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This was a week ago, but I installed a bigger front swaybar on my 2008 STi. I think the stock one is 20mm, I previously upgraded to a 25mm, and then I bought this huge custom 32mm bar from a guy I autox with and stuck that on there. It's pretty crazy, but in stock class thats pretty much all I can do to flatten the car out in the turns. stock (20mm?, black), large (25mm, red), extra large (32mm, silver) 
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Mar 8, 2010 00:13
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:04 |
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Changed the oil in the Jeep and eyeballed the leaky power steering hoses. Doesn't look that hard to change them but of course I'm sure something horrible will happen.
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Mar 8, 2010 02:08
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I set out to do a exhaust manifold remove/header install to replace the horrid stock manifold on the QR25DE in my '05 Sentra (it's fun living in fear of a disintegrating catalytic converter, right?). Unfortunately, I learned that all the whining I've ever heard about exhaust bolts wasn't bullshit - the bolts at the bottom of the manifold have grown a coating of rust that makes the threads almost unrecognizable and the heat shield bolts are so rusted in place that they rounded off as soon as I took a wrench to them. This stands in direct contrast to the work I used to do on my VW beetles - the difference between salted roads in the winters along with front-mounted low-to-the-road components and rear-mounted shrouded bolts is now apparent. On the plus side, in the last two weeks, I've gotten enough practice disassembling the engine covers that I could probably swap the alternator in less than 40 minutes - on the minus, I am still stuck with the piece of crap manifold that came with the car because I didn't order the 3 dollar bolts I'd need to be able to justify cutting the ones already there. At the end of the day, I just said to hell with it and took out my frustration by rotating the tires. At least it's nice and quiet now...
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Mar 8, 2010 03:30
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It was nice enough out that i threw my new track wheels/tires on to do a little shakedown run to make sure everything fit without rubbing and that there were no isues using a 5x114.3 wheel instead of a 5x115. It turned out pretty good, other then confirming that im going to have to spin my coilovers up a hair to keep from touching in the front under hard braking.    285 and 305 555r2's are going to be a nice increase in grip over the square 275 street tire setup I used last year. Cant wait for the first DE day of the season at the end of the month.
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Mar 8, 2010 03:41
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Finally sold my Catera. Got more than I was expecting despite the buyer finding everything that was wrong with the car. Started working some more on the Corolla before receiving a emergency call to go install a part that takes 5 minutes to install and cost $0.59 on my mothers car. 150 miles away. 
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Mar 8, 2010 03:46
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So this was yesterday not today, but... I got my car on TV. It didn't help me pay for the repairs, but it was a good time.
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Mar 8, 2010 04:27
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Changed my oil and oil filter. Hopefully the Synthetic 5W40 I put in there keeps my idle oil pressure up. The 5W30 was making my oil light flicker when it was really warm out. Lookin' good so far.
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Mar 8, 2010 05:26
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Changed the pcv breather box in my Volvo 740, realized that what I thought was a bad crank seal was just a clogged breather box pushing oil out the valve cover filler cap. Proceeded to punch myself. I've been letting the car sit (and thusly accumulate mold through a bad rear glass seal / water leak) since I didn't have time to tear it down / biked to work. Could have done this in a couple hours. In short, make sure your stupid breather box isn't clogged.
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Mar 8, 2010 08:00
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About 95% sure I blew the head gasket in the SVX today.  Looks like the 840 is getting called into service a bit early this year. Even though I just took apart the interior and ripped all the speakers out of it yesterday, because hey - it's nice out, and I've got my SVX to drive while this is apart, right?
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Mar 8, 2010 08:41
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Yesterday I was able to make a minor change to my grill. Went from the stock color to a flat black. Simple change but I feel it went well with the black housing of my headlights.
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Mar 8, 2010 10:50
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I bobbed the bed of my truck. Took out 11" Didn't get to finish because I had to drive it to work, but it's all tacked back in place now at least. Still plenty of rust repair to do on the rest of the bed...     Also forgot to get decent pics of it towards the end, but you get the idea
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Mar 9, 2010 00:35
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My radiator failed near the plastic top tank on the 240sx this morning. We'll see if radiator stop leak will keep it running until the end of the week when I might have more time to think about replacing the radiator, flushing the coolant, changing the thermostat, and doing other maintenance.
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Mar 9, 2010 07:05
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I turned this:  into this: 
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Mar 9, 2010 09:21
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Got the new wheels on the TT today. On the short test drive, I was impressed. Acceleration, turn-in, the entire car felt crisper. What a difference 32 lb of unsprung weight makes!
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Mar 11, 2010 00:05
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I'll just sum up the past 5 days. Put new wheels on it, adjusted the coilovers, noticed a violent vibration while driving, put it on jack stands, adjusted the coilovers, continued to vibrate violently, tested wheels on another car, adjusted coilovers again (up, this time), changed back to old wheels, tightened and retightened everything, screamed, cried, continued to be hosed, put new wheels on again so it will at least look good in the garage, gave up.
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Mar 11, 2010 02:18
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Took the day off from work. Went down to the auto body shop to get the head unit out of my sister's totaled car before they hauled it off. Then I replaced my rear wheel bearing hub units. Oh look, the factory shop manual says to just undo 4 bolts and I'm free. Oh look, so does the Haines manual. Oh look, you have to take off the parking brake poo poo before you can do that and then everything is rusted together. Many hours later, I have ABS again. Also I hate parking brakes a lot.
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Mar 19, 2010 23:02
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Well, I was going to replace my oil pressure sensor on my '97 BMW 328i, but I need a 15/16" deep well socket. I had bought one, but the only one I could find was 1/2" drive and it was too deep. I tried using a box wrench but couldn't get it on good enough. I did notice a slice in the wire, which I taped up.  The problem is, last spring I replaced my odometer backlights, and while I had my cluster out I noticed my oil pressure light was missing. Presumably the PO took it out. I put a new one in, and found out that when it's warm out and the engine is warm and idling, I'll every once in awhile have a flickering oil pressure light. It's not nearly as bad when I use 5W40 oil but with 5W30 anything above 50°F would cause it to come on whenever I was stopped. Normally I would have flipped the gently caress out, but since it was missing for over a year and a half, I assumed that it was the switch and the PO had removed it so he could sell the car. It's been a year later and the car still runs fine. The sensor was $5, but since I couldn't replace it, I still have the old one on there. I couldn't get my light to flicker on the way home, though, so maybe it was a loose connection. We'll see. If I do replace the sensor and still have the same problem, well, I'll probably have to take it in to get it looked at. I know it's not the dreaded oil pump nut, because if the pump stopped working I'd be properly hosed and it wouldn't matter what RPM I was running at. (I've also considered that I'm just idling too low, and I need to clean my ICV sometime... I can usually make it flicker by applying electrical load, like rolling the windows up.)
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Mar 20, 2010 00:29
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Picked up my exhaust manifold from the machine shop, they tapped it for new 10mm studs and milled down all the flanges. It looks amazing. Then I went home and cut off the old exhaust with a sawzall. Man, that's loving satisfying. This is what you get, rusted exhaust nuts! Can I sell my old cat for scrap?
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Mar 20, 2010 00:34
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Today I changed my own oil for the first time in nearly ten years. I used to do my own when I was still an ACVW owner (for obvious reasons if you know their schedule) and man... I forgot just how good smelling like your car's blood feels. I didn't even lose that much out of the drain pan, for my second time ever using one. I also, having just completed a wash, Rain-x, interior clean, and tailpipe polish yesterday, decided to "summerize" the inside and swap out my rubber mats to make way for the carpet mats. I hate that the PO screwed up the driver's side mat so bad, but the car looks nicer now, at least. Plus the mats are SE-R fanboy compatible, which is worth at least a 30 horsepower gain, I think. Money Walrus posted:Picked up my exhaust manifold from the machine shop, they tapped it for new 10mm studs and milled down all the flanges. It looks amazing. Reading this makes me think my last post in here about not being able to get my header unbolted may have to end in a sawzall, too. At least you got pleasure out of that, right?
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Mar 20, 2010 02:16
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Tightened 2 loose spark plugs. Doing so on a BMW sucks. Ain't no plugs and wire poo poo.
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Mar 20, 2010 10:21
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Kotaru posted:If this doesn't fix my 55mph+ shimmy its got to be the wheels/tires since the entire front suspension is completely new now. The wheels are probably hosed. My stock 14" wheels would vibrate like loving crazy on the highway. My 16x7s (not even hubcentric!) took away the vibration.
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Mar 20, 2010 12:59
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I finally got off my rear end and installed a fresh cat back exhaust on my Prelude. It's been parked since late fall when an exhaust hanger ripped out of the rusty exhaust pipe (leaving a quarter sized hole) and it was too cold to bother doing it as long as I had a spare car to drive. Reassembled the cowl on the same car, which I had taken apart to try to track down a water leak (still haven't found it). And finally, did an oil change. All of this was in preparation for the BMW going under the knife tomorrow. The plan for that car is to drain & fill the transmission (and install a proper OEM filter this time), to hopefully eliminate the transmission pump whining. I wanted to get the Prelude roadworthy to ensure that I have a functional car for work on Monday, in case I gently caress something up with the BMW tomorrow. 
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Mar 21, 2010 03:13
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Removed the busted rear end Koni sports and stock springs from my Miata. Air tools kicked this job's rear end. All 4 corners were off in less than 1.5 hours, with a good deal of that spent "cocking about." I was going to put my coilovers on and have that all set to go, only to find out I'm missing 4 little spacers for my bilsteins that are $15 and I won't get them until mid week. I need to get this drat car back on the road. Hopefully by next weekend.
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Mar 21, 2010 05:51
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Today: replaced passenger side axle Yesterday: replaced passenger side tie rod and motor mount, fixed loose transmission mount Tuesday: replaced drivers side axle Still haven't fixed whatever is causing my car to shake on acceleration
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Mar 21, 2010 05:56
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Thursday: Changed spark plugs, pulled carb. Changed out lower radiator hose. Found out the new baseplate I ordered for my carb has clearance issues. gently caress. Frantically scan craigslist for a replacement unit. Friday: Drained the oil, pulled the oil pan and cleaned it. Pulled driveshafts, checked and lubed all ujoints. Saturday: Ordered new oil pan gasket. Sat on rear end and stared at truck, considered setting truck aflame. Sunday: Finished scraping old pan gasket off of block, took forever getting new pan back on because the gasket kept flopping around. Finally glued the fucker on there then wrenched it down. Spun off a screw head. Yay. Topped off the oil. Started putting carb back together, decided to give the new baseplate one last shot. Magically it feels like working correctly without any binding. Woot! Then I took two hours tuning it and it still isn't right  Well at least it runs, and I have brakes! They actually lock up again. The old baseplate was held together by RTV red silicone and hate. Next on the agenda... fuel injection! gently caress this carbeurator crap.
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Mar 21, 2010 22:58
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Took down to a dirt parking lot 250km away, and proceeded to drive foolishly around said lot against a stopwatch. I did OK, and had way too much fun. Then, on my way home, I noticed my right-front tire was rather deflated - down to 15psi. The cause of this was a collection of pebbles that had wedged in against the bead on the tire. I couldn't get them out there at the gas station, so I pumped up the tire and drove home. It took me about half an hour to dig all those little fuckers out, after pulling the wheel off and deflating it to nothing psi.
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Mar 22, 2010 00:55
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I sold my old GTI 16v. I'm going to miss it.
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Mar 22, 2010 05:07
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I finally replaced the shifter bushings in my WRX. I should have done this years ago. The new bushings cost $30 shipped and it took less than 10 minutes to do. It doesn't make a WRX 5-speed feel good compared to truly good manuals, but it feels a whole hell of a lot better. I also swapped out my intercooler hoses and clamps for something with better flow and that wasn't getting old and brittle. Best of all, we paid off the wife's car. 5 year loan? more like 17 months 
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Mar 23, 2010 00:26
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Replaced my drivers side axle again, turns out the one I had installed last week was defective. No more shakes!
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Mar 23, 2010 00:35
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At the weekend I was going to hunt a coolant leak, but then I backed into a tree and had to rattle can the rear bumper instead... and today I found a reason* to take the front bumper off and rattle can the poop out of that too. From all this I learned a valuable lesson. Rattle can hardly shows up on silver cars. All this panel removing and stuff sure has got me in the mood to think about a full repaint though... And in the process found that the PO had managed to rip the part of the left front mud guard out leaving me with some lovely rusted straight through brackets... RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Mar 23, 2010 |
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Mar 23, 2010 15:06
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Replaced the water pump, expansion tank and thermostat on my e46. The only previous work I had done on it was spark plugs. Took only 4 hours! I must say, BMWs are well-engineered when it comes to being easy to work on. Besides the coolant fittings being stuck on there, everything went really smoothly. I guess the o-rings they use on the coolant fittings get stuck.
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Mar 23, 2010 15:14
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I washed the salt off my 1995 Lexus SC400 at the pay and spray car wash. It is looking much better now. I could barely see out of the side windows and it had only been a couple weeks since the last wash.
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Mar 23, 2010 16:52
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Installed my GC coilovers, FCM shock mounts and bump stops, and the stock R package Bilstein's (94 Miata) on my car the other day. I ran out of time and still need to set the ride height on all 4 corners. Then comes the new end links up front, putting the interior back together, topping off the coolant, crossing my fingers that it will start after being disabled all winter, bedding the brakes, getting it aligned, and getting the new tires put on. Hopefully by next week. Turns out the PO removed the bump stops completely when he put the Koni sports on, which now makes sense. The shock rods were bent from bottoming out and therefore were no longer adjustable. Apparently the R package cars ride on the bump stops almost continually, so that's probably why they were boned in less than 15k miles. The car rode like garbage and every little bump in the road felt like a pothole swallowed the car. Another guy on the miata forums bought them for his GRM 2010 car for $150 (knowing what was wrong with them) so we're both happy.
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Mar 23, 2010 22:50
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 I'm convinced this car was previously owned by a family of redneck mechanics. The thing runs perfect but the interior was a loving wreck. All of the seatbelts are black from oil/grease. The seats, headliner, door cards and carpet were covered in cigarette burns, oil and grease and it smelled like the inside of a bum's rear end in a top hat. I might as well buy another Corolla with no engine just to get all the parts I'm gonna need to reassemble this fucker.
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Mar 24, 2010 00:30
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Froderick posted:
Perfect opportunity to stitch y'allself some ostrich, dog.
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Mar 24, 2010 07:00
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mlmp08 posted:I finally replaced the shifter bushings in my WRX. I should have done this years ago. The new bushings cost $30 shipped and it took less than 10 minutes to do. It doesn't make a WRX 5-speed feel good compared to truly good manuals, but it feels a whole hell of a lot better. I also swapped out my intercooler hoses and clamps for something with better flow and that wasn't getting old and brittle.
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Mar 24, 2010 07:52
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Did the plugs and wires on my 01 Trans Am. Could have been worse, but still a pain in the rear end. Did the drivers side without removing anything else aside from the skin on my arms. The passenger side I removed the AIR tube and coils/bracket. Still had to get the last plug from underneath the car. At least what is in the way moves out easy enough. Also added some zip ties to the engine bay in the Corolla (or does that go in the confessions thread?)
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Mar 24, 2010 20:54
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Was going to replace a missing power steering bolt but my bolt wasn't the correct thread.  Then I found out my idler arm nut was only finger tight on my center link. Had to retorque that puppy down and put a new cotter pin on it.
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Mar 24, 2010 22:32
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Put the bumper back on last night and all things considered it looks pretty good as long as you don't get too close. Now I gotta find a way to make all the fender scratches look better without taking it off.
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Mar 25, 2010 02:05
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:04 |
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Changed the precious life-blood of the infamous A-604 Chrysler 4 Speed Auto. Old fluid wasn't too bad, was likely done not to long ago, so hopefully that means its been taken care of before I got a hold of it. Having friends with shops that have ATF fluid exchangers and lifts rules...
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Mar 26, 2010 00:16
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