NewSaint

Years ago now, I started a small Telegram micro-blog called Overall Enthusiasm. I basically used it as a place to share memes, random thoughts, and pictures of the projects I was working on at the time. I abandoned it a while back and spun up this website for longer content and for my Element Spotting series that I enjoy so much.

Telegram is an instant messaging application with a good amount of social media features. If you’re familiar or want to check it out, my page is located here: t.me/newsaint.

I plan to post there more-regularly than I do here, but the content won’t be nearly as collected. Thanks for reading and Element Spotting (6) is coming soon!

— HBM

In the last few weeks, most of my attention has been put into my 1st car—my daily driver since 2017—a 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser (Non-Turbo, Touring Edition). This car has been fairly reliable, if not a little quirky (to say the least). It leaks power steering fluid, it eats tires, I’ve rebuilt the frontend suspension, and the current KBB on it is $256. In just under eight years, I ran over a crate, hit a guardrail, and my roommate accidentally backed over my bumper and ripped it off (he had a late 90’s Toyota Land Cruiser at the time). The brakes are new, the muffler is rusting off, the car is painted a few different colors, and it gets about 23 MPG.

Since my recent interests have leaned toward backyard auto-mechanics and my bills have been low, I’ve spent much of my time and money on tools and parts for both of my cars. With the Element mostly fine, my focus has been on the Cruiser as it is getting up there in years and has not been maintained nearly as well as it should have been.

The Camshaft knows where it is because the Crankshaft knows where it isn’t

Back in May, I replaced the camshaft position sensor as my engine started shuddering and misfiring before throwing a relevant code. I grabbed a new sensor, slapped it on, and went about my day. Last week, my car shuddered and misfired again. I pulled over, scanned the ODB, and got the verdict: Bad crankshaft position sensor. Generally, shops replace both at the same time if one goes out, they’re cheap hall-effect sensors and fairly easy to replace, I’m just lazy and put it off until it was an issue.

This turned out to be quite the project and replacing this simple sensor took around four hours for two reasons: There was a support bracket in the way and the sensor itself seems to have deteriorated. I got the Cruiser up on ramps, got the three 15mm bolts out of the bracket, then the 1st 18mm bolt came out without much fuss, but that 2nd one took a very long time. The bolt is long, tucked away at the top of the bracket, and sandwiched between the radiator, radiator hose, and engine block. After trying half-a-dozen tool combinations ranging from simple extensions, to universal joints, to power tools (not enough room), I landed on a combination of a breaker bar, 10” extension, and 1/2” universal joint socket.

Many, many turns later, the bolt was free and the bracket came loose. Problem #1 solved. Next came the sensor itself.

I removed the connector, loosened the tiny bolt holding the sensor on, and gave it a tug. The sensor came free, but didn’t look right. Turns out it partially broke-off inside of the engine and needed to be extracted. This left me with few options as space was scarce and as it was a smooth, plastic tube stuffed into a purpose-made hole; it didn’t want to budge. I eventually stuffed a flathead screwdriver in there and walked it out. I felt around the hole and confirmed that there weren’t any other pieces in there nor were there any scoring marks in the chamber.

I popped in a new sensor, bolted it in, and put back the three 15mm bolts, the 1st 18mm bolt, and struggled all over again—but in reverse this time—to put the 2md 18mm bolt back.

I cleared the codes, fired up the engine, and I haven’t had any issues since.

Drum Roll (Please)

While brakes are (arguably) the most important aspect of car functionality, it seems a lot of people ignore them until a problem has developed. These big problems tend to be the result of ignoring or not noticing small issues and the monetary cost of them tends to snowball with time. I did a brake pad and rotor swap for the Cruiser a few months ago without issue. I even wire brushed the calipers to clean them up a bit, but I didn’t replace them as they aren’t leaking and I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to dump too much money into it.

I knew it would be a good idea to at least check the shoes on by rear brakes. I still have no idea why any car chooses to have both disc and drum brakes on a single car, but that’s not important now. I bought new shoes, drums, and a hardware kit for the springs and whatnot. When Saturday came around and all the parts were in, I got to work. I then was swiftly roadblocked as when I took my wheel off, I discovered that the drums were seized in place and I wasn’t getting them off by hand. I tried hammering, penetrating oil. more hammering, adjusting the brake shoes, more hammering, and even hammering from behind with a screwdriver. When these all failed, I broke down and spent $40 on a 12” gear puller on Amazon. It was on my porch Sunday morning, I positioned it on my drum, hit it with the impact, and it popped free.

A wave of relief washed over me, but my work was just getting started. I took lots of pictures of the spring assembly and noticed how paper thin my brake shoe material was. Glad I changed them when I did!

I removed the assembly, cleaned up the dust shield, greased up some wear spots, checked the cylinders, and put the new shoes in place. I confirmed that the new drums fit on the shoes and that all the functions work as expected. I took the new drums off, spray painted them bright red, put them back in place, tested the brake friction, torqued the wheels on top, and went for a test drive. Braking was not great, definitely needs adjustment. I found some time a few days later and got them to brake a little more evenly, albeit probably looser than they should be. I can stop fine in the rain, so I should be good.

Clean, Mean, and Toast Machine

I felt kind of listless last weekend and thought it was about time to wash and polish the orange beast. I scrubbed it top-to-bottom, ran some plastic trim restorer over the grey bits, popped all the wheels off to hit them with some wheel cleaner, and covered the paint with some once-a-year car polish. She’s nice and shiny now (until it rains and gets muddy again) and the plastic restorer should help keep the grey trim from turning white.

Update: I’m not sure if it was the polish or the trim restorer, but it has started turning white again just a week or so after the initial application. I plan to try this Solution Finish product soon, perhaps changing my grey trim to a black. Going from the stock color scheme to a more Halloween-type theme.

Moll-E: New Name for my E?

HRG Offroad makes a set of metal molle panels that affix to the rear door and quarter panel windows. These add a neat style to your E as well as a sorta-functional matrix that you can mount military-themed stuff onto. I currently have some little 4” square velcro patch panels on them that I plan to put some of my morale patches on (eventually). They are fairly destructive to install, requiring that one drill holes into the plastic trim and the inner metal of their car. I did this for my rear doors, but I may eventually get the rear quarter panel set as well (driver’s side and passenger’s side). It’s around $500 for all four panels which is steep, but if you’re interested, add them to your ebay watchlist and you may get lucky if the seller offers a slight discount offer (like what happened to me, I think I got mine for $9 off).

Not a lot going on repair-wise on the E. I have some ideas in the mix to finish painting my PT Cruiser; it is currently black and gold (tan), but I plan to maybe paint something on it. Graffiti? Camo? Not sure yet, I’ll make another post when I have some more pics to share. Until then, enjoy some new Element pics!

Recent E Pics:

Note 1: I want to see your Element photos! Please send them to: morgan (at) newsaint (dot) org. I’ll blur out license plates, faces, etc. to keep people’s privacy intact.

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2024-10-01 - original article written
2024-10-09 - revised and updated

Since my last post regarding Elements, I have gotten new tires, replaced the instrument cluster lights, and started building backrests for myself and (hopefully) other E owners to enjoy. I also found a few goodies at the junkyard for my E that I’ll show off later in the post.

01: Tires
The Walmart folks have always treated me very well and they certainly took care of me here. The back two tires (as I suspected) were up for replacement while the front two still had good tread, but one of them had been patched previously. I elected to keep the remaining good tire in the hopes of getting another wheel and making a full-sized spare. Speaking of, the temporary spare tire is present, but it is original—that is, 21 years old—and I plan to replace it at some point.

02: Wheel Alignment
New tires with an unknown alignment can equal bad tires quickly so I wanted to schedule an alignment ASAP. I called around and most places wanted $150 or more! I called a local shop a little farther from my job, but closer to my house and they quoted me $90. I dropped my car off soon after, they took care of it quickly, and I picked up my car later that day.

Now that I have new tires and a fresh alignment, I can relax a bit more with driving the Element more frequently. I’ve been driving it to work two days a week and I’m getting much more used to the handling quirks of it compared to my other car.

With the big ticket issues are out of the way, I could focus on the smaller items that need attention; differential fluid, transmission fluid / filter, and replacing some of the worn rubber components.

03: Rear Differential Fluid
I took care of the differential fluid last Saturday. I jacked up the E, popped both 3/4 drain and fill bolts loose, drained the dark-cherry colored fluid, cleaned and inspected the bolts / washers, torqued the drain bolt, pumped in 1.1 quarts of Honda Genuine Dual Pump II fluid, torqued the fill bolt, cleaned up, and called it an afternoon. It was a cramped job, I got bit by bugs, and I got diff fluid in those bites, but it wasn’t hard and I’m glad I got around to it.

04: Junkyard Goodies
On Sunday, I found myself at the junkyard again and to my delight, I ran into an Orange 2003 Element EX (sounds familiar) that was parked in the intake area of the u-pick lot. A new addition. Weirdly enough, I recognized the car. I saw it online a few days prior on an auction site for busted-up cars. I recognized it by the dumb sticker on the back window.

I squeezed between it and the cars around it, opened the crushed-in door through the open window, and crawled inside. I didn’t see much of anything good at first, except the other seeat lock cover piece that I needed. Both seat lock covers in my car were deteriorating and had ripped rubber sections so I wanted to replace them. I found a complete set between two E’s at the junk yard and at $4 a piece, I couldn’t pass them up. A little bit of dirt removal later and they were installed and looking snappy. They don’t look new, but they certainly look better.

In that Orange E I also noticed an original Element-branded OEM floormat. I excitedly brushed the stagnant water and broken glass off of it, and removed it from the cab. I then noticed the other two pieced of the three-piece set in the back, crushed under the seats. I rescued all three pieces, threw them on my shoulder, and made my way to the checkout line. I’ve previously seen complete floormat sets—and even individual mats—sell for north of $200. I walked away with a B+ set for six dollars. Later, when I got home, I hosed them off, let them dry, and installed them without issue and they look gooooood.

After securing the rare mats, I returned to the yard and considered the Android head unit in that I found alongside those floor mats. It was about $190 (ATOTO S8 on Amazon) new and seemed to be in good shape, but it was a gamble to see if it worked and the previous owner’s wiring left a lot to be desired. I grabbed it anyway and they only charged me about $20 for it.

That evening, I plugged it up to my Element radio tester and it worked! I factory reset it, cleaned it up, and spent about thirty minutes rewiring the harness so it wouldn’t catch my car on fire. I removed my 2008 Element radio, put it in storage, and replaced it with the new Android unit. It went in easy, looks clean, and sounds great. I even figured out how to enable Developer Options on it so I can connect my laptop and debloat it.

If you have an ATOTO S8 or a similar Android head unit and would like to enable these options: Go to Settings and quickly tap Users and Accounts four times. This should unlock the Developer Options menu.

05: LED Instrument Lights
A few days back I decided to upgrade the little bulbs in my instrument cluster and HVAC controls with Amber LEDs to match the Orange exterior and to brighten those panels up a bit. Popping the covers off and removing the old bulbs was easy enough. The replacements are fairly easy to install, but do keep in mind that they have a polarity that isn’t really notated anywhere. Try it one way, if it doesn’t work, rotate 180 degrees and try again. A good indicator that you’re on the right track is to leave your driver’s side door open and to turn your dash lights on and off. If the car makes a loud noise, it means it detects lights. If it’s silent, it doesn’t detect your lights / cluster. Also, for the T5 LEDs, try to use the original socket connectors as the one’s from Amazon didn’t seem to work for me. Be careful pulling the bulbs out of the old sockets, you can easily shatter them and send glass all over your car. I recommend getting a thin but stiff metal implement and pushing the bulbs through the hole in the bottom of the socket or rock the bulb out with your fingers.

If you’d like to upgrade the LEDs in your Element, you’ll need three sizes; T3 Neo Wedge, T4.2 Neo Wedge, and T5 Wedge. They come in a few different colors and a whole set for all of the dash lights should cost under $50.

05: Moonroof Delete Kit
I don’t mind that my E has a moonroof, but I really don’t see myself using it unless I’m sleeping in it. For those hot summer days when it’s sitting in a parking lot, I want something to keep the interior a bit cooler and keep the sun’s rays off of my plastic and upholstery. I removed my moonroof, covered the hole in craft paper, traced the hole with a scalpel, taped this squircle to a piece of cardboard and windshield reflector material, cut it to shape, taped the edges (most of them, I ran out of silver duct tape), and stuffed it in the hole (after putting the glass back in). It’s not pretty, but it works well. Below is the result:

06: Tailgate Backrests
I recently purchased a new 3D printer as my old one was annoying to keep level and had a host of issues (I sold it to a coworker for a couple of bucks and he likes it). While searching for some things to print, I found this Honda Element Tailgate Backrest by Kirk Makes Things. He shows how it’s easy to cut some 3/4 metal conduit to 41-7/16” (1053mm), print these connector and spacer pieces, and add some gym foam rollers for padding and you’ll have yourself a nice little backrest. Now you’ll have a comfier sear for those times when you want to watch the sunset from your E’s tailgate. He sells these end pieces on Etsy and you can get the rest of the parts easily.

My coworker suggested to use a pool noodle instead of the expensive foam rollers that Kirk mentions. I did some research and found that pool noodles come in a few sizes, one of the common ones having an inner diameter of 3/4 inches, perfect! I got some metal conduit, some pool noodles, and I 3D printed a few sets of the end pieces. The end result has a similar comfort level to the rollers, can be a few different colors, and makes the unit cost about half compared to the foam roller variant.

I’ve considered selling some of these premade backrests for a reasonable price on eBay or Etsy or something, but haven’t looked into shipping costs yet. Currently, I have half-a-dozen or so in the back of my E until I decide how I want to sell them.

The washer fluid, coolant, brake fluid, and transmission fluid are the only ones I haven’t taken a look at yet. Transmission fluid and filter will probably be first, then I’ll check out the others. I’m also attempting to recondition the old headlight lenses that I have replaced already. I’ll make sure to write it all down in the next entry, but until then I have quite a few new Element photos that I’ve taken, been sent by readers, and that I’ve found on the internet, please enjoy:

Note 1: If you happen to spot an Element in the wild and you’d like it to be featured in a future post (or if you want an expenside , please send it to me: morgan (at) newsaint (dot) org. I’ll blur out license plates, faces, etc. to keep people’s privacy intact. I’m terrible about checking my email, but I’ll get around to it eventually.

Note 2: The last two photos were borrowed from this article: How to Convert Your SUV into a Camper in 8 Simple Steps (Copyright © 2017 Fun Life Crisis)

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2024-08-08 - original article written
2024-10-25 - removed outdated info

Author’s Note: This is a short rant written in 2022 in response to an argument I had about the best method for keeping records of time. I have lightly adapted it for this format and made minor changes where appropriate.

For those in the US, you’re probably used to the MDY (Month, Day, Year) date format, along with using a 12-hour clock. This system is bad and is rife with confusion. Most other systems are even worse (I’m lookin’ at you DMY).

If we’re gonna make it to the glorious techno-future then we’re gonna need to get on the same track about dates and times… but if we’re destined for nuclear hellfire / apocalypse, then I guess this rant won’t matter.

Anyway, the only useful and correct date / time format is Year > Month > Day > Hour > Minute > Second. Big to small. Old to new.

In a computer system—or even a paper-based system—this format will sort files in perfect chronological order. Let’s take a look at an example.

You have three files that need to be sorted and three methods to do so:

1st file is from Dec. 31, 1999
2nd file is from Mar. 4, 2013
3rd file is from Aug. 11, 2019

Method 01: Day First (DMY)

This system has the files in order by the day of their respective month. The day in which something occur is almost always less important than the chronology of its occurrence in relation to other events. This system is bad.

04-03-2013.txt
11-08-2019.txt
31-12-1999.txt

Method 02: Month First (MDY)

This system has the same issue as the previous method. The month in which something occurs is helpful, but the October of one year is very different than the October twenty years hence. This system is bad.

03-04-2013.txt
08-11-2019.txt
12-31-1999.txt

Method 03: Year First (YMD)

This system solves the chronology issues of the above two methods. Dates are grouped with those that are closest together in time and go from the past, to the present, to the future.

1999-12-31.txt
2013-03-04.txt
2019-08-11.txt

2024 Update: I was well aware of the International Organization for Standardization by this point, but didn’t bother to look into their suggestions for time keeping. Turns out ISO 8601 covers the above completely and should be adopted worldwide immediately. If you’re curious, another resource you can reference is Wikipedia’s list of date formats by country.

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2022-07-14 - original article written
2024-07-25 - adapted and revised

The last few days have been full of excitement and frustration. My new car is nice, but has some minor underlying issues that I wanted to take care of before I put too many miles on it.

01: Air Filters
There are two slab-style filters in the cabin and a cylindrical one in the engine bay. The engine filter was swapped without much trouble; just four screws and moving some hoses is all it took. The cabin filters were much more involved; first you have to drop the glovebox, then you have to remove a little plastic door, then you pull out both filters. This last part was the most troublesome as the filters seemed anchored in place. I gave them the ‘ol heave-ho and they popped right out… alongside some rodent crap and goddamn CHICKEN BONES. A lot of them!

I tossed the larger pieces, vacuumed out the spilled mess in my passenger seat area (as well as what I could get to under where the filters go), popped the new filters in, and reassembled. I then promptly started the AC, sprayed one of those Ozium car bomber things, and let it cook for a while. This helped the smell a great deal, but it kind of came back a few days later, much better than before though. I’ll clean the engine bay and air intake more soon.

02: The driver’s seat
Mine—like almost all Elements—has a front-to-back tear on the driver’s seat, on the side closest to the door. I purchased a leather repair kit on Amazon for about $6 and cut it to fit the seat, applied it with a hairdryer, and it seems to be holding up well enough. I have another sheet if I need to make a replacement patch in a few months.

03: Speakers
The OEM speakers in a lot of the Elements I’ve seen have been blown or are just disintegrating. I suppose those materials just weren’t designed to last 20+ years. I replaced the four door speakers with Harman Infinity Reference 6532ex’s, about $140 total as I got them refurbished with a $10 speaker adapter cable set. The sound is much better and they seem to pair well with the existing subwoofer and tweeters.

04: Spark Plugs
The existing plugs were probably original and while they showed some discoloration, the ceramic wasn’t cracking and the electrodes weren’t too badly corroded, so I suppose they held up well. I replaced them with a set of NGK Laser Iridium 6994 plugs, cleaned and greased the existing coils, torqued it all to spec, and the engine fired up without issue.

05: Oil Change
When buying a used car, fluids are tricky as it can be difficult to know when if they were changed and if they were done properly (they weren’t). I already had a new jug of 5W-20 High Mileage oil that I planned to put into my current car, but I have a few miles left until that time comes, so I elected to use it for the Element. That was the easy part, it turns out, the last guy to put an oil filter on the engine was invigorated by Hercules himself and it was completely stuck in place. This was quite the issue for me and turned a thirty minute oil change into a four-hour long living nightmare with multiple trips to the hardware store and to a garage on a nearby property.

Turns out, a major design oversight with the Element is the placement of the oil filter. It is situated in a hard to reach space and even with small hands, I wasn’t able to comfortably reach it, much less get any sort of grip onto its slick surface. I tried three different oil wrenches; an adjustable clampy kind, an adjustable rubber grippy kind, and a 64mm oil filter wrench specifically designed for OEM filters. None of these provided any amount of traction and I was unable to loosen it at all with them. I resorted to finding a hose clamp, wrenching it onto the cheapo filter with similar vigor, and tapping it with a screwdriver / hammer combo until it finally gave way and unscrewed. I replaced it with an OEM filter marked with the date and mileage, filled the oil up, drove it for a minute or so, topped it up to get it to full, and called it an afternoon.

06: Headlight Housing
But the afternoon wasn’t called quite yet as my new headlight housings came in and I already had the car up on Rhino Ramps so I may as well take the opportunity to yank off the bumper cover, vacuum out some more chicken bones, and pop in the new headlight lenses. The old ones were kind of yellow and while they were in usable shape, I like a crystal clear headlight and the replacements I ordered were a black-accented set for about $120. The install was quick and easy, I even replaced some of the cracked / missing clips from the bumper cover.

07. Radio
One of my excursions to the local car scrapyard netted me a car radio from a 2008 Element. It was a tad rusty and needed some TLC, but I took a gamble and spent about $40 on it. I took it home, completely disassembled it, cleaned the hell out of it, snapped it back together, and… that was it for a few weeks. I bought the radio before I had an Element to test it in so all I could do was guess as to whether it was working or not. Another issue I didn’t anticipate was the anti-theft system Honda put on their radios. You need a 5-digit code to “unlock” the radio whenever power is removed from it. I took a photo of the car as well as the VIN when I took the radio from the parts yard and I’m glad I did as it was just what I needed to get the code from Honda. I also grabbed the surrounding snap-on plastic trim as I wasn’t sure if I would need it, turns out I did need it as the 2003 radio’s shroud didn’t fit on the 2008 radio.

To test the radio, I actually assembled this weird little box that consists of a Honda radio harness connected to a computer power supply with the radio on top and held together with metal strips and zip ties. While janky looking, this machine allows me to power on and test Element radios safely. I plan to connect a pair of car speakers to it in the future and create a de facto shop radio with a CD player. This contraption help the ‘08 radio for a few weeks, but I eventually swapped it into my Element and put its ‘03 radio into the shop radio box. The speakers come in a few days, I’ll give you an update when it’s all done.

08: Hatch Struts
On a lot of Elements, the rear hatch supports seem to fail after a number of years. Mine still held the hatch up, but had trouble raising it without manual assistance. Per a forum comment, I opted to replace mine with a pair of VW Beetle struts from Amazon. $20 and 3 minutes of install later and my hatch opens up quickly and a few inches taller than it used to. The struts I got were these ECCPP 4325 Rear Hatchback Lift Supports

09: LED Lights
As far as I know, there are only nineteen light bulbs on an Element, not including the dash and HVAC system; Two high / low beam headlights, four turn signals, three brake lights, two reverse lights, two side markers, two license plate lights, two map lights, and two dome lights. I have replaced all of these with LEDs of appropriate colors and they are brilliantly bright now. The only lights that are still incandescent are the headlights, I have an LED set coming in a day or so, but I don’t usually like them and I’m not sure if I’ll keep them yet. While replacing the lights, I cleaned up the various mounts, housings, and lenses to make them look a little less dirty.

10: Battery
The standard battery in an E is a Group 51R battery and in my case, it was listed as having 500 CCA. This battery is widely regarded as undersized, so I elected to replace it with a larger, group 24F battery. The cheap Walmart one I grabbed ($70 + $12 core charge) states to have 600 CCA. To accomplish this install, I bent the existing battery tray tie down tabs flat, bolted on a universal battery tray ($10) on top, and dropped in the new battery. A $10 tie down kit solidified the upgrade and made it a clean install. I cut the J bolts for the new tie downs about 20mm shorter and used some threadlocker on the battery tray bolt to help with vibration. I was even able to reuse the little zip-tied cable loom clip that connects to the J bolt to keep those cables from rubbing on the bare metal.

11: Tires
While the back two tires on my E are Michelin, the date code puts their manufacture date in Q4 of 2013, far too old for safe use, not to mention the dry rot creeping around the tread. The front tires aren’t much better. While they are only two years old, they’re a no-name brand and should be part of a matching set. I opted to get a new set of Crosswind All Season Light Truck tires from Walmart. I’ve never cared much for fancy tires and I’m pretty cheap, so I think these’ll be fine for a while. My first stop after the tires is to get an alignment though as it’s such an important step that a lot of people seem to gloss over after getting new tires is to get their car properly aligned.

Note: I completely forgot to finish this article before posting it. I rounded off the last paragraph so it should be good now. Part 4 is coming later today (probably). Bur for now, please enjoy the Elements that I’ve spotted recently:

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2024-07-23 - original article written
2024-08-08 - article finished