Month: November 2013

I’ve got probs … with my 2005 Chevy Aveo’s doors. Shit’s always breaking on them. Here are two recent problems (and fixes):

1.) The driver’s side door latch stopped working. Pulling the latch would not open the door. The problem was a small plastic piece on the end of the thin rod that connects the door’s locking mechanism to the door latch. The plastic piece had cracked and so the rod was no longer connected to the latch. I went to AutoZone, bought a small pack of plastic doodads (“Door Lock Rod Clip Assortment”) from a company called “Dorman Help!”, and replaced the plastic piece. Good as new.

2.) The driver’s side lock FELL IN THE DOOR. In other words, there was a big hole in the door where the key should go. Supposedly this is a common problem and caused by a single faulty hex bolt that holds the lock mechanism against the door. If you remove the door panel, you may notice this hex bolt rolling around in the bottom of the door. It’s printed with the number “4.8”. (If you can’t find it, you’ll have to dig up a replacement.) I lined the lock mechanism back into place, spread some Loctite Threadlocker on the hex bolt, and screwed it back in its hole (with a ratchet and extension). Good as new!

For both of these fixes, you’ll need to pry the plastic door panel off the door frame. Pull the window crank off. There are three screws at the base of the panel, one by the door handle, and another by the door latch. It’s a pain in the ass pulling the door panel off without breaking the latch. Trust me, with some maneuvering, the latch will go through the hole in the door panel. Once you’ve fixed what you need to fix under the panel, it’s a bitch lining the door latch back through it’s hole in the panel and reattaching the panel to the frame. But with some luck, you can get everything back together again. Just takes about a 100 tries!

I have a small Ridgid 4 gallon wet/dry shop vac (model WD4050). I was cleaning the filter and when I replaced it, the vac didn’t work anymore. When I turned it on, it’d make a loud noise and emit a burning smell. I remembered that when I turned the unit over to clean the filter, I heard a “klunk” sound. That sound was the “float” falling down the float cage. The float keeps water from going into the motor. I guess the motor was so hot that when I turned the vac right-side-up the float never fell back down again. It had been fused to the motor (see the melted plastic on top of the float). With a slight pull, I pried the float off of the motor, put everything back together, and it now works fine.