Roasting days mark the unofficial beginning of summer radiator replacement season. One can see the season's early victims on the first wicked hot weekend of the year. There they stand on the side of the road holding up their hoods while their cooling system makes like a steam engine. This mighty 1969 Dodge Polara did not overheat, but did do something equally unacceptable. … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Wood
From the back to nature desk of our renewable resource and sustainability division comes one of the more versatile and useful items in the Clunkbucket Arsenal of Tools. Wood. Countless blocks, lengths, or chunks of wood make it onto the tool carts and work benches of the world as proof that necessity is the mother of invention. Can't get the car high enough with the floor jack? … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Super Straight Edge
As we approach the beginning of Mitsubishi Astron engine rebuilding season, it is time for the first in a series of tools that can help get the job done. A quality step in transforming a salvaged engine block into a working short block is checking the deck for flatness. One might think they could lay any old reasonably straight thing across the deck and mark it good, but … [Read more...]
Remove and Replace an Alternator
One of the great unanswered questions of long-term automobile ownership is the mystery of the alternator. If the collective automotive powers can design and manufacture a car as complex and modern as the Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo, it would seem but a minor detail to install a bulletproof alternator under every hood. Why automakers cannot produce this alternator that serves in … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Vacuum Gauge
From the atmospheric pressure and faulty carburetor adjustment division of Tool of the Week comes the large dial vacuum gauge. As the Starlet was going through its bi-annual carburetor meltdown, the time was right to bust out the vacuum gauge to see what was going on. Spark was there for sure. There was plenty of air. That left fuel and fuel delivery as suspects. This … [Read more...]