What a frustrating day of working on the Cruiser!

I got to it later than I wanted, around 11am instead of "early". Enjoyed some early success pulling a bolt that had given me grief earlier. Note: a good trick to getting the top bolts out of the bellhousing is to use a very long extension (I used a 24" and a 14" together) so that your ratchet is positioned behing the transmission, where you have room to turn it. I don't know how I'm going to get it back together yet... but that should be easier than apart based on the dirt/rust that was helping hold the bolt in.

After that early victory, it was all downhill.

My Cruiser started life as a gasoline model but was converted to a turbo diesel by a previous owner. The conversion was done pretty well, but every now and then I come across evidence that it could have been done a whole lot better. Today, for example, I learned that when they positioned the motor a little further back than normal, it creates a situation in which you can't actually get the transmission out because the bellhousing contacts the floor of the car. I tried pushing/pulling/twisting/praying/swearing... for about 3 hours. No dice.

I tried pulling the motor mounts off of the motor to lower it an inch or two to allow some more leeway. No dice.
I tried jacking the front of the motor up, but was foiled by the fact that the rear-bias means that the back of the head of the motor hits the firewall of the truck, preventing any significant tilting.

After literally hours of trying various approaches, I finally gave up. Right about then, my mechanic buddy (at whose shop I was working) made some free time and came over to help. Between the two of us, we managed to get the tranny far enough from the motor to loosen the bolts holding the clutch disc. Eventually that, and a lot of two people pushing/pulling HARD we managed to separate the two parts. Wow, that transmission is HUGE. I'll snap some photos by daylight.

Got the disc, pressure plate, and T/O bearing out and I was instantly dismayed to see that all three were in pretty good shape.
Dismayed? Yes.

You see- the whole reason to tear into this beast of a transmission was to eliminate a noise that has cropped up. The thing is- the noise is only really noticeable in San Jose- which is at higher altitude and also cooler. For no good reason, I thought that the noise -which can only be described as metal bouncing off of metal in a clangy and fairly random way with a fast pace- was likely the T/O bearing. Ok, it isn't really no good reason: The T/O bearing pushes on some thin metal teeth on the pressure plate. The sound is an awful lot like the noise of something pinging along on those teeth. And the noise goes away when the clutch is engaged, but is present when the clutch is out. I don't *think* that the noise ever happend unless we were actually moving.

So it wasn't completely silly to assume that the clutch is involved. After all, if it were the diff or the u-joints, or something in the transfercase, it might still rattle/clank/ping while the truck is moving, even with the clutch engaged. But it doesn't.

Back to my dismay: I had really hoped that the T/O bearing or the clutch disc were broken/bent/sticking or otherwise plainly demonstrating a condition that would make the noise. They didn't/aren't/don't. Grrr.

The pressure plate looks nearly new. The pilot bearing spins easily and quietly. The throw-out bearing (T/O bearing) spins quietly and easily (though it does look pretty dirty). The clutch disc is a little thin, but looks very good otherwise.

So I've spent two afternoons of pretty hard work to discover that I've been working on parts that are very, very unlikely to be the parts that need fixing. And I've got at least 1 more afternoon in front of me to put it all back together.

If you've replaced a clutch, you're probably chuckling at me right now. Thanks.

You're probably also thinking "Hey, at least you've got a new disc/plate/bearings and won't have to tear this down again for 15 or 20 years." You would be totally right, if the new disc and plate that I bought were the correct parts. They aren't. For those of you with the luxury of a Napa or Toyota dealer in your home town.... I envy you. Tomorrow I'll drive an hour to Liberia, where I'll then square off with the parts guy at the parts store in a sincere but not very high-odds attempt to exchange the wrong parts for right parts. If I had done this repair in less than 6 days from purchasing the parts, it would be better odds for me. As it stands, I'm hopeful and apprehensive all at once since it has been about 15 days since I got the parts, I'm almost certainly beyond the acceptable timeframe for exchange.

I'm going to further push my luck and try to swap the disc. but _return_ the pressure plate. The T/O and pilot bearings are the right part: Keepers. My old pressure plate actually has less rust than the rebuilt one that they sold me. So keep your virtual fingers virtually crossed for me on Tuesday when I'll try to get money out of the parts store based on a mistake that they made. If you lived in Costa Rica, you would understand my dubious attitude much better, I assure you.

The most perplexing and frustrating part of all is that I still don't know what makes the noise! My new theory is that maybe the rear air locker is involved. See, I haven't gotten the pump squared away yet (been fixing the dang tranmsission, among other things) so the air line is simply blocked off. I'm wondering if the change in altitude between here and San Jose (about 4,000 vertical feet) could allow the air in the locker to expand enough to make it clang and rattle. That, somehow combined with colder weather... it is a pretty unlikely explanation.

More likely is that my tranny has issues. After I get back from the parts store tomorrow I'll clean up the transmission and open it up to see if I find any "obvious" problems (like tiny unicorns, jumping around, poking holes in my synchros and defecating in the gears). I've never opened up a manual transmission before, so I'm not feeling lots of confidence that I'll immediately see something that will solve the issue.... but at least I will have looked. Before somehow hefting that goliath transmission back into place.

I'm also a little concerned about getting things buttoned up- geting it out was tough. Putting it back could be bobs-your-uncle easy, or a trying affair full of pulled muscles and loud explatives. I'm hoping for the former, based on the cosmic fairness principle. I've suffered enough on this particular job, especially since I haven't even fixed anything. Time will tell.

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser

We've been enjoying a sudden stop to the rainy season: the last 10 days have been sun sun sun, and not just a little hot as the accumulated moisture in the ground has been making 2 o'clock feel a little like a sauna.

The sunsets have been unbelievable, however, and there have been some nice breezy days.

Yesterday we got a typical November dousing of rain- pretty heavy, not very long duration. Great for all of our plants and a nice indication that the trees and fields will stay green for another week or two.

Also great as I've been procrastinating on the very important job of fixing up our irrigation system at the house. It was never done well, and the last five months of neglect haven't made it any better. If it didn't rain this week I was going to be forced into getting the drip system working at least well enough to keep stuff alive until I could fix it right. Now I can put it off for another week or two, *then* deal with the emergency that I will have ignored. Sort of like the Republican approach to fixing the economy...

Jocelyn seems to be winning her war with the bouganvillia. Her take-no-prisoners pruning approach was the subject of much debate between us, but I've got to concede that the areas in which she has been most aggressive are now the areas that look the best and are probably just about ready to explode in beautiful flowers (which is the only reason to keep that pernicious weed around the yard).

Last weekend we planted four plumeria trees around the yard- they are small now but two are in flower and we can't wait for "someday" when they grow up. We've also got four healthy-looking papaya trees that are coming along, though still a long ways from bearing fruit. I put two Jatropha trees in the ground as well, they are putting out new leaves and appear to be "happy". Our two volunteer tomato plants continue to grow and put out plenty of foliage, but so far no flowers thus no real hopes of fruit (yet!). We've been fertilizing them lackadaisically and with compost, now we are looking at getting some organic fertilizer more directly suited to making plump tomatoes come off of our plant! We take some consolation in that A) these are volunteer plants anyway and we didn't prep the soil at all and B) next year the soil will be much better for whatever we plant there.

As the dry season takes over, we are hoping that the two little tomatoes start cranking out some flowers. If not, ok, we'll just try again!

On the topic of soil- in case you care- I've been dismayed to learn that most of the "soil" in our back yard is really, incredibly, seriously, HORRIBLE. It looks like about two-four inches of mostly-clay is on top of about two or three feet of construction debris/rubble. While digging out a small hole for one of the trees I planted last weekend, most of what I pulled out was broken cinder block and 1-inch sized gravel. Good drainage, at least. But not much there to foster life. At some not-too-distant point we plan to build up some decking/planter beds. Instead of trying to amend the junk that is in the ground, we are planning to pile good soil on top, and plant our plants there. The preponderance of construction waste in the "dirt" helps explain why a large section of our front yard is about 8" sunken compared to the retention wall around it. I imagine that there is no small amount of form-work wood down there, rotting away, and also plenty of void spaces where the dirt is slowly but surely filling in. I only hope that our swimming pool is sitting on slightly more solid ground and that we don't awaken one morning to a new "water feature" spilling out of the front wall of our property.

The surf has been decent, got out twice last week and I'm really noticing the effects of a couple of months or rain. I refer not only to the sand bar being all messed up at my favorite break, but also to the dramatic reduction in paddling strength that I'm feeling out there! Between a long Sunday of gardening and a solid morning of surfing, my body was feeling pretty sore. In a good way.

Louie is back from the body shop! Hurray! And he passed his road test with flying colors. I had to replace one tire because it was worn too thin- the replacement that I got at a used tire shop was overpriced at $20, but got me through the inspection. If I don't sell him soon, I'll probably have to spring for two new tires anyway. Fact is, local "wisdom" has really rubbed off on me on this one and I'm stretching the life of the tires on the that truck to their utmost limit. It's pretty ugly. For the record: Louie is for sale, asking $11,000, 1988 hj60 Landcruiser (6-cyl diesel motor) well-built, well maintained.

Labels: Costa Rica, garden, landcruiser, surf, tamarindo, weather

Last week I had some business to do in Jaco so we headed out of San Jose via Puriscal on a beautiful winding road that usually has great views. Somewhere along the way we took a left instead of a right, and decided to follow our noses (and the very-vague GPS) to figure out a back roads route instead of back tracking to the way we knew was correct. One of the advantages of living in country with a crazy road network is that you can take seemingly random roads with some degree of confidence that they will eventually hook up to something that eventually hooks up to a road that eventually gets you back to where you were headed originally. Though it can take a few "stop and ask" sessions.

We cruised through the city of Puriscal (approx 30,000 people) and snapped a few pictures of the old church. Really neat building, in total disrepair, and ugly power lines not withstanding. It would be fun to go inside and poke around, but the fencing and our interest in arriving in Jaco prevented us from exploring more. If we had known that we were about to take a two-hour detour through all-over, we may have gone ahead and taken some time to poke around.

Fortuitously, we did stop to fill up the tank with fuel. It wouldn't have been much of an issue as we had about 400 Km worth of diesel in the tank already, but as we got further and further from "I know where we are", it was reassuring to have a full tank.

Shortly after leaving Puriscal, we came upon a bit of a problem. The road was gone. Fortunately, it did have signs (not always the case) so we didn't plummet to our deaths in the chasm below.* Also fortunate was the nearby (unmarked) detour, from which we got a great view of the bucolic valley below while mist rose from the surrounding mountains. This is a part of Costa Rica that we just don't see very often and it was a refreshing reminder of how amazingly diverse the country is, both in terms of geography and also flora and fauna.
*Ok, it wasn't such a deep chasm, and it was daylight, and pretty easy to see. No real danger there at all. Regardless, it isn't uncommon to mark something like this with a broken twig and a grocery bag. Seriously. Drive carefully in this country.

We managed to take a wrong turn, perhaps several wrong turns, and ended up on a good-quality but very muddy narrow mountain road that winds from the mountains through more mountains, with views of mountains before winding along towards more mountains, then finally dropping down along a river (you just have to turn right on the unmarked lane by Super Gloria) to some unmarked turns by various bridges along more muddy lanes and eventually you'll hit Jaco. In a nutshell, that is how it was described to us. After we accepted our fate, the drive was beautiful! There were flowers galore nested into little farms in various valleys, sweeping views of the misty mountains, the always exciting "two huge dumptrucks passing each other on a washout". Who could ask for more? The dumptrucks were there trying to repair the fairly small but serious looking landslides that were alarmingly frequent along this route. No less than eight times we drove through what was probably less than two days-old road re-construction. Had we tried to do the same route a few days before, it wouldn't have been possible, I think.

Pretty fence and flowers in the middle of nowhere	Great views	Dumptrucks, they always seem to pass each other at the narrow, washed out part of the road.	More impressive, misty, beautiful, mountain views

In addition to the impressive vistas to which we were treated, the generally gray and rainy weather was pleasantly cool. One of the downsides to exploring around here can be that you are either stewing in your own juices, or suffering through an interminable-seeming day of air conditioning blasting in your face. If you grant it nothing else, you've got to hand it to the Central Valley on weather. Most of the day was in the low 70s, with high humidity, but occasional sunshine. Pretty darn pleasant.

Also very pleasant were the delicious chorizo sandwiches that we made, almost as if we had planned to be out in the middle of naught all day. I can't post the picture of Jocelyn snarging down on the handful of pork and bread (she vetoed it) but take my word, yummy sandwiches were the order of the day and in the interest of helping myself remember yet another happy aspect of the day, I felt obliged to mention it.

Along the way we drove through the edge of (or at least very very close to the edge of) a little town called Salitral. I was excited because I was pretty sure that I remember reading about a Woman's Association of Salitral that is using methane-producing digesters to convert pig manure into cooking gas. We didn't stop because A) we were starting to worry about just how far out of the way we had diverged, B) We were already over an hour late for a business meeting in Jaco, and had no cell phone coverage, C) It was raining pretty hard at that point, and D) checking out a biogas production facility isn't the type of thing that takes 15 minutes.

Turned out that not stopping was a good call as I was totally mistaken in my recollection of the location. The place that I was thinking of is Santa Fe which isn't even close to where we were. Go figure. Of course, that isn't to say that Salitral isn't a worthwhile place to stop. It may have something wonderful to offer. In fact, if I end up on this random road again some day, I'm stopping in Salitral just to find out what is there.

After asking directions a few more times, and taking some wild guesses that proved to work out in our favor, we hit a big river that we basically followed towards the ocean, where we knew that there would be a highway that would take us to Jaco. The roads got less winding, though they had less gravel, more mud, and deeper potholes. Now, like several other times on the day's journey, we were feeling pretty glad to be in a Land Cruiser, and even more glad that we had put it in 4wd prior to getting stuck in some of the unexpectedly deep wallows. I should take a second to point out that, of course, the gnarliest sections of the drive were the ones that we didn't take pictures on because Jocelyn (and I) weren't willing to wade through knee-deep soupy mud just to snap a photo of our truck slogging through knee-deep soupy mud. Maybe next time.

The rest of the drive was fairly run-of-the-mill Costa Rica: great views of everything from soaring hardwood trees to horses in lime-green fields to swollen creeks and smiling children perched impossibly on bundles in the back of rickety pickup trucks. Since we were so horribly late, we gave up on the time table completely and just enjoyed the drive. Something we used to do all the time but have gotten too busy to enjoy in recent months.

At the risk of sounding too hokey- it was almost as if the events of the day were arranged by someone else, call it divine intervention, call it our subconscience, call it the Universe, call it happenstance... but whatever it was, a bunch of little things all lined up nicely for us to have a really pleasant, unexpected, four-hour backroads adventure.

Our very late arrival even turned out to be no problem at all as Jaco was without electricity and my business contact had moved out to a nearby town seeking internet, where he didn't realize that he didn't have cellphone coverage, so we would not have been able to find him anyway had we arrived in Jaco on time. Go figure.

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, day trip, fuel, landcruiser, mud, photo

Day four of the Moab trip (better posted late than never!). We started out the day with a pow-wow to decide what trails to run and chose Elephant Hill, which is south of Moab, down in Canyonlands National Park. I was a little bit bummed that we were leaving the slickrock playground area that is the off-road Mecca for which Moab is so notable, but excited that we were going to do some more exploration instead of sitting in line on trails full of other vehicles.

Another amazing sunrise, red rocks, Kane Creek wash	more rocks	Not climbing here is a pity, there seem to be fantastic routes all over the place. Next time... next time...	We decided to hit the road and drive back "to California" the long way. Whatever way that turned out, we were just going to head Southwest-ish and see what happened.
Our first stop was Canyonlands, where we decided to tackle "Elephant Hill" Some day it would be fun to plan something out, and get permits to really explore.	hard to look at all this and not think "roadrunner and Wile E Coyote"	Rock Mushrooms	Near Elephant hill. Somehow the terrain looks less rugged when there is an economy car driving behind the Cruiser.
The signs make it clear where the economy car's and Cruiser's paths will diverge. There were only a few tough obstacles on an otherwise easy 4wd trail.	More fabulous blooming desert plants	A view down to the starting point of the trail (with cars parked) gives some scale	Soop is very comfortable offroad. No worries!
Slow and steady....	Seth follows, also no problems	Even a relatively "easy" switchback can be a challenge, especially in larger Landcruisers	Beautiful terrain
A little steep	Very steep. Enough that they've textured it. Another perspective on the steep part. At some point they poured concrete to make it more all-weather, I suppose. Pity.... it is still a challenge but now it is much uglier.	Awesome rocks! These evoke thoughts of monkey heads (for me at least)	No, that's not the trail, but shows how tight the switchbacks are. There is even one switchback where you *can't* turn around, you have to reverse for 50 yards.
Guess what? Cool rock!	Our first glimpse of something like Hoo-doos	This was our view for quite some time, it reminded me of some sort of alien village from Star Trek.	Another reason why bigger isn't always better offroad. One of the most infamous obstacles on the trail, this is a really tight squeeze. Notice where roof racks have left their mark.
Maybe better to fold in that mirror....	Another perspective of the Squeeze	Like something out of a sci-fi movie More Star Trek village	Endless variations on red, yellow, beige, and rocky
You actually do go left here! Thanks, rock.	We did several miles through this valley. Nice, soft floor, beautiful canyon walls	Towards the end of the valley there is some rock art. No walls. No fence. Just a little plaque that says "hey, this is a few thousand years old, please don't break it. So far it seems to have worked.	More of the rock art, and the valley. The overhang is probably what kept the art visible for the last few thousand years.
Lunch break. Nice view seats.	More wildflowers	I'm not very impressed by the Anazasi ruins that were mentioned in our book as a "good place to stop"	But at least there were more flowers
Now this is some quality ruins!	Impressive that without mortar of any sort, these walls have been standing, buffeted by rain and wind and snow, for centuries. Amazing that the wood is still mostly intact.	Great views, too! We wanted to camp here (excellent location) but the incoming weather urged us to keep moving, looking for something less exposed (it was starting to get cold)	Little did we know that all the roads out of there went up. A lot. We left the prarie grass behind and started to see pines.
Then left them behind for Aspens and Birch (and snow)	This was starting to look like worse and worse camping	Darn pretty, but Brrrr! Notice the excellent quality of the fire roads. Great area to just drive around.	Deer. Idyllic sparse forest that is probably superb camping in the summer, but not so great when the ambient temps are dropping like a rock (about 25 F* at this point)
This Alpine lake is listed as a preferred campsite. We can see why. But too cold for us this time around.	Climbing higher still, excellent views of the sun setting into canyons	More canyons to the west. We saw a camp with some turkey hunters along way and they gave us very very vague directions to the main road. Between that and the books we had, we managed to find the highway.	By the time we did find the highway, it was getting dark (and late) Now our problem was: Which way is which? Notice the complete lack of signage on the highway.

We did eventually find a town, which was a relief as we were all pretty tired and the weather had turned really cold- below freezing throughout the area with some areas well below freezing. We settled on a little motel, tried to find some food for dinner, but eventually just cooked in our rooms then headed off to sleep.

Labels: 4wd, landcruiser, photo, travel, utah, vacation

I've been looking for 12v LED "christmas" lights for years- mostly to use for ambient lighting around my cruiser while camping or otherwise being outdoors. I don't know the voltage at which these operate, probably 4.5v, but the fact that they run on solar power makes them even better than what I wanted. Can't wait to try them out while camping or even just around the barbecue at home.

Labels: camping, landcruiser

Really, it is how any 4-cycle internal combustion engine works, mostly. The big difference being that a diesel doesn't rely on spark and has higher compression.

I got the .gif (right) at www.rudolfdiesel.info, that site is in German.

Of course, Wikipedia also has information on how internal combustion engines run. This illustration shows a gas-powered motor. If you watch each, you'll notice that in the diesel, fuel is injected directly into the cylinder (which means it is a direct-injection or DI motor) but that there is no spark. In the gasoline motor, the fuel enters with the air and the spark plug ignites the mixture.

In brief: it goes like this: 1) The piston goes downward, filling the cylinder with fresh air (or air/fuel), 2) the piston goes up, compressing the air (or air/fuel), 3) the compressed mixture explodes, pushing the piston down, 4) the piston rises, pushing the exhasted gasses out of the cylinder.

Then it all starts over again. The only power produced is during the 3rd cycle. The rest all takes power away from the motor. In a 1-cylinder motor, this results in surges of power. This is part of why more cylinders can make for a smoother, more responsive motor-- as the power robbing stages take place, there are more cylinders that are making power.

Labels: landcruiser

Always nice to have a relaxing Sunday, but I decided to spend some time fighting with some minor fixes on the cruiser. Since we got it, it has had some nasty water spotting on the outside of all the windows, and the tint on the pass-side window is a little bit fogged as well. The lack of visibility finally drove me nuts enough to try to tackle it. At first I thought the spots were just hard water, so I tried vinegar. Nope. No effect. I moved up to muriatic acid, but that didn't help either so I figured that the "spots" were really etched into the glass, not on top of it.

Fortunately, I found some pumice-based windshield cleaner at the hardware store and figured it was worth $4 to give it a whirl. Well, whirl is the word of the day. It took a lot of scrubbing, but in the end the stuff seems to have worked nicely. I may go back and do a second treatment, eventually, but at least now I can see out of all the windows, even at night, which is a big step in the right direction. Here is a pic of one of the rear windows, on the left it is just-polished, on the right, original state of disrepair. I went back and cleaned up the right edge of the left window when I saw this picture, but in reality you don't see much of the spots at all anymore.

What I did was: rinse window. Apply compound with wet rag, covering window well. Used polishing pad attached to power drill for first pass, then did a second pass by hand using more pressure, rewetting the compound or adding more as necessary. It seems important to keep the pumice in a slurry as if it dries you get little scratches in the window (bummer). Did a final pass with the drill to buff, then rinsed and ragged it off. After a final rinse, I cleaned the windows with some ammonia-based cleaner, inside and out.

I also pulled the tint off of the front pass window. I like the look better with all the windows tinted, but I prefer to be able to see out. Eventually I'll replace the tint on the two front windows, but only if I can find nearly-clear tint here. The dark stuff just doesn't work for me.

I also took some time to put some roofing leak-repair tape on the underside of the hood. The repair tape is asphalt based with an aluminium liner and in theory it should add some mass to the hood which will help reduce the amount of noise transmitted into the cab. We'll see. The tape is an awful lot cheaper than the stuff that you buy at specialty auto-sound stores, and I don't really have access to the fancy matting anyway. Also, it is too darn heavy to bring down, a big roll of dyna-mat or fatmat or similar weighs over 50lb. I'm not about to devote an entire checked luggage bag to just sound-deadening unless I'm convinced that the $15 I spent on this tape stuff won't do the trick. { edit: the tape helps, a lot. When I close the hood now it is much more a "thud" than a "clank". } I didn't cover the entire hood area as I've read that covering 50-75% of the area is about 90% as effective as covering the whole area. Diminishing returns and all that.

I finished up the hood install with some roofing insulation that is basically 3/16" of plastic foam with a mylar (aluminium) layer. This should help absorb some noise and reflect/insulate the heat from the motor.

Labels: landcruiser

If you, like me, tinker with your vehicle, sooner or later you are probably going to install something electrical and you may find that you want to make sure that the wiring work that you do is of high enough quality to not burst into flames.

First: use fuses! And remember, fuses are there to protect wires, not to protect the stuff at the end of the wires. So size the fuse according to the max current of the wire in question. Or rather, use a fuse that is slightly less amperage than the wire can handle.

Second: Use wire capable of carrying the current that you need for the gizmo on the other end. Remember that if you are using the car chassis or body for your ground, you've still got to figure the distance from the battery. A good rule of thumb is to measure the distance of your + wire, then double it.

Third: use this chart to help figure the correct wire size.

Mostly I posted this wiring information so that later, when I want to find the wiring chart again, I can search my own site for 12V WIRE CAPACITY and hopefully find this link again. But I hope that it is helpful to someone else as well.

Labels: landcruiser

The rains have finally paused. Not stopped, I'm sure. It rained cats n dogs last night, for example, but most of yesterday was flawlessly beautiful (though a tad warm from the humidity) and today is looking equally lovely so far. With a little luck, things can dry out some- the house and cars and dog are all taking on a musty smell, so some breeze and sunshine are much appreciated.

The rain with occasional little bits of sun seems much appreciated by one of our aloe plants as well, it is blooming with what promises to be a really pretty flower.

Back to cars: I'm excited to report that I've finally fixed one of the things that bugged me the most about my 80 series Landcruiser. The "gas" pedal has always had a very stiff and unresponsive feel to it. You've got to really push it to get any sort of get up and go out of the Cruiser. Well, I've got real doubts about the way that the injection pump is tuned, I suspect that the installers of the diesel did a "good enough" job instead of making sure that all of the cool bells n whistles work correctly. So while looking online for some info on how to adjust a particular feature (the Auto Cold Start Device, ACSD), I noticed that there is a spring attached to my IP that isn't stock. It looks almost stock. So I removed the spring and noticed... "Hey, this armature works much better now." Sure enough- the spring was pulling on the AC idle-up arm and due to leverage and friction, that meant an awful lot of extra work from in the driver's seat. The truck feels like a new animal. I've got to relearn to drive it as now I'm burning rubber every time I accelerate. I love it.

I've still got the 2nd most-annoying feature of the truck to contend with-- the windows have really bad hard-water stains on the outside. I've tried a variety of cleansers, yesterday I even tried a little muriatic acid. No good. Still has water spots. I think that the next step is to soak some paper towel in muriatic acid and let it sit there for a while. All window-cleaning tips are welcome at this point.

Labels: garden, landcruiser, tamarindo, weather

At the risk of maligning the country in which I've chosen to live, I'm going to share a situation that I think exemplifies at least the automotive shopping experience in Costa Rica.
I was in a little Auto Repuestos (parts store for cars) today and happened to see something that I didn't even remember that I "need". The part in question is a fuse holder for high-capacity fuses called Maxi-fuses (*see below for background). So I asked the guy at the counter,
"Is that a holder for Maxi fuses?"
He calmly said, "Yes."
So I said, "Great! How much?"
Him: "2,000 colones" (just under $4, a fair price)
Me: "Wonderful. I'll take it." [pause] "Oh, and I'd like an 80 or 100amp fuse please."
Him: "We don't have that."
Me: "Oh, what size do you have?"
Him: "No, no Maxi fuses."

I'll stop sharing the painful discussion here. But let me clarify: they sell a fuse holder but they don't sell the fuses. What in tarnation is going on here?!?!

Even more upsetting is that this is a completely normal conversation at any place that sells parts. I haven't yet experienced a place that sells nuts without bolts, but just the other day I did buy a handful of bolts and nuts and washers, all zinc plated, but the only split-washers that they had were unplated. It wasn't an exotic thing to ask for either, just a regular old 5/16 inch split-ring washer, with zinc plating. No dice. Let's think this through: I want corrosion resistance on the bolt. And the nut. And the washers. Isn't it probable that I'm going to want corrosion resistance on the other washer? Arrgh!

The moral of the story? Focus on the pleasure of finding an uncommon part hanging on the wall instead of the absurdity of not selling a requisite companion part. Now I've just got to go find a store that sells Maxi fuses (they are probably out of holders).

* Now for the backstory: Regular ATO-style (with two blades) fuses stop at 30 amps. I don't know why. But at some point it was decided to make a jumbo-sized fuse that also has two blades and a colorful plastic top that go from around 15 amps up to at least 100 amps. Maybe higher. There is no engineering reason for this as the smaller ATO size fuses are certainly capable of carrying higher amperage. I think it is because they ran out of plastic colors to differentiate the fuse amperages, and didn't truck folks to actually read the little number printed on the fuse. Maxi fuses (the jumbo ones) are found in stock configuration on many American vehicles, possibly foreign vehicles as well. They are certainly available in every single auto-parts store in the USA. Heck, probably in most gas stations. I've got some laying around from a different project, but I've asked at two different parts stores for a Maxi fuse holder and they didn't even know what a Maxi fuse is (one store was an electrical specialist).

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser

I went back to California to share in celebrating my Grandmother's 95th birthday. Then found out my buddy, Soop, was headed to Moab, Utah for a week and last-minute changed my flight so that I could ride along and share the adventure.

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Like any great road trip, we started ours A) Late (almost 6 instead of almost 1) and B) looking for some electronic gizmo so that we could listen to music. Road trip without music? Are you crazy?	The first morning "on the road" we awoke at my sister's place in Nevada. Great mountain views from that neighborhood. Curious absence of photos of the people in the house, Brian and I were exhausted after 4 hours sleep.	My Sister's home in Sparks, NV. She was kind enough to let us roll in at some ungodly hour (1am? 2am?) and sleep.	Hwy 50. Desolate.
This is a "major landmark" on Hwy 50 according to the sign. So major that they named it.... "Sand Hill". Lots of imagination those Nevada explorers.	Shoe Tree.	Not sure what an L is. Or why it has its own sign. But there is one out there, somewhere, apparently.	Quaint little towns pepper Hwy 50. Ok, maybe not "pepper". More like, once in a great while, a little town pops up.
Mom's Cafe. Looked like a good place for coffee and pie. It was.	Morning 3. Our campsite in BLM. I'll call it Camp1	The first of many, many photos of rocks	There were also wildflowers, really beautiful ones, not infrequently.
More rocks. These were stacked by someone to create a little cave in a natural crevice.	rocks, sky. Lots of that out in Moab.	This is the view to the west from Camp1	Camp1 was pretty much on the trailhead for Kane Creek Canyon. So instead of driving back into town to run a trail with a bunch of folk, we just started driving eastward.
This is just before we started out, the two cameras that I used weren't synched to the same timezone, so there will be occasional chronometric anomalies here.			stopping for a beverage and for the dogs to frolic in the cool water
	I don't know what makes the black face on some of the rocks, I assume minerals, but it was really beautiful and refracted the light into an almost oily-looking sheen.	The predominant feature of Kane Creek Canyon, not surprisingly, is Kane Creek	Thus the trail involves many crossings of the creek
Soop is kind enough to frame the naturally ocurring S in the rock face	If you look carefully, you can make out the upper trail, it is at about the 2/3 height on this image. The lower trail is where you fall if you fall off of the upper trail (and an alternate route). Long ways down.	One of the toughest spots on the trail, big stair step.	More amazing geology
Waiting for some folks to get through the tough spot	Seth. Waiting.	Another time problem... this actually came after the next few shots. A pretty creek.
Here you get a better perspective on the size of the stair steps.	Soop went first. Two tries and he was through.	Requires a little articulation from the truck. Those are 35" tires, by the way, it wasn't small bumps. There was also a dropoff to the right that went about 400 feet down.	We finished off the evening in downtown Moab, decent meal at Slickrock Cafe, then back to camp.

Labels: 4wd, california, camping, landcruiser, nevada, travel, utah, vacation

Bad news today, a good friend to us had his cruiser stolen last night.
It's hard for me to express my frustration over this without a long stream of expletives, so I'll just refer you to this link for a photo and description. The California license 4XTS869.

If you see this awesome looking truck on the road- call 911. Please.

Someone stealing someone else's vehicle gives me black thoughts. I'm not usually a proponent or advocate of violence, but I actually frighten myself when I think of what I would do if I came upon somebody stealing a vehicle.

Labels: california, landcruiser, stolen

Had a very frustrating experience working on the old Landcruiser last night. It has been sitting long enough that the battery is flat. Not just a tad low, but 3volt flat. Which, for a 12v battery, means it is probably dead beyond repair. Great.

After trying to charge it for a while I decided to just roll-start the rig and drive around a little. All the things that need oil and grease benefit by a periodic warmup, and the alternator could add some juice to the battery in the process.

I rolled forward about 2 inches and stopped. At first I figured that the rear brakes were bound up (the shoes and drums can oxidize to one-another over time) so I tried pushing it manually. No dice. So then I figured a little, very gentle tug from the other cruiser would get it moving. Nope. Nada.

After a closer inspection, I realized that the dang wheels from the 80, which I had so recently moved over to the 60, are about 1/4" too little offset. That means that the steering arms contact the inner edge of the wheel and the whole thing doesn't go anywhere.

In this particular case, it also means that as the 60 was poking out of the garage, I had the pleasure of pulling the two front tires off of the 60, then swapping on the spare from the 80 as well as one of the front wheels from the 80, then roll-starting the 60, driving around for a while, parking, then swapping the front wheel back onto the 80 so that it would be functional for life today.

All this at dusk, with some mosquitos helping out, in a light rain.

Doesn't sound like such a trial now that I write it out, but last night all I wanted to do was test out a fix on a silly little relay and instead ended up doing a bunch of crawling around on wet ground. I've really got to get our garage covered and concreted. Working in gravel is the pits.

Take home message: early fj80 wheels don't fit fj60 front axles. Which is a surprising move by Toyota as wheel and axle combinations were totally interchangeable from about 1950 through 1991. And there aren't any particular benefits to the "new" type of wheel. Oh well. It's juuuuust time and money.

Labels: landcruiser

bought some HIR bulbs to install in the headlights of the 80. Its brighter.
Driver's side is the new bulb, passenger side is the old. The lights are almost the same wattage (55w vs. 51w) but they have some fancy coating on them that reflects heat back onto the filament, making it glow hotter/brighter/whiter. Or so they say. I got them from Daniel Stern, who is a great resource for all things automotive light related.

Labels: landcruiser

Another traveler is getting ready to set off to tour the Americas in a nicely built Landcruiser. He's keeping an online journal. Looks fun.

Labels: expedition, landcruiser, photo, travel

Ooops. I haven't even mentioned that we have a new 'Cruiser!

She's a 1991 fj80 into which someone transplanted the motor and dash from a 1993 hdj80.

In English: it looks like a regular old 80 series, but has one of the best turbo-diesel motors that Toyota makes.

One of the first things that I had/got to do with it was a round trip to San Jose. Wow! Instead of lumbering up hills in 3rd (or even 2nd), I was zooming up them in 5th (sometimes 4th, just to pass). Passing is now a convenience instead of something that requires advanced planning, good luck and more than a little chutzpah.
The noise level inside is much, much lower than in Louie and the handling, overall, is more car-like. I'm sure that once we lift it and throw some larger tires on it'll reduce the handling a tad and slow the uphill a tad, but I'm sure it will still be faster/smoother than old Louie. The ride quality is so much better that after driving five hours to San Jose, instead of spending the night, I drove five hours back. I don't think I would have even considered that in the 60.

The only bad news about the whole affair is that Louie is probably going to be put up for sale. Which tugs at my heart a little as we've grown very accustomed to driving around in a 60 series, it really forms a larger part of my self-image than I realized.

Having said that, the simple fact is that the 60, while capable, durable and good looking (in a rough and tumble way) is an inferior vehicle for on-road travel and less comfy for clients. We've done all we can with the suspension- but leaf springs just aren't as cushy as coil springs. The 80 has a better braking system, that can be upgraded relatively easily to an even better system. The 80 has a cushier interior with more modern lines and a much, much better A/C system. Last but certainly not least, the turbo diesel motor, in stock configuration, puts out 165 HP and 268 ft-Lb instead of the 103 HP and 177 ft-Lb of Louie's motor. That's a lot more oomph. For those of you familiar with the gasoline-powered 80 series sold in the late 90s in the USA, that motor (1FZ-FE) puts out about the same torque, but about 40 more HP than the 1hd-t. Of course I get between 26 and 28mpg while the gasoline motor expects about 14mpg.

Again, for those not interested in the motor details: The new motor is more than 50% faster/stronger than the old motor, but gets about the same mileage (maybe better, time will tell).

So this is an exciting new development in our 'Cruiser history. You can see some more photos, but they are mostly of parts that I'm trying to identify/understand, so it isn't a very interesting page. Hope to get some attractive photos up soon.

Endnote: Speaking of diesel motors.... Why? Why? WHY? Isn't this car sold in the USA? Small, 4wd, gets nearly 40mpg, runs on commonly available diesel fuel. C'mon Toyota USA! Get with the program!!

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, landcruiser, photo

We found out that there would be no power on Thursday, so we decided to go to Avellanas for the day. Just to make life interesting, we decided to take the "back road", which is an easy (albeit bumpy) ride in the dry season. It took us a little over three hours to travel to Playa Avellanas. That's only about 3 miles away along the beach, and about a 20 minute drive on the main road. Totally worth it.

Note: one of the many benefits of getting muddy with good friends who just so happen to be professional photographers is that you end up with better-than-average pictures for the site. For more of Michael's work, check out MichaelPisarri.com.

When Costa Rican maps define roads as "seasonal", that probably means that there isn't a road there in the wet season. We've taken this road hundreds of times in the dry months, and thought we would see just how bad it is this time of year. It's pretty bad.

The day's first casualty was Steve's flip flop.	Having fun in the muck. Note the front tire: completely encased in clay	We spent a lot of time facing in a direction other than the one we were moving- back tires stuck in a rut, spinning, front tires pulling us along the trail	"Sure... we can make it through this!"
Notice the size of the ruts in relation to the dog (she's about 50lbs, by the way, not tall, but not tiny)	Winching through the first soft patch		The girls ran ahead to scout out routes.
The ultimate offroad vehicles. They would have made it through the road without incident, but no A/C nor stereo either	Not just muddy, but the occasional fallen tree added some variety	Knowing that the water and muddy riverbank would be a challenge, we decided to set up the winch before we got into trouble this time. Caly was very helpful	Neither of the large trees in the foreground was any help to getting up the bank. Michael did the walking while Steve pays out more line
The river was easy, but we only made it a few feet up the bank, which appears to be made entirely of slimy, grimy, claylike muck	This may not look very deep, but it is	Winching uphill through sloppy mud. The ruts were about 30 inches deep when we were done	Made it to the top of the bank, spinning wheels and pushing piles of mud. Finally got a little bit of traction and drove out from here
Michael the winch monster	Mike and Bb scouting out a "difficult" section ahead, this little puddle in front didn't look like much (note where the stick is located on the right).	Oops. I guess the puddle was deeper than it looked! (again, note the stick on the left this time)
"C'mon Guys! Let's get that winch line hooked up and running!" This water eventually pooched my EDIC relay, which is an expensive part. Fortunately there was no permanent damage.	Here's another angle. This stuck had what I like to call a high pucker-factor. Not exactly a relaxing position.	After that last puddle, we took the scouting a little more seriously	Sitting under a swaying coconut palm, relaxing with good friends after the run
Good food. Good friends (who thought we were a little crazy to take the back road in August).	Nothing like a dip in the ocean to get the mud off	beach. stick. Happy Dog.

Photo Credits: Michael Pisarri and Steve Broyles

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, day trip, landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

Had a great time driving an almost-impassable road this weekend. More pictures coming soon, I promise. Unfortunately, a very important part on the cruiser (the EDIC system) spent a lot of time underwater so I had to take it apart and fix it. Fortunately, the cruiser was perfectly driveable without this very important system... it just wouldn't turn off, which is rather important. Got it fixed, all is well. If you have any interest in some pictures... follow this link.

Labels: landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

Business took me back to Santa Cruz again yesterday (Monday), which would have been mildly inconvenient except for the fact that we've had rain of almost-biblical proportions all weekend. The last estimate I had heard was somewhere between three and five inches in three days. Regardless, it was a LOT of rain. The upside is that rain is good, it recharges aquifers. The downside is that too much rain is bad, it makes rivers flood their banks, washes out roads, gets backhoes stuck... and generally makes your day less pleasant if you've got to be out and about.

Note that this bridge is under construction, and the river is about seven feet deep in this photo. That's about 20 minutes of extra driving just to get to the other side.	Here I am rolling through about 6 inches of water on the highway.	But just when I thought I was having a bad day...