Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[CO-guy]

I just ordered a new 12" rain shower head for our rental. The current one lasted 6 year and it cost $25 to order another the same model.

My better-half didn't think that 6 years was durable or that $25 was economical, but oh well. If the new one lasts as long, and it's still this cheap in 6 years, I'll probably order another.

 

[CO-guy]

Not sure if it counts as a repair, but I had to wax my skis for the third time in 10 days. Warm weather wax is essential for skiing spring slush, but it barely lasts a day.

 

[JoeWras]

Cleaned the throttle body and plate on my 2010 Subaru with 162k miles. Symptoms were a occasional bad idle. I finally got a fire lit under me when I stalled attempting a left turn. Yikes!

Total cost? $7.50 for carb cleaner. Total savings? About $240 at dealer rates, $150 at independent rates for doing it right, i.e. taking it off, reassembling and not just spraying some stuff in there and calling it a day. When it comes to car work, this is a very easy DYI. With Youtube to guide the way, super easy. There's a non-tool procedure to relearn the idle for Subaru. Some cars require a scan tool (curse on them).

Cars today are so good at adjusting airflow and learning the air/fuel mixture. Over time, though, the varnish can build up and disrupt the air flow or throttle plate movement to cause issues.

The joy of older vehicles.

Before and after pictures:

 

[John Galt III]

G

Cleaned the throttle body and plate on my 2010 Subaru with 162k miles. Symptoms were a occasional bad idle. I finally got a fire lit under me when I stalled attempting a left turn. Yikes!

Total cost? $7.50 for carb cleaner. Total savings? About $240 at dealer rates, $150 at independent rates for doing it right, i.e. taking it off, reassembling and not just spraying some stuff in there and calling it a day. When it comes to car work, this is a very easy DYI. With Youtube to guide the way, super easy. There's a non-tool procedure to relearn the idle for Subaru. Some cars require a scan tool (curse on them).

Cars today are so good at adjusting airflow and learning the air/fuel mixture. Over time, though, the varnish can build up and disrupt the air flow or throttle plate movement to cause issues.

The joy of older vehicles.

Before and after pictures:
View attachment 55157View attachment 55158

Congratulations. Great pics! I assume you used the idle relearn procedure and it worked ?

I may soon be changing the spark plugs on my 2009 Nissan Versa, which involves disconnecting the throttle body, among lots of other things. The word on the street is 'don't clean the throttle body !' during this procedure, since an 'idle relearn' will be required to fix the rough idle that results from the cleaning, lol.

Supposedly, the idle relearn is done without tools, just turning key on, engine off, pressing accelerator pedal x times, etc, but not everyone has an easy time of it.

 

[Montecfo]

Not sure if it counts as a repair, but I had to wax my skis for the third time in 10 days. Warm weather wax is essential for skiing spring slush, but it barely lasts a day.

hey stop baiting us!!!

Is it slushy?

 

[JoeWras]

Congratulations. Great pics! I assume you used the idle relearn procedure and it worked ?

I may soon be changing the spark plugs on my 2009 Nissan Versa, which involves disconnecting the throttle body, among lots of other things. The word on the street is 'don't clean the throttle body !' during this procedure, since an 'idle relearn' will be required to fix the rough idle that results from the cleaning, lol.

Supposedly, the idle relearn is done without tools, just turning key on, engine off, pressing accelerator pedal x times, etc, but not everyone has an easy time of it.

Yes. Involved erasing the memory by taking of the negative terminal. Then a procedure of on-run-off-on-run-off. According to Mr. Subaru, on the web. Seemed to work OK.

 

[John Galt III]

The gas fill door on my 2009 Nissan Versa is getting just too difficult to open and close. Has been getting worse and worse for the last couple years. I now have to pry it open with a plastic pen tip, and push it down and in in a precise manner to close it.

I lubed the hinge, so at least it moves more easily, once it is opened, and apparently having the hinge sticky and unlubed for years has been part of the cause ! Who knew ?

I found out that gas doors getting borked is a fairly common problem, and people think that just driving over a big bump or pothole can cause it ! Wow.

Weighing my options. Might try to bend the flange that connects

the hinge to the body with 2 small vice grips. May buy a junkyard door/hinge-flange combo of same color for $10. Probably end up doing both, lol. If anyone wants to advise, that's great !

 

[John Galt III]

Yes. Involved erasing the memory by taking of the negative terminal. Then a procedure of on-run-off-on-run-off. According to Mr. Subaru, on the web. Seemed to work OK.

Thanks.

 

[JoeWras]

Thanks.

It is a bit more complicated. The "on" is 20 seconds, run for 10 minutes, off, and repeat for 5 min. It takes about 20 minutes to complete. There are many sources on the web repeating this procedure.

 

[AudiDudi]

Water filter under the sink developed a leak in one of the hoses. Water heater in the motor home sutbborn to light (propane) at times - adjusted spark position and air flow.

 

[Music Lover]

A couple days ago I replaced the submersible well pump at our cabin which had failed late last fall. We were about to shut it down for the season anyway so we just closed up and left the replacement until now.

 

[Surewhitey]

Starting mommas pantry remodel & then paint the whole kitchen... Been needing a better mouse trap for a while. Demoing the short wall & doing a big built-in with doors and drawers.

 

[Surewhitey]

The gas fill door on my 2009 Nissan Versa is getting just too difficult to open and close. Has been getting worse and worse for the last couple years. I now have to pry it open with a plastic pen tip, and push it down and in in a precise manner to close it.

I lubed the hinge, so at least it moves more easily, once it is opened, and apparently having the hinge sticky and unlubed for years has been part of the cause ! Who knew ?

Took my Toyota to the dealer and they fixed it as it was a known problem. Good customer service. I tried myself to no avail.

 

[Music Lover]

A couple days ago I replaced the submersible well pump at our cabin which had failed late last fall. We were about to shut it down for the season anyway so we just closed up and left the replacement until now.

Further to that repair, a week before the well pump failed in fall the HW tank also failed. So I bought a new one and was about to install it when the well pump failed. As the season was almost over anyway I left both of them until now.

Yesterday I hooked up the new HW tank and it didn't work, plus it had a leak!! Now I have to drain and remove it and get another one.

 

[CO-guy]

hey stop baiting us!!!

Is it slushy?

Just had (I think) our final ski of the season this morning and timing was far more critical than wax. The snow went from solid ice heading uphill to melted glop back at the trailhead in under an hour. Thankfully, we were able descend most of the way on about an inch of "spring corn" / slush over a frozen crust before the crust became too soft to support any weight.

Also, related to this recent repairs topic, I swapped out our winter snow tires for our off-road wheel set with K02s that we run the rest of the year. Between the shop jack and the lug bit for the impact driver, it took me under an hour to switch out wheel sets.

The reward for putting on the K02s was that we were (barely) able to gain early season access to a natural hot spring area for a soak after the ski.

 

[homestead]

Repaired bathroom vent at my daughter's house. She said there was a bad smell and funny noise. It also has a radiant heater element below the exhaust vent.
Took it apart and the plastic fan blades had melted and flowed over the top of the motor. Yikes!
So I guess the motor stalled and overheated the fan blades.
Got a replacement motor/fan kit from HD and got it running like new again.

 

[JoeWras]

When I hear "bad smell" I think of dead rodents, birds or nests of either. Maybe a blessing? I know melted plastic always looks bad, but usually it doesn't ignite from an overheat unless an electric fault follows that causes arcing.

 

[ncbill]

replaced sweep (rubber strip at bottom) on the basement storm door.

about half had broken off due to age.

dithered on the above until my cat found a small snake inside, presumably via the gap in the sweep.

I think it slithered back out the same way, but if not:

"I, for one, welcome our herpetarian overlords!"

 

[CatinKS]

HP Laptop power cord kept coming out with the slightest movement. Read online where a gentleman just used some piers to every so lightly crip the plug. It now stays plugged in.

 

[38Chevy454]

My 7 year old house Whirlpool frig wasn't cooling very well in the refrigerator side. Freezer side working OK. Diagnosed as the thermistor being bad. Ordered new one as part of a harness with the evaporator sensor and fan. $36 delivered, installed and back to working as supposed to. Thanks to a YouTube video with the part link.

Ironically, my garage frig is over 30 years old big old 30 cu ft KitchenAid (GE). It has been almost continuously in use since new without any problem. This was after the infamous GE compressor failure problem was solved.

 

[John Galt III]

My 7 year old house Whirlpool frig wasn't cooling very well in the refrigerator side. Freezer side working OK. Diagnosed as the thermistor being bad. Ordered new one as part of a harness with the evaporator sensor and fan. $36 delivered, installed and back to working as supposed to. Thanks to a YouTube video with the part link.

Ironically, my garage frig is over 30 years old big old 30 cu ft KitchenAid (GE). It has been almost continuously in use since new without any problem. This was after the infamous GE compressor failure problem was solved.

I have a GE Hotpoint fridge from 1986. I got a call somewhere around 1989 I guess, from someone saying he was from GE and wanted to replace my compressor for free. I was very suspicious, but I did have it replaced.

I still have it, chugging away to this day. Only work I had do on it was to clean out a drain tube which was causing water to pool in front. And I vacuum off the coils every couple years to get the lint off.

I was impressed by GE's service.

I have a Whirlpool Mark I (70's ?) in the basement I used to use for cooling home brew kegs.

 

[CO-guy]

We just had our washing machine repaired. Somehow in the process of them moving the unit to replace the faulty controller, it became unbalanced and un-level.

So, not sure if it counts as a repair, but adjusted the unit back to level to prevent it from excessively vibrating, which seemed to fix the balance issue as well.

 

[brett]

Dead car battery. Died again after a boost, a ride out, and then overnight.

Simple solution. Buy and install a new battery. No sweat.

The good part....it was not an alternator issue. The fix was fast.

Always pays to have good quality and 15 ft jumper cables just in case!

 

[Trailwalker]

The sun visor on my Dodge Ram fell out on the driver's side, which also has a wire that runs to a button that opens and closes my garage door. It's apparently a common problem. Bought a seven dollar repair kit on Amazon and installed it this afternoon. Basically two plastic pieces that screw into the original holes designed to keep the thing from flopping in the driver's face. I needed four hands but managed to make things fit together with two. Seems to have fixed it.

 

[brett]

Years ago I spent time teaching my spouse, who was a new driver at the time, how to change a tire, how to check tire pressure on the gauge, how to check the oil,etc. and how to use jumper cables properly. Just in case she was stuck. The days before cell phones! I was out of town frequently on business.

Sometimes in winter the auto club service in our city is next to useless..delays of 24 plus hours for service.

More than once she had the smarts to realize that she was being conned by some garage simply because of her sex. She knew enough to says thanks and turn down that work order request.