Li'l Tommy Knocker: The Joy that a New Knock Sensor Can Bring

Our Volvo 740 (1990 B230f with 368000+ miles) has not been a smooth operator, at least not in the three years that have passed since I saved it from the scrapper. Things have incrementally gotten better as I have moved through various ignored and differed repair and maintenance tasks, but it is still some distance from original performance, whereas the ChevOldsmoBuiac is usually ~90% of new.

Part of the Volvo's problem is engine related. Things got better when I replaced the long worn plugs, and stopped the oil leak into the distributor that was causing misfires. It still bothered me that the engine tended to lug in high gear, moderate speed, and moderate RPM. Pinging 2k rpm seemed unusual. I had ignored it, but this summer, it seemed to get a bit worse.

As a wild guess (that I later justified using a note on swedishbricks), I replaced the knock sensor. It is a true one-bolt job and it's conveniently located on the side of block where it's in easy reach. You can even fit a normal ratchet with a normal socket into position with clearance! It's like it was designed to be replaced! I practically threw a party when I realized the swap would be done before the coffee got cold.

I didn't really expect the replacement to improve anything; usually I'm wrong when I think a sensor is bad. However, in this case, I was immediately rewarded with an engine with smooth power delivery at low RPM.

Given that the symptoms were not super-obvious, the old sensor must have had decayed sensitivity. Inspecting the old and new did not reveal any signs of failure, and, frankly, a little cleaning would make them almost indistinguishable.

Poof.

It has been three years since NMT decided to a) eliminate alumni TCC accounts b) go back on the agreements with those who had prepaid for long periods or purchased lifetime accounts, and c) alienate me as an alumni and insure I would never donate money to the school.

In the interceding time, my original site soldiered on in zombie form. I was unable to login, but the page was still there, and worked as recently as a few weeks ago. However, it now appears that www.nmt.edu/~holstien/ is now truly expunged from the TCC servers. For several weeks, that URL has returned a 404.

You can, of course, still see it on the Wayback Machine. I don't have vital statistics, but those of you still interested in Power Macintosh G4 fan noise might still find that information useful.

I intend to continue to maintain a presence here for the immediate future. While I had originally planned on a quick move to a different host I directly control, Blogger works well enough and the amount of space available for storing photos is increasing faster than I care to create and post new entries. At some point, it is likely that google will neuter blogger and ultimately attempt to merge it with google+ into a single product no one thinks is cool or useful. Then I will once again consider the options for my broadcasts into the nothing.

I may resort to writing letters and mailing them.

Until then, keep drinking the formaldehyde.

Domestic Spelling Error

I'm pretty sure if you tie a large piece of fabric to a telephone pole, it's actually a Yard Sail.

Weepy: The Brief Saga of Replacing the Thermostat in the ChevOldsmoBuiac

Last spring, the Girly started to complain that the 1990 Cutlass Ciera's heater wasn't keeping her warm, requiring her to arrive at work more frozen than she started, and more annoyingly, leaving defrosting as an exercise for the driver to undertake. Longer trips would eventually yield hot air, but it required a lengthy sit in traffic rather than a 4 mile lull to the office.

That seemed like a classic lazy or stuck thermostat symptom that could possibly precipitate an disasterous overheating situation. It's easy to fix by swapping the thermostat, a ~$5 part that takes about 10 minutes to replace, yet could ruin the vehicle if left unattended.

So, of course, I let it glide all summer until I had enough of a wish list to include a new one in an autoparts order. Shipping costs totally ruin the fun of buying things online, you know?

Oops.

For the record, I did fix the problem before anything bad happened, at least, beyond mild frost bite. That heals, right? Right.

The thermostat comes out by removing two bolts from the thermostat cover and pulling it back, which releases a torrent of green antifreeze from either side of the union.

I got a stant superstat instead of a standard OEM replacement. It seemed like it would get the heater rolling a little sooner and worker harder to regulate the car's temperature.

The old thermostat looked somewhat better than i imagined. The radiator has a considerable amount of white corrosion inside, but the thermostat and the housing where clean. There was some wear on the body of the old one, and a small gap between the gate and the thermostat housing, but otherwise, it looked functional.

While the parts store stocked a gasket that claimed to fit the car, the thermostat was put in with an RTV silicone gasket. I scraped off the RTV and put the loose fibre gasket on instead, since I had no RTV handy.

I refilled the antifreeze, started the car and let it got warm and the heater worked.

To check my sanity, I dropped the old thermostat in boiling water. The OEM spec is to turn at 195 C. The thermostat waited until 200-210 to turn, then waited until 150 or so to close again. Motion wasn't always smooth. Indeed, the old thermostat was the issue.

After a week of driving, a puddle of antifreeze appeared. Green goo everywhere! The fibre gasket was leaking. I first tried tightening the thermostat cover bolts. A careful exercise since the bolts are iron and the cover and housing are aluminium.

That didn't stop the leak, so I got a tube of RTV and pulled the cover again.

The fibre gasket was a hair small for the bolt pattern on the thermostat housing. When I put the bolts in, it tore the gasket just inside of the crimp line, causing the leak. RTV, obviously, doesn't suffer from these kinds of problems.

I am pleased to report the heater starts producing warm air within minutes.

Flowers

Flower photos: the cheap generics of art photography. Pretty. Universal.

Yet Another Derby Photo

In my photography, I work very hard to get the camera settings nailed so I have a minimal amount (by which, I mean, no work!) to do in post processing, beyond eliminating the shots that aren't interesting and attractive. The creative dimension of editing is mostly cast aside. Every now and then, I remember that the elements that make an image interesting can be amplified and distorted to change and enhance what the image actually says. There are knobs and buttons that don't get pressed, but could.

Right now, rollerderby is the most interesting subject I work with. I've been playing with capturing the raw banality of the DC suburbs, but, by definition, that's a very stale subject to work with, and requires an extremely careful editorial eye, otherwise, the photos are just pictures of 'burbs. There's a lot of depth in derby that i'm leaving untapped, either by vision or technique. I should think about how to get a little closer to the nerves, and see what digging will yield.

Photographic Reconstruction

Repetition:

Depth:

Offset composition, rule of thirds:

Depth:

Repetition, composition, organic detail:

Rule of thirds, organic detail:

Construction sites are intriguing places to take pictures. The raw components and geometry of the building are open to examination, and many of the components of visually stimulating art are represented. There is also room to think about the work. There's no rush to manage a living subject, and the different components can be abstracted from each other. The material itself is almost inconsequential: the photographer, you, are giving it a voice through the medium.

When I lived in New Hampshire, there were many construction projects around, and I had a lot of opportunities to explore the potential. One of my favorite prints is printed on a poster and hung on a wall over my desk. Here, such things are not quite so common.