I finally took delivery on my new intake system today for the Dodge. I’m eagerly anticipating doing something to my car which doesn’t involve fixing anything. It’s supposed to put about 9 more hp to the ground, I’ve heard that it could be up to 13 from other R/T owners, so we’ll see. Still, anywhere I went to buy one wanted $350. I picked it up from www.cardomain.com for $227 total. Took a bit of time to get, but the wait was worth saving $125.
The A/C didn’t seem to be blowing as cold as it should have, so I picked up a can of refrigerant which came with a pressure gauge, and the A/C showed its pressure to be at the halfway point (25psi) under load, and at the base of where it should be when the compressor was off. I added enough so that at peak it was at 45psi (max of the range) and at 25psi while not under load. Car cools down like the frikkin arctic now. I may end up needing components at some point as it is a closed system and unless there’s a leak somewhere, it shouldn’t lose charge…but if $20 will get me through the rest of the summer and then some, I’ll worry about it later. Besides, the refrigerant has some sort of stop-leak in it.
On Tuesday evening while returning home from Ozzfest, my passenger side front window stopped working again. It had done it in the past, and eventually sorted itself out after a brief failure. This time it had no intention of working, and I was pricing out all the various parts that may have needed replacement (ie window regulator, regulator motor, etc…). Before I started that shotgun approach however, I shuffled on over to Radio Shack and picked up a multi-tester. Nifty little device automatically detects the range I’m looking at and spits out the voltage in a digital display. So I first check and make sure that with the switches hooked up, the motor is getting voltage both up and down. Sure enough it does. My trusty Haynes manual then tells me if both switches have no effect, to detach the window from the regulator and make sure it doesn’t bind up. I hook the motor back up, hit the switch, and the damned window goes down. The window is working fine. So I take the switch off, and test for continuity, sure enough the switch was defective. $14 later I had a working power window again.
Next fix was the dashboard lamps. I already lost the fuel gauge lamp, after replacing it (which involves taking apart the whole frikkin dashboard) the temp gauge lamp went out. I finally bought a box of 8 type-168 bulbs and replaced all of them. Yay!
