In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 93 of 1154
SOOOOO envious of your warm weather.
I think I'm going through a bout of the SADs right now. Today will mark burning half of my days off and I haven't gotten nearly as much accomplished as I wanted to by now. Slept in quite late today and have done nothing of value since I've been awake.
I have managed to get quite a bit done until today, including some non car related stuff that's been on the backburner for some time now. What a waste of the day though....
Fired up the car again this morning and everything looks to be a-okay. I might take a trip up to my work to buy some stuff and back just to get a real feel of how it's performing now. I'm feeling really good about it.
@Brenda. Still wishing you the best in finding a better place. Has the landlady been a bitch or has she at least backed off a bit?
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
No, sorry SIX, no advice on the car. I'm pretty good at dxing my onw car, but I have to drive/ listen to it myself to figure out what the problem is.
I'll think about some simple diagnostics you might run. Like, for example- the tailpipe. Is it coated with black carbon? Does it smell like gasoline?
Hard to tell. My exhaust system is just about defunct. It's pretty rusted out and the car is loud. There's actually a hole toward the front of the car where the bulk of the noise comes out. There was a lot of black soot around the back of the car all over the place, but then again, I haven't washed that car in ages, so who knows how long that was building up.Quote:
Hmm... ok, some other thoughts on the topic. Except for the "misfires", does the car run smoothly, or does it run rough?
Rough. The steering wheel would shake in your hand it ran so rough.Quote:
Here are my thoughts ...
If it's a case of being rich, which causes backfire, then you'll see it in a carbon=coated tailpipe, and if its REALLY rich you'll smell gasoline.
This could be the case. Never smelled gas, but the tailpipe is dirty.Quote:Quote:[ Dirty like black? Or dirty like leaves and sand and stuff? IF you have a carburetor then backfires also blow out thru the carburetor and up thru the air filter, and you'll get carbon on your air filter as well.
Whoops. I've only put on about 25k miles since I've owned it, but that filter was VERY dirty.
It wasn't black. Just very, very gray and a lot of leaves and crap.Quote:
If the valves are coated with carbon, which takes up space in the engine and reduced the cylinder volume, creating higher compression ratios and causing backfires, you will see that in general "running rough". In addition, sometimes the car will continue to "diesel" even after your turn it off.
What is "diesel" in that context?Quote:
If it's a timing belt problem or the distributor timing if off, I would imagine that the problem would happen all the time ... well, maybe not ALL the time, the timing might be OK enough to run at higher speeds (if the timing is too advanced) or at lower speeds (if too retarded) but you would definitely feel it at more than just startup.
I do feel it at more than just startup. Sometimes I can start the car with little problems, but before I get on the expressway if I'm stopped at a light the car can misfire really bad and stall out. This only seems to happen on extremely humid nights, and only when the car has been outside of my garage all night.
Quote:
If it's really random, then it could be an electrical problem. Have you tried cleaning off the spark plug wires?? Or replaced the wires?? You wouldn't think it would make a difference, but it does!
There is a long time electrical problem with the car. I've never tried to "fix" anything electric except for changing the plugs themselves.
UPDATE:
Did some research on seafoam and watched some youtube videos and I was sold. Not just the standard stuff, but the air intake variety and the transmission stuff as well. I bought it all.
Put 16oz in the gas tank. Easiest thing I did.
Oil was a bit trickier because I put too much oil in when I changed it. Had to bleed about a half quart out before I put 3.5oz in there.
Sprayed the entire aresol can for the air intake as per instructions. Used a couple of bricks to put the RPM's about 1000 above idle during this process. Ended up with a check engine light during this process, but disconnected the battery, put it back on and restarted it. Light hasn't come back on after about 20 miles of test driving.
Put half the can (about 8oz) of the transmission seafoam into my transmission.
So far so good. Even though it's not humid and I can't really test anything, there is
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Quote:I haven't seen anybody mention something.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Huh, interesting video. I have to say, the "clatter" from the sticking lifter(s) was definitely eliminated!
There are some very powerful solvents - aside from oil or alcohol-based - that will take sludge and carbon out of the system. One problem with the ones I'm thinking of, tho, (dimethyl formamide, methylene chloride, and the like) is that they will also dissolve all kinds of gaskets like the head gasket or the gasket under the carburetor. So I'm assuming that they aren't using THOSE solvents!
*****
Yes I see ...Quote:A "moisture drier" can be any kind of alcohol (or acetone) because water mixes in with the alcohol, and then the alcohol/water mixes with the oil or gasoline. So any water in the bottom of your crankcase or gasoline tank will be flushed out.
Sea Foam Motor Treatment is a Blended Petroleum Product, NOT A CHEMICAL and is widely used as an old oil residue reducer and moisture drier in any oil crankcase.
It's a common problem with oil refining: dewatering the oil. There is always some residual water at the bottom of the storage tanks, and SOME water dissolved in the product, even if only 0.1%. In winter, can be a SIGNIFICANT problem if the water "drops out" (goes out of solution) and freezes in your gas line or filter. There used to be something called "dry gas" ... which used to be diethyl ether (before they got all weirded out about the propensity of ethers to form explosive peroxides on storage, and substituted alcohol instead) and it worked like a charm. Better than alcohol.
I imagine that they use "aromatics" (toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene) as part of their carbon/ sludge dissolver, since aromatics are safer for silicone gaskets.
I would look at Lucas more closely. There have been problems with some oil additives swelling the gaskets ... head gasket, carb gasket, valve cover gasket ... and then when you go back to regular oil the gaskets over-shrink and then leak. I had that problem with my 2001 Civic when the shop used a modern synthetic oil once (I always ask them to use "regular") and then when it got another oil change - with regular oil- it started leaking like a sieve.
But FWIW I looked up Sea Foam+complaints and didn't find any.
Anybody heard about all these torrential rains? Excessive humidity? Flooding? Guess where flooding water at a gas station goes? You know that hole in the manhole cover goes straight into the tank, right? That is how they measure the contents, a long measuring stick is inserted, until touch bottom, and the marking indicates how many gallons are in that tank.
So when rainwater goes in to the tanks at the gas station, guess where everybody pumps that water into?
Water in your gas tank can cause problems, roughness.
Get gas from a place on a hill, where no surrounding elevation flows to it. Even during flooding.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Edit: I also told you to use STP for your oil leak, but you ignored the free advice. Even argued against it.
My oil leak was 1.5 quarts every 40 or so miles. Didn't sound realistic to me. I'm willing to give it a shot now that it's just the minor leak I've always had.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Sorry to hear that you didn't sleep well. I have many sleep problems myself; they were enough to cause me to retire early. I didn't even realize how badly I was sleeping until I had the time/luxury to start bird-dogging solutions one-by-one. All can be traced back, ultimately, to massive allergies: blocked nose; chronic sinusitis; swollen tongue, soft palate and throat; aches and pains from food sensitivities kicking up arthritis. If you have sleep problems I hope you can bird-dog the causes until you get them resolved! - SIGNY
Last night was pretty easy to solve. I ate too much after 6pm and my body never got to digest it properly before I had to take my meds. So, I am trying to do better tonight.
I don't sleep well. At least not right now. Mostly because of stress from living in this place and trying to find another place.- BRENDA
If you don't drive, it must be very difficult to look for a new place. I hope you have some other resources available ... internet postings or FB or housing authority or some kind of neighborhood bulletin board (internet or otherwise). Here we have a website called nextdoor.com which has been very helpful as you can query the most local of areas (the dozen or so blocks around your place) or expand it to perhaps several miles around. If you have that website in your city, I recommend it.
*****
Today, I boogied out of the house early to hit my most-local native plant nursery. They inventory and put out new stock on Monday/Tuesday (when they're closed) but if I wait until the weekend they might run out of the things that I want (like what happened last time). So today I got all of the things that were on my list ... two more Catalina cherry to complete the privacy screen, a bunch of buckwheat (cinereum/ashy-leafed and parvifolium/seacliff), more golden bunch-grass (purple three-awn) ... and found a few things that I knew I wanted but didn't know were available - foothill penstemon and mahonia repens (a loverly layered groundcover for the shade, which is already growing happily in another part of the yard.)
Today is a toasty 89F, and tomorrow will be an even toastier 91F ... and I have other things to do today and tomorrow ... but there's supposed to be a big cooldown on Monday which will give me the oppty to plant more of my plants.
Does the happy dance!!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
Hey Sig. Over the last few months I have posted twice on Craigslist and I think I got 4 answers. One was a scam, another was for a basement suite but if I wanted to use the laundry I would have to pay an extra $100 a month. The last answer I got was just for a room rental. I'm in contact with BC Housing.
I can see if there any other websites around my area.
Yay! on the still warm weather. Won't see temps like that up here until next Summer. Right now it is dry and sunny and not cold when I go out.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
SOOOOO envious of your warm weather.
I think I'm going through a bout of the SADs right now. Today will mark burning half of my days off and I haven't gotten nearly as much accomplished as I wanted to by now. Slept in quite late today and have done nothing of value since I've been awake.
I have managed to get quite a bit done until today, including some non car related stuff that's been on the backburner for some time now. What a waste of the day though....
Fired up the car again this morning and everything looks to be a-okay. I might take a trip up to my work to buy some stuff and back just to get a real feel of how it's performing now. I'm feeling really good about it.
@Brenda. Still wishing you the best in finding a better place. Has the landlady been a bitch or has she at least backed off a bit?
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Hey Jack. She has backed off but I am still wary when I hear her and her husband talking upstairs.
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I used to work at a gas station a bazzilion decades ago ... that big long stick? They don't use it anymore, at least not in SoCal. Gas pumped is telemetered to the refinery, and the trucks deliver a metered amount to replace gas pumped. Another thing that got changed out here were the old-timey single-walled tanks. There was this problem by the acronym of LUFTS - leaking underground fuel tanks - and they were dug up, the soil remediated (except for the stations that closed down, they were remediated to the point of being 'brownfields'), and are now doubled walled. sealed, stainless steel tanks. The space between the inner and outer walls has a vacuum pulled on it, and a gage is inserted to make sure the the vacuum is staying intact. If the vacuum is broken, it indicates either the inner or outer wall (or both) has been breached.
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It's oh so nice when people tell you, you aren't thinking the right way, problem solving enough or just aren't working hard enough. NOT!
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
It's oh so nice when people tell you, you aren't thinking the right way, problem solving enough or just aren't working hard enough. NOT!
Well, who told you THAT???
Yanno, when someone criticizes what I'm doing, I tell them they're always welcome to do it instead.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
It's oh so nice when people tell you, you aren't thinking the right way, problem solving enough or just aren't working hard enough. NOT!
Well, who told you THAT???
Yanno, when someone criticizes what I'm doing, I tell them they're always welcome to do it instead.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
The lady that I work for last Thursday after she had talked to her husband after I talked to him about all the trouble I am having finding a place, the previous Thursday.
I am too negative in my thinking, think I ignored that statement. Told her that I am always problem solving, and tried to point out some reality of my situation. That never works though as I have done that one before. I just basically ignored her for the rest of the afternoon.
So, if she is around this Thursday, I am putting her on ignore as much as possible. I don't like talking to them for a host of reasons. One thing is that she seems to think that I need "life lessons" not understanding that I have had enough lessons from the universe to last me 10 lifetimes. Supposedly also I am someone that she feels "responsible" for but that only goes so far.
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