RAV work

I did a lot of carwork last week, all on the RAV 4 though. It had finally gotten to the point it would not run long at all before starting to stumble. The plug wire kept getting loose almost immediately. And I also started to get the check engine light coming on. Interestingly, it happened while on my way to Home Depot to buy a new water heater for the house, but that is a different time-consuming story. Anyway, I ended up buying a cool, cheap OBD2 code reader at Harbor Freight to double check my suspicions about the engine misfires, and when I used it, I learned that there were 5 codes. Two were for the suspect cylinder, two others were for multiple cylinders, and one was for a different cylinder. I also bought a neat Haynes Repair Manual for the RAV 4 at AutoZone. It gives complete illustrated instructions on just about everything you can think to do to the car.

I decided to replace all the spark plugs and bought some at Advance Auto. Nothing special, just your basic NGK plugs. I started with the obviously bad cylinder and could not get the plug out. I could get a grip on it with the long, deep plug socket, but I could not extract it from the hole (about 5 inches or so deep). I tried a long time and moved on to the second plug which came out with no problem. So I buttoned everything back up and the next day, I regrouped and decided to buy a really nice plug puller with a magnetized socket. Eleven bucks instead of 99 cents.

Next, I went to use this on the bad plug and could no longer even get a grip on the plug. It would not push down far enough. It felt like I was hitting on something rubber on top of the plug itself. The kid next door to me came over to help and we tried everything we could think of to get it out and failed. Eventually, I trekked back to Advance Auto and bought this cool super-long needle nose pliers and a good LED flashlight. With those, I was able to see some blockage and was able to break off a piece. Upon closer inspection, I determined that the plug wire boot had broken in place and that 90 percent or so of it was still down there. More poking and pulling loosened it a bit and eventually, I came up with the idea of using a turkey pin (basically, a very thin strong wire) as a type of pick. I bent the end and was able to hook the rest of the stranded boot plug. After that, I had to go back to Advance to buy some new plug wires as the old ones were clearly dead.

Finally, I was able to get the rest of the plugs out and replaced, and put on the new plug wires. Nathan had driven by on his way to his grandma's and actually stopped to help me for a few minutes. It went very smoothly, and now the RAV seems to be purring like a kitten. I just hope that there wasn't much/any leftover junk from the shredded plug wire boot that will find its way into the cylinder itself and possibly cause damage to the piston rings. Time will tell.

No hot water

No, not the Cobra...my house. After 30 years of fine service, my hot water heater seems to have died. Any free time to work on the car this week instead went into the hot water heater problem. Sadly, I could not get it working again. So in the next day or two I will be buying a new one. Not sure who I will get to install it.

Just one day's work

I worked on the Cobra one day this week, and completed a little of the wiring. I spoke to the owner at Haywire, the maker of my wiring harness and got clarification on my alternator exciter wire. It turns out the the mystery connector on that wire was to be connected to a matching one on a wire coming out of the harness that was hidden when I checked for it before. Once I knew how it connected it was pretty simple to thread it through the firewall and terminate it where it belongs. I also learned that the little bump a few inches from the connector end was a covered diode. The diode is a protection on the wire that keeps power from backflowing, like a one-way resistor.

The voltage regulator is now done. I added one additional wire from the alternator field terminal to the voltage regulator and I ended up running some convoluted tubing down the inside of the engine bay on the passenger side to act like a conduit. I also ended up shortening some previously run wires that had too much slack. Next up, I will have to finish the MSD ignition box and starter motor wiring, figure out the wiring I will need to run down the driver side engine bay for things like the horns, the radiator fan, etc. Shortly after that I can mount the fuse box and move onto the dash wiring of the gauges.

My camera seems to be unable to transmit pictures, so don't expect much for a while. I can take them with my good laptop, but that is cumbersome, and I don't like to take it into the garage.

Busy

I did not work on the car this week. It was surprisingly busy. When I did get around to calling about my wire confusion on Friday afternoon, I found that the techs had already bugged out for a long Labor Day weekend. Oh well...

Here is a picture of the wire in question with a connector which I don't have a clue about. (My old digital camera seems to have had its computer interface die, so I am having to use my laptop to take pics...Ugh)

Wiring progress

Sorry I did not post last week. Laziness was unbeatable.

This week, my arm felt better than it has in 3 months. I was able to bowl on Monday and work about 5 hours on the car. I made some very good progress on wiring the Cobra. I planned the wire runs that go to the starter motor and did more on the alternator. I got all the wire into the convoluted tubing that works like a wire conduit and was able to mostly use some existing screws to fasten it down. I did have to drill a couple of holes in the frame for a couple of mounting hooks. This was very difficult work, lying on my back under the car with about a quarter inch clearance. Great test of the arms.

Next I had to cut the wires to the right length so they would be able to connect to the starter motor, but not too long to potentially drag or be exposed under the car. Measure twice, cut once.

After that I had to affix various terminators on the ends of the wires. Mostly they were ring or eyelet connectors, or spade connectors. This again required crimping in very cramped space under the car.

I also had to splice on a couple of fusible links to two of the wires. These are basically wires that have a built-in fuse like capability to blow if there are shorts that would threaten to do damage to the electrical parts. This was a little nerve-wracking in that I had to get it right the first time. No simply cutting it off and trying again if I made a mistake. Fortunately, everything went together beautifully.

For the week, I got all the wires terminated and in place, with one exception, so I have not tightened down everything onto the final posts. I will do that soon, after I resolve one wire question I still have about something called an "exciter" wire. Basically, it runs from the key switch to the alternator to tell it to start up right when you turn the key. The wire that came with my kit has a weird connector on it that I have to research a bit more.

So I do not have any final pictures this week. Laziness may have been defeated for the week, but not completely.

Car work resumes

I actually was able to work on the Cobra twice this week. I did not accomplish a whole lot, but I did 1) mount the voltage regulator, and 2) crimped the connectors on and ran a couple of wires from the alternator to the regulator on the PS footbox. Still have a couple of more wires to go so I did not get any pictures.

I also found a mistake on the giant wiring schematic I am using. It was just a reversal of wire colors, nothing too major. But it is very confidence enhancing that I figured that out and was able to confirm it with the author who already knew about the error and just had not gotten around to fixing it.

Great news on the RAV4...

but no Cobra work. I got my mom's Toyota to work! I was getting ready to use a can of Seafoam to treat the engine, thinking that the problem was a stuck lifter. The engine was making a terrible ticking noise, which matched the engine RPMs, soundling like it was coming from the front of the engine block. Seafoam is a detergent-like additive that is petroleum based that is supposed to do wonders for fixing carbon deposit problems.

I was bringing the engine up to operating temperature and decided to try to isolate the noise better while it was warming up. In doing so, I started poking around and noticed that the plug wire running to the first cylinder was vibrating just a bit. Low and behold, I pushed down on it slightly, and it clicked back into place, ending the tapping noise! Somehow, that wire had gotten loosened over time and must have come completely off a few weeks ago while I was driving my mom home from the doctor. It was bucking a bit and lost a lot of power at the time, which I guess was the effect of turning a 4 cylinder engine into a 3!

I have now driven the RAV about 3 or 4 times on short trips and it is running beautifully. What a relief to not have to spend a dime getting it fixed.

As for the Cobra, I did manage to get to a couple of auto parts stores to buy some needed primary wire. The next thing I am going to do is install the external voltage regulator. Basically, it manages the amount of battery recharging done by the alternator. This week the weather is supposed to be a little cooler, so I should find some time for it.