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"  What&amp;#039;s Going On Back There? I towed my boat around a lot this summer. Each time, I hooked up the trailer harness connector when I hitched up the trailer, but half the time one or more of the lights didn&amp;#039;t work. (Several members of the local law enforcement community were kind enough to point this out to me.) So now, I&amp;#039;m very careful about checking to see that the brake, turn signal and running lights on the trailer are working. This involves walking back and forth from the cab of my pickup to the back end of the trailer four or five times. There has to be a better way.  It&amp;#039;s true--trailer lights and brakes add up to a maintenance nightmare, especially on a boat trailer where the lights are periodically immersed in water. My favorite bugaboo is the bulbs exploding when their hot glass hits ice-cold water. (Trailer-specific lamp housings that keep the water out are a worthwhile investment.) I always start by checking to make sure the wiring on the truck is functioning. Keep an inexpensive test socket in the glovebox. I picked one up in an auto parts store for less than 10 bucks. When you&amp;#039;re ready to hitch up, turn the parking lamps on at the headlight switch and plug the tester into the truck&amp;#039;s trailer socket. Now, you can avoid walking back and forth to check your lights. Toggle the emergency flashers. The brake lights and the turn signals both use the same high-wattage filament of the taillight bulb. The taillamps use the low-wattage filament in the same bulb. The LEDs on the test socket should show one steady light and two flashers. (Sorry I couldn&amp;#039;t show the flashing in the photo, but the budget for blinking ink was already used up.) You also can use a 12-volt test light for this. If all is good so far, you can attach the trailer plug to the truck&amp;#039;s socket, and walk to the back of the trailer only once to check for running lights and flashers. Keep the trailer plug and the truck socket liberally soused with white grease, Vaseline or dielectric grease to keep out moisture and to retard corrosion. Make sure the socket is covered when the trailer is not attached to keep mud and water out of the pinholes. Likewise, remember to keep the trailer connector clean and dry instead of letting it just lie in the mud on the ground when it&amp;#039;s not connected. Does using your GSM-based cellphone generate static in the rear speakers of your 2004-05 Nissan Maxima? Nissan Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) EL05-010 says to replace the speaker amplifier with a revised part that doesn&amp;#039;t make a sound like frying bacon whenever you&amp;#039;re on the phone. A squeak or rattle from the rear-seat belt retractors in your 2002-05 Honda CR-V when you go over bumps may be caused by the belt&amp;#039;s retractor tab rubbing against the body. TSB 05-073 suggests removing the interior trim to get to the belt retractor, removing a piece of felt and installing a new, revised rubber boot. Out of Kilter My shop mechanic tells me that I have bent valves, and that this was caused by over revving the engine. I do not agree with this. I think there are other things that will result in bent valves. I agree, there are other things that will bend valves. But over revving is one of the usual suspects. All that&amp;#039;s necessary is for the valve and the crown of the piston to try to inhabit the same location at the same time. When the engine is spinning too fast, the valve springs may no longer be strong enough to close the valves quickly enough. If so, the valve may not be down on its seat when the piston comes around to top dead center--wham! All of these things are easy to confirm. A timing belt or camshaft chain that has slipped a few teeth (or failed altogether, come to think of it) will certainly bend a few valves. I&amp;#039;ve even seen bent valves after an engine has spun a rod bearing because the piston was free to travel another 1/8 in. up into the cylinder bore after the bearing melted. I&amp;#039;ve seen valves bent by foreign objects that found their way into the intake. Some engines are designed so the valves and pistons shouldn&amp;#039;t touch if the belt or chain breaks--but even these engines can still bend valves if over revved. The bottom line, however: If your mechanic says it was caused by over revving, it probably was. Probably by missing a downshift. Gas Crisis Years ago I heard about a kit that allowed you to install a tap with a shutoff valve in your gasoline under the hood. When you needed to, you could attach a hose, open the valve (while the engine was running) and fill up a gas can. Some highway patrol departments were installing them on their cars so that they could give fuel to stranded motorists. I&amp;#039;m trying to locate such a kit for my pickup so I&amp;#039;ll always have gas for the lawnmower without having to store filled gasoline cans. I remember the Michigan state police had such a device on some of their cars many years ago; I&amp;#039;m sure there were others. But in those days, cars had carburetors and fuel pumps that ran at 3 to 5 psi. Now, there may well be nearly 100 psi in the fuel line. So, putting a simple tee and a shutoff in the fuel line sounds like a bad idea. Gasoline would squirt from the hose way too fast for my comfort. That&amp;#039;s probably why I didn&amp;#039;t find any kits like this available on the market when I looked. But can you do it if you want to? You can, but be careful. If I were going to attempt it, I&amp;#039;d put my tee in the fuel-injection system&amp;#039;s return line, which carries almost no pressure. Then, I&amp;#039;d add a 12-volt fuel pump on its own switch. Please don&amp;#039;t set yourself on fire or do something that will make the evaporative emissions system on your car freak out. Modern fuel-injected cars have pressurized fuel tanks. Venting them will set an error code and trigger your Check Engine light. Autumn Leaves Around My Windshield... I have a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer. Leaves have entered through the vent at the base of the windshield, clogging the evaporator housing drain tube. Now, water leaks into the passenger compartment. After surfing the Internet, I found that this is a common complaint. But nobody offers any solutions. Can I fix this myself? Each time I go to my mechanic, he charges me for 30 minutes of his time to clear the drain. I get letters like yours pretty much every fall when the leaves are flying. You may be able to clear the tube without any disassembly, if you have access to an air compressor and some way to get the car up in the air safely. Just find the end of the cowl vent drain tube and blow compressed air upward to clear the blockage. Then, use compressed air to blow leaves out of the cowl from above--this may take several iterations and it works well only when the leaves are dry. Follow up with a vacuum cleaner and a crevice tool. Otherwise, you will need to disassemble the HVAC plenum and clean out the tray manually. This is pretty simple, as long as you don&amp;#039;t mind lying upside down under your dash for a few minutes. I&amp;#039;d put a screen over that cowl vent to keep the leaves out. YOU NEED THIS By Hook or Crook Cars used to have a lot of stamped-metal gewgaw trimpieces attached to the bodywork by a fussy little nut-and-bolt setup. Or perhaps by an even fussier dingbat plastic fastener. Many trimpieces on today&amp;#039;s cars are held on with, I kid you not, double-sided foam tape, which can absorb moisture and collect dirt. Foam tape often can be seen hiding behind trimpieces because it&amp;#039;s usually available only in white or black. Now, there&amp;#039;s PLIOGRIP tape from Valvoline, a water-clear solid tape that blends in easily. It comes in 1/4-, 1/2-, and 7/8-in. widths in 20-ft. rolls. pliogripbyvalvoline.com An inexpensive LED test plug (inset photo) will confirm that the trailer wiring on the truck side is okay. If your trailer lights aren&amp;#039;t working after this test, you can be sure the problem is on the trailer. PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES WESTMAN "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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