As a fellow coda owner I don’t understand! My car is completely reliable!… except for that time that it had a brake leak and the brakes stopped working… or the many times it over heats when I go to fast… or how the eco-meter has never worked… or how the green screen likes to glitch if it’s too hot out… or how the car will think the charge is too low when going faster than 75 mph… or how the key fob will drain the battery in 24 hours so I don’t have wireless door locks… or how the trunk pop springs break loose at least once a month… or some times the car doesn’t recognize that the seat is buckled and it will beep for hours on end while my girlfriend and I try to enjoy our movie date (also you should show off the fact that this car can play movies on the screen. I’ve used it many times on dates) also sometimes the car warning light comes on inexplicably but it usually turns off after a while. Also my Bluetooth doesn’t work, and the aux in is janky. The button to the fold the rear seats down is smashed… on both seats. Sometimes the car takes a while to turn on or will get frozen on the Coda welcome screen. The navigation system voice will randomly change genders. But other than all of that my Coda is perfect! High-key I do absolutely love my Coda, I use it as my daily driver and it’s just a fun car :)
When you first got the Coda, did you ever imagine what an amazing investment in video content subject matter it would be providing? It's like the gift that keeps on giving... giving like a dysfunctional alcoholic aunt or uncle whose bad holiday gifts cause you acid reflux but afford you a never-ending stream of painful stories to tell your friends. 😂
@Don't Read My Profile Photo Apologies, I inadvertently read your name but you'll be pleased to know I didn't read your profile pic or visit your channel.
You can save the scrap axle/CV (backwards installed inner star). Get a piece of black pipe with an ID just slightly larger than the axle shaft, and longer than the axle shaft. Stuff rags into one end, axle into the other end with the pipe against the CV, and slam on the ground. I learned to do this on Toyota birfields.
Fellow Missourian here, your Odometer in Missouri only needs a permanent tag affixed near the VIN tag in the doorjam denoting the odometer change. That is, assuming you have to take the Coda to a safety inspection for registration soon...
I know working on this car might have made you question your life a little lol but this whole video had me laughing my ass off. Every video you make is funny as hell, really well produced and very original. Your style for all these videos makes me super excited when I see one in my notifications. You do awesome work man and you genuinely help people out. Can't wait for your next video!
Based on the build quality of that chinese chassis, coda was doomed no matter how well they sold. People would have been lemon law filing on every single one of those cars when they began disintegrating before 5000 miles.
This reminds me of my Ford Fiesta adventures as part of miss-spending my youth. I had a Mk1 Fiesta 1300 Supersport which looked good but was slow. I fitted a stage 2 tuned 1600 engine and that made it a fun car. Then it got stolen and recovered with the alloys, seats etc missing. I then had the bright idea of putting the good engine into a Mk2 Fiesta (which only looked like a facelift of the Mk1. Trouble was, Ford had put the engine further to one side of the engine bay on the Mk2 and I ended up making custom length driveshafts.
Bet you wish you still had the supersport! They are very rare now, thanks to so many being written off by the invariably young owners, and the typical Ford rust problems back then.
Really enjoy your videos regardless what the subject is - your enthusiasm, skill and very likeable nature make the videos interesting, light hearted and very informative. Keep up your good work Rob!
Regarding the Odometer; if you know the pinout of the cluster, you can simulate the vehicle speed signal with a square wave generator. I got one from the jungle site for $12, to do the same thing when the replacement cluster was over 100k lower than the car it was going in.
LOL. Another well-done episode in "Life with Coda". And another great job with the in-line sponsorship. One of the few 'toobers that I'll watch A-Z. Keep up the good work (as long as you're still enjoying it - it seems so!)
I suspect that somewhere around 0.000000000000001% of viewers understand exactly what he's trying to accomplish by mucking around w/ these no name Sino & other vehicles but it really doesn't matter as he does such an entertaining job of doing it that we forget about the boredom of the subject at hand. While we're at it: who the hell taught him all of this forensic knowledge? I'd think an uncle who's chewing on popcorn, in some rural town, in his depends & getting an enormous roar outta' the kid right now. "Buy" the way, if yer gonna' have ads shoved down your throat because YT is too greedy, ya might as well be watchin' this guy do it 'cause he does a real bang up job at it.
The best advice I've had with JB Weld or any other epoxy is, "Mix it until you're absolutely sure it's mixed. Then mix it some more." Most people probably know already, but it wasn't until then that I found out how awesome that stuff can be.
The problem with the gauge cluster is most likely bad solder joints on the stepper motors. That's common on all kinds of cars and comes with vibration and relatively heavy components. They are on the other side, so if you want to fix the original cluster, you have to take the needles and the face out, and you'll likely find cracked solder joints in there.
I'm guessing the problem with that gauge cluster is there are sensors, probably either electrical contacts or optical, that are dirty. It looks like a flattened 2 phase stepper motor that uses dead reckoning steps to position the gauge, if it's not getting positional feedback from one or more of the sensors at startup it doesn't know where they are. This also would cause the pegged speedo if it's trying to servo the needle up to the "max speed" end stop as part of its startup routine, but it's never getting the signal that it's arrived. Might be fun to see if they locked the firmware on that Freescale controller, I've found PICs in the wild from megacorps that didn't have the read protect bit set.
Buy the stepper motor kit for 2000-2007 Chevy trucks. Solder them in. Same stepper motors and same exact issue. I’ve done a few dozen and they’re crazy easy to swap. Fix the correct cluster for the rig. It would be a great video even
You have the best video production style of just about every RU-vidr I watch. I never press the skip ahead button, and watch all of yours at normal speed as opposed to 1.5x or more. Other RU-vidrs should learn how it's done, especially when showing long procedures like removing bolts, etc. I would love to make videos of my own, but I'm not in the mood to put in the effort it takes to match your production values. Thank you for making the most watchable content on RU-vid. I look forward to seeing you on one of the major channels like Motor Trend in the future!
Honestly when this car has the new battery pack and all the minor issues (plus actual major issues) are sorted. This thing will be pretty cool to take to cars and coffees and car shows since probably absolutely no one has heard of them apart from EV enthusiasts and people who have worked on them or people who have watched your videos.
My Saab 900 cluster died and I was able to swap the chip with my mileage on it into the new cluster. Was going to document the mileage difference, in accordance with the law, but luckily found out it's stored on a chip that can be swapped. It was an entire small board screwed on the main board, not an individual chip soldered on.
Oddometers do not have to be accurate beyond a certain age. The owner must merely note the miles off actual on the registration paperwork and title when transferring it. Swapping in salvage clusters is a legal method of repairing clusters. Also, with this style cluster usually the issue is the solder joints at the pin connections on the back crack and you just need to reflow them to restore function.
Hang in there buddy. I've dealt with projects like that before. It can be very disheartening, take a step back and look at it with fresh eyes. Love the content and hope to see more Coda love in the future.
If the part labeled KU2 is a EEPROM, then it is likley where the odometer info is stored inside the cluster. You can swap it with the original cluster top get the odometer reading the same. if it is a eeprom, then the part number should be 93C56, 93C66, 24C16, RH86... etc. Google the part number on that IC to see if it is a EEPROM. If your good with soldering, take a photo of the orientation of the IC, flood the 4 pins on each side of the IC with sodler and then use two soldering trons to heat up both sides at the same time, and lift the IC off the board. Use solder wick too clean the excess solder off the board and IC. Then swap them between the clusters. Carefully lining it up and getting the orientation correct. Tack a couple of legs to hold it in place, and then solder the rest of the legs. Use plenty of flux. Clean the flux afterwards with IPA and a toothbrush. Use a paper towel to wipe off the excess solvent. And then your other cluster should read exactly what your old one did.
When you have a spare working (gauge cluster panel/CV shaft/warp drive, whatever), you don't dissasemble it to repare old (gauge cluster panel/CV shaft/warp drive), but use it as a complete replacement of (...). Do an autopsy or repair attempt of old (...) later!
If you had fixed it, I would have been terribly disappointed. Keep at it, your ingenuity is fun to watch. Is it possible the first drive shafts (or at least 1) had been crossed? ie right with left, or 2 lefts, or rights?
Robert on the windows, be sure to put some silicone lubricant in the window channels. My Ex burned out the window motor on her car because the window was dragging slightly. It took my sons and I 6 hours to get it fixed properly. And it could have been avoided with some WD-40 Silicone spray.
the door lock issue is the dee shape spreading the plastic so it cracks the fix is either on a new one to add a compression spring in the rod to stop excess force being applied and or drill and pin the bulk of the plastic it needs to be horizontal to transfer the pull to the plastic piece, easy fix very common where humans pull levers onto plastic
I like how your Truebill ad speaks to my personal experience. It turns out I *was* getting double-charged for Amazon Prime for like 6 months before I noticed it. I only realized it when I was looking at my credit card bill and saw a *monthly* fee for Amazon Prime, and was like "Hang on... I pay for that *yearly*..." Amazon said those charges were definitely not going to my own Prime account, so they were certainly fraudulent. Having to change your CC number sucks. :(
When you drilled the two tiny holes, I thought you were going to put a piece of steel wire between them and then JB Weld it in place. Anyway, thanks for the video, always enjoy watching!
Man.. I really want you to succeed!! You give love to the flawed & unique vehicles! Besides RCR, you're the only other car related channel i watch these days! and on that note, if all else fails.. LS swap it!!😤👍👍
I went back and checked, and at 2:44, as he pulls out the CVs, you can indeed see the bounce from the sheered bolts. I think Robert was dead on with what happened that caused the bolts to strip.
I know it wasn't the ending you wanted, but take a win in your ability to articulate the situation and identify it. This just means you'll need to go another layer deeper (at the cost of time) into the gearbox, which you are certainly capable of doing. You are very good at problem solving, and I cannot wait to see how you will tackle this one. Definitely subscribed, keep up the fantastic work! Also, just a friendly reference that has helped me with EV/hybric components and gearboxes, check out the WeberAuto youtube channel.
I enjoyed this video so much more when it shows the problems most of us, I hope, experience all the time. It's never just one thing, and it never seems to work the way you thought it'd work. In the end, I'm just happy that everything worked out just fine. Like it did in this video! ;P
I doubt you'll be reading this comment since there are so many. Anyway, if you do want to fix the broken trans mounts I believe it can be done. You'll need to fab new mounts from steel. Use steel plate and find several bolts on the trans to use as anchor points. Use slightly longer bolts to sandwich the steel plate to the side of the trans. From there you can add some type of rubber engine or trans mount. The other side of the mount will also have to be fabricated. The main thing is to distribute the weight and torque of the motor across many different bolts to get some good strength.
The flanges can and will be welded back together. Very depressing outcome for you but imagine that fabulous high when you finally get it running against all odds. Perhaps make the perfect signature frankencoda with all your best bits stitched together. This will give you a mini series like that wonderful Trabant engine rebuild saga you produced.
This is exactly the kind of thing that happens to me... I think I've got it and then sometimes I helpfully make it worse! Somehow knowing I won't make that mistake again doesn't even seem to make it better.
This may help someone. Normal epoxy is great for some plastics, and almost always safe for plastic, but some plastics like Nylon do not glue well with normal epoxy. The window regulator parts and lock parts are probably Nylon, look for the recycling symbol. There are special epoxies that do work on Nylon, they are a little pricy, and they really stink, i guess that's how you know they're good. One I have used is Loctite Plastic Bonder which lists Nylon on the back of the package, "Loctite Plastics Bonder can be used for bonding substrates such as: PVC, polycarbonate, acrylic, ABS, FRP, nylon, Mylar®, Delrin®, phenolic, aluminum, stainless steel and many other plastics."
Fantastic video. I enjoy your content so much and thank you for all your candidness. I hope you are doing well in your life as you have shared with us so much personally. You are awesome and you make awesome content!
Regarding the actuators in the door, why not 3D print some new ones in ABS with a greater thickness where the piece cracks? I did it for a mirror component on my old mazda and it worked a treat
Man, I fewl for you. Yesterday I fixed exhaust leak on a friends car, it took 16 hours. 12 of which were used to get the exhaust pipe flange off of the exhaust manifold. All of this because of 3 very rusted bolts and nuts in a very very cramped space, which i did not want to break in to the exhaust manifold. They were so stuck that I had to take out the whole intake, oxygen sensors etc. of the engine to get better access and then heat it to red hot with 2100°C butane torch, then rotate the bolts with vert tight vise grips 1/6 turn at a time. Oh and the downstream oxygen sensor died! Because of course it did.
if you have a half intact plastic part for those lock actuators you could have them 3D printed in better stronger material. And then produce them X times.
I'm new to this Chanel and I was wondering why you had so many of the same car and then I watched the entire video and it all made sense. Those cars suck!!!
The shafts are on the wrong sides. Update: I think it’s worse.. I think a previous owner replaced a shaft with the wrong one and now you’ve got two intended for the same side. When you showed all of them you appear to have three rights and a left… or three lefts and a right. Not sure
Good luck with that gearbox. Im not a huge car guy but mabey get somone to weld it back? Bore some new holes and them tada? Again, shot in the dark with a blindfold
Really relate to your motivation bit. Don't know if this has been a subject in your life but maybe try googling motivation in combination with ADD. A "dopamine deficiënt brain" is a thing that in some cases (maybe yours) can be fixed. Your need for a gigantic number of different projects and the hyperfocus on one specific part of one project is also very typical of this. I find your channel(s) to be one of the best and most relaxing on youtube.
Rather than totally removing the transmission, you might might be able to lower the transmission and get the bolt flanges welded/ brazed back on. Good luck with whatever you decide Robert!
That clunking sound reminds me of my mums Renault Megane whose Engine locked up. We drove home and about 15 minutes before home it started knocking. It was so bad that it sounded like a tractor by the time we parked it at home. Popped the hood to see the engine jumping around like mad. Never ran again.
Investigating the actual cause of a failure. 🤔 well at least you’ve got extra parts…assuming one of those extra traction motors fits! We’d love to see either way.
That rear right wheel bearing noise is the exact same my car had lol, the bearing assembly had snapped somehow and rust and contamination got into the ball bearing and yeah lets just say it was not a nice sight.
never even heard of a coda , but i know the feeling , every time i work on my car i cause some small amount of damage, not always mechanical but sometimes a little bit mechanical, never fall in love with a car is key , they will always dissapoint you, i couldnt do a super car its to heart breaking , at the moment my car is ok , it has juuuust the right amount of damage hehe
I was just telling myself to fix the door lock actuator bit with JB Weld 5 seconds before you said it yourself ;). Not sure it'll fix the trans/motor mounts, though. You folks that enjoy these oddball cars must have one thing in common; you don't seem to mind working on poorly designed cars. I'm continually amazed at how awful some of those parts are.
Have you considered that the loose motor mounts allowed the motor to shift to one side, causing one axle to slam its bearing inward, and the other to fall out?
When you showed the shafts and their issue my immediate non-mechanic brain went "Something threw them off balance." Maybe a bump or pot hole. I wouldn't have imagined it being _this_ bad, but on the upside you're a capable welder, right? A bit of metal working and those mounts could be right as rain. The ugly part would seem to be removing the motor to do the work, but hey "only held with one bolt" you're half way there! (I have to admit I was expecting the motor to fall out while you were explaining the problem.)
4:47 into the video and I'm just gonna guess the CV shafts were swapped left to right at some point and that's causing the issues. One is slightly too short and the other is slightly too long
