Greg In The Desert

Sometimes doing your own repairs on cars saves money but its also good to consider how much your time is worth. I recently helped a friend to do repairs on their 1997 Saturn SC2 Coupe and the car was not drivable for almost two weeks because the window couldn’t be rolled up. A simple problem turned into long down time for the vehicle.

The powered passengers side window was having problems rolling up. The first thing I did, and in hindsight was the wrong thing, was to roll the window all the way down. Previously when it wouldn’t roll up my friend would push it up with their hands. Apparently rolling it all the way down locks the window into place and it wouldn’t roll up even with manual force.

It was a Thursday afternnon and New Mexico’s warm weather was turning to cold, wind and rain. Not the ideal weather for having a car with a window that wont roll up. I have never dealt with a window regulator, that’s what they call the scissor like mechanism that moves the window up and down on a power window. That didn’t stop me from removing the door panels to take a look. Somehow I thought that I could remove the panel, do something, and the window would now magiclly work. What that something was wasn’t clear to me at the time.

Saturns are a different kind of car, they have a plastic outer door panel and the outside panel must be removed with about 10 metric torx screws. Before the door panel can come off the door handle needs to be removed. Instead of being held in with a screw it has a plastic pin that holds it in. Easy enough, you pull the head of the pin out and it door handle comes off.

Except when the plastic pin head breaks off half way. I ended up drilling out the pin. If your intereated in how this works, I recomemnd viewing a video on YouTube by richpin06a entilted “Rear Outer Door Panel Removal Saturn S-series“. It looks so easy in the video.

Before I took the door off, I looked at removing the switch first. I couldn’t figure out how to remove it from the center console and taking it apart appeared to be a complicated mess. Taking the door apart looked easier and that’s why I started there. Mistake number two.

Once I had the door off and the glass out of the door I could check the electrical connection to the regulator motor. There are two wires when depending on the direction of the window one wire or the other gets 12 volts with the other wire going to ground. I checked the power to the motor in both directiosn and I was getting 12 volts on both wires. I determined the motor was defective.

We called around and no one had a motor in stock. I thought it would be a good idea just to replace the whole regulator since I had to pull it off anyways to replace the motor. Nobody had the the regulator either except the dealer. Saturn of Albuquerque is now part of Galles Chevrolet so we called them and ordered it. They said the part would be in town in two days.

In two days we called Galles Chevrolet and they had no record of an order being placed. They placed another order along with payment and said it would be in town in two days. Two more days passed, we called and again no record of an order being placed. I can’t imagine why General Motors is on the edge of bankruptcy.

That night we determined that Galles was getting its part from Saturn of Santa Fe. We decieded to go to Santa Fe the next day and get the part ourself. We we called Saturn of Santa Fe the next day they didn’t have the part. Where the fuck was Galles getting their estimates? Apparently from up their ass.

We are in something like a week and a half of the car setting in a garage because the window wont roll up. We ordered the part from Autozone. After another few days of waiting the part arrived. It was the correct part for this car but the plastic housing had to be modified for it to fit. The motor was installed, glass put in. I tried to roll up the window with the new regulator motor and the window would still not roll up.

I thought that maybe the realay for the window was bad, perhaps it tested fine without a load but was failing when amperage was applied. I replaced the relay but it didn’t improve the situation.

Somehow, out of desperation while sitting in the drivers set reviewing all the troubleshooting steps I figured out that hte center console didn’t have to be taked apart adn the window switch came out with enough force.

I took the switch out took it apart to find the plastic worn and black soot on the inside. I cleaned up the switch and reinstalled it and the widnow now rolled up. When checking the power to the motor I should have verified voltage using the ground through the wire, I used chassis ground. It makes perfect sense… now.

I ended up breaking the drivers side switch when I took it apart so a new one needed orderd. Both windows were rolled up so the car was at least drivable until a new switch could be acquired. Total cost was about $250 and it took about 2 weeks to get the car drivable again. Next time I will roll the window up and start at the switch.

Tesla finally announced their new Model S Coupe last week. This is the car that Tesla was supposed to build in Albuquerque, but moved the manufacturing to San Jose California when they got a better deal. That didn’t work out either and it’s not clear to me exactly where they plan to build the Model S.

I lived in San Jose in 2001 and it’s a crazy place compared to Albuquerque. I’m still not sure how they ever thought it would be cheaper to produce the cars there rather in Albuquerque in the long term. It could end up being a good thing for Albuquerque if they go out of business like Eclipse Aviation did. I’m certainly not wishing for Tesla to go under but the times are tough and I’ve read some possible bad news in that regard. I would still like to see them have some manufacturing in Albuquerque.

At $40,000 over 500 sedans have already been pre ordered. It’s a good looking car but I won’t be on the buyers list anytime soon. Maybe if they came out with a pickup truck I might have to get out the credit card.

I’ve wanted a Delorean for a long time. Probably because I saw it on Back To The Future. I saw one for sale for $10,000 about 10 years ago. I should have bought it.

Looks like I might have the chance to buy a new Delorean. The people who took over the Delorean Motor Company in Texas are considering starting production again. Right now they do frame up restorations that cost about $40,000.

With 200 of the original 2.8-liter V-6 engines still in stock and facing a dwindling supply of cars suitable for rebuilding, Espey figures that within a year or so they’ll start making the cars from scratch. Their manufacturing plans are modest — maybe 20 or so cars a year. But it would be quite a comeback for a car that was given up for dead more than a quarter of a century ago.

This weeks Photo Friday is “Futuristic“. This is a 1964 Chrysler Turbine car. In the 1960’s, a few hundred lucky people were given the privilege of beta testing this vehicle. From what I can tell, the turbine turned a driveshaft, so it wasn’t pushed along by a jet engine. Still I would drive one, I guess these cars were ahead of their time.

This picture was taken at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit when I visited there in September of 2006.

I’m sleeping on the couch tonight because I have a bunch of crap on the bed. I get settled in and start to doze off when I get a loud nock at the door. That freaks me out. I don’t have unannounced visitors at the house at this time of night. I look through the crack in the blinds and I see a Rio Rancho Police patch.

Yikes! I search around for my pants. I open the door and there are two Rio Rancho cops with flashlights out. They ask my name then ask me if I know a few other people. Never heard the names. Then they ask how long I lived here, if anyone else lives here, etc. Eventually, they realize I’m not the droids they’re looking for.

Another lady comes out of the darkness with paperwork and they start discussing it. Not sure what was going on but I suspect they were trying to serve warrants. They ask me a few more questions then they decide to leave. I’m sure they also ran my plates since they asked if that was my truck.

I’ll give them this, they sure are stealthy. I heard several cars drive off but I didn’t hear a single thing when they came to the house, except for nock on the door.

Now I have to try to get back to sleep.

p>Yet another classic car shows up on craigslist. $9000 for a 1922 R23 Speedster in Grants, NM. Poster states it has it has new top and upholstery. Not sure who originally made them but looks nice.

The same poster also seems to have other cars like a 1923 Model “T” Touring Car – $13000 and a 1929 Roadster Pickup – $13000.

It looks like the City of Rio Rancho is resorting to traffic enforcement dirty tricks to generate revenue. Just south of Southern Blvd, on NM 528 there is a left turn lane, it will take you onto Peggy Rd and give you access to local businesses like McDonalds and Burger King.

There is a posted sign indicated that you are not to turn during the hours of 4 to 6pm, rush hour traffic time. This seems reasonable considering that NM 528 is pretty packed during rush hours. What happens if you didn’t see the sign? There’s nothing there to physically keep you from turing into this lane. What happens is you will likely be greeted by the Rio Rancho Police on Peggy Road, waiting to hand you a ticket.

The reason I consider this a dirty trick: if they were really interested in traffic enforcement and preventing people from turing here they would sit at the turn lane, keeping cars from turing. They are instead waiting for cars to turn and issuing tickets. I don’t know about every case but the cases I do know of there were no warning issued. Somebody prove me wrong.

Some people in a Rio Rancho neighborhood hit by a water main break on Sunday are saying that the city isn’t doing its part to assure that they have clean, drinkable water. “It’s just getting really old,” said Renee Popovich, a homeowner near Rockaway and Pyrite in northeast Rio Rancho. “We’re not getting any support from the city to provide at least drinking water for the residents.” Popovich said that her children had to spend the night with friends so they had water to get ready for school on Monday morning. The break carved out a mini arroyo in front of several homes leaving people unable to back their cars out of their driveways. Rio Rancho officials say that they are aware of the problem and have recently removed asphalt over the water main in preparation for repairing the faulty pipes, which have failed several times in recent months.

The city came and fixed the water main break in front of my house pretty quickly. This break seems much worse than mine which might be part of the problem. Perhaps the city should do a better job of communicating to the residents the problems in fixing this and how long it’s going to take so it doesn’t end up on the news. Just sayin’.

Wow, who would have thought that urea (aka piss, pee) would be the latest technology, helping cut now emissions in diesel engines. Though the EPA is a little worried that people wont get their urea refilled in their cars.

One of the main drawbacks of diesels is an increase in the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), one of the nastier pollutants and a result of the high temperatures and localized areas of lean combustion inherent to diesel operation. Urea injected into the exhaust stream of a diesel decomposes into ammonia, which then lends towards the breakdown of NOx into oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.

Apparently it doesn’t take much to make the reaction work but it needs refilled ever 10K miles. This seems like a DIY job for sure.