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Now, here is the Under the Hood Show podcast.

This is Under the Hood.

Welcome to the Under the Hood Show.

We are glad to have you with us.

Russ Evans is here to answer your automotive questions.

Thanks for joining us Under the Hood today.

Shannon Nordstrom is not here to answer your questions.

I'm Chris Carter.

I am here to answer your calls.

After Doug does, I don't want to leave a step out.

I, Doug answers them, lets me know what's happening.

Then I just flip the switch and then now,

it's all on you today to answer the questions.

So get on that.

866-594-4150.

Got a couple calls coming in.

Anything breaking news that we need to get to?

No, not really.

I was looking at recalls before I came in

and there's just a million.

It's just, it's endless now.

Is it because-

There's a lot of cars.

I'm going to look for them.

Is it always been?

Yeah, there's been a lot, but there's so many cars

and so many models now.

They've changed.

I would imagine that there's recalls

that aren't necessarily crucial,

that I can see if I search for them.

So it seems like there's a lot.

I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Just the availability of the information.

Recalls, on recalls, on the same recall again.

And then there's-

Been there and done that.

There's a lot of those weird recalls where we'll see.

We've seen recalls for fuel pumps on some Chrysler products

because they could be a safety issue

and leave you stranded, right?

Mm-hmm.

We don't want your fuel pump just failing

and you're not being able to start your car or breaking down.

And that just goes to show that a lot of those are,

some of them are politically driven to get them out there.

And for whatever reason, some judge rules in favor

and says, oh, that's a safety thing

because you have other vehicles with known failures

and they just say, oh, sorry, you're 40,000 miles.

Well, take the GM 6.2 in the beginning

when those things had 60,000 miles on them

and they failed and they were only two years old.

They said, oh, tough luck.

And those could literally blow up going down the road

and leave you stranded or stuck in traffic where it was dangerous.

But a caravan with 300,000 miles and a bad fuel pump,

they were covering those.

I think they're still doing it on some of them.

It's a weird deal.

So yeah, there's a lot of recalls out there

and more coming, I'm sure.

866-594-4150.

Let's talk to Harold.

You're on the end of the hood show.

Harold in Minnesota, what can we do for you?

I've got a 20, 10, four to escape with a three liter engine.

And I'm having great problems.

I don't have a light showing,

but the pedals suddenly got strange.

When you step on it, where it normally is breaking,

you can feel it start to break.

And then it goes down about two inches more

before the brakes come on.

I've had it in two shops.

The one shop replaced the master cylinder twice

and adjusted the rear brakes because it's got the drum brakes.

No change.

Now the shop looked at it and said,

I'm not sure I'm going to have to think about it,

but I would like to get back to you.

But it seems like nobody knows what's going on.

Yeah, that's a pretty common one on some of the Ford products,

the Fusion, the Escape.

They've had some issues with brakes that they've had problems

with brake boosters, which can lead to a weird pedal feel,

but they've also had some pressure related issues

in the way of either a master cylinder failure

and ABS module failure

or a brake caliper or hose failure.

All those things have to work together

and you just have to start at one end with a pressure gauge

and work your way down.

For example, if you've got a brake caliper that is stuck

and it is not allowing it to.

When you step on the brake fluid goes towards the caliper,

the caliper doesn't grab the wheel like it's supposed to.

So then you let the pedal up and when you hit it again

as a second time, the fluid displacement is different.

But it needs to like a hydraulic jack.

It needs to display so much fluid for the master cylinder

and have it all reach those calipers.

And then when you let off, it pulls it back.

And if that doesn't have a constant movement,

it will get all wonky.

So they need to start at the beginning.

Put what's that?

I say when they were checking and had down the hoist.

They had someone inside and we're spinning.

The wheels and as soon as it began to feel a little bit

on the brakes, it grabbed the front wheels, not the back.

The back didn't come on until it was where the normal feel is.

You can feel being hard.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

The front goes first and then the back and it's a two stage process.

But on the hoist is much different than on the road

because if you if you're stepping on it, you can start to feel those brakes apply.

But you can't turn them by hand.

When you're on the road, you've got a thousand times more force with that.

You know, you got a 4000 pound car and you're moving forward

at 30 miles an hour, so it may not do anything going down the road

other than feel a little bump.

What what is typically done to know for sure what is going on is to get a break

pressure gauge and that screws into the master cylinder.

Usually they'll get two of them, one for the front, rear,

and they'll check what the pressures are and say, OK, we've got 4000

pounds of pressure here and then they'll move down to the ABS pump.

They'll check that.

Do we have the same pressure there and then they'll go out to each wheel

and make sure we have the same pressure at each wheel.

And they may even have to put a block off stop on each wheel, each caliper

and on the on the rear to make sure you have a solid pedal.

And if they do and they've gone all the way down to the wheels,

it's one of those wheel cylinders or or the calipers.

So it's it's a long process.

A lot of shops don't have all the equipment to do that.

And a lot of shops just don't do that.

They they look at the normal, easy stuff, correct, perfect repair.

But there are some places such as California and so a few other states

that have there's a reason in our labor guide, we have what they call

a complete brake system replacement operation.

There's a time and it says pads and rotors this time, master cylinder

this time, complete brake system this time.

Well, why would they put it in there if it wasn't done in some places?

So some of them, instead of wasting a lot of time trying to find out what's

wrong with it, you get out in California, like some shops will say, we'll do a

brake job and a brake job is rotors, pads, brake shoes in the back,

wheel cylinders in the back, brake hoses in the back, brake hoses in the front,

calipers in the front and a master cylinder, the whole system.

Anything that is aware item or has fluid in it gets replaced and they bleed

the brakes and fix it.

And sometimes it's less expensive than you think it is.

But when you're doing it all together, it's easier than trying

to figure out if you make three trips back trying to fix the same thing

and they're spending hours on it.

It would have been easier just to nail in the first place, but your vehicle

and some of the other fords, the fusion and things in the edge, they've been known

for some weird stuff that comes up like this.

And we've seen them fixed with any of the things we mentioned, either a

caliper that's bad, a brake hose that's bad or a master cylinder or an ABS pump.

It's so for Harold, what is there a break?

Can you take it to a break shop?

Is there someplace he can?

There's not a lot of break only shops out there anymore.

The dealer should be able to take care of it because they're stuck with fixing

a lot of these.

They may want to replace the system, which is pretty, pretty common on these

when they start going bad.

A lot of shops just say, no, we'll replace the whole thing because we're not

going to get in once you say you've had this problem already.

They'll be like, we can fix it.

We'll replace the system.

Harold, good luck.

Thanks very much for the call.

In my experience of controlling brakes, if I use the front brake, I flip the

bike.

So why doesn't that happen in my car?

It's heavier in the back.

Okay.

I'm glad that there's just one pedal in my car because when I first started

riding motorcycles, I would wear out that back brake and lose control because I

was so afraid to hit that front brake.

I think every kid's flipped over on a bicycle at least once.

Oh, yeah.

What happens if I do this?

866594415 oh, that's the number to

reach us here at the end of the hood show.

Let's go to Nebraska and talk to Tom.

You're on the end of the hood show.

Tom, what can we do for you?

I've got an old floor Chrysler town and country.

Headlight problems started out intermittent and it just keeps getting worse

and worse and worse.

When my wife drives it most of the time at night, she has no headlights.

Hmm.

How are you operating them?

I mean, are you automatic?

Automatic.

I fiddle and rattle and around the relay fuse block under the hood.

Sometimes I get under the hood.

I went and looked at the, uh, the plate up there.

It says what all the relays for.

And to me, it looks like it's in a code.

It's just letters that has nothing to do with headlights or anything like that.

It is.

So, um, you've got, whether it's in the automatic position or just manually

turned on all the time, you sometimes you don't have them, right?

Can't do anything to get them to come on.

Uh, it mo, uh, almost all the time now in automatic, no headlights.

Occasionally I can get them to work in the manual position.

Okay.

And, uh, when they're not working, if you hold that turn signal switch back

towards you for the bright lights to flash to pass, do those come on?

I don't remember now.

Well, you can check and see if they, if they do, if, it tells you

you have power and ground out there, but that van has, uh, they have been

known for problems with the front control module, which is that relay center

there that you're messing with.

There's a module in there.

Okay.

And it's, um, right.

Totally integrated power module.

They call it.

It's been a big, a big issue.

Dorman products sells those parts in our partner over at Dorman.

We've replaced a number of those over the years because of this issue on, on Dodge

products and a shop can diagnose it and check it for you and tip them.

That's the one totally.

It took me that long to, took me that long to figure out that acronym.

And you can, you know, you can take it in, they can scan it, look for codes, but

if it's got loss of communication codes and they verify all the wiring to, to

it is correct, then more than likely that unit has just failed and it's, it

needs to be replaced as failed then it could, could be.

You'd need to have a shop check it and, and find out what's going on and put

one in if that's what it needs to be doing.

It's, it's, it's not just a relay or something like that then.

No, not, not with what you're describing, because it's a couple of

different power sources there for it to fail in those positions.

It's got to be something bigger.

We, Russ, you and I have, have, I know that I've been involved with two vehicles

that have had light loss.

One was the, the loner.

On the road.

What was Oscar's car did that for a while and that got fixed.

What was that one?

That was, uh, he had a bad headlight module in that.

To control the headlights.

Yeah, and it was in the, in the headlight unit, but it controlled both sides.

Right.

The driver's side controlled both sides because he had the auto leveling

headlights and it was also control of the headlights themselves.

So when they turn on, cause they were the, the HID lights.

So we had to replace that.

We replaced the whole headlight and that took care of the problem.

Yeah.

And the other one just didn't be driving down the road and all the lights

would go off the headlights, which was bad and it would heat up and when it

heated up enough, the resistance would tell that thing shut downs of the

circuit breaker and it would shut off and they would be off for a while.

And I had a few cars over a short period of a couple of years that had

headlights that would just shut off.

And that was a scary three in the morning going to work.

Tom, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck.

That's a scary, scary problem.

866 and important to fix 866594

415

Oh, let's go to Kansas and talk to Ken.

You're on the end of the hood.

Show Ken, what can we do for you?

Got a 62 Chevy that's been parked in the garage for the last 22 years.

Wanted to see what your thoughts, what steps should be taken to get that back on the road.

Pick up.

Yeah.

Car or truck?

Uh, car.

All right.

Well.

It may, it may take less than you think the first thing is, uh, we look them over safety

wise, make sure that rodents haven't eaten anything wiring, fuel lines.

We'll look at the rubber fuel lines and give them a bend, pretty good bend and see if

there's any big cracks or anything like that in them.

And, uh, if we don't see anything, if they all look good, I guess the question to

start, how many years, 10 or 22.

I miss that.

So we will, you know, do, do that.

Just a quick thing, just to see if the car's worth going any further with, we'll

kind of do a quick evaluation tires, things like that.

And of course we're going to see if the engine even turns over because if we can't

turn that engine by hand, um, there's, there's a problem.

The first step before even trying that, you know, you open the hood, the first step,

I would pull the spark plugs out of it all the way around and I would, I would

spray into the, into the cylinders, get yourself a spray.

If you've got a can of JB 80 from Justice Brothers or, uh, or something like that,

you know, spray in the cylinders to get them coated with some oil.

Cause a little, little too much isn't really going to hurt much, but just

sprayed in there, sprayed around with the straw, get it on the, on the sides of the

cylinder, and then I would let it sit really at 22 years.

I'd really let that thing sit a week because that's not going to hurt it.

And that'll allow that oil to penetrate and get down in those rings.

And then I would grab that front balancer by hand with some gloves on so you can

get a good grip on it and try to.

Yeah.

Cause if you're just trying it bare handed, you might not be able to turn it, but

that might not be, it's just not quite enough.

It's like opening a jar of pickles.

You know, you can't do it.

You put the gloves on all of a sudden you got it.

But yeah, just grab it, try to turn it back and forth each way, just a little

bit and see if it moves.

And if it, if it does go one way and then goes the other, turn it a little bit

further that one direction and then turn it back the other way a little bit.

But what you're trying to do is work the pistons up and down a little at a time.

So if there is any kind of rust in there, you know, if you have a bore scope,

you can look in there and you're, then it's all over, you know, it's either

good or bad, but if, if you're just doing it at home without that, just try to,

try to turn that thing over.

And once you get it moving good and you can turn it over by hand several

times, that's a, at the point where I would put new spark plugs in it.

I would make sure the 10, I had 22 years.

I'm going to take the fuel tank off, take the fuel tank down to a radiator shop

where they can clean it out thoroughly.

You're going to have to dispose of the gas in it first.

They might be able to do that.

You just call them and find out if they can.

But a good radiator shop will be able to, and they're hard to find now.

There's not many of them around except for the big diesel ones and clean that

tank out very well, put it back on, then crank the car over with a battery.

It's, it's going to crank long enough because you don't have any fuel up at

the carburetor yet.

It's all back in that tank.

It's going to take a while for it to get up there and you'll probably crank it

for about 30 seconds and then stop and let that starter cool for 10 minutes or

so crank it again.

Now this is going to do a couple of things.

It's going to get the engine to build oil pressure while you're doing that before

it starts and it's also going to get the fuel up that line.

And by the time it gets all the way up there to that carburetor, then you'll,

you'll know if it's going to start or not.

If it's still, does this still have points and condenser in it, the old style?

Yes.

Yeah.

Then, you know, those are old unless they look like brand new.

If you take the cap off and look and the points look like brand new, just leave them.

No sense in replacing them.

But if they're corroded and they've got some, you know, pitting or something in

from age, get a new set of points and condensers, probably 40 bucks.

Advanced auto parts still sells a lot of classic car stuff.

So go there and pick those up and then just crank it.

Once you get that, you know, if your fluid's full, of course, your, your engine

oil and, and, uh, antifreeze and, and your transmission fluid and run it.

We suggest running it for just a few minutes.

Once it cranks 23 minutes tops and then recheck all those fluids again and

then started up again and run it till it's warm and then take a look at those fluids

after you've had it good and warm and run it for, you know, 20, 30 minutes, I would

change the coolant in it because of the, the age and the metals it'll pick up and

the engine oil and oil filter and then it's running.

So now is the time to go through and check all your breaks, check the fluid.

Don't roll it till you check to make sure they're solid and all that.

But as far as getting it going, we don't want to do any damage to something that's

already there.

So first thing to do is get some lubricant in those cylinders, wait a week and then

try to turn it by hand.

Awesome.

Okay.

Hold on a second, Ken, before you go anywhere, 62, that's a classic.

It's white.

I was, uh, um, Doug, do you want to guess on this one?

You can type that in.

I'm going to go, go further than this.

I'm, I was going to say white.

I'm going to say it's off-white or cream.

That's the original.

Yeah, bright white.

Okay.

Green.

Doug says green.

Ken, what color was the car originally?

It's Roman red.

It's a 327, 340 horse, all blifters.

Oh, then you've got it before you, before you changed the oil.

22 years ago, you had been fine.

But when you changed the oil this time, you absolutely must put a lifter

additive in there that contains ZDDP or you will destroy that solid lifter cam.

It has to be put in there when you put the oil in it.

Your other alternative is something like Joe Gibbs racing oil or one of those

that contains the zinc because those solid lifter cams, they will be destroyed.

I just saved his car with that question.

You did.

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unzip the top and I pull this hoodie off real quick. And I grabbed the corner. I'm just going to

just use the sleeve and get it out of there real quick. You couldn't do it. And as soon as I did

that, I went, that's my, my good hoodie. What's going on? So, so I throw that away and I grabbed

my shirt and I'm like, I got it. And I'm like, oh boy. And then I hit it with some more paint.

And I'm like, that's going to run. No, to blow on a little bit. Perfect. And I was like, just got

lucky. My, my favorite hoodie is the, it's in a, it's one of the originals. Is it a gray one?

It's like a light brown. Yeah. It's like a, like a wine color. And it's real thin and

threadbare and it's got some holes and stuff. And it's, it's my favorite article of clothing,

I think it's too big. It's just, it's wonderful. I wish we could sell those. I wish we could sell

30 year old hoodies because they'd, would they be in the vintage store? It's the greatest.

Let's talk to Alan. You're on the end of the hood show. Alan, what can we do for you?

Yeah. Thank you for taking my call. You bet. I've, I've got a 2016

beauton clave and it seemed to be running fine. Except one day when I went out to start it,

it was a little hard starting and the battery was about four years old. So I figured it was

probably time to change the battery out. So I took it up to the place that I used

for my service on my vehicle and I asked them to replace the battery, which they did.

But once they replaced it, they're going haywire.

I, I have these electronic seats and I can program them for two different drivers.

Right. And that no longer work. My air conditioner in the back, back into the car would

automatically kick on at will. My CD would automatically start playing when I didn't

even have the system on. So I guess my curiosity is, is there something that they might have

done when they put that battery in or something that happened when that put that battery in?

Or is it the fact of the matter that maybe the computer system was getting ready to go?

And most importantly for you, Alan, is there an easy way to fix this? Right.

There you go. Yeah. You don't want it to be burned out module. You want to be able to go

unhook it for five minutes and then hook it back up. That's what you want.

That's my first thought, Chris. Unhook what? Unhook that battery. Disconnect that battery for

about 10 minutes. Then hook it back up. Go out right now. Yep. Then hook it back up. Make sure

the doors are open. One of them when you do this, because they may lock when you hook the battery

back up. Okay. You know, if you're, if you're doing one, this is inside. You know, if you got one

that's under the hood, you, I've had that happen. You hook the battery up and click and you're like,

Oh, really? Get the thing out. I think my bad. I think they said my battery's under one of the

underneath the seat or wherever it's on the floor in the back. So yeah, you, I would do that first

because it sounds like the module may just be, it may just be confused. It may have been a

disconnected hook back up and it had a little bit of power and it just, it wasn't completely dead

yet. Once the battery was disconnected. That is why in our shop, when we change a battery,

I always like to keep the car powered. I take my battery jump pack and I hook one end to the

ground on the car, not to the cable of the battery, but like to the engine block, hook that up solid.

Right. And then I take myself a little bitty. I've got a wire with an alligator clip on both ends

and I clip one on the other end of the jump pack that's still hooked to my jump pack. Right. And

I put the other end on the red battery post on the fuse box there, the little, little, and then I

change the battery because then I have power. You got to be very careful that you don't arc

something to ground from the positive when you're doing the change of the battery, but

it keeps the vehicle powered enough that you don't lose any memories. And that's been going on for

50 years. People, you know, trying to save radio presets in, in cars when they, you know, in the

70s or whatever late 70s, when they first came out with some digital stuff, people like, well,

how do I keep those? They were worried about just their radio was all they had back then or their

clock. But what can happen if you power down a computer, a computer may work perfectly fine

until it's shut off. And when you shut it off and restarted, it may not restart again. Imagine a car

that you start up and then while it's running, you remove the starter from the vehicle. As long

as you never shut it off, it's going to operate perfectly. But the second you turn that key off,

you'll never be able to start it again, because the starter is gone. Same thing with computers,

you shut down a computer. If something has failed in that system, and it can no longer

boot up again properly, it can be all sorts of wacky like yours is acting, but you have more

than one system there. There's not one system that ties all of that together. So I think you have

more than one item corrupt on there. Something's going through the CAN bus, which is the controller

area network, which is basically saying it's like computer cables, cable TV for your whole car.

They talk to each other. They're not talking right. And I think that maybe just clearing the

memory out and letting it forget what was the problem and starting over with a baseline,

it may take care of your whole issue. Now, do I hook both sides of the battery?

No, either one, negative or positive. We usually unhook the negative. If you're taking the negative

off first, here's why they say that. People ask, why do they always say negative? Because if you

put a wrench on the negative and it slips and you touch that, you know, it to the metal of the car

while you're taking the negative off, it's not going to spark because that's where it's grounded

to. But if you're on the positive side, loosening that up and you move your wrench and hit the metal,

poof. And that's bad. So take either one off you like. I'd take the negative off and just

leave it off for 10 minutes. It'll be completely dead at that point. Alan, thanks very much for

the call. Good luck. That leads to a question I've had recently, battery maintainer. I'm

hooking it up, taking it off. What's my order? It didn't matter. Okay. That's what I thought.

Because you're not going to be hooking it to the car. And it's smart. I mean, when they touch,

it doesn't do anything. Right. Okay. Jumper cables is a whole different story. And now they have

smart jumper cables, which don't turn on unless one's good and one's bad. Well, that's my jump pack

too. I bought a new jump pack and that just says, I just hook them up. It's dead until it won't do

anything until it sees the right connection. I still got a rugged geek and that thing is still

operating. Me too. Crazy, isn't it? 866-594-4150. Let's talk to Jeff. You're on the end of the

hood show, Jeff. What can we do for you? Yeah, I was picking up on what Russ was talking about

while they do a battery change. They hook up that way. I was wondering if I've got a cord

that goes to the OBD and it's got like a cigarette plug into it. And I plug it into my battery pack

and that's how I keep the memory and stuff alive. Is that doing it that way as well? Yeah.

That's got a power. There is a 12-volt power source in that OBD2 port and you can do it that way

or a cigarette lighter if it doesn't have a one-way diode built into it. They do make one for the

cigarette lighter, but you just got to make sure you don't turn anything on in that car

while you're doing that because that is so small of a wire and a small. Some of those,

that power wire is protected by a 3-amp fuse, which is super small. So if you were to hook your

battery pack to the OBD2 port and then open your door, the dome lights probably are going to be

close to that, but maybe not. But definitely anything more than that. Turning the headlights

on, brake lights, turning the ignition switch on, you're going to blow that fuse and then you're

going to lose that power. And then people say, well, I put a battery in, but now I don't have,

I can't scan the car anymore. What's going on? Well, you don't have your voltage there anymore

because that fuse is blown. So in Jeff's case, it does work. Just be careful with it. Right.

Jeff, thanks very much for the call. 866-594-4150. That's the number to reach us here at the end

of the hood show. You were talking earlier about borescopes and putting a borescope down there

to make sure. Love the borescope. Here's the thing. Workable, usable borescopes now are,

you can find a decent one for $8 or $9. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a shop can buy one for $300. That is

amazing. Top of the line. Yeah. It takes pictures, takes video.

You can swallow it and look at your gallstones. I mean, it's amazing.

I think it's so hot though. I know. We got to turn the light off. I got one during some

flashes at like prime day or one of them. I just saw something pop up. It was like $12 and it

extends out, I think, 12 feet. It's got a light controllable at the end. It's got a focus and

I don't have anything to use for, although I do have, we have something going on.

We have something going on under our steps with raccoon. Not sure. Not sure. Something.

We get visitors in the night. The cats in the neighborhood. We've had possums on our front

steps for raccoons. There's something going on under the steps and this spring, I have the scope,

but we also, this spring for the first time, have snakes in our yard. So I'm afraid to use it.

I don't want to see what's under the steps. I'm too scared to put that scope under there.

But there's, there's no poison in snakes where we live.

No. No, I'm. So snakes don't bother you if they're not poison.

They don't bother me at all in the abstract. Like I'm not afraid of snakes at all.

But they do. We just have this tendency in our brain to run from a snake when it's there.

If you said there's a snake over there, can you go get it for me and get rid of it? I'd say yes,

but when I got close, I couldn't do it. So they've got a, right now it's the prime season for snakes

down in East Texas or in front of spring coming up and they have poisonous snakes,

but they have more non-poisonous snakes that accidentally get killed because they eat a lot

of stuff that you don't want running around on there. They have one called a diamond back water

snake and it looks like a cotton mouth and it's a big snake, but you could pick it up.

It won't hurt you. It might try to chew on your arm, but it doesn't have to eat the bite you,

you know, but a lot of those get killed. The only way to tell them apart from the cotton

mouth basically is looking down on top. The diamond back water snake has bug eyes like

a, like those pugs, like the dogs. They stick up like a frog on the top and the cotton mouth,

you can't see the eyes on top. So you, you got to run. So I've seen people like, oh, look, let's

pick that up. No. What do you think? It's so snakes, not, not my thing. My wife, she pick them up.

She didn't care what it is. I love snakes. So my daughter's got a pet store. They have snakes

and my wife is like, can I hold it? Like, I don't want to hold that thing.

Yeah. That is nuts. I would say a yes. I'll hold it. But then once it comes time, I'd be like,

I'm going to go out. I'm going to go outside. We have found so many things in cars here. I'm

glad we're not in the south for a car working on because here we found, you know, big spiders and

all sorts of weird stuff. Cats under hoods, but down south, you get a car that hadn't run for a

year and they tow it in. You're working on it. You got a tarantula up under the dash or

snakes and scorpions. Yeah. No good. No good.

I was just thinking of my brother worked at a grocery store when he was a kid and they would get

the crates of fruit in their beat. He brought one home once. He brought a tarantula home

that was in the, and I was like, what are you doing? What? Don't, don't, what?

Okay. Let's go to Kansas and talk to Bradley. You're on the end of the hood show. Bradley,

what can we do for you? Oh, 99 Ford cars air conditioning. I put a,

one of them do it yourself, refill cans on. Okay. And then, and then when I took it off,

it just seemed like everything came back out. It just air, just air and everything just came

back out. About the same hole you put it in, it came back out that hole. Right. Yeah. Okay. So

that's, that's really common. When I've got a system that comes in and I connect my gauges to it

and I see that it's empty, but I need to do a recharge on it first to see what's wrong with

the system to save myself time because it always gets me. I will verify there's no pressure in it

first and that with my gauges, but then I'm going to unscrew the valve core, which is in there. It's

like a tire core unscrew it, throw it away. I put a new one in there. It's a $2 part, $1 to $2.

I put a new one in before I recharge it because so many times, Bradley, I vacuumed it down

for an hour. I've recharged it. I run it. It's perfect. I'm like, this is great. I'm ready to

send this one home. I'm calling the customer, telling them, you can come pick it up in 10 minutes.

I take that line off and it's leaking. I'm like, oh, really? So just replace them. So what you need

to do now with this car is you need to replace both valves, the low one that you used and the

high one, but then you're going to need to get a vacuum pump put on this to evacuate all the air

that's in the system. So shop's going to have to do that and then recharge it. Or just take it

into a shop and say, hey, I need a AC recharge. I use the can on it and it worked, but then it

all leaked out right away out that same hole. So can you put two new valves in there and do a recharge

on this? They'll be able to do that for you. But that's what's going on is you've got a leak.

Yeah. And there's no, there's not really a way for him to fix that at home, is there?

No, not at all. It's got to go into a shop. Bradley, why don't you stay on the line? We're

going to have producer Doug get you a hoodie because you've been, you've been a long time

loyal listener. Yeah, long, frequent caller over many, many years. Yeah. Let's talk about this

just for a second. The, because the valve you're talking about is like a tire valve,

a Schrader valve. That's exactly what it is. And what I remember when I learned this, I was amazed.

The little button that you push in there, the little thing you put the stem inside the stem,

there's the little button you push. You can hold with your finger and let a little layer out.

That is actually removable. You can put a tool inside. So the core is, so that is the valve.

Right. The valve is, the valve is the little button inside there. Right. So that is what,

like when you guys replace the, you're not replacing the threaded part, you're replacing the

inside part and that can get, we can go threaded like a tire on the outside. We're replacing

inside and they're quick connectors on the AC system. Yeah. And then, but you can, like,

there's a tool where you go in and you unscrew the little button inside when you're a kid. Yeah.

And pull that out and you, the screw, the outside. Did we all do that when we were kids? Take the

valve cores out and go back in. No, no, we didn't know that they came out. We thought it was one

big unit. I did. Yeah, you did. Maybe that's why I'm doing this show now, huh? My neighbor,

big Johnny, he, well, he would go, he'd take the little tool and he would unscrew it just enough

to let the air out and then you couldn't, it was like a prank he played. But I used to say,

listen, if we don't know that that's a prank, it's not really a prank. It really is just like

slashing somebody's tires. When I was, you know, that's not a prank. If no one knows it's a prank.

Full confession. When I was a very young kid, but driving, I went to a girl working at a restaurant

in a fast food place. I went to her car and made sure nobody was looking and I used my tire tool

and I just turned it enough to let the, and uh, yeah, I let the air out and I conveniently was

there at the, I asked her friend, what time should she get off work? Cause she's like,

I don't know. She didn't want to give me the time of day. So I got there and I saved the day.

I said, uh, what's that? She was probably right to, to steer you away. Yeah. So I, uh, I was just

having a bit, can I change your tire for you? Sure. So I changed the tire and then I took her

with me and we went down and put, tried to put air in the tire. I said, oh, it looks like your

valve core is leaking. Let me, I think I can fix that. And I did that and put the, put the tire

back on the car and all that and got her to go out one time, one time, took her, took her to

dinner. It was a very nice date. The whole bit got done with the date and I said, so any chance

we could do this again. And she says, uh, maybe if you had just asked me, I don't, instead of letting

the air out of my tire and I went, what? And she's like, that is not cool. Thanks for dinner. I was

like, oh no. Yeah. That's it, man. If it's a prank, it's like, you know, Tom's story, don't do it.

Tom Sawyer, where he pretends to be dead. That's fine. It's a funny prank unless the insurance

company pays out. Now it's a felony. Yeah. Yeah. 86659441

five, oh, what has caught your attention in the automotive world? What, what's sticking out there

for you? Man, so many of these backup camera things, more and of,

how can they all be bad? And they say, look like they're different companies making these, but

are they getting the one component that fails in them, whatever that we don't know what that is?

It's, it poxied into the board. Is that coming from, you know, one of those companies like the

airbag people? So they're all bad, but they're, they're a lot of them. So many are coming into

my shop and they're like, I backup, but hey, your backup camera doesn't work. Have you got the

recall done? What are you talking about? I know it's been out for a year. There's a recall on them.

Oh, I, I didn't get a notice. Well, let me print it out for you. And I printed when I'm,

when I'm doing an oil change or anything, it shows me active recalls on my screen.

So I just hit the print button that prints it out. So here you go. Take it in. The dealer

will give you a new one for free. If, if you're under that recall, right. And if they've got one

available, but there's a, there's, there are a lot of those going out and you don't need one

unless you had one. Right. Now you need one because you've had one. And if you depend on it

and you don't get, it's, it's, it can be a, yeah, I dicey in a car with that has one. I use both.

I'm looking in the camera and I'm looking to see if anybody's coming around and I'm constantly

looking at the camera as I'm looking, cause you never know what my cat runs on or whatever it is.

I notice that in the car that has one, I use both. I use the camera. I look out the windows.

I use my mirrors constantly. I'm very good at it. When I'm in the other car,

I look down at the stereo. There's no camera. So I kind of don't do all three things. Anyway,

I like, I realize I can't use all three things. So I don't use the other two that are available.

I notice my, my attention wandering, even though in the car with the camera, I use them all.

It is a weird thought to ignore when you don't have it all of a sudden.

That'll do it for this hour of the under the hood show. Thanks for listening.

With Russ Evans, this is Shannon Orts from thanking you for tuning into the Nordstroms

Under the Hood Show. Have a great day and remember PTLA.

The opinions heard on this program based on the many years of experience of Russ and Shannon

are offered for entertainment value only and as a guide to your repair needs.

No claim to repair or cause is given or implied. Always consult with your own certified technician

and follow all safety procedures before attempting any repair. To be a part of the show,

call 866-594-4150. Find out more by visiting UnderTheHoodShow.com.

Under the Hood is produced by Prairie House Productions. All content is the property of

Nordstroms Automotive Incorporated and may not be used without our permission.

Copyright Nordstroms Automotive Inc.

Automotive Tips to Reduce Repair Expenses from the Authority in Auto Repair Advice

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