Ness' Outpost

I stopped by Dixie Mitsubishi to see the parts department. Picked up a oil filter (MZ690072) and engine air filter (1500A023 – aka Element Air Cleaner) for my 24,000km service. I also bought a set of mud guards (MZ380525EX) for the coming winter that I’ll have to install in the fall once I can find some primer/adhesion promoter. The parts department also had a rubber WeatherTech trunk liner on the shelf – which I have been eyeing forever — with a slight discount since it was out of the box. These liners/mats never go on sale so I scooped it up.

I thought the oil filter looked really similar to the Pontiac Vibe’s shape and size. So I grabbed the oil wrench and sure enough it fit nicely on the end of the Mitsu oil filter. That’s awesome, one less tool to buy now.

Turned out to be a rather expensive visit. ;)

The owners manual talks a bit about the AWC of the second generation Mitsubishi Outlander. While the owners manual is good for the average user to choose a mode it doesn’t help you fill in the data of what the car is actually doing in those modes. This wikipedia post talks about about how the car achieves the different goals of the driving modes.
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I found out that my Motomaster 5-Gallon Twin-stack Air Compressor (#58-7949-6) compressor is too small to run the Mastercraft ½” impact wrench (#58-8413) that comes in the Mastercraft 100-Piece Air Tool Kit (#58-7872-0).

After lugging the beast of a compressor out of the basement plugging it in and hooking up the 50′ 3/8″ hose with 1/4″ quick connects all I could get out of the tool was a steady hiss of air – no impacting as expected on the lugs of the Vibe. I was able to get one nut off after fiddling around with the compressor regulator and cranking up the PSI to the max but the tool specifications say the max is only 90 PSI not the 120 PSI I was trying to feed it to get off the lugs.

Lugs were put on by a tire shop so they were probably at 90 ft/lbs. I torque the lugs to 80 ft/lbs when I change the tires myself on the steelies unless the vehicle says more or less.

Returning to the specs again the air compressor delivers 4.1 scfm @ 90 PSI while the impact wrench requires somewhere around 5.0 scfm according to the tool manual – not the Canadian Tire website.

Dang. I guess I’ll need a garage with a bigger air compressor some day or a better air wrench. ;)
For now the electric impact gun is a lot lighter and easier to use in the driveway.

Never use a gun to torque on your lugs – do it by hand with a proper torque wrench.

I got out the tools to do an oil change on the Vibe tonight before it rains. 14mm box wrench, oil filter and filter wrench, 3/8″ ratchet and extension. The brand spanking new rino ramps were cut free from their packaging and I was all set to go.

The Vibe is a standard and I drive an automatic every day. I can drive standard — it just isn’t pretty. The rino ramps aren’t that high, only about 8 inches or so but became obstacle number one. I couldn’t get the vehicle up on them since our driveway is sloped too that extra slope made it really hard to get her up on the ramps. Lauren put the car up on them no problem for me.
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Today I tried to re-configure our Logitech Harmony 880 remote. I hooked the Wii into the sound system and changed the input channel too. Changes needed to be made on the remote.

But I forgot how to do it so I’m documenting how to set it up again for next time.
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Felt an earthquake today. The last time there was a tremor in Ontario — which was a long time ago so don’t ask me when — I was in a car and didn’t feel anything due to a fantastic Toyota suspension.

It felt like a really big guy was walking across the roof of our building in Oakville pulling a HVAC system or something.

Technical details of the event are here. USGS is calling it a 5.5 magnitude:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php

Working from home today as the roofers are working away stripping the old two layers off, hammering down the decking and reconfiguring our vents.

So far so good — no headache yet. We’ll see when they start laying shingles. I may have to disappear for a while.

I took a few days of extra vacation around the May 24 long weekend to work on our master bedroom.

It seemed to have almost the original paint and definitely had the original trim work. We had picked a colour, I had all the tools. The only thing standing in our way was a wedding on Saturday and lots of furniture that needed to be moved around. Also the fact we’d have to spend our nights in the guest room – but that wasn’t so bad.
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Lauren’s 2006 Pontiac Vibe (aka Matrix in sheeps clothing) has a pretty standard breaking system. The front are discs and the rears are drums.

Today Kevin and I did a front break job. New pads, rotors and fluids. It was a pretty standard job and is really well explained over at Generation Vibe in this post. They don’t talk about bleeding the brakes — and you probably don’t have to do this if your fluid is regularly changed anyway. We did bleed the brakes when we were done, but that isn’t included in the post above.

The only thing to add is that I used a 19mm socket to push the slide pin rubber boots back into place after removing them to clean and grease them.

Parts came from Napa and cost about $175 for rotors, ceramic pads and some brake grease. Be sure to have lots of brake cleaner on hand since the rotors were oiled and bagged. They need to be cleaned off before they can be installed – I do this anyway even for dry rotors. I tend to get greasy fingers all over them.

We did a walkabout cleanup on Tuesday at work that picked up about 8 large bags of trash from around the grounds.

This weekend Lo and I are going out to Halton Hills to do some tree planting on the Bruce Trail on Saturday. A fun little hike with a work party attached to it.