Car Repair and Maintenance Tips & Tricks

How to Store Your Car !

noreply@blogger.com (Neo Smith) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:31:00 +0000

It was very fun to drive this summer and fall, but winter is coming and there is no way that you can drive on snow and subject to corrosive road salt - if you are facing the problem of storing until next spring late.Read more »

Distributorless Ignition Troubleshoot !

noreply@blogger.com (Neo Smith) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:22:00 +0000

And this time not only because an officer of the station by mistake cap.Yes not tighten the gas, dear reader, a loose gas cap can make your engine is leaking evaporative emissions today system.Cars no dealers or dealer caps.Read more »

Finding a Vacuum Leak !

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:55:00 +0000

It is not meant to be a source of ignition on the engine around, but once in a blue moon, a spark or overheating of the exhaust manifold can up.When rocket carb own one of these pipes or fittings or joints start to leak, it issues can vary from rough idle to a sudden drop in fuel economy through a Check Engine light.
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How to Repair Electrical Wiring ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:23:00 +0000

Without doubt, you are short unmistakable smell of burning circuit.The insulation.Moreover that all shorts are wiring problems: open, intermittent connections can also make your life starts smell.Or difficult.It perhaps wipers that stop - Itself .
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How to Replace a Bad Power Steering Pump ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:01:00 +0000

Your spouse has been complaining about the minivan being hard to steer. Time to pick up a bottle of power steering oil on the way home. After you add the fluid, though, you notice a puddle of something under the engine.
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How to Replace a Sealed Wheel Bearing?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 22:57:00 +0000

The squeal coming from the frontend of your highend German sport sedan is embarrassing. Not only do passersby do double takes, but when you recently gave your boss a ride across town, he couldn’t hear his cellphone ring. So you drop a handful of C-notes for a complete brake job.
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How to Fix Car Bumper Scratches ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Bumper scratches and scuffs are unsightly, and alarmingly easy to get. You don’t have to cover your car with hard-to-remove bumper stickers to make it look better, however. Fixing damaged plastic bumpers involves grinding, sanding, sculpting and painting.
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How to Replace a Timing Belt ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:17:00 +0000

Timing belts last 60,000 to 100,000 miles. check your owner's manual for the manufacturer's replacement interval.Your six-year-old econobox is starting to show a bit of wear and tear, but everything mechanical still works fine. Until it doesn't.
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How to Bleed Your Brakes ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:12:00 +0000

Air in the brake system can make your brake pedal feel spongy and vague. It takes only an hour or two to bleed the system. The fluid should be flushed every two to three years. Your elderly car has required little in the way of episodic repair, for which you're glad.
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How to Change Gear Lube?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:53:00 +0000

You can't complain about the years of service your old 4x4 pickup has put in. It has done yeoman duty, day in and day out. In return, you've been more than happy to do much of its maintenance yourself. Now, perusing the lubrication schedule in the owner's manual, you see it's time to change the lube in the manual gearbox.
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How to Repair Your Car Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:09:00 +0000

The bad news: Your car has been keyed by some psychopath. The good? Our step-by-step DIY guide walks you through diagnosing and repairing the dreaded car scratch.
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How to Replace an Oxygen Sensor

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:05:00 +0000

Twelve years and more than 100,000 miles have passed under your trusty commuter and the Check Engine light has never, ever, winked at you ... until yesterday, when it coincidentally anticipated your state inspection appointment at the end of the month. Rats! The car will never pass the emissions test with that light on. Now what?

Here's the perfect opportunity to break out that new, easy-to-use, consumer-grade OBD II (On-Board Diagnostics II) generic code reader. That's what we did on our sacrificial lamb, a Nissan Altima. After plugging in the universal connector under the dash, we retrieved a code P0136 "O2 Sensor Circuit Malfunction (Sensor

2)." This let us zero in on the likely problem right away. Remember, a trouble code stored in the engine computer doesn't necessarily tell you what's wrong. It's just a good starting point.

So, it's time to actually check out the sensor. Sensor 2 is the downstream sensor, in the catalytic converter, smack in the middle of the underside of the car. Start by getting the car up on some safety stands, then roll underneath it with a creeper.

Read more at ... How to Replace an Oxygen Sensor

How to Polish Your Headlights Like a Pro ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:24:00 +0000

After a few years, polycarbonate headlight lenses don’t have to be scratched to look scuffed and foggy. Neglected headlights get hazy and can develop fine cracks. Here’s how to make them look new again.

It's a cold and rainy winter night. Your headlamp beams drill a tunnel of light into the gloom of a deserted country lane. Unfortunately, it's not a very deep or bright tunnel. You have to slow the car to a crawl, otherwise you'll overdrive the headlights. But it's not a pea-soup-thick fog that's causing the problem. So why can't you see farther than a couple of car lengths ahead of your vehicle? Once safely home and parked, you leave the

headlights on and walk to the front of your car, fully expecting that one of your low beams has burned out. Wrong. They're both lit—but a closer inspection reveals that the lenses of your headlamp assemblies are frosted over. And it's not just dirt. The plastic lens itself is as cloudy as a bathroom mirror right after a shower. No wonder you can't see.

Read more at... http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/maintenance/4252611

6 Ways to Stay Safe in Your Garage ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:18:00 +0000

A busted knuckle is a badge of honor, and real injuries are easily prevented. Here's the right way to wrench -- without getting hurt.

Let's say it's time to replace the shocks. The job really isn't that tough or inherently dangerous. But it does involve getting your car up in the air so you can work underneath it. And that's where things can get troublesome--quickly.

Your nifty new floor jack makes short work of putting another foot of daylight between the bottom of the car and your driveway. And two short stacks of stout cement blocks will be amply strong to hold it there.

The car will be plenty stable, because those blocks have a wide footprint. Right?

Read more at... http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/maintenance/4283377

How to Rebuild a Brake Caliper ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:21:00 +0000

It's a beautiful spring day, and a perfect time to break the winter seal on the garage and drive around in your classic Corvette, vintage motorcycle or whatever pride and joy you happen to have stashed inside. Off with the cover, and the engine turns over willingly, thank goodness. A quick warmup and you're off for a loop around town.

All of which is fine, until the engine seems a little ... reluctant to maintain speed. As you turn a corner, you catch that unmistakable whiff of burning sweat socks--you've got a dragging brake caliper. Sure enough,

one of the front wheels is too hot to touch. You limp the few blocks home at low speed. Now your Saturday morning drive has just mutated from a fun-filled jaunt into an afternoon's worth of work chasing down a replacement caliper. A quick trip to the auto parts store, followed by a round of phone calls to dealerships and stores within an increasingly large radius turns up nothing. You'll have to rebuild the caliper yourself.

Most brake calipers that fail get replaced with either a new part or a rebuilt one. Indeed, we picked up a rebuilt caliper for this story at the local NAPA store. Industry-wide, it's common practice to return used calipers to a central rebuilding station where the caliper assembly is rebuilt. It will be stripped to the basic casting, cleaned of all vestiges of road grime by automated equipment, and glass-bead-blasted or shot-peened to remove any and all corrosion and rust. After a quick inspection, it's reassembled with a new piston, seal and bleeder bolt. Inside the box with the like-new caliper assembly, you'll find fresh sliding pins and any other hardware that should be replaced--and sometimes, new pads as well. All you need to do is install the caliper, bleed it, and you're back on the road in a few minutes. Often, the modest price of this rebuilt assembly is less than the over-the-counter price of the aggregate parts you'd have to buy separately to rebuild the unit yourself. No wonder pro mechanics rarely bother to rebuild calipers anymore.

But you've gotten the bad news from at least a half-dozen countermen in the last hour--no rebuilt, or even new, calipers until the middle of next week. And that scotches your plan for traveling to tomorrow afternoon's car show. One savvy counterman, an old-school guy, has a suggestion: He knows that the cylinder bore on your caliper is common to several other cars. And he does have generic brake piston seals in your size. You rush over to his store and pick up a set of seals and a couple of pints of fresh brake fluid. Price: less than your lunch at the fast-food drive-through window.

One caveat: If your frozen caliper is a rear caliper, with attendant parking-brake cables and internal antipushback hardware, you'll need to consult the service manual for rebuild advice. Also, take note that we're talking about calipers here. If your rotors are out of true, worn too thin or scored by the dragging pads, you'll need to remove and machine or replace them as well. Your brake system is not a good place to cut corners. Okay, I'm off my safety soapbox.

Brake It Down

First loosen the lug nuts, block the rear wheels and get the car up on jackstands. Here's your chance to break all of the caliper bolts loose while that caliper is still mounted to something solid. Judicious tapping and some penetrating oil should help break the bleeder bolt loose. Use a flare-nut wrench on the bleeder--it's less likely to round off the small, hollow bolt.

Odds are, if the rubber flex line screws directly into the caliper casting, you may need to remove the rubber brake line at the far end first. Ditto when using a flare-nut wrench on the brake line. Consider replacing the steel or rubber brake lines if they are older than your dog.

On the Bench

Strip the caliper of the pads, shims, springs and sliders or pins. Remove the outer dust seal, too. Now you need to remove the piston--but you'll quickly realize there's no way to grab it. Get a piece of wood slightly thicker than both brake pads stacked together. Put that wood in the caliper aft of the piston, and add low-pressure compressed air to the inlet port. Pop! Your piston is out. And so is your little finger if you're not paying attention. The same goes for your corneas if you don't cover the whole deal with a shop towel to contain the flying brake fluid. If the piston is stuck--which is how we got into this mess--the process may take a little more time and pressure. If your caliper has more than one piston, use more wood, clamps or whatever to release one at a time.

Left: Use some nonscratching tool, like a popsicle stick or this nylon cable tie, to pry the seal loose from its groove. Right: We sawed this GM caliper in half so you could see inside--this shows evidence of serious corrosion pitting in the base of the bore. We cleaned it with 600-grit paper.

Inspect the piston. Rebuild kits usually include a new piston, but if you're gleaning from generic parts, you may be stuck, literally. Minor surface blemishes can be polished out with wet 2000-grit sandpaper, but any pits in the metal means replacement will be necessary. I've had replacement pistons machined out of stainless-steel bar stock for oddball cars.

To get the O-ring free, use something that won't damage the caliper bore. Odds are, corrosion built up between the piston and bore is what made things stick. Unlike surface damage to the piston, minor pitting of the bore is no big deal--the square-cut O-ring seals between its recessed groove and the piston, not to the outer bore. Clean up the bore surface with wet 600-grit wet-or-dry paper, then thoroughly clean the entire caliper of all dirt, rust, abrasives and old brake fluid with hot, soapy water. Some two-piston calipers may have internal rubber seals--so no hydrocarbon solvents, please.

All clean and dry? Lubricate the piston with clean brake fluid and slide it into the bore. Once the piston is squared up, it should slide in all the way with moderate finger pressure. If not, find out why. Remove the piston again, install the new seal, lubricate again with fresh fluid and push it on home. Add the outer dust boot, and reinstall the freshly rebuilt caliper. Repeat on the other side. Don't be lazy and rebuild or replace only one side. Brakes should always be maintained as an axle set, not one corner at a time. Top off the reservoir with fresh fluid, and bleed the system (see "Bleeding Your Brakes," April '07).

Once everything is clean, put it all back together. Be sure to tidy up or replace any sliding pins or raceways so the caliper can move back and forth as the pads wear.

Brake Pad Tech

Not all brake pads are created equal.There's a choice today of various friction materials used in pads to do the work of actually stopping your car. Asbestos used to be a major component of brake pads, but OSHA regulations now make this carcinogen scarce. Organic materials such as Kevlar, often found in OEM brake applications, represent a compromise of pad life, braking aggressiveness, dusty wheels and noise. If you're interested in a longer-lasting pad material, look into a premium metallic or ceramic lining. These materials can sometimes squeal or hiss, wear out the discs faster and cover the front wheels with ugly dust. Performance cars, like that Corvette of yours, might stop better with metallic pads. The downside is that those polished rims--aside from the cost--will be covered in gray dust after a day's drive.

How to Change a Serpentine Belt at Home ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:18:00 +0000

There's a squeal emanating from underneath your hood—and it doesn't sound good. The noise started a few months ago, on a gray and rainy morning, but it went away before you even pulled out of the driveway. Problem solved, right? Sorry pal. Unfortunately, the noise was back the very next morning, and this time it lasted all the way to the corner of your block. You lifted the hood and zoomed in on the offending racket—it was the serpentine belt. As the weeks dragged on, your morning commute got noisier and noisier every day. Then you began to hear it on the way home too. Now it's a constant reminder to replace the belt. Soon.

Most modern cars don't use old-fashioned V-belts anymore. In the '70s, as more and more cars were optioned with lots of power-hungry accessories running off the crankshaft pulley, it often became necessary to have as many as four V-belts, each running a different gizmo. There just isn't room for that many belts and pulleys anymore—not to mention, this belt configuration means that it's a service nightmare to replace just the inner belt by itself. You'd have to remove the other three first—not a fun job.

There are several advantages to the new style of serpentine belts. A single belt, winding its way through a forest of pulleys, can now drive every single engine accessory at the same time. A single belt only an inch or so wide saves 3 or 4 in. of engine room real estate. Better still: Most of the serpentine-belt installations use a spring-loaded tensioner pulley that keeps a constant preload on the belt, eliminating the need to adjust the tension. If you've ever needed three hands and a tire iron to pry an alternator away from the block while simultaneously tightening the adjustment bolt-and-nut combo, you'll appreciate what a giant leap forward that is.

There's one last, very compelling advantage to serpentine belts: They don't wear out, at least not for a really long time. A fresh belt will probably last 150,000 miles without any maintenance at all. Contrast that with the expected 40,000- to 50,000-mile life span of a heavily loaded V-belt.

Failure Modes

So when, exactly, does one of these belts need to be replaced? Usually, you get plenty of warning before you hear the final Bad Noise, to wit, that squealing. A squealing noise is indicative of a problem, but might not require replacement of the belt. Misaligned pulleys or a seized tensioner or idler pulley can generate some noise as well.

A belt that's starting to disintegrate will show damage to the ribs or cords, which can usually be seen without dismantling anything. But you might need a flashlight and a dental mirror to see the fraying or cracking.

Fresh Belt

Start by studying the old belt's routing, which should be easy if the belt is still in place. But it's probably not so easy to spot if the belt is wadded up like macramé next to the a/c compressor's mounting bracket. Fear not: There should be a belt-routing placard under the hood. If the car has had bodywork or been repainted, the placard might have been covered. Look in the owner's manual; there's usually a routing diagram. With a half-dozen pulleys to choose from, it's possible, sometimes, to install the belt the wrong way. It might look right, but spinning the a/c compressor or water pump backwards isn't good. If the belt is hard to install or seems to fit poorly, you may have it routed incorrectly. Don't freak—sometimes the water pump is driven by the flat, back side of the belt. Any pulley that has grooves on it is intended to contact the grooved side of the belt. If you need to, sketch the correct routing down before you remove the old belt. As a last resort, check the shop manual.

An ordinary 3/8-in. extension and ratchet is used to unload the tensioner. Then you can just unthread the belt from around the pulleys.

Left: Use a straightedge to see if all the pulleys are coplanar and square. If they're not, the new belt won't last long. Right: We used threadlocking compound to seal the new bolt that was provided with the tensioner.

Most cars provide a common 3/8-in.-sq hole in the tensioner's arm to release the tensioner. Simply use a ratchet to loosen the belt, and unthread it from the pulleys.

Inspect the belt for damage. Cracks across the ribs are the most common indication of a belt that's simply at the end of its life span. Little rubber bands of rib, tufts of fiberglass reinforcing belt or disintegrating belt edges are indications of a problem with the pulleys, idlers or tensioners. A high-mileage belt that's just looking worn can simply be replaced. If there are other indications of damage from misalignment, get out the straightedge and make note of what isn't square.

A bent accessory-mounting bracket can make a pulley crooked, and you'll need to realign it. A steel bracket could be bent back into place, but a couple of shim washers might be a better option. If you're replacing a belt because of a fried alternator or seized a/c compressor, don't assume the new accessory or bracket will run true either.

Check the tensioner. The pulley should freewheel smoothly. The spring should have an appropriate amount of tension (which you can check with a belt tension gauge once the belt is installed), and there should be no friction in the pivot. Tensioner assemblies are usually not very expensive. Ditto for any idler pulleys, which should spin freely. We replaced the tensioner on our Suburban and added a drop of threadlocker to the bolt. The tensioner came with a new bolt—nice.

Is the area where the belt lives oily? Engine oil will rapidly degrade the rubber in the belt. Repair any leaky engine seals, like the crankshaft or camshaft front seal, or any gaskets—lest the new belt should go south in short order. Clean up any old oil too.

Check all the pulleys as well. Old rubber or dirt can build up in the bottom of the pulley grooves. You may need to clean the grooves with brake cleaner or a wire brush to remove any debris.

Buttoning Up

It's a simple matter to install a new tensioner and reinstall the belt, holding the tensioner slack with one hand as you thread the last pulley. Once the belt's in place, start the engine and let it idle for a minute or two. Check the belt tension by looking at the tensioner arm—the mark cast into the tensioner body will fall between the high and low marks if the belt is the correct part number and is installed properly.

Torque the new tensioner to the specified degree of tightness. Yes, that means with a torque wrench, not your carefully calibrated elbow.

The hash mark on the body of the tensioner should fall between the high- and low-tension marks when the new belt is installed.

If you removed any of the radiator shrouding to access the belt, don't neglect to reinstall it once you've finished. You certainly don't want any new noises coming from under the hood.

Expert Car Clinic : 7 Car Mysteries Solved !!!

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:11:00 +0000

I'm Melting

I've had to replace the radiator in my truck twice and the heater core three times in the last five years because of corrosion. I use fresh antifreeze, but it doesn't seem to help. What's happening here?

If fresh coolant, changed every other year, isn't holding the corrosion at bay, look for one of two problems. First, the combustion gases could be leaking into the cooling system through a bad intake manifold gasket, head gasket or a cracked head or block. You can chase that by sniffing the radiator neck with the probe of an exhaust-gas analyzer. If you can detect any carbon monoxide in the radiator, it's a sure sign there's exhaust leaking in.

Second, the corrosion problem could be electrical. Measure the voltage between the battery ground and the liquid in the radiator. Just dip the voltmeter probe into the coolant without touching the side of the filler neck. If the meter indicates any more than a few hundred millivolts--bad news, dude. I'd start by replacing all of the ground wires and clamps connecting the battery to the engine block as well as to the frame and body of the vehicle. Remember, you've got a cooling system with several dissimilar metals (iron, copper and aluminum are all common in engines, radiators and heater cores) wetted with an electrolyte. That essentially creates a big battery, and the electrolysis can eat through thin radiator tubes in short order.

Clutching Techniques

I had to replace the clutch slave unit on my 2003 Ford F-150. The mechanic wanted to know how I drove the truck. I said that when I stop for traffic lights, I usually leave it in gear with my foot on the clutch pedal. He said that this practice might have caused the slave unit to fail. I've been driving manual transmission cars and trucks for some 30 years and have never had a problem with the clutch before. What is the right way to drive a manual truck or car? Leave it in gear with my foot on the clutch pedal or take it out of gear and keep my foot off of the clutch pedal when I am stopped?

I dare say most of the vehicles you've driven, unless they were either a tiddlywink-size sports car or a big rig, didn't have a hydraulic clutch like your late-model F-150. So you may not have seen this problem in the past. Most American iron uses a pure mechanical linkage, or maybe a cable. Regardless, keeping your foot on the pedal while stopped, or in motion for that matter, is poor practice.

First, there's a safety issue: Leaving the truck in gear might make it easier to lurch into traffic if you sneeze or lose your concentration and release the clutch pedal. On a more mechanical level, the practice keeps hydraulic pressure on the slave cylinder, shortening the life of the seals. It also keeps the throw-out bearing spinning. Unlike any other bearing in the drivetrain, this bearing doesn't have liquid motor oil, ATF or gear lube constantly circulating past it. The throw-out bearing is lubed by a scant spoonful of grease sealed inside. When this bearing fails, the first step in repairing it is to remove the transmission from the car, which isn't easy or cheap.

Outmoded

What's the replacement for Type A transmission fluid?

Type A automatic transmission fluid (ATF) was a GM specification for transmission fluid back when they still used buggy whips. Well, not exactly: It was first used in 1947 when GM started selling cars with modern automatic transmissions. Type A ATF was superceded by Dexron in 1967, and then by Dexron II and Dexron III. Some power-steering units, convertible-top hydraulic systems and even outdoor power equipment still specify Type A. You should be able to substitute Dexron III in most applications that specify Type A. If you're really compulsive about an older vehicle's diet, you can find true Type A from some smaller manufacturers if you hunt around.

Underhood Turbulence

My wife has a 1990 Lincoln Town Car, which she loves. Recently we've noticed an engine vibration you can feel in the gas pedal. Yet it goes away when we're parked. Is this an engine problem or a transmission problem?

Probably neither. If you're feeling the shake through the accelerator pedal and not through the steering wheel or the car's body, then I'd hazard a guess that a motor mount is broken or loose. This will allow the engine to shift under acceleration. When the engine's torque is just right, the mount lifts away from the frame. Feather the throttle just a bit, and the engine's weight holds the mount down. But too much throttle and the motor mount will top out, and things are free to shake. The shaking is then transmitted to your right foot through the accelerator cable. Time to replace that broken mount.

Shiftless

I have a tough transmission question for you. My '93 Mustang GT sometimes won't go into gear. If I'm sitting at a traffic light in neutral with the clutch pedal released, then push the clutch in to put it in gear, the shifter won't go into that gear (or any gear) until I wait to the count of three. At that point, it will go in and out easily--until I let the clutch out with the transmission in neutral again. The clutch cable is adjusted correctly, and I have no problems shifting once the car is moving. I can't figure this one out, and I'm a professional mechanic (albeit for Benz, so we only see maybe a dozen manual trans cars in a career). It's really stumped me and my co-workers; any ideas?

Sounds perfectly normal to me. You've got a clutch disc, input shaft and the front half of the transmission spinning along merrily at idle speed, driven by the flywheel and pressure plate. When you step on the clutch pedal, that rotating mass doesn't stop spinning instantly. It takes a second or three to slow down. The 1-2 dog ring in the transmission won't mesh with the first-gear engagement ring until it's nearly stopped. The synchronizers use friction to slow down (or speed up when downshifting) all the whirly bits to allow gear changes. That resistance you feel in the shifter is the synchronizer matching speeds. When that synchro starts to wear out, you'll get a crunching noise. Best practice is to always depress the clutch a few seconds before trying to shift into first gear. This will let the parts slow down on their own.

Dead Mule

I have a 2006 Kawasaki Mule 610. This winter it just wouldn't start--no matter what I tried--choking, no-throttle, quarter-throttle or full-throttle. The battery had enough juice to turn it over, but there was no spark (sometimes just a ppfst, ppfst, ppfst sound). A Kawasaki mechanic told me another spark plug should work. He said, "If it gets flooded, that will ruin the spark plug. It takes a new one to allow the engine to turn over. Just cleaning the old spark plug won't do it." How can flooding an engine permanently ruin a spark plug?

When the choke is on, especially when air temps are low, the fuel going into the cylinder tends to remain liquid rather than evaporating, wetting the plug's insulator with fuel. Only fuel that's evaporated and mixed with intake air will burn. After the engine starts and warms up, the fuel gets atomized much more completely--no problem. But until then, all that liquid fuel just soaks everything. The little combustion that actually happens is incomplete and will plate the entire inside of the combustion chamber, including the plug, with a sloppy film of gasoline and carbon and moisture--which is conductive enough to let the spark trickle down the side of the insulator instead of jumping the 0.028 of an inch to the ground electrode and lighting the charge that comes in on the next intake stroke. Continued cranking and partial combustion just makes it worse.

A fresh plug fixes that. As far as your mechanic's assertion that the plug will never work again, he's partially right. The oxides and carbon can't really be removed, unless you use a spark plug cleaning tool. I have one. And I've have had it for 35 years. It's just a small sandblaster (although I fill mine with glass beads) that scrubs away all the goop. Problem is, it also rounds off the edges of the positive and ground electrodes, and those work best when the edges are sharp, not rounded. The electrons in the spark like to jump off pointy things, not rounded ones. When plugs had steel electrodes, I used a file to dress the electrodes and then gapped them back to the correct gap. Modern plugs mostly use precious-metal electrodes that don't take kindly to that. I haven't gapped a plug in a new car for years.

I've had engines in motorcycles and cars and power equipment that would consistently take two sets of plugs to get started on cold days. I'd pop in a fresh set to light the fires, warm up the engine, and then put the originals back for the rest of the day. Of course, I had less money and more time back then. Ignition systems are a lot better than they used to be, but sometimes not good enough.

Synthetic Leakage?

I heard from several "not too reliable" sources that once you use synthetic oil in your crankcase, you should never change back to regular motor oil. I have difficulty believing that, but would appreciate your response.

A generation ago, when synthetics first hit the market, there were a lot of complaints about leaky engines. In spite of claims to the contrary by the purveyors of these new, premium oils, they didn't have the same seal-swell characteristics as mineral oils. Mineral oils generally have an additive package that makes rubber and cork seals swell up slightly, promoting a tight, oil-free engine. When you switched to synthetics, the seals would shrink, ever so slightly, and oil would weep. Exacerbating this condition, the synthetics were generally much thinner in viscosity, and would find smaller gaps to percolate through. The result? Speckles on the driveway. Other brands of mineral oil had less seal-swell. These engines didn't leak when filled with synthetic--but the seals and gaskets compressed and wore out in their swollen state. Change back to low-swell oil; the seal contracts to its former, less turgid state, and out it gushes.

Fortunately, the petroleum industry seems to have a better handle on that today. Don't worry. Change back and forth as you deem necessary.

How to Troubleshoot a Tire-Pressure Monitoring System ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:09:00 +0000

When this warning lamp illuminates on your instrument panel, at least one of your tires is 25 percent below its correct pressure. This TPMS sensor uses a lithium battery with a five- to 10-year life span. But you still need to keep a decent tire gauge in your glovebox.

It's hot. Real hot. Fortunately, the new car you bought right before that Arizona spring-break road trip has air conditioning that works great, in spite of the heavy pop-up trailer and loaded roof rack weighing it down. You pull in for gas and lunch, and carefully check the pressure in the trailer tires with the gauge that lives in your glovebox. The tires on your crossover

are fine though, because all new cars have a tire-pressure monitoring system that will tell you if your tires are low from the comfort and safety of your driver's seat. The desert beckons, and 40 miles of heat-shimmered asphalt later, a tire blows. What happened?

After swapping in the spare, you continue your trip at a more sedate pace. The TPMS light is on, and you stay well under the speed limit until you can check the tire pressures with a gauge. Surprise--they're all low. Surprise No. 2: The TPMS light remains on after you top off the tires to the correct pressure, at least until you can get a replacement tire mounted later in your trip.

Be Prepared

A Department of Transportation study dating back to 2001 says that 60 to 80 percent of cars on the road are running tires underinflated by as much as 10 percent. Worse yet, they say that 20 to 50 percent are being driven with tires down in pressure by as much as 20 percent. Yet, here's the scariest part: If your tires are low, even falling into that minus 20 percent category, your TPMS won't tell you--ever. The TPMS warning light is only required to illuminate when the pressure gets 25 percent below the correct value, which is enough to reduce fuel economy, lower the available grip (especially in wet conditions) and make tires run substantially hotter.

Bottom line: Don't trust the TPMS. Once you understand how your TPMS system works, you'll understand why it doesn't obviate the need for regular tire-pressure monitoring.

The Easy Way

There are two types of TPMS on the market, direct-reading and indirect. Indirect systems use only software and readouts from the individual wheel-speed sensors used by the antilock brake system. If all four tires are properly inflated, they will all rotate the same number of revolutions in a stretch of road. If one tire rotates more than the other three, it has a shorter rolling radius because the pressure in it is low.

The indirect type of system is inexpensive, because the only real part that must be added to a car is the display on the dash and some extra code in the vehicle's operating system. Properly inferring tire pressures this way can be a problem when the tires are unevenly worn, or if you replace only two worn tires instead of all four. You can reset the system to allow for wear when all the tire pressures are correct. The procedure varies from vehicle to vehicle, and this one won't necessarily work on yours. Persistent TPMS warnings can often be cured by setting the tire pressures properly and then resetting the TPMS somewhere in the menu on the driver's display, or perhaps with a scan tool. If the system isn't reset this way, TPMS warning lights will also crop up after a normal tire rotation, or if you're replacing tires with ones of a different size from the old ones.


1. TPMS senders are usually attached to the valve stem, although some are banded to the wheel's drop center. These units can cost over $100, but replacements for most domestics can be found on the aftermarket for $50 or less. They're prone to damage from tire-mounting machines, so get your tires mounted by a knowledgeable technician.	2. In an attempt to reduce the sensor's mass and keep the wheel in balance, the metal stem of the sender is commonly made of aluminum. Soft aluminum. Use a torque wrench on the inch-pound scale to tighten these, because it's really easy to strip the threads by overtightening. Ferrous-metal valve caps may interfere with the electronics, so stick with OEM-style plastic valve-stem caps.

The Better Way

There is a much better (read: more expensive) technology to monitor tire pressures. Higher-end vehicles use a direct-reading system of battery-powered senders mounted inside the tire, communicating with the TPMS by means of small antennas in each wheel well. Every few minutes, the TPMS will interrogate the senders in the wheels, acquire a "true" pressure reading and transfer the message to the in-car display.

But what's to keep the system from reporting the tire pressure of the car next to you at a traffic light? In order to keep things straight, the individual senders have a unique serial number to transmit to the vehicle. And that keeps individual wheels on each corner of the car properly sorted in the TPMS's tiny little brain. On many vehicles, there's even a sender on the spare tire. The TPMS is initialized with the position of the four (or five) tires when the car is new. Eventually, those tires could change position, through normal tire rotation or as the result of a flat. That's why there is a procedure to resynchronize the system. For most vehicles, it involves the use of a special tool that communicates with the vehicle and the sender to make everybody play nice. This device knows which wheel is which because it's held next to each valve stem in turn as the system is programmed. Your car dealer will have one, and some independent repair shops might as well. Unfortunately, they're different for every brand of car, and they cost plenty, with basic models going for $600 to $800, and those that work on a variety of vehicles running up to $2500.

Fortunately, it's rarely necessary to use the factory-style tool. Each manufacturer has its own tool and procedure. Look in (surprise!) the owner's manual.

And all of this has to happen within 2 minutes, or the learn mode times out and you'll have to start over. Also, if anyone nearby is adjusting tire pressures on a car with TPMS sensors, the system may be confused. If your vehicle's TPMS includes the spare, burrow into the trunk and get access to the spare first. Don't forget to top off the tires to the correct pressure.


1. The definitive correct tire pressure is on this sticker on the door frame. This info is also in the owner's manual. Ignore what's printed on the tire sidewall. Your car manufacturer has determined what pressures will make your car handle properly. The pressure on the sidewall is the maximum pressure for any vehicle.	2. Tire pressure should be checked in the morning on cold tires, not after you've driven to Starbucks. Tire pressure changes 1 psi for every 10 degrees of outside temperature. A change from 70 F to 40 F will lower the pressure 3 psi, enough to affect wet braking and fuel economy; check your pressures monthly.

On some GM cars you can activate the wheel sensors with a simple, powerful horseshoe magnet. GM has a special tool for this, but I'll bet a nice strong magnet from RadioShack would work. On Toyotas, apparently the only way to activate the sensors is with the Toyota TPMS tool or scan tool. Your mileage may vary. You'll need to find out exactly what procedure your vehicle needs any time you rotate tires or install winter tires. Consult your owner's manual, or the factory service manual. Be wary of advice on TPMS from enthusiast websites: A lot of the procedures I saw there were wrong or just plain out-of-date.

Special Considerations

If you ever need to replace a valve-stem core, use stainless steel rather than brass to avoid corrosion. It's one thing to replace a $2 rubber valve stem and something else entirely to replace a $100 TPMS sensor. And always use that cap. Water, road salt or mud could affect the sensor.

One last thing: That can of aerosol flat-fixer in your trunk may damage the sensor. Yes, it says "Sensor Safe" on the label, but experience in the field says it's a bad idea. The hole-filling compound may well plug up the hole in the sensor that checks pressure. If you must use one of these products, take the vehicle to a properly trained tire technician as soon as possible to have the hole plugged properly from the inside.

Here's a typical procedure for teaching the TPMS system which wheel is which:
1. Place the ignition switch in the "ACC" position.
2. Simultaneously press the keyless entry transmitter's lock and unlock buttons until a horn chirp sounds. This will put the system in "learn mode."
3. Starting with the left front tire, increase/decrease the tire pressure for 5 to 8 seconds, then wait for a horn chirp. The horn chirp may occur before the 5-to-8-second pressure increase/decrease time period has been reached, or up to 30 seconds after the 5-to-8-second pressure increase/decrease time period has been reached.
4. After a horn chirp has sounded, proceed as in step 3 for the next three sensors in the following order: right front, right rear, left rear.
5. After the LR sensor has been learned, a double horn chirp will sound, indicating that all sensors have been learned.

How to Change a Tire?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:27:00 +0000

Like in the proverbial cheap novel, it's a dark and stormy night. But this is real life and help is nowhere in sight. Nor is there any sign of civilization, a single bar of cellphone signal strength or even a wide spot in the road. So, of course, this is when you get a flat tire. Time to get wet and dirty, or sleep in your car. You know how to fix a flat, right? But now might be a good time to try it on your current car, with the tools supplied--just in case ...
Safety First
Pull your car into a safe spot, even if it means driving on the flat tire. Driving more than a few feet with no air pressure will ruin your tire and maybe even the rim. On the other hand, being rear-ended by a high-speed vehicle that couldn't see you because you were parked on the road around a curve will ruin more than that. Try to pick a spot that's flat and dry, and has solid support.
This Is Supposed to Be Easy, Right?
The spare tire, jack and lug wrench that came with your car will make it technically possible to change a flat. You might want to carry around a few extras. I do.
First problem: The spare is flat, too. You check the air pressure in your spare tire regularly, right? Throw an inexpensive 12-volt air compressor into the spare tire well. This might let you add enough air to get you home to change the spare at leisure in your dry, well-lit garage. I also suggest carrying disposable Tyvek painter's overalls, some gloves, rags and hand cleaner. And a flashlight--one with batteries that work.
First Things First
I'm going to give you some homework to do this weekend--before you get a flat. Go out to your car and loosen all of the lugs a half-turn, and then retighten them. Odds are that the last mechanic to work on your car used an air gun to tighten them, and you'll need to struggle with them. Loosen the lugs one at a time and tighten them to the manufacturer's specified torque, generally between 75 and 100 lb.-ft. I strongly recommend the use of a torque wrench (about $25) to do this. Do not simply tighten them until they squeak and throw off little clouds of rust. And loosen and retighten in a star pattern, not going round and round in a circle.

Oil or Not?
Some car manufacturers use a proprietary coating on their lugs, and say that no lubrication is necessary. Others specify they should be lightly lubed. I prefer to lubricate, because then the torque you're so carefully applying to the lugs will be far more accurate. A small dab of grease or engine oil will make it much easier to break the lugs free when you have to. And no, it won't make your lugs spin off by themselves, at least not if you've torqued them properly.
By the Side of the Road
Okay, your tire is flat and you've parked off the road surface on flat ground. Set a safety triangle or a flare 75 ft. behind your car to warn traffic. Start by using a couple of pieces of wood or a roadside rock to chock the wheel opposite the flat both in front and back. Set the handbrake and leave the gearshift in Park (or Reverse if you have a manual).
Remove any hubcap or trim. Loosen the lug nuts or bolts. They're movable, right? The lowest-tech solution is to use a piece of water pipe as an extension on the lug wrench's handle. Around 3 ft. of pipe makes the tightest lug a one-hand job. No pipe? Try standing on the end of the wrench and bouncing up and down. Unfortunately, this is likely to cause the wrench to pop off the lug and whang your ankle, so be careful.
We carry an old-fashioned four-way wrench. Because you can push with one hand and pull with the other, the socket stays planted on the lug and you can generate lots of torque.
Leave one lug on--one near the top of the wheel--a couple of turns from tight. Put the others someplace where you won't scatter them into the weeds by accident.

Upsy-Daisy
Lift the vehicle until the wheel is unloaded, run off the last lug and pull it free.
What? The wheel won't budge? Sit down on the ground and kick the sidewalls with your feet, alternating left and right until it pops loose, but not so fiercely as to knock the car off the jack. Still stuck? Put two lugs back on fingertight, and then -loosen them one turn. Remove the jack, and drive back and forth a few feet three or four times while slamming on the brakes to break it loose.
Together Again
Now is the time to clean any foreign matter from the mating surface and centering ring of the hub and wheel to ensure the wheel runs true and stays properly torqued. Wire brush both surfaces and apply a light coat of antiseize compound to prevent a stuck wheel in the future. Thread all the lugs back on fingertight. Spin the wheel a couple of times to center it, and tighten the lugs slightly with the wrench.
Now you can lower and remove the jack. Tighten the lugs again, in a crisscross rather than a circular pattern to keep the wheel true. The last step is to tighten the lugs to their final torque.

(1) Chock the opposite wheel with scraps of wood, tree branches or partially flattened soda cans.

(2) Stock lug wrench is often inadequate to the task of un-torquing lug nuts. Use a pipe extension. Leave wheel on ground to keep it from spinning.

(3) Jack will have someplace to peg to its intended location on the bottom of the car.
(4) This jack attaches to the frame rail while others may have a small recess on the pinch weld along the bottom of the body.

(5) The owner's manual should show where to place the jack, and some vehicles even have a decal on the jack itself or on a tag in the tool bin.

(6) A little grease on the jack's screw will reduce effort. Don't overdo it or the grease will get on everything.

(7) On soft ground or hot asphalt it's a good idea to use a chunk of 2 x 6 to keep the jack from spelunking down.

(8) Toss the old tire under the car in case car falls off the jack. Clean the hub before mounting the new tire.

Servicing Tapered Wheel Bearings !

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:24:00 +0000

It started as a faint squeal a few weeks ago, but lately a grinding sensation has been added to the mix. No biggie, you figure, as you accelerate up the entrance ramp you use every morning. The car probably just needs a fresh set of brake pads. Ker-runch! Suddenly, your left front wheel rockets out from under the vehicle, the nose drops, sparks spray from the chassis, and your latte goes flying out the window. The brake pedal is now useless. Wrestling with the steering wheel barely keeps you from plummeting down that ravine adjacent to the highway.
You're shaken and you're breathing heavily. But it could have been a lot worse. After all, as noted, you still are breathing.

Now, think. When's the last time you serviced those front wheel bearings?
Unlike the sealed wheel bearings we covered a few months ago, the front wheel bearings found on a typical rear-wheel-drive car or truck employ two-piece caged bearing assemblies. Good maintenance dictates that the bearings should be cleaned and repacked any time the brake disc is removed from the spindle.
A Set of Wheel Bearings Equals a Pair of Pairs
Conventional wheel bearings come in two pieces: the tapered cage assembly of rollers with the inner race, and the tapered outer race that presses into the brake disc (or drum) hub. The rollers ride on the inside tapers of both races.
But there are actually two complete bearing sets per wheel -- an inner and an outer -- and both have a separate inner race. Together, they support the entire brake disc (or drum) and wheel/tire assembly. Wheel bearings should be replaced as axle pairs. Don't just replace, for example, bad left front wheel bearings without also replacing the right front ones, regardless of their condition. You also should replace the spring-loaded seals that keep the wheel bearing grease from escaping out the backs of the hubs and dirt and water from intruding into the grease cavity. Oh yes, get a tub of wheel bearing grease, too. We paid less than $50 for everything we needed for our project car.
Get Dirty: Inspection
The first step when checking for worn wheel bearings is to get the tire off the ground. Chock the wheel on the opposite corner fore and aft. Set a safety stand under the corner you're working on after you jack it up. Grasp the whole wheel assembly at the top and bottom (12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions) and try to rock it in and out. (Rocking side to side is more indicative of bad tie rod ends.) Also, spin the wheel and feel for roughness. A slight amount of play is expected, but any more than a few millimeters of movement at the top or bottom of the wheel as you rock it calls for a closer look. Remove the lug nuts, which probably will mean setting the wheel back down to keep it from spinning, unless you've got an air wrench or a helper to depress the brake pedal.
You'll need to remove the brake caliper, which usually requires taking out a couple of caliper bolts or some sliding pins. Hang the caliper by a piece of heavy wire to keep from damaging the rubber brake hose. If you have drum brakes, front or rear, you may need to back off the brake adjustment stars; refer to the shop manual for the specific number of notches. Now pop off the dust cap with a chisel and a light hammer tap. Then, use pliers to straighten the cotter pin. Remove the locking crown if there is one (some cars use just a castle nut) and unscrew the axle nut. Wear a mask to avoid breathing in the brake dust, or rinse the assembly with water.
While pulling the brake disc (or drum) from the spindle with one hand, catch the small outer bearing and the washer in front of it as they fall into your other hand. Pull the large inner bearing out past the grease seal from the back of the hub. You may have to pry out the seal first.
Both sets of rollers should be gooey with no signs of dirt in the grease. Rotate the cage assembly on the inner race with your fingers. Look inside the inner race and on the axle spindle for score marks. Nothing? The rollers spin true? Are the surfaces of the bearing race and rollers a little textured, but there are no chatter marks (called brinelling) or obvious wear? No blue metal from overheating due to lack of lubrication? Is the grease sticky and not like the crumbly bar of Irish Spring in your shower soap dish? If so, you can simply repack the old bearings and put it all back together. Clean the old grease -- all of it -- out of the hub, the bearings, and off the spindle, washer and nut. Follow up with mineral spirits and a small paintbrush or aerosol brake cleaner to remove the last of it. Dry any remaining solvent with a rag or compressed air.
Out With the Old, in With the New
Any signs of damage or wear, however, mean you need new bearings. Look for two indents inside the hub just behind the races, 180 degrees apart. Use a hammer and punch to carefully bang out each race from the other side of the hub, alternately tapping at one indent and then the other. A hydraulic press with the correct arbor will make short work of this. If you can't get the races loose, you can take the hub to your local machine shop and have a mechanic press them out.
Before installing the new race -- which you've carefully kept matched to its respective bearing -- make sure its land is clean and burr-free. A hydraulic shop press works best for installation, but with a certain amount of care it is possible to install the new race using a hammer and a punch. Don't scratch the tapered area that the rollers ride on. The best way to minimize any chance of doing damage is to tap in the race with a socket large enough to fit the race's circumference.
Your fresh bearings will not come out of the box pregreased. So pack each thoroughly. Put a generous dab of grease in the palm of your (clean) hand and push the grease between the rollers and the cage. Do this all around the circumference of both bearings. While your hands are slathered, cup some more grease and glob it into the disc (or drum) hub. Don't pack it full -- about 50 percent grease is plenty. Then, insert the large inner bearing into the back side of the hub. Tap the new grease seal into the back of the hub.
Reinstall the brake disc (or drum) on the spindle, insert the small outer bearing, and place the washer and thread on the nut. Run the nut home by hand, then tighten it a little more with a wrench while spinning the brake with the other hand. This seats the bearing further and sets its preload. Keep spinning while tightening. You'll feel the bearing start to bind slightly as you tighten more. Stop there.
Now back off the nut with the wrench until you feel that resistÂance dissipate, and one of the castellations on the nut lines up with the cotter pin hole. Use a new cotter pin. Don't overtighten the spindle nut. Better to keep it on the looser side than make it too tight if the cotter pin holes don't line up just right. To finish the job, fill the dust cap halfway with grease and tap it back on. Reinstall the brake caliper, then scrub the brake disc with brake cleaner to remove any grease or even handprints from the friction surface. Reinstall the wheel by torquing the lug nuts to the manufacturer's specified torque in a star pattern. Remove the safety stand, lower the vehicle and take it for a road test.

Remove the caliper and hang it nearby with a piece of wire or string to avoid damaging the rubber brake hose.

Pry off the cap without damaging it -- you'll need it again.

Pop off the brake disc and remove the bearings. Clean all the old grease off the bearings, brake and spindle with solvent.

Pop the old seal out with a pry bar or even a screwdriver, then use solvent to clean up all the old grease. Dry with a rag or compressed air.

Pack the bearings by mushing grease in between the rollers until they're completely coated.

Tap the new grease seal home and fill the cavity halfway with fresh grease.

Adjust the castellated nut by lightly tightening it and spinning the wheel. Now loosen it until the casteallations line up with the axle's crossdrilled hole. Too loose is better than too tight.

Install the cotter pin (we suggest using a new one). Then, fill the outer cap halfway with grease and tap it in.

How to Reattach a Rearview Mirror ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:51:00 +0000

One bad pothole later, the SUV disappears suddenly — not because the driver has given up on passing you so he can get to Starbucks 8 seconds sooner, but because your inside rearview mirror has dropped off the windshield glass and is resting peacefully on the carpet in the passenger foot well.
Stick to It
Most vehicles rely on a simple glue joint to hold the rearview mirror onto the windshield. The adhesive can fail due to the ravages of heat, humidity and time — not to mention the added stress of a half-pound of fuzzy dice or kewpie doll ornament swinging back and forth for years.

Fortunately, it's relatively simple to reglue the metal mounting button to the glass. Unfortunately, it's not so simple to reglue it properly, so that it remains on the glass for more than a few days. Just a dab of 5-minute epoxy won't cut it.
Your first step is to head for an auto parts store or local big-box retailer with an auto parts section. Pick up a rearview mirror installation kit. Don't buy one that's hanging on a hook from your local odd-lot-merchandise emporium or any other place that isn't likely to have a fresh kit on hand. These kits have a limited shelf life, especially if not stored properly. Similarly, don't buy one and keep it stashed in your hot glovebox — it won't last.
Many cars nowadays integrate electrochromic dimming functions, flux gate compasses and even courtesy lights with their interior rearview mirrors. If some functionality of the mirror has failed, or the glass is cracked, you probably can simply replace it without regluing the button to the glass.
Have a Nice Day
You'll need to park your car in a place where the temperature is somewhere between 50 and 75 degrees. If it's winter, find a heated garage to work inside. During the summer, pick a nice day, with moderate temperature and humidity. Park in the shade, because if the glass is too hot, the adhesive will set with less strength. Rainy days will leave moisture on the glass.
First, you'll need to remove the metal button from the mirror assembly. Very few (usually older) vehicles have mirrors that glue directly to the glass, but most will have a button you glue on first and then attach the mirror to. The Audi mirror we replaced here can be forced to part company with its button by removing a small piece of trim, disconnecting the electrics, and then inserting a screwdriver blade into the latch. Twist gently, and the mirror will pop off into your hand. Other vehicles may require loosening a small Allen-head setscrew.
Very important: Find some way to label the button "this side up." The last thing you need is to glue on the button upside down. Mark it with a felt pen or a scratch at the very top or bottom. Don't mark the side that faces the glass, because the next thing we're going to do with the button is clean that surface down to bare metal. Also, you'll be looking at that surface from outside your car for a few years. Do you really want to see a smiley face there?
A Circle Marks the Spot
There are probably some remnants of the glue on the windshield. Before you clean anything up, use a felt pen, grease pencil or a piece of masking tape to mark the position of the button. For reasons that are about to become obvious, mark the outside of the glass. If nothing else, there is probably a constellation of your fingerprints on the inside of the glass from adjusting the mirror in the past to guide you. If you are very short or very tall, you might want to use this opportunity to adjust the position of the mirror an inch or two vertically. Don't forget that there might be wires to connect if you have any electrical components in the mirror. If you have trouble hanging pictures level in your living room, you might want to add a plumb line to the windshield with a spirit level so you can keep the button square. We usually just eyeball it.
Cleanup on Aisle Three
Remove every last vestige of old adhesive from the button. The kit we bought had a piece of sandpaper in it for this. If there is any adhesive left on the glass, scrape it off with a single-edge razor blade. Follow up with some solvent, such as lacquer thinner or rubbing alcohol, to remove your fingerprints from both the glass and the button. (Now you know why we marked the outside of the glass.)
The kit we used had a special cleaner/primer pad saturated with a solution that did double duty. A solvent cleans the glass and also acts as a catalyst for setting the adhesive later. Scrub the glass and the button without touching the surface with your fingers. You don't want to leave any oily fingerprints behind — they will prevent full adhesion.
Ready? Car and glass at a moderate temperature? Got the button right side up? If so, open the small vial of adhesive with a razor blade and squeeze a single, generous drop out onto the face of the button. Squint, aim precisely, and press the button onto the glass. You get only one chance, so we really do mean aim precisely. Hold the button in place for 1 minute, using moderate pressure. The directions in the kit say for 10 seconds, but we're professional skeptics. Similarly, the directions say you can install the mirror after only 30 minutes have elapsed, but we prefer to wait overnight to be sure the adhesive has cured properly.
Hang 'Em High
Now it's a simple matter of reinstalling the mirror. If you have a setscrew-style attachment, it's easy. Just hold the mirror in place with one hand while you run the setscrew in with the other. Remember, it's a setscrew — don't strip the threads by overtightening it. Use just enough torque on the wrench to keep the mirror from rattling.
Our Audi was a little trickier; your vehicle may be, too. We needed to rotate the mirror around the octagonal piece of the button to pop it on. After that, it was a simple matter to reconnect the electrical wiring harness and reinstall the small trimpiece.
Unbuttoning the Button
Upgrading to a better mirror because you have flux gate compass envy? Or you wanted to recycle a mirror from another car, say, that junker rusting slowly away out by the fence line? Then you'll need to remove the button from the glass. You might be able to shave it off with that razor blade. If it won't come off readily, here's a trick: Take a crescent wrench and "unscrew" the button from the glass. It'll pop off with a surprisingly gentle amount of force.

Mark the position of the button on the outside of the windshield with a felt pen or grease pencil.

Pop the button loose. Some mirrors come off by removing a setscrew, but this one had spring-loaded fingers that had to be gently persuaded with a screwdriver.

Clean, clean, clean the glass and button with the cleaner pad in the installation kit.

A small vial of adhesive has enough glue to attach a good dozen mirrors. Don't feel compelled to use it all.

Press the button onto the glass for 1 minute, then let it cure.

How to Fix Your Dented Car Door(s) !

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:47:00 +0000

Which is how the door on the truck acquired a big dent -- you were so focused on the boat, you forgot to pay attention to the truck. The dent is too big and the metal too stretched for a proper hammer and dolly/body-filler repair. That leaves you with the choice of finding another door at a wrecking yard or reskinning the door you already have. Recent developments in structural adhesives make the second choice a good alternative -- no welding required.

Inside a Car Door

Most sheetmetal doors are made in three pieces. There's the frame (which the inner door panel and armrest attach to), the window channel (which is welded to the doorframe) and the skin (which attaches to the doorframe and the outside of the window channel).

Body shops routinely remove damaged steel door skins and attach new ones. After a little paint, the door looks new again. Not too long ago, installing a new sheetmetal skin meant it had to be plug welded to the door and window frame in dozens of locations. Plug welds took the place of the factory-applied spot welds. Since most of us don't own a MIG welder (or any welder at all), reskinning a door hasn't been a do-it-yourself job.

However, thanks to modern, specifically designed two-part adhesives, body shops now glue new door skins to their frames. These adhesives are available to backyard mechanics, too, so door reskinning is something you can now do at home. Bonus: Gluing can result in a stronger repair than welding.

Taking Off the Door

To replace a skin, take the door off the car and remove everything that will interfere with removing and then installing its outer skin.

Procedures vary depending on the vehicle, but the place to start is by taking out the inner door panel and the window glass. Next, remove the insert inside the window channel, and any trim or molding around the window frame and on the door skin. You also have to remove the mirror, and the door lock and handle. Use a body shop repair manual specific to your vehicle if you have doubts about how to remove these items without doing damage.

Unplug any wiring that runs from the body through to the doorframe. Next, scribe around the door hinges on the car body to mark their location, then have an assistant hold the door while you unscrew the hinge bolts. Keep in mind that even with much of the inner workings of the door removed, it is still heavy, so get some able-bodied help.

Removing the Skin

With the door off the car, you can now begin to detach the sheetmetal skin. The perimeter of the skin is folded over the doorframe at the factory. Grind on the edge of the door's perimeter until you separate the folded flap on the back side of the door from the skin that forms the door surface. Once you've gone around the entire door, you should be able to peel away the folded sheetmetal from the doorframe. Wear eye protection and gloves when grinding -- the metal's edges are sharp. We're quite serious.

With the folded portions of the skin removed, look for spot welds that hold the skin to the frame. They're likely to be found across the top of the door skin near the base of the window opening, the area surrounding the door mirror attachment points and also under the door handle. Spot welds are often difficult to see; it's most effective to look for their telltale indentations by using a strong light held at an angle. When you find a weld, mark the spot with a felt pen.

It's possible to remove the spot welds by simply drilling through them. But this leaves holes in the doorframe. Instead, use a special drill bit made just for this task. It's sold at auto parts stores that carry body shop supplies. Because the bit's teeth surround the spot weld, the bit cuts the metal of the skin around the weld but leaves the frame undamaged.

Prep for Assembly

With the spot welds removed and the folded portions of the skin ground away from the frame, gently pry the skin from the door. If you meet resistance, stop and make sure all the spot welds have been drilled out. Manufacturers also put sealer between the door skin and the side-impact beam. (This is a solid metal piece that runs behind the skin and connects to the doorframe.) You'll have to pry this joint apart.

Trust us, the inside of the door is dirty. Clean it with compressed air -- you may even have to pressure wash it. Use your body grinder to take off the small circles of spot-weld material left on the frame. Also grind off or sand away any putty, glue or other materials that will interfere with installing the skin. Then give the doorframe another cleaning.

Slip Me Some Skin

There are several ways to buy a door skin. If your car or truck is less than 10 years old, you can most likely purchase one at the dealer. Replacements are also available from aftermarket suppliers, and are sold online and at many auto parts stores. Keep in mind that factory door skins usually are more expensive. For instance, a 1998 Chevy pickup door skin costs about $350 from the dealer. An aftermarket skin costs about $260 with shipping. No matter where you get your skin, open the box and check it immediately. These things get damaged even more easily off the car than on it.

Reskinning the Door

To install the skin, place the doorframe on a table with the skin side facing up. The portions of the sheetmetal that fold around the doorframe are prebent at 90-degree angles to the skin. That way the skin will properly self-locate around the frame. Before installation, place the skin on the frame to test its fit, then remove it. You'll probably have to grind away a few imperfections or tap out high spots for a perfect fit. This is an important step -- any misfit will be impossible to correct once the adhesive is in place.

The adhesive and its applicator are available at auto parts stores that sell body shop supplies. The door adhesive that we used (Non-Sag Door Skin Adhesive) comes in two 7-ounce containers and needs to be mixed in equal parts. We bought a dedicated applicator, made by the adhesive maker, for about $65 -- about the price of both containers of the adhesive. The applicator gun and its disposable nozzle mixed the components as we applied them. This particular stuff takes an hour to set up. Warning: Don't think you can do this job with some 5-minute epoxy. Use a product that is intended for auto body repairs.

The adhesive is temperature-sensitive. You need to work in an area where the temperature is between 60 and 85 F. If it's too cold, the ad-hesive won't set properly; too much heat hardens it before you can get all the clamps set properly.

How to Repair Defroster Grids In Your Garage... ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:54:00 +0000

Like, for instance, that 8-ft. aluminum ladder you just bought. You didn't even have to tie the back door shut--there was just enough room to close the hatch with the ladder resting on top of a pile of stuff. And it rode across town without incident. Except that it shifted backward a couple of inches, into the window and the electrical spade lug that carries current to the deÂfroster grid, neatly popping it free of the glass. To add to the injury, the grid is scratched in three places, clear down to the bare glass, causing an open circuit that will leave a 6-in.-wide swath of frost across the window come wintertime, right at eyeball level.

These electrically conductive, heated grids on the rear window are literally painted onto the glass. They're reasonably tough, but it's possible to damage them by letting cargo rub against the glass, or by scraping off a window sticker or the tinting film. Even a credit card can damage the grid, so limit anything that touches the glass to a clean rag and some window cleaner.

A new rear window can be more than $400, including installation.

You can fix it yourself for less than 10 bucks.

Really. Start by going to the auto parts store and picking up a rear-window defroster-grid repair kit and/or a defroster tab repair kit, depending on the damage you need to fix.

Begin the repair process by using your soft cloth and window cleaner to thoroughly remove all dirt, dust, dog drool, ice cream smears and greasy handprints from the rear window. Clean it inside and out because you need to be able to see through the glass to discern the breaches in the grid. More im-portant, you need to give the conductive paint or adhesive a clean surface to stick to. Where's That Scratch?

You'd think it would be easy to find a scratch deep enough to interrupt the flow of current through the grid, but experience says otherwise. So, drag out your trusty voltmeter. Actually, even a 12-volt test light will work. Turn on the defroster grid. Measuring from one side of the grid to another, you should see battery (system) voltage a little over 12 volts. You marked which line or lines in the grid didn't work on that last cold or rainy morning, right?

Put the probes of the meter on the damaged grid line at both ends, right where the grid connects with the wide bus bars. Move one probe--it doesn't matter which--to the center of the line. If you now read 6 volts, the scratch is not in between the two probes. If you read the same system voltage, 12 volts or so, the break is in between the old probe location and the new one. Just move the probes until you straddle the location that has full system voltage spanning it. Now it's time to turn off the deÂfroster grid and the ignition switch--defroster grids are high-current items. Leaving the grid powered up for more than a few minutes will drain the battery.

If you have a very sensitive ohmmeter, you can find scratches this way by measuring the resistance along the grid, without powering up the system. I've done this on windows that were off the vehicle, like when I checked a grid on a junkyard liftgate of questionable provenance before I lugged it home.

Okay, got all the breaks in the grid lines identified? Use a grease pencil on the outside of the glass to mark them. Now clean the area you need to patch with lacquer thinner, mineral spirits, rubbing alcohol or cheap vodka to remove any last oily fingerprints or residue. The kit we bought had a peel-and-stick mask to be applied to the glass. For a neater job, just use some masking tape and make the repair only as wide as the grid. Don't touch the surface or you'll leave fingerprints. Shake the small vial of conductive paint thoroughly, and simply brush the paint over the scratch. Wait a minute and add a second coat. Wait a minute longer, and remove the masking. You can use the defroster within 15 minutes or so.

The procedure for repairing broken-off electrical connectors is almost as straightforward. Similarly, clean the area with lacquer thinner or alcohol to remove any oily residue. We took a small file to remove a couple of burrs, so the tab would lay flat on the glass. Our kit came with a vial of accelerator to complement a small pouch of conductive adhesive. Snap the glass vial of accelerator to release it into the applicator swab, and wet the surface of the glass and the back of the tab. Allow it to dry for 5 minutes. Knead the adhesive pouch for a minute or so, and snip off a corner. Put a couple of drops on the tab, and lightly press it to the glass for 60 seconds. Don't glue your fingers to the tab or the glass--and don't ask how we know this is a bad idea.

The procedure for repairing broken-off electrical connectors is almost as straightforward. Similarly, clean the area with lacquer thinner or alcohol to remove any oily residue. We took a small file to remove a couple of burrs, so the tab would lay flat on the glass. Our kit came with a vial of accelerator to complement a small pouch of conductive adhesive. Snap the glass vial of accelerator to release it into the applicator swab, and wet the surface of the glass and the back of the tab. Allow it to dry for 5 minutes. Knead the adhesive pouch for a minute or so, and snip off a corner. Put a couple of drops on the tab, and lightly press it to the glass for 60 seconds. Don't glue your fingers to the tab or the glass--and don't ask how we know this is a bad idea.

Allow this adhesive to cure at room temperature for 24 hours before trying to reattach the wiring harness or using the defroster.

How to Stop Your Car From Squeaking... ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:51:00 +0000

It's gotten to the point where the neighbors know you're on the way home from half a block away because of all the "chirps" and "eeps" coming from your suspension. It's embarrassing, man. It's also potentially expensive if you have to replace all those worn parts. So why do these components begin to squeak? Suspension and steering joints wear out--and ultimately fail--when unlubricated metal-to-metal contact erodes bushings and bearing surfaces, much like 40-grit sandpaper on a wooden table. So let's nip this degradation in the bud.

You're lucky.

Chassis lubrication isn't expensive. You can buy a grease gun, some chassis grease and a couple of aerosol cans of lubricant for less than the price of one worn-out tie rod end. So there's no excuse. Your vehicle doesn't need to sound like an angry gerbil on a treadmill.

Most cars and light trucks today are manufactured with sealed "lubed for life" ball joints, tie rod ends and even U-joints. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy--when the factory-fill grease dries out, the joint wears out. Some vehicles still come with suspension and driveline parts that have proper grease fittings, allowing you to use a simple hand-pumped grease gun to inject precious lubrication at regular intervals. Virtually all aftermarket parts, even the direct replacements for the sealed factory units, have grease fittings to allow for lubrication. So what's the difference between the lubed-for-life parts and the greaseable afterÂmarket parts? Only the grease fitting. In fact, you could even drill and tap a hole into a sealed part and add a grease fitting yourself, which is something I usually do on my own cars. Why do car manufacturers leave off this inexpensive fitting? They count every cent that goes into a new vehicle. And a few cents saved on 400,000 vehicles is eventually real money. More important, lubed-for-life parts allow automakers to tout their vehicles as requiring less scheduled maintenance. That has become more important in these days of five- or 10-year warranties--even if the truth of the matter is that the unlubricateable parts will require eventual replacement, at your expense.

The first thing you need to do before lubricating your chassis is to get some space underneath the vehicle so that you can work safely. My pickup has enough clearance that I can simply crawl underneath it, grease gun in hand, and get the job done. My Porsche needs to be on ramps or safety stands. Either way, make sure the parking brake is on and you place blocks behind the wheels. Toss something thicker than your head, a block of wood or even a spare tire, under there too for insurance.

Now that you're underneath the car, the procedure is simple--open up the dust boot on the fitting and clean off any grime with a rag so you don't force dirt inside. Pop the grease gun onto the fitting and pump the trigger until the rubber boot bleeds fresh grease around the edges. Your vehicle may have as many as a dozen fittings on the front suspension. If you own a 4x4 that sees a lot of mud, plan to spend time under the chassis with a grease gun regularly. You may find fittings on tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joints, sway-bar links and control-arm pivots, so hunt around and make sure to hit them all. There might be grease fittings on as many as three U-joints on the driveshaft (or shafts), depending on whether you have a front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Can't get any grease into the fitting? It's probably clogged with dried grease or dirt. Squeeze harder on the trigger of the grease gun. Still dry? Unscrew the fitting with a wrench and clean it out with a wire and solvent, or just install a new one from the auto parts store.

How to Install Vinyl Graphics on Your Car ?

noreply@blogger.com (brad stevens) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:48:00 +0000

You can find everything from tribal flames to giant American flags for the rear window, to cartoons of small boys doing nasty things to the automaker's logo of your choice. Still not finding exactly what you want? Many times we've gone to sign shops and had custom vinyl graphics cut. It helps to have a digital file of the graphic you want. The 6-ft.-long die-cut vinyl stripes we installed on this fridge-white SUV set us back about $75, and we got them right out of a catalog.

Big wheels and tires are one way--but have you checked the price of 20-in. rims with 30-series tires lately? Actually, there are cheaper ways to make sure you can find your car parked outside at the mall. Vinyl graphics can be had at Pep Boys and other auto parts stores, and any place that does window tinting will have catalogs full of graphics to order.

Start by taking a picture of the vehicle and sketching what you want the final result to be. If you can find an off-the-shelf design, so much the better. There's a rich palette of vinyl films to choose from, including metallics and moiré. The vinyl film stretches slightly to follow the curve of a fender, but don't expect a giant American flag to stretch enough to let you apply it to the wheel-well arch of a dually pickup. If you must cover a large three-dimensional area, you can drape it with long, narrow designs instead of a single large-block design. Try mocking up the shape of the graphic on your car with masking tape before you go too crazy.
Once you've settled on a design, it's time to be sure the paint under the graphic is sound. There's no sense in putting vinyl over rust.

Peel and Stick

If at all possible, you should do the installation indoors, or at the very least, in a sheltered corner. Even a small breeze will tangle your tape, at the worst possible moment. The air temperature needs to be between 55 and 80 F as well. Don't work in the sun--the wetting agent will evaporate way too fast.

Ah, yes. Wetting agent. There are proprietary mixes on the market, but I have my own recipe: In a quart bottle, combine a half-cup of rubbing alcohol and two drops (no more) of dish detergent, then top it off with water. If your agua is particularly hard, you might want to use distilled or demineralized water to avoid water spots.

Start the process by positioning the graphic on the car, holding it in place with masking tape. Take your time to get it placed absolutely correctly, because you can only slide it around for a short time once the backing film has been peeled. Look for collisions between areas of the graphic and things like door handles and badges. A modest amount of trimming can solve a lot of problems, and we needed to do just that around the lock cylinder on both doors.

When you've got the graphic placed against the car, use gentle finger pressure to stick it to the car, starting in the middle. If you need to, you'll be able to lift and reposition the vinyl several times to get it precisely where you need it. Don't be afraid to spray on more wetting agent. As the surface dries, the adhesive becomes stickier. Squeeze the water out with your hand, and then use a plastic squeegee or an old credit card to work the rest of the water out, starting in the center. If the vinyl peels off the car when you try to remove the backing film, squeegee again to remove more water. Waiting 10 minutes or so will help the vinyl adhere to the paint better, too.