I’m pretty handy and do sort of minor car repair work. Last year I replaced my valve cover gasket, ignition coils, and spark plugs, which was pretty fun. I’ve also replaced my purge control valve, motor mounts, and a couple of sensors that went bad.
Had a fuel pump leak a few months ago… went to the shop for that. :P
When you see oil in with your spark plugs like this:
Pop off the top of your engine like so:
(make sure you disconnect all the wires and screws and things first like this one, some of which broke… ugh)
Then you get to see where all that oil is going
and clean out the spots that shouldn’t have the oil so they look more like this
Then, I don’t have pictures, but replace the spark plugs, ignition coils, and the valve cover gasket. lol
I worked in a grocery store for 3 years in high school. I too, remember that smell. So, many bulbs though. The craziest stocker/bagger was always recruited to go up the way too tall 80’s era rickety step ladder and do bulb replacements. Today we would champion that person the King of OSHA. Back then we would just laugh. Ahh, to have those carefree thoughts that nothing could hurt us. We were so naive.
What about streamlight flashlight? I saw its price is higher than a normal brand flashlight. I bought this last month and stop working after 15 days. Later I find that It is switch problem. I fixed it myself! forgot to mention light details. Here is the https://totalguide.org/streamlight-super-siege-review/ light that I solved myself.
I managed to fix my microwave oven this past weekend.
The microwave is just a decade or so old and is a pretty nice over-the-oven “hood” model. When we opened the door it would make a “whirring” noise that would only stop if we unplugged it. The actual operation worked OK – the food would get heated – but the turntable would not rotate, and of course the noise was hugely annoying.
About a half-hour of Internet research led me to three or four forums that all diagnosed the issue as a capacitor being burnt out in the control panel’s main board. I ordered a similar capacitor from Amazon (since there are no Radio Shacks nearby any more) and it arrived three days later. I was able to wick away the old solder, remove the bad capacitor and insert the new one into the circuit board with minimal issues.
Reassembling the whole thing took a fair amount of time because there was a decade’s worth of incidental grease and gunk in the seams and in the interior, and I couldn’t stand the thought of closing it all back up knowing that mess was there. So I spent a good hour scrubbing out the innards of the microwave as best I could before putting it all back together.
It’s as good as new. The whole operation probably took no more than two and a half hours, and that’s with me being occasionally distracted by the Redskins melting down against the Saints.
Ah very nice @Tin_Wisdom , I’ve come to consider Microwaves disposable now that they are sub $100. But I always say fix it if you can!
I replaced the wax seal on the upstairs toilet this weekend, was 24 years old and started to leak early last week.
All went well, until I had it all back together and bolted to the floor again. On the first flush water now started to leak between the tank and bowl. Guess that 24 year old gasket is shot also… I’ll work on it after Thanksgiving. A drip tray and a few sponges are catching the water for now. It only happens when it gets flushed.
The toilet went from leaking dirty water to now leaking clean water, so babysteps!
When that last happened to me I used plumber’s epoxy. Drain the tank. Remove the gaskets. Tighten the bolts. Dry thoroughly. Then apply the epoxy over the bolt heads. Make sure there is solid coverage and let it cure. Of course if it doesn’t work for you, I never said anything. :)
Every toilet I have ever worked on has had that happen. If the tank comes off, you can pretty much count on needing to replace the gasket and tank bolt washers.
I’ve used that fix before, but with silicone. I overtightened a tank bolt which left a chip that would slowly leak. instead of replacing an old bowl (which would have been a new toilet completely at the age it is) I went with a cheapo fix. It’s still holding, 2 years and counting. I went with silicone because I knew it would be easier to remove when it comes to that.
I’m with Timemaster_Tim, once you pull a bowl off, bad things happen. It’s the slow process of fixing more and more things you messed up by messing with it.
Those tank gaskets are sneaky. They may look fine, but they are ready to crumble if you look at them wrong. Like the pipes in two places that I lived in. The kitchen sink drain gets clogged. I decide to stick a coat hanger down it. The hanger goes right through the pipe. It’s as thin as aluminum foil after decades of wear.
My mother’s house was so old. In the basement, sewage lines had what appeared to be leaks repaired by hammering wooden wedges in. Then they were painted over.
Don’t get me started on the fabric clad, solid copper wiring. :O
For anyone else thinking about this, be very careful with microwaves. IIRC, they are one of the few appliances/electronics in your house with capacitors that will hold a charge that is big enough to kill you.
Old school CRTs had the same problem but no one has those anymore.
I have a big CRT in my arcade cabinet downstairs, and I’m always super-paranoid about touching it for exactly that reason. For the record, the amount of trouble I went through to get that CRT working was NOT worth the payoff of having an “authentic” arcade experience.
The microwaves’ big capacitors are typically sequestered behind a very hard-to-remove plate; the one I was talking about is a little 220uF 50V thing in the control panel.
