I found myself needing to revisit a potential leak from the water pump and found the instructions I had written several years ago when I replaced my timing belt and water pump in my Sebring.  These instructions were originally posted on the Sebring Club web site at the following address.

http://www.sebringclub.net/diagrams/96-00-timingbelt-waterpump-replacement.pdf

I’ll be updating them as I do some more work with, hopefully, some better photos.

Original post:

I was motivated to do this work because of a bearing growling sound emanating from the engine. It would grind at low rpms when the engine was cold and then only be noticeable when you initially put on the gas (very quick growling sound). I figured it was the water pump bearing, the tensioner pulley bearing or the idler pulley bearing. At 104,000 miles, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to replace some stuff, anyway.

There were two main reasons that I did this work myself. One, I am a do-it-yourselfer that doesn’t shy away from most any task. Two, I’m cheap! Another motivation was I got several quotes for replacing the timing belt and water pump. The lowest I got was about $600 (and I think it would have been higher). The highest was from the dealer…$1100! All I heard from everyone was how hard this was, so I was thinking I would have to put out some bucks to get ‘er done, but luckily, I reconsidered.

To start this job, jack up the car and support it with a jack stand. I always use the jack and a jack stand for safety. Remove the right wheel so you can get to everything.

You probably notice the smaller jack that is under the engine. This is used for supporting the engine when you remove the right engine mount. Removing the right engine mount is one of the first things you have to do.

I didn’t get a picture of this, but you need to remove the lower plastic splash shield that covers the a/c compressor, power steering pump, etc. It is held in place with 2 plastic rivets and 3 plastic barbed push fasteners. I was able to reuse all the fasteners when I went to reinstall it.

Take off the power steering pump belt and the a/c-alternator belt. To remove the p/s belt, loosen the bolts and it should come off easily. Notice that the p/s pump has a ½” square socket on it. You can put a ½” ratchet or breaker bar in the socket to hold tension when you reinstall the belt. The a/c belt is removed by loosening the idler pulley bolt slightly and then loosening the tensioning bolt. It’s very easy to reinstall.

Remove the radiator overflow tank by taking out the two bolts and disconnecting the hose. Unbolt the a/c drier (one 10mm bolt) so you can move it out of the way. I also removed the two bolts that hold the power steering reservoir so it could be moved out of the way of the right timing belt cover. There are 3 bolts that need to be removed to separate the engine mount. You’ll be able to tell you have the engine supported correctly as the bolts will come out easily.

Here’s a photo showing the p/s reservoir swung out of the way.

Next, remove the two bolts that hold the engine mount to the frame. This is done from underneath the car. Now you should be able to remove the engine mount from the top.

Remove the 4 bolts that attach the engine mounting block to the engine. The engine mounting block should be easily removed.

More engine mounting block bolts, shown from below.

Now its time to remove the flywheel pulley. There is a 22mm bolt that holds it on…real tightly! I had to use a chain wrench to hold the pulley while using a ½” breaker bar. I’m sure there is a tool for holding the flywheel pulley, but I didn’t have it. I tried using one of those rubber strap wrenches, but it just wouldn’t hold tightly enough.

Here’s a photo of the flywheel pulley. I actually put the pulley back on temporarily to take this photo. It slips easily on and off the end of the crankshaft. Just be sure to align the pin.

Here’s the wrench arrangement I used. I had to be very careful not to mar the pulley with the chain wrench. Man, was it on tight!

Now on to removing the timing belt covers. There are three of them. You need to remove the upper left first (near the front of the vehicle), then the lower and then the upper right (near the firewall).

Here’s the lower cover.

Here’s the left cover. Don’t have a good picture of the right cover, but it’s underneath the power steering fluid reservoir.

After you get the timing covers removed, take the time to line up all the timing marks. The crankshaft has a mark that lines up with a mark on the engine block. The cam pulleys have timing marks on them that line up with “V” notches.

Here’s the crankshaft and its timing marks.

Here’s a picture (not very good) of the timing marks on the left cam. Mine had a little bit of white paint on the mark on the cam pulley. The valve cover has a notch in it that should line up with the mark on the cam pulley. There’s also one on the right cam, but I failed to get a good picture of it. Picture, if you can, a similar set of marks under the power steering reservoir.

The hardest part (and I do mean the hardest) had little to do with the timing belt. It had to do with the power steering pump bracket. In order to remove the right timing belt cover (nearest the firewall) you need to unbolt the power steering pump from its bracket (3 bolts) and take 3 of the 4 bolts out of the power steering pump bracket, and swing it out of the way to provide clearance for removing the cover. Sounds easy, right? This was the most difficult task for me since the top two bolts are in a very tight clearance area. Here are a couple of photos that show what you are up against. It was hard just to get some photos that show much.

Important!!! There are two bolts on the top of the p/s pump bracket. You only need to completely remove 1 (towards the passenger side) and loosen the other. This will allow enough movement of the bracket to swing it out of the way of the right timing belt cover. Unfortunately, you can’t even see the tops of the bolts from this picture. I’d have to have a fiber optic camera to show you the heads of the bolts. Use your imagination!

By the way, I’m about 6’-1” 220 lbs and was able to put my hands up in that area to get to the bolts, so someone with smaller hands will likely have an easier time.

Here’s another one showing where the lower two bolts are on the p/s pump bracket and the 3 bolts that hold the p/s pump to the bracket.

And here’s one showing my hand and the wrench working on one of the hard-to-reach bolts. It’s one of those situations where you have to work the bolt a little at a time and, if your hand will fit, finish it the rest of the way with your fingertips. Sorry for the focusing problem.

I have a garage full of tools (well, actually TWO garages full of tools), so I thought I would have most of the tools needed to do the job. Turned out I still needed to make one tool, but hey, now I have it. Here it is:

It’s made out of a piece of 1/8” x 2” steel bar (could have been 1/8” x 1-1/2”) and two #6 hex standoffs. I measured the distance between the holes on the tensioner pulley and punched and drilled the holes for the screws to hold the standoffs. After determining that the original length of the bar caused some interference problems, I cut out a square 3/8” hole so I could put a socket wrench on it. I could have cut it off to be 1” long, but I was lazy and didn’t want to get the hacksaw out again!

This tool is used to preload the tensioner pulley with 3.3 ft-lbs of torque prior to releasing the hydraulic tensioner. Took me a little while to figure out what they were trying to accomplish in the shop manual, but after careful studying, I finally got it. There are two holes in the tensioner pulley that accept the #6 male ends of the studs. Basically, you loosen the tensioner pulley bolt and put 3.3 ft-lbs of CCW (counter-clockwise) torque against the timing belt and then tighten the pulley bolt. This is all done with the hydraulic tensioner in a compressed mode. To compress the tensioner, remove it by taking out the two bolts. The, using your handy vise on your workbench (everyone has one, right?) compress the tensioner. I suppose you might be able to use a C-clamp to compress it, but I’ve never tried this. The hydraulic tensioner is held compressed with a pin (small allen wrench or cotter pin). The pin is removed after you have preloaded the pulley with the 3.3 ft-lbs of torque and tightened the bolt. You know if you have correctly torque the tensioner pulley as you should be able to remove your “pin” without any excessive force, i.e., the forces are balanced between the tensioner and the pulley.

To remove the old belt you can loosen the bolt on the tensioner pulley and then remove the bolts on the hydraulic tensioner.

Installing the belt involves lining up all the timing marks and installing the belt over the pulleys in the order specified in the instructions. The instructions that came with the timing belt kit didn’t match up with the instructions in the shop manual. It appears either set of instructions should work.

I used some plastic clips that I got at Harbor Freight to hold the belt on the pulleys while threading over the pulleys in the correct order, as specified by the instructions.

I’ve included a scan of the instructions that came with the timing belt kit I purchased at NAPA.

Why do you want to do this?  Because there’s are not many reasons to pay GoToPC or other companies for the privilege of accessing your computer remotely.  Most Windows computers have RDP built in, unless you get one of the “Home” versions of Windows 7, in which case you’ll have to work around that.

The main idea is you want to take RDP traffic coming from the internet (TCP default port 3389) and route it to a machine in your house on your local network.  This will be TCP traffic on port 3389 if you use the defaults.  It’s not much more complicated than that.

I have the Actiontec mi424wr router and my brother-in-law has the Westell 9100em.  I’ve got it working on the Actiontec and next up is the Westell.

This is what you need to do:

1. Enable RDP on the machine for remote access
2. Insure you have an account with a password that is an administrator or in the Remote Desktop Users group
3. Add a port forwarding rule on the router (the hard part) to forward the RDP traffic to a specific machine
4. Provide rules for any firewall(s) you have running to allow the RDP traffic to your computer
5. Make sure your ISP or the router is not blocking the RDP port (TCP 3389) universally
6. Change the RDP listening port to another port if 3389 is being blocked and adjust your port forwarding rule

Enable RDP on the machine for remote access

Type sysdm.cpl in the Start prompt to start the System control panel applet.  Select the Remote tab and allow connections using whichever method you want to allow.  The less secure method refers to the original RDP client on Windows XP and other prior operating systems (might also be the Mac RDP client).  The more secure client can be updated on XP and is part of Windows 7.  Don’t ask me about Vista…just like Windows ME it never existed in my book.

You can add users for remote desktop action if they are not already in the administrators group.

Insure you have an account with a password that is an administrator or in the Remote Desktop Users group

To enable remote desktop, you must have an account that has a password, otherwise you’ll never connect.  Unless, of course, you start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and make some adjustments to the Security Options (Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only).  You can also adjust the User Rights Assignment and Allow log on through Remote Desktop Services to other security groups.  But I digress…

Add a port forwarding rule on the router (the hard part) to forward the RDP traffic to a specific machine

On the Actiontec MI424WR router, log  in as admin and click on the Firewall Settings icon along the top.  Select Port Forwarding and select the machine to which you want to forward the RDP traffic. 

Next, select custom ports, as there is not a rule for RDP traffic.

Here’s how you have to define your port.  Protocol is TCP, Source Ports is Any and Destination Ports is 3389 (or whatever custom port you want to use).  I have performed some tests to change the source port from Any to 3389 (which would seem to make sense for me) and it no longer works. 

If you use a custom port the only difference is what you enter in the Destination Ports field.  There are some limits of allowable port numbers, so be aware and don’t enter something like 99999!

Provide rules for any firewall(s) you have running to allow the RDP traffic to your computer

You need to make sure the Windows firewall (or whatever extra firewall crap you have running) does not block the RDP traffic on your port to your computer.  Here’s the Windows Firewall version.

Start Windows Firewall (firewall.cpl).  You can simply start typing “Firewall” in the Start box and it will be displayed.  Or you can get at it through control panel.  Whatever…

After some testing (turning each profile on/off), I found that the Private Profile on the firewall is what does the blocking.  It makes sense, because the traffic coming from the internet is actually forwarded to the local network, hence it is traffic on the private network.  You open the Properties dialog on Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to easily turn the firewall scopes on and off to check them out.  You might want to turn them off until you get it working.

To allow the RDP inbound traffic on the standard port of 3389, you can enable the Inbound Rule called “Remote Desktop (TCP-In)” in the inbound rule set.  Simply right-click and enable it.

If you need to create a custom rule for a custom port (in other words, you don’t want to use 3389 or it is blocked) you must create a new inbound rule.  To create a new inbound rule, select Inbound Rules and the right-click to start the Rule Wizard.

Select Port rule.

Select TCP for the protocol.

Select Allow the connection.

Select Private.

Give it a name.  This is for a custom rule I was using on port 5207.  

Your finished rule should look something like this. 

Make sure your ISP or the router is not blocking the RDP port (TCP 3389) universally

Now you need to make sure the port makes it through your router.  To do this, use the CanYouSeeMe.org web tool.  If you have set up your port forwarding rule an your firewall rule, the traffic should go to the port (3389 if the default port is used) you’ve set up.

Before I created and enabled the port forwarding rule.

Here you can see I’ve created the port forwarding rule.

Specifying the source port in the port forwarding rule as 3389 instead of An which, I think, should work, but doesn’t):

Response from Canyouseeme.org:

Specifying the source port as Any:

Response from Canyouseeme.org:

Change the RDP listening port to another port if 3389 is being blocked and adjust your port forwarding rule

If you want to change the listening port from the default of 3389, you can do this in the registry.  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber is the key name.  Change it to the Decimal value of your choice (within limits, of course).

No need to reboot.  Simply start the services.msc applet and restart Remote Desktop Services so it picks up the new port.

It will also restart the Remote Desktop Service UserMode Port Redirector (which really makes sense).

Related links:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Connect-to-another-computer-using-Remote-Desktop-Connection

These are my quick notes so I don’t forget what I spent a great deal of time doing on 12/31 and 1/1, without a positive outcome.

Purchased a used CK3000 on eBay and took my chances on whether or not it would really work.  Tried to save a few bucks…probably a bad idea.  The CK3000 in my 1997 Sebring convertible works great.

Removed the dash to get to the radio using the instructions located on Coast Electronic Technologies web site.  Relatively easy process, but quickly found that trying to release the clips on 10+ year old plastic quickly yields a handful of broken plastic clips.  Also had to glue the left vent back in place, as it snapped off its standoff that it is screwed to.  Very fragile after 10 years of Texas heat.

Purchased a Metra BT1761 for $29.99.  I think the QCTOY-1 wiring harness is the same.  Found that the CK3000 (s/w 5.11) was an Eclipse model (not marked as Evolution, but is supposed to be the same).  Also found the CK3000 didn’t ship with the ISO power adapter, so I had to do some soldering of the CK3000 power cable to tap into the power.  Since I didn’t have the correct power cable with its connectors, I had to cut the double female ISO connector in two with a hacksaw so each connector was separate.  That way I could plug it into the duplex male connector and feed the power back to the radio.

The speaker connectors and the muting relay box seemed to work, since the speakers on the car correctly worked when everything was connected.  The problem, however, was when power was applied to the brain, there was no indication of power on the controller (no lights).  Even opened up the controller to make sure the wires were attached.  There was also a pin on the small brain connector (white wire) that was pushed out of the connector.  I had to bend the lock back so it would stay in place.

The operation is straightforward.  The speaker relay box is wired so as to disconnect the back speakers and route the phone audio through the front speakers when the phone is active.

Not sure if there is really a TEL/MUTE function on the radio, although the wire is there on my Prius harness.  Doesn’t really need it because the speaker relay box would take care of muting the radio.  The mute wire (yellow) is there if you have another function that needs to operate the mute functionality.

Connectors from the back of the radio (2 of 3).

Good source of Toyota radio connector diagrams/pictures.

http://www.sw20.jp/20/Tech_Articles/Radio_information/Radio_Information.html

http://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/Toyota-Wiring.pdf

I purchased a PAC AAI-FRD04 Auxiliary Input for about $67.49 (shipping included) from ELEKTEK on eBay.  It plugs directly into the CANBus port on the back of the Ford factory radio (single disc player, NO 6 disc installed) and provides a set of RCA input jacks that can be adapted to about anything.  In this case, I adapted them to a 3.5mm (1/8”) stereo jack that was installed on the dash.

The part that took the longest was purchasing the 3.5mm chassis stereo jack (obtained at Fry’s) and adapting an RCA stereo cable to the jack.  I had several RCA stereo cables, so I simply cut the connectors off one end and soldered the ground, right and left channels to the chassis mount 3.5mm stereo jack.  Here’s what it looks like when installed.  You can see I meticulously soldered and applied heat shrink tubing to all the connections.  The wiring is pretty simple.  The tip of the 1/8” jack is the right channel, the next ring is the left channel, and the sleeve is the common ground for both channels.  See this article on TRS connectors for more details.

To access the radio, you need to remove the trim from around the radio.  To easily accomplish this, remove the junk holder by pushing down on the top to release the clips.  After removing the junk holder, you can reach up inside the exposed hole and push on the trim bezel from behind to begin removing it.  I would suggest using a plastic prying tool to release the other clips.

You can see the top right clip in this photo.  Pry near the clips, not in the middle of the bezel.

Once you have the bezel removed, you should probably disconnect the connector on the back of the lighter socket, as it’s the shortest of the cables and restricts movement of the bezel.  I turned the ignition on and pressed the brake in order to move the shifter out of the way so there was room to move the bezel.

Lighter socket connector.

The radio is held in with four 8 mm screws.  Easy to remove.  Pulls straight out.  No special tools required.

The connector on the back of the radio is also easy to remove.  I disconnected the connector and antenna from the back of the radio so it would come completely out.  On the back of the radio is the Rear Seat Entertainment (RSE) port, AKA CANBus connector.  The AUX device simply plugs into this connector.  It also has another CANBus connector that I assume will accept a CD player, but I’m not sure how it resolves which device to use when you press the AUX button (perhaps it cycles through them).  Perhaps that’s not supported…I don’t know.  It’s down there and available, if it is ever necessary.

Power is always a fun thing to find and connect.  All you need is a little IG-ON power and a ground.  I got it from the radio connector.  I’ve see others get it from the lighter socket.  The black/green wire is ground and the yellow/green wire is ignition-on power.  I used wire taps that worked perfectly.

Of course, drilling the 1/4” hole in the bezel and mounting the stereo jack may freak some people out, but I was very careful to insure clearance on the back of the mounting location.  I used a brad-point drill bit and drilled through the plastic using a fairly high speed to create a clean hole.  I de-burred the hole on the back and mounted my cable/jack assembly and connected it to the FRD04. 

Putting everything back was a snap…literally!  I just stuffed the FRD04 behind the radio, as it is very lightweight and was snugly held in place by the existing wiring.  It ain’t going nowhere.  The cable routed nicely on the right side of the radio towards the bottom.

The final installation.

All fired up and connected.  Pressing the AUX button selects the device.  Works like a hose, and my daughter is ecstatic!

Keywords:

Ford Focus auxiliary input installation.

Pacific Accessory Corporation AAI-FRD04 installation instructions

If you have any comments about Zune, I’d like to know what you think.  I personally think it sucks, the user interface is horrible, and it flickers around all the time trying to show me @#$% that I care nothing about…but maybe that’s because I’m old and cranky.

Well, I created my first custom ringtone tonight.  Here are the steps.

• Create an audio file that is < 30 seconds and < 1Mb in size
• Convert the audio file to WMA format.  I used this free converter.  One thing to be aware of if you install this is that it will try and install a toolbar and default search engine (lame marketing). 
• Edit the properties of the audio file in Zune and make the Genre “Ringtone.”  This is key to making it an available ringtone.

• Sync the file to your device.  You should be able to do this by dragging and dropping the song file to your device.

• There should now be a Custom section in your ringtones and your new file should now show up as a selectable ringtone.

Rock on with some Donna Fargo!

I went to the local Auto Zone and “borrowed” one of their code readers and found P3125 – Bad Inverter.  A quick search on the internet and I found the price for a dealer replacement was about $4500.  Ouch!

After further reading I also found that it may not be as simple as replacing the inverter, as P3125 can also mean other things.  So I decided I’d take it up to the Toyota dealer and let them diagnose the problem to see if our diagnoses agreed.  I got my brother-in-law to hook me up behind his Toyota Tundra with my tow strap and haul me the 8 miles to the dealership in Richardson.  $54 later, the dealership confirmed my diagnoses and quoted me about $4400 to replace it.  I asked if they would consider using my salvage part I purchased for $350 and they said, “No, too much liability.”  OK, I thought, I guess I’m on my own…

So we hauled it back and I finally got a round-tuit yesterday.  Since I couldn’t find a good procedure that anyone had documented online, I decided I’d document it and take a few pics along the way.  Here’s my result.

Disclaimer:  I R an electrical engineer, so I am comfortable working around electricity.  If you aren’t, perhaps you should befriend someone who is.  Engineers need friends, too!  Also, anywhere there were big orange HV cables I always checked the voltage between all connections with my meter before touching anything with a wrench.

Before you start working on this car where you’ll be dealing with the high voltage (HV), you need to disable all the power and let it sit a few minutes to insure all the HV capacitors have had time to bleed down.  I’ve heard many time tables on this, such as “let it sit an hour,” but the Toyota dismantling manual states five minutes, so I figured by the time I got to working on that part plenty of time would have passed. 

First, disconnect the 12v “auxiliary” battery (located in the trunk) and pull the safety plug on the high voltage.  I disconnected the ground (-) battery cable.  Here are a few pics in the trunk showing the location of each.

Pull the lever down to unlock the safety plug.

Me pulling out the HV safety plug.  Hmmm, perhaps I should’ve worn insulating gloves (and a bunny suit).

Now drain the inverter coolant.  It’s kinda’ scary because you might think you are going to drain the transmission fluid.  Oh, wait!  You will if you remove the wrong plug!  Don’t do that!  There are others that have much better photos of this.  Check out YouTube.

Now you can remove the hoses to the inverter cooling system.

As I started this process, I did things in the wrong order (of course) and found there were a couple of bolts I couldn’t get to.  I sent a text to the nice folks at Luscious Garage asking how I get to the bolts and they texted back (amazingly!) to remove the windshield wiper cowl.  Duh!  Should’ve done that at the very beginning.  My loss is your gain!

Remove the seal.

The windshield wipers are held on with nuts that should be pretty easy to remove.  After the nuts are off, remove tension on the windshield wipers by pulling them away from the glass and see if you can’t easily remove them from the shafts. 

The cover is essentially held on with two phillips screws (one on either side) and the fasteners that snap in the rubber seal.

You do have to remove both sides of the cowl cover. 

Once you get all this windshield wiper stuff out of the way, you can remove the cowl pan it sits in.  I didn’t get a picture of this for some unknown reason, but it’s pretty easy.  It just takes 5 or 6 bolts and you lift it out.  Be careful not to cut yourself (I did) on the sharp edges.

Once you get the connectors out of the way you can get to the two gray connectors on the back and have easier access to the HV cable connectors (which can be somewhat difficult to wiggle loose, but be patient).

1. Start Visio as administrator by Shift-right clicking the Visio shortcut and select "Run as administrator."
2. Select File | Options.
3. Select Add-Ins from the links on the left of the Options dialog.
4. Click the Go… button next to the Manage COM Add-ins drop-down list at the bottom of the Options dialog.
5. Select the Send to Bluetooth add-in and click Remove.

Now maybe your Visio won’t keep crashing!

Under the File menu (backstage), select Options.  Click on Add-Ins.  Click on Manage Visio Add-ins and click the Go button.

Uncheck Send to Bluetooth and click OK.

It should show up in the Inactive Application Add-ins.  Check it out and see if you still get the error.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=4b96896bb7f22920&hl=en

Let me summarize.

Remove any references to google.com from your trusted sites.

I created a custom calendar to represent a reduced work schedule, but I originally created it with a typo and wanted to remove it.  Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to delete or rename the offending calendar using any of the options in the Project Properties ribbon.  Seems like it would make sense to be in there somewhere.  I also tried to find it in the File | Options dialog on the “backstage.” 

I finally found it within the Organizer within View menu (that makes lots of sense).  If you navigate to one of the view selectors you can find the Organizer.  The organizer has all the management options for the objects stored in the global and project templates.  Once you find this, it’s easy to delete or rename your calendar.

Okay, now I feel better.