New Rubber

As I mentioned last week, today was new tire day. For most people is was Super Bowl Sunday, but I had no interest in the outcome or in watching yet another hopelessly lopsided game, so I planned on working on the E9. By the way, based on the yelling I heard on my way home the game was close. Still haven't seen the score.

On Friday I took our trusty Toyota Camry in for a safety check was surprised to learn that the reverse lights did not come on. Both of them. Last spring the car went through a difficult phase of not wanting to crank, which could be overcome by vigorous juggling of the transmission shifter. I purchased a new interlock switch, for the fabulous price of $250, but before I could install it the problem faded away. Not entirely, but it did not fail enough to justify tearing it apart. I decided that the reverse light problem was in the same switch, so today's shop time was diverted to replacing the switch and passing the inspection.

Before changing the switch I decided to do the simple thing and replace the bulbs. They worked. But the old bulbs did not look burned out. It had to be the switch, failing intermittently just as it had for the starter circuit.

The only hard part about changing the switch was removing the electrical connector. I have not had much experience with these modern style plastic connectors, so I enlisted some help from the shop mechanics. Mario ended up getting the switch off. If I had tried it I probably would have broken it, turning a small job into a really big one. The last step was to rotate the switch housing until the car started in park and neutral and the reverse lights came on in reverse. I got it on the second try.







I must say that everything about this Camry speaks to good design. The switch is large and rugged enough to last 120K miles, and when it failed it did so slowly enough so that the failure could be detected before the car stopped running. Access was excellent given today's cramped engine compartments (although this is a four banger), and the job didn't take all day.

After lunch my friend Tom helped me mount new tires on the E9. Well, they aren't exactly new, just good enough to hold air. Getting the old tires off the rims was a fight, they have been on the car for at least ten years. While the wheels were off I took a look at the condition of the suspension, and it is obvious that before the car is done I'm going to have to do some refinishing there, too.