Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[Out-to-Lunch]

Yet another battery replacement post, bordering on saga/complaint. Our friend (wifes's "girlfriend") had recent surgery, so has been unable to drive. After about a month, she asked me to make sure her car was still in operating condition. It had just gotten cold here, and the starter didn't come close to turning over. I assured her I would throw a new battery into her 2016 Ford Escape.

I bought one (group 96R), and showed up to install it. Jeez, I didn't know how you could possibly extricate the battery! It was wedged into the back corner of the engine compartment, with no way to take it out.

A brief consultation with "Dr. Youtube" showed whiche subsystems to remove (viz., in this case, the air intake system). Then, old battery could be slid out, and new battery could be (barely) attached and slid in.

Even including some exotic cars, I have never encountered such a problematic batterty placement before!

 

[RobbieB]

Me too!

Drove 25 miles up to see the boat, drove 5 more to have lunch. Got out car wouldn't start. Just a click, not even a crank, dead.

Called AAA and they came out, verified the battery was stone dead (only 2 years old like the car) and replaced the battery. In the parking lot for $176. Really glad I bought into AAA -

Christmas Eve. Could have been Christmas Eve blues. Yeah, no warning with these new batteries. Die w/o any warning at all. No slow cranking, no dim lights, just dead.

 

[Sunset]

Me too!

Drove 25 miles up to see the boat, drove 5 more to have lunch. Got out car wouldn't start. Just a click, not even a crank, dead.

Called AAA and they came out, verified the battery was stone dead (only 2 years old like the car) and replaced the battery. In the parking lot for $176. Really glad I bought into AAA -

Christmas Eve. Could have been Christmas Eve blues. Yeah, no warning with these new batteries. Die w/o any warning at all. No slow cranking, no dim lights, just dead.

I had that happen once to a car, right after going slowly over a speed bump. I was told it was the battery shorting out across 2 plates.
I much prefer the slow cranking failures.

 

[Souschef]

Me too!

Drove 25 miles up to see the boat, drove 5 more to have lunch. Got out car wouldn't start. Just a click, not even a crank, dead.

Called AAA and they came out, verified the battery was stone dead (only 2 years old like the car) and replaced the battery. In the parking lot for $176. Really glad I bought into AAA -

Christmas Eve. Could have been Christmas Eve blues. Yeah, no warning with these new batteries. Die w/o any warning at all. No slow cranking, no dim lights, just dead.

FYI. I had the same problem. AAA will not charge you a service call if you bought a battery.

 

[Sunset]

FYI. I had the same problem. AAA will not charge you a service call if you bought a battery.

Do you mean buy from them, or have one in the trunk you already purchased ?

 

[Souschef]

Do you mean buy from them, or have one in the trunk you already purchased ?

One you buy from them. My car died in a parking lot. I had the choice of buying the battery from AAA guy, or having me get jump started to go to the local parts store.

I felt it was wiser to have AAA replace the battery. One less operation.

 

[RobbieB]

The really cool thing was they texted me battery quotes for $250. I just told the tech to replace it knowing it was going to be high. When I got the bill for $176 I was happy!

 

[homestead]

Our battery in our truck once died at a Circuit City store so you can tell it was quite a while ago. Luckily there was a slope to the mostly empty parking lot so I pushed in the clutch and let it roll and pick up speed and popped the clutch and it started. Drove home and replaced the battery later.

 

[travelover]

I had that happen once to a car, right after going slowly over a speed bump.........

Happened to me in a 1964 VW bug. I hit a big bump and it wouldn't start. When I pulled up the back seat to check the battery, there was just a big hole in the floor with the battery cables hanging out the hole, terminal posts still attached. I push started it and drove it to the battery store.

 

[Walt34]

Happened to me in a 1964 VW bug. I hit a big bump and it wouldn't start. When I pulled up the back seat to check the battery, there was just a big hole in the floor with the battery cables hanging out the hole, terminal posts still attached. I push started it and drove it to the battery store.

I'm guessing that the battery store was not equipped for the sheet metal repair of replacing/repairing the battery box. So did they just put a piece of plywood across the hole under the seat?

 

[RobbieB]

I just looked up the same battery 800 CCA, 3 yr warranty at O'Reilly auto parts and $160.

Not installed of course and not in a parking lot miles away. Difficult install, professional install recommended.

I like AAA -

 

[MC Rider]

I just looked up the same battery 800 CCA, 3 yr warranty at O'Reilly auto parts and $160.

Not installed of course and not in a parking lot miles away. Difficult install, professional install recommended.

I like AAA -

Just one tow makes the membership fee worth it.

 

[RobbieB]

Yeah, you do get value for the dough. Not to mention that you get it when you most need it; car won't run far away from home.

A real expletive moment, you press start and nothing happens followed by "Oh F***"

 

[MC Rider]

Couple years ago visiting my daughters family, left their place in the dark, no street lights out there, backed into ditch and got stuck. 1600 mile from home, in AR. They were about 15 -20 minutes outside town. AAA showed and pulled me out in under an hour, on Sunday night I think it was. Next time I open the door and look for the pavement.

 

[NW-Bound]

Me too!

Drove 25 miles up to see the boat, drove 5 more to have lunch. Got out car wouldn't start. Just a click, not even a crank, dead.

Called AAA and they came out, verified the battery was stone dead (only 2 years old like the car) and replaced the battery. In the parking lot for $176. Really glad I bought into AAA -

Christmas Eve. Could have been Christmas Eve blues. Yeah, no warning with these new batteries. Die w/o any warning at all. No slow cranking, no dim lights, just dead.

The last time I suffered a "sudden-death battery syndrome" was 40 years ago. Since then, they all gave some last gasps before kicking the bucket, and that's the normal way a respectable battery should die.

And one time, by accident, I discovered one reason for the sudden death. Power from the battery was intermittent, as seen from the car lights. Not dim, but bright, then nothing, then bright.

Ah hah, a poor post connection. No, it was the connection from the post to the internal plates being broken off. A manufacturing defect. And here how's I discovered it.

While messing around trying to tighten the clamp around the post, I caused the post to make a connection again to the internal plates, causing an internal spark inside the battery! No, I did not see the spark, but it ignited the O2 and H2 inside the battery, blew out the caps and threw acid on my shirt. Oh ****!

I still remember that incidence, which happened at my wife's workplace in the evening as I came to rescue her. I was of course scared and mad as hell and could have shot that battery with a 12-gauge.

 

[travelover]

I'm guessing that the battery store was not equipped for the sheet metal repair of replacing/repairing the battery box. So did they just put a piece of plywood across the hole under the seat?

Luckily the well on the other side of the seat was not rusted out and I just moved the battery to the other side. Gotta love a $50 car.

 

[Sunset]

....
While messing around trying to tighten the clamp around the post, I caused the post to make a connection again to the internal plates, causing an internal spark inside the battery! No, I did not see the spark, but it ignited the O2 and H2 inside the battery, blew out the caps and threw acid on my shirt. Oh ****!

....

I'm glad you told this story after I changed the batteries on our cars. I was careful but since I hadn't done it in 3 yrs for some odd reason I felt nervous.

So I wore safety glasses in case the thing exploded.

 

[Surewhitey]

Client was chunking some smallish Sony speakers and I needed a system for the garage. I had a cheap, like $5 Bluetooth speaker (sound of doo doo), & I direct wired the new speakers and wallah, Bluetooth big sound for practicality free...

 

[John Galt III]

Looks like a fence post on my split rail fence has rotted off beneath the surface. It is leaning, and I can move it easily. In the past I have spent an hour or a half hour per day, over many days, digging out the old post and putting in a brand new one. The back holds up OK that way. But this time I will check out Home Depot and Lowes for a gadget that might straighten out the old post, without all that digging. Some piece of metal to bang down next to the post. Depends how ugly it is. If too ugly, I think I will bite the bullet and do it the manual labor way, lol. I saw a bunch of options on google, and they are pretty ugly and obvious. I'll see what the box stores have. Maybe a good spring weather, soft soil project to look forward to, if I end up digging.

 

[Sunset]

I replaced the shutoff valve for the fridge water line. Cutting of the old one, and then installing a compression fit one.

The old one, had rotted away the rubber inside. I took it apart to look why it no longer could shut off fully. Annoying that they are like the old washer based water taps, but don't use a screw inside so cannot replace the washer.

I had to put some C-clamps on the the plastic water line to stop the water flow, when the old fridge was there as the old shutoff simply couldn't shutoff.

The clamps didn't damage the line, so that was nice.

 

[NW-Bound]

Took apart the refrigerant lines of the master bedroom mini-split to install the Flareseals in hope to stop the slow refrigerant leaks. I discovered the leaks 6 months ago but waited till now to open up the joints to fix the leak once for all.

I did the larger living room mini-split yesterday, and as I suspected the leak was at the larger refrigerant line at the indoor unit. The large line is the low-pressure side in the cooling mode, but it becomes the high-pressure side in the heating mode. The larger copper line has a larger mating surface between the flared line and the brass fitting. Thus, the leak is worse in the winter than in the summer.

With R410a systems, low pressure means 100-150 psi, while high pressure means up to 500 psi.

I was glad to find that not much refrigerant was lost in past 6 months when the minisplits were in cooling mode. There's a procedure to use to permit as little refrigerant loss as possible when the lines are opened up. After tightening up all the 4 connections, it took minimal R401a to refill the lines after I evacuated the lines with a vacuum pump.

Come summer, I will check the line pressure again to ensure that no refrigerant is lost.

R410a will be discontinued soon. I paid $200 for a 25-lb tank of R410a. The price is now $400. This tank will last me forever.


PS. The leaks left telltale signs of oil at the joints. I bought an oil injector to recharge 1/2 oz of ester oil (about a shot glass) as a guess to replace what was lost.

 

[jollystomper]

Our 20 year old washing machine suddenly went psycho on us. One day I did a couple a loads and all was the fine. The next day DW did a loas and the machine went into an endless loop, running through all the settings, *and* adding water during the spin cycles. The spinning head and vomit from "The Exorcist" came to mind...

It is a Kenmore model, and after doing research on similar issues, the likely culprit appeared to be the timer. Fortunately timers for our model are still available, albeit mostly used/remanufactured versions. And from the Youtube videos it seemed my my kind of repair - unscrew and lift the control panel, take off the knob, unscrew timer, unplug timer, install new timer and do the reverse. No rewiring or water involved, just a couple of screwdrivers needed.

Since it was not a sure bet that the timer was the issue, I started cheap and went with a remanufactured one (half the price of brand new). Part arrived, and it was a quick replace and install. Turned on washing machine - it runs normal! Yay!

 

[Freedom56]

Several months ago I installed low voltage LED landscape lights on our property. I noticed that when the lights were on that the garage door opener remote stopped working on both cars and also the keypad at the door. I started troubleshooting it and found that while the lights were on the range of the remote was about 4-5 feet. I used a spectrum analyzer and a far field antenna around the garage door opener to see if there was any radiated RF interference around the garage door opener when the lights were off and on. I saw none. I then attached near field probes probes on the analyzer and found broadband RFI in the range of 5 to 470 MHz at each light. I checked at the transformer where the landscape wire connects and found the same noise entering the transformer. Garage doors opener receivers normally operate at 290-390 MHz. I added snap on ferrite beads on the landscape wires at each transformer from each string of lights. That change extended the range to about 20 feet. I then wrapped the power cable to the garage door opener around a ferrite toroid and did the same at the power cables to each transformer. The remote control range was back to about 120 feet. Problem solved.

 

[travelover]

I use a small solar panel to power a sprinkler controller, separated by about 25 feet. I noticed the battery was dead again and found rodents have once again chewed the wire between the devices in two. I spliced the wire and still no joy. On further examination the wire was chewed in a number of places. So, I bought 30 feet of 1/2" PVC pipe and ran a new wire through it, which should thwart the little buggers, but we shall l see.

 

[NW-Bound]

Several months ago I installed low voltage LED landscape lights on our property. I noticed that when the lights were on that the garage door opener remote stopped working on both cars and also the keypad at the door. I started troubleshooting it and found that while the lights were on the range of the remote was about 4-5 feet. I used a spectrum analyzer and a far field antenna around the garage door opener to see if there was any radiated RF interference around the garage door opener when the lights were off and on. I saw none. I then attached near field probes probes on the analyzer and found broadband RFI in the range of 5 to 470 MHz at each light. I checked at the transformer where the landscape wire connects and found the same noise entering the transformer. Garage doors opener receivers normally operate at 290-390 MHz. I added snap on ferrite beads on the landscape wires at each transformer from each string of lights. That change extended the range to about 20 feet. I then wrapped the power cable to the garage door opener around a ferrite toroid and did the same at the power cables to each transformer. The remote control range was back to about 120 feet. Problem solved.

Oohh, spectrum analyzer! That's a sexy piece of instrument. I have two HP analyzers myself.

I use a small solar panel to power a sprinkler controller, separated by about 25 feet. I noticed the battery was dead again and found rodents have once again chewed the wire between the devices in two. I spliced the wire and still no joy. On further examination the wire was chewed in a number of places. So, I bought 30 feet of 1/2" PVC pipe and ran a new wire through it, which should thwart the little buggers, but we shall l see.

PVC pipe is like chewing gum to these animals.