Recently, I had a chance to visit with my Uncle Woody and Aunt Louise down south.  Uncle Woody gave me a tour of his workshop.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy watching this video as much as I did making it.

My 1998 VW Golf GTI VR6 is a great car, but it does have 1 nagging problem.  The ignition coil pack.  Initially, it took me a couple years to discover the cause of my engine’s hesitation and misfire codes.  When the first coil pack failed catastrophically, the spark plugs stopped firing and sent excess fuel down the exhaust and melted my catalytic converter.  I have replaced my coil pack 4 times now because none of the brands are reliable.  Overtime, the plastic housing of the coil pack begins to crack.  The hairline cracks allow sparks to jump to ground through the housing instead of going to the spark plugs resulting in random misfires.  The problem is multiplied whenever there is extra moisture on the coilpack, like the morning dew.

The coil pack for my VR6 costs around $200-$300.  Rather than buying a 5th coil and waiting for it to crack… I decided to repair my cracked one.  This technique has been covered before on many websites and forums.  Basically, you apply a 2 part epoxy over the cracks OR the entire plastic housing.  The epoxy is non-conductive and insulates the cracks.  My coil was very dirty, so I disassembled and washed it so the epoxy would stick.

Here is a 2 minute video of my repair.

It’s inevitable… hard drives fail.  But when?  Recently, I had a hard drive that was acting strange and I needed a way to test its reliability.  The drive wasn’t making clicking noises yet (a sure sign that your drive is dying).  I needed a freeware program to test my hard drives and tell me if any were at risk of failing.  I found a utility called SeaTools for Windows.  It’s from Seagate, but the software will work with most any modern hard drive.  It doesn’t work with usb connected drives however.  I was able to run a couple tests on my suspect drive and determine with certainty that it was failing.

Another interesting feature of SeaTools was its ability to read the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of the hard drive.  The most interesting SMART attributes were the “hard drive temperature” and the “power on hours”.  My failing maxtor drive had 36509 hours on it.  That’s about 4.2 years of continuous use.  My Western Digital drive has 47802 hours (5.5 years continuous), but it passed all tests and is still working fine.   Another interesting fact according to wikipedia “Disk failures and their metrics” is that there is a higher failure rate for hard drives in cool conditions versus hot conditions.  I had always assumed that heat was the enemy, but the opposite is actually true.

You can also use the freeware utility Speedfan to read hard drive SMART data. Speedfan may not be able to thoroughly test your hard drives like SeaTools, but it also provides a wealth of other technical data about ALL of your computer hardware.

Wikipedia also states that 60 days following the first scan error on a drive, the drive is, on average, 39 times more likely to fail.  The lesson here… maintain backups of your precious data and be S.M.A.R.T.

What is the best wax for black paint?  I did tons of web research and concluded that (for the money) Blitz Carnuaba Wax and 3M Hand Glaze were the best choice.  You can get both in a kit with applicators and towels for about $36 from Car Care Specialties.  There are solutions out there that are touted to be better (like p21), but they cost much more.

The shine is so perfect that you can see the imperfections in the original manufacturer paint job.  You can just see some ripples in the reflection of my house just to the left of the gas cap.

First, I thoroughly washed my 2007 triumph thruxton with proper car soap and water and a soft mitt.  Then I used my air compressor to speed drying.  Especially around the nooks and crannies of my engine and gauges.  Then I hand applied the 3M glaze in a swirling motion and waited 5-10 minutes to dry.  Wipe off with a very soft cloth.  Now, I hand applied the blitz car wax.  It is benefitial to use your hands because your body heat will melt the wax and you can also feel the surface and avoid rubbing any grit into the paint.  Finally, after 15 minutes of drying, I used a fresh soft cloth to buff out the wax.  WOW, it was super slippery and shiny.  I am very happy with the results and I highly recommend using 3M Hand Glaze and Blitz Wax, especially on black paint.