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

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 11/6/2017 12:28 AM, Xeno wrote:

On 6/11/2017 3:48 PM, RS Wood wrote:
Xeno wrote:

Lot of us keep a car until repair cost exceeds book value.

I trade my cars in when I'm sick of them.

For me, I get a new car when the old car has a repair that isn't worth
paying. That's less likely nowadays as I'm retired on a low budget.

I've been buying new cars since retirement - two last year.

Never bought two in one yer even when my wife was still driving. She
usually got my hand me down. I just bought a new car two weeks ago. I
honestly can't give you a valid reason for doing so other than I like
the color better.

The guy that gets my old one with 38k miles is getting a real cream puff.

 

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 11/5/2017 11:48 PM, RS Wood wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Not just mufflers any more. They were smart enough to evolve into other
auto services like brakes, shocks, and the like. As cars get more
sophisticated the more you have to rely on the dealer also. My Genesis
was dealer service because the local guy could not get the right oil
filter for it. The NAPA nest door did not carry it as it is a low
volume item.

I agree on Midas Muffler because they do other stuff and there is no way
they're staying in business on just mufflers nowadays.

I disagree on the dealer being required for anything.

To me, the dealer is whom you go to when you're under the original factory
warranty and then that's the last time you ever go do the dealer.

I have nothing against the dealer except one thing, which is why they're
called the 'stealer'. But that's a biggie.

The only other reason you go to the dealer is to buy parts that they might
stock where you need them now (e.g., you broke a bolt or forget a gasket
and you're in the middle of the job) but expect to pay more than double for
those parts than anywhere else.

I go to an indy for alignment and clutch and tires, etc., where I couldn't
imagine payking the price for the same job at the dealer.

Any shop can do a starter, water pump, but most don't have the expertise
for some of the electronics. Dealer may be 1 hour at $75 versus the
indy at $50 but takes three hours to figure out the problem. If my
adaptive cruise control stopped working I'm not trusting the corner gas
station.

 

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 11/6/2017 4:01 AM, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A good independent and a good dealer can both come in handy. My
brother operated an independent shop for several decades (after
working for several dealers and independents) while I worked for both
dealers and insdependents

If your brother worked for a particular brand dealer for a long time I'd
not hesitate to take that brand of car to him as he knows it well. Of
course dealers do work on all brands but they have lots of expertise on
the core brand.

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/05/2017 08:05 PM, Frank wrote:

On Sat, 04 Nov 2017 02:42:59 +0000, 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?

I've never painted a car. I suppose some day I'll give rebuilding an
automatic transmission a shot, but I've been lucky so far.

After an unfortunate shifting incident in Arkansas, we hobbled in to a
local repair shop in Fort Smith and had the pleasure of watching the guy
rebuild the motorhome trans by hand. He had Parkinson's, but it
disappeared while he was working. I swear he looked like a machine
programmed to pick gears up and put them down in exactly the right place.

I've done things ring and bearing jobs but everything is holding up
better nowadays.

In life there are always tradeoffs :-(


--
Cheers, Bev
"Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" --Juvenal

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/05/2017 05:27 PM, Frank wrote:

On Sun, 05 Nov 2017 04:38:39 +0000, RS Wood wrote:

Interesting that it's not better design of engines.

Alot of the old motors used to have hot spots, such as exhaust ports and
the manifold heat riser on V type engines, which would coke up the oil
quickly. This coked up oil would plug up oil passages and an old motor
could be partially starved for oil even if it was full of clean, clear
oil.

The heat riser could be designed out of EFI engines.

It's amazing how far one can be thrown when it's discovered that its
stuckness is the cause of the engine overheating.

> 10W 40 would coke up faster than 10W 30, for what it's worth.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" --Juvenal

 

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 11/6/2017 10:23 AM, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 09:47:23 -0500, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/6/2017 1:18 AM, RS Wood wrote:
RS Wood wrote:

I just am saying that nobody in this thread has given any logical reason
why rings would be "better" today than in the days of yore.

I think I got cranky.
Apologies.


As an alleged engineer you should be ashamed of yourself. Your thinking
lacks logic too, if you think a 1955 Chevy rings is the same as used
today.

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099.1/22095/Designing%20and%20modeling%20of%20piston%20in%20combustion%20engines.pdf?sequence=1
Not to denigrate the GOOD engineers out there - but he sure thinks
like a typical engineer - - - One with no practical experience and a
"god complex" only exceded by orthopedic surgeons.

Intelligent people question
Arrogant people think the know everything.

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/05/2017 08:48 PM, RS Wood wrote:

The Real Bev wrote:

If the vibration decreases, or markedly changes character, or even goes
away, then how could it possibly have been rotor warp in the first place?

I wish I could remember when I stopped noticing it. I might have done a
hard stop to test whether the seat belts were still working properly...

It's impossible to diagnose brake-related judder/shudder/vibration on the
Internet - but - most of the time - the cause is the simplest most obvious
reason.

You drive hard on the highway and then stop hard at the bottom of an exit
ramp at a light where you sit there with your foot on the brake for a
period of time.

Guess what happens?

For a hard-to-understand reason, the teeeniest tiniest pad imprint tends to
grow over time. I don't really understand why, but it does. It gets almost
imeasurably larger over time, until you finally feel it while braking at
speed.

My mom had a heavy foot, but I don't think she was given to braking
hard. My mom drove the car to work (7 mile round trip) on surface
streets. I first noticed it at around 50K miles.

She had the car "serviced" (as in "screwed") by the dealer 4x/year. He
replaced all the rubber at 20K. Would he have removed brake deposits too?

What's the solution?
Simple.

SHORT TERM: Scrape that deposit off.
LONG TERM: Change your braking habits.

Q: Is a $50K rolex watch a better watch than a $30 Timex watch?
A: The watch that keeps better time is the better watch.

Ha. My $25 Casio atomic solar watch has been providing accurate time
since 2008 with no attention whatsoever. The beautiful 195x Omega
Seamaster is sitting in a box somewhere because it needed to be cleaned
every couple of years. Apparently the lubricant breaks down -- it
doesn't seem that dirt could get into a waterproof watch. I guess it
was accurate, I didn't have anything to check it against but the nice
lady on the phone who told me the time.

I have a few Rolex watches (most received as gifts).
They suck at keeping time.

Friends in Santa Rosa had one in their half-refrigerator-size safe. The
fire popped it open and everything inside burned/melted, including what
might have been a Rolex; why else would you keep a watch in a safe?

For brake pads, the thing you care about is friction, cold and hot.
Nothing else is close in importance (although dusting is key for some).

So pick your pads by what the OEM pads were and try to meet or exceed that.
Most pads are around FF but every pad says what it is or it can't be sold
in the USA.

The (SAE J866a) charts are all over the net.
Just look for 'brake pad friction ratings' or something like that.

I drive roughly 4K miles/year and front pads on other cars generally
were OK for 40K miles (rear shoes double that). ~20K now. I'll
remember this just as long as I can

Life is one thing but the *primary* factor in brake pads is friction.

I buy $35 PBR pads with FF or GG friction ratings which last 30K miles or
so and the dust isn't objectionable.

I'm a lousy housekeeper. I regard dust as a protective coating. What
kind of people find brake pad dust objectionable? What kind of people
even notice it?

So my factors are:
a. Friction rating (anything less than FF is worthless)
b. Non-objectionable dust (the only way to know is to ask owners)
c. Decent life (the only way to know is to ask owners)

Friction Coefficient Identification System for Brake Linings
http://standards.sae.org/j866_200204/

TMI here!


--
Cheers, Bev
"Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" --Juvenal

 

[RS Wood]

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

As an alleged engineer you should be ashamed of yourself. Your thinking
lacks logic too, if you think a 1955 Chevy rings is the same as used
today.

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099.1/22095/Designing%20and%20modeling%20of%20piston%20in%20combustion%20engines.pdf?sequence=1
Not to denigrate the GOOD engineers out there - but he sure thinks
like a typical engineer - - - One with no practical experience and a
"god complex" only exceded by orthopedic surgeons.

On page 10 of that example the Master's Thesis covers the set of piston
rings, where nothing said is the least bit complex.

The author talks about the compression and oil ring, and that each has its
purpose. He talks about the location of the piston ring. And that the first
ring takes 75% of the pressure.

The paper suffers enormously from lack of English language skills, which is
to be expected in a paper from Europe, where, for example this is a
verbatim sentence:
"The choice of the number of rings should be the result of careful
analysis, with one hand, depends on to the gas that passes into the
crankcase should be the minimum, on the other, the number of rings
determines the mass of the piston, engine height and friction losses."

But that's as "technical" as the paper gets with respect to piston rings,
which makes the paper essentially a summary of piston rings that anyone who
isn't even an engineer could easily do.

Then the guy shows a diagram of piston rings in action, with a few typos
(so the paper isn't all that well reviewed), and then he talks about how
bad it is to have burnt oil.

The only slightly technical thing in the paper is a chart of clearances for
the sealing and scraper rings that he clearly crobbed off the net somewhere
and where he doesn't discuss any of the engineering tradeoffs involved.

On page 34 he defines a temperature for each of three rings (finally
spelling the word "scraping" correctly) and then he shows a trivially
simple picture showing, essentially the same thing (so why does he do it?).

That's it for page 34, so we move on to page 49 and page 50 for the last
discussion of the piston rings.

On page 49, he seems to be covering the same thing, in effect, as he did on
page 34, starting with the verbatim sentence "The piston rings take a very
important place when cooling the piston." Um. OK. Tell us something we
didn't know before we read the paper please.

He then chooses a heat for the piston crown that is high, saying the rings
won't work at that temperature based on his simulations, but that they work
at a lower temperature. Um. OK. (This is basic high-school level stuff.)

Lastly, on page 50, he tells us "Increase the high of the scrap ring in
order to adjust to reality". He doubled the height from 3mm to 6mm and lo
and behold, it worked where it didn't work at 3mm! (Notice the tolerances
here ... we're talking *huge*.) He also added channels to the rings which
is, again, high-school stuff.

In summary, while I am not going to fault the guy for his poor English, I
will fault someone for not reviewing the poor English - because it just
means that this paper is not a reliable paper because it was clearly not
reviewed.

Worse ... this paper didn't say *anything* that any high-school student
doesn't know, about piston rings. The changes he made were enormous, where
all he simulated was that it didn't work before he made the enormous
changes, and then it did work when he did.

Let's get back to reality, shall we.
I never said that the design of *anything* is super complex at the stage of
designing the perfect system. I even said that a spark plug is complex at
that level.

But at the level of using the thing in fixing a car, you already have very
limited choices since all you're doing is fixing a car. To say that fixing
a car by replacing piston rings is scientifically complex is just pure
bullshit.

And it's even worse that you backed up that claim with a high-school level
paper (yes, I know it's a thesis but that doesn't change the sophomoric
level of the paper).

As an engineer, I'd be embarrassed if I claimed that paper said anything
that is even remotely related to proving that, in practice, the selection
of replacement rings for repairing an engine in your driveway is in the
least bit complex.

I give up if anyone thinks that paper proved otherwise because I'm only
using very basic logic here because that's all I do.

 

[RS Wood]

Ed Pawlowski wrote:

> Dealer may be 1 hour at $75

That's a joke, right?

I realize in *some* parts of the US, the dealer may be more than half what
they are here, but it's closer to $200 and even an Indy is at $100 an hour
here.

In a sense, it makes even more sense to DIY here than wherever you are,
since the price difference between you and me for the shop rate is
enormous.

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

> Cheaper? No, you're wrong on that one.

Let's give up on the FWD.
If you think they're made for handling in the snow, then they'd come with
snow plows on the front.

OK. I'm joking, but they're not made for handling.
They're just not.

No logical person on this planet can argue that with another logical
person.

Since at least one of us isn't thinking logically, and since you think it's
me and I think it's you, let's just give up, because both of us can be
right on that but given that, we'll get nowhere.

You think it's all about handling.
OK. You keep believing that.

 

[The Real Bev]

On 11/05/2017 08:48 PM, RS Wood wrote:

clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

What doesn't last longer on a car nowadays?
Sometimes things like power lock actuators and some electrical
connections

88 Caddy driver's window/door controls stopped working long ago. Stupid
motor-driven passenger-side mirror just unstuck itself from the mirror
and would have required removing the entire dashboard and AC to replace.
Whoever thought of the stupid electrical trunk-lid grabbing latch
should have been flayed alive. Engine ran fine up to the 90K end, it
was just the rest of the stuff that died.

I was watching a video by the MythBusters on how to get out of a car that
is sinking in a pond (pool in their case) where someone mentions to roll
down the windows ... heh heh ...

They claimed that power windows would work long enough to allow them to
be rolled down. Do they assume it would take minutes for the electrical
system to short out? Is that reasonable?

> When's the last time you saw a roll-down window?

Our 70 Dodge pickup has them. What you can't get is the stuff that
keeps the windows from rattling.

For a while I thought I wanted a car intended for third-world repair
capabilities -- everything possible manual, etc. And then I
discovered the joy of pushing the tiny button on the key that unlocks
the doors :-(

--
Cheers, Bev
"Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" --Juvenal

 

[RS Wood]

rbowman wrote:

When's the last time you saw a roll-down window?

About 12 hours ago when I parked the car.

That made me laugh!
Thanks.

I think I'm only going to respond though, to the posts that aren't already
in the dirt (the fwd is in the dirt, the warp is in the dirt, the piston
rings is in the dirt, and the drilled rotors are in the dirt).

But there was a lot more in this thread than those few topics.

I learned a LOT from you all.
Thanks.

 

[Vic Smith]

On Mon, 06 Nov 2017 10:08:46 -0500, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

On Mon, 06 Nov 2017 02:36:44 -0800, Vic Smith
thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote:

On Mon, 06 Nov 2017 02:57:16 -0500, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:


Only the stop-tech article is written by a pro (Can't open the
raybestos link so it's useless)

That "pro" says to replace brake fluid once a year.
I wonder how many people do that.
I never replace brake fluid unless I've got the system open.
I generally did when doing any major brake work (drums, rotors, pads
or shes) - just s thorough bleed.

I haven't touched any part of my brakes for 4 years.

 

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 10:26:57 -0500, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/6/2017 12:28 AM, Xeno wrote:
On 6/11/2017 3:48 PM, RS Wood wrote:
Xeno wrote:

Lot of us keep a car until repair cost exceeds book value.

I trade my cars in when I'm sick of them.

For me, I get a new car when the old car has a repair that isn't worth
paying. That's less likely nowadays as I'm retired on a low budget.

I've been buying new cars since retirement - two last year.


Never bought two in one yer even when my wife was still driving. She
usually got my hand me down. I just bought a new car two weeks ago. I
honestly can't give you a valid reason for doing so other than I like
the color better.

The guy that gets my old one with 38k miles is getting a real cream puff.

I've owned ONE new car in my life (actually a truck) - 1976 Dodge
Ramcharger SE.

 

[RS Wood]

Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Intelligent people question
Arrogant people think the know everything.

Did you even *read* that paper?
Or did you just look at the pretty pictures?

It didn't cover ring complexity any more than a high-school student would.

That's a fact.

If you read the paper, then show me where in that paper it covered
*anything* the least bit complex about piston rings?

I'm waiting....

 

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 10:47:34 -0500, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/6/2017 4:01 AM, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:

A good independent and a good dealer can both come in handy. My
brother operated an independent shop for several decades (after
working for several dealers and independents) while I worked for both
dealers and insdependents

If your brother worked for a particular brand dealer for a long time I'd
not hesitate to take that brand of car to him as he knows it well. Of
course dealers do work on all brands but they have lots of expertise on
the core brand.

Ford and Chrysler dealers
I worked for amc/Mazda/ Jeep and Toyota.

 

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 11:24:17 -0500, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/6/2017 10:23 AM, clare@snyder.on.ca wrote:
On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 09:47:23 -0500, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 11/6/2017 1:18 AM, RS Wood wrote:
RS Wood wrote:

I just am saying that nobody in this thread has given any logical reason
why rings would be "better" today than in the days of yore.

I think I got cranky.
Apologies.


As an alleged engineer you should be ashamed of yourself. Your thinking
lacks logic too, if you think a 1955 Chevy rings is the same as used
today.

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099.1/22095/Designing%20and%20modeling%20of%20piston%20in%20combustion%20engines.pdf?sequence=1
Not to denigrate the GOOD engineers out there - but he sure thinks
like a typical engineer - - - One with no practical experience and a
"god complex" only exceded by orthopedic surgeons.


Intelligent people question
Arrogant people think the know everything.

I've always said it's what you learn AFTER you know it all that
REALLY counts - - -

 

[RS Wood]

RS Wood wrote:

Let's get back to reality, shall we.
I never said that the design of *anything* is super complex at the stage of
designing the perfect system. I even said that a spark plug is complex at
that level.

Correction.

"I never said that the design of *anything* /isn't/ super complex at the
stage of designing the perfect system."

 

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 08:25:50 -0800, The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com>
wrote:

I buy $35 PBR pads with FF or GG friction ratings which last 30K miles or
so and the dust isn't objectionable.

I'm a lousy housekeeper. I regard dust as a protective coating. What
kind of people find brake pad dust objectionable? What kind of people
even notice it?

People with nice shiney wheels???

So my factors are:
a. Friction rating (anything less than FF is worthless)
b. Non-objectionable dust (the only way to know is to ask owners)
c. Decent life (the only way to know is to ask owners)

Friction Coefficient Identification System for Brake Linings
http://standards.sae.org/j866_200204/

TMI here!

The friction between the pads and bare steel rotors is much
different than the friction between the pads and the pad material
deposited on the pads. The latter is the higher.

 

[RS Wood]

The Real Bev wrote:

> I regard dust as a protective coating.

That was a good one.
Mind if I borrow it when my wife asks me to clean up the house?