Desert Airs

Repairs

Repair of a Nordictrack X3 Treadmill that starts and then stops

by Paul

An incline treadmill has been on my list of kinda sorta maybe wanta haves because I enjoy hiking, but I dread the winter cold and would honestly rather eat day-old soggy cereal than slap on some crampons or snowshoes and head out in sub-zero temps. But the price tag, size and staring at a wall while “hiking” haven’t exactly made it a priority either.

However, when I came across a free “broken” one, I thought, why not? 

Now this incline treadmill may look like it’s something from the late Pleistocene era with it’s strange “i-pod compatibility,” which I believe is neanderthal for 3.5mm jack. All that really matters is it goes up to 40 degrees of incline. 

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Project Audi A8

by Paul

The new power steering pump failed and caused other issues to my son’s car so it went back in the garage. The worst part that failed as a consequence was the water pump, which is not super easy to get to and is driven by the timing belt.

Finished the car this weekend, finally, hopefully. We did quite a bit of work, but the power steering pump has been the worst because we’ve gotten 3 bum units… talk about bad luck. More like, cheap knock-offs.

This is after the timing belt and tensioners are back installed to spec. Music to my ears.

The Back-up Plan

by Paul

My oldest got one A- last year. Based on our deal regarding grades, the earliest he can get a nice-r car for good grades is winter. Because of that he’s been working on our old Audi so that he has something to drive when his birthday rolls around. It has a leak in the coolant system and it needs a rebuilt abs module. I told him I’d pay for any parts if he wanted to fix it up a bit. However, I just checked in on him and found the car like this.

Notice the golf clubs holding up the hood. Peak Tommy.

The coolant leak necessitated taking the front end apart, but now the story is well… since it’s taken apart we might as well replace this and that and this and that.

I don’t know if fixing everything was exactly what I had in mind when I said to fix it up, but pretty dang ambitious.

Old Cars…

by Paul

I was working on fixing a coolant leak in the car. I looked at where it was leaking from and thought, hmm, ok, a leak in the hose. Went to remove the hose and instead the metal fitting the hose was attached to totally broke apart. I guess i found the leak, but what does that say about the quality of all the other fittings!

Unlock Your Phone, Not So Fast!

by Paul

I was helping someone who was having problems with an unlocked phone and came across something kind of nasty from Samsung and the carrier’s network. The phone had all the hardware to work right with other carriers but Samsung had coded it to only REALLY work with that carrier’s network. I found a way to reprogram the lte bands, which was the biggest issue, so now it works fully but… seriously?

So the story goes that phones used to be proprietary and networks “subsidized” the costs through the high monthly payments. Phones got more sophisticated and personal and the government forced the carriers to unlock the phones for customers who want to leave. So now the manufacturers program the phones not to work well when unlocked…

I think that if you pay full price for a phone that has the hardware to work on other networks, it should work fully when unlocked. Why pay full price to a carrier for a crippled phone that doesn’t get updates as quick as those bought direct from the manufacturer (due to carrier bloat) AND that’s worth half of what a fully unlocked phone is worth after-market?

What’s dumb in this case, was if he had bought the international variant, the phone would have natively been unlocked with all the bands ready to go.

Truthfully, everyone now-a-days should just buy direct from the manufacturer; get away from all the carrier branded phones.

Audi Fuel Pump

by Paul

My son Tommy has been interested in cars lately and so I’ve been teaching him various small repairs, luckily we have cars that oblige. With the latest though, it proved tougher than I thought.

The Fuel pump went bad on the Audi a8. So we pulled the pump housing out of the fuel tank, replaced the pump, then tried to put it back, but the dang housing just wouldn’t go back in properly. We went looking for help online and the standard word was, “dont try to do this at home!” (great, thanks) Others said, “the A8 is too tricky for most and most mess it up and can only use 1/3 of the tank by not making proper connections.” But no one said exactly how to do it. Either videos skipped that step or said , do not to attempt.

I couldn’t get it in on first attempt, which was finagling with it for about a half hour. I’ve been sick and through in the Towel. Tommy wanted to keep working at it, so I kept giving him direction, but honestly I didn’t think he’d get it in. But, wouldn’t you know, he ended up succeeding! Everything was seated perfectly! Fuel gauge functioned properly. Fuel now got to the engine just fine. I’m pretty amazed!

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

by Paul

I love fixing little things. The phone on the right is my old phone and the phone on the left is my current phone. I started tinkering with my old phone, wanted to change the OS but something bad happened during the process and I thought I “bricked” it. I tried almost everything to resuscitate it, all to no avail. Gave up and was letting it sit. Last night I thought I’d give it one last go before giving it to the kids to… well, whatever they wanted to do with it. But this time… Success!!!