What sorts of regular maintenance do you do on tools, appliances, etc.?  I
expect this to include replacing lubricants and small worn parts, making
necessary adjustments, etc.  What else?  Have you had problems with things
that are difficult to maintain?  Are some brands better in that respect?  Any
interesting stories about things that stopped working due to lack of
maintenance?

43 responses total.

Concerning an electric drill (Sioux or Milwaukee 45 degree angle):  The screws
in the body loosened up, and its the body that holds the gears in alignment.
It ruined the gears so they didn't mesh anymore, and the drill split apart.
Now the body is all worn out.  The gears had to be replaced, for about $30
including shipping.  Some of the screws had fallen out, others had loosened,
I never noticed it, I had never run into this before.  It's an all plastic
body drill, maybe they can't use jam screws in there?   The screws were into
metal inserts, which were okay, its just that the screws didn't stay in the
metal inserts.  Maybe they should have built it differently?    Now I know
what's going on, I am keeping an eye on the screws and the body.
J. Deigert
        The freezer door on our 50s refrigerator just started falling apart.
It seems to have also lost a screw.  What sort of maintenance do refrigerators
need besides checking the gasket and dusting the coils in back (and of course
cleaning).  The lightbulb acts as if it is rusted in place.  A thermostat on
another model shed one small piece - should these be checked occasionally?
The refrigerator is permanently set to freezer temp until we fix it.

When lightbulb threads get sticky like that, I like to smear a thin coat
of Vaseline on the bulb threads.  It makes getting the net time
it needs to be replaced.

How do you suggest getting it out this time without breaking it?  At present,
we have a magnet-type flashlight on the fridge instead (or turn on the ceiling
light).

You can't do much to maintain a refrigerator except what you are doing.
The base of a lightbulb is now aluminum, and this corrodes making a rough
surface - which is why the bulb becomes difficult to remove. I also use the
vaseline trick. You could spray in a little WD-40, which momentarily
lubricates the rough spots, and maybe the bulb will come out more easily.
Nevertheless I have broken off bulbs trying to remove them, in which case it
becomes a matter of trying to turn the base with pliers, mangling it in
the process. Unplug the fridge, of course, before taking really strong
action (or using WD-40...it's flammable). 

        Once the bulb break, use needle nose pliers. Grab 1 side, bend it in
part way to loosen it, then just unscrew it.

... disconnecting the power cord first, I hope.

        That takes the fun out of it!

Patrick, you are welcome to come over and play with my fridge.

Yesterday we fixed a Kiwanis tape deck marked 'works' in one place and 'needs
work' in another.  It would not move in the play position.  Used the trusty
Swiss Army Knife to remove a lot of tape wound around the pinch roller.
(The knife is a recent present from the owner of the fixed VCR).  The wood
saw was just right for the job (but we had to take the door off first) along
with tweezers.  The cause of the problem was a really filthy pinch roller,
which I had to scrape a lot before cleaning with alcohol.  SHould have been
cleaned a long time ago.  Well, this problem (tape not moving because of the
jam due to not cleaning the roller) seems to be responsible for another
problem - the tape turns off after a few seconds (worn clutch?).   Lack of
maintenance can ruin things in unexpected ways. (Tape acts as if it has
reached the end, when at the beginning - gets worse over time - any other
ideas?  We have not had it apart again.)

check for gunk around the drive belt and pulleys driving the spindle.  the
resistance it causes would disengage the drive exactly as would the end of
tape resistance.

Re-glued some joints in a chair (including one I'd fixed before <sigh>).

re #10, we cleaned all the belts, too, everything looked okay.  Will have to
take it all apart again.  It worked okay until we played about half a tape,
then got increasingly worse.  WOuld stop, then run the second time we turned
it on, for about 20 sec, then stop again.  Finally it would not start at all.

What sort of glue do you use on chairs?  It is supposed to be something that
you can get out again easily, for this reason.
Nice library video from Fine WOodworking on furniture repair.

how about gunk in the electric motor itself?  have you tried several different
tapes and gotten the same result?

I just use standard wood glue.  I also have access to neither the AA Library
(for checkout purposes, that is) nor a VCR.

Davel, would you like a cheap VCR?
Jim thinks the belts in the tape deck may be too loose and are slipping, the
way they would at the end of a tape.  Have cleaned them, but they may have
gotten worn out by being played with tape stuck in the machine.  Another tape
deck (of three left to try to repair for Kiwanis) will not open the door,
which seems to have been melted shut in one corner. A third would not open
until we opened the case, turned the flywheel to the right position.  The
belts are definitely loose, but with cleaning it now plays.
You can watch videos at the library on their machine.

No.  No TV to hook it to, either.

Works on a monochrome or composite monitor, we don't have a TV either.  Or
on a TV that gets channel 3 but no others.  I wonder how many grex members
don't have TVs - we know two others besides you and us.  Monitors are so much
more interesting!  Make that only a composite monitor, but we had a composite
monitor that was green on black (don't quite follow this).  They were used
on early Commodores and Apples, Jim says.  We have run across four color
composite monitors.  IBM and Zenith PCs were designed to use them.  Lots of
companies made monochrome composite, on the game type computers used color
ones.  We fixed two more tape players most of hte way - they probably need
new belts (one does not auto stop, just squeaks, the other seems loose after
cleaning).  Anybody want to come in and try to fix a few bad switches at
Kiwanis?  Or sort old software and manuals and dump much of the stuff?

I'm using the monitor from my aunt's old Commodore 64 as my TV.  It's getting
old and wearing out.  The color isn't all that good anymore.  I should
probably replace it at some point, but I haven't gotten around to it.

JIm asks how it can wear out and what can happen to the color.  We have never
had a worn out monitor.   Can you tell us what the problem is, in case it is
some simply adjustment?  (If you do decide you don't want it, please pass it
along to us.)    Is there anything labelled R G or B with a knob or three?

It's not that the color is uniformly off, but it sometimes gets very bright
while I'm watching it, and then goes back to normal a few seconds later, and
does other weird stuff like that.  It actually seems better now than it used
to.  I'm assuming it doing that is a sign of being worn out, rather than
something it has done since the beginning, but I don't really know.

   (i don't own a tv.  my roomie does, but i rarely watch it.)

(Sounds like a voltage regulator isn't.)

Of course TVs wear out... the picture tube is a big vacuum tube, which can
weaken over time, plus a phosphor coating that can gradually be used up (newer
TVs are better than old TVs for longevity of the phosphors, thanks to improved
materials and processes).

Phosphors get used up? How? [Serious question - I can imagine them falling
off, since they are powders cemented to the inside of the screen in some
fashion, or being oxidized or otherwise chemically altered, but what are
the causes of their deterioration?]

I don't really know, but I do know that old CRTs need more voltage to get the
same amount of light as it got when new.  Vacuum tubes wear out, which used
to confuse me.  I did ask once, and was told that coatings outgas, air leaks
in, etc.

We have a monitor that omni gave us, also a composite color, that, according
to the book, has a bad voltage regulator.  It works for a while, then goes
off for a second, works, off for two seconds, works, 4 seconds, then
eventually goes off and does not come on.  The heating up seems to affect it.
We have not had it getting brighter and dimmer, just completely going off,
but perhaps voltage regulators can fail in both directions.  Anyway, they are
cheap and easy to replace (a part from something else).  Steve, if the monitor
gets unusable, may we play with it?  We also got an EGA from omni which only
shows a vertical line, but Jim put it on the scope and all the signals looked
okay coming out of what the book said might be a bad chip.  Ideas?

Steve, would you mind letting all the dIYers try to figure out how to fix your
heat problem?  Do you have a thermostat that you could describe to us?  Or
any other interesting problems around the apartment that the management is
not interested in?

We are now working on four unusable tape decks.  The fourth, like the first,
clicks off as soon as you press Play.  One that will not auto stop had a
cracked nylon gear which might be gluable.  Another seems to need new belts.
Jim just diagnosed and fixed the fourth one - 'the belt was wound up on the
motor'.  He substituted a rubber band.  So we need two new belts, some glue,
and one more diagnosis.  And another belt for another one that has a rubber
band that fixed an autostop problem.   Only problem is that it is hard to
measure a rubber band to determine the correct belt size and the old belt is
in little dried pieces.   Does anybody want a very cheap phono and some very
cheap records (10/$1) from Kiwanis?  An 8-track recorder?  A converter from
8-track to cassette?

        Sindi, what book are using. Sounds like a handy one to have.

Could Kiwanis use a phone answering machine that stopped resetting 
correctly? I would surmise the machinery is OK, but the control IC
or whatever is corrupted.

Re #25: old tubes usually get "weak" because the *cathode* coating gets
lost with both evaporation and thermal stresses. I would expect this to
be true too in the TV tube guns. 

I'll keep you in mind if I end up getting rid of the monitor.  It's not likely
that I'll get around to it anytime soon.  It still works as well as I really
need it to.

My heaters really don't have a thermostat.  It's a control knob, that is
supposed to regulate how much steam gets into the radiators.  When the knob
is taken off, it is a bulge in the pipe that has a pin sticking out.  What
the knob does, when turned towards the off position, is to push the pin in.
That much works, but whatever inside the pipe is supposed to actually block
it and stop letting stuff in doesn't, so I'm guessing the whole valve probably
needs to be replaced.

It seems like a problem best left to professionals or the complex management.
I don't want the liability if it gets broken even more.  Also, to take the
section of pipe out, the steam would have to be cut off somewhere upstream
from it, and I don't have access to any other shutoff valves.

Thanks, Steve, we will forget about your heat problem.  All I can think of
other than opening the window is putting a few blankets over it.

Rane, we have at least 10 answering machines at Kiwanis that work, but
if you want we can put yours with the pile to look at some day.  If you
would rather throw it out, save us the belt, we can always use those.
(Are you sure you don't just need a new belt? or to clean that one?).

Patrick, I don't recall the name of the VCR book, but it might be a TAB or
SAMS publication.  Check the library catalog.  It is non Lenk, that is too
theoretical for a quick fix.

        I was thinking of the monitor book. Or did i misunderstand?

I'll look at the belt...though the way it failed suggested a logic error.

The monitor book was also SAMS or TAB.  It was also very helpful in suggesting
the most likely cause of any particular problem.  It may be the only monitor
book at the library.  Certainly the most recently acquired.

Rane, yes they do go bad electronically and the price of the repair is more
than the price of a used model, usually, so we no longer try to fix anything
except mechanical problems.  Today I sold an answering machine, which was
probably $200 new, to someone for $5 because they wanted a cheap tape player.
The small models are $8.

Jim asks what sorts of parts a user is now expected to be able to replace
other than light bulbs and batteries.  He just acquired two bread machines
that people gave up on because they need belts.  Bikes that needed one new
wheel. Computers that needed a serial port or a hard drive.  A tent that needs
two poles.  

There's a few different factors involved.  Some have always been around, or
at least for a few decades.  I just bought a 1954 booklet on TV repair for
average folks, and it explains a few obvious (to me, anyway) things people
could do to save money on TV repairs and maintenance.  

Granted liability and increasing complexity have reduced the sorts of repairs
that end users are encouraged to do, but I still occasionally get a mail-order
catalog from "Performance Bicycle" which includes a few pages of tools and
parts along with the clothes and accessories.

I believe there's still a series of appliance repair guides "for dummies" from
some major manufacturer or another, which gives very nice directions for
troubleshooting and how to replaces various parts.  And places like Murray's
Discount Auto parts and other 3rd-party parts places carry Hanes and Chilton
manuals for recent models of cars.

So I personally don't think things have changed all that much, except for
liability issues which just result in more pages of warnings and disclamers
(and perhaps a greater amount of difficulty for smaller companies).

But you can no longer replace just one cheap part in a lot of things, you have
to replace the whole board (for much more than the cost of another, working,
used TV or VRC, etc.).  Jim just replaced the capacitor in the built-in power
supply of a cordless phone that was buzzing.  The official fix would probably
have been to replace the circuit board.

Let me know if Jim has ever fixed a dead vacuum tube...

I wouldn't be surprised. It is call "rejuvenation" and is well known
to vacuum tube users. See
http://www.antiquewireless.org/otb/rejuve.htm

He has fixed a hard drive that stopped working, by shaking it up in the right
direction, but he does not have the facilities for glass blowing and vacuum
removal of air.  Surface mounted devices are also beyond his capabilities.
He has tried, he says.  We have been giving up on CD players with electronic
problems recently for that reason.  He fixed a laptop floppy drive once by
changing the belt.  He repairs bike inner tubes using the old tube and rubber
cement as a patch.  He replaces belts on answering machines that friends give
him but they insist on buying more new ones.  

My brother decided that the meat grinder he got from my mother was worthless
because it was missing the wing nut.  This is the same brother who blamed the
landlord when the handle fell off a door in his apartment.  He has a complete
series of fix-it books, all very new looking.  

Jim does not like to own things that he cannot fix, it makes him feel too
dependent on technology and the system.  He fixed the starter on a
refrigerator by taking it apart and cleaning it.  He replaced the controls
and elements on his electric water heater, the valves on gas ones (to save
friends hundreds of dollars he explained how to do it over the phone).  A new
valve is $4 (but you have to empty the tank so it is easier to just cap it).
(Jim what was this valve for?  For periodic draining of the tank but it was
leaking.  Why do people want to be able to drain tanks?  To remove the bottom
sediment but nobody ever does, keeps them from becoming noisy, but I don't
believe in the bottom sediment.)  You can uncap it when you want to drain it
for replacement.

He replaced the engine on one jeep when it died, with an engine from a similar
car, using the garage door to lift out the old one (in February - for some
reason he had bronchitis the rest of that winter).

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss