Rockin' & a Rollin' in the wrong place or another story from the "Shade Tree Mechanic"

Why is it that for one step forward, we always feel like we are actually taking two steps backwards? Last month, the VA State Inspection was due on my car. I had been told on the past two inspections that my brakes were very close to the minimum thickness. Being that I only drive approximately 6,000 miles a year on this car, I figured they would eventually start making noise when it was really time. Also, as I was going to replace the pads and rotors, if it went metal to metal, it wouldn't matter. This year, I thought my number was up on the brakes and ordered the parts on-line. Usually, they show up in a timely manner, but this time, they have yet to arrive. Since I needed to get my car inspected before the end of November, I figured that I would chance that the brakes would pass one more time and dropped the car off for the inspection. I thought  that maybe the car might pass, but if it didn't, it would be better to have a rejection sticker, which gives me 15 days to effect any repairs, then to drive around with a dead inspection sticker, risking a ticket and fine. About mid day, I got a call from the repair shop letting me know that my car had in fact failed the inspection, but not for what I thought! The brakes once again were close (obviously a subjective opinion), but passed the state minimum. What caused my car to fail were Motor Mounts and a broken tail light! Three mounts in fact! I was not surprised to hear this, as the car had been driving a little strangely and this seemed to explain why. Of course, the shop wanted to replace them for me, but I had other ideas. The shop is conveniently located across the parking lot from my office, but they are a Mercedes  repair shop and charge commensurate rates for their labor. I paid a visit to my friends at www.Rockauto.com and purchased the three offending mounts for around $50. I then arranged to borrow the lift at one of my fellow Shade Tree Mechanics' home.

Here is the 1st mount that we replaced:

The center section is barely hanging on by one of the four attachment points.

Here is what a new one looks like:

The next one was not much better:

As you can see, it is only hanging on by one attachment point also.

Here's a new one:

The 3rd mount actually could have lasted a little longer as none of the attachment points had broken yet, but were obviously cracking. Additionally, stress from being overworked due to the other mounts being broken explained the recommendation to replace it. 

As far as the tail light is concerned, that should arrive tomorrow. The broken one had a dime size hole in it. The last two inspections, I had taped over the hole with clear tape. According to the shop, Virginia no longer allows this cheap repair. In my opinion, they would have ignored it if I had remembered to freshen the tape.

Still have the brakes to do, but that will have to wait for another time.....

Suebedo Resurrection

As I understand it, the shade tree mechanic is a dying breed. Growing up, I helped my dad work on cars, doing everything from oil changes to exhaust systems. My dad imparted a love of all things mechanical on me. And to this day, I do all the repairs on my cars that I can. The ability to work on cars has saved me countless thousands of dollars. Thanks Dad!

The point of this post is our 3rd car, a 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback, driven by my teenage son. We bought it used with around 100,00 miles on it, and so far it has been relatively reliable. As expected, I've had to do some repairs such as brakes and both transaxles. It needed a CV boot and I found that I could replace both axles for under $100! Didn't make sense to me to just replace a CV boot. It's also needed a gas filler neck (a common Legacy problem), and knock sensor (another common Legacy problem), and tires. The last thing I've done were the fan (drive) belts. Originally, I had planned on replacing the belts along with the Timing Belt in the spring. Unfortunately, the drive belts failed and I had to replace them. Not a week after doing this, I got a call from my son that the car had quit on him while he sat at a stop light. A good Samaritan help pushed the car to the side of the road where I found him. I looked under the hood and found that the drive belts had come off and jammed the drive pulleys causing the car to quit. I figured it was due to something I did or didn't do when I replaced the belts. I don't usually have problems like this when I work on cars, so was a little perturbed that I was having issues. We got the car towed home and with a little more looking realized that the problem was a little bigger than I anticipated. When looking at the belt pulleys, it was apparent that they were no longer lining up. Especially the main drive pulley on the crankshaft. I started to pull apart the front of the engine and found this:

What you are seeing is the Crankshaft pulley or as some people call it, the Harmonic Balancer. It's not supposed to be in 2 pieces! It's supposed to look like this:

After a little research, I found that Subaru suggests replacement of the balancer when replacement of the Timing Belt is performed. It is a two piece bonded unit that will fail after time. The belt had been replaced, but obviously this had not. I think the stress of the new belts put this part over the edge and caused it to fail along with causing additional damage such as:

What you are seeing it the center timing belt cover where the pulley grooved out a nice little bit of plastic. A undamaged one looks like this:

Now here is where the story takes an interesting turn. Once the pulley has been removed, the engine should be able to start up and run on it's own. When I tried to start it, it would crank, but just would not fire. After consulting with one of my fellow shade tree mechanics, we suspected that the timing belt might have jumped some teeth. With this suspicion, the possibility of a high dollar repair just increased. One thing I learned about this flat four engine is that it is an interference engine. When it has Timing Belt failure, the valves will make contact with the pistons usually bending them beyond usage. If this happens, you might as well start shopping for a replacement engine. These engines are shoe horned into the engine bay and the cost to remove and repair the heads can exceed a low mileage used engine. With this in mind, I proceeded to pull the timing covers off and with the help of my Subaru Guru, we found the the timing belt had jumped 3 teeth! We check the compression (one way to check for bent valves) and reset the timing. Woo hoo! The engine started and seemed to run fine. Being this deep into the engine and no apparent further damage, I ordered a Timing Belt Kit with all of the idler pulleys, a new belt tensioner, and water pump. We think the tensioner was going bad and allowed the belt to jump the teeth. Here is what the front of the engine looks like without the timing covers on:

Along with the kit, I replaced a bunch of the coolant hoses that looked original to the car. Once together, Suebedo fired right up like she had never missed a beat! 

What did I learn from this experience?

1. Never rely on someone else doing all of the recommended maintenance and proper repairs on a used car.
2. Never buy a car that has lived it's early life in the Northeast as this one did. Every time I tried to take something apart on this car a bolt broke or something didn't want to come apart without some extra persuasion.
3. This car is like a Chevy or a Ford. They made millions of these cars and the parts are plentiful and easy to find at a good price. Rockauto.com is the king for the best parts prices. I was surprised at how much cheaper they are than any other parts seller on the internet. For factory only parts weluvsubaruparts.com was the place to go.
4. In the end, I spent around $500 to get Suebedo back on the road. If I had to pay someone to do this job, it would have cost me around $2000.

Thank you Dad again for the love of mechanics and the ability to turn a wrench the right way. I love you.....

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Every 2 years we attend my wife's cousins reunion somewhere in the U.S. The site depends on which branch of the family is hosting. This year it was in South Dakota. Usually my wife and her sister try to plan a vacation around the reunion. This year was no exception and we did 5 days in the western part of the state. During the course of this tour, I took over 1,000 photos. What follows are some of the highlights. 

We flew into Sioux Falls and picked up a rental vehicle for our 5 days of touring we planned to do. We rented a GMC Arcadia, which turned out to be a great choice. It was plenty roomy and fit our needs perfectly. We took care of some local business and headed down the road to our 1st destination which was the Badlands. Along the way we made some stops:

The Corn Palace; Mitchell, SD. You only need to visit this place once......

The Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge at Chamberlain, where Lewis and Clark crossed the Missouri River along with a few other things.....

The route we traveled through South Dakota was I-90. It was the straightest and most boring road I have ever traveled. It also had gates on the exits that are closed during inclement weather. I guess, when it snows out here, you don't want to be stuck on the road because no one will hear you freeze to death when you are trapped in your vehicle in 6'-10' of snow! After trying not to play out any scenes from National Lampoon's "Vacation", we finally arrived in the Badlands. The 1st set of photos is from driving into Badlands National Park. We had to stop before we made it to our lodging to take pictures. What an amazing place....

After some photo taking, we headed to our lodging which was within Badlands National Park at Cedar Pass Lodge. We stayed in brand new rustic cabins that were great! If you ever make it to the Badlands, I would highly recommend this place. Make sure you call at least 6 months ahead as this place is one of the few places to stay here and the rooms were in high demand. Food was OK, but the accommodations were superb! 

On our 2nd day, we got up early to catch the sunrise and some early morning views... 

Didn't see any, but this is for real!

Here is the inspiration for Mt. Rushmore......

....and then we did a 3 mile hike through the Badlands.

We have our own pyramid.....

We reached the farthest point on our hike, an area called Saddle Pass, and this is the view.... 

....on our way back...

Later that day, we visited the Saddle Pass area we saw from up top...... 

Looking up to where we were looking down......

....and in and around Saddle Pass...

...we were not alone...

Ferocious Pairie Dog defending his den...

Day 3 found us on the road to Mt. Rushmore. Before we left the area, we paid a visit to the Minuteman Missile National Site. This is a decommissioned Minuteman II ICBM site where you can visit the control center and an actual missile silo. We did both. If you are interested in Cold War history, this is a must see. Admission is FREE, but you have to go to the visitor center to get timed tickets for the tour of the underground control center. These tickets go fast, so you will need to get there early. People start lining up as early at 7:00am. BTW, the silo is the real deal, but the missile is a dummy.....

Site Commander's quarters.

Mess area. 

Welcome mat.

Complex layout. 

Security. 

Actual control center is like a bomb shelter and buried about 2-3 stories below ground. To get into it, you ride an elevator down, but if that fails, you get to climb a ladder.....

A little Cold War Art....

The door to the control center....

No doubt, meant to deter unwanted visitors, or detonating nukes.....

The tunnel/entryway into the actual control center... 

Communications.... 

The Hot Seat! 

I need the key..... 

This is serious business! 

and on to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills....

After a day spent in and around Mount Rushmore, we went to Jewel Cave National Monument. Jewel Cave is the third longest cave in the world with over 168 miles of mapped and surveyed passages, and they haven't finished! The 1st photo depicts the total cave system. The following photo shows the area that we walked through. It took us about 1hr 40mins to complete the tour. 

This photo shows a blow up of the area we walked through.

Photos of formations don't do them justice! 

With the cave tour done, we got back on the road to Custer State Park by way of Sylvan Lake and  Crazy Horse. We had planned on going to Crazy Horse, but saw it from the road and decided the view was enough.

Sylvan Lake is a man made lake situated within the Custer State Park area. The lake was created in 1881 when Theodore Reder built a dam across Sunday Gulch. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the Lake. It has to be one of the most beautiful sites we saw.

The damn dam.....

After Sylvan Lake we made our way to our nights lodging at Custer State Park by way of the Needles Highway. Our 1st stop was within the Needle Eye. An amazing set of rock formations. Another incredible feat by Mother Nature.....

We drove through this one lane tunnel carved by the CCC in the 1930's.

Killer squirrels......

Mother Nature making a gesture.......

 We finished our tour of the Needles Highway and made our way to Creakside Lodge, where we were spending the night. We spotted an elusive Elk....

 and a Buffalo. Little did we know at the time, this was only the tip of the iceberg for Buffalo.......

Our accommodations were excellent as well as the meals at the State Game Lodge Restaurant. Our waiter, Don, was a fabulous host. If you are going to go to Custer State Park, State Game Lodge or the Creekside Lodge are highly recommended.

If you want to see Buffalo, this is never a problem in Custer State Park. We were trapped, delayed, held up, etc. numerous times by the Buffalo.

Next on our itinerary for the day was a trip to Mount Coolidge which features a Fire Station that is manned by rangers on the lookout for fire in the area. It's located at the top of a 1 mile gravel fire road (not for the faint of heart) that takes you to approximately 6,000'. The station is not open to the public, but the observation deck is and provides spectacular views of the area. Some of the sites seen are Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Hearny Mt.(highest pt. in this area of SD), the Needles Hwy., and the Badlands. If you can handle the drive, well worth the trip.

The Ranger Station at Mount Coolidge.

Next was a hike on....

A tall Pine....

A babbling brook....

This is about where we got trapped by the roaming Buffalo for about 30 minutes. We had to wait until the whole herd milled through the area crossing the trail. Just don't look em' in the eye!

This was our last excursion prior to returning to Sioux Falls for the actual reunion. We left early the next morning to be met by rain and a parade of miserable bikers heading out for Bike Week in Sturgis, SD. Better them than us!

What I learned on our vacation:

1. My wife and her sister are the best vacation planners on earth. They exceeded all expectations for accommodations and arrangements.
2. Don't look a male Buffalo in the eye! They take this as an aggressive act.
3. The Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota should be on everyone's bucket list for places to visit before you die.
4. You only need to visit Mount Rushmore once. It never changes.....