What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do

[rickman]

RS Wood wrote on 11/4/2017 9:00 AM:

Bob F wrote:

3. replace/rebuild engine
Did it.

The closest I came to for the engine was an Infiniti Q45 I had where my
wife holed the oil pan somehow (she said it wasn't her fault).

To replace the oil pan, I had to buy an engine "holder" where I unbolted
the engine mounts and jacked it up from underneath and then hung it on a
hook over this crossbar which bolted into the shock bolts.

But I've never replaced an engine mostly because I never drove an engine
into the ground that needed to be replaced. I envy people who have done it
because it must feel great to put a new engine in yourself.

Same here. Any car of mine that needed an engine wasn't worth putting an
engine in. Older cars were not made to last and that was true for every
part of that car. Even things like seats and headliners were shot by the
time the engine was shot. My current truck has 240,000 miles on it and the
engine is one of a number of parts that shows nearly no sign of going
anytime soon. The parts that have been repaired often were not repaired
right so some have needed repairing more than once, but otherwise the truck
is very sound.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 11/4/2017 12:24 PM, rickman wrote:

RS Wood wrote on 11/4/2017 9:00 AM:

But I've never replaced an engine mostly because I never drove an engine
into the ground that needed to be replaced. I envy people who have
done it
because it must feel great to put a new engine in yourself.

Same here.  Any car of mine that needed an engine wasn't worth putting
an engine in.  Older cars were not made to last and that was true for
every part of that car.  Even things like seats and headliners were shot
by the time the engine was shot.  My current truck has 240,000 miles on
it and the engine is one of a number of parts that shows nearly no sign
of going anytime soon.  The parts that have been repaired often were not
repaired right so some have needed repairing more than once, but
otherwise the truck is very sound.

Evidently you never owned a Buick or Olds with the 3.8 engine from the
early 80's. I know of many being rebuilt/replaced. I had the engine
replaced on my '83 Cutlass and drove it until the next one died. The
car had 130,00+ miles. Not sure how many as the odometer stopped
working. I was determined to drive it until it does. Left work one
day, started the car, drove 3 feet and it died. Took the company pickup
home and stopped at a car dealer on the way and bought another car.

 

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

On 11/3/2017 7:42 PM, RS Wood wrote:

What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never
done?

Mine are, in this order of "I wish I could do it" order
1. painting
2. alignment
3. replace/rebuild engine
4. clutch replacement
5. tire mounting and balancing
6. timing belt
7. head gasket and vcg

I've done electrical, brakes, shocks, cooling systems, alternators,
ujoints, pitman/idler arms & tie-rod ends and ball joints, tuneups,
emissions hoses and sensors, exhaust, electrical components, fuel pumps,
and fluids, but not the six things above.

What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never
done?

Dork

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/04/2017 06:00 AM, RS Wood wrote:

rickman wrote:

None, I've done a bunch of work on cars in my day, but I'm fed up with it
now. I wish I could find someone who has half a brain who would do a decent
job fixing my truck. It's old and has issues, but the repair people I seem
to find these days fix one thing and break something else.

My observation with repair people is that it's hard to find one who cares
to do what he was trained to do.

Recently a bolt was missing from a repair job and when I came back to ask
why, the guy told me it didn't do anything.

I reflected that the car still works fine without the bolt, but there is no
way they put that bolt there in the first place if it didn't do anything.

He didn't believe me.

Sounds like the Ford dealership jerk who replaced the starter on the 69
LTD. One loose bolt, one dropped on top of the starter and one
completely missing. He was partially right, it ran for a couple of
years afterward.

--
Cheers, Bev
I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding
that I get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human.
-- Captain Splendid

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

I am pretty sure my biggest hurdle is that alignment takes KNOWLEDGE where
you have to convert degrees and inches using trig and measure a lot of
things to an imaginary centerpoint and to each other.

After replacing the joints I aligned my pickup with a tape measure and
plumb bob. I was not at all confident so i took it to a tire shop. It
was within spec and didn't need any tweaking.

Each has a hurdle that has to be overcome, both in measuring and in
adjusting.

For example, adjusting toe is easy (just spin the tierod ends), but the
wheels have to slip under load, which isn't so easy.

Measuring TOTAL toe would be easy if you can clear the undercarriage, but
that's not really how the manufacturer usually specs it.

Measuring individual toe (to an imaginary centerline) isn't all that easy,
is it? How do you do it?

Then there is the problem of specs. The toe spec is often in degrees
whereas we measure in inches, so you have to think in order to convert.

Likewise, camber is easy to measure with a plumb bob, but you have to clear
the sidewall of the tire and then calculate from the centerline of the
tire, so, you have to take precise measurements and then calculate an angle
from those measurements after first clearing the sidewall somehow.

Caster is the hardest to measure directly, and I don't think we can measure
caster directly in a home setup. Can we?

So caster will take thinking, which, after all, I think is the hardest part
of an alignment. All the other jobs anyone can do - but alignment takes
thinking because of the kinds of issues above, most important being that
the spec is never (Murphy's Law) in the form of what you can measure
directly.

 

[RS Wood]

gfretwell@aol.com wrote:

Spray cans for a roof? Interesting. If it works, it works! (that's my motto
when my wife asks me "Is that the way it's _supposed_ to be done?".

The cans with the blue head and the wire you can see in the gap seem
to have the best fan pattern.

This is good to know! I've seen this type. Never understood them.
Then again, _every_ can of paint I have ever used is really only a
single-use item (just like many instant glues seem to be) because of the
clogging up (and yes, I clean them out upside down).

The trick with painting with cans is not to hold the button down all
the time and keep the can moving. Start your sweep push the button,
stop painting before you stop moving. It is pretty much the same with
a gun. Then remember you are layering the paint on, you are not trying
to cover it completely in one coat.

I envy you that you've done it.

How many spray cans would an entire car take?

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

I don't know anyone who does their own tires but when I watch the guys, I
wish I had that equipment, especially the air equipment, to just remove it
and put it back and spin it in between.


I do the tires on the bike with tube type tires. I would do the tubeless
but I worry about not having enough air to get the bead to seat. I
brought the bike to an indy shop for a new set and everything was going
good until the front tire. Even with a high flow air systems and the
tools he had a hell of a time. The sun was sinking in the west before
the bead finally caught and he could inflate it.

I've had problems getting the bead to seat correctly with tube tires but
with those you can deflate, beat on it, curse, inflate, rinse and repeat
until it goes.

I'm glad to hear nobody scream that we're all gonna die if we do any work
at home!

The reason people don't do these jobs isn't that we're all gonna die from
nuclear radiation if we do our own stuff.

I don't know anyone who does their own car tires but many motorcyclists do
their own bike tires and everyone does their own wheelbarrow and bicycle
tires.

Tires don't have the same problem as alignment because, other than safety,
you don't have to think all that much to do tires correctly.

Assuming you have a decently flowing air compressor I don't think seating
the bead is the issue usually although we've all had all sorts of times
when we just couldn't get something to seat, so I'm sure it happens. But
they're designed to seat with air so if we have air, we should be able to
seat the bead.

I think the far greater issue with doing tires at home is that you need
special tools that greatly extend your muscle power and worse - you will
never have the tools to do the dynamic balance.

So I don't see how you can ever do car tires right at home because you
can't finish the job right. For some reason, motorcycle tires work just
fine without dynamic balancing.

That's an enigma to me.

Why would bicycle and motorcycle tires work just fine without dynamic
balancing while car tires require dynamic balancing to work right?

 

[RS Wood]

gfretwell@aol.com wrote:

I did the bent on my wife's accord and I did the belt on her Pontiac
Sunbird twice and noticed the second time that the lower pulley was
defective. I drew the line on my Prelude when I saw the first step was
"remove engine" It turns out you really just loosen the motor mount
and tilt it up. (what the dealer did). On the other 2 you just remove
the tire and take out the panel in the wheel well. It is a straight
shot then. On the prelude the strut support, part of the unibody, is
in the way.

Well, if replacing a timing belt is that easy, then maybe it's not so much
a crime that they put a 60k-mile part inside an interference engine.

 

[RS Wood]

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A couple sheets of tin with grease between works in a pinch for slip
plates -

I always wondered about how to support the car on its weight and still get
the wheels to slip. I've seen the greased tin and the linoleum tiles, and
even the newspaper trick - but I always wondered how well they work.

The other problem is measuring to the imaginary centerline.

and for camber a simple square and calculator works just
fine.

Camber is pretty easy to measure if you have some way of keeping the tire
out of the picture.

Usually that means bolting something to the wheel that allows the digital
level to stick out away from the bulging tire.

So I think the hardest part of camber is the setup has to be bolted to the
wheel (although I've seen ways to do camber with just a plumb bob and a
ruler).

Toe in with a few sticks and a tape measure - or a simple laser
level (bubble level with a laser built into the one end - used to
"extend" the wheel angle instead of using sticks) works pretty good.

I think toe is easy to measure but hard to change.

For measuring, you just have to get around the fact that the engine and
suspension gets in the way of a straight-line calculation (as you did with
the laser suggestion above).

Yet you still have to have to reduce the friction when you turn the tierod
ends with the weight of the car (as you discussed above with the greased
plates).

Calculating caster is a bit more difficult without the proper tools,
but a mathematical genius (that's not me) could figure it out with the
same square, ruler, and calculator.

Here is, I think, the REAL reasons most of us don't do alignment at home.
The actual twisting of the bolts is pretty easy.
Even the toe plate and camber plates are easy if we purchase them.
So are the tape measures and digital levels.

I think the HARD part of alignment is that there is ALWAYS a need to
convert from inches to degrees and from imaginary centerline to actual
centerline, and from trigonometry if we don't measure the actual item we
have the spec for so we have to calculate to derive the value.

To summarize, the hardest part of the alignment, I think, is that you have
to THINK, whereas almost every other job we discussed, you don't have to
think all that much (other than about basic safety, for example, when
compressing springs).

Alignment is a THINKING man's game.

The laser level will do the tracking just fine, and a digital
protactor or electronic level would make things easier.

I don't have a laser anything but I won't disagree with you that extending
a measurement to the wall 50 feet away can be useful to measure small
degrees.

For example, toe could be specified as 1/2 degree, which is easy to measure
if you extend a line from the wheel to the wall 50 feet away but which is
really hard to measure six inches from the centerline of the wheel itself.

My point is that the TOOLS to MEASURE alignment are more and more in our
grasp at a reasonable price. Even the toe plates and camber bolting to the
wheel are within our prices.

The hurdle to alignment, I think, is that it's a THINKING man's game, more
so than any other job we're talking about. I don't have the skills myself.

Or so I think.

The most important thing - from having done alignments
professionally, using sophisticated equipment, is MNOWING what the
effects of different adjustments are - just because a car is "within
spec" doesn't mean it will go straight down the road and won't wear
tires. Tayloring the caster and camber leads is part science, and
part witchcraft.

I agree with you that alignment is a THINKING man's game, quite unlike all
the other things we talked about.

Sure it takes thinking to diagnose a slipping clutch or to diagnose an
emissions problem or to diagnose an electrical system anomaly but it
doesn't usually take a whole lot of thinking to just replace the parts once
you've figured out which ones broke (and most people just throw parts at
any job anyway which is how a lot of things get fixed).

With alignment, you have to THINK, especially if, as you noted, you're
aiming to get a performance value out of changing a value such as rear
camber for cornering or trying to increase the oversteer for handling.

In summary, I see HUGE HURDLES to alignment at home, but those hurdles have
very little to do with measuring or changing the values.

Here are the first half of my hurdles to doing a home alignment.
1. I need a toe-measuring tool that clears or avoids the undercarriage
2. I need toe plates that allow for slip of the tire under load
3. I need a camber setup on the wheel that clears or avoids the sidewall

Here are the second half.
4. I need the specs in a form that I can measure or calculate
5. I need to figure out the imaginary centerline
6. I need KNOWLEDGE because #4 will always be in something I can't measure
directly (Murphy's law of alignment specs) so I will have to calculate the
answer.

 

[RS Wood]

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

The 69 Dart wasn't quite as radical but would do 104 all day long
(225 slant six)

Ah yes. You reminded me. I also replaced a Holley 4-barrel carburetor!

It was fun to watch how the accelerator pump worked squirting inside, how
the throttle plate worked way down below, and how the choke plate on top
worked!

Is there a car sold today that uses a carb?
Probably not.

So that's a skill set along with dwell that we all have, but which isn't
all that useful anymore.

The kids that are 30 and 40 years old today probably don't even know what a
"condensor" is........

 

[RS Wood]

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A GOOD tech cares as much as you do - mabee more - because a poor job
reflects badly on him and can cost him BIG TIME if he gets a bed
reputation.

I can't disagree that a good PERSON cares as much or more than you do.
But you have to agree that there are people who care more about getting
vehicles through the door than doing the job right.

If they can skip a step or save a minute, they will, but that doesn't mean
that they did a better job. It just means they did a faster job.

At home, you're never trying to do the job fast.

I cared more about most of my customers' vehicles than they did for
the 25+ years I was actively in the trade.

This may be true since you saw lots of abuse I'll bet.

I'll bet the people NOT on this newsgroup don't even think about their
engines all that much.

If they took a car to the shop for a cooling system overhaul, I'll bet
they're not going to look to see if all the bolts that came out went back
in, for example.

And "redline" isn't necessarily the best or any better for your
application/ use than what they put in.

Fair enough.
Some things matter. Some don't.

I know that with some things though, the "standard" application isn't as
good as the "better" application, but for gear lubes, it probably only
needs to be GL-4 80W90 and that's it (or whatever the car maker specified).

So, a $5/quart GL-4 80W90 is as good as a $20/quart GL-4 80W90 gear oil.

I don't know clutches but there must be "standard" and "better" clutches,
aren't there? How do you know what the shop puts in by default?

Or they might. You just need the right shop, and the right
technician.

That's understood where a guy who tells me that the bolt isn't necessary
isn't necessarily the right technician, is he?

 

[RS Wood]

rickman wrote:

Same here. Any car of mine that needed an engine wasn't worth putting an
engine in. Older cars were not made to last and that was true for every
part of that car. Even things like seats and headliners were shot by the
time the engine was shot. My current truck has 240,000 miles on it and the
engine is one of a number of parts that shows nearly no sign of going
anytime soon. The parts that have been repaired often were not repaired
right so some have needed repairing more than once, but otherwise the truck
is very sound.

You make a good point which I don't know the answer to.

In my kid days, plastic toys did not exist (transistor radios didn't exist
either), so our Tonka toys were rubber wheels and steel bodies.

Nowadays, if you leave a kid's toy car outside, the sun alone will destroy
it within a year or two.

So they certainly don't build *some stuff* the way they used to.

However ... cars *seem* to be different. Are they?

My Chrysler's and Dodges days (in the olden days, we had brand loyalties
that sprang from the brand loyalties of our fathers) showed me that a
tuneup was needed every year, bias-ply tires lasted something like 20K
miles, and, as you said, the interior was shot by the time the engine went.

And that was in the days before plastic bumpers and plastic headlights
(they were real glass bulbs in those days).

But yet, it seems to me, cars last forever now.
In those days, 100K miles was a lot.
Now, it seems, 200K miles is approaching a lot.

Do they really make cars better but nothing else is better?
How can that be?

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

I know what you mean. All mine have been chains, where some have plastic
chain guides or tensioners which need replacing - but I've never needed to
replace a belt - but belts are pretty common on cars nowadays, aren't they?

Serpentine belts are common, as are interference engines. I replaced the
belt on my Geo when it got up around 100,000 miles. I didn't know the
maintenance history on the car and assumed it had never been replaced.
iirc, the belt was around $40 and the job took a couple of hours. The
biggest problem was the limited space.

To me, it's a double crime to put a belt inside an interference engine,
even more than the original crime of putting 60K-mile part inside an engine
in the first place.

If you're gonna put a 60,000-mile part inside an engine, then you should at
least make it easy to access.

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

Long ago, in the 80's, at Sears, I bought the compressor, the sprayer, and
the sandblaster, and the welder (but I bought gas welding equipment which
turned out to be a mistake because the skill set needed is great compared
to arc welding on thin metal with wires below them).

I've been going to get a gas setup with the portable tanks. I used to be
okay but it's been a long time. Gas is more versatile and works anywhere
you can drag the tanks but the inexpensive point and shoot wire machines
do make life easy over stick welding.

Definitely pros and cons to gas and stick welding.
I have both.

The arc welding takes a skill that is difficult with crappy 220V equipment,
where I tend to have the ugliest beads you've ever seen, and where I
"stick" to the metal all too often.

Then again, with thin plate such as that used on a vehicle, I tend to burn
through with the gas welding.

In the end, it's a skill set that is useful, but difficult to master.

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/04/2017 11:17 AM, RS Wood wrote:

So I don't see how you can ever do car tires right at home because you
can't finish the job right. For some reason, motorcycle tires work just
fine without dynamic balancing.

That's an enigma to me.

Why would bicycle and motorcycle tires work just fine without dynamic
balancing while car tires require dynamic balancing to work right?

My guess -- weight and speed are insufficient to cause problems.

--
Cheers, Bev
I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding
that I get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human.
-- Captain Splendid

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/03/2017 07:42 PM, RS Wood wrote:

What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never
done?

Mine are, in this order of "I wish I could do it" order
1. painting

Did that, along with minor bodywork repair. Sprayed orange lacquer on
my MC tank and chain guard (with a REAL sprayer, not cans), which came
out really nice. Fixed a few rust holes on the 55 Chevy with fiberglas
and bondo before letting Earl Scheib paint it. The Clymer bodywork
manual was definitely worth the money.

2. alignment
3. replace/rebuild engine
4. clutch replacement

Does a MC count?

5. tire mounting and balancing
6. timing belt
7. head gasket and vcg

Did all the work except milling the heads and final torquing down of
head bolts -- I just wasn't strong enough and didn't have a long enough
cheater. What's a vcg?

I've done electrical, brakes, shocks, cooling systems, alternators,
ujoints, pitman/idler arms & tie-rod ends and ball joints, tuneups,
emissions hoses and sensors, exhaust, electrical components, fuel pumps,
and fluids, but not the six things above.

Alternators, generators, starters, water pumps, motor mounts, brake
pads/drums, hoses, belts.

What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never
done?

NONE! I did this stuff because it was cheaper to do it myself. Now I
have a used 2013 Corolla and I only looked under the hood when I bought
it because someone else lifted it. One of the tires has a slow leak
(indicated by a sensor so I don't even have to check!) which I pump back
up every month or so, and I do that with a certain amount of resentment.

Don't get the cheap $10 Harbor Freight compressor, splurge on the $35
one; trust me.)

I tried to re-wind a MC alternator. Local electrical shop loaned me a
spool of wire and said to pay for what I used. I gave up after only a
few ounces. The guy said that he knew tiny Hispanic women who could do
that. They're heroes.

--
Cheers, Bev
I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding
that I get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human.
-- Captain Splendid

 

On Sat, 4 Nov 2017 12:38:29 -0400, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/4/2017 12:24 PM, rickman wrote:
RS Wood wrote on 11/4/2017 9:00 AM:

But I've never replaced an engine mostly because I never drove an engine
into the ground that needed to be replaced. I envy people who have
done it
because it must feel great to put a new engine in yourself.

Same here.  Any car of mine that needed an engine wasn't worth putting
an engine in.  Older cars were not made to last and that was true for
every part of that car.  Even things like seats and headliners were shot
by the time the engine was shot.  My current truck has 240,000 miles on
it and the engine is one of a number of parts that shows nearly no sign
of going anytime soon.  The parts that have been repaired often were not
repaired right so some have needed repairing more than once, but
otherwise the truck is very sound.


Evidently you never owned a Buick or Olds with the 3.8 engine from the
early 80's. I know of many being rebuilt/replaced. I had the engine
replaced on my '83 Cutlass and drove it until the next one died. The
car had 130,00+ miles. Not sure how many as the odometer stopped
working. I was determined to drive it until it does. Left work one
day, started the car, drove 3 feet and it died. Took the company pickup
home and stopped at a car dealer on the way and bought another car.

GMC = GarageMan's Companion.
I almost got 100000kn (62000 miles) on a GM
"crate" 3800 in my TranSport.

I rebuilt the 850 Mini at something lihe 196000 miles. The '53 Coronet
Hemi had almost exactly 100,000 miles on it when I got it with a
"dead" engine - I rebuilt it. The '57 Fatgo flathead six got a new cyl
head (the old one cracked) at about 250,000 miles.
I totally rebuilt the 2.6 Mitsu engine in the '85 LeBaron at about
125000 when it snapped the balance shaft chain (that also runs the oil
pump) (I bought it as a non-runner)
I replaced the heads on the '88 New Yorker 3 liter (also a Mitsu
engine - I call 'em Mit-so-shitty" for the second time at about
160,000km - they had been replaced by Chrysler at 100,000 just before
I bought it, and were still in good shape when I sold it with
240,000km on it. I replaced the clutch and timing shain at the same
time on my '81 Tercel at something like 275000 km - the belt had been
changed previously at the dealership ( I think I did it too - can't
remember) for the original owner before I bought it.

Some engines didn't last vert well at all - and others just wouldn't
quit

 

On Sat, 4 Nov 2017 18:17:04 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood <rswood@is.invalid>
wrote:

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A couple sheets of tin with grease between works in a pinch for slip
plates -

I always wondered about how to support the car on its weight and still get
the wheels to slip. I've seen the greased tin and the linoleum tiles, and
even the newspaper trick - but I always wondered how well they work.

The other problem is measuring to the imaginary centerline.

and for camber a simple square and calculator works just
fine.

Camber is pretty easy to measure if you have some way of keeping the tire
out of the picture.

Usually that means bolting something to the wheel that allows the digital
level to stick out away from the bulging tire.

So I think the hardest part of camber is the setup has to be bolted to the
wheel (although I've seen ways to do camber with just a plumb bob and a
ruler).

Toe in with a few sticks and a tape measure - or a simple laser
level (bubble level with a laser built into the one end - used to
"extend" the wheel angle instead of using sticks) works pretty good.

I think toe is easy to measure but hard to change.

Actually generally the easiest to change - after you get the tie-rod
sleaves un-siezed - - -

For measuring, you just have to get around the fact that the engine and
suspension gets in the way of a straight-line calculation (as you did with
the laser suggestion above).

Yet you still have to have to reduce the friction when you turn the tierod
ends with the weight of the car (as you discussed above with the greased
plates).

I almost always ELIMINATE the friction by jackin the weight off the
tire. I'm too "thick" to fit under the car with the wheels on the gr
turn the tie-rod sleeves.

Calculating caster is a bit more difficult without the proper tools,
but a mathematical genius (that's not me) could figure it out with the
same square, ruler, and calculator.

Here is, I think, the REAL reasons most of us don't do alignment at home.
The actual twisting of the bolts is pretty easy.
Even the toe plate and camber plates are easy if we purchase them.
So are the tape measures and digital levels.

I think the HARD part of alignment is that there is ALWAYS a need to
convert from inches to degrees and from imaginary centerline to actual
centerline, and from trigonometry if we don't measure the actual item we
have the spec for so we have to calculate to derive the value.

To summarize, the hardest part of the alignment, I think, is that you have
to THINK, whereas almost every other job we discussed, you don't have to
think all that much (other than about basic safety, for example, when
compressing springs).

Alignment is a THINKING man's game.

Most definitely. Even with the best equipment (Which I HAVE used)

The laser level will do the tracking just fine, and a digital
protactor or electronic level would make things easier.

I don't have a laser anything but I won't disagree with you that extending
a measurement to the wall 50 feet away can be useful to measure small
degrees.

For example, toe could be specified as 1/2 degree, which is easy to measure
if you extend a line from the wheel to the wall 50 feet away but which is
really hard to measure six inches from the centerline of the wheel itself.

My point is that the TOOLS to MEASURE alignment are more and more in our
grasp at a reasonable price. Even the toe plates and camber bolting to the
wheel are within our prices.

The hurdle to alignment, I think, is that it's a THINKING man's game, more
so than any other job we're talking about. I don't have the skills myself.

Or so I think.

The most important thing - from having done alignments
professionally, using sophisticated equipment, is MNOWING what the
effects of different adjustments are - just because a car is "within
spec" doesn't mean it will go straight down the road and won't wear
tires. Tayloring the caster and camber leads is part science, and
part witchcraft.

I agree with you that alignment is a THINKING man's game, quite unlike all
the other things we talked about.

Sure it takes thinking to diagnose a slipping clutch or to diagnose an
emissions problem or to diagnose an electrical system anomaly but it
doesn't usually take a whole lot of thinking to just replace the parts once
you've figured out which ones broke (and most people just throw parts at
any job anyway which is how a lot of things get fixed).

With alignment, you have to THINK, especially if, as you noted, you're
aiming to get a performance value out of changing a value such as rear
camber for cornering or trying to increase the oversteer for handling.

In summary, I see HUGE HURDLES to alignment at home, but those hurdles have
very little to do with measuring or changing the values.

Here are the first half of my hurdles to doing a home alignment.
1. I need a toe-measuring tool that clears or avoids the undercarriage
2. I need toe plates that allow for slip of the tire under load
3. I need a camber setup on the wheel that clears or avoids the sidewall

Here are the second half.
4. I need the specs in a form that I can measure or calculate
5. I need to figure out the imaginary centerline
6. I need KNOWLEDGE because #4 will always be in something I can't measure
directly (Murphy's law of alignment specs) so I will have to calculate the
answer.

 

On Sat, 4 Nov 2017 18:17:08 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood <rswood@is.invalid>
wrote:

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A GOOD tech cares as much as you do - mabee more - because a poor job
reflects badly on him and can cost him BIG TIME if he gets a bed
reputation.

I can't disagree that a good PERSON cares as much or more than you do.
But you have to agree that there are people who care more about getting
vehicles through the door than doing the job right.

If they can skip a step or save a minute, they will, but that doesn't mean
that they did a better job. It just means they did a faster job.

At home, you're never trying to do the job fast.

That's why my guys were NEVER on Flat Rate - and why independent
shops where the owner is "on the floor" are generally the best.

I cared more about most of my customers' vehicles than they did for
the 25+ years I was actively in the trade.

This may be true since you saw lots of abuse I'll bet.

From customers, dealer principal., AND my mechanics!!!
10 years as service manager can be eye-opening!!!

I'll bet the people NOT on this newsgroup don't even think about their
engines all that much.

If they took a car to the shop for a cooling system overhaul, I'll bet
they're not going to look to see if all the bolts that came out went back
in, for example.

And "redline" isn't necessarily the best or any better for your
application/ use than what they put in.

Fair enough.
Some things matter. Some don't.

I know that with some things though, the "standard" application isn't as
good as the "better" application, but for gear lubes, it probably only
needs to be GL-4 80W90 and that's it (or whatever the car maker specified).

So, a $5/quart GL-4 80W90 is as good as a $20/quart GL-4 80W90 gear oil.

I don't know clutches but there must be "standard" and "better" clutches,
aren't there? How do you know what the shop puts in by default?

The "better" clutch may be better for drag racing or towing a
trailer,but may be HELL on your knees in heavy traffic - - - - There
is "better" and there is "better" - really depends on what you are
looking for.

Or they might. You just need the right shop, and the right
technician.

That's understood where a guy who tells me that the bolt isn't necessary
isn't necessarily the right technician, is he?

Doesn't sound like it.

 

On Sat, 4 Nov 2017 18:17:09 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood <rswood@is.invalid>
wrote:

rickman wrote:

Same here. Any car of mine that needed an engine wasn't worth putting an
engine in. Older cars were not made to last and that was true for every
part of that car. Even things like seats and headliners were shot by the
time the engine was shot. My current truck has 240,000 miles on it and the
engine is one of a number of parts that shows nearly no sign of going
anytime soon. The parts that have been repaired often were not repaired
right so some have needed repairing more than once, but otherwise the truck
is very sound.

You make a good point which I don't know the answer to.

In my kid days, plastic toys did not exist (transistor radios didn't exist
either), so our Tonka toys were rubber wheels and steel bodies.

Nowadays, if you leave a kid's toy car outside, the sun alone will destroy
it within a year or two.

So they certainly don't build *some stuff* the way they used to.

However ... cars *seem* to be different. Are they?

My Chrysler's and Dodges days (in the olden days, we had brand loyalties
that sprang from the brand loyalties of our fathers) showed me that a
tuneup was needed every year, bias-ply tires lasted something like 20K
miles, and, as you said, the interior was shot by the time the engine went.

And that was in the days before plastic bumpers and plastic headlights
(they were real glass bulbs in those days).

But yet, it seems to me, cars last forever now.
In those days, 100K miles was a lot.
Now, it seems, 200K miles is approaching a lot.

Do they really make cars better but nothing else is better?
How can that be?

They sure make cars a lot better - experience and technology have
made a lot of difference. ( Remember, in 1959, the automobile, as an
object, was not as old as a 1959 car is today!!!!

The reason just about anything else you buy today is NOT better is
everyone wants it CHEAPER and expects to upgrade long before anything
with any QUALITY would require replacement. Everything is changing SO
FAST.

Most people want to buy the latest and greatest even before today's
JUNK is worn out.