How'd it go today?

The stuff you do as straight-forward is often full of useful tricks. The Flex-head ratchet for 1, the hand spinner that I've never heard of, for a second.
 
A couple more pics. Compression tests always make me nervous espescially as I'm like five to six cylinders in and it's all good. I can't help but think my hopes will get dashed on one of the last few cylinders. But not today! 145-150 on all eight, dead cold is fantastic compression(well atleast proper) for a 24 year old 351w. Fords are nice for bumping a compression test on as you have the starter solenoid under the hood on the fender well so you can just jump it with a screwdriver all from under the hood and then your ignition isn't firing either. Be certain it's not in gear!

I just ordered up all my parts now and was surprised as a Canadian, they should all be available by 4:00pm so my wife can pick them up after work and bring them home to me.

One more little stupid trick. When removing a clutch fan I've heard people say leave the belt on so you can loosen the bolts without the pulley just spinning. It always seems to spin anyways. Bah, just get that belt out of the way. I jam a wrench between a couple of the bolts and loosen all of them before removing them. Then they just spin out by hand.

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And for anyone noticing the spark plug wire labelling in that last pic. I know that number one cylinder is passenger front. But for this job to keep it simple I just labelled eachside one to four front to back.
 
It's nice to have enough room to put your hands in.
In my previous van, the only way to take out the timing belt cover is to use a small flat wrench held between the tip of the index and the middle finger, hand flat, and flipping it each time, only 30* move allowed for 2 bolts in the middle.
Luckily, the new van has a timing chain, so one worry less. But it seems that the engine has even less room around it. Stupid engineers.
 
The old beast has lots of room and double roller timing chain that was loosey goosey.

It's all tore down and most parts that are being re-used have been cleaned. Got bogged down in the cleaning. Pretty gunky down in there. I put all new plugs in and got rid of the sandwich oil cooler so now I can run a bigger oil filter. Timing cover which I'll re-use is soaking overnight in the parts washer. And all my replacement parts seem proper except for my new lower rad hose is wrong.

Used a puller to remove the harmonic balancer, which I'll be replacing. And got lucky on the water pump bolts and none broke.

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Looking good, I think I could take that on, except for the pullers and reluctant bolts scenario.

I worked in both Ford and GM garages in my youth, sadly in non technical roles.
 
This job is quite easy and straightforward. Even the puller is simple to use. It's hard to see in the pic but you just align the dots on each gear before removing the timing set. The cam gear dot is at six and the crank gear(bottom) dot is at twelve and make sure the new set goes on the same. Honestly the hardest part is all the damn cleaning. I had a couple of water pump bolts that had me wondering. On bolts I know are going to be sticky or could break I use my 3/8 ratchet like a human impact, I 'tap' it with appropriate force to break the bolt loose without, well.....breaking it. That's what I tell myself anyways, and it seemed to work out today.
 
Anti-sieze is your friend.

What's up with that bar hanging on the wall? I have never seen such a long replaceable tip.
 
My Sister called at 3am...Son told her he fell in a lake, was soaked, and needed a ride home. She asked me if she should go or not...I told her no...but I would

Dummy walked on a puddle, fell through the ice, got feet soaked and was stranded 30 miles from home...talked to me all the way back and I couldn't make hide nor hair of what his inebriated story was...not sure what he was on, but he had lots of energy.

Dropped him off where he stays in the city and headed home.
 
Sadly, for a quick second, I had to check the thread title at the beginning of the post, thinking I was reading the Joke thread.
 
Sadly it never seems to end...I just brought him back to his Mom's to charge his phone & change clothes. He managed to get in a fight with his roommate and got kicked out of there...been walking around in wet shoes all morning.

I had intended to bring him warm dry clothes and leave it at that, but Sis called and said bring him here...

He seems to think having a 29 hr/wk job is real special and everything should be hunky-dorey now...we had a talk about reality...well...I talked... :violent1: :banghead:

I'll just sit here and wait for the next emergency call :coffee2:
 
Bummer. Hope he finds his way. Sometimes just taking a break can lead to some clarity and good decisions. Party animals never wanna hear about swearing off booze or drugs permanently but sometimes they'll take a break and sometimes that can be a drastic improvement with permanent positive results.
 
Sorry to read about this I am sure it's hard but you're a good man for helping.



Confirmed the girls both have the flu, so I have to be on daddy duty until Friday. I would love it if the babysitters would come in but they are my wife's grandma (80) and my mom (76). But alas No for good reasons.
 
Unfortunately the tale is on hold for a day. Got called into work this morning. Just got home and started both fires in the house and will have dinner shortly. So tomorrow I'll get at it again if I don't get called in. Still good and cold here -20c this morning pushing -30 with the wind. I worked outside at the plant all day today too. It was brisk.
 
I was Not feeling it today. Slept poorly. Climbed a little. Decided to take the slow and steady descent, before and express checkout. The tree will be there tomorrow.

I woke up at 430 this morning, tired.
Cold mornings.


How much harder is frozen stump grinding, compared to thawed stump grinding. We left mid-stump Friday, end of day, when the stump was freshly cut and it was not cold. It froze over the weekend. Snowy yesterday. I looked at it, and thought it wouldn't be easier. I have a black tarp that I could throw over it in the morning, maybe enough to thaw it in the sun. Shoulda left it covered overnight to keep a bit of ground heat.
 
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