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Date:         Mon, 21 Feb 2000 21:01:17 -0500
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@IBM.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@IBM.NET>
Subject:      Toyota Woes
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Our Toyota Corolla wagon just broke down with only 122k on the clock. Oil light at hot idle, oh dear. This required me to stop my continual working on Dutiful Passage (required VG content <g>) to attend to the failure. It was a bad sender -- as usual the diaphragm was leaking oil into the upper part of the sender. Cost $3 at the FLAPS. The engine itself had close to 20 psi at hot idle.

The reason I'm mentioning this other than to lampoon (lambaste?) our beloved beasts, is that when I cut the top off the old sender to verify the cause of the problem (yep, oil in the upper chamber), I noticed that the terminal on top of this OE sender screwed off, and underneath it was a screwdriver adjustment to set the trigger pressure over a fairly wide range. You can bet that the replacement didn't have this little refinement. But I'm surely wondering why Nippon-Denso or whoever bothered -- do they make one sender and adjust it at the factory for whatever pressure the customer desires? They could do it with a robot easily enough, no need to involve a person. It would save stocking different strength springs. But...butbutbut...why? A robot would cost more than a whole lot of springs, and doing it by hand would be ferociously expensive. I'm sure their spring-making industry keeps close enough tolerances for this job. Just machining the hex and screw threads on the terminal didn't come free.

Anyone have a notion? I don't belong to the Corolla list <g>.

d David Beierl - Providence, RI http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage" '85 GL "Poor Relation"


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