maybe 20 degrees in the hallway, the door to their apartment was wide open and noone was mailto:.....@#$%^&&&

I cannot figure them out, they are only in their early 60's??? Maybe pre-Alzheimers??? They make me somewhat nervous.

The latest escapade is the water coming through the floor.... I go upstairs and bang on the back door, I hear someone coming. The door is opened and I greet Mrs. Tenant and her 2 year old granddaughter.  I go right in to the bathroom, Mrs. Tenant says that the tiolet will flush but solids won't go down, they have to plunge constantly..... I take the tank cover off and look in, all looks okay, I get down on my hands and knees and start looking.....almost immediately I see something in the throat of the toilet. I reach in and pull out a clear plastic fork...the tines are facing out.  I fish it out and show it to Mrs. Tenant...she says" how did that get in there?"....I look at her and say " Maybe the 2 year old?" Mrs Tenant says "can't be..." .....I disagree.....i was young once I remember flushing alot of stuff down the toilet that did not belong in the toilet.

I tell Mrs. Tenant that I will check with her again tomorrow to see how it is flushing.....
 

road trip to marthas vineyard ......

We had a seminar on the south shore on Friday so we decided to take a couple of days and visit some friends/customers on Marthas Vineyard..
Our first stop was to check out my sisters boat which she leaves parked at her friends house in West Tisbury...the gas cans were still full and her battery was still in the boat, it is 8 degrees with 12 " of snow on the ground......will this boat run in the spring? ...probably not....
We empty the fuel out of the two five gallon gas cans, but we cannot run it now there is no access to water...lets keep our fingers crossed...although I am sure that won't help.
We don't remove the battery because her friend is in Puerto Rico for the winter and all the buildings are locked up so there is no way to leave it, it looks like she may be buying a battery in the spring..^%$&^#@@@

Our next stop is Our friend Johns house. We dropped in on him last night and he asked us to help him with a project. A tree limb has fallen in the parking lot of Alleys General Store ( this is the oldest continually running mercantile in the country) his family owned it for generations and he still sorts the mail over there, but it was sold to the Marthas Vineyard Preservation Trust years ago...it is a very eclectic and cool place, although the prices are a bit steep... the last time this Homelite chainsaw was run was the last time we ran it....we cut some bushes on the side of his house with it...he says 5 years ago, I will bet it is closer to 10 years ago. See the picture to the right , if you look closely you can see our clotherpin repair.....
Mr. Fix-it first checks to see if there is fuel in it, there doesn't appear to be. He then checks and fills the bar oil. The throttle lever is flopping around so we have to improvise....to hold the throttle open we stick a clothespin to prop open the throttle...Mr. Fix-it tries to pull it over, it sputters several times then it catches., and then it stalls...finally it is running but the chain is not spinning. One side of the chain is free but the other side is rusted to bar, we pry it out with a screwdriver and work the chain back and forth until it is free. Mr. Fix-it takes the handle apart and finds that the throttle cable has come undone...thankfully it is not broken. He reattaches it and puts it back together. Now for a test run, John gets a piece of wood....it starts very slowly to cut through and continues very slowly.....the chain is so dull that it is smoking, it will not cut. The fallen tree over at Alleys will not be cut today. It is Sunday on Marthas Vineyard and the old adage is "Slow down you're on-island".....meaning nothing is open today so you won't get a new chain and you won't get anyone th sharpen your old one....not today and maybe not anytime soon. Islanders march to their own drummers.

This last picture is of an interesting barn in Edgartown a garage on each side and living quarters above , a very nice-looking structure.....it would be a cool fix-it shop.

LIVE GOOD,
deb