Category Archives: Fixing Stuff

Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, Fixing Stuff

Vevor 30L Ultrasonic Cleaner is Great

I’ve heard about using ultrasonic cleaners on firearms for years but never really investigated them.  Recently, I had a need to clean a bunch of HK33 grips that had cosmoline, oil, and whatever else on them.  Actually, I knew well in advance because they were part of a project and I had to figure out how to clean up a 50+ of these used grimy grips.

The HK 33 grips had cosmoline on them.

My Cleaning Options

I knew cleaning that many by hand with a solvent would take forever and be expensive.  Hot water and dish soap was an option but slow and time consuming.  An ultrasonic cleaner seemed like a perfect solution.  I talked it over with my friend Scott, who owns Michigan Gun Exchange.  Scott has one in his shop and uses it to clean firearms.  He showed me how it worked and I was impressed.  This type of cleaning would be perfect.

Ultrasonic Cleaners

An ultrasonic cleaner cleans parts three ways – the liquid bath, ultrasonic vibrations and heat all combined at once.  If you’ve every fought getting cosmoline or old grease that has set up, you know how heat is your friend.

Okay, it was time to research.  I couldn’t afford or have the space for a giant unit.  Doing some digging, the Vevor 30 liter unit got good reviews and looked like it would work for the majority of firearm parts I would need to put in it.  I considered the length, width, height and the diagonal for really long parts.   The stainless basket you put the parts in measures 18.3″ x 10.8″ x 6.7″. The diagonal is 21.25″.

Note, in terms of actual volume it holds, they say the unit is 30 liters in the title but also report that it measures between 29 and 30 liters or 7.7-7.9 gallons. They recommend the fluid be at least 75% full to protect the heating element plus you never run an ultrasonic cleaner dry or it can damage the unit.

By the way, on a larger unit like this, make sure it has a drain valve and the Vevor 30L does.

Yes, it would work so I ordered it off Amazon.

This is the Vevor 30L cleaner. The unit is simple to operate with the temperature on the left and the timer on the right,

Deciding On The Solvent To Use

Dedicated ultrasonic cleaner fluids are rediculously expensive.  What a lot of gun guys do is to use 50:50 Simple Green and water.  I started reading more on that and there was one small detail I wanted to avoid –  aluminum left in plain Simple Green for too long is apt to react and cause pitting.  The aluminum friendly formulation is Simple Green Pro HD. 

I’d recommend using Simpe Green Pro HD because it is aluminum friendly. I know guys using the regular Simple Green at a 50:50 ratio and they aren’t having problems – my suspicion is that the parts in the liquid long enough for a problem to happen.

Simple Green’s recommended ratios for their Pro HD formulation are: 

  • For heavy cleaning: 1 part Pro HD to 3 parts water
  • For medium cleaning: 1 part Pro HD to 5 parts water
  • For light cleaning: 1 part Pro HD to 10 parts water

Well, given how thick cosmoline, grease and oil can be, I went with the heavy cleaning 1:3 ratio and it worked great.

Two comments – first, I bought mine from Home Depot. They ship to a home for free in my area. Amazon is rediculously expensive due to the weight. Second, I didn’t find out until later that Simple Green also has an “Extreme Aircraft and Precision Cleaner” formula. I might try that in the future as they expressly made it to not react with plastics, composites, aluminum, etc.

Heating the Tank

One complaint of folks using the large ultrasonic cleaners is that their internal heaters take hours to heat the fluid up.  Well, I can’t wait hours so did some digging on that front and bought an immersion heater.  They all have a potential shock hazard so you do not want to put your hand in the fluid while heating it. 

I bought an immersion heater made by HAIYEATBNB off Amazon. because it has a temperature regulator and got good reviews — it’s a game changer.  Scott bought one after I told him how fast it heated the tank. 

To be clear, the immersion heater is to dramatically speed up the heating of the solvent and then it is removed. A quick summary of steps is to put the heater in the fluid, plug in the unit and set the temperature, let it heat it up, unplug the heater, let it cool off a tad before you remove it and set it in a container so it doesn’t drip. The Vevor cleaner’s internal heating unit can maintain the temperature. The immersion heater is just fast forwarding the heating process.

The recommended temperature range for ultrasonic cleaners range from  130-180 degrees Farenheit. The theortetical “best” temperature for cavitation is 158F (70C) and guys report great luck between 155 and 165. Just bear in mind that the hotter you go, the more evaporation you will have also.

This is the HAIYEATBNB immersion heater. I like having the temperature control and the actual heating element contained inside the metal shield that has the stars on it. Yeah, I am sure the shape will cause some jokes but it works quite nicely.
The immersion heater sped things up dramatically. I could bring the tank up to temperature in 30-40 minutes. The exact time depends on the volume of liquid and what the starting temperature of the fluid is.
The immersion heater’s temperature gauge will not match the ultrasonic cleaner’s temperature gauge. If you want to know the actual temperature more accurately, you use a more precise instrument such as my Fluke 62 Max+ shown here. Note, the temperatures will vary depending on where you point it. At some point you just have to say “close enough” and call it even.

Safety comment: There is the potential for electric shock with any immersion heater. We used them on our farm growing up and survived. I’m not too sure I would worry about any freaked out electric shock comments you see in all of the reviews on Amazon across most of the heaters I looked at. Simply put, avoid sticking your hand in there while it is heating. Standing barefoot in a puddle of water that has an earth ground while putting your hand in the solvent during operation of the immersion heater will get you shocked so don’t do that!! Sheesh.

Testing

I timed the ordering with everything arriving so I could immediately put the unit into use. If it was going to fail, I wanted to know as soon as possible so I could return it.

In terms of fluid, Vevor recommends you have at least three quarters full or you may damage the unit.  If the fluid capacity is about 7.7 gallons then this puts it at 5.8 gallons of fluid. (The above photos do not reflect this just to be clear – I had about three to four gallons in when I snapped them.)

I then put in the immersion heater and watched the temperatures climb both on the heater and cleaner’s gauges and they didn’t match.  That really wasn’t surprising to me.  It’s hard to say which is more accurate but I decided to go with the temperature measurement from the Vevor cleaner. They claim their temperature reading is within +/- 5 degrees celsius which would be about +/- 9 degress Farenheit if I am doing my math right.

Given the size of the unit I could easily put two grip modules in side by side and that’s what I did.  I didn’t try stacking them as that might reduce the cleaning effectiveness.  I put the unit’s timer at five minutes and let it run.  It was fascinating to watch the crud come off – even the red and white paint filler in the S-U-O symbols on the grip were dissolving.

The cleaner was fascinating to watch operate. I took this photo because you caan see the paint dissolving from the selector position marks.

I read a few complaints about the noise these things generate.  The Vevor makes a buzzing sound for sure.  Maybe it’s just me but it really didn’t bother me.  I didn’t need it to be quiet – I needed it to clean stuff.

The timer went off, I then removed the units, sprayed them down with water to remove the cleaner and then used an air line to blow all of the water out. 

The results were amazing.  Scott had warned me that everything comes off – including the “sheen” of the black plastic resulting in a dull charcoal color.  I then went on to do about a dozen more.  In two or threee cases there was still some caked on cosmoline inside the grips that a second pass got rid of.

The results were very impressive. In just a few cases did I run a grip through a second time.

Have A Plan to Avoid Rusting Afterwards

I should tell you to have a game plan to avoid flash rust forming on steel items you clean.  Ultrasonic cleaners will strip all the oil and grease off so that means untreated steel can form rust when exposed to moisture in the air.  “Flash rusting” is a term for when bare steel is exposed to moisture in the air and starts to show visible rust within minutes of exposure.

Spraying WD-40 can help displace water – another option is to use compressed air if you have access to all surfaces – first but then you need something to prevent rust such as a light spray oil or whatever your preference is.  My point is to think it through to avoid flash rusting after you clean.

Summary

At this point, I am very happy with the Vevor 30L ultrasonic cleaner.  If you have ever wanted to get into ultrasonic cleaning for whatever you are working on, the Vevor units are cost effective and you just need to decide on what size works for you. Click here for a listing of Vevor cleaners on Amazon and here for all brands.

I hope this helps you out.

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

Tractor

How I almost burned my Simplicity Broadmor tractor down

I got my 16HP Simplicity Broadmor tractor out the other day for another season. As usual, I checked the oil, tires and the battery had discharged some over the Winter so I hooked my portable jump starter to it and fired it up – after a bit of sputtering of course.

I brought it over to my garage and put fresh gas in it plus some Sea Foam cleaner to help get rid of water and junk. I then went to work mowing for the first time this year.

About a half hour into cutting I saw a bit of blue smoke but just figured it was the rings or the valves as the tractor was getting older. I then saw more smoke and thought the Kohler engine was wearing faster than I figured.

I no sooner got done with that thought when a lot of blue smoke started coming out – the blue smoke you get when oil is burning “Shit! Shit! Shit!” went through my mind as I hauled over to the hose, grabbed it and flipped up the tractor cover just in time to see it ignite on the exhaust pipe. Well, I hit it with water and it went out.

In looking at the exhaust pipe, I felt pretty foolish, I knew the engine had a slow oil drip – I didn’t realize it was dripping down on the exhaust pipe where it had coated a ton of dirt and dust that then caked the pipe. In short, it was a fire waiting to happen and it finally did.

So here’s my message to all you owners of old trackers – routinely check your exhaust pipe periodically and see if oily “gunk” is building up and take the time to clean it off. I went to the local Autozone and bought a can of Gunk Engine Degreaser, let it sit and hosed it off a number of times until everything was nice and clean. I went through a full can and most of a second getting it cleaned up.

Behind the red wire for the carb you can see the exhaust pipe and still some of the crud on it.
Gunk Engine Degreaser did a great job. I followed the directions on the can and everything was gone after maybe 3-4 rounds of application and then rinshing off.

Summary

I got lucky is the short of it. The fire was small and the hose was very close by. The thing is that it could have all been avoided. Going forward I will keep an eye on the exhaust and not let oily dirt build up. I bought my engine cleaner at Autozone and you also have a ton of options on Amazon.

I hope this helps you out.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

DIY - Do It Yourself, General, Shooting in General

How to fix a nylon gun case seam without sewing

Have you ever needed to use a nylon soft-sided rifle or pistol case only to find a seam is pulling apart? Yeah, that happened to me again the other day figured it would be a good time to share a trick with you.

I re-use my cases and went to use a flat dark earth colored Midway rifle case only to find that a seam along an edge was pulling apart. Nylon is tricky – on one hand it is pretty strong and rot resistant but on the other, if you don’t pay close attention to what you are sewing and get to close to the edge or lack proper reinforcement, it can pull apart.

I bought two of these cases many, many years ago when Midway had a sale. How many years ago? So many that I have absolutely no idea how many – that’s the best I can tell you. Maybe 8-10+ years ago. The warranty was history long ago so I needed to fix the case. What I have found is that gluing the seam works wonders. The earlier you catch it the less obvious it is.

I didn’t think to take photos until part way into the repair. You need a glue that can bend and flex without snapping so any glue that dries, cures and is rigid will not work. I used Gear Aid’s Seam Grip WP have have also had very good luck with ShoeGoo. I am very impressed by Seam Grip and that is what I use the most. I’ll use the ShoeGoo too – don’t get me wrong and it works – it’s just that Seam Grip has become my go-to over the years. The one perk of Shoe Goo is that they have a black colored formulation.

I find that doing 2-3 passes with the glue to work best. I work the first one in try to secure the nylon the way I want or at least get it close. When you do the repair, go a bit further in all directions to make sure the adhesive has a good solid hold.
Use something to secure everything while the glue cures. I use blue painter’s tape here. I’ve also used clamps, rubber bands, you name it to hold things in position.
Not all repairs go quite the way I planned. This was the third layer of the seam glue and I put it on thick to fill up a bit of a gap and it ran on me overnight. It may not look great but it’s good to go.

Summary

Using glue to repair a seam absolutely works, I’ve done it many times and never had it let go provided I get 2-3 good coats on it and overlap the hole. Follow the directions on whatever glue you do use as this repair will take 2-3 days to do as each coat cures. If you rush it, you risk not having a strong bond.

Click here for Gear Aid’s Seam Grip WP that I used in this post. Click here for Shoe Goo in general because there are a ton of options on Amazon – just be sure to go with Shoe Goo brand – I have no idea how good the knock offs are.

I hope this helps you.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

Furniture

Restoring a Pair of Director’s Chairs

Our church has a rummage sale once a year to raise money for the school and people donate stuff to sell. Maybe 3-5 years ago, my wife and I saw two old director’s chair wooden frames towards the end of the sale when they were just trying to get rid of stuff. The finish showed a lot of exposure to water – probably from sitting on a deck but the wood was solid. The canvas seat and back strap were long gone as well. At any rate, we got both for $5, stuck them in the garage for a “some day maybe” project.

My eldest daughter was getting married and somehow my wife envisioned using the chairs in an area for people to take photos. Armed with this, she talked me into digging out the old frames and figuring out next steps. By the way, I had a lot going on and was truthfully only semi-interested in doing the work but that changed part way in and you’ll see why.

Finding Replacement Canvas Covers

Thankfully, I didn’t have to do it all in a rush so I had time to do some digging. The first big question was what to do about the missing canvas. Well, I found out they are called “covers” and there are two primary kinds – ones that connect to the frame with a round wood rod and others that use a flat piece of wood. Our’s used a flat rod.

The next step was to find out if we could even find affordable covers. Well, I started searching on Amazon and there are actually a lot of premade options [click here to open a browser tab with them].

To measure your chair, lock them fully open and measure from left to right and for the seat – front to back. For the top, I did top to bottom. The left to right measures are really critical because you don’t want the canvas to be super loose – it will stretch and sag with time.

The height of the back cover and the depth of the seat are flexible – your measures are the maximums. At most X inches tall or Y inches deep.

We went with covers from “Everywhere Chair” on Amazon. Their supplied measures were: Seat Width: 22.5″ and Depth 15.25″. The back was 21.5″ wide and 6.5″ tall. This seemed to match the closest with what I was looking for so we ordered them.

What I don’t have photos of is that we test fit the covers as soon as we got them. This was both in case we needed to return them and also, I did not want to spend a bunch of time restoring the wood that we couldn’t get covers for.

Restoring the Wood

In the summer, my shop extends into my driveway. One afternoon, I took a serious look at the wood and realized there were a number of cracks I needed to deal with. Thankfully they were all narrow because you can quickly and easily fill them with thin super glue – also known Cyanoacrelate or “CA” glue. Lately, I have been using Starbond brand thin CA and it works great.

You can see the weathered finish and a hairline crack in this forearm.
I did 2-3 applications of superglue on that crack. The first application will really soak into the wood grain so you let that cure for a minute or two and then apply another and wait. Another and wait. You keep applying thin CA glue until it stays on the surface. Another option if you have slightly wider cracks is to sand the wood at the same time and pack the crack with the combination of sawdust and uncured/wet CA glue.
I kept walking around the two chairs and moving them around so I could see all of the surfaces. Any time I found a crack, I filled it.

Sanding & Finishing

Next up, I needed to sand the chairs to get rid of the worn finish and the CA glue. I like to use a Dewalt 5″ Dual Action sander and it quickly cleaned up everything using 150 grit sanding discs.

Used a Dewalt 5″ dual action sander with 150 grit sandpaper to clean things up. Also used a fine sanding spong from Ace to clean up the rounded surfaces and spot touch ups.
I went around both chairs fixing dings and removing the old finish.

As I mentioned above, I really wasn’t into it until the next part. I started applying Minwax Provincial stain and just a beautiful orangish brown started coming out. Once I saw that, I was all in – I did not expect the wood to take the stain that nicely or be colored the way it was.

This is the first coat after I wiped down the chair and removed the initial stain that hadn’t soaked in.

Mixwax Provincial stain is sem-transparent and oil based. It really soaked in nicely and I applied two heavy coats. I applied the first using a blue shop towel, let it sit for about 10 minutes and wiped it off. I then did it a second time. I took care to wipe down the metal hardware so the superficial stain wouldn’t turn into a sticky residue.

Installing the Covers

I backed off the screws for the arms of the chairs enough so I could insert the canvas with the flat wood slats in them. That slats sit a tad higher than I wouldhave liked. I debated cutting down the slats to half their thickness but instead figured I’d see what happens over time.

Just back off the bottom screws enough so the canvas with the seat slat can be inserted in the groove behind the hinge.
Notice the chair is not locked open. I needed it partially closed so I could easily insert the canvas seat and slats. In hindsight, I could have stained the ends of the slats but that didn’t occur to me at the time.
The back cover just slides on the posts. Lock the chair open only after both are installed.
I really like how they turned out.
Here’s another view of them at the wedding venue.

Summary

We got the frames for $5 and and then $29/ea for the replacement covers. We then used some CA glue, stain and sanding discs – I’d ballpark each of the two seats cost about $40/ea. I have no idea who made these frames but I think we saved a bit of money but that wasn’t the real goal here – we wound up restoring two chairs and creating some memories with them that we will have even longer.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.


DIY - Do It Yourself, General, Uncategorized

Fixing the Water Inlet Valve on a KitchenAid KRMF606ESS01 Refrigerator

Well, when I was little it seemed like fridges (“refrigerators” for people who prefer the full word) lasted an eternity. When we bought this KitchenAid KRMF606ESS01, I thought I was buying a top of the line quality fridge, but that’s no longer the case – appliance manufacturers don’t necessarily want them to laste forever because that means no more sales to a given customer.

A year after the warranty the ice maker stopped working and the service person whom I trust told me it would cost a considerable amount of money to replace the circuit board. So, strike #1 against the KitchenAid. Despite being “stainless”, the shell of the fridge rusts. Strike #2. Strike #3 is the topic of today’s blog post. The water inlet valve failed and leaked water all over our wood floor.

Let me set the stage – I went through the kitchen to my shop and when I came back in I saw wet footprints – my foot prints – from the floormat in front of the fridge to my shop door. ARGH! I was hoping maybe someone spilled water and didn’t clean things up so I removed the mat, mopped up the water with a towel and watched new water slowly emerge from under the fridge. Crap. I immediately wondered about the water lines on and in the fridge. The supply line was copper tube and it had looked great the last time I pulled out the fridge so I doubted it was that but I couldn’t ignore it either or it would ruin our real wood plank floor.

Turning off the water

Most fridge installers put a vampire tap on a water line to get the supply needed. In my case, I knew there was a tap under the house. We have a crawl space that isn’t bad compared to some that look like they are a scene from a horror movie but being a pretty big guy with a sore back I have to fold myself in half and do a crab shuffle over to where it is about 50-60 feet from the entrance. Short translation – it’s doable but I swore the whole way over to it.

See that far center column in the dark? Yeah, I was heading just to the right of that and swearing the whole time. It was way easier getting under there 25 years ago.
I don’t know if these things have a formal name – I’ve always heard them called “vampire taps”. They re put on copper supply like with a rubber gasket between the part of the saddle with the valve and the pipe. The two halves of the clamp are screwed together and then the handle is screwed down until the sharp end of the valve pierces the relatively soft copper. You then back the valve off (meaning turn it counter-clockwise) and water begins to flow through the supply line. So, with this in mind, I needed to close the valve which means turning the small handle you see clockwise until it stops thus closing the valve. I’ve needed pliers in the past to deal with hard turning valves and these things are also known to leak when you try to close them. I got lucky – it both turned easy and it shut the water off entirely just the way it should.

Confirming it was the inlet valve

In reading, there are a few ways these inlet valves fail – they can leak water on the floor but still work and dispense water, not leak but dispense water very slowly, or don’t work at all. I was 90% sure it was the valve given past experience with other fridges so the first thing I did was to pull out the unit.

If you have never pulled your fridge out before, let’s start here. See the plastic facia/cover below the door? That is just for looks and pulls off but you need to open the lower freezer door to do so. Note the rust on the “stainless” steel skin above and to the right of the KitchenAid logo. “Stainless” is a generic term and really the resistance to corrosion is dependent on the alloy used. Whirlpool/KitchenAid went with a cheaper alloy to save money so it’s not very “stainless” over time.
By pulling the freezer door open, the entire plastic covering is exposed and it literally just pulls forward – no screws or freaky little clips to deal with. They know folks will need to pull this off periodically (or they should) to clean the condenser coils under the unit. So, pull it off and completely remove it.
The fridge has four wheels to allow you to move it but if these small levelers are in use it will not want to move. Take a small wrench and turn the head of the bolt to retract the leveler on each side. The fridge will now pull forward. Peek in back to make sure you have enough water line to do so. The water supply line and the power cord will limit how far you can pull the unit out until you disconnect them – if you even need to. I never unplugged my fridge while working on it for example.
There was a real small chance that the supply line was loose so I tightened it just a tad and then hand my wife watch the valve for leaks as I went back under the house to turn the tap back on. It’s way easier and cleaner to do it with two people. So, I turned it on and she called down that water was going on the floor and I shut it off. The water started right under the valve and everything else was dry … my money was on the inlet valve was the culprit and it was.

Okay, the water inlet valve is a small electricslly controlled valve that is turned on and off by either the ice maker (that no longer works) or a person wanting cold water from the dispenser pushing their cup against the on-off switch. The valve body is made of plastic and that is what failed. The only saving grace is that the engineers put it at the back of the fridge and it is very easy to access and change – literally a 5-10 minute job. You can easily buy one online without spending a fortune.

To order parts for your fridge, you need to know the exact model number – in my case it was a KRMF606ESS01. You can find this info inside your fridge – in my case this sticker was on the inside top left of the unit facing down hence the camera angle is looking up.

I spent some time searching on Kitchen aid KRMF606ES01 water valve and found out that my fridge has two – one at the inlet (that I needed) and one inside that I did not so make sure you order the right part. The valve part number I needed was W10394076.

Direct from KitchenAid I could get the part for over $95.49. No, Whirlpool, I didn’t feel like spending a fortune by ordering it direct. I kept on searching and found it in the $70s then the $50s and then hopped over to Amazon and found it for $27.99 with free Prime shipping. It got great reviews and I ordered it on Saturday with delivery on Monday. Guess what – it was the exact same valve. Strike #4 for KitchenAid by the way.

I’m jumping the gun a bit but this is the sticker on the original that I removed from the fridge. Note the maker is Robertshaw and their part number was K-78282 with Whirlpool’s W1039476 part number indicated.
Same maker – Robertshaw – slightly different part number K-78282-AM — the suffix probably denotes some relatively minor changes. No Whirlpool part number on and and no ghastly markup either. It is an exact match otherwise.

Replacing the valve

First, make sure the water supply is turned off and have a container you can set the supply line in just in case it drops. I’ll step through this with photos:

get the the fiberboard back cover out of the way by removing the screws around the edges. Doing this gives you easier access and you can make sure there are no drips when you are done.
Always compare new and old parts to make sure they match. I have been burned so many times over the years that this comparison is automatic for me now – don’t assume anything.
I’d recommend moving connections one by one. Take one off the old valve and put them on the new one. Then again, you have three very different connections so mixing them up would be next to impossible. Do note the orientation of the electric connection and keep it the same. In this case, I am using the adjustable wrench to hold the steel bracket and a flare nut wrench to loosen the water supply line. Never use an adjustable wrench on flare nuts – if the jaws give you can round over the nut so at least use a fixed wrench or better yet a flare nut wrench.
The waterline in the bottom is connected via a “push-to-connect” or “push connect” ,fitting. Push the blue collar in towards the valve body while pulling the outlet water line away and it will come right out. Note where the white electrical wire is for reference. Looking at the valve from the back, it is on the left side.
This is everything moved to the new valve. I then put it in place and secured it with the original screws. Again, note where the white wire is at. I didn’t want to find out if it mattered which side was connected so I just followed the same wiring orientation on the new valve, Also, use the adjustable wrench to hold the valve body while tightening the flare nut.

And with the new valve unit installed and my wife watching everything, I headed back down into the crawl space and turned the water on. No leaks. She tried the water dispenser and it was actually putting out a larger volume of water also – our jet had always been on the anemic side.

So, I waited while she filled a few big cups of water and threw them out to purge the lines. She also didn’t see any leaks so I headed back up after a few minutes hoping my crawl space work was done … and it was.

I looked for myself and it was definitely a much stronger jet of water – it had never moved that much water.
After a half hour of careful monitoring for leaks, I sealed it back up. I then waited a few hours and double checked by moving it forward a tad and checking around underneath with a flashlight and no leaks so I slid it back in place. When you slide it back, make sure the power cord and water supply line do not get caught on anything.

With the fridge back in place, use the levelers if you need to – I don’t actually.

I didn’t get photos but the last thing I did was to use a long brush made for cleaning condenser coils to do just that. As lint and dust build up on the condenser it becomes less efficient, the fridge runs more and your electric bill is higher. The lint and dust there by the way because of an electric fan that is running underneath to help cool things off.

The last step is to open the lower freezer door and push the plastic cover back on the bottom. Done.

Summary

A week later and it is still running great. I hoped that the ice maker might start working again but no luck there. We bought am Aglucky counter top ice maker a few years ago that we’ve been very happy with.

I paid a premium for a supposed top-of-the line KitchenAid fridge and I don’t think the same level of quality is there. We have a Samsung fridge downstairs that has been flawless for us. When we replace this main fridge in the kitchen it may very well be a Samsung but it will not be a KitchenAid.

In the mean time, if you are having problems with your water inlet valve, I hope this helps you solve your problems and save some money.

3/2/24 Update: The new valve is still working great. We noticed we have more flow also – glasses fill faster. So, if you want to save some money, it’s an easy DIY repair that valve is still only $27.99 off Amazon.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

Automotive, Cars, DIY - Do It Yourself

Repainting a 2004 Toyota Solara’s Spoiler Using AutomotiveTouchUp.Com Paint

My wife’s convertible Solara is her pride and joy in the summer time. We bought it back in 2017 and it has proven itself to be a reliable and fun car. One issue it had was related to an aftermarket spoiler the previous owner had installed.

In 2021 we waited to take the cover off and there had been a number of hot and humid days. When we removed it, the clear coat on the spoiler was popping off. The factory paint on the car was just fine – the spoiler on the other hand looked tough and by the end of the 2022 Summer driving season it really looked bad so I knew I needed to surprise her by refinishing it.

The clear coat was peeling all over the top of the spoiler but not the bottom.

I do own a full set of automotive paint sprayers but I didn’t feel like getting them out and set up just to do a spoiler. I decided to go with AutomotiveTouchUp.Com who I had bought touch up paint from in the past and had pretty good luck with. The only issue I have ever had with them is that you will wait around four weeks for them to make and ship your paint.

The paint code for a Toyota is one the door sticker and her Solara was “Absolutely Red – 3PO” which describes the bright red on the car very well. I knew I would need primer, that base color and clear coat. I always buy extra just in case so I bought two cans 12-oz cans of each and then I waited for it to show up.

Before you do anything – read their instructions. I went with spray cans so I focused on that section – click here.

Getting Ready to Paint

The first step was to remove the spoiler from the car. This was done by removing the body push pin rivets and moving the interior cover out of the way. Don’t be surprised to find out some of the rivets are missing or broken on an old car. You can easily get them on Amazon along with a tool that makes removal very easy.

Those little push pin rivets do the job and the tool you see makes it really easy to pull them out. If you don’t have a tool use a small blade screw driver or flat edge to get under the pin-part of the rivet and lift it up.
You don’t need to completely remove the cover – just remove as many as you want to get access to the onme screw and one stud on each side that holds the spoiler.
You will see something like this on each side. Remove the machine screws first and start to back off the nut on the stud. If the spoiler stays in place, then remove the nuts completely and the spoiler will lift straight off. In my case, my wife held the spoiler so it wouldn’t fall off when the nuts were removed.
I took one look at the old stuck on seals and left them alone. Trying to remove them would only tear them up. I decided to leave them alone, re-use them and if there was a leak then I would decide whether to replace them or just put a bit of black silicone RTV gasket glue around the two holes to seal it. I didn’t want to jump right to that because if I needed to remove the spoiler again, it would tear up the seals. You can buy black rubber seal material in sheets and you cutt out whatever shape you need but I wanted to avoid that path if I could.
I put the spoiler on two wood sawhorses to do the refinishing work. Note, I added blue painter’s tape to the sawhorses right after this was taken.
I have a 5″ Dewalt orbital sander that I used with 150 then 220 grit sandpaper to remove all of the bubbled/loose clear coat. I wasn’t worried about removing everything down to the bare bare material underneath but did want a solid surface on the top and edges for the primer to grab hold of.

Painting the Car

With the surface prepped, let’s get into the painting process.

This is red primer – not the base paint. I did three coats with wet sanding at 150 grit. No matter how hard and long I shook the rattle cans, the primer would spatter / blow larger drops into the paint vs. the fine mist you want. To be honest, I was regretting not just getting out my spray guns at this point.
I applied five coats of red paint. Light coats are the way to go and what you are looking for is a nice even rich color. I was still fighting the spattering even with the paint. So I did wet sand a few times. There instructions tell you not to do this but they also didn’t have their paint spattering everywhere.
This had six coats of clear coat. I did not wet sand between. The trick is to build up a relatively thick clear coat so you can wet sand it even and then later polish it.
Let it cure for an honest day so that it is hard enough to wet sand and then use rubbing compund to polish it. Water acts as a lubricant in the very fine 1500 grit sandpaper. If you don’t use it, the grit will fill with material and be useless. I keep a bucket of water next to me and keep dunking it in there. In this photo you see a sheet of 1500 grit sand paper that I wrap around the foam block to support it when I sand. I sand the clear coat using 1500, 2000 and 3000 grit sandpaper.
This is a random orbit 6″ bonnet washer. The terry cloth surface holds the rubbing compound and you keep moving around the clear coat removing all of the fine scratches.
The result turned out great. One important thing to remember – it looks and feels cured but it isn’t. There normal one part clear coat needs 30 days to cure the rest of the way. If you wax it, you will probably watch your finish peel right off so be sure to wait.
It wasn’t perfect but way, way better and my wife as thrilled.
The spoiler had rubber bumpers under the front part where it was close to the body. I bought these little 1/4″ tall rubber self-adehsive bumpers at Ace. They looked identical to the originals and will prevent the spoiler from hitting the body for whatever reason.

Summary

Because I had the sprayers, I regretted using the rattle can approach with the spattering that I could not get rid of for whatever reason. The time I thought I would save by not setting up my finishing automotive paint sprayer I lost doing extra sanding to get a relatively smooth finish.

In terms of color, they did a great job matching. I’m writing those blog almost two months after painting and it is nearly an exact match. Only at certain angles and lighting do I think I might see a difference – it’s that close. I’ve used them for other vehicles for bottles of touchup paint and their matching is always really good.

Here’s my advice – if you don’t have a good car air sprayer, these rattle cans (spray cans) from the company will do the job. Just be prepared to do extra wet sanding but not between the clear coats.

What is the ultimate gauge of success? My wife is really happy with the results.

3/2/24 Update: The paint is still holding up just fine. No bubbles, peeling or fading.

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Furniture, General, Home Repair, Uncategorized

Use Super Glue to Seal and Stabilize Wood

Have you ever had wood that is in tough shape or is too soft to work with? A quick fix is to use super glue on the wood and let it set. Let’s talk about this for a minute.

Super glue is actually a family of glues called “Cyanoacrylates“. The patent for the original product goes back to 1942 when BF Goodrich was looking for a clear adhesive for gun sights in WWII. As they say, the rest is history.

There are many different brands and types of super glue. For the brand, I stick with name brand and usually get biggger bottles from firms such as Bob Smith Inc (BSI), Starbond, Loctite, Gorilla Glue, etc. With the no-name generics, you never quite know what is really in the formula or how good it is.

The glues are available in different viscocities/thicknesses also ranging from Super thin to normal, to gel, etc. For our purposes, we want th thinnest glue we can buy. Why? Because it will really soak into the wood and follow all of the little cracks that are opening, seal and reinforce them.

So, when I say I am using it to seal and stabilize, what do I mean? To seal means that water can’t get in. To stabilize means it is soaking into the soft wood, filling small cracks and when it dries it will harden the treated area. I’ve used this to fill small cracks in wood rifle stocks, knife handles, tools, furniture – anything with wood.

Super Glue is good for stabilizing but not filling an area. If you need to build something up, fill in a gap, or rebuild an area, then use an epoxy.

These slats bench slats had chunks of wood missing that I built up using epoxy. I sanded them down flush and then applied two coats of thin CA glue to the surrounding wood to stabilize it. I then used an opaqe wood deck stain and you couldn’t even see the repairs.

I apply several coats. The first one I apply quite a bit of glue and just let it keep soaking in. You’ll see it following cracks and what not. Once I get the surface soaked, I stop and let it cure. I typically wil do 2-3 coats/applications depending on how bad the wood looks. Usually after the second coat everything is sealed stabilized.

As it cures you will see a light white-ish smoke. Don’t get the fumes in your eyes or it really stings – you don’t want to breath them either. Small pieces like a knife handle aren’t too bad. For pieces bigger than that, all of the fumes really make this something you either want to do outside or in a room with really good ventilation.

Let me show you a few photos form a recent project where I needed ro reinforce the area around a wood gate latch. The wood was in really tough shape and I didn’t have the time to go to buy the lumber, cut it and make a new one. I keep thin super glue in stock at all times for all kinds of projects so I just did that

Starbond makes good CA glues from my experience. I’ve used a number of their forumlas and been happy with the results. As you can see, the wood is in tough shape. It probably should be replaced but I don’t have the time.
I let gravity work with me and apply the glue to the top of the wood and let it soak into the end grain. I could see it going down the board and the wood looking wet where it travelled. You’ll use a fair amount of glue doing this, I went across the entire top of that board and watched for the glue to penetrate – in this case I wanted it down near the screws. When it the glue cures, the stabilized wood will still a bit darker than the surrounding untreated areas.
This board was in really tough shape. It soaked in a lot of glue and I kept adding it until I saw it saw it in that big crack.
Here, the CA can help seal the top and stop the small cracks but there is no way it can fill the big crack.

Summary

You can definitely use thin super glue to seal and stabilize wood. Use a reputable brand and work in a well ventilated area. What I have been using the most lately is Starbond and they have a full lineup – click here to see them on Amazon.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

DIY - Do It Yourself, Fixing Stuff, Grilling Cooking and Baking

Restored A BHG 4-Burner Stainless Outdoor Gas Grill / BBQ

This past June, my wife and I spotted a big stainless four burner BHG gas grill with a side burner at a neighbor’s house set up for trash pickup.  It looked to be in a pretty good shape so I stopped and took a look.  The drip pan had rusted away and dropped rust everywhere in the grill plus there was minor rusting elsewhere but it was in very good shape otherwise.  My wife asked if I could rehab it because we had a bunch of family coming for a visit a month later.  I said “yes” so it went in the back of the Highlander leaving a trail of rust everywhere.

It looked like the grill was used and then left to sit and rust but it was actually in quite good shape.  Besides the drip pan, the only other items in tough shape were the heat plates also sometimes called diffusers that sit over the burners. They had rusted significantly and were an eyesore.

What Gas Grill Was It?

“BHG” stands for “Better Homes and Gardens” and the model number was BH13-101-099-01.  I don’t really have much more info than that – it’s a big generic stainless grill that was imported from China by Blue Rhino Global Sourcing.  You may not recognize the name but when you see their logo – they sell propane tanks, grills and what have you through a ton of stores under their own brand name as well as Mr. Bar-B-Q, Chef Master, Endless Summer, Grill Mark, Mr. Pizza, and Uniflame. BHG is no longer listed by them so one must surmise other brand names were used in the past as well.

According to a sticker, it was made in January of 2013. From there, I bet they were sold through retail stores but I really can’t find any more details after searching but I will say it appeared to be a decently made gas grill.

If you hunt around on a grill, you can almost always find an information sticker that at the very least has the model and maker listed.

Armed with the model number, I could go digging for parts.  There is a whole cottage industry of parts suppliers out there when you search but the challenge was finding what I wanted in stock and that the price they wanted plus shipping wasn’t astronomical. In some cases, the part price was low but shipping was sky high.

Note, I also found that most parts places are selling parts that will fit the grill but most advise you to confirm dimensions before you buy. The grill is over 9 years old and these places are selling generic parts – so be sure to check dimensions and even that the seller is legit.

The Drip Pan

Okay, the drip pan was trash.  You see, at the end of the day, they are made from steel and salty liquids are dripping on them.  If you don’t keep them clean or put foil on top of them, they will eventually rust out. 

The drip pan had rusted to pieces so the inside of the grill looked far worse than what it was. I think the neighbor took the cover off after maybe a season or two of no use, saw the rust everywhere and pulled it to the curb for trash pickup … or for me to pick up depending on how you look at it.

You need to double check the measurement of your pan – mine was a loose fit in the grill so you have wiggle room in terms of dimensions.  Mine was about 15-1/4″ deep x 28-5/8″ wide.  The replacement pans will all be in the ballpark but you want to make sure that pan reaches from left to right so it is properly supported.

After a lot of digging looking for an affordable exact match to the original pan, I decided to order a 30″ adjustable pan off of Amazon.  The problem I was running into was a combination of the total cost including shipping and also lead times and availability.  So, I went with an adjustable model and you know what?  It’s just fine. 

The AJinTebby pan is 15.5″ deep and can adjust from 27 to 30″ wide. Yes, it is pricey at $46.99 but there is a 5% discount coupon you can apply and if you have Amazon Prime, shipping is free (technically it’s factored into the price but you get the idea – it’s a good deal). Click here to open the Amazon page in a new tab.

An adjustable pan lets you adjust the width to fit your grill. It’s the width that adjusts but not the front to back depth so you still need to make sure of that plus the how much adjustment the model has. The is an AJinTeby 30″ pan that can adjust 27-30″ and has a depth iof 15.5″. It fits the BHG.
The drip pan comes with a nice small drip cup that slides in or out of place under the main pan. Drippings ooze into there and are collected so then you can dump and clean it as needed.
I painted the drip pan and it’s drip cup with Rusto-oleum BBQ & Stove 1200F paint to slow rusting. It has three coats of paint
To further lock and seal things, I put 3M High Temperature Flue Tape on the top of the joints. FYI – the oval hole is where fluids drip through to the aptly named “drip cup” under it that can be emptied as needed.

The Heat Plates

I had to decide what to do with the heat plates.  They had rusted to the point of being pretty thin – the heating and lots of salty fluids had really taken their toll on them. 

You can see the brand new AjinTebby drip pan under the original heat plates and they looked awful. The grill saw quite a bit of use, that I have no doubt of, and then it sat and rusted even more.

My first thought was to try and save money so painted them with Rustoleum’s Ultra High Temp BBQ paint first to try and save money but I could’t get past all the bumpy look from years of rusting.  There are so many affordable replacement options, I decided to go that route.

I painted the heat plates plus I put three coats of Ultra High Temp Rustoleum on the drip pan to slow up the rust. I could have stopped here but the really worn plates were bugging me so I decided to replace them.

The BHG uses 15″ long x 3-13/16″ wide heat plates and they are very readily available in a variety of metals and finishes.  I bought a set of five stainless steel replacement heat plates made by Shinestar off of Amazon – click here to open the listing in a new tab.

Here’s a look at the new Shinestar plates prior to installation.
The 15″ Shinestar heat plates are nicely made and are going to last for a long time. I definitely liked them more than the painted ones.

The Gas Regulator Turned Out To Be Bad

During initial testing, the grill ran just fine but then it started getting flaky and finally would barely produce flame. This is usually due to a regular failing and/or rust or a spider web getting stuck somewhere. I pulled the lines and blew everything out with compressed air. Sometimes that fixes the problem but not in this case.

Now, I made a bit of a costly mistake here because I was in a rush. We had an Ace Hardware nearby and I bought a Weber regulator that fit but was a tad short for $44-46 if I recall rgiht. Because it was short, I took a piece of 2×12 lumber and cut a hole in it with a jig saw to hold the tank. A week later, I was in Home Depot and found out they had a ton of gas grill repair parts in stock (I didn’t know they did) including the exact hose and regulator I needed for half the price of the Weber.

The old regulator went straight in to the tank and the Weber unit is at a right angle.
Quick comment – when you are working on gas fittings, there will almost always be a way to support the existing tube/hookup and ou need to do that. See the small nut formed into the black tube? You need to hold that with one wrench while either tightening or loosening the hose fitting. If you don’t support the tube you run the risk of it bending or breaking free. Just remember. always do what you need to do to support what your line is connecting to. Don’t just torque on the hose’s fitting alone.
Because the Weber hose was too short, I took a piece of scrap 2×12 lumber I had, traced the outline of the tank’s botton on it and cut the circle out. Note I drilled four holes so I could start the jig saw blade that did the actual cutting.
There it is – nice and stable. Again, if I had known that Home Depot had a bunch of repair parts, I would have taken the busted regulator in there and found a match.

I could have saved even more if I had the time to order a hose and regulator from Amazon. They have them for $15-18 depending on the length of hose you need. Click here for to open a new browser tab with the Amazon listings – be sure to get the hose length you need and round up vs. down if need be.

Other Minor Touch Ups

  • I ran a 180 grit sanding mop in the same direction as the stainless “grain” finish and removed surface rust.
  • Sprayed the inside of the grill so it looked better
  • One hinge had a missing Cotter key that I replaced
  • Put a wire brush wheel in my drill and cleaned up the grill grates so they had a nice clean brushed look

The Result

It turned out quite nice and gave us another grill to use during a family reunion we had during July.

The cabinet cleaned up really well.
So did the inside. There is a smoker box down on the heat plates to add a bit of smoke flavor.
Here’s the restored BHG next to my pride and joy Chargriller Competition Grill that my kids got me for Father’s Day a few years back and I converted for wood (click here if you want to read more about that).

Conclusion

One man’s trash is another’s treasure I suppose. The grill turned out nice. The only things it really needed were a new drip pan and the regulator replaced.

I hope this post helps you out.

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.