Friday, November 18, 2011

Fixing the Clock on a Toyota Corolla

Our Toyota Corolla's clock had stop working. It worked intermittently for a while, but then stopped completely. I watched a YouTube video on how to fix it. The video was nice, but lacking details that a female would probably want to know. Also, the sound was really low, so here's my own tutorial.

1) Use a flat head screwdriver to pry up the plastic piece surrounding the shifting thing. (Wow. Thank God for pictures. Who knew my car part vocabulary was this atrocious?!)

You have to lift up firmly until it pops off.

2) Grab the center knob of the A/C controls and pull straight out. Then use a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw underneath.



3) Pull out the face of the control piece. Once again, measured force is required.


4) Disconnect the wires that are going to the back of the clock.


5) Pull out the clock. I thought this was the hardest part. It's held in by four tabs, two on either side of the clock, and it's near impossible to hold all four down at once so that you can remove the clock. You, dear reader, will benefit from my pain and blood loss by observing the little trick I came up with. Pull out one side of the case so that you can insert a credit card. Then pull apart the other side.

6) Find the four, numbered chips nearest the white connector. The clock has likely stopped working because the soldered connection on one or more has failed. On my clock, you could not see anything wrong. I simply touched my (hot) soldering iron to each side of each chip to refresh the solder. You could also add more solder if you have some on hand.



7) Plug the clock back in and turn the car on. (No need to start it.) Your clock should work! If not, perhaps the soldering didn't take. Try again or perhaps there's another issue...

Easy Peasy Chore Sticks!

My 4-year-old is still too young for me to say "clean up the living room" or "take everything that goes in your room back there." So I end up sitting on the couch, telling him what to do line by line. Exhausting! Enter chore sticks!





I saw much fancier versions on Pinterest, but I lack fancy crafting tools. So I bought a pack of colored craft sticks at Lakeshore and wrote individual chores on the sticks. I used the colors for each room that the thing is in. (Red sticks indicate a living room chore, e.g.) This is not so much for him, but so I can more quickly find the chore I'm looking for to put in his "To Do" jar. Here's how it works:

1) There are two jars: "to do" and "all done." (Right now they're in glass jars, but I might sew a little two pocket system when I have time.)
2) Put chores you want to be done in the "to do" jar. Then you dictate when they must be "all done" (e.g. before lunch, before you play Wii).
3) They do one chore at a time and bring you the stick when they think they've completed the chore.
4) You confirm that the chore is done to your liking and if so, hand it back to them and say "All done!"
5) They get really excited and put their stick back in the "all done" jar.