02 Base for my son

[Snowbound]

Jack asked when he would be able to take the car and I told him I have to take the strut back off. He wanted to know when I was gonna do that and I told him maybe not until Thursday and he could probably have it by the weekend depending on what I find. He was kinda down when he said “ok dad”.
So I told him if he wanted to take it, go ahead. “Is it gonna be ok?” “I don’t think anything is gonna break, just something is rattling.”
So he took it with the understanding if it sounded worse or he felt something wrong, he would bring it back. I think it’ll help find the issue if he puts some miles on it because I should see what is hitting a little more clearly than just having a few laps around town. It doesn’t sound like it’s causing any damage. Also, I couldn’t find my 1/4” Snap-On ratchet and 7mm socket that I used to remove the rear speakers. Im almost wondering if that fell off the rear deck and is down under the plastic side panels somewhere and that’s what’s bouncing. I searched everywhere inside the car, searched both tool boxes and cleaned off work bench and even emptied the garbage piece by piece. Jess said why are you so worried about it, you have 10 of them probably. That’s my Snap-On long ratchet, I probably paid $100 for that thing! I left every tool I used on the interior inside the car while it was in the garage. So I might have to pull the panels and look for that before I pull that strut. More I think about it, I hope that’s what it is. I want my ratchet back!

Sunday we took a little ride to a “haunted cemetery” that Jess wanted to go see. I like walking around cemeteries looking at old headstones. There were a lot that were from the late 1800’s. Pretty cool. No ghosts or anything supernatural though. But it was a good ride, about an hour away. Not hot or sun beating on us. Lots of cloud cover but very humid. Felt good while we were moving.


My buddy Don and his wife came with us.


We got home around 2pm and I wanted to get my new garage radio hooked up. Jess took Julianna to a birthday party so I started on that.
I bought a Sony receiver with Bluetooth but while I’m looking at it I realize this thing is gonna get dirt and dust in it because of the vents on the case. Now I have to make an enclosed shelf for it. I can turn anything into a project!
As I’m planning this thing in my head and seeing what I have for wood, I remember I wanted to build a holder for my cordless drills, drivers and impacts. Hmmm, now it’s getting seriously involved. Lol.
All I had for what I wanted to do was plywood. That’ll have to do. As I’m sketching it on paper I figure the only way to really secure the shelves to the sides is by notching the plywood or attaching some 1x to the sides for the shelf to sit on. I don’t have any 1x so I decided to notch the shelves into the sides. No table saw either. So I set my circular saw depth to 1/4 and had to make 3 passes and then clean it up with a wood chisel. That’s what happens when a mechanic tries to be a carpenter. Had all the wood cut and notched and it was going on 6pm, had to go to work at 10 so I got a nap.
Monday morning I glued and used nail gun with 1” staples and put it together. Painted it with some battleship gray I had and went to bed. I was tired. Before work Monday night I got it up, installed radio and mounted speakers, and even attached my chargers to the side.


At work last night I cut a piece of plexiglass but I can’t find my hinges at the moment so I used couple small pieces of double sided tape and sealed off the front of stereo shelf.


What do you think? Will it get too hot in there? Should I add a small fan to the side with a filter material or just a vent with filter?

Tonight I’m gonna take the Caddy to work and install the catch can and check everything over real good since I got it back.

 

[Snowbound]

I got home from work yesterday morning and started getting some yard work done before it reached 90°. Cleaned up the yard, trimmed bushes and trees, cut up some bigger branches that I already fell to use for firewood and cut the grass. By that time it was noon and I was dying. You guys know, I would rather have 100”then 100°.
I gathered my stuff together to install the catch can on the Caddy so I could bring to work and then loaded branches in the truck to dump at work. Then my phone rang, it was work. The afternoon guy, 3p-11p, called off and they needed me to come in at 7pm. SOAB!! By the time I stuffed my face and showered it was after 2pm. I woke up for no reason at 4:55 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I came in on 2.5 hrs of sleep maybe and then when I get here I see the reminder that I have skid steer and aerial lift training in morning from 7a-11a. This really sucks!

So I’ve kept myself busy tonight because if I sit down I’m liable to fall asleep. Started on the catch can about 3am. Bracket was already attached to the can so it was just a matter of bolting it on to the master.


I pulled the plastic pipe that goes from top of intake to PCV valve and started putting on the 3/8” braided hose to vacuum port on intake. That’s when I noticed the small plastic vacuum line that goes from intake to fuel pressure regulator And I thought, I better take that off before I break it, which I have in the past because they get brittle. Well, I broke it taking it off. Just the rubber boot on the intake side but I don’t have anything like that here at work. So I started scrounging for something that I can use.
I couldn’t use just a hose because the fitting on intake faces straight up and it’s a 3/8” fitting but is only a 1/8” line that goes to regulator. So I need to bush it down on a 90° elbow. Best I could find was a 1/4 NPT to 1/8 compression 90°. The 1/4” was a tight fit into a small piece of 3/8” hose. But the 1/8” hose won’t go on the 1/8” compression side threads. So I had to use a 1/4” piece of hose and shove the 1/8” inside of the 1/4”. It’s rigged but it fits under the cover and is air tight because I blew in it. I wrapped it with electrical tape too. It’ll work until I get home and see if I have that rubber fitting.




After that I was able to finish it up by running the hoses to the catch can. I’m gonna put new 90° fittings in the catch can to clean up the routing but at least I was able to sneak the lines out behind the cover without having to cut or notch the cover.


This should have taken me 20 minutes but instead I had about 90 minutes in it finding fitting and hose. I’m tired and I hope I can make it til 11. I might have to take a nap in the truck before I drive home.

 

[Snowbound]

I was looking for belt tensioner on Rockauto last weekend because I plan on changing the belts on this Intrepid and I ended up getting 2 new rear hubs with bearings.
I’m not sure if you guys know this but when you go on Rockauto and enter your vehicle, you’ll see “RSS” next to the top heading. Click on that and then click on HTML and it shows you all the wholesale close out parts available for your vehicle. That’s where I found the hub bearings and they are Mopar parts. They were $14.84 each so I had to grab them. I also got Moog rear driveshaft u-joints for my 2500HD for $9.45 each.


After I placed the order I forgot to get the tensioners. Oh well, I’ll just grab them local when I change the belts.
Jack is gonna drop off the car today and I’ll pull the strut in the morning. On a side note, I did find my 1/4” ratchet and 7mm socket. I took it out of the car when I removed the speaker and set it on my roll up tool pouch for the bike and moved it so it got folded inside that. I’m happy I found it but I was really hoping that’s all that the noise was. Hopefully I’ll find the issue and I won’t have to get a replacement strut. I’ll report back my findings.

 

[Snowbound]

Here we go again. But so much easier to take apart this time.



I had to remove the spindle from the links to get the strut to come out. I tried to get it down far enough with links still on but there was no way.

 

[Snowbound]

I don’t see any signs of anything touching or rubbing. The top of the strut looks like it was seated fine against the tower.


No marks like it was moving at all. The tower is the same way. Everything looks good with no signs of anything hitting.



So I started looking for something else that would cause this rattle noise. Only thing I could find is this. But the noise sounds high, maybe it’s just resonating thru the structure.

 

[Snowbound]

Back together and going for a drive. I had my brother stop by and he said that the sound does seem to be what we were hearing. With him moving that link I felt the top of the tower and I can feel it just like before and that was with the strut out. So I tightened down on that bolt and if it’s better or gone I’ll know that was it. Those links seem to have a slightly larger bore in the bushings making them loose fitting on the bolts. My next step will be drilling out the mounting tabs and installing a larger grade 8 bolt for the links. Hope this works! I’ll report back shortly.

 

[Snowbound]

That was it! Noise is gone. So now I’ll replace the bolts and have to drill out the mounting tabs to get a tighter fitting bolt on all the links. Thankfully that’s all it was.

 

[iamdub]

What do you think? Will it get too hot in there? Should I add a small fan to the side with a filter material or just a vent with filter?

Unless it doesn't get very hot (how hard you gonna drive this thing?), I would do a filter on one side, PC cooling fan on the other, just like a network cabinet. Some are updraft, some are cross-draft. Updraft is more efficient since heat rises and the filtered intake can be on the bottom where it's protected. In a garage, the fan up top can allow dust in. So, a cross-draft is probably ideal. A fan can easily move plenty of volume through that small space so you don't need every last ounce of efficiency. Plus, it'd be nice to not have to worry about blocking the fan if you wanted to put something on top of the cabinet.

 

[Snowbound]

Unless it doesn't get very hot (how hard you gonna drive this thing?), I would do a filter on one side, PC cooling fan on the other, just like a network cabinet. Some are updraft, some are cross-draft. Updraft is more efficient since heat rises and the filtered intake can be on the bottom where it's protected. In a garage, the fan up top can allow dust in. So, a cross-draft is probably ideal. A fan can easily move plenty of volume through that small space so you don't need every last ounce of efficiency. Plus, it'd be nice to not have to worry about blocking the fan if you wanted to put something on top of the cabinet.

First thing my brother said when he seen it, you need a fan or some sort of ventilation on that thing.
I don’t usually drive it too hard while I’m out there but I do occasionally. 90/10. But I will still add a fan. Sucks because I just recently threw away 2 fans that I had saved from work for VFD cabinets. I might be able to find another at work.
I think the cross flow would be the way to go because of the dust like you mentioned. Thanks for the response.

 

[HiHoeSilver]

First thing my brother said when he seen it, you need a fan or some sort of ventilation on that thing.
I don’t usually drive it too hard while I’m out there but I do occasionally. 90/10. But I will still add a fan. Sucks because I just recently threw away 2 fans that I had saved from work for VFD cabinets. I might be able to find another at work.
I think the cross flow would be the way to go because of the dust like you mentioned. Thanks for the response.

I've got a bunch of fans laying around in the shop if you need one. I think I have some ones with filters, too. Lmk.