Continuing Thread: What Are You Fix-It'ing Today?

[john70t]

A few years ago I worked on the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS.
The ground wire is soldered through the stack and I should have cut/added a connection instead of monkeying with it.



This piece rides on the 4 posts on springs.
A useless rubber ring gets loose and this white plastic piece swells with the OEM grease. So the $500 joystick eventually binds.
The solution is to bore it out and grease with plastic safe Royal Purple NLGI#2.
I used way too much of course.



The ground wire broke recently so I spliced it but it still didn't work.
Then I noticed other wires had burned through.
I think the cause was a short in the old speakers which didn't work very well. That goes into the round file.
I ordered a new base and it's working.

[Baz]

Replaced an irrigation pump today for a friend.

[pksystems]

Working on replacing a leaking hot shutoff valve on dishwasher. The shutoff on the water heater now leaks when I close it (hasn't been closed often in ~15 years)

I figure I'd replace both..... Drain valve on tank is clogged.

Apparently you can swap out the entire drain valve (with 3/4" full port valve) with the tank full. Not sure I want to trust the vacuum in the tank to hold 80 gallons of water in there

Leaning towards replacing the entire tank and letting someone else deal with it.

[Ayles]

Been slowly getting my Juke Box working well. Had the light controller and amplifier rebuilt and put in a stylus. After that I was still chasing some issues around not have any sound out of a few of the speakers. Went through everything in the signal chain and found no issues until I got to the crossover... This is really one of the only bits that's hidden away. Its located in the sub enclosure.

I removed it and found that one the caps has cold/broken solder joint and another has one of the legs completely broken. Ordered up caps to recap the board. Hoping this takes care of it!

[porsche930dude]

Making good progress on my fc. If you want to follow iv got a thread going here.
Fc-150 Resurrection | ECJ5

[rsrguy]

So cool 930 dude!
This was yesterday. That's ppg cre epoxy primer, it's tintable, I wouldn't call it color matched though, just close. I spoke with the ppg tech rep, he said the high end shops aren't using high build poly primer, just lots of this stuff to build and block... It's pricy, but there's hardly any shrinkage. I didn't even know blocking epoxy was a thing! I paint aircraft almost every day... it's been years since I've shot bare steel... much less acres of it.

I used the one choice metal prep system a while back, for 2 reasons, one to protect it from any atmospheric rust causing moisture until I could set aside a full day to get it into primer... Second because I wanted to convert any no-see-em teeny rust. It's been about 2 months from the time of treetment.

The ppg tech rep said the sx treatment and conditioner are meant to be shot within a short time frame, so I needed to sand it before priming. That was yesterday, 6:30 am to 5 pm... long day.

A seriously long day.... probably why it took so long to get to this point, mainly because, once you start, you* can't stop until it's all sealed up. Any way, yesterday was the first full day I could devote to it in a while, and that didn't include commute time. Now I'm free to chase dings and block at will daily, (search & destroy) I estimate 2 weeks to paint.

Any way, lots of good music.

Gordon Lightfoot, Beatles, doobies, heart, Taylor, rush, Boston, Fleetwood, wilbury's, Petty (did you know he od'd on fentnyl? dip****) Beach boys, def Leppard, Zep, yes, elo, elp, Asia, Ramones, queen, acdc, derek&dominoes, bad co, the church, romantics, who, Kansas, vh, I'm sure a bunch of others I'm forgetting, I forgot daft punk.... there good for a driving beat when you get bogged... What a great day... just long.

[Baz]

Guy - looks awesome! Looks like a Javelin. AMC made some really cool cars!

Love the music content! I'm the same way. ALWAYS have tunes playing while working. Always!

I have outside speakers on 3 sides of my house with 3 different receivers and use flash drives in them with *my* playlists.

I also have little portable rechargeable speakers that use flash drives.

Don't forget Toto, Santana, CSN (&Y), Joni Mitchell, and Jeff Beck.

And also there are some fantastic soundtracks...Last of the Mohicans, Back To The Future, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Bullitt, ALL Clint movies, John Wayne pictures, and other stuff like Meet Joe Black and Tarantino flicks.

Keep up the epic work and as always thanks for sharing!

[rsrguy]

You're the kinda neighbor I'd dig having close by! I had a vintage pioneer receiver at the hangar... It died, so I bought a cheap 2nd hand Onkyo out of the local classifieds. They're tied to some vintage tanoy speakers I grabbed from a pawn shop. I ended up sticking a blue tooth receiver to it so now I can control tunes from anywhere in the shop.... Probably going to need the speakers repaired, they don't handle bass well... Maybe put a x-over on them and run a separate set of bass drivers... Too much on my list already...

The car is a 71 z code javelin, grandpa gave it to me when I was 17. The drive train is fresh, so once the paint is done we'll be installing a new factory accurate harness then reassemble the mess!

[Baz]

Originally Posted by rsrguy

You're the kinda neighbor I'd dig having close by! I had a vintage pioneer receiver at the hangar... It died, so I bought an Onkyo out of the local classifieds. They're tied to some vintage tanoy speakers I grabbed from a pawn shop. I ended up sticking a blue tooth receiver to it so now I can control tunes from anywhere in the shop.... Probably going to need the speakers repaired, they don't handle bass well... Maybe put a x-over on them and run a separate set of bass drivers... Too much on my list already...

Always a work in progress, eh?

Had some Morrisey/The Smiths on out back and heard my neighbor to the south yell over "I love The Smiths!"

I don't blare it, BTW. But our houses aren't too far apart so the sound kinda carries a bit....

Was up on a ladder last year trimming a palm out front and another neighbor caddy corner waved HI and said she loved the music.

26 years here and no complaints...so far.....

[herr_oberst]

R&R'd the complete drivetrains of 4 of my bikes. Chains, chainrings, cassettes, derailleurs, wheels, brakes. Just waiting on these 4 chains to dry and I'm ready for summer.

[Baz]

^^^ NICE Herr Oberst.....those chains are gorgeous!

[herr_oberst]

Thanks, they were grimefests this morning. Good to have this done.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Thanks, they were grimefests this morning. Good to have this done.

Wouldn't mind knowing the technique you used. I know a lot of folks use Simple Green.

[herr_oberst]

I have an ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight and I use the cheapest citrus cleaner I can find. Dollar store brand. It's been my experience that simple green or purple clean aren't any more effective on this kind of grime than the cheap stuff.

Put the part in a tupperware, cover with cleaner, put the tupperware in the ultrasonic, fill the tub of the ultrasonic until the tupperware floats slightly (this really saves on cleaner, you aren't filling the whole ultrasonic every time, just using enough to cover the part you want to clean)

Set the controls for heat and the longest amount of time on the ultrasonic (420 seconds I think). I usually just run it through 3 or 4 heat and agitation cycles, not changing the cleaner between cycles, then I take the tupperware out of the ultrasonic, scrub the part with one of those cheap paint/chip brushes that harbor freight sells to clean all the crevices, rinse with water until the water is clear. Done.

I hang the chains to dry, but all the other parts I use a blow gun attached to the compressor to dry it off nice and quick.

Someday I'm going to put together a nice "station" to make this more efficient; realistically I should be cleaning the chains and cassettes at least a couple of times in the winter and another couple of times in the summer and then one more time in the fall, instead of just hit and miss like I do it now. I think my chain and cassette budget would thank me.

[Baz]

^^^ OK thanks......looks like a decent system!

Having a proper "work station" or the proper space to do a task is half the battle, I find.

I bet you are not alone in not doing chain/drive train maintenance as much as it should be done.

On my beach bike I usually just keep spraying the chain with lubricant and that's it. Too busy with other stuff to do anything more right now.

Time - it's the one thing there's only so much of......

[Ayles]

Originally Posted by Ayles

Been slowly getting my Juke Box working well. Had the light controller and amplifier rebuilt and put in a stylus. After that I was still chasing some issues around not have any sound out of a few of the speakers. Went through everything in the signal chain and found no issues until I got to the crossover... This is really one of the only bits that's hidden away. Its located in the sub enclosure.

I removed it and found that one the caps has cold/broken solder joint and another has one of the legs completely broken. Ordered up caps to recap the board. Hoping this takes care of it!

New caps came in today, reworked the board and now all of the speakers are working for the first time since Ive owned it.

[greglepore]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

I have an ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight and I use the cheapest citrus cleaner I can find. Dollar store brand. It's been my experience that simple green or purple clean aren't any more effective on this kind of grime than the cheap stuff.

Put the part in a tupperware, cover with cleaner, put the tupperware in the ultrasonic, fill the tub of the ultrasonic until the tupperware floats slightly (this really saves on cleaner, you aren't filling the whole ultrasonic every time, just using enough to cover the part you want to clean)

Set the controls for heat and the longest amount of time on the ultrasonic (420 seconds I think). I usually just run it through 3 or 4 heat and agitation cycles, not changing the cleaner between cycles, then I take the tupperware out of the ultrasonic, scrub the part with one of those cheap paint/chip brushes that harbor freight sells to clean all the crevices, rinse with water until the water is clear. Done.

I hang the chains to dry, but all the other parts I use a blow gun attached to the compressor to dry it off nice and quick.

Someday I'm going to put together a nice "station" to make this more efficient; realistically I should be cleaning the chains and cassettes at least a couple of times in the winter and another couple of times in the summer and then one more time in the fall, instead of just hit and miss like I do it now. I think my chain and cassette budget would thank me.

Nice. Dawn dish soap works great to clean chains as well. Stay away from simple green on bike parts.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by greglepore

Nice. Dawn dish soap works great to clean chains as well. Stay away from simple green on bike parts.

I think it's OK to use on the drive train though.

Simple Green also makes a cleaner/degreaser just for bikes, and I have not looked into how it differs from the conventional Simple Green, but worth noting.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by Ayles

New caps came in today, reworked the board and now all of the speakers are working for the first time since Ive owned it.

Very nice, Ayles....congrats!!!

[A930Rocket]

Originally Posted by Ayles

New caps came in today, reworked the board and now all of the speakers are working for the first time since Ive owned it.

I know nothing about the electronics. Why the huge capacitors versus the old ones?