Tuesday, June 08, 2010

My Other Vehicle

My Other Vehicle is a Marin mountain bike I bought from a guy in SF about 5 or 6 years ago for a little under $100. I like this bike a lot. It was clearly used for some hard core mountain biking in the past (and has the dings and dents to prove it). But I am a much more casual rider.  But I love the bull-nose handles, and it's all black paint job.

When I bought it I got the cushion seat with the springs, I haven't been riding it a whole lot over the last year or so, but last Christmas I got some new tires and tubes for it, and I just added the bike rack with the panniers last night. I can't wait to do a run to the grocery store!

Monday, June 07, 2010

More Will It Start?

Today I took the 944 on a longer series of errands. I drove it over to Mill Valley where I went to the post office, and let it sit for about 10 min, it had a bit of a pause before it turned over, then to Muir Woods and let it sit for an hour+ and it started OK, then to the gas station, where it had a bit of a pause before it started, then to Novato, where I let it sit for about 30 minutes+ and it started right up, then to some guys house to pick up a part for my bro's jeep, where it sat for 10 minutes or so, and started right up, then to a friends house, where it sat for a couple hours and started right up. Another pass, but I still don't trust it.

I brought a set of jumper cables, and tools to clean the battery terminals...

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Will It Start?

Today we played a little game called "will it start?"  with the 944. I drove it around town on some errands mostly to see if it would start at every stop.  It passed.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

944 issues

Today my dad came up to help me with all the cars, the '67 eldo wasn't starting, and in my rushing aorund yesterday, I failed to notice that it was because it wasn't in park (Duh - I've been shutting in down while it was still in drive to avoid the dieseling that it prone to do - I'm lucky the emergency brake held). So problem solved in that car.

Then we put new spark plugs in the 95 to see if that solved the misfiring issue - It didn't.

Then we tried testing the alternator in the 944, but in order to get to the alternator to test it, you have to take the air filter assembly off, and in doing so you somehow starve the engine if air, so it' pretty much impossible to do this, with out a lift to take the plate off the bottom of the car to access the alternator from below..

I thought there might be an alternator problem because it would run, but then wouldn't start when I shut it down.

We got it to run for a brief moment with the air cleaner off, but the intake sealed up and it looked like not much current was running through the alternator, but then Jim came home, and reminded me that we had to clean off the battery terminals to get it to run last time. So we hooked the air filter assembly back up and cleaned the battery terminals and it started right up, and the batt. light wasn't coming on any more. My dad suggested getting some Battery terminal sealer, which I happened to have from when the 67 was having battery issues.

I'll test it around town tomorrow...