Mid-May updates of a various and random nature · 10:55pm May 13th, 2018
Alrighty, y'all, it's time for updates. IRL stuff and other stuff and I've got a deleted scene, too.
First, happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! If you haven't already, wish your mother a happy Mother's Day right now.
We're gonna continue the saga of the Rendezvous. A blog post or two ago, when I was ranting on about my manager's, ah, brilliance, I told you how it had been diagnosed thus far.
I'd only gotten as far as me putting it back together enough to run a compression test on cylinder #4, if you recall. And any reasonable mechanic probably would have left it at that; there was enough difference in compression that it clearly had a mechanical problem and therefore the engine.
Come Monday morning (this was Monday of last week), he decided that I ought to put it all the way back together so I could take it for the test drive he never had. So I did, and the result was that, as I'd expected, the misfire disappeared once it got a little bit above idle speed. At this point, I am 100% certain of my diagnosis, there are no more tests to be run, case closed, we're done here. Park it outside and wait for the customer to approve a new engine or not, and move on to the next new thing.
And if that had been the case, there'd be a picture of Applejack here saying "I didn't learn nothing: I was right all along."
He decided that we should run a compression test again.
Once again, I cranked over the engine while he looked at the gauge. And once again, it was low.
More importantly, it was a different amount low each time. Sometimes it was better than other times.
If I'd needed any more confirmation of my diagnosis from a few days before, that would have been it. And he was sort of coming around to my idea, as well.
Either that, or he thought it would be fun to have me waste a bunch of time, because his next suggestion was to take the lifters out and look at them.
Going back to the doctor example I gave before, this is the doctor saying "Well, let's just get that appendix out so we can take a look at it." This isn't the most major repair you can do on an automobile engine, but it's getting there. You've got to get pretty far into the engine to get to the lifters.
(the parts go back on more or less left to right)
As you can see by the picture, I tore the top of the engine off so that I could get to the lifter. And I'm sure that some of you are holding your breath to see if I was right or not.
Yes, indeed, the intake lifter on cylinder 1 is bad. For comparison, the exhaust lifter is right next to it. That roller is supposed to be smooth and shiny, not rough and pitted.
The smart thing to do would be replace the engine. He wants to just put a camshaft and lifters in it.
Either way, we're going to be dropping the engine--you can't put a camshaft in one of these with the engine in the vehicle. Maybe we can lower it a little bit and get it through the hole where the wheel goes, although given how much is already off the engine, there's actually not that much more that would have to be disconnected to put the engine on the ground. [Some cars the engine comes out the top; others, you have to drop the engine and transmission as a unit out the bottom.] We're almost certainly going to find that the timing chain is loose and also needs to be replaced, and by the time we're all done, it wouldn't be much more expensive to put an engine in it, and then it would be all good parts, rather than a few good parts in a worn-out engine.
Moving back from the technical aspects of the job, now that even he had to agree what was wrong with it, it was time for him to price it up. For those of you who don't know how the process works, there's a labor guide that you consult that tells you what it takes in terms of labor, and then you look up the parts. I've never looked up camshaft replacement, but I'm sure that that's something that's in the guide.
Parts, though . . . it turns out that GM doesn't make or sell this camshaft any more. And none of our normal aftermarket suppliers do, either. It's obsolete, discontinued, and unavailable. (We can get the lifters, though.)
While it's possible to get one from a junkyard, it would also be incredibly stupid to do so. There's no way that anyone at a junkyard would want to pull the camshaft. They would sell us a whole engine, and if we really wanted to we could pull the camshaft out of that . . . although it would of course be much easier to just put that whole engine in the car.
They're still available from rebuilders, too. So you'd expect that he'd call a rebuilder and just order one, right?
Of course not! Last I heard, he's trying to see if a local company that makes camshafts for GM happens to still have any of them lying around. Meanwhile, the Rendezvous is sitting in our parking lot with the upper end off its engine, slowly depreciating.
(For those of you who are deciding to google it, you can get aftermarket camshafts for the 3.4L, presumably for the Camaro. Whether this one is the same or not I don't know.)
Enough of my ranting, though! Let's look forward to bigger and better things!
Next weekend is EFNW in Seattle. I'll be there!
Also, a lot of other authors will be there. I generally love hanging out and meeting people and talking about stories and all that. So if you happen to be there as well, find me! I'll likely be spending a lot of time at the writing panels learning how to get good, and maybe even taking on a guest role if they somehow find themselves in desperate need of a warm body. Really, really desperate. Okay, honestly, there's about zero chance of that actually happening. But it could!
They've got the Iron Writer competition, which is super-intense and lots of fun. I actually bought a new laptop just for it--I don't trust my old Lenovo after it got an unwanted shower. I've got everything all set up on it and ready to go, and I'm going to try and break it in a little bit before the competition by writing something on it.
Speaking of winning (so much winning!), I just recently won my third contest in a row! Yay! A British Gentleman started a group called Rare Story Prompts, which is--as the title suggests--rare story prompts. The first was to write a second-person FiE. He relaxed the rules a little bit to let first-person in as well, but I thought that if I was gonna do it, I might as well take the harder route. He reviewed one of my stories as a prize, which is awesome!
I also won the Twilight Sparkle award in EFNW's Scribblefest contest. I was expecting to win that one, to be honest; there are times when the ball firmly lands in my court and when there's a prize for research, that's right in my court. All I have to do is what I always do.
That contest gave me a monetary reward, and I invested my prize money wisely and now I'm a billionaire. Who says that writing ponyfics doesn't pay?
And of course y'all know that I also won the Writeoff groups Next Generation contest with The Fixer. I can't remember if I put a link to it in any of my previous blog posts. It's entirely possible that I didn't, 'cause sometimes I forget stuff like that.
And since we're on the subject of updates . . . I didn't want to blog about this one, 'cause it seems every time I promise an update, I manage to not keep that promise for one reason or another. I wind up staying late at work or getting called in to an emergency shift or the power goes out or the township complains about my backyard collection of rusty Americana and I have to do something about them. . . .
Well, this time I was actually smart and waited until all the editing was done (hopefully) and the blog post was written and all I have to do is push a few buttons and things are ready to go, and within twenty four hours of this blog post going live, y'all are going to get an update to Onto the Pony Planet.
I also have an outtake from a few chapters earlier, which I'm publishing as a Side Stories chapter. It kind of got lost in the editing shuffle and then found again when I was working on this chapter.
For those of you keeping count, back in January I gave y'all teasers for upcoming stories and chapters. There were ten in total; as of now, five of them have been published, and this update will be number 6.
I'm also working on a blog post that's going to be a list of all the stories I've written thus far (and if I'm smart, I'll be keeping it up to date going forward). I don't know how long it's going to take; I might have it done by the end of the month or I might not. Hopefully, that'll be a convenient resource for people who want to look through my older stuff and aren't that good with Fimfic's search function, or are looking for ponies that FimFic won't let you search for. It's going to take a while to build the whole list in some useful manner, but I'm going to do it anyway. We'll see if I find any stories or chapters that I forgot I wrote . . . there's actually a legit chance that that'll happen. It'll also give me a chance to review things and update tags as needed, since we've got some new ones we didn't have back in 2012.
Well, that's all for right now; hope to see some of you at EFNW!
More Onto the Pony Planet you say? Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes. and Yes!
You need to put one of those junkers in a junkers in a skip and then put a matress in that, just to make sure?
Lifters?. I keep forgetting they do those given how many cars we had since the 80s had OHC because its just a chain up and it makes the engine narrower for smaller engine bays etc?
I have done my research too you know? And I know how much Zimbabwe's dollards are worth...
Yes!
What a nice way to end the week, a pony planet side story and the promise of a chapter to start the next week.
Well that is one way to brigthen an otherwise very shitty week. Thank you Admiral!
(Plus it mean Blogpost #500 is going to be a OPP behind the scene, glorious!)
Have fun at ever free! Alas I can’t make it because of (lack of) funds this year.
I'm probably going to be at EFNW, and since the Tigers are playing the Mariners next weekend, I'll probably knock out watching a game at Safeco field, as well.
Yea! More Onto the Pony Planet! In around a day we will have a new chapter and I wonder what will happen to Dale now I wonder?
4859912
OHC didn't make the 4.6 or5.4 fords any narrower !
4859895
4859912
It might make an inline engine narrower (although the camshaft usually isn't nearly as much of a bump out as the intake and exhaust manifolds are), but it does little to narrow a V-engine. Sometimes it lets you get away with more stuff on the intake that you couldn't have done on an engine with an in-block cam (Ford's modular engines have really deep valleys, and they put a resonator of some sort for the intake down in there). Interestingly, for a while lots of automakers were going to timing belts on engines but now that variable cam timing is a thing, chains are coming back. I don't want to say that you can't do variable cam timing with a belt, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody does.
Congrats, also on being reviewed on Seattle's Angels for 'Croahamare's Hearth'swarming'. If you haven't seen the review, they did a good job and thought the story was excellent.
Looking forward to seeing you at Everfree.
Luna knows, I need a break! Three days among my people should help reset me until BronyCon.
I'm a little surprised that rockauto doesn't list a cam for the 3.4. They do, however, list one for the 3.1L. Same shit, right? There's a couple new ones on ebay for the 3.4, listed for the van version, but it's a little unclear whether those are oem spec cams or performance. Oh well, your customer might wind up with a slightly faster Rendezvous.
We're shopping for a replacement used car.
(Marks
Ford Rendezvousoff list of desired models)Maybe a Honda CRV...
I should do that 10bil Zimbabwe thing.
4859967
I did see the review, and it made me happy.
I was wondering why I picked up a couple of followers today with no obvious cause.
I also got a review on Aphrodite's Dance from A British Gentleman, as a prize for winning the Rare Story Prompts contest. Thinking back, I don't believe I actually linked that in the blog post.
As am I!
It's just what I need, too. Although I'm starting to get into panic mode about the trip.
4859975
I honestly don't know. I'd think that the 3.1 and 3.4 have the same cam, but it's thinking things like that which can lead to interesting problems. Maybe the firing order is different, I don't know.
Heck, I might still have a new cam lying around from a 2.8, and that might be the same as a 3.4 cam. Or it might be nothing alike.
If it were mine and I were putting a cam in it, I might consider trying an ebay cam, but I'm really reluctant to take that route with a customer's vehicle. And actually, it isn't really my worry anyway . . . either the manager finds one, or he doesn't. If he does, then I'll put a cam in it; if he doesn't, then I'll put an engine in it. Or maybe I'll just put the thing back together as it is if the customer decides he can live with a misfire at idle.
4859992
It's not a Ford, silly, it's a Buick. Ford would never build a vehicle like that.
They built different crappy SUV things.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/2001-2004_Ford_Escape_--_04-26-2012.JPG/800px-2001-2004_Ford_Escape_--_04-26-2012.JPG
Honda VCRs are pretty decent, actually. Basically an overgrown Civic station wagon, and Honda knows how to build Civics.
4859918
I'm still a billionaire. Even if it's only $6.50 in American dollars.
You're welcome!
It is indeed, and I can't think of a better thing to have as my 500th blog post.
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4859940
Awesome!
Safeco is pretty close to the hotel, isn't it? Maybe if I get the right balcony, I can catch a long fly ball.
4859944
I'm so tempted to troll you and say that he goes on a murderous rampage through Ponyville or something like that.
Ooh, wait, no, he suddenly becomes the seventh element of harmony. Yeah, that's what happens.
I can tell you that Starlight makes an egg casserole, though. That's probably not too much of a spoiler.
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/d3/Lucky_Star_ID_S1E13.png
4860020
Yes, do. Then you can be a billionaire, just like me.
4860044
I will gladly take having an earlier then canon appearance of Starlight Glimmer. Hopefully Dale can talk her away from her dreams of equality.
4860058
It's not Starlight Glimmer (damn you, Hasbro). It's Starlight, now renamed by Hasbro to Lucky Star.
Which is confusing as all get-out, but the only other solution is to change her name throughout OPP to Lucky Star which is something I'd rather not do. Although I might ultimately have to . . . maybe I'll put that out as a question to the masses.
4860038
Unfortunately, no, it's about 12 miles away.
I think the Link light rail runs from the airport to Safeco, downtown, though.
4860072
So that would be a hell of a home run, then.
It does seem to. I took a look at their route just out of curiosity. Odds are that I won't be riding on it; last year there was more than enough to do at the con, and I haven't really got any free time on either end. Maybe next year I'll take a couple of extra days so I can get closer to downtown and maybe visit the Space Noodle or something like that.
4860082
While I'm thinking about it, do you have any programmed "free time" in particular? TBH, you being there is kind of what pushed me from "well, maybe I'll go? I'll decide round about Wednesday" to "OK, confirmed." The games with Detroit are part of a series, so I could go to the game either Saturday or Sunday. My first thought was to do both EFNW and a ball game on Saturday, but I think that I'll be so rushed I won't have fun at either.
So my tentative plan now is to take Amtrak up from Portland (which I've been swearing that I'll do since 2014), hit up EFNW on Saturday (maybe even the Gala? Does anybody have any advice on that one?), then catch the game on Sunday, and take the train back down. That knocks out the "take the train to Seattle" and "see an MLB game" that I've had on my "Things to Do On a Weekend" checklist for the past few years.
Edit: To finish my thought rather than getting distracted by something shiny and hitting "Post", if there are particular times you're free, it might be a good idea with me to start with those times in mind when planning the trip.
4860097
I don't have any particular planned free time (or not, for that matter). My hard obligations are the Iron Writer competition (1-3 on Saturday is the writing time, and looks like 1:30 to 3:30 on Sunday is the awards time), and hopefully meeting up with one of my pre-readers (time not yet determined).
I've only just looked at the schedule, so I don't know for sure which panels I'll want to attend, but either way it looks like the latest panel I'd be interested in on Friday ends at 10, the latest one on Saturday ends at 7:30, and on Sunday it'd be the Iron Writer awards (3:30).
I don't know anything about the gala--I've never attended one and probably won't this year, either.
4860028 Well, yeah I know it's not your problem, but one last thing you could try, or suggest anyway, call up gm, get the part number for the cam, then ask for the part number for a car with the 3.1. See if they are the same.
4860123
I'd honestly rather put an engine in it. It almost certainly suffered an oiling failure of some sort, and just replacing the cam and lifters won't fix that problem. If it were an engine where it were fairly cheap and easy to put a cam in, I might be willing to try it and see, but by the time all the labor's done on this one, I think it would be more cost-effective to get a reman engine if the customer really loves their Rendezvous. They'd certainly get a better warranty if they put a Jasper in it rather than just putting a cam in it.
I don't know if you have to drop the engine all the way out to put a cam in, but I do know that you have to drop it at least partway out. Labor-wise, it's going to be an expensive job, either way the customer decides to go.
4860127 Fuck I did a cam on one of those a long time ago (the one that broke in half), we just took the whole motor out. Totally not worth dicking with it while it's in the car, imo. But you're probably right about the oil failure. *thinking* you know, you could just drop the whole subframe, engine, transmission, and all. Either way... I guess.
LOL implying your boss won't just call the junkyarders and get a motor with quote "40k miles on it" and it looks super clean because they left it out in the rain for a year.
inb4 the customer don't want to pay for it and just takes it.
If you invested more wisely, you would've had 100 Trillion dollars.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Zimbabwe_%24100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg
You could have been a trillionaire.
4860114
No eating of minstrels, either. That's a plus, if you're a minstrel.
4860265
That's how we did the one on the Montana van. That one needed a trans, but basically the same labor. Told the customer that we'd give her a tune-up for parts cost alone . . . it's really easy to do a tune-up on a 3.4 when the engine is not in the vehicle. Only takes a few minutes.
I wouldn't put that past him, but . . .
That does seem to be the way things are going to go. Of course, 'just takes it' right now means 'tows it away,' since the engine is in pieces. Probably I'll have to put it back together. There's something that just isn't right when it ran when it came in and now it doesn't.
Funny thing is, if the manager had listened to me, we would have had the same diagnosis, and the only thing I'd've had to remove was spark plug #1.
4860372
I thought about that, but 100 trillion dollars was about twenty times more expensive.
See you in Seaddle in the next day or two!
4862118
Yay!
I'm coming in tomorrow night. I get to Sea-Tac sometime after 5, and ought to be at the hotel by 7 at the latest. Maybe sooner.
Well, assuming that Delta doesn't get lost.
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I'll be in around 3:30 or so, but then I have staff shit to do
Pretty confident my own engine is in infinitely better shape than that one is. You'll never guess is mileage too
4862432
At least we managed to pass in the hall two or three times.
We'll probably have more free time for annual bonding at Trotcon.
4863419
I'm going to guess 240,000, since that's what my Impala with a 3.4 has.
If it's not a 3.4 . . . really depends on what it is. I've worked on a Chevy pickup that had 1.3 million or so on it (the guy wasn't sure; the odometer quit at 1.3 million), a Ram with a Cummins 5.9 that had 500,000, a Toyota with 330,000, and any number of cars with 200k plus. Heck, my current daily driver has 240k, the van before it had 230k, and the Grand Marquis before that had about 260k. My S-10 passed 400k, by my best reckoning (the odometer quit on that one when it was only at 220k, so it was best guesses from that point on).
Hmm, thinking on that, just the vehicles in my driveway add up to somewhere around 800k; if we add the ones down in the yard in, it certainly goes over a million.
4867269
Try under 29k, I can send you a picture if you want
4867331
And yeah, send a pic. 
29k? That's just a baby.
4867267
Every time I peeked everyone was stuck just SITTING IN PANELS and it was like aaaahhh where is the chance to hang-talk!!
4868156
I know, I'm sorry. And then I got to talking at the bar until really late one night.
We were all being serious and stuff.
4867367
Whats your preferred method of attaining pictures?
4868162
Uh, I dunno. If you don't want to put it in the comments section, send me a PM.
4868160
The bar?! Gasp! What scandal!