Loved Ones - Toyota

[The Haymaker]

Howzabout those 'Sox?!

 

[patrick_g]

Ohh Bird, Those were THE DAYS when you could actually look under the hood and make some sort of sense out of what was there. My street legal VW dune buggy is early 60's vintage and is about as complicated as I am qualified to deal with. It has a real honest to goodness carburettor with float and bowl, points, plugs and condenser with mechanical valves you set yourself with a feeler gauge when cold-cold. The advance is set by trial and error or as we scientists like to say "successive approximation." You go full throttle up a slight hill in 4th and if there is no pinging (spark knock) you advance the distributer and try again. Eventually you get some pinging and you back off the advance till it just stops.

In a pinch you can use a paper match book cover to gap the points and the striker surface to burnish the contacts. Fits right in with the anything-more-complicated-than-slip-joint-pliers-is-too-high-tech level of automotive engineering ability.

Try to use a boot lace to get you home with a modern car!!!

Pat

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

I had the opposite happen once. 1970 Simca. The flimsy gas pedal rusted out and broke off at the hinge. The pedal was like the one in my Case 580. Came out of the floor with the hinge at the bottom, where dirt and crap can get into it. Fortunately I had a pair of vise grips in the car. Clamped them on to the hinge. Worked great!

 

[turbo36]

Ohh Bird, Those were THE DAYS when you could actually look under the hood and make some sort of sense out of what was there. My street legal VW dune buggy is early 60's vintage and is about as complicated as I am qualified to deal with. It has a real honest to goodness carburettor with float and bowl, points, plugs and condenser with mechanical valves you set yourself with a feeler gauge when cold-cold. The advance is set by trial and error or as we scientists like to say "successive approximation." You go full throttle up a slight hill in 4th and if there is no pinging (spark knock) you advance the distributer and try again. Eventually you get some pinging and you back off the advance till it just stops.

In a pinch you can use a paper match book cover to gap the points and the striker surface to burnish the contacts. Fits right in with the anything-more-complicated-than-slip-joint-pliers-is-too-high-tech level of automotive engineering ability.

Try to use a boot lace to get you home with a modern car!!!

Pat

Yes, in the "good ole days" you could perform "in the field repairs" but the reliability of the cars was so bad it seemed like it was a weekly event! I much prefer the reliability of the modern vehicles. When i look back and think about the amount of tires, brakes , batteries, staters, alternaters, etc. etc. I replaced in a years time it's no wonder there was a auto parts store on every corner.
Being a Mopar man in the early 70's I could set the point gap by eye and hit it within the spec every time. It seemed like the points needed changing every 3-5,000 miles. Cruising around in a 340 Cuda I could tell the points were starting to go bad because the tach needle would start to bounce.

 

[Bird]

Yep, there was a time I could "fix" most problems with a car, and now I wouldn't know how to do hardly anything to one, but I, too, prefer these modern machines; more reliable, more comfortable, etc. Mopar? We really liked our 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner, but with my wife driving it to the grocery store or the kids' school; i.e., short trips around town, the points lasted pretty well, but the spark plugs would be carboned up and have to be changed every 3,000 to 5,000 miles. I'm happy to not have to do things like that anymore.

 

[wedge40]

I keep reading about the cover up. My 2001 F150 had a recall for a faulty cruise control saftey switch. Ford didn't admit to it till a few houses burn and they were getting sued. They ALL cover things up for as long as they can.

Wedge

 

[patrick_g]

I had the opposite happen once. 1970 Simca. The flimsy gas pedal rusted out and broke off at the hinge. The pedal was like the one in my Case 580. Came out of the floor with the hinge at the bottom, where dirt and crap can get into it. Fortunately I had a pair of vise grips in the car. Clamped them on to the hinge. Worked great!

Luckily you are past the statute of limitations for prosecution by the duct tape police as that job was clearly a duct tape job.

Pat

 

[deerefan]

I had a 94 chevy 1/2 ton w/ a 4.3 V6 that @ about 100k miles kept having problems with the throttle sticking. It had something to do with excess carbon on the rod that operates the butterflies in the throttle body. A buddy of mine who worked @ a chevy dealer as a mechanic said they took in about 10-15 trucks a week with the same issue. Never heard a word about it from Chevy. I pulled the TB off and cleaned it. Never had the problem again.

 

[bp fick]

I keep reading about the cover up. My 2001 F150 had a recall for a faulty cruise control saftey switch. Ford didn't admit to it till a few houses burn and they were getting sued. They ALL cover things up for as long as they can.

Wedge

Suspect this coming week's events will discourage that behavior a wee bit in the future with auto OEMs. Now, what about tractor OEM? hmmmmm. With only a handful of true OEMs and the rest being "decal" re-sellers, one wonders. How "transparent" are they with the customers concerning faults and failures? Who puts their feet to the fire to solve customer complaints?

 

[jinman]

Luckily you are past the statute of limitations for prosecution by the duct tape police as that job was clearly a duct tape job.

Pat

There's no statute of limitations for Simca owners. They get 10 years of solitary confinement in an Isetta.