A continuing saga...

[GentleRF]

My youngest son was the recipient of a '89 Ranger. I got a call from him on Father's Day when the TFI module went out in downtown Edmonds, Washington. We got that fixed the following weekend. The next call came just this last week and the truck was blowing water out the exhaust. After two days, we found the culprit, a blown head gasket on the passenger side. He is so glad of a place to work on it and I am glad that he asks. He is very special.

 

[huh?]

He is so glad of a place to work on it and I am glad that he asks. He is very special.

AWESOME

good on you, man.

one son of mine half an ocean away in CA.
another son half an ocean and a continent away at Fort Drum.

yeah, they're young adults. men.
but if something should happen to them, how do i reach out to protect my "kids"?

think about them every day. i suppose a couple of decades of the mindset of "they need my protection and guidance" needs to be changed a bit towards "they're intelligent, good men, cut the worrying out".

i covet that physical proximity you have to your son.

and, no, your post not making me cry. my allergies, that's all!

 

[GentleRF]

Thanks! I well and truly appreciate that. Now all we do on his ranger is replace the radiator which somehow got a hole poked in it during disassembly. Fortunately, I managed to sell the core to a Vanagon transaxle, which should ease things a touch. I almost had one but it turned out to be a manual transmission radiator. It truly pays to read the ads carefully on Craigslist.

 

[GentleRF]

The end of the cylinder head story: we got everything tightened up and put back in except the fan and clutch when we noticed a coolant leak from the radiator on Wednesday night. It might have been the fan clutch but more likely a wrench during disassembly. Son was not happy.

My wife and I went down to a local wrecking yard on Friday to find errors in the inventory sheet on three of the RBV's. I then spotted a '91 explorer with a 4.0. Since I had brought the old rad with me, I checked the top tank brackets to find it was a very close fit. Got the explorer rad out and found the bottom locators the same width as the old ones. I even got a price break on the newer radiator.

We finished up putting the radiator in, topping off the coolant, then starting and timing. No negative news so far. It sure has been a bonding experience for us. Now the house feels emptier without him over in the evenings.

 

[Andy D]

Yah, back when my son's GF, now DIL, CRV flunked inspection for a mis-fire. I found the culprit, a burnt exhaust valve. He bought the parts , I loaned him my car, and I did the work in my drive way I lapped the 2 exhaust valves in and replaced the head. My first head work in 25 yrs. On a side wise engine that turns backwards. I was working with a Haynes manual for every 4 wheel Honda ever made. Half the time, I was on the wrong page. If I ever do another CRV head , I will have enough strong assistance to take the head off with the manifolds attached. What a PITA ! The manual said stuff like: step 4, remove exhaust manifold. But this wasn't my first rodeo. I set the engine to TDC in #1 and found the timing marks. I also match marked the cap and rotor. Undoing stuff was hairy, until I realized that all you had to do was to pull a wiring harness, vacuum hose, whatever. All you have to do is look at the furthest it can go and look around there for a plug. I can report that this worked fine for my rescue of the Rat too

 

[wildbill23c]

Glad to hear you and your son got his truck on the road again. I don't have kids but I've spent plenty of long hours working under the hood of several vehicles of friends who aren't mechanically inclined and needed to save some money on simple repairs. Many times that led to their kids wanting to learn and help, well at least they'll be a little better off than their parents when it comes to vehicle repairs.