Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Hapy New Year


This year I am not going to post because I will be in a kinda of vacation. And probably I will not have internet access where I am going. So have fun and Happy New Year !

Monday, December 25, 2006

Damage report (inplications)

I didn't had time to tell more last time I post so now I will complete the report.

So I sad the water pump is screwed, but even more the distribution belt is torn apart because of the other wheel that is right next to the water pomp pulley and was touching it. So that wheal must be replaced, and the distribution belt and the water. So you see how one thing can damage everything. This will cost me at least 200 bucks. So this year I will stay in house because I don't have a car. Anyway whist to stay in house and rest, now I have my occasion.


Ho Ho Ho! Mary Christmas !

Friday, December 22, 2006

Damage report.

Like I have promise , I am going to explain what happened.
I wanted to install the belt, but just before that I made an inspection and I have discovered that the water pump pulley is damaged and is vibrating. This is because the when the old belt broke, it twisted around the other pulleys while still attached to the water pump one, so it was forcing the pulley up. So it is moving half of centimeter in and out. That means he need replacement.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Bad news.

I didn't manage to fix the car but I manage to get it home. Seems that the belt is to large. Also some other stuff needs replacement like the water pump and the distribution belt. I will gonna tell you all about tomorrow. For now I will going to sleep because I am very tired and I think I catch a flew.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Romania

By the way:
  • Romania is in Europe.
  • Is not a Russian country like most of the Americans think.
  • Transylvania is a region of Romania, is not a separate country.
  • We don't have vampires here. And the wolfs are just a few in reservations and national parks.
  • Dracula is inspired from a old Romanian king called Vlad Ţepeş (Vlad the Impaler) that was not a vampire. Just order a lot of death sentences. And because the electricity wasn't invented in the XV th century it was using the next best thing Impalement is an act execution whereby the victim is pierced by a long stake. Is a cruel way but it can make a point.
  • Yes. We have cites, cars, computers and internet here.

Money.

I have to give some explanations about the money
Here in Romania the things are a lot more cheaper. That's why the taxi cost only 2 Euro
The prices are in Lei (Romanian money) but I translated to Euro so everybody understand.(1 Euro ~ 3.5 Lei) You probably think that grate to live in Romania because of the cheep prices. It's not true some of the prices are a lot bigger that normal. So for the services is cheaper but for example products like electronic stuff is at lest twice as big as in Germany. A friend of mine wanted a sound card. The price in a online German shop is 35 Euro, here the same card is 170 Euro. Usually are twice or triple the correct price.
Second thing. The average income per year in Romania is less that 1000 Euro.
Third thing is that are things that are horribly stupid around here. Like finding a mechanic that is able to fix a car.

So is a lot of spooky stuff going on. For more informations just ask me and I will be glad to share the informations.

Pay time.


So when I arrived at home I ad to pay my mother for the belt. The belt was costing 5 Euro and the taxi to the auto shop 2 Euro. I give her 20 in total including her trouble. Anyway I relay prefer to give some more money to my mother then paying to a lousy mechanic.

The story of a V-belt


Today in the way to work I had notice the red light from the battery turned on. And I was suspecting that was some kind of electrical problem. It was not so far away from the parking lot so I decided to postpone until I get to work.



After I parked I look under the the hood to investigate the problem. It turn out that the v-belt between the engine and the water pump was broken. It was completely torn apart. I will show you a picture of it tomorrow. In the office I had look to a electronic catalog for the part number.

I fund it together with the specifications: V-Belt 9.5X643MM (if anybody is interested the part number is: b 068 121 039 B) and it shud cost about 7.5 Euro's (at least his was the germane price ) so I assumed that including VAT is about 10 Euro. So in the lunch break I made a visit to the local auto service near by.Guess what ! They didn't had any idea what kind of belt i need, what size, how it should look, nothing. What the hell ? They should be the experts. Because I wasn't smart enough to remember the specification they search for it in a catalog and they found something with a lot of luck. The price was about 3 Euro and they have had to order it because they didn't have it in stock. But here come the funny part. Because it was so cheap they can order it. "Maybe you want also something more expensive ?" they ask me. "Yes! A boat and a island ! But for now on I just want by belt " I had replayed. What the hell ? I think that if you go to a service and say "My car is broken" to say replay something like "Ok. Let's fix it" And if I know exactly what they have to fix to tell me exactly how much is cost, including the part and stuff. I don't want th hear excuses like that. I just want to get a price for fixing the specified problem. Probably if they had sad "It cost 50 and it take 30 minutes" it was a lot more convincing for me. And in this 50 they can include the price to the auto shop to buy the belt and the replacement.



So I go back to the office and decided to buy a belt and change it myself a lot cheaper. But I still had a problem, it was no auto shop near by and in the evening when I finish my job all the shops all closed. So I call my mother and ask her if it can go to a shop to buy a belt. I finally convince her, and I tell her the details.



She call me a after a while and told me that she get the belt. But here come the funny part again. The size is diffrent from the one form the catalog, instead of 9.5X643MM is 10x650MM. The guy from the shop told her that it has the same part number but the size is diffrent because they have a list of equivalents and is no way to find the one with the exact same around. The only way is to order it from Germany and it will take 1-3 weeks. Sound's silly, isn't it ? Let me explain it to you.



They have only one belt in the stock that is the average size, and they sell it in replacement for all the other sizes. So they can sell it as a 9.5.X640MM or as a 11X660MM. It is almost the same, and nobody will notice. What that worst it can happen ? Great mentality. So I had to live with this.

Lot's of experience.


I buy this car for about 2500 $ and I think I payed at least 2000 $ to fix different stuff and i still have problem. So I had decided to fix the car myself from now on. I don't need a mechanic because I real man can do it itself. It sounds silly but I am serious. I get a lot of documentation and other stuff from the net and now on I can consider myself a guru in this field. So I can offer a lot of advices and explain a lot of stuff about it. When I will have time I will write some tutorials about how to fix different stuff. But for now I will stick to tell you the current status.

My car


This is my car.

It is a Volkswagen Transporter (Also called Type 2- T3).

Production year: 1985

Engine: Diesel 1.6L