#Auto Electronics Repair

[letstalkwheels-blog]

This weeks show is up on ITunes, Spotify, and Audioboom podcast platforms.

[mn12platform]

as frustrating as it is to find something im passionate about that i know next to nothing about it is also a bit relieving that i like. ended up figuring something out already

[davidmarkweb125]

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[heightscarcare]

Wondering what causes the alternator to go bad? If your car is getting hard to start, you may be wondering if there is a problem with the starters.

[beardedmrbean]

Legislation under the moniker “right to repair” has now been introduced in all 50 states, marking a major milestone in this grassroots consumer movement.

GNN has reported on the march of right to repair laws across the US, but also the kind of entrepreneurialism they engender: like an aftermarket auto parts company that makes replacements for well-known faulty components in automobiles.

Passed in New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon, Wisconsin just became the final US state to introduce some sort of right to repair laws.

In broad terms, all of these bills would generally guarantee a consumer’s right to access replacement parts for devices and machines, repair manuals or other relevant documents for expensive products, diagnostics data from original manufacturers, and even in some cases, such as automobiles, appropriate tools necessary for maintenance.

They may also ban the use of technological protection measures, sometimes called “software locks” that are designed to restrict repair only to authorized repair technicians.

“Americans are fed up with all the ways in which manufacturers of everything from toasters to tractors frustrate or block repairs, and lawmakers are hearing that frustration and taking action,” Nathan Proctor, right to repair director for consumer rights group PIRG, told 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, who has been tracking right to repair legislation for 10 years.

OF A SIMILAR SPIRIT: 580 Repair Shops Form a Flourishing Subculture Fixing Toasters, Electronics, Coffee Makers and Lamps

He details that at first, big tech and big engineering, such as Apple, John Deere, and others, ardently lobbied against these bills, saying that trade secrets protections would be violated if they were forced to turn over diagnostics, telemetry, or other insider data to non-company actors.

The progressive difficulty with which modern products, particularly electronics, are designed prevents most amateurs from being able to repair them if they break.

MORE RIGHT TO REPAIR NEWS: EU Approves Groundbreaking New ‘Right to Repair’ Laws Requiring Appliances to Be Easier to Fix

Screws are forsaken in favor of plastic locking toggles which break if removed, fuse or wire cover panels are replaced with jointless polymer molded covers, both of which and many more examples besides are designed to deter the fix-it-minded folks enough so that they will just throw the product away and buy a new one.

Electronic waste is one of the largest sources of non-recyclable landfill waste, and hopefully enough of these right to repair bills pass that some of these millions of powerstrips, lamps, phones, computers, and televisions can be kept out of the ground.

[whohasthecards]

Hangster AU -- Firefighter Bradley & Best Buy Employee/Aviator Jake

AU where Bradley is a firefighter and Jake is still an aviator. Jake is on a long leave, probably because of the mission, and he takes another job to pass the time. He works at Best Buy.

Bradley comes to Best Buy to buy something, he's still in uniform, so Jake knows where he works at. And they snark at one another, but Jake manages to throw the box of what Bradley needs at him, smirking all the time.

---

"Can we stop debating the merits of 10 different wires and connectors and just give me the box, please," Bradley said exasperated as he held a hand out for the box this Ken doll was holding.

"Sure, here, catch," Jake said shrugging throwing the box lightly at him. "No need to get as red as your fire truck."

Bradley groans, rolls his eyes, and walks away. He was never wearing his fire department shirt in public ever again.

---

Bradley put his keys on in his bronco. And turn it. Engine sputtering.

"Oh come on," Bradley muttered, moustache twitching.

He stepped down again on the brake and clutch, twisting the key. Nada. Bradley groaned and hit his head on the steering wheel wondering who the fuck to call.

He jumped when he heard a knock at the window, seeing Ken doll, looking sympathetic.

He opened the door.

"Need a jump?" Ken-doll asked.

Bradley, sighed, "Yes please."

"Give me a sec to bring my car over."

"Thank you." ---

"Man, you've been having issues with the lights and radio, too? But you just replaced the bulbs, right?"

Bradley deeply sighed and rubbed the space between his eyes, "Yeah."

"That's fucked up, man, good luck, better bring it to the shop for the wiring."

"No comment on the wires on this one?"

"Car wiring is a whole another thing I ain't gonna touch, too much of a headache for me," Ken-doll said, flicking the toothpick in his mouth to the side.

"How do you know so much about wires, anyways? You work with it a lot at Best Buy?" Bradley said going back inside his truck to try to start it.

"Nah, not really, I studied engineering, and my other job. You pick some stuff up along the way."

"You studied engineering and you work at Best Buy!?" Bradley said fingers slipping from the ignition.

"Anything wrong with that?" Ken-doll said, raising a brow.

"No, I mean-- Oh look the car's starting," Bradley said flustered. "Thank you, man, I'm Bradley Bradshaw by the way, incase you need anything, I'm by the fire station." Bradley said holding out his hand.

"It's Jake, and if you need anything from electronic goods to repair, come to Best Buy for a wonderful service," Jake said shaking his hand and winking.

"Should add auto-repair to that slogan."

---

A series of events caused them to meet again. And they hit it off, go one dates and all that.

Jake likes listening to Bradley's stories about his job, and Jake tells him about some crazy customers he had to deal with.

Bradley never asked about Jake's previous job/other job, and Jake,,, forgot.

---

One day, Bradley's station gets a call for a jet having to do an emergency crash landing. And they have to make sure that the area is clear and be prepared for anything that might happen. If the pilot gets stuck or something gets lit on fire.

And they're listening in on the radio with the pilot and pilot's instructor telling him what to do. Calm, steady, smooth, and knowledgeable.

Familiar.

They arrive on scene, get the pilot out, and the instructor comes eventually in a rush.

"Is my pilot, okay?" A familiar voice asked.

"Yeah, we're getting him checked out at the hospital, nothing severe."

He hears the man sigh, "Good."

The man turns the corner, and his eyes flickered to Bradley for a moment, before focusing back on the fire captain.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Seresin, thank you for helping during this incident."

---

"You work in the Navy!?"

"Yeaahhh--"

"You didn't tell me!?"

"I forgot!"

A pause.

"Also does the team know we're dating?"

"The station? No, why?"

"Wanna mess with them?"

"I'm listening."

[iconicanemone]

Ratchet and his Amnesiac Misadventures

My brain gave me a dream, that’s a fic concept I wanna write. But as dreams are it’s fragmented and wishy washy, so I’m sharing it here rn as it is.

(planning on making more with this but would help love group brainstorming >.<)

So the auto bots and decepticons are on earth. It’s maybe? a real Robots in Disguise situation like in tfp but definitely more cast like in gen1. (Tfp is the only one I’ve watched fully tbh) I honestly don’t know what kind of situation the cybertronians are in, just that Ratchet uses his holoform from the start 

So humans are in danger because of a decepticon. I’m thinking Deadlock cause of the shippy potential but it may not matter. Ratchet goes rolling in with his holoform activated to help with the majorly injured humans. It ends up being a long while, like multiple days as a siege. During this, multiple blasts and explosions happen, and long term of this and Ratchet sorta locks away Ratchet’s long term memory, or one potent blast gives him straight up amnesia, something like that. The end result is that Ratchet doesn’t remember being cybertronian. All he knows is he’s a medic/doctor, with his ambulance being his main workspace, there are people injured and getting injured, and maybe he knows his name is Ratchet? That may get swept away too, and he only gets it back if he told any of the civilians it.

My dream had it where the decepticon, we’re saying Dreadlock rn, takes one of the humans and threatens to personally kill one of them, and ends up grabbing amnesiac Ratchet, who is still his grumpy self y’know

Something something happens, the humans are at one point able to escape and/or disperse. Ratchet is among with them, still helping the injuried and transporting them in his ambulance. Deadlock ends up following him, cause he’s curious about this grumpy human. He’s all “no bad feelings squishy, wrong place wrong time. Had to defeat/escape the auto bots”. (This just gets a wrench to the face)

Ratchet ends up spending months helping people with minor and major injuries for no cost, while also trying to figure out how to jumpstart his memories cause he doesnt remember anything from before the big robot siege. Deadlock is there too, just hanging around. And then also Ratchet ends up doing repair work for electronics somehow. Which he does for pay, cause that’s not what he does, he’s a medic dangit

Yeah that’s all my dream gave me. I added Deadlock, but just because there was a decepticon hovering around Ratchet/the reason Ratchet loses his memory. I do wanna write this somehow but would love help brainstorming, no part of this is set in stone except ‘Ratchet loses his memory and thinks he’s human and no one realizes that’s what happened to the medic’

tumblr is pretty much the only place I can share these ideas rn, I just hope people see this and are interested

Edit: check the #Ratchet’s Amnesiac Misadventures tag for more on this

[microwavedmetal]

Imagine House MD, but the characters all work in some big shot Auto Repair garage instead of a hospital.

House's job is to find out what is wrong with the car. He takes cases other mechanicians couldn't figure out, the ones where clients were getting frustrated because they kept coming back for seemingly the same problems. And those problems are never as obvious and simple as they first appear to be.

So, he still got his team to help with the diagnosis. Foreman's speciality is electrical systems, Cameron's are electronical and car computer, and Chase has those fine motor skills that come in handy when it's time to do the actual fixing. They're still forced to stake out the client's home to gather info and they do whatever it takes to get the vehicle up and running. Like in canon, they are encouraged to use unconventional or dangerous methods and they more often than not obtain their spare parts through less than honest means.

Wilson works in the Bodyshop right beside the garage. Both garages along a couple others nearby are owned by Cuddy. Clients come in with rusty cars, crooked frames and other unsightly damages, and Wilson determines if the vehicle is salvagable or not and how it can be restored.

Oh, and when House acts up too much, Cuddy punishes him by sticking him in the oil and tire changes workstation.

[michelalovesbieber]

Proper Car Maintenance for Keeping Your Wheels Safe and Smooth

A New Jersey shipping company is stepping up to help beginner drivers with proper car maintenance tips. This guide covers the basics, from checking oil levels and proper brake and transmission maintenance, to inspecting tire pressure. It breaks down tasks into simple steps, making it easy for new drivers to follow. Knowing how to care for a car can save money and extend its life.

Lucky Star Auto Transport encourage beginner drivers to practice safe driving, and make sure they feel confident behind the wheel. By sharing helpful tips, they’re creating safer roads for everyone.

Transmission Types and Proper Maintenance Care

A transmission system connects engine power to vehicle movement. This complex mechanism controls the engine's rotational force and sends it to the wheels through precisely engineered components.

Types of Transmissions:

Manual transmissions require driver gear changes

Automatic transmissions change gears independently

Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) offers infinite gear ratios

Dual-clutch transmissions combine automatic and manual features

Transmissions convert engine power into controlled energy that moves vehicles forward or backward.

Manual transmissions work with different gear sets that lock and unlock.

Automatic transmissions use the same set of gears to produce all gear ratios.

The cars gear-set is the life-line of automatic transmissions. It has three main components: the sun gear, planet gears with their carrier, and the ring gear. This system creates multiple gear ratios without engaging or disengaging additional gears.

Drivers should follow these maintenance steps to ensure optimal performance:

Check transmission fluid levels monthly

Look for potential leaks regularly

Service according to manufacturer schedules

Fix unusual noises quickly

Automatic transmissions rely heavily on their hydraulic system. The pump pulls fluid from the transmission sump and delivers it to the hydraulic system. Modern transmissions now use electronic controls. These controls use solenoids to manage hydraulic circuits while they track vehicle speed and throttle position.

Proper Brake Care: How Often to Replace Car Brakes

Regular brake inspections help prevent repairs that can get pricey and keep your vehicle safe. Mechanics suggest checking brake parts during regular maintenance. Brake pads typically last 30,000-35,000 miles with city driving and can extend up to 80,000 miles on highways.

Brake Inspection Process:

Let brakes cool down completely (minimum one hour)

Check brake fluid's color and level

Look through wheel spokes to check pad thickness

Remove wheels if needed for detailed inspection

Note any unusual sounds or vibrations

Your brakes might need service if you notice these signs:

Squealing or screeching at the time of braking

Grinding or growling sounds

Vibration in brake pedal or steering wheel

Longer stopping distances

Dashboard warning lights

Fresh brake pads measure between 10-12 millimeters (3/8 to 1/2 inch) thick. You should replace them when thickness drops to 3 millimeters, though some experts suggest replacement at 6 millimeters (1/4 inch).

You can check brake pad condition through wheel spokes. Many brake pads have a wear indicator slot - replacement becomes crucial when this slot barely shows or disappears. Several vehicles use dashboard warning lights or make squealing sounds to signal minimum pad thickness.

San Jose's city drivers might need brake pad replacement between 30,000-35,000 miles. Highway drivers can see their pads last up to 80,000 miles. Regular brake dust buildup shows normal wear, but less brake dust often means it's time to replace the pads.

Understanding basic tasks like checking oil levels, maintaining tire pressure, and keeping the car clean can improve cars safety and efficiency. This informative guide shared by the car transporters will provide you the right knowledge that can help you get started on the right track.

Take charge of your car’s care, and remember, regular maintenance saves you time and money in the long run. Keep your car in good condition for a smooth driving experience.

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

Israel's Good News Newsletter to 26th May 24

In the 26th May 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

Israeli technology helps Irish doctors early-diagnose potentially fatal diseases.

Another female designer of Israeli missile defense systems.

200 Israeli hi-tech engineers donate their time to develop life-saving solutions.

An Israeli startup removes a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2.

The first Israeli auto-industry company to set up a factory in India.

A world record is broken during an Israeli soccer match.

2000-year-old Jewish emblems discovered in a Palestinian-Arab village.

Read More: Good News From Israel

One of the traditional International ways to show respect to someone is to remove your hat on greeting them. So the expression "Hats off to Israel" is very appropriate for those who appreciate what Israel has contributed to the world. 

In this week's Positive newsletter are reminders to the President of Ireland that Israeli technology is saving many lives in a Dublin hospital. The President of Brazil should note that an Israeli blood testing machine is early diagnosing fatal diseases in his country.  And the President of Syria need only ask his Israeli neighbor to treat his wife with one of Israel's many remedies for Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Meanwhile the UN, ICJ and ICC should bare their heads in shame, knowing that Israeli companies last week announced new treatments for liver cancer, electronic patches to kill bacteria infections, electromagnetic brain rehabilitation after strokes, implants to repair the spine, and remote medical diagnostics in thousands of schools.

Then there are the Israeli innovations for ultra-fast charging of electric vehicles, real-time CCTV security systems, lab alternatives to overfishing, and the removal of a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.

The photo (TY Sharon) shows the respect to Israel given by the many International military officers who attended the Diplomatic reception at the Jerusalem residence of the President of Israel on Israel's Independence Day.  Their message was certainly "Hats Off" to Israel!

[sngl-led-auto-lights]

Why do headlights dim when a car engine is turned on?

Headlights dimming when you start the car’s engine is usually normal, but it can also signal an underlying electrical issue. Here’s why it happens and when to be concerned:

1. Normal Behavior: Momentary Dimming During Engine Startup

Cause: When you turn the key (or push the start button), the starter motor draws a massive surge of power (150–300+ amps) from the battery. This temporarily drops the battery voltage (from ~12.6V to 9–10V), reducing power to the headlights.

Duration: Dimming lasts 1–2 seconds while the engine cranks. Lights should brighten once the alternator begins charging (~14V).

Typical in: Older vehicles, cars with weaker batteries, or halogen headlights (LEDs are less affected due to lower power draw).

2. Abnormal Dimming: Persistent or Severe Voltage Drop If headlights stay dim after the engine starts or dim while driving, it indicates a problem:

Common Causes

Weak or Failing Battery: • A degraded battery can’t maintain voltage under load. • Test: Check battery voltage (engine off: <12.4V = weak; running: <13.5V = alternator issue).

Faulty Alternator: • Worn brushes, bad diodes, or a loose belt reduce charging capacity. • Symptom: Lights dim when using accessories (AC, heated seats).

Corroded or Loose Connections: • Corrosion on battery terminals, ground straps, or headlight wiring increases resistance, causing voltage drop.

Overloaded Electrical System: • Aftermarket upgrades (amplifiers, light bars) strain the alternator.

3. How to Diagnose

Test the Battery: • Use a multimeter to check voltage (engine off: 12.6V ideal; engine running: 13.5–14.5V). • Load-test the battery at an auto parts store.

Inspect the Alternator: • Rev the engine to 2,000 RPM while monitoring voltage (should stay steady at ~14V).

Check Wiring: • Clean battery terminals with baking soda/water and a wire brush. • Trace ground connections (engine block to chassis) for corrosion.

Reduce Load: • Disconnect aftermarket electronics to see if dimming stops.

4. Solutions

Replace the Battery: Opt for a higher CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) rating if you live in a cold climate.

Repair/Replace Alternator: Rebuild or upgrade to a high-output alternator if needed.

Upgrade Wiring: Replace corroded cables or install a headlight relay harness to reduce voltage drop.

Switch to LEDs: LED bulbs draw less power and are less affected by voltage fluctuations.

When to Worry

Lights stay dim even after the engine starts.

Flickering or random brightness changes while driving.

Battery warning light appears on the dashboard.

Cost Estimates Fix Cost Range Battery replacement $100–$300 Alternator repair/replace $200–$600 Wiring harness upgrade $50–$150 (DIY) LED bulb conversion $40–$200

Key Takeaway: Brief dimming during startup is normal, but persistent dimming means your electrical system needs attention. Address issues early to avoid being stranded with a dead battery! 🔧🔋

[usafphantom2]

Did you know that a Russian left communist Russia with a MIG 25? He left because he wanted to see the United States when he got here he was shocked at what he found. It wasn’t like what the communist propaganda had told him.

Lt Viktor Belenko with very low fuel landed his Mig-25 at Hakodate Airport in northern Japan, running off the end of the short runway. His defection to the West gave the United States the opportunity to closely examine the Mig-25. The aircraft was completely dismantled and then carefully inspected by aviation scientists and engineers from both Japan and the United States. President Ford granted Belenko asylum in the United States and the pilot underwent five months of questioning and interrogation. The United States Government established a Trust Fund for him and the interest alone afforded Belenko very comfortable living in the U.S. He was a free man, at last, to do as he pleased.

Upon dismantling the Mig-25, the data was analyzed by the Foreign Technology Division of the Air Force at Dayton, Ohio. There were many surprises:

The Mig had been manufactured in February 1976 and thus was one of their latest most sophisticated production aircraft.

Transistor circuitry was not used but instead the Soviets relied on vacuum tubes for most of their electronics. The Soviets reasoned the vacuum tubes were less affected by EMP waves in the case of nuclear attack; were more resistant to temperature extremes and they were easy to replace in remote airfields where transistors may not be readily available if repairs were needed.

Pilot forward vision was highly obstructed.

With huge Tumansky R-15D-300 engines the Mig was considered almost a rocket.

Pilots were forbidden to exceed Mach 2.5.

There was a total of three engine instruments and the airspeed indicator was redlined at 2.8 Mach.

Above Mach 2.8 the engines would overheat and burn up. The Americans had clocked a Mig-25 over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973.

The combat radius is 186 miles.

Without using afterburner; staying at optimum altitude and not maneuvering, the Mig can fly in a straight line for 744 miles.

The plane was so heavy at 64,200 pounds, that according to early rumors Soviet designers had to eliminate a pilot ejection system. However this was disproved. Most MiG-25s used the KM-1 ejector seat. The last versions used an early variant of the famous K-36 seat. The speed record for the fastest successful ejection (Mach 2.67) is held by a KM-1 equipped MiG-25.

Maximum altitude of missiles: 88,588 feet.

Maximum G load: With full fuel tanks 2.2 G's is max; with near empty fuel tanks, 5 G's is dangerous. The Mig-25 cannot turn inside a U.S. F-4 Phantom fighter!

Belenko states the Mig-25 cannot intercept the SR-71 for several reasons: The SR-71 fly too high and too fast; the Mig cannot reach it or catch it. The missiles lack the velocity to overtake the SR-71 and in the event of a head on missile fire (The Golden BB), the Guidance system cannot adjust to the high closure rate of the SR-71.

The Mig-25 has a jam proof radar but cannot distinguish targets below 1,640 feet due to ground clutter. The radar was so powerful it could burn through jamming signals by approaching bombers.

The pilot duties were to take off, turn on the auto pilot and await instructions to fire the missiles from ground controllers. The Mig-25 had a superb auto pilot and digital communications from an onboard computer to ground controllers. Credit is given to the Soviets for building a high altitude Interceptor in a short period of time with the materials and engines available to them in 1967 in order to counter the perceived threat of the XB-70.

On November 12, 1976, sixty-seven days after the defection of Belenko and his Mig-25 to the West, the United States and Japan returned the Mig-25 to Russia...in dismantled pieces. I strongly recommend reading his MiG Pilot I bought my copy on Amazon, but they were running low on copies even though the book is 30 years old.

Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[siaelectronics]

https://justpaste.it/g3a01

[ohromin]

hi everyone!! i'm mars (any pronouns) and i'm sorry i didn't have a chance to really prepare for tonight and definitely don't have any intro graphic ready, but i still wanted to make a quick introduction. please meet oh romin; my wonderfully tragic son. i'm super excited to get him involved and i'll put some quick info and ideas under the cut to hopefully get him started!!

and, as always, my dms are always open to anyone who wants to plot and move forward on any interactions.

INFO:

he's pretty sure that he's 20 and really all he remembers about his past is early childhood memories; playing soccer and baseball in fields with his friends, exploring trails in the woods with his sister, just growing up in the 90s and enjoying a childhood before electronics totally took over the world. he remembers his family didn't have a lot of money so he didn't really have the pocket money to spend at arcades with his friends, nor did they own any early gaming consoles, but he was loved and happy.

cw animal death mention: also he has a dog. it's some sort of stray jindo mix that he childishly named aji. he's vaguely aware that this is his childhood dog, but hasn't recalled that his dog died years ago.

he likes to be busy and work with his hands, be outdoors, etc. he's currently a mechanic at apex auto repair & towing and he's pretty good at it... he doesn't remember WHY he's good at it but he seems to know a lot about cars.

in his free time he likes to go on long walks or hikes with aji, visits the arcade, movie theater, etc... the last fifteen years he's kinda spent just staying on the same paths and living in a very boring way and he didn't really notice time passing, but now he's started to get bored and is looking to shake up his "life". so he's trying to go places he hasn't before, talk to people he's never met, and generally just get more involved with the community.

PLOTS/CONNECTIONS:

tba.... i did not prepare in advance and now it's late at night for me and i'm old and tired LOL but i'll update this as soon as i can with some ideas!!

[justforbooks]

Morgan Spurlock

American film-maker best known for his acclaimed 2004 documentary Super Size Me

Few film-makers can say that their work has made a change to the real world, but Morgan Spurlock had a stronger claim than most. His 2004 documentary Super Size Me, an exposé of how the fast food industry was fuelling America’s obesity epidemic, appeared to have direct repercussions for the world’s largest fast food chain, McDonald’s.

Shortly before the film came out in May that year, the company introduced its Go Active! menu, which included salad items; six weeks after its release, the company abolished its supersize portions entirely.

McDonald’s claimed these menu changes were a coincidence. But the director, who has died aged 53 of complications from cancer, struck a timely blow at the business when awareness about fast food’s corrosive role in public health was on the rise.

Super Size Me’s high-concept premise – eating three McDonald’s meals for 30 days straight – was key to conveying Spurlock’s message. With the director gaining 11kg, plumping out his body fat from 11% to 18% and inflicting heart palpitations, impotence and depression on himself, his gonzo approach put him at the forefront of the early noughties boom in cinematic documentaries instigated by Michael Moore. “There’s real power in a documentary,”Spurlock later said.

Doubts later emerged about Spurlock’s experiment in bodily attrition, after he refused to release his diet logs from the period; and then when it later emerged that he was an alcoholic who had also imbibed during the shoot.

An inveterate attention-seeker and twinkly-eyed showman, he was not going to let these details affect either the purity of Super Size Me’s marketing line, or his emerging career as a documentary star; a budding Moore for the Jackass generation. He would consistently target totems of modern capitalism and consumerism, though none of his subsequent works had the same kind of influence as his 2004 lightning-bottler.

Spurlock was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and grew up in Beckley in the Methodist household of his auto-repair shop-owning father Ben and mother Phyllis, an English teacher and high-school counsellor. Though his parents later divorced, he credited his mother in particular with instilling in him a sense of activism: “She was one of those people who speak up when she didn’t agree with things. She was a collector of people too: if you had the ability to help people, you should,” he told the International Documentary Association.

A childhood fan of British humour such as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, he was already exercising his entertainer’s streak doing “funny walks” around the house aged six or seven.

Rejected five times by University of Southern California’s film school, he graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 1993. “I wanted to be Spielberg. I wanted to write and direct scripted movies,” Spurlock told Interview magazine. He originally showed promise in this direction, winning an award for his stage play The Phoenix at the New York international fringe festival in 1999.

After stints as a personal assistant on Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway and Luc Besson’s Leon (both 1994), Spurlock first stepped in front of camera as a promotional spokesman for Sony Electronics. But his breakthrough came though hitching himself to the reality TV bandwagon with the self-created internet webcast, and, later (in 2002), MTV show, I Bet You Will. As one of the presenting team, Spurlock goaded members of the public into humiliating themselves for money – with stunts such as being “wedgied” or eating a worm burrito.

Super Size Me grossed $22m on a $65,000 budget, making it one of the most profitable documentaries of all time. Spurlock believed his body never fully recovered – though he lost the weight thanks to a special diet concocted by his then girlfriend, the vegan chef Alex Jamieson (the pair married and had a son, Laken, in 2006, before divorcing in 2011; Spurlock had been previously married to Priscilla Somer between 1996 and 2003).

He also later expressed doubts about the longer-term impact of Super Size Me on fast food corporations, later reflecting: “People say to me, ‘So has the food gotten healthier?’ And I say, ‘Well, the marketing sure has.’”

Spurlock could not skewer the zeitgeist again to create a second “doc-buster”, despite tilting at big-hitter topics such as terrorism (in 2008’s Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?) and product-placement and advertising (POM Wonderful Presents: the Greatest Movie Ever Sold in 2011). With his trademark handlebar moustache, he settled into a reliably affable front-of-camera presence nosing around socio-cultural issues and foibles – sometimes fatuously.

In total, he directed and produced nearly 70 films and series, including a One Direction hagiography in 2013 and a Super Size Me sequel in 2017. But he retained keen business sense and marketing nous throughout this prolific output. “He taught us that we have to be chief executive artists,” his fellow documentary-maker Ondi Timoner told Variety.

Towards the end of Spurlock’s life, his career was on hold after he confessed in a 2017 blogpost to sexually abusive behaviour, including an allegation of rape while at college and paying off a production assistant he had harassed. “I have been unfaithful to every wife and girlfriend I have ever had,” he also wrote, explaining he had been sexually abused in his youth. He divulged all this possibly pre-emptively in anticipation of future accusations in the up swell of the #MeToo movement.

Making himself the focus of the story was true to his modus operandi, and his professed desire for self-improvement could indeed have made a fascinating documentary.

But the mea culpa proved an effective self-cancellation, with him resigning from the production company, Warrior Poets, he had founded in 2004 and being sued by Turner Entertainment Networks for an aborted project.

He divorced his third wife, the producer Sara Bernstein – with whom he had a second son – in 2024. His final documentary credit was for a mockumentary creating a fake history around the classic 1992 Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat.

Spurlock is survived by his children, Laken and Kallen, by his parents and his brothers, Craig and Barry.

🔔 Morgan Spurlock, director and producer, born 7 November 1970; died 23 May 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?