A most puzzling development. 

. 

Here's how the belt should run.
The crank pulley is #5.

Another Chapter in the, "My Daughter moved her car 120 miles" away saga.  

I got another one of those calls from my Daughter; "Dad, the car is making a weird noise." The noise was apparent when she started it up. It didn't matter if the car was moving. She sent me a recording, exactly what I wanted to wake up to! I told her that I would get back to her. 

A couple of days later I asked her to help me by doing some diagnostics. First, I wanted her to open the windows, then to start the motor, but to be sure that the a/c was off. This way we could possibly eliminate that as a source of the noise. I then asked her to drive it around the parking lot. This way if anything bad happened, she would be close to a parking spot! I asked her to note if the noise got louder, or changed as she moved the car. Was the driving of the car affected? 

The answers were that the noise was there even if the car wasn't moving, with or without the a/c on. It got a little worse at 25 mph. I asked her to open the hood and see if the sound was louder. It was. My Daughter looked around and she noticed that the serpentine belt looked kind of off. It didn't look like it was on the right part of the pulley. She sent some photos, and even drew a little diagram. She added that it looked like the belt was on the rubber part of the pulley, instead of the grooved part.

The following photos were sent to me by my Daughter. She did a good job in illustrating where the noise was coming from, and where the problem was. Smartphones can help make my diagnostic work easier. I also got a couple of videos with sound. 

The sound was coming from the front of the engine.

It appeared to be coming from down there!

Aha! That is the culprit. 
It is running on the rubber part!

She drew her own diagram

I had replaced the belt and tensioner less than 1,000 miles ago. But I guess that something could have happened. I told her that I'd be up there in a couple of days. My plan was to exchange cars, and leave her my red Mustang.

After driving up I took a look under the hood.

She was right. Sure enough the belt was resting on the rubber part of the pulley, instead of resting in the metal ring. It was in front of it, how could that have happened? Maybe something had been kicked up from the road and had gone under the belt causing it to jump off. I relieved the pressure on the tensioner and put the belt back in the right place, I started it up and the noise came back almost immediately, and the belt went back to the same position.

Maybe one of the accessory pulleys had become misaligned. But how? I checked every one, and they all turned true, so I put the belt back on.  I noticed that the part that ran from the tensioner to the crank pulley looked out of line. How could that be? Then it dawned on me, my Daughter had been right, the belt shouldn't be spinning on the rubber in front of the metal pulley. The metal pulley had separated from the rubber isolator and had moved rearwards, about an inch and a half, resulting in the belt jumping off. 

What I referred to as #5 in the opening diagram as the crank pulley is properly referred to as the harmonic dampener. It is usually constructed of three parts. 1) the crank pulley bolted to the crankshaft snout. 2) the metal pulley ring that the belt runs on, and 3) the rubber isolater that goes between those parts and is bonded to form a single unit. 

I had read about something like this happening in the Jaguar Forums. It affected the engines in XJ6s like my X300. But these had just shifted in position around a circular rotation, affecting the timing mark. Some of the guys had tried to stop the movement using superglue. 

I spent an hour trying to pry the metal ring back into position. I finally got back where it should be. Then I went to store and bought some super glue. I was hoping that the fix might hold long enough to drive it home. I'd reduce the load by keeping the a/c off. I transferred all my tools into her car. I thought that I should try it out before I told her that I'm leaving my car. So I started it up. Hah! it only held for a few seconds before the pulley moved and the belt jumped. 

Well that plan didn't work. The car would have to be repaired locally, but at least I knew what the problem was. I'd have to arrange something with a local shop. 

Later at home, I looked up the price of the dampener on Rock Auto, and found some at around 100.00. I figured that I might get charged closer to 200.00 for the part, and at least a couple of hours labor at 100.00 per hour. So the repair would hopefully be around 400.00 

Lucky for me, I always seem to enjoy the long drive back, which was made in my '96 Mustang. It's an over 200 mile round trip that gives the car it's needed exercise. The plan was to find a local shop, once I got home, then have my Daughter arrange to have AAA tow the car there. 

Finding a repair shop is difficult, especially in an unknown area, and it's especially difficult for a guy that is used to doing their own car repair. The Meineke shop that I had tried earlier had given me a bad vibe, much like my local Ford dealer. I was also looking for something closer and more convenient. My first choice was the actual Triple A repair shop, I figured that they would treat their members right. I asked if they could give me an estimate of how much the job would cost, they said that they couldn't unless they had the car in the shop. This is pretty much the standard response anywhere, and it is a reasonable answer. They would have an opening in the coming week. Many shops are squeezed for available parking/storage space and can't handle having the customer drop off the car earlier than they can schedule the repair. 

Then I called a local family owned shop that had been in business for a long time, Vicker's Automotive repair. It had a lot of positive Yelp reviews. When I called I spoke to David the service writer. What really impressed me, was that when I explained what the problem was, he actually listened to my diagnosis. I asked if he could give me an idea on the cost. He was willing to give an actual estimate, but he did caution me that this would be based on the fact that there were no additional issues. He called me back later with a quote of 480.00. This wasn't too much more than I had expected. I am probably out of touch with the current cost of shop labor. I was also happy that they could take the car in the following week. Another plus was that they could handle having the car dropped off earlier, which would make it easier on my Daughter's scheduling. Altogether I was quite pleased and told David that I would get back to him. 

I decided that I would take an active role in getting this done. My last intervention with this car seemed to drag on and on. It is usually a four hour plus round trip to Sacramento. That's a bit of time, but on many days I can easily waste four hours in a leisurely breakfast, followed by a couple of cups of coffee while I peruse the internet. There was no real reason for me to put this off.  I decided to drive up to help my daughter arrange a tow to get the car to the shop, and let the shop know that I would pay for the repair. I called Vicker's and advised them that my Daughter would be bringing in the car on Tuesday morning. I needed to get this problem resolved, and get it off my mind, where it does weigh kind of heavily. Git 'er done! 

This time I drove up in my '06 Mustang, I really do need to drive this car more. It's convenient that it's equipped with an aftermarket dash mounted GPS.  After the car was towed to the shop, we contacted the people in the front office. The office was clean, neat, and modestly decorated.  I met David, who was behind the counter, and the lady that handled the paperwork, and both were friendly. The shop and storage lot was spacious and looked neat and well ordered. I arranged to handle payment over the phone. There was a sign on the counter advising their customers that the shop labor charge had been increased from 120.00 an hour to 140.00. Well, now I know. I got a good vibe from the shop and was hoping that this could become the "go to" shop for anything automotive that my Daughter might need. 

The drive home was very enjoyable, besides the GPS, the dash unit still has a single disc CD player! It's also got some Bluetooth thing as well as a back up camera. I brought along some of my CD collection, I'm not ready to move on from this format yet! My '06 GT is a great road car, it feels really fast, sounds amazing, and tracks down the road steady as can be. Real world fuel economy is quite good. According to the trip computer, I achieved 22.7 mpg. on the trip up, hurrying as I was in a bit of a hurry. Going home, I took it easy, and this was reflected in an increase to 24.6 mpg. all on the lowest price regular grade fuel. I can live with this kind of mileage. This is a very quick and fast car, it will go 140 mph! And, it is still quite economical. To get appreciably higher mileage I would have to move down to a V6, or even a four cylinder power plant, both which are available within the current Mustang envelope. I might decide to investigate these alternatives in the future. However for the moment, the '06 is my perfect car.

I got a call the next day from my Daughter telling me that the Mustang was already done. They had completed the job on that same day. Great. I don't anticipate any problems with the repair, and hopefully it will be smooth sailing for awhile. 

Fingers and toes crossed!

 Too Legit to Quit?

Legit Street Cars.

The producer of this site is Alex Palmeri, a thirty something young man who had been a Mercedes tech at a dealership for a few years.  He has friends that are also mechanics and tuners. As well as some being YouTube content producers.

I became aware of this site through a link on the Jaguar forums. The post was about interior restoration, more specifically repairing leather seats. 

What caught my eye was that besides the interior refresh, there were other linked videos listed.

What really caught my eye, was that the focus of the videos was on working on older, high end Euro cars.

One video dealt with an auction purchase of a 2011 BMW seven series Alpina. This was a car that originally cost over 120K. It was a repro vehicle that had suffered some vandalism and had sat for perhaps a year of more in an auction yard. Unfortunately the vandalism included a broken out back light, (rear window). The auction people had taped up some plastic sheeting over the opening but time, wind, and weather had exposed the interior to a lot of moisture.  This was a Midwest car that had been exposed to snow. The car is actually owned by Alex's friend and had been purchased for 15,000.00. A comparable vehicle in better shape would be worth twice as much, so that is the basis for the flipper. But it needs to run reliably and the cosmetic details need to be addressed. 

Note: Both of these videos are quite long, approx. 40 minutes, but there is a lot of good information in them

The car had been keyed on all panels, the rear valance was missing, the front valance was scraped up. The car was jumped with a battery pack and it misfired so badly that it barely moved enough to make it into the shop. It had been described as a running/driving vehicle. Apparently this was good enough to earn that title.

When the car arrived, the trunk was full of water. You know what else the trunk was full of? Over 10,000.00 worth of electrical components. Some had been sitting in a couple of inches of water! 

The question was; could this thing be rehabbed economically and flipped? A thorough evaluation of the cars' condition followed.

After the water was vacuumed out of the trunk and it was dried out with fans blowing air into it, the battery was replaced and the car did start. Connecting an OBD type bluetooth scanner /diagnostic tool revealed a record 285 problem codes! 

What caught my interest was that many of the electrical components and the systems they controlled, weren't working, so they would have to be repaired or replaced. An inquiry to the BMW dealer resulted in a assessment that the car was "electronically totaled," the cost of replacing all the electronic goodies, was high. The quote was 10,500.00, which would exceed the limit of 2/3 actual value of the car. To fix the car the dealer would have had to replace the damaged items with new parts. There was no way that they would substitute used parts. In the dealer's opinion, the car was best sold as "junk" something that would be parted out by a wrecker.

I was impressed by Alex's attitude. He started disassembling the modules and connectors. He looked into plugs and connecting terminals. He disassembled the cases and inspected the circuit boards, looking for corrosion or burned areas. The micro electronic components, such as the I/Cs (integrated circuits) are packed very close together on the board, and built up corrosion can result in current bleeding to ground or shorting out adjacent components. If built up corrosion was found, Alex sprayed the boards with electrical contact cleaner spray and brushed them a soft bristled tooth brush. He even cleaned a few with de-ionized water! Interestingly enough de-ionized water didn't damage the boards. When he found a defective pin in a plug, he removed the pin and replaced it with a new section the wire.

He didn't try to electrically evaluate them with a multi meter or hook up a computer to check for current flow or output or voltage values. Instead he did what I would call a mechanical inspection and repair. Then he'd reassemble them and see if they worked. If they didn't, he replaced the unit for a used item sourced from E Bay. 

These used parts usually cost 1/10th of the cost of new, but there were no real guarantees. The diagnostic work was done with a Carley bluetooth interface tool. It not only read the code, it explained it in plain English and provided suggestions on how to repair the problem. 

He chased down almost all of the gremlins and most of the functions came back to life. I was amazed that all this was successful, this is a extremely electronically complex vehicle. It is exactly the kind of vehicle that I'm scared of.

By that I mean that it's something that I worry could be rendered completely unusable by electronic failure. Thereby resulting in a substantial loss not only of money, but of personal energy and maybe most importantly of all, passion. 

Let's face it, you're not going to invest emotionally in something that might be precarious to hold onto. Can you really care a bout a car that might betray you? 

The Alpina video has had the most impact on me. Alex has wrenched on modern cars he knows that there's no going back to points and carburetors, the future is electronic. Actually so is the present and to a large degree, the recent past. 

The site then kinda degrades into one of those "Abandoned 10 years!  Will it start and run well enough to drive home?"  There are lots of videos like that on the web. 

However, in one video Alex tries to start a forgotten Lexus IS250 that has sat for a year or so and would no longer start and run. His motivation is that if he can get it started, the owner will give it to him for free! 

There is a lot of good diagnostic info in this piece. Initially he determines that the brake light switch is defective and that prevents the car from cranking over. Then he finds that the fusible link bar was damaged while the battery was being jumped, burning a portion, resulting in more electric problems. These problems resulted in the car just sitting after the owner gave up on fiddling with it. The disuse resulted in a further degrading of the vehicle.

Alex chases down the problems and gets the car running again. After performing some maintenance and cosmetic repair, he plans to donate the car to a deserving individual.

Watching these videos and seeing how Alex deals and overcomes these issues has given me more motivation to get back to work on my XJS. It seems like a complex car to me, but compared to that Alpina, it's more like a Model T!

 Cars and Coffee,

Coming to a parking lot near you.

Have you partaken? 

I haven't, as of yet, though I have participated in Friendship Day with the Mid Peninsula Car Club. It's a show where owners display their cars and the public can ask them questions about the cars and their clubs. The intent is to get some new recruits for their clubs. These shows have a very diverse group of cars on display.

I also used to attend the Pacific Coast Dream Machines show at the Half Moon Bay Airfield. I've displayed my car there on a couple of occasions. 

These were pretty laid back affairs.

For some reason I have the feeling that Cars and Coffee events are not quite as laid back. Maybe because when I read posts on my blogs about these get togethers, there is always a certain snarkyness evident from the poster.

Could that be projection on my part? Maybe. I've had lot's of pleasant encounters on the street and in gas stations or parking lots with lots of folks. I've had good experiences while driving all of my old cars. I had a nice conversation while gassing up my white XJ6 a couple of months ago. I spoke with the owner of an immaculate red Acura NSX in the lot of Harbor Freight just a week ago. I've found that people like to look at cars that they have had a relationship with in the past, as most people don't hold onto a car for twenty or more years. 

My latest was at a gas station in Davis. It was a very hot day, I was next to a flatbed service truck gassing up. I had just finished doing some work on my Daughter's car and was getting ready for the trip home. I guess that I was sighing pretty loudly and the younger guy with the truck asked if I was okay, and offered me a bottle of water from the cooler in the bed of his truck. I declined and told him what I'd been doing. Then he asked about my '96 Mustang. We talked about it a bit. I asked how business was, and he started telling me about his kids, it was a nice encounter, I find that an older car can be a good conversation starter.

These encounters are with regular folks and we were all very laid back. I've been to some car shows where I would hear some jerk making critical comments about the cars as he walked down the line. Sometimes even within earshot of the owner.

Sometimes the owner is the one with the attitude, Especially if he has something that really is kind of special. It could rare, old, expensive, and immaculate, or even all of the above. Sometimes they speak as if they think they are above the common show goer. 

I shouldn't let my pre conceptions spoil my enjoyment and I usually don't. 

I decided to give the Cars and Coffee scene a chance.  There are several that occur nearby, and they don't charge admission. 

I first chose the meet up in Niles/Fremont, only a half hour away. It's in the Niles historic district. That's where many early motion pictures were filmed. 

When I arrived I found cars parked along the curb near the Flying A gas station and backed in at the curb in front of the shops and restaurants. A good mix of cars. Some 50's cars, a couple of hot rods, a few muscle cars. There were immaculate show cars, lots of driver's and some rough ones. I parked my blue Mustang a bit down the street away from the displayed cars. I walked down the street, checking out the cars and I start talking to the owners, or least the people I see standing near the cars. 

First up I saw a Datsun 280Z parked in front of a 510, their owners weren't around. 

There was a rough '70 Monte Carlo parked in front of a lowered "patina ed" white '57 Cadillac Coupe.

The gent sitting in the lawn chair wasn't the owner. He had a  black '48 Chevy hot rod parked down the street,

The other gent was the owner of a  yellow '34 Ford Cabriolet hotrod

I passed a black Porsche 911 with a V8 engine stuffed in the back.

Then there was a white '64 Chevy long bed truck

Parked behind this was a '64 white Ranchero.

I've never had a problem breaking the ice, I usually start by asking a couple of questions about the cars. That will start the dialogue. Everyone that I spoke to was very friendly and open.

Then I attended a Tuesday night Cruise in at an In and Out Burger in South San Jose. 

There were groups of owners sitting together in lawn chairs under pop up shades. This seemed like a group that spends a lot of time together, maybe they belong to a club? I even ran into a guy that I used to work with. Lots of nice 50's and 60's cars and everyone was very friendly. Unfortunately someone parked too close to my car and put a ding in the door! It wasn't from a participant, as I hadn't parked close to the group. 

Lastly I attended a cruise in by the San Jose Mustang club on the following Sunday morning, not too far from Oakridge Mall. Again everyone was very friendly. There were some pretty  extreme cars there, with supercharged engines that had been swapped in. There was an older couple that were displaying an Emberglow '66 Mustang fastback. The car had belonged to the lady's Father. The car had been in the family since it was new. The asking price was in the mid 30 thousands, while it was in pretty good shape, it wasn't perfect. There were numerous scratches and a couple of dings that confirmed that the car had been used as it was intended, but you could also see that the car had been well cared for. I suppose you could call it a survivor. The price seemed like a lot to me but that is what these cars go for now.

There was a young couple with a pretty rough Fox body car, they were in the process of fixing it up. There were some mismatched body panels and splotches of primer as well as faded original paint. During our conversation the owner said that he was looking for an affordable shop to get it painted at. I told them about the paint shop in Fremont that had painted my '70 Mustang.

What really caught my eye was a Saleen Speedster replica in brilliant red paint, with a supercharged Terminator Cobra motor installed. I have thought of adding a few Saleen items to my '96 GT, but I probably wouldn't add a supercharged engine. 

Talking to the owners is really what these meetings are all about. It gives me a chance to talk cars with a group of people that understands them. Since I can never see myself joining a club, this is probably as close as I need to get. 

These types of events are frequent and occur within a reasonable distance from my home. They are more convenient than going to a distant town to see a show. Unless the trip itself is part of the attraction. 

A month later I attended a very large car show in Saratoga. There was a diverse group of cars and the setting was nice. 

I think I've seen enough cars for awhile. At least other people's cars. I've got a few cars at home that I need to spend some time with. 

But it's kind of nice to know that I can feed my "car fix" anytime I need to. 

 Where do I go from here? 

"Sure, it's original paint."
Mustang circa 2014

Why are my current automotive problems and setbacks now hitting me so much harder? I'm facing a lot of disappointment. My conviction that I can hold on to a favored, late model car, well into the future, has been severely shaken. You mean that I can't have my "forever" car? 

The cars in question are the 2005 through 2014 model Mustangs.

I have documented my trials with the '07 Mustang's electrical system. The component that causes the trouble is the Smart Junction Box, which is a combination of a fuse box and the body computer. All of the electrical connections that control the body functions are routed through this box. There are nine, I'll repeat that, NINE, connectors plugged into this box, with hundreds of connecting pins. 

The computer controls all the memory and accessory functions, as well as the radio, HVAC, and power assists.

These components are no longer available new, nor are they available as rebuilt/refurbished//tested and guaranteed units. I found that my Ford dealer has little interest in assisting the customer, even if they had bought the car new from them. There are plenty of used units available on EBay, some with return guarantees.  There are lots available used from the wrecking yard, I pulled four from my local P/P ( Pick and Pull) yard a week ago. It cost me less than 30.00 for the one that I selected.

These have been popular cars, so I imagine that the will be populating the wrecking yards for the immediate future. Of course a savvy guy, (like me?) will probably start buying them up from the yards and reselling them as a business. So the supply of these things might be assured. 

I read a post on the Jaguar forums where a poster mentioned his concern that our older Jags might become un-repairable in the future, and maybe not that far off in the future. As I've learned, many dealerships will not work on cars that are over twenty years old. This also extends to the motorcycle world, a friend has a 2000 Harley Wide Glide told me the dealer won't do anything beyond a tire change. Another member commented that late models Jags were just a collection of modules on wheels, and a failure of one of these modules could render the car  un-driveable. Another commenter wrote that there was no reason to worry, there would probably be plenty of junkyard parts available. 

Maybe so. Maybe no.

It's not like a work around could be easily accomplished with an arm load of electrical wire and a handful of wiring connectors!

Earlier I had complained about the power seat motor tracks. This was a failure prone mechanism that had been extremely expensive to fix, as a new track assembly was over 800.00. There are a few NOS units floating around on the internet, but they are pricey. The discussion on the forums was that there weren't any alternatives. Were there manual units available?  Most guys had never seen one. When I bought my '96 Mustang, 13 years ago, the power seat was also inoperative, I replaced it with a manual track sourced from the junk yard for 15.00. A replacement N.O.S. motor assembly was over 400.00! 

I eventually found a post that showed a manual seat adjuster unit for a 2005, it also had a lever that could raise or lower the seat a couple of inches. I went to P/P and found and bought a complete manual seat, and swapped it into my Daughter's  '07. Later I found a working seat motor assembly in another yard, along with another manual adjuster. That went onto the '07's seat.  Now I have two spare manual units in case my '06 needs one. I also held onto the '07's seat motor. Maybe in the future there will be aftermarket service parts available to repair it. 

Using wrecking yard parts to fix a car is a common method, but usually these are mechanical or cosmetic parts. That's where I found a replacement radiator for my '97 Jaguar XJ6. It cost me 50.00 as opposed to 6-700.00 dollars that I was quoted at the auto parts store. I didn't have any reservations about using it. I just replaced the radiator in my '96 Mustang, but with a brand new one. It was locally available for 300.00

Photo source: Chinatown
If you've seen the movie, you know what comes next.
Let's all keep our hands to ourselves!

I'm sure that you've seen some old movie that presented some stereotypical, hysterical women in a crisis situation who is running around all agitated and unable to think clearly and the male hero grabs the woman and slaps her across the face. Telling her "Get a hold of yourself!" (Yes, I know that is a patronizing and demeaning portrayal of a woman. I'm not a cave man!) 

That's just what my Wife did to me, well, verbally, at least. She saw me moping around and heard me complaining ( whining perhaps?) about possible future scenarios. She firmly told me "What are you worrying about? Do what you always tell me to do- start worrying when you absolutely need to!" She was right of course. I really don't know what had come over me. I just felt as though the ground was shifting under my feet, that something that I'd just taken for granted was going to disappear, and it really threw me off balance! 

None of us knows what the future is going to bring, California has decreed that there will be no more new ICE vehicles sold after 2035. That is only 13 years from now. In that year I will be 80 years old! I probably won't be driving that much then. 

I'm not driving that many miles per year anymore. I never had a long commute, and now, I have no commute! There are days when I don't drive anywhere at all.  My estimate is probably around 200 miles a week, not counting our road trips. Any car that I have may well last a very long time, and I have several cars that I use. If I were to buy a new car next year, how long would it take me to hit 100,000 miles? 

Do the math, 200 miles a week is only 800 miles a month, is only 9.600 miles a year. So it would take around ten years to hit 100,000 miles. Those miles would also be spread over several different vehicles.

I have actually decided to log my mileage on every vehicle, so that I would have some concrete data to discuss. It's kind of funny because sometimes I'll go days without even starting up one of the cars, then I took three trips up the Sacramento area and another one recently down to Pismo Beach. 

I've decided to buy an exact replacement S.J.B. for my '06 Mustang. I'll store it safely away in the garage with the one that we bought for the '07.  Just in case.

Drive more, worry less. Just like my Wife said!

With all that being said, I've discovered a new YouTube channel that deals primarily with fixing up newer, post 2000 year model cars. Not only that, but they specialize in older European, high dollar models. The exact types of cars that scare me the most. They deal with a bunch of electronic component malfunctions  (ya think!) and have a very practical and positive attitude abut how to handle these problems.

Just  the new attitude that I need to develop to deal with the not so new Millennium. More on this to follow.