Junking in the Rain

We celebrated Labour Day by treasure hunting out in the mud and the rain at Chilliwack Pick-A-Part.

The rain eased off enough to grab a quick snap of our prize: a pair of fronts shocks from a 1990 Chevy S10 to go in the rear of the 240. Sweet riding Volvo here we come.

$15 for the shocks, that brings the total cost of the rear suspension up to... $26. Still on budget.

My Recurring nightmare...

Putting this back together.

It looks the aftermath of a explosion at a rubber tube factory.

(Clicking on the link for larger image doesn't help either.)

New favourite tool

Sears had a sale on & I picked up a set of Craftsman (aka GearWrench) Ratchet Wrenches with flexible heads.

Freaking awesome.

They operate with less than 5 degrees sweep and can get places that nothing else would work.

The oil pressure sender screws into an elbow which screws into the block. A socket won't fit on it and there wasn't enough room to swing an open end on it. These things saved the day.

4:1

...is our ratio. For every 1 part we attempt to replace/install, we seem to end up taking 4 more off.

On the upside there are only so many parts that can be removed, so I reckon we'll hit that point and day now.

Out oil temp gauge had been decidedly sketchy so we decided to check the connection to the sender, which is thoughtfully placed between the altenator, the oil filter, and the 7th gate of Hell.

To check the sensor we have to pull the filter (cue several emails telling me how wrong I am) Pulling the filter means draining the oil. Then trying to reach the filter by pulling off the tire, the heat shield and the skin of my left hand.

Two hours to remove the damn thing.


See you in Hell oil filter.

Splice, splice baby.

Bit of cleaning and retaping they're good as new. Hard to believe it's the same wire. Spent a few hours going through cleaning up our the connections.

Only problem is once we were done, we found a 'spare' on the ground. Kinda looks important.