Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
blasted pcv valve
I was so excited this morning when I woke up. An entire 2 days off of work! I had my nice jog, changed the oil in Amanda's car, mixed coffee grounds in my compost pile to make better compost and then proceeded to break my truck.
I thought it would be a good idea to check under the hood and check fluid levels, belts and hoses. In doing so, I wiggled my breather hose going to the pcv valve on my right valve cover and it snapped right off. Blood and bloody ashes Moraine. First I had to figure out what I broke. I look in my little Haynes manual and figure out it's the pcv valve. At first it looks like I have to take the entire valve cover off, but a quick call to the father-in-law and some more looking in my Haynes manual tells me that it should pull right out. Ummm, no. Not happening. I ended up destroying it taking it out. The pcv sits so tightly inside this rubber grommet on the valve cover that it was a curse fest getting it out. I actually said the Queen Mother of all swear words trying to get it out...usually I'm a bit more patient.
Now onto getting a suitable replacement. I call Autozone and they have one in stock and I run down there and buy it. I try to install it and ....what the dilly o, it's too small?!? It doesn't fit in the grommet. Alright, so I call the dealership and see if they have one because I've ran into problems before with fuel filters that Autozone just doesn't carry the right one even though they think it's right.
So I run over to the dealership and pick that up. I get out to the car and realize the dealership gave me the same part as Autozone. Blast! So Autozone is right and I have 2 of the same part and neither one fits in the grommet in the valve cover. So now what? Great. Am I telling them the right part that I need replaced? Am I telling them the right vehicle information...year, make, engine size and so on?
I stop back home and look at my Haynes manual again hoping that I missed some brilliant line of wisdom or that by some chance I'm wrong and that the pcv valve from the dealership fits into the grommet. Nope. No dice.
Now at this point I'm getting desperate. I've destroyed my original piece and the two replacements I've found don't work. And it's a saturday so the dealership closed at 1pm so now I'm stuck until monday. I decided to try a third parts store in town and they guy ended up telling me that the pcv valve from both Autozone and the dealership was correct. Dang! However, he did have grommets! He ended up selling me a grommet, to go in my grommet to hold my new pcv valve.
Now onto the installation, which is not the reverse of removal in my case. I spent quite a while trying to figure out do I put the pcv in grommet 1 and grommet 2 and then jam the whole assembly in there. Or do I put grommet 1 in the valve cover, put the pcv in grommet 2 and then stuff those two into grommet 1? The problem was that the grommet grommet fitting was so tight, and the new pcv was an L shape, so I couldn't make it happen. I ended up turning the L into an I and jamming it all in there.
The right thing to do was to get the correct grommet, but according to the guy at store #3, he only had it in stock in a store 2 hours away. I could have probably waited until monday to go to the dealership and get the right grommet, but, eh, I needed to get it working and didn't feel like waiting.
So hopefully my jimmy rigged pcv valve will hold up.
I thought it would be a good idea to check under the hood and check fluid levels, belts and hoses. In doing so, I wiggled my breather hose going to the pcv valve on my right valve cover and it snapped right off. Blood and bloody ashes Moraine. First I had to figure out what I broke. I look in my little Haynes manual and figure out it's the pcv valve. At first it looks like I have to take the entire valve cover off, but a quick call to the father-in-law and some more looking in my Haynes manual tells me that it should pull right out. Ummm, no. Not happening. I ended up destroying it taking it out. The pcv sits so tightly inside this rubber grommet on the valve cover that it was a curse fest getting it out. I actually said the Queen Mother of all swear words trying to get it out...usually I'm a bit more patient.
Now onto getting a suitable replacement. I call Autozone and they have one in stock and I run down there and buy it. I try to install it and ....what the dilly o, it's too small?!? It doesn't fit in the grommet. Alright, so I call the dealership and see if they have one because I've ran into problems before with fuel filters that Autozone just doesn't carry the right one even though they think it's right.
So I run over to the dealership and pick that up. I get out to the car and realize the dealership gave me the same part as Autozone. Blast! So Autozone is right and I have 2 of the same part and neither one fits in the grommet in the valve cover. So now what? Great. Am I telling them the right part that I need replaced? Am I telling them the right vehicle information...year, make, engine size and so on?
I stop back home and look at my Haynes manual again hoping that I missed some brilliant line of wisdom or that by some chance I'm wrong and that the pcv valve from the dealership fits into the grommet. Nope. No dice.
Now at this point I'm getting desperate. I've destroyed my original piece and the two replacements I've found don't work. And it's a saturday so the dealership closed at 1pm so now I'm stuck until monday. I decided to try a third parts store in town and they guy ended up telling me that the pcv valve from both Autozone and the dealership was correct. Dang! However, he did have grommets! He ended up selling me a grommet, to go in my grommet to hold my new pcv valve.
Now onto the installation, which is not the reverse of removal in my case. I spent quite a while trying to figure out do I put the pcv in grommet 1 and grommet 2 and then jam the whole assembly in there. Or do I put grommet 1 in the valve cover, put the pcv in grommet 2 and then stuff those two into grommet 1? The problem was that the grommet grommet fitting was so tight, and the new pcv was an L shape, so I couldn't make it happen. I ended up turning the L into an I and jamming it all in there.
The right thing to do was to get the correct grommet, but according to the guy at store #3, he only had it in stock in a store 2 hours away. I could have probably waited until monday to go to the dealership and get the right grommet, but, eh, I needed to get it working and didn't feel like waiting.
So hopefully my jimmy rigged pcv valve will hold up.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
catching up
What's new? I've been working a crapload. The current project I'm on ships next thursday to England. We had the customer over for a week and I entertained them part of the time by running tests for them on the system they are buying. The one guy said "bugger" once when we where having trouble getting two traces to display on the spectrum analyzer. It was tough not to laugh out loud. He also said funny things like "spot on" when a measurement was good. Typically I'll say "dead nuts", or "that's tight" or "good". He didn't say "God say the Queen!" (although I almost did once) or "cheerio" though. I was just a bit let down.
Watched a couple of movies lately...last night we watched "Wayne's World". I saw it in high school, but that was years after the original came out and everyone was quoting it. I was behind the cool curve on that one. It had it's moments, it was funny. Seeing the flames on the Gremlin make me wish I still had my Festiva. I shoulda put flames on it when I had it. I wish I never sold it. I'd put flames on it if I still had it. Yes I would.
It took me three sittings to watch "The Chronicles of Narnia". I fell asleep 30 minutes into it (at 9 pm last saturday night) the first time, then the next sitting I had to go to bed....then I finally finished it wednesday night. It was pretty good. When I was watching it I wondered why do all the evil characters have to be ugly? There were one eyed things and trolloc look-a-likes and wart covered things...and they were all evil. The good side had the lion, the unicorn, the phoenix, the jaguars, the beavers...all these pretty animals. I did like how the wolves had American accents and the good guys had British accents.
We had a blizzard today. I don't know what exactly constitutes a blizzard, but it happened. I shoveled a boatload of snow. Although we have nice neighbors with snow blowers who do the sidewalks sometimes.
Watched a couple of movies lately...last night we watched "Wayne's World". I saw it in high school, but that was years after the original came out and everyone was quoting it. I was behind the cool curve on that one. It had it's moments, it was funny. Seeing the flames on the Gremlin make me wish I still had my Festiva. I shoulda put flames on it when I had it. I wish I never sold it. I'd put flames on it if I still had it. Yes I would.
It took me three sittings to watch "The Chronicles of Narnia". I fell asleep 30 minutes into it (at 9 pm last saturday night) the first time, then the next sitting I had to go to bed....then I finally finished it wednesday night. It was pretty good. When I was watching it I wondered why do all the evil characters have to be ugly? There were one eyed things and trolloc look-a-likes and wart covered things...and they were all evil. The good side had the lion, the unicorn, the phoenix, the jaguars, the beavers...all these pretty animals. I did like how the wolves had American accents and the good guys had British accents.
We had a blizzard today. I don't know what exactly constitutes a blizzard, but it happened. I shoveled a boatload of snow. Although we have nice neighbors with snow blowers who do the sidewalks sometimes.
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