Lucas! *shakes fist*

So, when I replaced the headlight switch on my garden tractor a few weeks ago, I used one I had in my junk bin. As I was measuring it to make sure it fit the hole in the instrument panel, I noticed that it said LUCAS - MADE IN ENGLAND.



I chuckled, since Lucas electrics have a pretty bad reputation. (Lucas is sometimes referred to as the Price of Darkness.) I installed it, figuring that surely this switch, still in its original package, can't be affected by the Lucas curse.

Well, today, I fired up the garden tractor, and the switch was dead. *Tap-tap* and it flickered on. Great. I never even owned a British car, and now Lucas has cursed my garden tractor. It's true what they say...

Neon instrument panel

Since the Neon was handed down to me, I've had trouble with the instrument panel not working. For the last three years I've been driving around with a ScanGauge II instead of gauges.

Today I finally got around to doing the fix described on the neons.org forum. I pulled the PC board, and found the problem right away.


Notice the cracked solder joints around most of the pins on the instrument panel power/data connectors.


The fix is easy. I re-flowed the solder on all of the pins, adding solder where necessary. All my gauges are back and should work fine for another 265,000 miles.

Ice Ice Baby

Calumet had a heck of an ice storm last night. The giant pine next to my house thwapped against the roof all night under the weight of the ice. All the windows on the east side of my house were converted to a perfect wavy shower door finish. CLK schools were canceled.

I came out to start my car this morning, and noticed my neighbor's flag thumping against his roof, also heavy with ice. I turned around and noticed that one of the power lines in front of my house had come unwrapped, and was sagging below its support cable. There were no power interruptions during the night, but UPPCO was glad to be notified of the problem.



Then I got to Houghton. Dry as a bone. Meh.

Neon brakes

In today's episode of Well There's Your Problem, we learn about disc brakes and the importance of buying the correct replacement parts.

The front brakes on my Neon had been squealing for a while, so it was time to replace the brake pads. No problem, especially since I found the lifetime warranty certificate and receipts for pads.

So I removed the pads and headed to CarQuest. The new pads listed for my car were much wider than the pads I just took off. After some head-scratching, I figured that whoever replaced the pads before me had used a set for four-lug hubs (for 13-inch wheels) instead of my five-lug hubs (14-inch wheels). I now suspected that the rotors would need replacement as well, since they had significant wear with the wrong, much narrower, pads.

I ended up with a new set of mid-grade brake pads (not covered under warranty, since these were now the different and correct part for my car) and new rotors. Today's lesson: always take the old part to the store with you, even if there's no core charge. And then make sure the new part looks something like the old one. If the previous mechanic had done so, it would've saved me a little bit of time and more than a little bit of money.

Well, there's your problem

Tonight I got ambitious and replaced the spark plugs on my plow truck. It's always stumbled a bit warming up, which isn't a big deal except for the soot it leaves on my garage wall. It turned out to be a well-spent nine dollars.

Most of the old plugs had too-large gaps, bent outer electrodes, and eroded center electrodes. None looked fouled or burnt, so that's a good sign. I would take a picture, but I'd have to fish them out of the trash in the garage.

After replacing the plugs, the truck fired right up and ran like a new, rusty, 23-year-old Chevy truck. It needs new spark plug wires, especially since I had to re-crimp one of the ends after I kinda pulled it off. Geez, I must have a good $15 or $20 into this truck already. I won't ever make that money back.

The accident report

Well, the accident report (PDF) is finally up. Rather than write a description of the whole thing, I'll just point out the photos Tracey took.