is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
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Are we truly on the air right now? I'm getting huge lag, but that might be my satellite internet. It lags everywhere.
That's a good idea. Space could be a bit tight in the nav bar, but a change is in the works for that.
In the interim, you can Keep a post, then go to your MailBox to File the Kept message.
Automation is increasingly becoming part of the equation, but that's to deal with the huge task of thwarting the massive numbers of spammers and manipulators (scripted message-reads, etc), not to delete posts. The only routine that we have in place that even reads posts is looking for spamming of specific sites and that routine doesn't allow the post to be submitted in the first place.
If a post is deleted, a human did it.
Personally, I think letting the boards sink or swim on their own merits is really preferable, and will ultimately result in better quality boards and posts.
Yahoo and RB stand out as two shining examples illustrating the opposite. Human nature being what it is.
For our long term survival and prosperity, we have to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and the way we've chosen to do so is quality. In signal/noise ratio, level of discourse, freedom from spam, vulgarity and personal attacks, and, coming very soon, superior non-messaging tools to turn us from "message boards" into "Supersites, featuring great message boards". That's the niche in which we want to make a living and believe we can do quite well.
some of these posters say "f***" more frequently than Joe Pesci when his hand gets caught in a car-door.
You really should be writing for Dennis Miller!
Hey! I think I just got royally insulted! LOL
Everyone, the outages we've been seeing lately have all of us scratching our heads. But we're pretty sure the things that'll be happening this weekend will help. Remains to be seen.
If it hasn't been mentioned yet (hopefully a blurb soon?), iHub is getting moved to a new ISP this weekend and come Monday, it should be running on 3 load-balanced servers rather than the single one that's having to strain pretty hard to keep up anymore. With good (read "shockingly expensive") switches and load balancing hardware. There will be a pretty long outage Saturday (evening?) as the machines are physically moved from the old facility to the new and installed.
The weekend after that, the plan is to move SI, and when all is said and done, have 4 webservers handling both sites combined and the ability to add webservers easily anytime we need them. And have a degree of redundancy and failover protection we've never had before. Even the loss of a database server should result in no more than a brief outage since each site's db server will be a mirrored hot spare of the other.
All of the "help" has actually been doing some good, but so far it's been, out of necessity, very behind the scenes. Of course, the ISP move won't be so much behind the scenes, but it should really be a huge improvement to the reliability and performance of the sites.
Thank you for your opinion on my abilities to "manager" based on your observations. They'll be taken under advisement. I don't, however, manage the site and its members. Matt and Dave do.
I should clarify a misconception for you, though. We'll always roll like we've always rolled. Being part of a public company doesn't mean we're going to get all aloof and stuffy on the Q&A board. Matt steps in and corrects people if it's gotten too off-topic for him, but this board has always had a casual feel to it and will for as long as Matt wants it to.
If I'm not mistaken, everyone's "Hide iBox" is toggled off anytime the iBox is updated.
I don't know if it's just me, but if I'm logged out and reading messages, all of the 336x280 ad in messages are throwing an error. I get a dialogue box giving the URL I'm at and saying it can't open it and with only an "Ok" submit button and when I hit it, I get the standard IE can't-load error message where the ad should be.
Other ads are displaying fine.
If memory serves, later versions of IE have effectively disabled things like auto-sound. And in the case of IE7, apparently retention of cookies. I'm getting very annoyed at having to log in again anytime I'm inactive, and I really count on cookies to keep me logged in at sites I rarely use and for which I can't always remember my login information.
On the other, I'm not sure what you're saying but am sure John will see this message and check into it or follow up with you.
If you've (temporarily) got more time to focus on your other "endeavor", you really should devote a little of that time to removing your post asking users to help support the site by clicking on Yahoo's ads.
Their Terms and Conditions are very specific about forbidding exactly that kind of thing, and the last thing you need is Yahoo piling on.
ztest
Saw a race this weekend on Speed that I think was Mazda MX-5's. It was at Road America.
Definitely makes spectating a whole lot different when it's a familiar track.
My OnStar-equipped Chevy pickup once locked the doors all by itself. I closed the doors and a few seconds later heard the locks. With the key and remote in the ignition.
I called OnStar and they sent the unlock command twice, but no response.
Turns out that OnStar shuts itself off after 3 days of the vehicle not being started because it was draining batteries.
I'm not too happy about that one-size-fits-all approach. I'd think my truck, with a pair of massive batteries, might be able to hold up to this slow drain better than, say, a Cobalt.
There are many wonderful cars on that list and it helps illustrate that we're in an automotive Golden Age the likes of which we've never seen before.
We've got the Toyota Camry Hybrid, and it's a wonderful car. Very luxurious, powerful (at low speeds) and frugal.
But it still needs a turbo-diesel instead of a gas engine.
Can't replace the CPS yourself? It's a dirt-cheap part and I would think it'd not only be easily replaced, but would also make the car run well enough you could ignore the other problems for a while. I'm almost certain your problems with the car not starting when hot trace right back to the CPS and I'm amazed that you're still fighting it rather than replacing this $14 part. You're causing more than $14 worth of wear on your starter.
As for the yellow film under the oil cap, not necessarily a blown head gasket. There are plenty of ways to check for the head gasket. Air bubbles in the radiator with the engine running but cold. The oil on the dipstick looking more like really wet clay than oil. Foam where there should be oil. Caused by mixing water, oil, and air.
It's normal to get some water in the oil just from condensation but driving the car usually make this little bit of water evaporate.
Parts of this from memory of something similar I did up when I was a kid, but most of it made up on the fly while sitting here sipping coffee, somewhat amazed the kids haven't woke me up yet....
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the garage
not a creature was stirring not even a Dodge.
The tires were hung on the wall with care
in hopes that St. Nick would fill them with air.
The cars were nestled all snug on their treads
while their batteries slowly drained, soon to be dead.
The Scoob, the Mustang, the bikes, even the Zundapp
were all settled in for a long winter's nap.
When out in the drive, I heard such a clatter
I sprang from my Recaro to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, a fell with a splash
having lost my footing on spilled sour mash.
The metal halides shining on the driveway below
revealed my banged up Ferarri, coming home being towed.
When what to my bloodshot eyes should appear
but my hideous neighbor toting a six-pack of beer.
She was an ugly old driver, so homely and thick
I knew in a moment I was gonna be sick.
I ran toward the bathroom, threw open the door
and then I threw up all over the floor.
More vile than pumpers, her expletives came
as she called the tow-truck driver, all manner of names
"You Basher, you short, who dances with chickens
quit making such noise or my neighbor you'll sicken.
To the back of the garage, against the back wall
drop off his Ferarri, though it's shaped like a ball."
As dry heaves made me feel like I was ready to cry
I whispered a prayer that I or she would die.
I staggered to my feet, my sickness finally through
And knew there was one thing, I still needed to do.
As I stood there tinkling, I heard my neighbor so aloof
stomping around in my garage on great cloven hoof.
As I zipped up my pants and was turning around
she slipped on some ice, what a wonderful sound!
She was dressed in my racing suit, from her head to her foot
As she spied me through the window and said "Dein Ferarri ist kaput!"
"A bundle of parts, it left all over the track
as I blew the first turn and hit the wall with a 'smack'."
Her eyes how they glowed, her dimples so hairy
her cheeks so darned gross, I wondered what she'd marry.
Her troll-looking mouth emitted a "Whoa!"
as she scratched her hairy chin and said "I bet that Scoob sure can go!"
The tip of my tongue I held tight in my teeth
As smoke emitted from her stogie and circled her face like a wreath.
My helmet covered her broad face, the wheel against her belly
And she shook and laughed, as she made the car smelly.
She was chubby, no doubt, her right hideous self
and I sobbed when I saw her cinch up the seat belt
A wink of her eye and a twist of the key
as she immediately smoked all four Potenza RE's.
She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work
as the tires were howling, gave the wheel a jerk.
And laying a finger aside of her nose
she blew a wet loogie all over her clothes.
She revved up the engine as the turbo did whistle
as she bellowed "The Ferrari didn't make it, but maybe this will."
And I heard her exclaim as she drove out of sight,
"I'll be back for the Ford later on tonight."
Are you sure it's not the CPS?
Underhood temperatures can stay very high for a very long time.
On a related but somewhat illustrative note, I've got a 3-car garage near the house that is so well-insulated, I only half-jokingly say I could heat it with a candle.
We can pull a pair of cars into it at night (keeping in mind that most of the heat in the building is lost when the doors are opened), and the heat from the cars slowly dissipating into the building along with a minor contribution from the concrete floor's thermal momentum causes it to be roughly 10 degrees warmer in the garage at night than it is outside.
Before abandoning the car, I really would spend the $14.39 to replace the CPS and if the car suddenly starts well and consistently, re-assess what you're gonna do with it.
The Commander's car likely has a dead cell in the battery and it should be replaced in the near future. Full charge is 13.8 volts or 2.6 volts per cell. Remove a cell from the equation and you get 11.2 volts.
At the very least, he should make sure the electrolyte level is good on all cells. If one is pretty low, add distilled level to take the level up enough to cover the plates and then some (like 1/2" over the plates). If you do find and take care of a low one, you're likely to get a better reading on the voltmeter without even driving the car.
There are a number of reasons you could be getting 13.33 volts instead of 13.8. As the battery approaches full charge, the alternator should start to taper off, so it can take quite a while to get that last half volt. Also, if a door was open (interior lights) or there's an under-hood light, that'll cause a small voltage drop. Or if the car's new enough, the computer is constantly drawing juice.
I've got a BMW motorcycle that's so under-batteried and over-computerized that if I let it sit for 2 weeks, the battery is completely drained. I really need to get a couple dozen trickle-chargers for these darned things that sit for such long periods of time. Might save hundreds on the Spring ritual of replacing batteries at my place.
Edit: 11+ volts is more than enough for a car to start well. It's all a matter of how much power is stored in the remaining good cells. You can have as many as 2 completely out-of-the-loop cells (10.4 volts) and as long as the 4 good ones are really good, the only difference will be the starter not spinning quite as fast, and it'd be such a subtle difference that it likely wouldn't be noticed. Especially with an engine that lights right up.
I'm so with you there! Well, used to be.
When I was a mechanic and even before, when I still knew my way around under the hood and was dirt poor, when I got done with a car, it really was done.
I was at least good enough at math that I knew that a couple hundred bucks and a weekend's work getting a paid-for car by for another 6 months was like a $35 per month car payment on a car that wasn't likely to surprise me unpleasantly anytime soon.
My car history is full of cars like the Pinto that was in excellent condition but had a cracked cylinder sleeve that I bought for $200 because a friend (an insane one) put a 302 in his Pinto and was offering his original (slightly modified and in excellent condition) engine for $50. I drove that car for 3 years until it got t-boned by someone who couldn't stop on ice pulling out of an alley.
And before that, the beautiful little Maverick that looked like hell when I bought it, ran even worse, but a set of plugs, wires, and a carb rebuild later, along with a full weekend going over the whole car with rubbing compound, polish, and wax, turned out to be good as new and never missed a beat. It was red and actually quite a head-turner. Think I paid $100 for that one.
I still do much the same thing with my cars, though the price tags are higher. I have 4 Taurus SHO's. 2 good ones and 2 parts cars. All inexpensive and the 2 good ones are quite good, thanks to a ready supply of parts.
And, more recently, a 94 BMW 530i. I knew it had brake issues when I bought it, but otherwise it seemed in decent-enough shape, so I hauled it home, drove it a couple of days and spent a few hundred bucks on new rotors, pads, and caliper rebuild kits and a couple of hours rebuilding the calipers (honing, cleaning, painting, resealing), replacing the rotors and pads, and replacing the brake fluid, and now the brakes are like new and will last years.
Granted, it's an easier decision when you're not paying someone else to do it. Such an extensive brake job, especially if done at a BMW dealership, would've cost well over $1k.
Once I address the remaining issues (a persistent coolant smell which I suspect is a pin-hole leak in the heater core as the coolant level isn't perceptibly dropping, the car always heating and never cooling, noisy and stiff throttle linkage, one or two dashboard lights not working, lights that aren't bright enough -- just ordered $280 worth of high-candlepower versions of ALL the car's exterior bulbs at Tire Rack, the driver's seat heater working in the back but not in the seat, and the electric headrest adjustment not working on the driver's side) it'll be a like-new car and I shouldn't have to mess with it anymore for quite a while.
And it's become my daily driver. $6500, maybe $1000 worth of parts when all is said and done, and I'll have a $7500 car I KNOW is in like-new condition rather than paying $10,600 for it at a dealership and having no idea what surprises await.
For most people, no.
I do my own work, though, so it wouldn't be an expensive proposition to have a car that's good for another year or so. Back when the cost of keeping me in toys was a bit lower. :)
I've done far more intensive work to keep lesser cars going. I was often the last owner of cars that ended up in junkyards. Once I'd gotten several months' use out of them.
Yep. Blown head gasket, warped or cracked head. Could be pricey.
I couldn't ditch a car for that. But if you'd have to pay someone else to do the work, it could be cost-prohibitive. Better to sell it to someone who's mechanically inclined enough to spend a couple hundred on it on repairs and get a good year or so of use out of it.
Kind of a stepping stone between you and the junkyard.
You hadn't told me about that, but it certainly would make sense. In beigle's case, I suspect the unit itself is failing since it's heat that makes it fail, but I sure could see it being possible that an accumulation of metal debris would make it more prone to failure with less heat.
It was interesting replacing the flywheel ring gear once in my old Ford 2N tractor. Since a car is basically wheels with an engine but a tractor is an engine with wheels, this meant splitting the tractor in half and taking the flywheel to the dealership, where they knocked the ring gear off by splitting it with a chisel, then heated up the new ring gear and dropped it onto the flywheel. No tack-welds, no bolts, no nuthin'. Just a shrink-fit.
BTW, if you've located the CPS, a way to verify that it's at fault would be to let the car idle in your driveway until it dies and won't restart, then apply ice to the CPS and see if it starts after a minute.
A possibility, but the CPS is definitely the place to start.
The vehicle speed sensor isn't very exposed to temperature extremes and we've pretty much nailed down that what's failing in your car fails when hot. The main suspects are the CPS and the coil pack. Hope it's the former. Pray it's not the latter.
That's why I was asking if it started easily when cold and the problem appears only when it's been warmed up. Coils and other electrical components often will fail only when hot.
I have absolutely zip idea how hard it would be to replace the CPS on your car, but it wouldn't surprise me if it came with instructions or the Autozone guy could at least show you where it is.
They're usually mounted right where the tranny and engine connect so they can get their signal from the flywheel. And because they're so important and so prone to failure (and that was known by the time your car was built) they're usually very accessible. It's very likely you'll be able to go buy it, find the similar-looking part on your car, and replacing it won't be any more difficult than removing one or two 10mm bolts and a plug-in.
To compensate, overinflate it by a few pounds when you add air and it should be OK for several months.
This is from a trackie, so I'm particularly in tune with and anal about tire pressures. To the extent that I can tell you the exact pressure in any tire I own off the top of my head and I'll be exactly on the money every time.
Read with that in mind.
If you add a couple of extra pounds to a tire, make sure the other tire on the same end of the car has the same pressure. And if the car is AWD (like any Subaru) make sure ALL of the tires have the same pressure.
Not only does this make the handling consistent when turning both directions, it's easier on limited-slip setups. A couple pounds difference in tire pressure can change the outside diameter just enough that the limited-slip clutches are slipping even in a straight line. Or one or both of the tires is. Something has to give when there are diameter (and therefore, rpm) differences.
Personally, I tend to keep family car tires inflated 3-4 lbs above car manufacturer recommendations (they're usually biased towards softness to smooth out the ride -- the Firestone/Explorer scenario) and on ones that only I drive, I use nearly or right at the max the tire will take.
In other words, I try to bias the family car tires a bit toward cornering stability and fuel economy without compromising ride softness too much and on my own cars I throw softness out the window and am concerned only with the pressures that'll permit the most lateral g's or, in the truck and trailer's case, maximum load capacity.
LOL!
Initially I couldn't tell if you were pulling our collective leg or he was pulling yours.
It's the latter.
A pound of pressure per month is quite normal. As you said, oxygen molecules are quite small and can escape a seemingly non-porous tyre.
A lot of track folks use nitrogen to fill their tires. Doesn't leak through the molecule-sized pores as easily and has stronger thermal momentum. Hot tires stay hot longer and don't go through the hot/cold cycles as rapidly and frequently as air-filled tires.
Temperature variations (both ambient and tire temperatures) have a major impact on air pressure, as well. Depending on how aggressively you drive and how much air pressure was in the tires when cold, the difference between hot and cold pressures can be several PSI. The softer the tires when cold, the greater the increase in pressure when hot, due to the heat generated by the softer tire flexing more.
It's for this reason that it's under-inflated tires that blow out; not over-inflated ones. The huge increase in pressure from all the flexing combined with the weakening of the tire from the excess heat.
I'd put it at about 80% that it's the CPS.
If it were my car, I'd consider the CPS replacement a no-brainer, but I'd also go the extra expense of doing the valve-cover gasket and plugs and wires. Unless I were just trying to keep it alive another year.
If that's your aim, you should take out all of the spark plugs to let the oil drain into the cylinders, crank it for about 5 seconds (WITHOUT the spark plugs) so you don't have a big pool of oil in the cylinders, put the plugs back in, and check occasionally so you can see just how bad the valve cover gasket leak is. It might be slow enough that it'll take months before the oil gets deep enough to cause problems again.
I can't overstate the importance of cranking it without the plugs in if you go the shade-tree route to get rid of the oil around the plugs. Liquids do NOT compress and when you try to make them do so, bad things like bent connecting rods can happen.
Alternatively, you could use a shop towel wrapped around a screw-driver to patiently wick the oil out of the spark plug wells with the plugs still in.
I'd still replace that valve cover gasket and the plug wires and plugs. In the picture I saw at the previous link, it looked like a fairly easy job to do this. And it's the type of engine that will have your plug wires sitting in a (somewhat electrically conductive) pool of oil when the valve cover gasket is bad.
Damn, I'm good!
http://www.aa1car.com/library/2005/us80530.htm
Look at the last 3 paragraphs. This is for a 98 Saturn SC2.
$13.49 at Autozone. I'd say it's worthwhile to skip testing and just replace it.
re: with hydraulics [there] are two separate systems
Is that mandated by law in USA cars?
No idea, but it's a good idea. I'm sure the most frequent point of failure in the hydraulic systems is caliper seals and unless you ignore the increased pedal travel long enough to drain the reservoir, you can still make a LOT of stops.
The electronic wedge brake in action Video mpg (28 MB)
Someday I'll download the video and watch.
If you're like me, that'll be when I've got a nearly infinite amount of time and bandwidth on my hands.
Actually, they find it quite amusing that I not only own a couple of "JCB's", but that I have adventures with them.
Sounds dicey to me. Though I admit there are certainly a lot of pitfalls to the existing hydraulic systems.
But I'd be worried about a computer interfering with my ability to modulate the brakes at the hairy edge. I have yet to encounter the ABS system that's as good as a well-tuned driver. And I'd worry about electrical or computer failure resulting in no brakes.
At least with hydraulics, it's very unlikely you're going to lose the brakes entirely because there are two separate systems usually going crosswise (front right and rear left on one and front left and rear right on the other) though they do share a reservoir in common.
I suppose it'd be relatively easy to include a strictly mechanical backup system, though. If the electric part fails, a mechanically attached rod at each pad takes over.
When it dies on the road, it typically just jerks the car, goes down to 0 RPMs and then goes right back to where it was before.
This bit of info might change everything or it might be steering us the same direction.
Depending on the make/model of the car, there are numerous ways it can be getting the signal for the tachometer. The engine isn't actually going to 0 RPM (you'd have to use the starter if it did) but instead whatever is signalling the tach suddenly quit doing so and it wouldn't be at all unusual if it's the same thing that tells your ignition system (when) to fire the plugs.
I'm doubtful that oil-soaked plug wires could do this, though.
If we knew the make/model/engine, we could get a better idea whether the tach going to zero means "The coil isn't firing anymore" or "Whatever's telling the coil to fire isn't doing so at the moment."
This could be as simple as the crankshaft position sensor (CPS), which is a high-failure item. I've encountered it quite a bit especially on Jeep vehicles.
When it doesn't start it usually tries to turn over, but doesn't. We then let it "rest" for about 5-10 minutes and most of the time it will start right up. If we haven't waited long enough then we have to go through the process again. Saturday we were stuck at the grocery story for probably a half-hour because I just kept waiting longer and long to try to start it and on the 4th or 5th try it finally started.
If the coil isn't too expensive, I'd replace it too. Coils, when they're getting weak, are extremely heat-sensitive. If they don't fail completely, they work better cold than hot.
That is, if the starting problems happen shortly after it's been running.
If it typically starts fine first thing in the morning, but gets harder to start after it's been running, that's a symptom that could (but doesn't necessarily) point out the coil as a culprit.
The heat factor could also tie in to oil-soaked plug wires.
Actually, did we determine that it's got a ring or valve guide/seal problem? I'm thinking not. I think he's talking about an external leak into the spark plug well. No mention of blue smoke, etc.
A failing alternator or failed one won't prevent an engine from running so long as the battery has enough juice. If anything, sometimes the car will be down on power because the coil isn't getting enough juice, but an alternator's main purpose in life is to charge the battery. It's only marginally involved in the continued operation of the engine once it's running.
The car just cutting out sometimes when driving down the road would never be an alternator problem unless the car dies and when you try to restart it, you don't even get so much as a click. If you've never had the engine fail to crank (it can crank without starting), your alternator's fine and so's your battery.
Oiled plug wires could explain it.
so he started messing around with it and pulled out the first spark plug and it was covered in oil.
I assume you mean the outside of the plug. If so, yes, it's a valve cover gasket and it's entirely possible for the car to be fussy about when it will and won't run on all cylinders.
The Taurus SHO (Yamaha V6 version) has its spark plugs situated between the camshafts and I'd assume this is a pretty typical layout anymore.
I was having an intermittent misfire problem with mine and the valve cover gasket turned out to be the exact culprit. The plugs in the rear cylinder bank were each immersed about 2 inches deep in oil, which had cracked the plug wire ends and softened the insulation on the plug wires. So sometimes the plugs would spark and sometimes they wouldn't.
Valve cover gasket, plug wires, and plugs had it running like a top.
Did you ever mention here what model of car you're dealing with and which engine?
With some cars in my past (and present, but not new) changing the valve cover gasket is a simple matter of four bolts and the PCV hose. Other cars (most of the ones I've got now) it's difficult to even SEE the valve covers, let alone remove them.
If it's as the guy at Advance thinks (and I concur), you're in for new plug wires (not a cheap date) and you might as well replace the spark plugs while you're at it (cheap insurance).
The thing to keep in mind on plug wires that I still do even on engines whose firing order I know like the back of my hand (1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2: Chevy smallblock, conjured from memory) is that you don't yank all the plug wires then replace them. You're almost guaranteed to get them wrong that way.
Remove one wire from the distributor and its spark plug, replace that spark plug, find the wire from the new set closest to that one in length, use it as the replacement, then move on to the next one.
Greetings from London, ya' bloody wanker. <g>
We're going to be able to have our cake and eat it, too.
It'll be functionally much like the old way, but in a way that's much more space-friendly and search-friendly. Once all of the old signatures are parsed and stored in a separate table, and their unique identifiers associated with the messages from which they were extracted, whatever signature was in use at the time will be what'll always be displayed with that message, and you'll also be able to select from your own catalog of signatures at posting time rather than going to your profile and retyping the whole signature.