LeoVampire
05-21-2010, 11:35 AM
Accross the street from me my neighbors have been dealing with a lot since the start of winter. Now they live in CT but have to drive back and forth to N.Y. for their jobs seeing they are originaly from there before they bought this house.
They were using a pretty beat up Saturn to get back and forth and because of paying his ex wife alamony still and for his 3 sons money has been really tight for them.
His GF ended up hurting her shoulder @ work and needed some surgery on it so that set them back a bit. Then the tranny went in the Saturn but they had a 1998 Ford Exlorer that sat in the driveway for years because it was too expensive for them to run it that distance.
On of the other reasons for it sitting was the master cylender went as well and was dumping brake fluid out the back of it. This is a 1998 Ford Exlorer with the 5.0 P code engine AWD and has over 150,000 miles on it.
So in the freezing cold and snow I changed out the master and as soon as I went to check it out for bleeding @ the wheels after bench bleeding it the rear steal line poped. So had to change that out as well then got it to bleed just fine.
Started it up to take it for a test drive and the throttle body was locked up solid. Had to use WD-40 and a pair of channel locks to free up the throttle body so I could test drive it. heading down the driveway the ABS freeked out and made it almost impossable to stop the truck. Pulled the code and found out it was the wheel sensors but they maxed out a CC just to do the other brake repair in parts. So I pulled the fuse for the ABS so it would just run on normal brakes and by pass it.
Now Fred ended up laid off from work and Scarra had to go for another surgery for her shoulder because she was still having problems. So their money situation was getting worse and from time to time we would invite them over to eat with us or a cook out just to help a bit.
Then his mother died this last Friday and they had to go to Long Island to help with the funeral and more. They stayed all weekend long. On their way back Sunday the serpentine belt poped on them and he stoped and picked up another one and started the drive back again. Once on route 8 in CT the new belt broke again and is was late with everything closed. He called me and I called Tripple A and got them towed home for free.
Monday I checked it out and found the water pump bearing gone on it which is what kept causing the belt to break and I found 1 of the idler pully's were also about to go. Plus all of the hoses were original and he said the Thermostate was never changed when I asked him about it.
I went on line to look up parts and get an idea of what all of this should cost and what was available gave him the list and I told him when he had the money to come over and I would take him to the parts store to get it all.
Not wanting to bother me feeling guility about asking for charity again they walked down town to get everything once they got a family member to clear enough of a Credit Card so they could buy the parts and then stoped over my place to ask if I could fix it for them very humbly but I did get mad saying they should have asked for a ride instead of walking in the rain for the parts.
Anyways yesterday I brough it into the back of the house and started to get craking on it. Now if any of you are familier with Ford's fun idea about the clutch fan set up on all of the engines in these vehicles like the rainger and so forth it is a big nut on the back of it and it screws onto the water pump end and you usualy need a special set of tools for them to remove and put them back on and a royal PITA to do. There is a trick to getting them off. You use an air hammer with a chissel on it and burp the corner of the nut really good to break them free and they will spin off without a single tool being needed till you put it back on the new pump. The nut is usualy 1 and 7/16 to 36mm in size for a wrench.
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Now the next problem was with all of the bolts being in an Aluminum engine for so long needless to say the threads were full of rust and junk so it took hours to work them back and forth to free them up enough for removal with out breaking any of them inside the block. So this job took about 4 hours longer than nessasary. I started about 11 a.m. and did not get done till the start of nightfall and darkness after warming it up and topping it off.
The extra time was due to cleaning the threads on all of the bolts by hand with a wire brush and so forth. They offerd to take all of the old fluids to the part store for the drop off including my old rear end fluid I had and more.
Seeing they could not pay me for the job I accepted the offer. Anyways I hope you find the story and tip about these fan clutches interesting and helpfull!
Being neighborly is something I was brought up around so doing this for them the past 2 times was worth it because everyone around me are very cool and always willing to help when they can.
They were using a pretty beat up Saturn to get back and forth and because of paying his ex wife alamony still and for his 3 sons money has been really tight for them.
His GF ended up hurting her shoulder @ work and needed some surgery on it so that set them back a bit. Then the tranny went in the Saturn but they had a 1998 Ford Exlorer that sat in the driveway for years because it was too expensive for them to run it that distance.
On of the other reasons for it sitting was the master cylender went as well and was dumping brake fluid out the back of it. This is a 1998 Ford Exlorer with the 5.0 P code engine AWD and has over 150,000 miles on it.
So in the freezing cold and snow I changed out the master and as soon as I went to check it out for bleeding @ the wheels after bench bleeding it the rear steal line poped. So had to change that out as well then got it to bleed just fine.
Started it up to take it for a test drive and the throttle body was locked up solid. Had to use WD-40 and a pair of channel locks to free up the throttle body so I could test drive it. heading down the driveway the ABS freeked out and made it almost impossable to stop the truck. Pulled the code and found out it was the wheel sensors but they maxed out a CC just to do the other brake repair in parts. So I pulled the fuse for the ABS so it would just run on normal brakes and by pass it.
Now Fred ended up laid off from work and Scarra had to go for another surgery for her shoulder because she was still having problems. So their money situation was getting worse and from time to time we would invite them over to eat with us or a cook out just to help a bit.
Then his mother died this last Friday and they had to go to Long Island to help with the funeral and more. They stayed all weekend long. On their way back Sunday the serpentine belt poped on them and he stoped and picked up another one and started the drive back again. Once on route 8 in CT the new belt broke again and is was late with everything closed. He called me and I called Tripple A and got them towed home for free.
Monday I checked it out and found the water pump bearing gone on it which is what kept causing the belt to break and I found 1 of the idler pully's were also about to go. Plus all of the hoses were original and he said the Thermostate was never changed when I asked him about it.
I went on line to look up parts and get an idea of what all of this should cost and what was available gave him the list and I told him when he had the money to come over and I would take him to the parts store to get it all.
Not wanting to bother me feeling guility about asking for charity again they walked down town to get everything once they got a family member to clear enough of a Credit Card so they could buy the parts and then stoped over my place to ask if I could fix it for them very humbly but I did get mad saying they should have asked for a ride instead of walking in the rain for the parts.
Anyways yesterday I brough it into the back of the house and started to get craking on it. Now if any of you are familier with Ford's fun idea about the clutch fan set up on all of the engines in these vehicles like the rainger and so forth it is a big nut on the back of it and it screws onto the water pump end and you usualy need a special set of tools for them to remove and put them back on and a royal PITA to do. There is a trick to getting them off. You use an air hammer with a chissel on it and burp the corner of the nut really good to break them free and they will spin off without a single tool being needed till you put it back on the new pump. The nut is usualy 1 and 7/16 to 36mm in size for a wrench.
20513
20514
20515
20516
Now the next problem was with all of the bolts being in an Aluminum engine for so long needless to say the threads were full of rust and junk so it took hours to work them back and forth to free them up enough for removal with out breaking any of them inside the block. So this job took about 4 hours longer than nessasary. I started about 11 a.m. and did not get done till the start of nightfall and darkness after warming it up and topping it off.
The extra time was due to cleaning the threads on all of the bolts by hand with a wire brush and so forth. They offerd to take all of the old fluids to the part store for the drop off including my old rear end fluid I had and more.
Seeing they could not pay me for the job I accepted the offer. Anyways I hope you find the story and tip about these fan clutches interesting and helpfull!
Being neighborly is something I was brought up around so doing this for them the past 2 times was worth it because everyone around me are very cool and always willing to help when they can.