Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[38Chevy454]

Replaced the disposal in my sister's house. Fairly straightforward, hardest part was the hard wired electrical connection vs the much easier plug in. About 1.5 hours start to finish.

[harley]

I had a strange one this past weekend. DW pulled out the bottom drawer under the oven in our new(ish) townhouse, and the drawer tipped forward and fell on the floor. The builders hadn't attached the screws at the back of the sliders. We didn't notice for a while because as long as you didn't pull it out all the way it was fine. Just had to lay on the floor and reach into a relatively small space to get the screws attached. Not a big deal, but just another sign of lazy-ass workmanship.

[John Galt III]

Quote:

Originally Posted by njhowie Noticed it just one time? Ignore until it is persistent. If it happens again, dab your fingers in it, feel/smell it to determine what kind of liquid it is. Then can figure where to check next. It's also possible the liquid was already on the driveway when you parked the car over it. Stick a few months ago is highly likely not the cause of something happening today. As for the obvious question...did you have the A/C on before turning the car off?

Hi NJ. More than a one time thing. I thought it stopped at one point, but it is back. I have a 2 foot diameter zone of spots now. I never have the A/C on. Defroster, yes, but the spots show up even when defroster is not used. Seems like something is oozing out when the car is driven, slowly oozes down the engine/trans, and the final few drops drip off after I park it. The 'good news' is that it isn't my recent changeover to synthetic motor oil. The underside of the filter, and the crankcase are bone dry. A silver lining!

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Galt III Hi NJ. More than a one time thing. I thought it stopped at one point, but it is back. I have a 2 foot diameter zone of spots now. I never have the A/C on. Defroster, yes, but the spots show up even when defroster is not used.

In most cars the defroster also dehumidifies the air by running the A/C compressor and directing the now-chilled air through the heater core to heat it back up before directing it to the windshield vents. So yes, running the dehumidifier can (but not always) result in water condensate draining onto the floor.

[Ronstar]

Push mower wouldn't start. Cleaned the carb - now runs.

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar Push mower wouldn't start. Cleaned the carb - now runs.

That's what I said (above), though you said it much more succinctly than I did. LOL.

[BlueberryPie]

My son noticed a puddle under the washer. Wiped it off, saw water slowly build up. I took the top off, it looks like the electrovalves are slowly leaking at the top, as in watch the beads form and fall off every 10s or so.
Quick Google search confirms that they can leak there.
Quick search on Amazon shows I can get the assembly with hot/cold valves mounted on the proper Y-shaped manifold. $23, free shipping with Prime. Worth a try.



3 days waiting for the part to show up, 1/2h to replace it and voila, breathed new life in the washer "good as new".

[njhowie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar Push mower wouldn't start. Cleaned the carb - now runs.

Push mower was running soft past couple seasons. Likely would have gotten to the point of yours. I didn't want to spend time cleaning or replacing the carb. Used this stuff, and while mowing after 4th refueling engine revved back up and has new life. I'm now also adding to riding mower and power washer fuel.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K9FCLPZ

[ls99]

Had pedestal from old dryer, out in gatage. Had moved old as unit and unbolted pedestal in garage. When I bought a replacement clothes dryer, just put it in place. Finally got around to lug pedestal back into basement and put dryer on it. Now the washer and dryer drums are same level. While had things apart, cleaned vent pipe of accumulated fluff. Used electric leaf blower to move the stuff out. Also replaced a section of flex hose with 4" rigid pipe.

[Out-to-Lunch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qs Laptop I did the annual ritual of tuning up my 20+ year old Lawn Boy 2-cycle self-propelled 21" lawnmower, but this time I did so with the intention of giving it to my youngest son. First off, I got the blade sharpened at local hardware store--$10.00 plus tax. Reinstall the blade on the mower. Now the fun part. If anybody else does this chore you know how much fun it is. Greasy caked on finely chopped grass clipping in the carburetor and throttle linkage area, filthy air cleaner, tons of dried grass clippings underneath the drive belt housing, etc. Lots of opportunities to get dirty, greasy hands, plus the annual battle to start the thing the first time. It was so bad I had to remove the pull start housing, remove the gas tank, and pull the air cleaner, linkage and carburetor housing. ... How many of you have been here?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Out-to-Lunch I definitely have been there! But now I am lazy and just treat myself to a new carb from Amazon for (amazingly) <$20. That is right, I now treat carbs as a maintenance item.

Well, today was the first time I tried to fire up the mower this spring, after changing the carb last summer. Wouldn't start after a number of pulls, so I hit it with starting fluid (ether), and it fired right up and promptly died. Did that once or twice more, then bent over to take a closer look. OH YEAH! When I installed that carb last summer, I also installed a fuel shutoff valve for winter storage. Opened the valve and it started right up!

[38Chevy454]

Performed coolant flush and refill on 2 of my vehicles today. Jeep was more hassle, had to remove a skid plate and the grille to access the radiator drain. Flushed 2 times with distilled water, then filled with new coolant. Other vehicle Explorer was easy, same 2 times flush and then refill with new coolant. Probably saved $300-400 vs having it done.

[BruinBones]

Not actually a repair, but I just converted my 20-year old Trek road bike to a flatbar bike. New flat handlebar required new shifters, brakes, cables, and grips. A couple of YouTube videos helped make the project pretty easy. This gives new life to the most reliable bicycle I ever had. I couldn't stand to part with it.

[grasshopper]

Yawn, replaced the heater defroster in our 23 yo GE side by side. ordered another for a spare just to make sure that the GE goes 26 years.

[MC Rider]

Got back to the painting project I have been procrastinating on.
Did more prep for the actual painting. Blue tape etc.
Opened the bucket of drywall mud and found mold.
Hopefully I can scrape it off like mold on cheese and do my thing.


Refreshed my memory on why I don't like painting.

[BlueberryPie]

My window well was flooding last night and would have reached the window if I hadn't caught it in time. Seems like a drainage problem I need to troubleshoot. In the meantime I put a small automatic sump pump in the window well to be safe

[John Galt III]

Gave up on my plan to repair the exhaust on my Versa. My repair worked, to stop the leak, but I don't think it would have passed inspection, which is coming up soon. So I had it welded by an exhaust shop. Cost $90.

[Finance Dave]

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[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finance Dave .

FinanceDave is working on his keyboard right now. The only key that works is "."

[sdtech]

Replaced the old mulching mower blade on a toro with a Maxpower blade from Amazon. Glad to see it makes a major improvement in how fine the grass is mulched and leaves almost no clumps on the side track.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harley Quote: Originally Posted by ERD50 View Post Probably not a solution for your cabin, but when I was on a private well, I hooked up a micro-controller to email me if the pump ran outside of defined conditions (too long or too short of a cycle). I've got that set up on my sump pump now that I have a finished basement. ERD, do you have any references on how to do this that a non-EE but moderately technical person could understand? My newest house has a sump pump, and I've been considering a backup, but your solution sounds a lot better (ie. cheaper).

Inspired by that post by BlueberryPie of the water in the window well....

A little update on this, and if I get further I'll start a thread in the "Tech" forum.

I've been working on making this more generic (so it could be used for sump pump, well pump, fridge/freezer - anything you could put some sort of on/off sensor on) and setting up the code and hardware so that a non-programmer could use it. You'd still need to install an app on your computer (Win/Mac/Linux friendly) that programs the micro-controller, but that's easy and all point/click plug/play stuff.

But relevant to that post about the water in the window well, we've had an extremely dry spring. My sump pump hasn't run for (I could look it up), but at least 6 weeks. So my 3x daily status emails all report zero on/off cycles. Until yesterday - it ran 3 times overnight. Hmmmm.

So I check, there's water in the pit at the normal 'off' level, no water leaks in the basement, I walk around outside, can't see anything. Then...

I take the hose that DW waters plants with, it looks to be off, but I stick it in a bucket, and do another walk around the house. Well, that hose was dripping, filled about a 1/2 gallon in a few minutes. So running almost 24 hours, right along the foundation wall right by the pump, that eventually ran right down to the pump. So my sump monitor came in handy!

Although, the next day when she watered, she'd probably have got it turned off 100%, so not a huge deal. Oh, our water meter did detect a possible leak (not very useful, you need to jump through a hoop to check it, there is no notification system).

And of course, I reminded DW that I told her to stick the hose end in that bucket, so we'd see if it was left dripping. Dropped on the ground, it's hard to notice.

-ERD50