Just yesterday, I replaced the handle on my Mom’s screen-door and adjusted the bottom plate so the screen-door would close properly.
My Ridgid tablesaw has an arrangement at the bottom where I am supposed to be able to raise it up on wheels for it to move, or let it set on the feet so it doesn’t move. I originally put the thing together out of the box that it came in and I could never make this work right.
So after a couple of years of frustration whenever I wanted to move it, I took the thing completely apart again, and started over.
I found out that the problem was that I had the adjustable feet too long, so that even when it was at the setting where the wheels were supposed to operate, it was still sitting on the feet.
I could have fixed it just by adjusting the adjustable feet.
:smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:
The good part is that I was able to put it back together, and in the process do a better job of adjusting the rail measuring line relative to the sawblade, and everything works again.
I do have four of those wavy washers left over and I have no idea where they go, but I don’t think they’re critical.
Roddy
Ahem… if I may have your attention.
Car A/C. Refrigerant. Yep. Me. That’s right.
Witnesses? Oh, yes.
New brake line just last Christmas was fixed by the same stud. Yessiree, bob!
Rawr! How you doin Harry?
For me this is significant. My truck door mechanism wouldn’t close. As in, when the door was closed the latch didn’t close to hold the door closed. I had to lock the door to keep it from flying open. So, I bought a can of WD-40 ($??) and spent about a half hour working with it until it now works correctly. It ain’t rocket science, but it is an accomplishment for me.
Ahh, but think how cheap the second one will be!
I was replacing an old bathroom faucet-after I was done, it leaked. I was going crazy, till I realized that the old drainpipe was leaking-a hole had formed in it.
I cut the bad section out, then replaced with a plastic portion. $4.76 in parts, and good to go.
I guess this isn’t really a repair, but an upgrade.
Toyota did not sell cruise control at all on 2008 Yaris hatchbacks. Someone over at yarisworld.com read the wiring diagrams for the car and figured out all the equipment for factory cruise control exists an all Yaris models for that year- Toyota simply refused to sell the switch stalk and a bit of wiring on the hatchbacks. One roller switch, two normally open momentary button switches, a few resistors, and thirty minutes’ installation time later, I had “factory” cruise control for less than ten dollars. That was in 2009, and it’s still working fine.
Well, not nearly as big as some of these great triumphs, but the tailgate lifts on my wife’s van went out a few weeks ago, and when she said she was going to take it to the dealer I ordered them online and replaced them.
A few years ago she was backing out of the garage and ripped off the passenger-side mirror of that same van. After reading online how to repair it, I ordered the replacement mirror and carefully replaced it. It took about an hour. Then, a few days later, she did it again.
The good news was that the second time around the replacement went a lot faster.
A while back I fixed a friend’s court stenographer machine. It turned out the hammers got bumped out of line somehow and when I got one lined up the others fell into place.
I installed a whole house water filter in our cabin. I practiced sweating pipe and soldering for a few hours then did the deed. I felt like I was doing open heart surgery on the place, sawing off the main water line, hooking everything up, soldering at weird angles, turning the water back on and dealing with this and that until it was working fine. Pretty scary and I think I’ll pay a plumber next time.
FYI, the screw-on filters my buddy had were virtually impossible to remove without depressurizing the lines. You couldn’t just shut off water to them, you had to take the pressure off on the other side.
Way back when I first met Mrs. R, I diagnosed her car’s problem over the phone, bought the part, and fixed her car in the parking lot after work. For a few brief weeks, I was a Car Repair God in her eyes. 
That reminds me - I had a Ford Escort that was revving uncontrollably. I took it to three mechanics who ended up not fixing it. Finally I scoured the internet and wound up on some site with auto safety incident reports that led me to the fix - the idle air bypass valve. It was a $45 part and it bolted on to the top of the throttle body easy as can be. Problem solved.
This has been my experience-many “mechanics” don’t know what they are doing-they just change parts. Its parts of the economics of running a repair shop-don’t take the time to do a proper diagnosis-just change parts till you find the problem. In my life, only one mechanic admitted to me that he didn’t know what was wrong-he advised me to see the dealer, because he knew he could not fix it.
But on to another story-a washing machine was leaking-I found out why-the water pump housing had tone of tiny holes in it-years of use had caused little holes to form in the housing. A spare was not obtainable-so I took the pump apart, and filled the holes with liquid solder-it worked great for another 5 years.
Must be a Ford thing; my wife used to have a Ford Escape with a sticky idle air valve, right on top as you say. When it wouldn’t start, you had to tap the outside of that valve gently to unstick it, and ta da, started up fine. The problem wasn’t frequent enough to bother us much, so I never replaced the valve.
I’m happy being able to assemble things from Ikea. This thread makes me feel like a newbie.
I just got myself a “new to me” car 2005 Toyota Highlander, and after a few days of happy ownership, the climate control started to go wacky. Full A/C would suddenly become Full Heat, then go back. After checking on the internet, it’s a known problem with their heater control module. The temperature knob can develop a bit of play, and 3 wires that connect the temperature knob to the device will flex and eventually break. A new unit is $400, but you can fix it yourself if you:
Remove the decorative bezel from the dash
unscrew the main Climate Control / Radio unit
Unscrew the Climate control unit from the main
Unplug and bring the unit to your workshop
Take the casing off the unit
Remove the existing wires, and clean up the contacts
Solder in new wires
Reassemble the unit, and plug it back into the car.
Works like a charm now, and I learned how to solder, a little.
Last house we lived in, the landlord told us the washer and dryer came with the place, but they were old and not very reliable. About 6 months in the gas dryer stopped drying clothes. After some investigation it appeared the likely culprit was the igniter, and so I ordered the part, took the entire damn thing apart (necessary; it’s on the very bottom, under the drum, it was insane). Once everything was out, it was a trivial part swap, and all was like new. But while I’m pretty confident with electricity and such, working with a GAS appliance was a bit scary. Worked like a charm for the remaining 18 months until we moved out. Oh, and I did convince the landlord to pay for the part, too!
I’m a very handy guy.
I once fixed a friend’s car stereo with a bottle of champagne…
I do all the maintenance around our house, and I have lots of little triumphs.
The latest fix-it that I’m proud of is this:
I have a 1995 Nissan Altima. It has a particularly bad mounting system for the sun visors. The visor pivot post gets inserted into a plastic mounting that is screwed into the headliner. Here is a photo:
http://cl.ly/0T0T02383z1N2E072a1j
The plastic mounting piece takes a lot of stress, and it eventually splits in half along the front/back centerline, due to the constant force of putting the visor up and down (the Arizona heat doesn’t help, I’m sure). When the first one broke, I took the two pieces and tried to glue them together. Naturally, it’s made from some thermo-setting plastic that is impossible to glue. I tried PVC welder, Methyl Chloride, Acetone, Xylene, and my go-to stuff - two-part plastic welder. None of them would adhere to the plastic, and none of them would soften it enough to make a weld.
So I thought about it for a while, then went and got some strong cotton button thread. I wrapped the thread around and around the two pieces of the post, making sure that they were in the correct alignment, and when I had built up enough layers of thread, i soaked it in superglue, and set it with a shot of accelerant. It’s worked perfectly for almost a year now. I figure that the repair is many times stronger than the original part.
I installed an air conditioner all by myself! And put foam insulation tape around it to keep the bugs out (so far so good).
To be fair, it was only a window unit. And it wasn’t broken or anything… but still, I’m proud because I’d never done anything like that before and *really *had no idea what I was doing.