1 Year of Mechanical Malarkey

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Dan

It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been a whole year since I started this blog to share my experiences as an automotive technician.

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3 Ways to Engage Parking Brakes

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Dan

All cars in the US have parking brakes. It can be called by many names, such as hand brake, emergency brake, or parking brake. Most of the time I only ever see it used by people with manual transmission cars, because automatic transmissions don’t require it to stay where they were stopped. Personally, I always put the parking brake on when I park an automatic. It feels a lot more secure. There are a few different designs for how to engage the parking brake.

Pedal

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Dashboard Removal

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Dan

Car interior work is never fun, because you always risk breaking an expensive trim piece or getting them dirty, or parts not going back together right. Probably one of the least favorite jobs of any mechanic is anything that requires the removal of the dashboard.

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Chrysler Air Conditioning

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Dan

Mechanics like to beat on engineers whenever their designs make it hard to work on. Sometimes it’s not their fault, but other times it just doesn’t make sense why things are the way they are. Whoever designed the air conditioning system in 5th generation Chrysler Town & Country minivans must not have known that the air conditioning needs servicing occasionally.

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Tire Slime

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Dan

If you have a flat tire caused by a puncture, if you don’t have a spare tire, but have a tire pump, usually you’ll be okay if you use some sort of tire sealant, like Slime. I’d never used it myself until the summer camp work truck had a leaking tire, so I pumped a bottle in and it sealed it up nicely.

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More Rodent Damage

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Dan

Animals like to eat. They like to eat things that aren’t food sometimes. Sometimes, those things are parts of our cars.

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Be Careful Where You Hook

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Dan

When you’re hooking a car with something, whether with a tow truck or when tying to down to a trailer, you have to be careful where you hook it.

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Summer Camp Vehicles

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Dan

This week I’m actually not at the Honda shop, but at a summer camp. For several years now I’ve spent some time each year working at camp. I usually work with the facility maintenance guys. We do stuff like work on buildings, cut down trees, split firewood, and fix anything that’s broken.

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Surprise Passenger

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Dan

It’s a regular Saturday morning at work, when one of the techs finds some fur in the engine compartment of a car he just pulled in. It turned out to be a live cat that rode for 45 minutes next to the engine. Luckily it was on the far side of the car from where all the belts and pulleys are, which are what usually kill stowaway animals.

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Don’t Plug the Sidewall

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Dan

When a tire gets a puncture, usually it can repaired with a tire plug.

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