On diagnosis and comfort levels and paying it forward.
Issue: Car starts when cold, car doesn't start when hot until car has cooled down.
Mitigation: Starter relay installed.
Results: Magnificent hot starting, timing and mixture adjusted better, cold start (after car has cooled off) completely dead.
New issue symptoms: No cranking, no clicking, no dashboard lights, no power to 12v socket. Headlights, horn, hazards, all OK. (Dome light status unknown, dome light switch defunct. Radio status unknown, radio MIA.)
Tested: Starter motor to battery through relay (cranks, will not catch with key to on and applying gas), test light from ignition switch to ground (does not illuminate). Unspliced starter wires from external relay connection and attempted to bridge, no change.
Untested: Actual presence of spark--theorized not present. Air, yes, fuel, yes.
Amateur diagnosis: Ignition switch finally expired.
I'm headed outside to spend a perfectly good Friday evening ripping off the steering column, pulling the ignition lock, and probing shit with my test light. I have quotes from Vatozone and ORLY for the part and know what it looks like from an official Toyota parts diagram I have access to (and no, not through Alldata or the Chilton/Haynes.) It occurs to me that I would have had the screaming meemies over this whole ordeal even a couple years ago, much less the idea of saying "Yeah, gonna strip down the column" in a sense of irked resignation rather than thinly veiled panic, or climbing under the car to undo what a garage had just done. (I can't even see the starter when Bug is on a LIFT, but I could get to the splices OK from ground-level. Really makes me reconsider spring selection for the suspension fixing...)
The other day I was contemplating Jez's leftover parts, including that set of Gixxer throttle bodies, and idly thinking that with some cheap weld-together manifold bits and some scrap injectors, I'd just need an electric fuel pump, mechanical blockoff plate, fuel rail, some sort of cheapass Microsquirt setup and a MSD6A for ignition and I could go with better-than-sidedrafts AND convert Bug to fuel injection.
I find it fascinating that my level of 'shit I actually COULD tackle with a little help" keeps climbing like this. Am I going to do it, no, those quads are being saved for Jez someday (torquey NA screamer, in simple Grand Touring fashion) and I don't really want to fuck around with fuel pumps--at least not without a real lift and air tools--and I don't have anywhere near the money. (38/38 DGAS adapted to the Offenhauser dual-plane intake MAYBE, or the Offy and a turbo and a hotter cam and blow-through on the 32/36. Someday. Maybe.)
Nevertheless...I remember the first thing I ever did as far as diagnosis and repair. Dad's old Town Car wouldn't start while it was down in T-Town with me, and he walked me through what to check and what to listen for to narrow it down to starter, solenoid, switch, etc. I remember propping the hood up with a broom (gotta love old-ass hydraulic shocks) and being so very, very proud that I managed to narrow it down to and replace the solenoid. Never mind that it was externally mounted damn near ON the hood rail and required all of two screws and one connector, I had--with research assistance--done something mechanical.
It's actually rather like how I got into computers. It's the same sort of theraputic skull sweat and finger exercise, gradually snowballing unti now when I'm replacing a carb, desmogging, and building a new linkage over the weekend, and looking back and thinking that it was actually rather straightforward and what can I do next?
With encouragement, instruction, and the ability to have fuckups that don't completely destroy all chances of recovery (why I don't work on my brakes), all it takes is a little bent along those lines and an interest and anybody can do just about anything. People have taken time to teach me, and I hope I can pass it on to those I deal with in return.
Thanks, Dad, thanks Grandpa, thanks Rick, and to everybody else, teacher or friend, who's showed me how to do something or to do something better or how to be a better person by example.
(Of course if it's NOT the ignition switch, I'm going to be spending some quality time with Photoshop and pictures of the electrical diagrams in the manual and swearing like Popeye, but that goes along with cars and computers.)
Mitigation: Starter relay installed.
Results: Magnificent hot starting, timing and mixture adjusted better, cold start (after car has cooled off) completely dead.
New issue symptoms: No cranking, no clicking, no dashboard lights, no power to 12v socket. Headlights, horn, hazards, all OK. (Dome light status unknown, dome light switch defunct. Radio status unknown, radio MIA.)
Tested: Starter motor to battery through relay (cranks, will not catch with key to on and applying gas), test light from ignition switch to ground (does not illuminate). Unspliced starter wires from external relay connection and attempted to bridge, no change.
Untested: Actual presence of spark--theorized not present. Air, yes, fuel, yes.
Amateur diagnosis: Ignition switch finally expired.
I'm headed outside to spend a perfectly good Friday evening ripping off the steering column, pulling the ignition lock, and probing shit with my test light. I have quotes from Vatozone and ORLY for the part and know what it looks like from an official Toyota parts diagram I have access to (and no, not through Alldata or the Chilton/Haynes.) It occurs to me that I would have had the screaming meemies over this whole ordeal even a couple years ago, much less the idea of saying "Yeah, gonna strip down the column" in a sense of irked resignation rather than thinly veiled panic, or climbing under the car to undo what a garage had just done. (I can't even see the starter when Bug is on a LIFT, but I could get to the splices OK from ground-level. Really makes me reconsider spring selection for the suspension fixing...)
The other day I was contemplating Jez's leftover parts, including that set of Gixxer throttle bodies, and idly thinking that with some cheap weld-together manifold bits and some scrap injectors, I'd just need an electric fuel pump, mechanical blockoff plate, fuel rail, some sort of cheapass Microsquirt setup and a MSD6A for ignition and I could go with better-than-sidedrafts AND convert Bug to fuel injection.
I find it fascinating that my level of 'shit I actually COULD tackle with a little help" keeps climbing like this. Am I going to do it, no, those quads are being saved for Jez someday (torquey NA screamer, in simple Grand Touring fashion) and I don't really want to fuck around with fuel pumps--at least not without a real lift and air tools--and I don't have anywhere near the money. (38/38 DGAS adapted to the Offenhauser dual-plane intake MAYBE, or the Offy and a turbo and a hotter cam and blow-through on the 32/36. Someday. Maybe.)
Nevertheless...I remember the first thing I ever did as far as diagnosis and repair. Dad's old Town Car wouldn't start while it was down in T-Town with me, and he walked me through what to check and what to listen for to narrow it down to starter, solenoid, switch, etc. I remember propping the hood up with a broom (gotta love old-ass hydraulic shocks) and being so very, very proud that I managed to narrow it down to and replace the solenoid. Never mind that it was externally mounted damn near ON the hood rail and required all of two screws and one connector, I had--with research assistance--done something mechanical.
It's actually rather like how I got into computers. It's the same sort of theraputic skull sweat and finger exercise, gradually snowballing unti now when I'm replacing a carb, desmogging, and building a new linkage over the weekend, and looking back and thinking that it was actually rather straightforward and what can I do next?
With encouragement, instruction, and the ability to have fuckups that don't completely destroy all chances of recovery (why I don't work on my brakes), all it takes is a little bent along those lines and an interest and anybody can do just about anything. People have taken time to teach me, and I hope I can pass it on to those I deal with in return.
Thanks, Dad, thanks Grandpa, thanks Rick, and to everybody else, teacher or friend, who's showed me how to do something or to do something better or how to be a better person by example.
(Of course if it's NOT the ignition switch, I'm going to be spending some quality time with Photoshop and pictures of the electrical diagrams in the manual and swearing like Popeye, but that goes along with cars and computers.)