Author Archives: Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Mailbag: Gas Oven Won’t Fire Up

--- jared wrote:
> 
> Oven broke:
> My Tappan (model 12-1062-30)automatic pilotless
> ignition oven stopped heating. I disassembled it to
> find what looks like the oven igniter assy that
> promptly glows but does not "fire-up" the oven. 
> Does this need to be replaced?  Or could it be
> something else?   Thanks for your help,  My daughter
> can smile again once we can toss pizza back in the
> oven
> Cheers
> Jared
> 
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The ignitor may be bad. But before you just cross your fingers and change it, you can find out for sure by measuring the current draw of the ignitor using a clamp-on amp meter. This page explains the current draw specifications for the ignitor and where to measure it. If you need help on how to use a clamp-on amp meter to measure current, this page will help with that.

Once you confirm the ignitor is bad, you can order a new ignitor here using your model number.

Mailbag: Refrigerator Runs Constantly

--- Ron wrote:
> 
> My refrigerator runs constantly.  The temps in both
> the freezer and frig are where they should be, but
> it never shuts off (except when it is in defrost
> mode I think).  I was going to replace the
> thermostat or the controller.  Your pick?
> 
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You have correctly identified the two possible suspects: the defrost timer and the cold control. If you’re sure the refrigerator cycles off for defrost, then the cold control electrical contacts are sticking. Replace it.

If you’re not sure the fridge cycles off for defrost, then it’s easy to test. Locate the defrost timer on your fridge and turn the knob until you hear a big click. This is defrost mode. Then wait approximately 21 minutes and 37 seconds for it to come out of defrost mode and start running again. If it doesn’t, then the defrost timer is bad. Replace it.

The Story of O

Awwite all you cool grasshoppers, go grab you a beer and the Samurai’ll tell you a story.


Once upon a time, in a place that was once called the "land of the free," there was a big ol’ company called Dupont. Now, Dupont made a thang that we old timers held near and dear to our hearts and that was R-12, a refrigerant used is just about every type of refrigerator ever made, including beer coolers. But Dupont had a problem: their patent on R-12 was about to expire and everyone else and their Momma was gonna start making it, too. Well, it don’t take a rocket scientist, like yours truly, to figger out that once this happened, the price of R-12 was gonna take a nose dive.

Now, Dupont, being a company with lots of money to throw around, paid off a bunch of fancy-pants scientists and engineers at these high-dollar universities to show that R-12 was bad and needed to be banned. So these fancy-pants university types cooked up some numbers showing how all them nasty little molecules in R-12 was eatin’ up the orzos in the atmosphere…er somethin’ like that.

Anyway, Dupont goes and presents all these high falootin’ studies to one of the fourth branches of the gubmint, the EPA. The EPA said, "Hmmm, we can’t be eatin’ up all them little orzos like that there. Gubmint has to do something about that!" So they came out with a big ol’ riot act of new regamalations where they said everyone what works on beer coolers has to have a new-fangled recovery unit to catch all them bad molecules.

Well, I didn’t know no better and besides, I didn’t wanna hurt them little orzos ‘cuz, heck, they ain’t never done nothin’ to me. So I lined up with all the other suckers, er, I mean, tradesmen and plunked down a bunch of money for a fancy new recovery unit.

Funny thang happened though. When the EPA got into the bidness of regamalating refrigerants, their prices all went sky high. So the cost to replace the compressor on your average beer fridge went from $150 to, oh, say $400, once you figger in the higher refrigerant cost and a refrigerant recovery charge. Well, at that price, people were just hauling their old fridges off to the landfill and buying new ones. Lots of good fridges piling up in landfills today. But, hey, the gubmint knows what’s best ‘cuz they’re here to help!

Meanwhile, Dupont is back in bidness, happily raking in the big bucks selling it’s new line of R-12 replacement refrigerants. Ain’t gubmint great? I think everybody awwta own one!

And so the gubmint and the big shot corporations who benefit from their regamalations all lived happily ever after.

The End


I can tell you that my recovery unit makes a reeel spiffy footstool in my workshop ‘cuz that’s all I ever use it for. Never even used it once. Wanna buy one cheap?

Hodji’s Liberty Buzz

Here’s Hodji’s latest Liberty Buzz:


Look, if the Libertarian Party, the should-be beacon of Constitutional Liberty in this country, can’t even get it right, then how can we possibly expect more from the sheeple? Ilana Mercer refines the Samurai’s theme of McLiberty in her latest article. And Jason B. Romano give a good rigorous treatment to the problems with a state-run defense system.

"Homeland Security" or "Gubmint Security?" You decide.

Other people can see it, even the frikkin’ Germans see it. Why can’t we?

Meanwhile, back in the doghouse, the trotskyite neocon dogs are salivating for some Syrian meat.

Ok, so which was it: self-defense, a preemptive strike or responding to an immediate threat?

Might as well face it, you’re addicted to drug warz.

Should a mall be able to kick out people who are walking around with anti-war t-shirts? Should a restaurant be able to deny service to black people? If you answer ‘no’ to either of these questions, you need a good primer on Free Speech, Free Association, and Private Property.

I love paying taxes. Yeah, giving money to pornographers so they can distribute condoms, mailing Socialist Insecurity checks to fugitives…what, you didn’t know you were paying for that? Oh yeah, all that and lots, lots more!

Speaking of taxes, I didn’t know that most of what I’m paying for in a cold, frosty mug of beer is gubmint bureaucracy. Now they’re starting to hit me where it hurts!

Can you say "Hail, Caesar?"

Your Slave in Liberty,

Hodji

Mission Report: The Samurai Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln

The Samurai chatting with the President on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln--click to listen.Regular students of the Samurai School of Appliantology know that the CIA frequently calls on the Samurai for special assignments in signal processing and counter-intelligence.

Although prohibited from telling you at the time, the Samurai was on-assignment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln when President Bush made his famous carrier landing. To the right, you see a picture of me chatting with the President on the flight deck. My mission was to monitor all signals to and from the ship during the president’s maritime photo-op and to identify anything unusual. During President Bush’s speech, broadcast to bizillions of people all around the world, the Samurai detected a highly anomalous signal hiding in the high frequency sideband of the broadcast transmission, just within the subliminal range of human perception. I’ve stepped the frequency down into the normal hearing range. Let’s listen:

Powered by audblogaudblog audio post–click to listen


Libertarian Appliance Repair

After browsing through the Samurai School of Appliantology, many of you are left wondering, "Just what does all this Libertarian propaganda have to do with fixing my dryer?" Why, everything in the world, my dear grasshopper! To help you see the connection, my good friend, Lee Browne, on the the Left Coast, wrote this pome that’ll ‘splain it to ya:


THE POME

Appliances should feel
Free to do
What they like
With whom and who.

They should not
Worry about
What you think
And whether you shout.

They should run
When they choose
And then shut down
And leave no clues.

It’s up to you
To try to discover
What is wrong
And how to recover.

This poem shows
The firm connection
Between Libertarian
And flaw detection.


You see? Simple, da?

Mailbag: Refrigerator Door Gasket Replacement

--- Brad Holcomb wrote:
> 
> kenmore upright manual-defrost freezer (old) model
> 106.8221510; the door doesn't seal well anymore; do
> gasket magnets wear out? maybe the rubber isn't
> pliable anymore and can I treat it with something
> like ArmorAll (automotive vinyl treatment)? Do I
> HAVE to get a new gasket for $50???
> 
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First, make sure that your door closing problem isn’t being caused by bent or misaligned door hinges. If the hinges check out OK, then you probably are dealing with bad gaskets.

Freezer door gasket for a Kenmore freezer, model number 106.8221510 -- click to order.Refrigerator and freezer door gaskets can fail in several ways: they can split or crack allowing cold air to escape, they can come loose from the door and start drooping or sagging, they can get bunched up and deformed (this is usually caused by bent door hinges, in which case you’ll need to replace the hinges and the door gasket).

Do you have to spend $50 to replace the gasket? No, you could continue to use the freezer in its current condition. This would cause the compressor to run longer, wasting lots of electricity and money and leading to other problems like excessive condensation inside the fridge.

Or you could just buy a new door gasket. For guidance on the fine art of door gasket replacement, check out this page.

Lesson in Liberty: …and McLiberty for All

Don't Tread on MeIf you really believe that you can go into a foreign nation as an outsider and liberate them in any lasting or meaningful way, you really don’t have the first clue about what Liberty is all about. Only people living in a fast food culture and spoon-fed sound bite arguments would really believe that they could bring Liberty on a platter to another nation. "Here’s your order of McLiberty! Would you like hummus with that?"

Take Iraq, for example. Ever wonder how it was that one dude was able to get into the position of oppressing an entire nation? Ok, sure, he had some leadership capabilities and an ego the size of an aircraft carrier but so do lots of people and you don’t see them being dictators. The answer is simple: because the Iraqi people themselves are so clueless about Liberty that they allowed themselves to be oppressed. Yeah, so now with the dictator out of power, are you really so naive to believe that freedom will ring throughout Iraq? At the first opportunity, these people will descend right back into oppression and slavery because they have no culture of Liberty. There are no Iraqi Founding Fathers who wrote a fountainhead of Liberty wisdom to refer to. It’s not as though they were once a free people who will now fall back on their roots of freedom. The same conditions that allowed Saddam to become dictator still exist in Iraq today and will always exist: a conspicuous absence of a culture of freedom. In fact, the very concept of Liberty is not only alien to the Muslim culture, it is widely regarded as a heresy.

The Liberty of a nation is something that springs from within the individuals of that nation. You can’t impose it externally. If a people are unable to find Liberty within themselves, they will never adopt it as part of their national psyche. That so many Americans actually bought into that bilge about liberating Iraq reveals a pathetic misunderstanding of the real nature of Liberty. How can we engage in wars of "liberation" around the globe when we ourselves are living under an oppressive Big Brother right here at home? Take a step back and consider the invasion of government control and regulation into our lives that we simply accept. We are:

  • forced to report every detail of our personal finances,
  • forced to pay for schools that no longer educate but indoctrinate,
  • told how we can use our own land,
  • told who we must serve and what activities are allowed (e.g., smoking bans in restaurants) in our places of business,
  • told we are all equal under the law, but some (homosexuals, cross-dressers, racial and religious minorities, etc,) are more equal than others,
  • in many places, denied the Constitutionally-protected right to carry firearms,
  • prohibited from using certain drugs, recreational or medical, when such use poses no threat to anyone else,
  • regulated in myriad other ways–this list could go on, but you get the idea.

If you accept any of the above examples of Big Brother’s yoke, you have lost sight of the original function of government as envisioned by our Founding Fathers; you are one of the sheeple, the great unwashed herd wallowing in Big Brother’s pigpen.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, "Yeah, but we’re still the most free nation on earth!" That’s like a group of kids rolling around in the yard who all get dog poop on them and one of the kids says, "Yeah, but I got less poop on me than you guys!" That may be true, junior, but the fact remains that you still stink. Does it make sense to compare ourselves to all the other stinky kids? How ’bout we compare ourselves to the undefiled standard of Liberty so eloquently articulated for us by our illustrious Founding Fathers? Once we do that, we will wretch on the foul odor of tyranny in which we live and we will long for the pure air of Liberty.

Live Free or Die!

Mailbag: Kenmore Dryer Door Latch

--- Julie Land wrote:
> 
> I have a Kenmore dryer-it's brown so it's old. The
> problem I'm having is with the door latch. We've
> secured it with magnets to get it to keep running,
> but now that's not working either. I've price the
> part, but want to know if this is something I can
> replace without a lot of bother. Or should I just
> call in a repairman? Or can you walk me through it?
> I bet you can! Please let me know how complicated it
> is so I'll know whether to order the part. Right now
> I'm debating on buying a new dryer-the husband is
> dragging his feet on that one! Thanks for your
> prompt answer.-Julie
> 
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dryer door latch, fits most models, click to orderYou must be kidding–you would seriously consider replacing a dryer that needs a $5 part!? The door latch literally snaps in place–no tools required. Buy it here and spare our over-crowded landfills your otherwise perfectly-fine dryer. Fits most models, too.


Protocols of the Elders of Neocons

Hello, my friends. I direct you to this priceless article from Hussein Shobokshi:

In his weekly telephone report, Paul Wolfowitz expressed his anxiety to Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, about the situation in the Middle East. �How are you doing?� asked Wolfowitz. �OK, OK,� answered Sharon, “but you must go to Syria.” Wolfowitz pondered, “this will be tougher to get the president’s okay on.” Sharon could not help but scream, “He does not know Damascus from Des Moines, Iowa. Move it Paul. You can always tell him that this man of peace thinks it’s kosher,” concluded Sharon with a hysterical laugh. read more…