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Ever since I bought my 2006 Rodeo there's been a little thing that has been niggling at me. Whenever the engine is loaded up, either from a heavy load or just not downshifting early enough the car will have start randomly misfiring. I've been working around it, just downshifting fairly early but still fairly reasonable. This has been progressively getting worse and eventually I decided to have a look at this.

Remembering rule #1 of troubleshooting. Start with the simple stuff. This meant checking the spark plugs. The back ones were the easiest to get to so let's check those.

Hmmm. That could be the problem methinks.

Now to replace them. The new plugs have been procured. Time to whip them out and in half an hour all will be good.

Well now there seems to be an issue here. That big aluminium intake hangs way over the plugs for all but the last 2 plugs.

So... take it off then.

And then we find this godawful mess. From the factory there is a crappy cardboard gasket that has half stuck to the top of the inlet and half stuck to the bottom half.

Nothing for it now but to finish the job and make a new gasket on the way out.

 

This post is starting to get pretty long so I will cut it off here. I was pretty bummed out at this point so it's a good time to call it.

 

Cheers,

Rex

 

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Here are some photos from my Hobart trip. I've put them together in a slideshow, which is one of the new things I can do with this site. If you like it/don't like it please let me know.

 

Hobart 2017

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Well it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I went on a voyage for a few weeks on the tall ship James Craig.

 

 After returning home I was somewhat disappointed with what I could do within the Google photos and blogger platforms. With this I have decided to de-Google myself. At least a little bit anyway. And such I have changed across to this website which will also give me more freedom and capacity to improve and add features.

 

Once I get the hang of this site a bit better I will be uploading my pictures from the voyage.

 

Cheers,

Rex

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We got it started! Cough Cough. Blows a little smoke though. Thankfully it clears up somewhat once it's a bit warmer.
This is it running after it clears up a little. You can still see a little haze out of the exhaust but it no longer looks like we set off a smoke bomb.

You may be wondering what is different to get this engine started to last time? Well it was suggested that we try driving it with a drill and a socket that will go over the crankshaft. That would work and I do have a drill that would be suitable. However I don't have any sockets big enough.

So rather than going out and buying something we figured it would be best to try with what's on hand first. So we came up with this:
It's a piece of rope that I had sitting around here wrapped around a fair few times. With this and someone to flip the decompression once it gets some speed up it's just about always first pull to start.

Another thing I like about this is that I feel it's much safer. As long as it doesn't get caught around your leg there isn't enough mass in the rope to hurt badly if it were to get thrown at you. Also if it were to get caught and not release then it is light enough that it shouldn't unbalance the engine. Making it a much less stressful process to stop if something goes wrong like that.

I have also cut down this rope so it is only about as long as it needs to be. This makes it a lot harder to catch yourself on it or tangle up in any way.

Here is a little Youtube clip of it running:


Now we just need to set up something to run from it. Now about that portable sawmill...

Cheers,
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