The hood release has always been kind of stiff, requiring more manual pulling force than I would ordinarily expect. This time it finally snapped. Great. And it seems like such things always happen on a weekend when I have to wait for Monday for my local junkyard to be open. Oh well. Annoying, but not that big a deal.
So the first step was to figure out how to get to the lever so I could survey the damage. This required removing three screws in the step mold at the driver's door. The molding has a large piece on the front end of it which covers the hood release lever. Here's a shot of the molding by itelf on the garage floor and another of the van door area without the molding on. (I had a little heater fan handy just to take the chill off in the garage.) You can just see the hood release lever inside the door, black with a little white icon symbol of the vehicle with its hood raised...
Following are three successively closer views of the hood release mechanism as seen from inside. Note the knobby end of the cable hanging there loose next to the lever. Ordinarily it would be anchored in the lever so that pulling the lever would pull the cable and release the hood latch...
Finally, here are two shots of the old lever, the second one showing exactly where the piece broke off such that the knobby end of the cable was no longer held in place when pulling the lever...
That's it, but now I have rant to share (feel free to skip it)... I don't understand why there aren't just two or three types of hood release levers, regardless of the make of the vehicle. I had a hard time finding one that was an exact match so it would fit. Some have fat handle ends, some mount differently at the base, and some are obviously completely different styles (even though I was only checking vehicles from the same general manufacturer). I even got into one which outwardly at a glance looked like it would be perfect, but once I got down to the lever itself I could see that the base part actually mounted from the opposite side so that I would not have been able to use it at all in my van. I mean the lever was basically the same shape and design, but because the base part of it mounted in the opposite direction it would have only snapped on in my van completely backwards! No way that could possibly work.
It's just a danged cheapo plastic lever fer gosh sakes! Why can't they be standard? All vehicles have a hood and I would assume that they all release by pulling on a cable the same general way. I can see changing cars in design year to year in an effort to get folks to buy newer models with a different look or better features, but I can't imagine the hood release lever would be even a miniscule consideration so why have so many different shapes and mechanisms?
As it was there was only one vehicle I was reasonably sure was close enough in year of manufacture for the hood release lever to likely match. And since we're tlaking about a junkyard and all sorts of vehicle conditions exacerbated by years of sitting outside in all weather, you run into rusty parts and things that won't budge. The screws I had to remove to get the molding/lever cover off were rust and the phillips heads stripped. I got one to come out easy, but the other two were gonna fight me. I eventually got a second one started after borrowing a better screwdriver. But the forward-most screw still was being stubborn.
I finally decided to bypass it when I realized I could reach up to the forward part of the plastic molded covering and just physically bend it back away from the lever mechanism as much as possible. It was still gonna be tough to see what I was doing so that I could hit the plastic catch just right that would let the lever just slide off its base mount. It was a major help that the parking brake pedal is right there and positioned just perfectly so that I pushed it down enough for it to hold the bent molding away from the lever. The parking brake was the third hand I needed. Once I did that it didn't take long.
If I had my way, vehicle manufacturers would make just a few basic models for various sorts of consumer needs and then NOT change stuff just for the sake of change year to year. Safety improvements? Fine. Better comfort? Fine. But keep the same basic design of each model for as long as possible so that as many parts as possible would be interchangeable from model year to model year.
Of course, I know why they DON'T do that, but I'm just ranting. OK, rant mode off.
So the "new" lever cost me $4 and a little time and aggravation. As always, I wonder what a dealer or mechanic/body shop guy would have charged for the part, for the labor, and how long it would have taken them from the time of ordering the part to installing it...
As a result of that little car repair I ended up checking back into some of my other adventures in such things and discovered (much to my surprise) that somehow I neglected to followup this post from December 8, 2006! Frankly it's kind of lame anyway, but in it I tell how the van's cruise control had stopped working, but I kept fiddling with it and then all of a sudden it magically started working again. So at the time I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Well, better late than never?...
I can't honestly say I now remember the when and how of it exactly, but at some point in 2007 I finally did figure out what the real problem was with the cruise control. The trouble was in the button unit which mounts on a bracket next to the brake pedal. There's a flat piece which sticks out from the brake pedal which makes contact with the button. The pedal normally keeps the button pressed when not braking, but depressing the pedal releases the button so that the brake lights come on and the cruise control is disengaged (if it was on). As long as I was down in the area working on my hood release issue I took a picture of the current brake pedal button unit that's mounted on there (the slender piece just to the right of the button unit is the upper part of the brake pedal)...
I remember it was an extremely difficult spot to work (having to lay down in there somehow and twist this way and that just trying to see what I was working on and gain any necessary leverage. (Working on the hood release lever was cake comparatively speaking because I could just kneel at the open door and lean in.) Figuring out how the brake pedal button unit pried off or popped back on took quite a bit of hesitant poking about before I got it. The mounting spot itself was on the other side of the button unit, so I even tried using a flashlight and a mirror to see what I was doing, but I needed at least four hands that way and there was no way anyone else could fit down there to help. Once I finally had worked the button unit off its mounting I did some more experimental prying to determine how to open it up (it's not really designed with that in mind) because I wanted to look inside and see what was going on with it (not being sure at the time that it was the source of the problem).
It turned out that the internal column of the button mechanism has three tabs that stick up (well, down actually) and the spring-loaded button (spring not visible below) triggers whether those tabs push the metal contacts in the lower part of the switch. The middle tab, which obviously must have to do with the cruise control, was either broken off or worn down to nothing. There may have been enough of it there at some point to cause the issues to be only intermittent before it finally quit working altogether.
The first pic below shows the old button unit just loosely assembled (not snapped together like it normally would be). The second shot shows the component parts separated (minus the internal spring which is really all that makes it work—it's there, but unseen back in the black boxy part). The third one shows the nub where the middle tab on the internal switch column should be...
I don't know why just that tab broke/wore out and not the others because I don't really use the cruise control that much and even if I did, well, so what, it shouldn't be that hard on the switch and should have been just as hard on the other tabs in there. Oh well.
So that ended up being another one of my junkyard trips to grab a "new" brake pedal button unit. I had to make sure I found another minivan of the same make and that it had very similar-looking driver cruise control buttons mounted in the steering wheel. I remember I had to be careful of broken glass on the floor of the wrecked van from which I pulled the "new" brake pedal button unit. But it was worth it as it solved the problem. The cruise control has worked fine ever since (for more than a year now). I don't remember they charged me for the part, but I'm sure it wasn't much.
Going to the junkyard is always something of an adventure, especially when, like me, you're just learning as you go with re to various car issues. I don't know why, but it seems the older my vehicles (and I) get, the more I end up wandering around the junkyard. Hmmm... It's almost as if there's some sort of mysterious correlation or relationship there...
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14 comments:
Okay, DimSkip, so how did your breakfast at McDonald's go? :)
Oh, that was fine Elizabeth. I like their breakfasts best and especially their Sausage McMuffin with Egg. So when they do their 2 for $3 deal, I'm a sucker for that And that's all I order at such times—no accompaniments as I just skip the hash browns and carry in my own water to drink (just not a coffee drinker). I don't overdo it, but once in a while is nice.
You my dear friend, are as bad as my son... :-)
Me, I take the yellow part out of the egg and I put the sausage in about 50 napkins, to get rid of all the extra grease and THEN I suffer through the thing...can you tell I should not have one of those... lol
I know what you mean, Angel. That's why I don't do it a lot. But when I do, I like to savor the full grease experience!
;-)
(Then probably skip lunch.)
My grandfather used to say something to the effect of "Sometimes you gotta grease up the insides a bit."
He lived to be 93. In fact after both he and my grandmother made it to around 85, they made it a point to eat anything they wanted and their health didn't seem to suffer because of it. (Maybe they were just lucky or blessed.)
Not that I should adopt that attitude now at this much earlier point in my life, but we all have to indulge our gustatorial cravings once in a while. Right?
Right, DimSkip. I agree. I have not tried MD's breakfast fare, though I am a frequent customer around lunchtime. (Looove their ice cream cones.)
Can't comment on your car problems, though. Whenever the topic of transportation vehicles pops up, my ears wilt and my eyes glaze over. You could as well speak Chinese. (It's a major problem in the eyes of my male children, who cannot comprehend this strange mental defect that their mom exhibits.)
As to your "wandering" comments (re: your recent SHAMblog comment), I enjoy following your thought process. I can see how it may be confusing(?) when seen in print right after writing, but it does make sense and it shows how your mind works. Analytical and ruminative (and the latter ain't bad, believe me :).
BTW ours is 2 for $3.50. Hey, I am shocked at the increase for La La Land! :-)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess once in a blue moon won't hurt, but I really hope that by pounding the grease out of it and not savoring it will send my arteries a message. Dont take any of the residual grease and plant it onto the your walls.
This digression gets off scott free, cause she really did her best. lol
DimSkip, this is unrelated, but perhaps you can help me with it, being technically savvy.
I've not been not receiving Blogger follow-up comments even though I checked the box below (not only on your blog, but on others as well). Do you have any idea as to why and what can be done to correct it?
Elizabeth: Well, one thing you should realize about my car repair posts is that probably my main reason for even doing them at all is because I've never been all that mechanically inclined or even taken much interest in that sort of thing before. Some kids grew up with all kinds of motorized toys and were always tinkering with them. I was not one of them.
It's only been the last few years that I started taking an interest in trying to fix for myself that which seems like it should be fixable (even though I never know the technical terms for all the doohickey thingies). There's been one or two times I honestly did surprise myself. (This hood release lever was easy, though.)
But I still leave things like brakes and radiators and such to the experts, anything that affects the actual engine working or is a potentially key safety issue. Well, I do change my own oil, but that's easy too once you've done it once or twice (getting rid of the old oil is the hard part).
Thanks for the positive feedback re my SHAMblog commenting (both here and there). I appreciate it. I enjoy your comments and most of the commenting crowd there as well. And though I may go for periods of time without commenting at all, I'm frequently lurking, reading, pondering, and yes, even ruminating.
As for the emailing of followup comments, I'd have to do some investigating. I never tried it. That's just one of those options that blogger.com makes available and I never looked into it. I just assumed it would work. If it doesn't, I doubt there's anything I can do about it as I don't think I can remove it as an option.
Off the top of my head, the only thing that pops to mind is that it's possible your email service could be filtering such automated email notices as spam. You may want to check your email account page(s) to see if there is a separate "junk mail," "trash" or some such folder which may hold questionable emails that get shunted there as potential spam.
Also, maybe look for some link for your email account titled "account options" or "settings" or something like that, then click it to see if there's any sort of option settings that would let you specifically accept email from certain addresses (assuming you know what they should be) that might otherwise get flagged as spam. (That's typically something you might have to do if you sign up for a mass-mailed newsletter from somewhere, but find you're not getting it.)
In the meantime, if I get a few minutes to look into the issue a little, I will do so. And if I come up with something else, I will try to let you know. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine. Sorry I can't be more helpful with anything definitive, but that's the way the tech support crumbles around here. No refunds. ;-)
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Angel: 2 for $3.50, eh? I've always heard things were more expensive in CA, but that's outrageous! Just grab some extra ketchup packets while you're in there to make up for the extra charge.
;-)
Oh well, generally I eat much healthier in terms of both quantity (smaller portions) and quality (not a lot of junk processed food) than I did, say, 10 years ago. I'm not fanatical about watching what I eat, but if I do eat stuff I know isn't the greatest thing for me, I usually try to keep it to "just enough to taste and savor" without overdoing it. I'll even balance it later by skipping an unnecessary lunch or something if I feel I must.
Thanks, DS, I'm on it! (I.e. your suggestions, just in case I make no sense in the first sentence. :)
Also re following comments...
As I recently mentioned over at Steve's blog, I follow comments for his blog (and a couple others) by subscribing to his available comments feed (usually listed somewhere on a page as RSS, Atom, XML, or FeedBurner) on my custom iGoogle page. I recall you indicating that you didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned it, but I just want to say I really find iGoogle convenient for such things.
Through iGoogle, I can collect feeds from all sorts of sites in one generally accessible spot. It's especially convenient for anyone who happens to be an antiquated dialup user for whom page load times can be problematic to say the least. Gathering various feeds gives you essentially just the content without the overhead of ads and glitzy, but irrelevant sidebar bells and whistles.
When Steve's comments feed went on the fritz a couple weeks ago I really missed it. I'm so glad it's now working again. If I read a comment (or post) I want to respond to, I then have to click on through to the site to do that, but most times I'm just reading so iGoogle is sufficient.
Subscribing to feeds doesn't have to be done through iGoogle---that just happens to be what I use. I recommend the method as a good alternative if the email thingie doesn't work.
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And speaking of that, I did a very quick perusal of the blogger help pages and didn't find too much. The most recent reference to issues with emailing of follow-up comments was posted (back in September) by someone who, like you, said she wasn't receiving the emails. She said she used to receive them, but then they suddenly stopped.
That same day, though, she re-posted with a "Never mind" saying that she discovered the emails indeed were suddenly going to her spam folder for some reason (she didn't know why). But they were there.
So I still have no definitive answer, but that at least seems to back up my preliminary thoughts on the issue as you described it. I hope you can figure it out. If I find more info or anything else to try I will let you know.
It also just occurred to me that maybe I should mention this possibility...
The emailing of follow-up comments may not work because, well, it just doesn't work. I don't know one way or the other really, but sometimes things just stop working in general or don't work for particular users for some reason and a specific cause may be difficult to pinpoint.
Like the comments feed issue I encountered for SHAMblog, this too could be one of those things that just has quit working and is yet to be addressed. And if not many people generally use the feature (again, I have no idea) it may not be a major priority for the folks at blogger.com to address.
I'm just sayin'... Sometimes the answer to such things simply turns out to be "you can't get there from here." Even if you have what you think is a good map that says otherwise.
Last suggestion (for tonight anyway) Elizabeth...
I don't know if you have a gmail account or what you are trying to use as your email address for notification of follow-up comments, but blogger.com (as you may be aware) is affiliated with Google.com. Therefore it's possible that the feature may work best (only?) with a Google gmail address. That shouldn't be the case, but who knows?...
Personally, I don't have a gmail account to use. I do get email notifications of comments on my own blog, but that's through the official administrative blog settings themselves, not from having checked the box when leaving a commenting myself.
It's just a thought anyway. Of course, a good reason NOT to use a gmail account is if you just don't want to have to check another email account for things. I myself have two email addresses I can use. One is my primary account and the other is just a backup, one I use mostly when signing up for things here and there and you have to give some email address to continue. That way, any suspect emails that may inadvertently result go to the secondary account that I check much less frequently, not the one I use all the time day to day.
Here's a blogger help page forum entry from back in May where someone else was having the same issue. The person also says the emails were not in his spam folder and his settings appeared to be fine.
Unfortunately there is no sign there was ever any sort of explanation or resolution. So as I say, it just may not work and there may be no help for it at this time.
It doesn't look like I'll be able to figure it out. It doesn't seem to be something that massive amounts of users are complaining about. That may mean it's an isolated problem or it may mean that not many folks even try to use the feature.
Thanks a bunch, DimSkip. Really. Wow. Thank you. You did my homework -- I'm embarrassed (but grateful). I checked my Spam folder -- nothing there. Also visited Blogger problem-solving page (or whatever it's called) and found a couple of people complaining of the same thing (not the same people you found -- I don't think), but nobody seemed to have any answers for them. So I just think your insightful assessment...
The emailing of follow-up comments may not work because, well, it just doesn't work.
...is most likely the most accurate one.
I will learn to live without that minor convenience -- have done it for so long anyway. But I will check the option of subscribing to "my" blogs that you've mentioned (though am a bit afraid I may be opening a new can of vicious worms -- because what if that thing stops working all of a sudden? And then another one that's related to it will give out? And then the next? You know what I mean? What was to be an improvement would turn into a source of an endless and increasingly horrifying misery... Gasp.:)
But I digress. Thanks again.
Angel, 2 for $3.50?! That's a screaming outrage. What's the Western world coming to... No, seriously. (I think.:)
And I'm giggling over your napkins-on-grease maneuvers -- we do the very same thing when possible, but somehow the food ends up looking sad without that shine. Sigh. But planting grease on our walls, we have not tried that... Oh, wait, never mind. We have (as a quick look around my kitchen confirms. Yuck.)
P.S. DS, "pondering" is a much better word than "ruminating" to describe your thinking/writing style -- you're absolutely right. I just could not come up with it at first.
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