Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
I spent today at my friend Tony's shop helping out a little. He had a '95 Toyota Camry that wouldn't run, was doing an alternator and a "just quiet it down" exhaust repair on a Cutlass Ciera, and a battery and brake inspection on a '99 Malibu.
The Malibu went fine. I did the battery for him while he was with a customer; he did the brake inspection when the car's owner came back so he could show her what was happening there. He wanted me to play with the Camry, because according to the customer, "It was running badly, so my friend tuned it up. Now it won't start at all." He figured (correctly) that it would keep me out of trouble for a couple of hours and I could figure it out. It did some weird stuff, I'll say that.
I started by checking the firing order, which was right at the cap but we didn't know if the positioning was correct in regards to the rotor. The old "put your thumb over the #1 plug hole and feel for compression" can't be done on that engine, since the spark plug threads are conveniently placed about 8" down holes in the valve cover. It had spark, it seemed to have compression, and we could smell fuel. It just would not fire. I hook up my timing light (I'd brought mine; Tony didn't know if his worked). No strobe... WTF?! The thing has hardly ever been used! Try Tony's... same thing. So, I went out and tried mine on Tony's truck, no worky. Now I'm pissed--the thing wasn't cheap. Try his on the truck, success. Then, just for giggles, I hooked mine back up. Suddenly it worked. What the...? OK, well at least it's still good!
Back to the Camry. Still no frickin' strobe! Monkey with the inductive pickup some more, and sho' nuff. If you've never seen the plug wires on a 2.2L Toyota, they're approximately kite string size and have to be pretty-much perfectly positioned for an inductive pickup to work. I couldn't see the timing mark no matter which wire the pickup was reading. However, at this point it did something strange... it was double-striking occasionally, particularly on #2. So we raised it up and I turned the engine over by hand--definitely has compression. Ah, there's the little tiny notch in the crank pulley! A dab of white paint, and it's off to the races. Sure enough... the timing is dead-nuts where it needs to be, meaning all is correct at the distributor. Tony seemed to think the new cap was suspect; the one the friend installed was obviously the cheapest thing available, so he orders a new one. It's better, but not by much (CarQuest was the only one that had it in stock--Wells junk). Still nothing but the occasional cough, but the double-strike has stopped now so he was partially right. Of course, Tony's got to answer phones and deal with walk-ins, as well as work on the other cars so I scratched my head for a while. I deduce it just simply has to be the spark plugs... nothing else makes sense. Tony wasn't inclined to agree initially, but he didn't know if the plugs had been changed so it was worth a shot. His thinking was if it was the plugs, it would at least start and run like crap. I pulled the #1 plug, and sure enough, it's brand new... and to the friend's credit, he used Nevr-Seez on it. Four brand-new Autolites, gapped correctly, and the car wouldn't run. None of them looked like they'd ever even sparked. We order up some plugs, and Auto Value sends NGKs. Put it back together, and bam--it runs! Badly, of course, but it runs. Black, white, and blue smoke... the shop was absolutely polluted. Visibility was literally about ten feet. Black smoke we expected from all the cranking with no fire, as it had to have flooded it to some extent, but even after running awhile and being repeatedly revved, it was still doing it. Tony looked at me, and shook his head: "I've never seen a car with a completely-fresh tune-up not start because of the plugs." I hadn't either, but what else could it be at that point? I guess Autolites in a Toyota are a bad idea.
We opened the shop doors, and literally smoke-screened the entire neighborhood... my final comment to Tony regarding that car was, "This things got way bigger issues than a tune-up could solve."
During the time I was futzing with the Camry, Tony finished the alternator on the Ciera and lifted it up so he could look at the exhaust. "You gotta come and look at this!" The muffler is right at the rear bumper on that car, and within a span of 8" or so, between the muffler inlet and the over-axle pipe, there were God knows how many small chunks of pipe, six muffler clamps, and a hose clamp. :wtf: Moving towards the front of the car, we find another suspicious area with three muffler clamps in as many inches, and yet another hose clamp. Tony gives the exhaust a little tug downward, and out of nowhere appears a chunk of brand-new pipe, not visible until he did it. He pulls on it again, harder this time, and it's like a slip-yoke--he exposed about 7" of brand-new pipe, set inside the old, rusted original pipes. It was clamped on one side only, allowing the slip-yoke effect. He lowered the car back down, drove it out and called the customer, leaving a message: "The alternator's done, the battery checks out fine. The exhaust? No way. Trying to patch that is just going to end up one of those one-thing-leads-to-another deals, and unless you want a completely-new system from the converter back, I'm not touching it." The car was also riding on a well-worn space-saver spare. :doh:
My favorite part of the afternoon, though, was when we got on the subject of a former local judge's daughter's car. I had been there a couple of weeks ago, and Hizzoner gave Tony very-little idea what the problem was, other than "I think it needs a fuel pump... it runs for a few seconds and dies. The battery was dead this morning, too." Tony tests the battery, it shows it's good. Hooks up the scan tool, and apparently this wasn't the first time the battery went haywire and the ignition key's transponder had somehow "unlearned" itself from the security system. He re-learns the key, and it starts right up. He charges the former judge $100 for the diagnostic and the re-learn (that scanner/re-learn tool wasn't cheap). The judge pays it and is happy as a clam. Well, the next day the car won't start... the battery's dead again. Tony tows it in (no charge) and checks the battery again... now it tests with a dead cell. He installs a new battery at 5:45PM on a Friday (he closes at 5, and had to run to the parts store himself to get it), and it's all fine. The battery was $86. He charges the judge another $100, figuring he'd eat the tow, the drive to the parts store, and not mark up the battery. He made $14 labor.
Or, he would have. The judge refused to pay... "$200 seems pretty high for a battery." Tony and this fella have known each other for years. Tony thought he was joking around, but as the conversation progressed he realized the guy was serious. Tony dressed him down pretty well, and wrote off the whole experience. Well, a couple of weeks later, he gets a letter from the judge's daughter. Holds it up to the light, and sure enough, it's a check. He never opened it; rather, he put it inside another envelope with an absolutely scathing letter to the judge, questioning his qualities as a man. No insults, nothing like that, just "who do you think you are?" He went on to say he refused to open the envelope and would consider his cost of the experience tuition for a lesson hard-learned.
Why did I love this so much? Because it's the same judge that violated his own court order in respect to fines I owed (the $400+ in $1 bills story), and also the same man that referred to me as a "fucking menace" in open court, and has over-sentenced me every single time I've been in front of him. :dance:
I have no idea why I typed all this out. I just felt like it.
The Malibu went fine. I did the battery for him while he was with a customer; he did the brake inspection when the car's owner came back so he could show her what was happening there. He wanted me to play with the Camry, because according to the customer, "It was running badly, so my friend tuned it up. Now it won't start at all." He figured (correctly) that it would keep me out of trouble for a couple of hours and I could figure it out. It did some weird stuff, I'll say that.
I started by checking the firing order, which was right at the cap but we didn't know if the positioning was correct in regards to the rotor. The old "put your thumb over the #1 plug hole and feel for compression" can't be done on that engine, since the spark plug threads are conveniently placed about 8" down holes in the valve cover. It had spark, it seemed to have compression, and we could smell fuel. It just would not fire. I hook up my timing light (I'd brought mine; Tony didn't know if his worked). No strobe... WTF?! The thing has hardly ever been used! Try Tony's... same thing. So, I went out and tried mine on Tony's truck, no worky. Now I'm pissed--the thing wasn't cheap. Try his on the truck, success. Then, just for giggles, I hooked mine back up. Suddenly it worked. What the...? OK, well at least it's still good!
Back to the Camry. Still no frickin' strobe! Monkey with the inductive pickup some more, and sho' nuff. If you've never seen the plug wires on a 2.2L Toyota, they're approximately kite string size and have to be pretty-much perfectly positioned for an inductive pickup to work. I couldn't see the timing mark no matter which wire the pickup was reading. However, at this point it did something strange... it was double-striking occasionally, particularly on #2. So we raised it up and I turned the engine over by hand--definitely has compression. Ah, there's the little tiny notch in the crank pulley! A dab of white paint, and it's off to the races. Sure enough... the timing is dead-nuts where it needs to be, meaning all is correct at the distributor. Tony seemed to think the new cap was suspect; the one the friend installed was obviously the cheapest thing available, so he orders a new one. It's better, but not by much (CarQuest was the only one that had it in stock--Wells junk). Still nothing but the occasional cough, but the double-strike has stopped now so he was partially right. Of course, Tony's got to answer phones and deal with walk-ins, as well as work on the other cars so I scratched my head for a while. I deduce it just simply has to be the spark plugs... nothing else makes sense. Tony wasn't inclined to agree initially, but he didn't know if the plugs had been changed so it was worth a shot. His thinking was if it was the plugs, it would at least start and run like crap. I pulled the #1 plug, and sure enough, it's brand new... and to the friend's credit, he used Nevr-Seez on it. Four brand-new Autolites, gapped correctly, and the car wouldn't run. None of them looked like they'd ever even sparked. We order up some plugs, and Auto Value sends NGKs. Put it back together, and bam--it runs! Badly, of course, but it runs. Black, white, and blue smoke... the shop was absolutely polluted. Visibility was literally about ten feet. Black smoke we expected from all the cranking with no fire, as it had to have flooded it to some extent, but even after running awhile and being repeatedly revved, it was still doing it. Tony looked at me, and shook his head: "I've never seen a car with a completely-fresh tune-up not start because of the plugs." I hadn't either, but what else could it be at that point? I guess Autolites in a Toyota are a bad idea.
We opened the shop doors, and literally smoke-screened the entire neighborhood... my final comment to Tony regarding that car was, "This things got way bigger issues than a tune-up could solve."
During the time I was futzing with the Camry, Tony finished the alternator on the Ciera and lifted it up so he could look at the exhaust. "You gotta come and look at this!" The muffler is right at the rear bumper on that car, and within a span of 8" or so, between the muffler inlet and the over-axle pipe, there were God knows how many small chunks of pipe, six muffler clamps, and a hose clamp. :wtf: Moving towards the front of the car, we find another suspicious area with three muffler clamps in as many inches, and yet another hose clamp. Tony gives the exhaust a little tug downward, and out of nowhere appears a chunk of brand-new pipe, not visible until he did it. He pulls on it again, harder this time, and it's like a slip-yoke--he exposed about 7" of brand-new pipe, set inside the old, rusted original pipes. It was clamped on one side only, allowing the slip-yoke effect. He lowered the car back down, drove it out and called the customer, leaving a message: "The alternator's done, the battery checks out fine. The exhaust? No way. Trying to patch that is just going to end up one of those one-thing-leads-to-another deals, and unless you want a completely-new system from the converter back, I'm not touching it." The car was also riding on a well-worn space-saver spare. :doh:
My favorite part of the afternoon, though, was when we got on the subject of a former local judge's daughter's car. I had been there a couple of weeks ago, and Hizzoner gave Tony very-little idea what the problem was, other than "I think it needs a fuel pump... it runs for a few seconds and dies. The battery was dead this morning, too." Tony tests the battery, it shows it's good. Hooks up the scan tool, and apparently this wasn't the first time the battery went haywire and the ignition key's transponder had somehow "unlearned" itself from the security system. He re-learns the key, and it starts right up. He charges the former judge $100 for the diagnostic and the re-learn (that scanner/re-learn tool wasn't cheap). The judge pays it and is happy as a clam. Well, the next day the car won't start... the battery's dead again. Tony tows it in (no charge) and checks the battery again... now it tests with a dead cell. He installs a new battery at 5:45PM on a Friday (he closes at 5, and had to run to the parts store himself to get it), and it's all fine. The battery was $86. He charges the judge another $100, figuring he'd eat the tow, the drive to the parts store, and not mark up the battery. He made $14 labor.
Or, he would have. The judge refused to pay... "$200 seems pretty high for a battery." Tony and this fella have known each other for years. Tony thought he was joking around, but as the conversation progressed he realized the guy was serious. Tony dressed him down pretty well, and wrote off the whole experience. Well, a couple of weeks later, he gets a letter from the judge's daughter. Holds it up to the light, and sure enough, it's a check. He never opened it; rather, he put it inside another envelope with an absolutely scathing letter to the judge, questioning his qualities as a man. No insults, nothing like that, just "who do you think you are?" He went on to say he refused to open the envelope and would consider his cost of the experience tuition for a lesson hard-learned.
Why did I love this so much? Because it's the same judge that violated his own court order in respect to fines I owed (the $400+ in $1 bills story), and also the same man that referred to me as a "fucking menace" in open court, and has over-sentenced me every single time I've been in front of him. :dance:
I have no idea why I typed all this out. I just felt like it.
