Golf comes home on a wrecker, due to timing belt tensioner malfunction

Not even one day after buttoning up the car from the coolant sensor replacement, I got stranded while coming back from town, running some errands.  The car just stalled and wouldn't restart.  At first I thought I might have been out of fuel, (needle was slightly above 'E', not usually a problem).  I coasted into a nearby business parking lot and checked the fuel lines, there was no air.  I opened the timing belt cover and the belt looked fine.  However, I wiggled it and there was a lot of play.  I determined that the tensioner had likely failed and the belt skipped a tooth or so.  Called a wrecker and got a "free" ride home thanks to AAA.

We were leaving for a weekend camping trip that day, so I had no chance to do anything with it. That was a little anxiety-inducing, considering the possibility that my engine may or may not have been destroyed. When I got back I finally got it apart and reset the timing.  Sure enough, the tensioner was basically not attached anymore.  The nut had come loose and all but fallen off.  I definitely remember that I tightened it "pretty hard" before (there is not enough room to get a torque wrench in there).  This time I put thread-lock compound on it, so hopefully it will be good to go.

I got the timing all set up using my tool set.  As a neat trick (though somewhat unnecessary) I set up my laptop with a USB webcam so I could monitor the TDC mark on the flywheel, while I rotated the crankshaft from below.

The timing belt was still in really good shape.  No sign of shredding at all, in fact it still had the writing visible.  Seems like the 100,000 mile belt I bought was a good choice. I replaced the "ribbed" (accessory drive) belt as that was cracking.  Pulled out the locks and breathed a sigh of relief as I successfully rotated the engine through by hand.  Got it all back together, with the whole job coming in at about 5-6 hours, taking my time.  I have realized that if I try to go any faster than that, I end up doing the job twice.

If I had the dealership or someone else do it, it would have probably cost $500-$700, and that would have been after withstanding tons of grumbling and groaning about the veg kit, other mods done to the car, the age of the car, etc. etc. 

Really feeling like I haven't got time for this crap now.  Here's to finding a new car soon.

Emergency repair after brake caliper cease

Happened a little while ago now, but I didn't get a chance to write about it.  The driver's side brake caliper had been dragging for quite some time.  After a trip the wheel would be extremely hot.  I'd been planning to deal with it some weekend, but when I noticed some brake fade, I had to do something.  I ordered a new hub on a hunch, and it turned out to be a good call.

Driver side rear end torn all the way down after the components were damaged from high heat.

The caliper pins had frozen up causing the brake to be stuck on.  The pads were worn down to nothing.  The heat caused the tone ring (associated with the ABS sensor) to warp.  Since the tone ring is integrated with the hub, I had to replace the entire hub assembly.  

While I was in there I also replaced the splash shield (shockingly, the dealership had this item in stock!  The first time ever). So the whole process went like this:

• Remove wheel
• Remove brake caliper
• Remove rotor
• Remove hub nut (after locating my old VW hub nut socket!)
• Pull hub assembly (used jaw pullers)
• Unbolt stub axle
• Get the &*@#$!ing bearing race off without damaging the stub axle (I used air chisel.  It was fast but delicate work.)
• Replace splash shield
• Reinstall stub axle
• Install new hub
• Install new hub nut
• Reinstall rotor (it was only a little warped, acceptable).
• Repair and grease caliper pins
• Reinstall caliper
• Install new brake pads
• Install wheel

I did this all in under 2 hours, as I needed to get my car back on the road in a hurry so I could return the trailer I had borrowed.  Then I finished building a deck. 

On a philosophical note.

I've spent a lot more time this summer working on my house instead of the car.  The work wasn't really that hard (I didn't have to figure out how to drill out a single rusty bolt), and now we have a beautiful kitchen and a new deck.  I have a great feeling of accomplishment and something that I can share with our friends and family.  Really got me thinking. If I put half the amount of labor I put into my car into my house, I would end up with something that is actually worth money in the end.  Meanwhile, my car just sucks money and time and, if I'm lucky (and determined enough), I am left with a car that will get me around.  I looked at my car log, and the amount of money I've been putting into it for parts alone would pretty much justify the payments on a $20K auto loan.  Add to that the fact that I'm really getting tired of dropping everything so I can lose an entire morning, afternoon, day, or days working on my 12-year-old car.  Even though I love my car, I think the time has come for me to trade up to something that I can "just drive".  When I got my Golf TDI, they were very difficult to come by, but the new ones are pretty easy to find and absolutely drool-worthy.  I've also considered getting a Prius, as they are loaded with tech opportunity.  They get similar mileage, but they run on gas which is cheaper than diesel (at least it has been for about 10 years).  I wouldn't have the option of running on vegetable oil, but it's been quite a while since I've done that, and I probably won't have time to do it again.

Anyway, just something I'm considering.  I'm not in a hurry to do anything yet, and as it happens it looks like the crop of cars I found interesting on Craigslist has sort of dried up.  Meanwhile. my inspection is due and I have a coolant temp sensor to replace.  So for now, tune into the next episode!

Euro Projector Headlights and Kamei Grill for the Golf

Woohoo!  I got something done on my car.  Had to go in yesterday and tighten up the connection between the counterweight and transmission gear selector (it came loose, probably was not torqued well enough when I replaced the transmission).  I decided, while I have the battery out, might as well take off the bumper and replace the headlights and grill.  This job ended up being a lot easier than I thought, because I had left the wiring there for my old custom fog lights.  Headlights are halogen projector type with OEM-style marker lights AND LED angel eyes.  I wired the angel eyes to a switch under my dash so I can turn them on/off, depending on how fancy I want to be.

I can't wait to be able to see where I am going at night.  My old headlight lenses were so scratched up that the beam was diffused.

Asus Vivobook X202E DH31T: Quick review

I mostly love my Asus Vivobook X202E DH31t.  It's almost an ultrabook, for a netbook price.  There are just a few things that bother me about it.  Perhaps I can fix some of them...

1&1.com Fail

Today we have a consumer alert for 1&1.com - domain registrar and site host. Lots of people complain about their service, and now I know why.

A domain of mine expired on 11/30/2013. Okay, my bad.

HOLY COW! Within 5 business days, it was cancelled and sent to auction, my 1&1.com account was deleted, and the issue was sent to their collections agency - all without a single attempt to notify me via phone, e-mail, or letter. Called and paid the collections agency plus an extra $12 fee. Collections agency said they would notify 1&1 immediately. Days later, no status update from 1&1. Called billing department, the person who answered had no idea what was going on and said I just have to keep waiting. My site has been down for 13 days now and I have no estimate as to when this is going to get fixed. The first thing I will do if I ever get my domain back is transfer it to Godaddy. Thanks 1&1!

And I used to complain because Godaddy sends out a half-dozen e-mails reminding me about products that are expiring.

Perl script for comparing files: List missing lines, regardless of order

The other day, I was comparing two different sitemap files of the same site. One had more links than the other, and I was trying to get a list of what was missing from the shorter one. However, since they were from different sitemap generators, the order of the links were completely different in each file.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be a much bigger challenge than I thought. I figured I could use some variation of a grep command line, or diff, but I wasn't able to find a simple combination of command line options for either that would do what I was looking for. It seems like everything I found was more geared toward comparing files that were in the same order. Diff simply dumped a large list of all the lines in file2; since the order was different than file1, every line was considered a mismatch.

Knowing this was a fairly trivial operation to do in Perl, I decide to write a quick script to do it. I'm sharing it here in case it can benefit anyone else:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# The purpose of this script is to print the lines in file2 that are not present in file1, regardless of order.

unless ($#ARGV>=1) {die "Usage: different-lines.pl [file1.txt] [file2.txt]";}

open (FILE1,$ARGV[0]) || die "Unable to open $ARGV[0]: $!\n";
open (FILE2,$ARGV[1]) || die "Unable to open $ARGV[1]: $!\n";

# Store the contents of file1 in array
while (<FILE1>) {push (@lines_one,$_);}

close FILE1;

# Iterate through each line of file2, checking for presence in file1, and setting a flag if it's found.
while (<FILE2>) {
        $flag=0;
        foreach $line (@lines_one) {
                $line=~s/\s+$//g;
                s/\s+$//g;

                if ($line =~ /$_/) {$flag=1; last;}
        }
        unless ($flag) {push (@missing_from_1, $_);}
}

close FILE2;

# Dump the results (missing lines)
foreach $line (@missing_from_1) {
        print $line."\n";
}

200K Rehab: Steering Wheel Cover

My steering wheel, being as old and heavily used as it is, was unsuprisingly rotted and has literally become smaller everytime I drive somewhere as it disintegrates in my hands.  I searched around for a replacement steering wheel, and quickly found that to be prohibitively expensive.  There were very few new OEM replacements, and certainly the ones I found were hundreds of dollars.  I really didn't want a crappy slip-on aftermarket steering wheel cover.  So after some deliberation, I finally settled on a pleather, stitch-on cover.   All things considered, it didn't come out too badly:

The kit I got cost under $10 shipped, and came with a needle and thread.  I wasn't trying to be cheap, but this one seemed to get good reviews and had everything I needed.  The thread they provided seemed fine - it was attractive and tough enough.  However, the amount they provided was about half what was actually needed, and I found myself having to run to the local craft store after having it half done, trying to find something that was passable.  This was a real bummer, as I wasn't able to find anything that was an exact match. Also, I spent close to 45 minutes hunting around, as the thread I finally found was not with the sewing stuff, it was in a far corner with a bunch very miscellaneous supplies.  I used a thread made of hemp - it was stiffer and a little bit lighter than what came in the kit.  And possibly stronger (?)

The process of stitching on was arduous and, IMO not for the faint-of-heart.  Since I have a little guy, I found myself doing a little during each free chunk of time I had available - about 45 minutes at a time.  I probably spent a total of 2 hours doing, which included pulling about 1/4 of it and redoing it, since I wasn't happy with my work.

Finally when I was done, I ended up using a hot glue gun to touch up the area around the spokes, as the skin  bent up to form pockets around them and wasn't laying down around them sufficiently for my liking.

The finished product looks good, and most importantly, feels great.  Since I drive a lot, my hands spend a lot of time on that steering wheel, so having a nice cover on there makes a big difference.  An item on my rehab list checked off!