Car Boy

Things break, you know. Cars, phones, CPU fans, our neighbor's wireless router (which is why we haven't posted in a long time) all break. Good thing I usually enjoy fixing stuff.

Yesterday I was out with Gibbie and our car started running very poorly. It hesitated and stalled whenever I was pulling away from an intersection. Gibbie was disappointed that we had to go home, so I asked him if he'd like to help me fix the car. He was very excited about that idea.I grew up around car-fixing. I can remember the little stool that my dad would let me sit on and watch him work in the garage. I thought that Gibbie would be a little too young yet, but this 3 year old was both interested and helpful. He could even hand me some tools. Because he can't read, he couldn't differentiate between an 8mm or a 10mm wrench, but he could understand the instructions "hand me the smallest screwdriver with a yellow handle." I have to admit it was pretty great to have my son already handing me tools. He also insisted on personally inspecting each spark plug.

Here we are looking at the offending distributer rotor. The rotor and cap were more worn than any I'd ever seen. No wonder things were running so badly.

What started out as let-down turned into a pretty great experience for Gibbie and I.

Hybrid Schmybrid

I found this ad on the back of a 1981 Mother Earth News. Having two old diesels myself, the big print caught my eye. The small print, however, illustrates why I'm not all that excited about new advances in fuel economy. This 1982 Datsun pickup got 33mpg city and 39mpg highway. By way of comparison, none of the three 2007 hybrid trucks got over 21mpg (according to fueleconomy.gov). Granted, the Datsun was a much smaller truck, but I think my point still stands. A small diesel engine can do just about as well as a hybrid and has no the big nasty (hard to dispose of) battery. I guess it's about time I fix my 82 diesel Audi.

Four Wheels, or Two?

The dreaded scenario happened: two old immobile diesels.

Last week the Mercedes sprung a leak near the injector pump. Since fixing the Audi has been on the back burner, I was left with no drivable vehicles and a lot of work to do.

We've been without a working car many times before and it's generally not a big deal. I hardly ever drive to work anyway. Getting the family to church on Sunday morning is about the only time we need a ride.

What's worse than the dreaded scenario? My bike broke halfway through the week. Man, was that hard. I was left with walking or busing to work. I chose to walk. Getting groceries became painful, literally. (and it bugs the heck out of me when people say "literally" and it isn't literal. My hand actually hurt after carrying the heavy bag of food back from the Co-op.) Life without a car was manageable, but life without a bike felt like a real hardship.

On a recommendation from a coworker, I took my good bike to Express Bike Shop. I always modify my bikes to use just a single speed by taking off all the derailleurs, cables, and whatnot, and shortening the chain to accommodate two gears I find to be a useful ratio. Since I'm an urban year-round biker I don't need a lot of gears and having just one means there's far less stuff to go wrong. I had the folks at Express do it the "right" way and actually remove the extraneous cogs and add a special tensioner to the chain (see photo). Since it was the Fourth of July week, I had to wait extra long for it to be done.
All of the walking, besides being good for my prayer life, gave me time to realize what my main vehicle really is. I'd been feeling for a while like I should maybe break down and get a "normal" car like a Camry or something that would be completely boring and dependable (as well as expensive bloody gas consuming). Some might call this responsible, while others would consider it "selling out." It feels more like the latter to me. In any case, realizing that the bike is my main vehicle and cars are only secondary/occasional transportation put a lot of things in perspective. I once told an old bike-guy-friend-coworker from Amore, "I want to have an old car I can work on and basically never drive." I don't think he had any idea what I was talking about, but maybe you do after reading a bit of this post. I love working on cars, but I'm not so big on driving them every day.

Oh, I think I did fix the leak on the Mercedes too. It was a neat little thing by the injector pump that lets you prime the system by hand! (what a cool idea.) It had a worn out rubber seal. I got something from the hardware store that seems to work. I also have a replacement for the little unit if that doesn't do it. The reason why I only "think" I fixed it is I haven't really driven it anywhere since I worked on it, just idled it and looked for dripping. I've been too busy biking to drive it anywhere.

Midwest Renewable Energy Fair

A week after we went to the cabin we took a trip with Willington to the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair near Stephen's Point, Wisconsin. We were tipped-off to this event by our friends at the Solar Oven Society. They've had a booth at the fair for several years running and highly recommended we go. Willington was most exited about the chance to learn about renewable technology that would be useful in his Ugandan homeland. Traveling with him was pretty fun, too, because he'd never seen American farmland before. He was really into all the cows and large farms and marveled that all of the rural places we passed by had electricity and running water.

Although the main purpose of our trip was to learn more about technologies that would be appropriate to Uganda, I also got a chance to visit the alternative energy car show. Pictured above is a whole row of vegetable oil burning diesels. A wide range of conversion systems were represented, ranging from the $350 do-it-yourself (which seemed to involve a generous amount of duct tape) to the fancy single tank Elsbett system.

Since I already have a converted car, what I mostly wanted to know about was waste vegetable oil filtration.  I've read a lot of somewhat conflicting information on the Internet about what works and doesn't work.  I thought that maybe talking to some real people would help me figure things out.  

What I came up with wasn't necessarily the technical information I had hoped for, though I got some good ideas.  My main realization was that there is a wide spectrum of opinion and practice when it comes to collecting and filtering WVO for vehicles.  What one person considers normal would be completely unacceptable to another.  For example, one man I talked to said of the professional Greasecar certified mechanic that installed his system, "well, he's not so careful about what he puts in his tank."  

I think this perspective on WVO opinions is more valuable than a few technical tips.  On the spectrum of WVO filtering I think I want to be a little more careful than center.  I don't exactly know what that works out to yet, but at least I have a better framework for listening to what others have to say about it.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me...

a grease-eating 1972 Mercedes-Benz 220D!
How'd this happen? Am I crazy? Isn't one old weird diesel enough?!
Apparently not.
Most of you know that Libby and I have been slowly moving toward owning a car that can run on waste vegetable oil (abbreviated WVO). That's why we bought our '82 Audi almost a year ago. I've done a bunch of things with the Audi since then but have not yet converted it to run on grease. Right now I'm trying to save it from destroying itself via what's likely is a broken valve spring. (I think I've pretty well narrowed that down now... we'll see when I have a broken spring in hand.) So after going without a vehicle for the last month I decided to look on Craig's List for a second vehicle. Not that we'd be a "two car family," but that we'd not be without something to drive during my frequent tinkerings.
I searched for used diesel sedans under $3000 thinking that I'd find another old VW or something. Instead I come up with this Mercedes on the top of the list. It was the only diesel Mercedes I'd ever seen in our meager price range, and it already had the Greasecar WVO conversion kit installed on it (a $1000 value, labor aside).

Still, I was skeptical. In fact, I didn't even think much of it at first. Sure, I know that Mercedes is what most greasers shoot for. Sure, I've known someone who drove a '70's Mercedes diesel with over 500,000 on the clock. But aren't parts going to be impossible to find and more impossible to pay for? And anyway, who buys a car from the '70's that they actually intend to drive?

Libby was excited, though. So I decided to go take a look. It drove pretty well, had more power than the Audi, and had no noticeable difference running on grease compared to diesel. The only thing that felt a little odd were the brakes, which worked fine if you just applied a little more pressure that one's used to doing today. In truth, the brakes felt like they do on my '73 Beetle.

Next came the agony. I agonise sometimes about buying a pen. You can imagine how much worse this was. I did some research to soothe myself. I looked at autopartswarehouse.com to see just how expensive and rare these parts are. To my great surprise, they weren't bad at all! Just look at that long list of parts available.

As I happened to be thinking about the Mercedes vs. VW issue one morning, it occurred to me how much more well suited for grease the Mercedes is. It's all in the diesel injection pump. The VW Bosch pump (which I disassembled last fall and should have gotten a picture of all the tiny little intricate parts!) has nothing more that the fuel itself to lubricate it's precision machinery. This old Mercedes pump (which I remember seeing on an historical time line in a Bosch textbook) has its own dedicated oil supply and is in general much simpler and less dependent on the exact fluid qualities of what's going through it.

After these two considerations were taken care of, I bought it. I still feel a little crazy, but here's some pictures:
Above is the 15 gal. grease tank in the trunk. It's high-tech, but you can't tell because it's covered in insulation - a nice touch from the previous owner. The key to the grease system is keeping the vegetable oil hot.
These are the grease controls. On the left is a gage that gives you line pressure before the injector pump. That way you know everything's flowing OK. The other gage is fuel level in the grease tank. In the middle is the three way switch for Veggie, Diesel, or Purge. You start on diesel until the engine reaches operating temperature, switch to veggie for the duration of your ride, and purge the system with diesel before shutting off the engine.

My current main concern after buying the car is the fact that it consumes a certain amount of oil. I haven't driven it enough to know just how much. The previous owner said he added about every 6 weeks. One reason why this didn't deter me more is that my Audi owners manual states that some oil consumption is expected from the diesel. The Mercedes manual apparently says the same thing. Here's a discussion about it I found today.

Aside from the mechanical stuff, I like driving it. The interior is mint, and since you can't see any of the rust spots from the inside, it feels like luxury. Plus, it smells a little like my dad's 1956 Buick Special. Maybe that has to do with what the dash and seats are made of, I don't know, but it's a good association.
All I need now is a source for grease and a filtration system.

Audi Saga, Becoming Epic

Before I start, I'd like to give a disclaimer. Last time I did an automotive blog I got a few reports that it was boring. If you find mechanical problem solving a bore, don't feel like you have to read this! Believe it or not, some people find sewing and knitting boring too. Who knew?

About a month ago our beautiful '82 Audi diesel started making an unfortunate metallic tapping sound at medium rpms. Fearing valve contact with pistons (bad) I stooped driving it and started to work.

What's the first thing I did? I posted on my trusty VW diesel forum. The amount of expertise about something as obscure as VW diesel engines from the '80's is pretty impressive. I couldn't have replaced my injector pump (big job) without these guys. You can follow my current problem's thread here.

After making sure that nothing was simply rattling under the hood, I checked to make sure that the cam was timed correctly with the pistons. It should have been, since I did that myself last November, but I checked anyway. Next I checked the valve adjustment. Instead of a set screw, this engine uses little shim disks to adjust valve clearances. I needed special tools, which I found on ebay, to take out the old shims and put in the new.

None of this made any difference, so I turned my attention to the injectors. Some folks on the forum had suggested that they can make a pretty loud noise when they're bad. I was made aware of a supposedly amazing product called Diesel Purge that would temporarily relieve injector symptoms and let me know if it really was my injectors that needed help.

Like most things I've needed for this project, I couldn't find it locally and had to order it online. Since it takes the better part of a week to get this or that part or tool,it's been slow going.

What's special about Diesel Purge is the fact that it can be used either as a fuel additive or undiluted. Since I wanted the full effect, I chose the latter. So, armed with a mason jar from the pantry, I disconnected the fuel and return lines and fed them into the jar.

Another neat thing about this engine, it has no fuel pump. The injection pump (a form of mechanical fuel injection) sucks the fuel all the way from the tank. This means that I could disconnect the fuel line from the filter and not worry about spraying diesel all over the place.

I let my engine suck down almost the whole jar of Purge while varying the engine speed. Things generally did get smoother, but my noise didn't diminish or go away. I stopped before the jar was empty because I realized that I'd set it against some coolant hoses and thought that it wasn't a great idea to heat up a volatile chemical too much. Also, the Purge had changed color. It started out a colorless clear liquid and had become murky and green by the end. I don't know what that means exactly, but maybe someone on the forum will. I also don't know exactly what to try next. Hopefully I'll get some suggestions about that too!

There and Back Again

I always wondered with the "S" stood for on my 1982 Audi 4000S Diesel. Apparently it stands for Sisyphus. I spent a few hours tearing doors apart the other day and wound up exactly where I started.

I like the car for what's on the inside: a VW 1.6L Diesel engine which is very efficient and, if I ever get around to it, will be able to eat left-over deep-frying grease. The body is a little tougher to love. VW's aren't known for good electrical systems from this era, and the door handles keep breaking... which leads me to this post. Over the course of the winter both rear doors became inaccessible from the outside. Try to open them and this happens:
The handle comes partly out of the door and there's no way you can get it open. Both handles are broken and need to be replaced. I also can only unlock the passenger door with my key, so last fall I ordered a new driver's side handle-with-lock so that I could unlock the car from the driver's side. Thanks to Steve, the previous owner, included in my complimentary spare parts was another front-type handle.

My plan for the day was to take the existing front handle and replace it with the new one and see if the old front handle would work for the driver's side rear door. As I already hinted, things didn't go according to plan.
Problem #1: The front and rear handles are sufficiently different to prevent them from being interchangeable. The picture above shows both. The wide, flat metal part on the top one is what engages the rear door latch. There's a stub on the bottom example from the front just isn't quite situated right to do that job. Dang.

Problem #2: My keys work perfectly in the driver's front lock mechanism. Yes, that's a problem. I thought that replacing the lock was what needed to be done in order to get it to unlock from the outside. No, the lock works fine, but the shaft that connects the lock in the handle to the locking mechanism in the latch is completely missing. (I checked the bottom of the door cavity and everything. It's gone.)

Problem #3/Tangent: It's been an added annoyance that the driver's door won't let me lock it, then shut the door. The door has to be shut first, meaning that I have to either reach around from the back or climb through the passenger side to lock it. I thought that while I had the door apart I might as well try to fix that problem.

I took the lock/latch mechanism off and examined it. I lubricated it and poked around for any parts that could have slipped out of place. The more I studied it, the more confused I got. It appeared that it wasn't physically possible for the lock to work the way I wanted it to. I couldn't figure out what could have gone wrong with it.

Then I took off the passenger side lock/latch and had a look. To my frustration, it didn't seem to work the same way. (I also noticed it was made in Germany, and the other in France.) After thinking, and thinking, I realized I'd wasted the last hour. There was nothing wrong with the lock. It was designed to not let the driver lock the door before shutting it in order to prevent locking the keys in the car.

Possible Solution #1: It turns out that with the rear handle off it's really easy to reach in and unlatch the door with a finger. Here's a picture of the little lever in the hole where the door handle goes:
Just press down and the door opens. I considered leaving the rear handles off, but decided against it. A lot of rain could get in that way; plus it's only slightly harder to unlock the door through the hole than it is to just open the door.

Possible Solution #2: At this point I'm getting desperate. I've taken close to an hour more than I told Libby I would need to work on the car and it's about twenty minutes of assembly away from usable. The boys are getting restless. Nothing's working. I decided to make my front handle fit on the back. Luckily I'm working in my father-in-law's garage. There's hardware-a-plenty if I can just find it. I ended up modifying the front handle with a screw, some nuts, and sheet metal. It was a desperate attempt, and of course didn't work. It's the lower of the two below. I screwed it on anyway just to plug up the hole.
I gave up. Audi 1. Paul 0.

That's not really true. I've fixed a lot of stuff on this car already, including replacing the injector pump (a complex, precision job). That's the nature of tinkering. Sometimes everything works and in an hour I've rewired an electric window or successfully fixed the dashboard lights, and sometimes I've gone to change the oil and ended up finding out my plug is cross-threaded and spent a whole afternoon looking for the right after-marked gadget to make it work (all true stories).
I wouldn't have it any other way. I love fixing things. Hopefully I'll have a more successful Audi blog post before too long.