a somewhat productive Sunday

["Daniel A. Nowlan" <nowlan@flash.net>]

Hey, y'all, me again.  Here again to keep myself outta too much trouble, I
woke up today at 12:30pm and decided to do a little work on the car.
Here's how I entertained myself:

BASIC PM:
Y'all are gonna say I'm not fit to own a 'Rocco after reading this.  I
changed the oil and oil filter for the first time in probably 16 months,
equivalent to 16 to 20,000 miles.  Let's see in kilometers that's....  Who
gives a shit.  :)  I used to run Valvoline straight 40 weight cuz that's
what I had handy from a previous oil-burning car.  'Rocco doesn't burn
(much) oil, so this time I decided to switch to Valvoline 20W50.  What do
y'all think about that weight?  I live in Texas.  100ƒF summers and 10-20ƒF
winters.  Good choice?

I also changed the air filter today.  First time in the 3 years I've owned
the car.  I know, I know.  You should have seen it, too.  Leaves, grass,
other trash.  Crazy.  I no longer had a fuel-air mixture; I had a
fuel-grass mixture.  No wonder my car wouldn't run worth a shit when I'd
first start it up.  It even sounds better now.  I really can tell a
difference.

LITTLE STUFF:
I posted yesterday how I was looking for the clips and rubber straps for
the trap door in back.  (What's that thing called so I can quit saying
"trap door"?)  Well, I solved the problem with four or five black cable
ties.  Got the same problem?  Here's what I did.  For the clip that's
broken (I was only missing one), I took the cable tie and fed it up through
the bottom, looped it around the rod, and back through the hole.  Tie it
off from the bottom (not too tight), and you're *almost* done.  The rod can
still shift back and forth, so here's how to fix that.  I pushed the trap
door all the way to the side with the cable tie and dropped a 3/8" nut in
the space between the rod and the metal that flares up on the *opposite*
side, ie. the side with the working clip.  Does that make sense?  Doing
this keeps the thing from shifting much at all.  You'll see what I mean if
you do this.

I also only had one of those rubber straps (and it was in bad shape) that
connects the trap door to the hatch.  (This can be done using anything
resembling string, thread, rope, fishing line, etc.  I used cable ties cuz
I had a bag of 100 laying around.)  To replace one with black (so they
don't show up) cable ties, take one tie and tie it around the black thing
attached to the deck lid.  Make this one tight!  Connect two more cable
ties (this number, of course, varies depending on the length of them) in
series.  Feed the very bottom one through the hole in the trap door.
You're going to tie a knot of sorts to keep it from pulling through in just
a second, so determine how long the tie series needs to be to have the
right length.  Push a washer about ‡" in diameter up on the tie and tie a
loose, simple knot.  If you make your knot big enough, you can pull it
tight and consider the job done.  What I did was take a short machine screw
and put a washer on it all the way to the screw head.  I fed it through the
loose knot and put on another washer and a nut.  Pulled the knot tight and
screwed the nut on tight.  Snipped the excess ties and that's it.  All
"fixed."

Well that's it for this post.  Any comments on my oil or repairs?  If
anyone else does these "fixes" please let me know how it turns out.  Later.

Dan
'86 8v red martian

  mailto:nowlan@flash.net
  http://www.flash.net/~nowlan/

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