My parents are buried in the Battle Creek Memorial Park cemetary. During our last visit, we stopped by the veterans memorial. On a boulder by the American flag is this plaque:
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Folks who know me also know that I am always tinkering with something – cars, trucks, tractors, firearms, you name it. A few years ago a guy showed me how he could change fluids in his car using a vacuum siphon and I was intrigued but let it slide.
I recently went through all our old Toyotas and changed the transmission fluid to Valvoline Max Life and it dawned on me that it would be real nice to have a way to more precisely get the fluid right where I wanted it in the transmissions because I had slightly overfilled one car. Then I remembered the vacuum siphon and hopped on Amazon.
The EWK 6.5 liter (1.71 gallon) pneumatic or manual fluid extractor looked like just the tool for the job. I always pay close attention to reviews and this unit really had good ones – 277 reviews and a score of 4.4 out of 5 stars. That’s pretty good statistically – I like to get well past 30 reviews and the more the better.
At any rate, thanks to Amazon prime, I ordered it and the unit arrived two days later. I must say that I was impressed. The plastics are all well done and it worked like a charm.
In this next photo you can see the little adapter and hose extension that comes with the unit. They say three in the ad and the first hose is attached to the cap with a strain relief. The hose is about .39/.31 (OD/ID) and 39.3″ long. The other two hoses are basically extensions via a soft rubber connector. I am using the medium extension that is .26/.21 OD/ID) and also 39.3″ long. That diameter has worked fine for Toyota T-IV ATF, Valvoline Max Life ATF and also 10W30 engine oil. When I say it can suck, that is a compliment in this case 🙂
The next photo shows the pump handle and also the venturi vacuum generator. I have that air line on my dryer system and is running 90PSI off a 60 gallon IR two stage compressor. It really didn’t use too much air. No vacuum generator will win awards for air use but you don’t need to run it for very long – just while you are pumping the fluid out and that will probably be about 2-3 minutes for most engines and transmissions.
The first time I used it, I did so with an air line (it can use compressed air to create a venturi vacuum) . It actually pumped way faster than I realized and I had over a quart out of the car before I realized it. You can definitely reduce the air flow to reduce the vacuum – it was just faster than I thought it would be, which is good news.
I was so impressed that I used the extractor to remove all the ATF from a 94 Corolla in very short order. I let it pump until nothing else came out — no problem.
I recently needed to change the oil in my tractor – again, used the siphon and it drained it very quickly. This is noteworthy as I used the hand pump to create the vacuum and it really was effortless. This was also when it dawned on me I better take some photos 🙂 You can see it pulling out the 10W30 no problem at all.
In this next photo, you can see the unit with the hose cap off – it just twists off – and this is the pour spout to empty the unit also.
I’m still on my first set of hoses but they do have a variety of replacement hoses on Amazon in case you want just one hose or a set.
In summary, it’s a great unit. I’ve not had any problems at all and recommend it. Here’s the link one more time:
7/18/2023 Update: Still working just fine – it’s a lot dirtier from use but is still doing the job. A fellow did ask me if they have other sizes and the answer is “Yes”. Click here for the EWK store on Amazon.
6/28/2022 Update: Still working great. I’ve used this on cars, trucks, tractors and even to suck the hydraulic fluid completely out of my snow plow’s hydraulic fluid reservoir.
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Our home is in a former swampy area that was drained in the 1980s and a subdivision built. In short, you dig down and can hit water fairly soon – usually within 10 feet. At any rate, we’ve had a very wet spring and summer and had standing water in our lawn until late-June and the mosquitoes have been the worst I ever recall in the 20 years we’ve been here. We could not stay out at night or we’d get attacked unless we hosed ourselves down with Deep Woods Off. In short, something needed to be done.
This hedgerow is right by my garage and ensured the mosquitoes had a perfect base to attack me from and rings our property:
When I was at Ace Hardware, I saw Off! brand’s Backyard Pretreat that was supposed to kill mosquitoes and leave a residue to repel them. I thought they would know what to do given their experience – as it turns out, this product is a rip off.
I’m sad to report that after three jugs of this stuff and my getting bit over and over while applying it, I can’t say it did anything at all even several days later. I really had high hopes – I dragged a long hose all over the place spraying stuff down over and over with no noticeable improvement.
On Facebook, I posted my woes with Mosquito control and a friend, Allan, suggested Talstar P Pro and a Ryobi cordless electric sprayer to help with evenly spraying a ton of solution. I had never heard of Talstar so I did a search and it is very well regarded. Allan told me they live on a wooded ravine and he’s been using it for 10 years to control mosquitoes and it worked exceptionally well for him.
Every once in a while on Amazon, you see a review score that is mind blowing. FMC’s Talstar P Professional 96 oz has 2,263 customer reviews and a combined score of 4.6 out of 5 stars. That is one heck of a score and is only possible if something works really, really well.
5/21/2023 You will no longer find it on Amazon – you need the liquid Talstar and I tend to find eBay the best source to buy it. Click here for a current list on eBay.
So, based on what I read and Allan’s recommendation, I ordered the 96oz bottle. I then read up on the Ryobi sprayer. It gets good reviews, uses the 18volt Ryobi batteries (it comes with one battery and a charger) and it has a three year warranty. I ordered it off the Home Depot website [Click here] as they had free next day home delivery and since I had to wait for the Talstar, I figured it would save me a trip.
Note: You can use any pressurized sprayer you want – I have 1.5 acres and knew I would be applying gallons and gallons of it. My shoulders and elbows hurt enough as it is and I didn’t want to incur the repetitive stress.
The sprayer arrived the next day and the Talstar the day after. While I was waiting, I went to the FMC website to read up on Talstar to make sure I understood how to apply it plus I peppered Allan with his experience.
I would recommend you go to the website [click here] as they have recommendations on best practices for mosquito management and Talstar P Pro is actually interesting from a chemical perspective.
The active ingredient is Bifenthrin, which is similar to the chemical extracted from Chrysanthemums to kill insects. Here are two links so you can read more at the National Pesticide Information Center.the user guide for the Talstar P.
Here are photos of the sprayer. I charged the battery and screwed in all the fittings. They are all lose so be sure to do that. I didn’t have any loose plastic in the tank but I did rinse it out just to be safe.
After reading the user guide, I planned to use one ounce of Talstar to one gallon of water to ensure I had residue to continue killing mosquitoes. Since it was a two gallon tank, I increased it just a bit to 2.5 ounces per two gallon tank. Note, a real nice perk is that the tank lid is a measuring cup! I would use it, rinse it out and pour the mix into the tank before filling it with water.
While doing the work, I wore Nitrile gloves just to avoid contact plus I was constantly adjusting the sprayer tip from coarse mist to a stream to try and reach back over brush, through leaves, etc.
FMC recommends spraying at night or in the evening when mosquitoes are active. I was busy the first night so I did it the following morning at 7am. I mixed up two gallons and started spraying around the house, pool, garden and so forth. I hosed down the bushes, the walls of the house and under the eaves. I also sprayed the hedge – first using a coarse spray on all the brush, leaves and ground. I found adjusting the tip to a stream was handy to penetrate the brush and also reach further back. I’d just come back to the hose and what not and mix another two gallons of spray (2 gallons water and 2.5oz of Talstar) and kept spraying.
It took me aboput 30-45 minutes and 8 gallons, or four complete tanks, to do most of our yard. I skipped probably a half acre of grass starting about 100-150 feet from our house but I did all of the hedge row, bushes, etc. I was pleasantly surprised that the 2.0Ah battery was able to do the whole yard. When I finished the first batch, I did plug the battery in and let it charge.
That night I still saw mosquitoes, but fewer of them, and applied a second dose around 7:30-8pm. Same procedure – 8 gallons focusing around the house, all the bushes, etc.
The next morning – no mosquitoes. Whoa!!! I did not see one single mosquito all day. That night I worked on cars without being attacked! I did so again yesterday and just had breakfast with my wife in her garden — something that would have been next to impossible.
I’d say the spray got a good number of them but when they landed in the residue, that got rid of a ton as well. In other words, you might see a bit of a delay from dose to noticeable reduction.
In four weeks, I am going to do it again. Even my wife, who always groans at me and my tinkering, was impressed and told me to make sure I apply another dose before the first one wears off!
It’s really not that expensive in the long run. The bottle holds 96oz. I use 10oz per 8 gallons (4 batches x 2.5oz/batch). If I apply it twice per application, that means I’ll use 20oz per time, which means I’ll get just over 4 complete applications (so about four months of protection). At $35/bottle, that’s about $9/time plus however you want to account for the sprayer. For me, it’s worth it. My wife really reacts to mosquito bites plus we can enjoy being outside again and I can go back to working outside without getting attacked.
I’d highly, highly recommend you skip the ripoff gimmicks and temporary fixes. Spend the money and get Talstar Pro and a spray bottle (if you don’t have one). It made a world of difference for us and wanted to spread the word that this stuff really works.
May 21, 2023 Talstar is no longer on Amazon but there are tons of sellers on eBay – click here to open eBay and see the latest Talstar P Pro liquid listings..
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I will do a more In-Depth series of posts about building this rifle later. It is a Polish WBP kit l at the heart from arms of America with a Polish cold hammer-forged Barrel. The internals are installed in a Childers Guns receiver. The trigger is from ALG and I absolutely love it. I kid you not, this is now the only trigger I will use because it is so good.
The muzzle brake is a JMAC RRD-4C and boy does it eliminate muzzle climb. It made the rifle very controllable even during rapid fire.
The optic is a vortex Crossfire. The furniture is original polish Beryl with one of our US made 922r Beryl grips.
In the following video, this is my buddy Niko doing the shooting and while he is tall and wiry you can tell that the full-power Golden Eagle hundred and twenty four grain FMJ 7.62 x39 round is not moving him much at all.
The build turned out to be extremely reliable and accurate. Like I said I will post more details later but I’m thrilled with the results and had to jump the gun and share this!
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Simply put, I hate telemarketers and robo callers and unwanted callers. I pay for my phones and they should have no legal right to intrude on my time. The phone will ring and I will go rushing to answer it or stop working on whatever project just to find out it is an unwanted caller. It is so annoying!! Robo callers are automated tools that call you and then a recording kicks in – you can’t even yell at them! Worse yet, the technology allows the telemarketers to call thousands of people per day if they want.
Caller ID helps a bit – the land line rings but I don’t pick up unknown callers, names I don’t know, or when the display just lists digits. I wish the phone didn’t ring at all but traditional home phones aren’t smart.
What really irked me was that they started calling my mobile phone more and more these last few weeks. But wait… I have a smartish Android Note 5 phone. Is there an app that can help? Yes, and it’s called “Should I Answer?”
Surprisingly, it is wickedly good and free. I’d pay for this!! Look at the above stats – a million downloads and an aggregate score of 4.8 out of 5.0. That is remarkable.
Basically, it rates each caller and warns you based on a shared community database plus you can store your own private info. I gleefully contribute to the community’s database to warn others and exact revenge on unwanted callers interrupting me.
To install it, download it from the Google play store. Answer yes to the permission prompts.
As you can see above, you have a ton of control via options you can set. I turned on the options to download reviews and to flat out block negative calls either rated so by the community or by me locally.
It works very well and has decent help under the “About” tab.
Here’s a screenshot of me negatively rating a robo caller trying to sell insurance:
I think the app is great and have been using it for about a week. If you are fed up with unwanted callers, definitely check out “Should I Answer?”
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We are a Toyota family and most of our cars were bought either used or very used from private parties. At any rate, a few years ago I bought a 2002 Toyota Camry XLE with a 4-Cylinder engine. The other day my older daughter said it was making a funny noise in reverse so I checked the dipstick. Wow. Not only was it low but the ATF looked awful. For comparison, the below photo with the brownish ATF on the white paper towel is on the left and brand new ATF is on the right. Wow!! (Yeah, I wrote wow twice because I was stunned.
So I told my daughter to ride with her sister in our old 92 Corolla and that I needed to work on their car. First thing I did was to look at the fluid a couple of times – it was brownish but not black, no metal flakes and no bad smell.
In reading the manual, Toyota wrote that the transmission fluid should be good for the life of the car … right. I guess it depends on how you view that, or at least how they view it. I’m sure I checked the fluid when we got the car and it wasn’t this color but I’m not in a habit of checking it regularly unless I see drips or a puddle under a car or truck.
This car had almost 195,000 miles on it and we put about 50,000 of those miles on it. I figured a change was past due. So, before I did anything, I decided to do some reading first.
I knew there were a ton of different automatic transmission fluids (ATF) out there and that getting the right one was key. The transmission was designed to use Toyota ATF T-IV and there are different brands that claim to meet the spec. The problem is that the wrong one can cause headaches. One particular formulation kept coming up as I read about what others used – Valvoline Max Life ATF:
Note in the next photo you can see that Valvoline says this can replace Toyota T-IV as well – it’s not just guys on the Internet. By the way, if you feel uncomfortable with what I am saying, definitely do your own research and you’ll see tons of favorable posts about using this fluid.
Okay, so I bought two gallons of the above. The automatic transmission in the car uses about 4.1 quarts. I used a 10mm allen bit in my Onyx 3/8″ impact wrench and drained everything I could from the pan. I then put the plug back in and added two quarts of fresh Max Life and let it run for about 30 seconds and shifted through the gears (I was up on 6 ton jack stands with rubber wheel chocks and the parking brake on).
I then removed the plug again and drained the fluid. I then removed the return line, started the car for maybe 30 seconds if that – I turned it off when nothing else was coming out. I then buttoned it all back up.
In theory the transmission was empty. I’ve had issues in the past where I assumed that was the case but it was not so I didn’t want to assume anything. I added two quarts and moved it to a perfectly flat spot on my driveway. I could just barely see a hint of ATF on the tip. I added a bit more to get it short of the cold empty mark.
I don’t trust the cold measure on the dipstick. With an automatic transmission it must be up to its operating temperature to get a good reading in the hot zone (the bottom mark is for cold is a ballpark – get it hot and then test as you absolutely do not want to overfill an automatic transmission). As it gets hot the fluid expands hence my wanting to know at temperature where I was at.
Now, to check the ATF level, Toyota does not tell you in the operator’s manual and I frown on that. With the car flat, let it idle (or drive it 10 miles if you have fluid in it – I had an unknown level so I didn’t want to get on the road) and let the engine and transmission come up to operating temperature (158-176F). Then, with your foot on the brake, shift the gear selector from park through all the gears, stopping at each one and then back up. With the car idling and the transmission in park, check the dipstick.
To make sure the engine and tranny were hot enough, I used my BAFX plug in OBD II probe that connects to the Torque app on my Android phone via Bluetooth.
I kept adding smaller and smaller amounts of ATF and moved the selector lever per the above before I would test the level again. I got it close to full in the hot range and then stopped. As mentioned, I did not want to go past full. By the way, when you are reading a dipstick with during filling, you must wipe it off each time to get a good reading and you may find that you get a better view of the fluid level on one side or the other of the dipstick.
In case you are wondering, I did not do the transmission filter. It would have taken a ton of time and I figured I would start with the fluid and see what happened.
The end result – it shifts beautifully. I could not be happier — even my wife thinks it shifts smoother and feels better. To wrap this up, I wrote this post in case one of you has questions about what transmission fluid is a good substitute for Toyota Type T-IV, and also how to properly check the automatic transmission fluid level.
6/1/2019 Update – Still no problems. Our 1992 Corolla sprung a leak in the transmission fluid cooling line so I had to both install some fuel like to patch the corroded line plus I had to refill the transmission fluid. That was about 2-300 miles ago and that is working fine too. Bottom line, I do think this fluid performs just fine in place of Toyota Type T-IV fluid.
9/10/2018 Update – The Camry XLE has been on a number of 200-400 mile highway road trips at highway speeds and shows no signs of shifting problems. The family agrees the car shifts smoother. I have now replaced the ATF in our 2004 Solara SLE and 1994 Corolla with Max Life ATF also and all are running well. The Solara has close to a 1,000 miles on it now. I’m very pleased with Max Life and will continue using it in my Toyotas. By the way, I now use an EWK Fluid Evacuator for getting the ATF exactly where I want it. Here’s the post about that tool.
2/23/2020 Update – No problems at all with any of the vehicles we’ve used Max Life ATF in. This includes a 2008 Toyota Highlander.
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This past winter I had the fun of changing the starter motor twice in 15 degree weather in my Landcruiser. It was a bear getting to the starter bolts with my full size Ingersoll Rand 1/2 Thunder Gun. It’s an awesome impact wrench and I had trashed a few cheap Harbor Freight ones before taking the advice of my friends and buying it. To make a long story short, with a long extension and a universal joint, I was able to get the two bolts out.
While working on the truck, it struck me that I really needed a compact impact wrench to get into tight spaces. I did some digging and found the Astro 1828 Onyx for 3/8″ impact sockets. I figured I wanted small and probably would not need 1/2″ most of the time.
These next photos show how much more compact the Onyx is compared to the big Thunder Gun:
The little Onyx gets great reviews – currently 4.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon with 148 reviews. I bought it and a Hot Max 28083 Swivel adapter at the same time. It arrived in a nice little cardboard box from Amazon and I promptly put good Teflon tape on the swivel’s fittings, installed it and then a Milton M-style plug.
So far, both are holding up great in my home garage use (I’m not a pro mechanic – more like a shade tree one with ADD and sleep deprivation).
What I find interesting is that it is a torquy little beast. They claim 450 ft/lbs. I have not bothered checking using a calibrated torque wrench but I can tell you it’s done a great job so far. For big stuff / tight stuff, I still go to the Thundergun with its 625 ft/lbs of torque. The Onyx is more of a special purpose tool for me. By the way, if you notice it is shiny above, I had just used it to remove the drain plug off a 2002 Camry’s transmission. They are about 18mm and use a 10mm Allen bit to come off. My 10mm Allen bit is for a 3/8″ drive so I just stuck it on the Onyx and it whipped it right off. Reinstalling, I set torque at 1 out of 3 and then checked it with a 3/8″ drive ratchet wrench after — it was in there solid.
In short, I am happy with the little Nano and Hot Max swivel combination. I definitely still use my Thunder Gun for wheel lugs and big fasteners but the Nano is now my go to for tight spaces.
October 2018 Update: I had a problem with the hog ring clip at the end of the nose. It bent and would no longer hold sockets properly. It took a while for the maker to get me the clips but they did take care of me and gave me a few spare. Click here for the whole story.
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Check out Jeff’s cool Yugoslavian M72B1. It was built by Two Rivers Arms and he used our custom Yugo M72B1 handguard set. Our handguards are made from a special temperature resistant glass reinforced urethane, don’t require the ferrule, and enable a sure grip.
If you are interested, click here to learn more about our custom all polymer Handguards.
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