Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013, Guerneville, CA.
I went to Monte Rio to kayak, but.
I heard it was supposed to rain some today, but decided to go down to Monte Rio to kayak anyway, as it might just be showers today,…….. instead of rain.
The showers started to pick up.
When I left the house, it was not raining, but looked like it might at any time, so I drove down to Monte Rio. As I approached Monte Rio, it began to shower lightly and that’s what it was doing as I pulled into the boat launch area.
Maybe it’ll stop in a bit if I just wait here in my, but it didn’t. It seemed like it might just keep it up for the rest of the day.
Change the plans to a fix it day.
So, after about ten minutes, I decided to come back home and see if I could fix the door lock problem on my Subaru car, which has been given me some troubles for the last year or so, and getting worse lately.
The door lock problem.
Mainly, when I go to pull the door open latch, it locks the door and the door lock latch doesn’t unlock it at this point. I have to put the key in the ignition and power the window down so I can put the key in the outside door lock and unlock the door. A real pain and it’s been happening a lot lately…………Maybe the weather?
After reading up on the door with a not so good manual, I removed the door panel, without too much trouble and found the problem.
Below, is the door, with the interior panel removed to expose the door controls. See the spot with the little window? That’s where it is broken.
A broken part needs to be repaired.
Below is a close up of the broken part. The adjuster metal piece had broken in half and needed to be welded or something. That part controlled the door lock, which got pushed by the other good door latch rod when I tried to open the door, locking it.
With a little work, I was able to disassemble the parts, now what to do to fix it. I could order a new part, but that would take a long time and maybe it wasn’t even available for an older car.
Skills saved the day.
Lucky for me, I have skills, which I applied. A little braze job was in order. I brazed it up and put it back together and tested it, and all was well with that.
See the brazed up part in the picture below. Looks good, eh? :O)
Attempted to fix the power window problem too, but.
Now, as long as I was into the door I decided it was a good time to check out the power window switch. The passengers window would not work from the drivers controls, but it would from the passengers side. Not a big problem, but I thought I ought to try and fix it as long as I was in there anyway. I disassembled the master switch control unit, but it looked pretty good, no bad stuff there.
I cleaned it up anyway and put it back together and gave it a test. No fix here. I tried the passenger side controls. They worked, but the window was sluggish, so there is likely a power or grounding problem in the passengers side door. I decided not to fix that at this time as it at least still worked a little. Likely have to do that sometime down the line though.
Break time is in order.
After that, I needed a break, so I sat in my van and had a little nap, while in between organizing things like where my ice chest was going and placing bungee cords in appropriate spots to keep things in place while traveling.
A big dusty air leak in the van back door needed fixing too.
During this process I remember that I wanted to do something about a bad back door air leak, which also lets dust in the back too. I’ve tried to fix this several times in the past to no avail, but this time, I was determined.
This time I got inside the van and looked at the seal from the inside while the doors where closed and I discovered that the door needed about another half inch of steel on it to make it seal. Not sure why the door is a half inch too short, but it could be this door is from another van,……… maybe not from the same year of something.
Weld it or what?
Now, how to fix this one, since I’ve tried to fix this leak before. At first, I thought I might weld a new piece of steel metal to it to extend it so it would seal. That would be a good deal of welding and be fairly permanent.
Take another break and think about it, so I did and I decided to pop rivet it to the door instead, which was easier and not so permanent in case things didn’t work out too good.
Had to form a piece of metal for the job and poppity, pop.
I looked around in my very messy garage for a piece of metal to do the job, which I cut to length. I had to form it to fit the door, which I then drilled and put pop rivets in. It needs a little sealer to finish it off, which I will do after the rain is stopped. Looks like this might do the job. I think some paint is in order too.
Below, you see one of the van back doors that I have pop riveted that new piece of metal to. The piece with the black lines on it.
I think I fixed that old air leak for good this time?
I’m pretty sure that should really help that leaky dust problem back there. During this whole process of fixing things, I did notice that it was raining fairly well now. Good thing I came home and didn’t go kayaking, as I would have gotten real wet.
Another nice day of fixing things around here.