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" Slow Hand  Q:   Is there a way to repair a seatbelt retractor? I have a relatively new SUV with seatbelts that are slow to retract. The belts require a little help so that they don&amp;#039;t get caught in the door when we get out. Can they be lubricated?  A:   I&amp;#039;ve fixed a bunch of seatbelt retractors. Usually, they are gummed up by lint, dog hair, and in one case what seemed to be the majority of a bottle of sticky soda. Warning: Do not attempt this if your vehicle uses seatbelt pretensioners, which are more complicated, and are, in some cases, driven by the same kind of pyrotechnics as an airbag. Remove the seatbelt retractor from its mounting, which will probably mean removing some interior trim. Don&amp;#039;t remove the belt&amp;#039;s webbing, or you stand the chance of letting the whole thing unwind like a cheap window blind. Clean as much gummy lubricant and dirt out of the \u00ADmechanism as you can with a toothbrush or some innocuous cleaner such as Simple Green. Solvents or harsh cleaners like ammonia or detergents may degrade the nylon webbing, which would be bad. Lubricate sparingly with silicone spray. If the mechanism permits, you may be able to lube with some silicone grease or lithium grease, but, again, avoid getting any on the webbing. If you feel really confident about tinkering with such a vital safety system, disassemble the whole shootin&amp;#039; match and wind a couple of extra turns into the clock spring that operates the retractor. But if you&amp;#039;ve ever redone the spring mechanism in a lawnmower recoil \u00ADstarter, you&amp;#039;ll avoid this at all costs.  Cheap Insurance  Q:   I have a 1998 New Beetle TDI (diesel) that had its Check Engine light come on. A VW dealer found a rust-frozen wastegate rod. He lubed it and moved it back and forth. However, he said the problem would probably come back. Since the part is not available separately from VW, I would have to buy the entire turbocharger. Installed, that will run a whopping $2200. Is there a way of getting only the offending part and replacing just that? Will running the engine this way damage anything?  A:   The wastegate bleeds off excess exhaust from the turbo to keep the intake-manifold pressure from getting too high. Just because the part isn&amp;#039;t available directly from VW doesn&amp;#039;t mean it&amp;#039;s unavailable. Hunt around for the part instead of just believing what the dealership tells you. And, frankly, freeing up and oiling a moving part once every 10 years sounds like the cheapest solution. Maybe, if you lubed this part annually with a \u00ADpenny&amp;#039;s worth of Nevr-Seez, it wouldn&amp;#039;t freeze up again.  Will not fixing this damage your engine? Depends. If it sticks open, dumping the wastegate all the time, you&amp;#039;ll have little power. If it sticks closed, you could overboost the engine and melt or break a piston. Lights Off  Q:   My Ford Explorer&amp;#039;s battery was drawn completely dead by the interior lights when someone left the door ajar for a full week. Can I jump-start my Explorer with cables and drive 100 miles without damaging the alternator?  A:   I have been warned that the alternator will be damaged. I know, I know; we&amp;#039;ve all jump-started cars many times and haven&amp;#039;t damaged anything yet, right? On the other hand, the large amount of current needed to operate late-model cars with electric fuel pumps, fuel injection and gobs of electricity-consuming accessories is daunting. That&amp;#039;s why most cars have 100-amp or larger alternators. Running all that stuff while trying to resus\u00ADcitate a really dead battery can make an alternator overheat. Black, crispy wiring = bad. Alternator manufacturer Bosch warns that alternators can indeed be damaged this way. A decent charger is less than a new alternator. To reduce the current your poor alternator is going to have to produce to charge that battery, Bosch--and I--recommend charging the battery 3 to 4 hours with a proper battery charger before starting the car. If that&amp;#039;s not feasible, do this: Start by hooking up the jumper cables to the two batteries and letting them chat for a half-hour or so. Don&amp;#039;t run the engine on the donor car. This will put at least some charge into the dead battery. Then start the donor car and let it run at fast idle for 10 to 15 minutes to add some more charge. Now start the dead car, but turn off as many accessories as you can. Specifically, don&amp;#039;t use the air conditioning, headlights, rear-window defrosters or any other high-power devices until the car has been driven for a couple of hours. Drive, if possible, on the freeway, or at least avoid stop-and-go traffic. You&amp;#039;ll be better off with the engine spinning and the alternator&amp;#039;s cooling fan spinning along rapidly to keep the alternator from frying itself. Start saving money in the cookie jar for a new battery. Deep-discharging a flooded-cell lead-acid car battery like yours, even once, will permanently damage it. Torque to Me  Q:   I am changing the front struts on my &amp;#039;05 Ford Explorer. The manual says I need to torque the bolt that mates the strut to the lower control arm to 258 ft-lb. I looked everywhere for a big enough torque wrench. It looks like all the torque wrenches peak at 250 ft-lb! I also researched impact wrenches, and they have the torque required, but I wonder if they&amp;#039;re accurate.  A:   An impact wrench is not an acceptable way to torque anything, even a lug nut. There are larger torque wrenches, but you&amp;#039;d need to go to an auto parts store or an industrial supply house. For serious torquing, they make gear-driven torque multipliers that can increase the torque value on the wrench by as much as eightfold. Of course, that&amp;#039;s overkill for your job. I would just set the torque wrench to 250 ft-lb, and give it one tiny twist more after the click. For that matter, the difference between 250 and 258 ft-lb is about 3 percent, and I doubt the wrench calibration is closer than that. Not fastidious enough for you? Let&amp;#039;s try this. Put an open-end crowfoot on the end of the torque wrench instead of a \u00ADsocket, which will extend the wrench about three-\u00ADquarters of an inch. My half-inch torque wrench is about 14 inches long from the center of the drive to the pivot on the handle. Adding the crowfoot will multiply the torque by 14.75/14, or a little more than 105 percent. Measure your crowfoot and wrench to find the specific multi\u00ADplier for your application. If you were to make or buy an extension that moved the torque wrench back exactly 14 inches, then the torque on the bolt would be exactly double what the wrench is set to. Sometimes, I just use a combination wrench as a torque multiplier. Do the math to figure what you need to dial up on the wrench to achieve the correct \u00ADfastener torque. Diesel Woes  Q:   I own a 2009 Jetta TDI like your long-term test car (in the August &amp;#039;09 issue). I too had the experience of purchasing contaminated fuel. I fueled up my car with diesel and as I was leaving it sounded like I was dragging chains. By the time I went to exit the service station the car was nonfunctional. I had it towed to the nearest VW dealer and was told that I had contaminated fuel. But, unlike your test car, I had to pay $450 to have the fuel system flushed out.  A:   Gasoline burns far more rapidly than diesel, and the chain-like noise you heard was detonation, similar to the ping you get in a gas engine running on low-octane fuel. Continued operation under these conditions could damage your engine, so be glad it shut down right away. Obviously, somewhere along the distribution chain, gas got mixed with diesel fuel. That gas station owes you $450 and the cost of the tow. You, and a lot of other people who pumped fuel from that tank. Call whatever state or county agency regulates gas stations in your area and complain. Then call your attorney. CONTINUED: Octane Levels at High Altitudes &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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