REVIEW: My new hobby ( nonVW, long, but perhaps mildlyentertaining?)

[juliemac57 at hotmail.com (Julie Macfarlane)]

In this weeks episode, we find Cathy and her son working on yet another 
supposedly "simple" repair to a "foreign" made automobile.

Will she ever get back to getting Claus ready for the road?
Will she stop growing "other" things beside flowers in her green house?
Will she ever get The "Headache" and "Claus" done if she did?
Will she bring any to Cincy this year?

"The Boyco's" is a spin off of the Canadian produced "The Red Green Show".

Stay tuned to this exciting real life program!

Viewers Comments:
"I applaude with her accomplishments, I cry with her and her frustrations" 
Edna Clumps



Julie Macfarlane
1981 MKI 2L 16v w 2Y
"For good health : EAT RICE!"
Amsterdam NY





>From: "C Boyko" <roccit_53@hotmail.com>
>To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
>Subject: My new hobby ( nonVW, long, but perhaps mildly entertaining?)
>Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:27:16 +0000
>
>WARNING: This message is long winded and contains the four letter word 
>FORD. Sensitive viewers are cautioned.
>
>Okay, in an attept to fill the gap in my life left by the fact that I have 
>now found all the Cabby parts I need (one door, three fenders and four 
>flares later), I decided to embark on a new hobby. No actually my son 
>decided we needed to embark on it together. He informed me of this in a 
>"Mother-Son" type phone call, during which my hubby began to laugh and 
>chant "Jerry, Jerry", yep it was like white trash on the Springer show, but 
>without the bleeping (we tend to include the swearing here in Canada 
>anyways). He wanted my truck this weekend. Not a problem except:
>-it has no plates or insurance
>-it has not been driven since the fall, when the high school shop did 
>suspension, slave cylinder and MC replace/refurbish (which involved the 
>tranny being off four times), all the fluids known to mankind, and a bunch 
>of other shit : READ: something's gonna grenade and it's likely best not to 
>drive it 5 hours straight to figure out what (my kid lives in North Bay)
>- it needs an E test
>-THIS is the main one: it has a five minute driving range before it drains 
>the battery and pukes on the side of the road. To get to North Bay, he'd 
>need, well, about 60 charged batteries on board.
>
>SO we get to a compromise and decide to figure out what's up with the 
>charging system this weekend.
>
>Friday 7:30 pm - I'm finally home from that working thing I do, and the 
>near daily Cabby "body shop visitation", and have had supper, and was 
>heading for the Wind Tunnel, wrench in hand when the POS Jetta rolls in. 
>Yep, my firstborn son is home. No hugs, just right to the task at hand, 
>remove the alternator and get it in for a test before stuff closes at 9 pm. 
>One tensioner and two bolts stand in the way of that goal. A quick test 
>reveals that the voltage at the battery terminals actually drops when the 
>alternator is running, and it's original to the truck, which is a 1988 
>F150, with the big straight six.
>
>Friday 7:30ish: I let the kid have at it, serving as beer and tool fetcher, 
>and I had some piddly jobs to do on Klaus who has spent the winter in the 
>shadow of the truck. Adam  doesn't bother with the "heat/chemicals/money" 
>part of the equation and proceeds directly to "force", followed by snap, 
>then,  $%@(*%$^#  %#^$# ^$^$^!!!!!! or something to that effect. Bolt #2 
>gets the ever popular MAPS/O2 torch used on it and cracks fairly well, but 
>to back up the horse, Ford really attaches their alternators for life, 
>there is this, like, five pound bracket bolted to the block which embraces 
>the alternator in a loving grasp, and the hardened 5" bolts that hold it on 
>go though it twice, once on each end. Sort of like our PS pumps. That 
>snapped bolt still retains it on both ends, one of which is threaded. READ: 
>it ain't goin' anywhere.
>
>A few minutes later, he's up unbolting the bracket, 6 bolts later, at about 
>9:05, it's off. He heads out for partying, and I go back to swearing at 
>Sciroccos.
>
>Saturday, 8 am: The kid is still sleeping (it off) and I head to Timmy's 
>for a coffee, and then to Canadian Tire, alternator still attached to the 
>bracket, and the questionable battery in tow. Big shock, both are toast. 
>Load them in the cart. Find some of the (GASP!) SAE tools I don't own, 
>another tank of O2, add them in, grab an alternator off the shelf as an 
>insurance one, and add in a nice honking new 5" bench vise they had on 
>sale, and since the coolant temp sensor somehow got mangled, I figure I'd 
>get one of those. Stupid me, they asked me if it was this or that (fill in 
>mumbles here)  - one was $7, the other $30, well, no need to even look at 
>them, it's the $30 one. Strange how things NEAR the alternator got damaged. 
>By this time I'm thinking the traditional caster model ( ie : shopping cat) 
>could use a better suspension, understeer is not the word. Load that in the 
>car, and off to UAP (like NAPA) to do a little price shopping, oh, no, 
>first to the local yard where I score a nice Interstate Battery for $25. 
>Bonus. UAP has a cheaper alternator, so I grab it, now I have three in the 
>car. THIS is the diofference between domestics and VWs in Dunnville. Notice 
>how it is a case of "which store has one on the shelf for lkess money?" 
>none of this drive an hour/its wrong/ it'll be a week crap. And the nice 
>guy at UAP is trying to piss of another idiot customer (his word), so tries 
>a variety of bolt extractor sockets on the snapped bolt instead of waiting 
>on him. Nope. We're into heat and grinding land.
>
>10:30 Saturday: Back home, load the wheelbarrow with the goods for a photo 
>shoot, and wheel it over to the truck. The kid has risen somewhat from his 
>comatose state. I proceed to attack the bolt with a vengeance, heat to 
>red/vicegrips method is going nowhere, so I decide to dissassemble the 
>alternator housing to facilitate grinding. Three little bolts, snap , snap 
>snap. Perfect. Now just slide out the guts. Or not. Nope, they won't move, 
>hammer hammer, still no movement. The housing won't even move.
>
>SO I get out the little grinder (Dremel), and mess with it, but it's not 
>gonna work. SO I start drilling out the bolt. At which point Adam comes out 
>and digs out his bolt extractor, pounds it in the hole, them realises it's 
>in the wrong end. Drill a hole in the other end (oh, and in case you're 
>wondering, the whole area is now bathed in various penetrating fluids, so 
>chemistry has been applied too, but to no avail) Tap the sucker in and 
>twist. That beautiful noise, "SNAP" Did the bolt move, you might ask? Well, 
>no, the bolt extractor snapped actually. SO now there is a hardened tool in 
>the hardened bolt. Perhaps even expanding the bolt's diameter slightly.
>
>Hammer time, it's clear there is no core fee coming from this alternator, 
>so it gets a bit further demolished, to give enough clearance for the big 
>grinder. Which actually just cut enough to allow clearance for the little 
>grinder to cut the rest of the way through both housing and bolt. But there 
>is enough depth of busted bolt/blt extractor wedged in the bracket that it 
>still won't move. ( It won't go at an angle) Now a light begins to shine. 
>The threaded end in the other end WILL move,(a friggin damn miracle, that) 
>and it threads right out allowing us to finally drift the offender out and 
>free the bracket. It's Miller time. (Or something much better)
>
>
>Now we still don't have the replacement bolt, nobody in town had one long 
>enough, so off to my brother's. A bit of time wasted viewing his newly 
>acquired collection of Dodge Shadows, don't ask, but there are three of 
>them. And he had the bolt...
>
>
>Yep, by about 5 pm that baby was charging at 14.9V and all was well. Until 
>we run it and it spews coolant out of the temp sensor...
>
>
>ANd how much labour for that alternator to be replaced? Well, lessee, 
>that's two poeple, for 10 hours each...better just leave me the keys.
>
>
>Cathy.
>
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