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A scissors jack is typical for in-the-trunk OEM equipment because it's small and folds up and easy to stow. However, for an at-home-use jack, they really suck compared to a good low-profile floor jack, which has more flexibility and is a lot more pleasant to lift (and lower) with. And more stable while it's the only thing holding up part of the car, which is always the case until you can get the jack stand in. If you're exclusively building your trunk kit, you may have to compromise, but if you're building out a set of tools for servicing your car at home, consider getting a floor jack that will last you through many future cars and homes.
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May 16, 2022 16:41
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I bought my low profile floor jack at harbor freight and it has been great for many years now. I also bought some aluminum jacks stands from them too because I welcome death regularly.
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May 16, 2022 16:43
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Thanks for the advice! I'll update my shopping list accordingly. The way you should view a spare tire is as an insurance plan against a tow to a shop for a flat that can't be fixed with something basic like a can of fix-a-flat*. Consider what you're doing with the vehicle and where you're going to do that and what a tow would involve in those scenarios. If you're driving a regular car around town or on regularly-used highways, getting a tow to a tire shop is inconvenient and annoying, but not difficult. But if you're towing trailers, or driving way out in the middle of nowhere, or driving roads/trails where a tow truck can't easily go? Now that tow is going to be more complicated, or take longer, or be problematic, or be more expensive, or any combination of those, and a spare starts looking a lot better. I wouldn't ever go without a spare on my Jeep or my Canyon for various combinations of those reasons. On the other hand I don't have spares for my C10 or Opel, and I keep roadside assistance for them so I'd just call for a flatbed tow if it comes to that. *If you do ever fix a tire with fix-a-flat or anything like it, it's a temporary fix and you also need to tell the tire shop that's going to do the permanent fix because that poo poo makes a mess. Perhaps consider providing a box of donuts or a case of beer as a pre-emptive apology.
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May 16, 2022 18:49
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e: ^ Basically, this, I guess. Though if I ever end up with a car that doesn't come with a spare, one is getting bolted to the trunk.Hadlock posted:I've had exactly 2 unrecoverable flats in my life, both were total blow-outs. Spare tires are a hold-over from then olden days beyond the boomers, beyond steel radials and modern tire chemistry. One was a D class tire hauling ~15,000 lbs of poo poo cross country mostly on the hitch, with another ton of stuff in the bed. We probably deserved that one. The other was taking a friend to the airport and it inexplicably blew up on me. Both happened over 20 years ago. I know that statistically they're unlikely, but I've had one personally that was nothing more than a minor inconvenience because of the spare (full size, thanks VW!). And I gave a ride to some poor sap who needed to get a hotel room and call out of work after his spare-less car left him and his wife stranded 2 hours from home. Yeah, anecdotes aren't data, but I'll eat the .06 mpg hit or whatever to avoid the headache.
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May 16, 2022 19:11
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Baronash posted:And I gave a ride to some poor sap who needed to get a hotel room and call out of work after his spare-less car left him and his wife stranded 2 hours from home. We were driving many hours home from vacation and my cousin's husband was pulling his boat on a trailer so fast that the wheels couldn't take it and one burst. But he had a spare! So he put that on and kept driving fast until the other burst! And now they were stuck in a hotel hours away from home needing to replace tiny trailer wheels. My BMW doesn't have spares, just run flat tires. Unless it's winter and I'm using my regular winter tires. I've carried a summer tire with me on some of those days, but it eats up most of the trunk space, hardly seems worth it. Cross my fingers and have roadside assistance. Just hope nothing happens on a weekend night when no one will assist!
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May 17, 2022 02:20
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Uthor posted:We were driving many hours home from vacation and my cousin's husband was pulling his boat on a trailer so fast that the wheels couldn't take it and one burst. But he had a spare! So he put that on and kept driving fast until the other burst! And now they were stuck in a hotel hours away from home needing to replace tiny trailer wheels. Trailer tires are an exception. They like to go big. Largely because people don't pay enough attention to them/air them up properly/replace them often enough. Any trailer I have to run long distance I like to have one spare per axle. Especially if its a rental trailer. I only have one spare on my current 2 axle because it's mostly local runs and I also know exactly how hold poo poo it and make sure things are aired up properly.
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May 17, 2022 02:26
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MiniFoo posted:So I got my brother a replacement steering wheel cover for his 2008 BMW 135i since the original wheel is starting to flake/disintegrate. It's one of the DIY leather covers that you have to sew on, and I've just concluded that it's a pain in the rear end to do so in the car. Removing the wheel sounds really easy: disconnect the battery, wait 10-15 minutes, pop out the airbag with two screwdrivers and unplug it, then unbolt the wheel with a 16mm socket. I don't work on "modern" cars, so when I stuck my head in the trunk and looked at the negative cable I got really confused about this IBS doodad. Searched online but didn't definitively find an answer as to what would happen if I leave the car unpowered for a day or two, i.e. if anything would need to be reprogrammed or whatever. I don't want to disconnect the battery just to install a wheel cover, then discover that the car needs to be towed to the dealership or some bullshit. Anybody have a quick explanation? For what you're doing, you won't do anything to the IBS. It's used to measure draw and charge current on the battery system. BMW plays games with how hard they charge the battery for efficiency, so on a brand new perfect battery they will charge less, and on a more worn battery, they will charge more. The IBS gives the computer feedback to increase or decrease the charging amounts. Nothing bad will happen from leaving it unplugged.
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May 17, 2022 05:12
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Miss Broccoli posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zvNwzxIKCw crossposting from the miata thread but are holes in trim like whats in that third video something you can patch with silicon or do I need to spend the 350-400 on new seals that im seeing online
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May 17, 2022 10:37
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Motronic posted:Trailer tires are an exception. They like to go big. Largely because people don't pay enough attention to them/air them up properly/replace them often enough. I'm just posting to put a wrinkle in my brain to check if my dad still has tires on his trailer from J C Penney.
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May 17, 2022 15:42
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And to piggyback on that, should trailer tires be inflated to the tire pressure printed on the tire?
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May 17, 2022 18:59
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nitsuga posted:And to piggyback on that, should trailer tires be inflated to the tire pressure printed on the tire? They typically are if they are the correct tires for that axle. I would always suggest checking the trailer for that information first, if it's not there check the axle (it's not gonna be on the axle, but figure out what it is and look it up) and if you got nothing go with the inflation pressure on the tire. For basic stuff that's not a box, not a horse trailer, etc it's almost always the pressure stamped on the tire.
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May 17, 2022 19:25
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I think all modern BMW, most European cars should have the psi for the car as designed on the sticker in the driver's side door jamb. I know my car (rear wheel drive) prefers 32psi front, 38psi rear and the psi on the tires is higher, even though it uses the same tires on all four wheels Edit: gently caress this is about trailer tires
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May 17, 2022 20:50
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Cool! I too am looking out for a trailer that I doubt has ever had its tire pressures checked with a gauge.
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May 17, 2022 21:03
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Hadlock posted:Harbor freight has pretty reasonable jacks. Get at least two jack stands and ALWAYS use them. They're like $9.99 each. Also cheap and really nice to have around are rubber wheel chocks that won't slip or roll out of the way if they're temporarily unweighted. I have a stack of these in the corner of the garage - https://www.harborfreight.com/solid-rubber-wheel-chock-96479.html
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May 17, 2022 21:17
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all cars say what tire pressure they want on a sticker inside the door, the # on the tire is the max it's good for, and for trailer tires you just kick/whack em. kick the tires and light the fires, as they say
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May 17, 2022 21:34
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Jaded Burnout posted:Hello. Followup to this post from a couple of months ago, the smell was quite bad on a drive today, so I pulled over to check under the hood (after around 30 minutes hard driving on a sunny day (but like English sunny not Nevada sunny)). I'm no doctor but does this look like the oil is leaking from the dipstick?   Now that dipstick level is obviously not a cold resting level, but still. I'll measure it again and top it up once it's cooled off. The car seemed to be running OK and the temperature gauge was about where it usually is.
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May 19, 2022 15:40
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Jaded Burnout posted:Followup to this post from a couple of months ago, the smell was quite bad on a drive today, so I pulled over to check under the hood (after around 30 minutes hard driving on a sunny day (but like English sunny not Nevada sunny)). take that cover off and look, bet it's the valve cover gasket. cover to look under says "i-VTEC DOHC", valve cover says "HONDA". not a big deal at all, bad smell/little oil loss are only symptoms. easy fix
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May 19, 2022 16:17
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The top of that valvecover doesn't seem nearly wet enough for that to be the source of a smell, and I'd wager you're getting more oil / oil vapor leaking around the fill cap than you are around the dipstick. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the main valvecover gasket is failing and that you've actually got some oil coming down the back of the engine and getting right onto the hot exhaust manifold.
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May 19, 2022 16:25
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pnac attack posted:take that cover off and look, bet it's the valve cover gasket. cover to look under says "i-VTEC DOHC", valve cover says "HONDA". not a big deal at all, bad smell/little oil loss are only symptoms. easy fix I'll take a look, thanks. What am I looking for specifically, or is it a know it when I see it sort of thing? IOwnCalculus posted:The top of that valvecover doesn't seem nearly wet enough for that to be the source of a smell, and I'd wager you're getting more oil / oil vapor leaking around the fill cap than you are around the dipstick. It was damp with oil, which is the first time I've seen that on this car, but yeah not slick with it. IOwnCalculus posted:However, I wouldn't be surprised if the main valvecover gasket is failing and that you've actually got some oil coming down the back of the engine and getting right onto the hot exhaust manifold. When you say the "back" of the engine do you mean closest to the firewall? If so would I be able to see that issue from the front per pnac attack's suggestion?
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May 19, 2022 19:34
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Yeah he means back there. Either way take a look with a flashlight and see if you have oil coming down onto the engine block anywhere you can get visibility.
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May 19, 2022 19:48
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Could be valve cover leak.Another likely culprit is the VTEC solenoid gasket. I think Honda might call it something different on K-series engines (spool valve maybe), but the o-ring-like gasket still gets brittle over time and starts leaking. The solenoid is on the back side of the engine so when it leaks it leaks right onto the exhaust manifold. The gaskets are pretty easy to replace. The parts department at the Honda dealer will know what you're looking for, these gaskets fail on pretty much every Honda with VTEC. There is another failure-prone gasket with similar construction on the front side of the head as it sits in the car called a VTC solenoid gasket that you should probably replace at the same time. Both of them together cost about $20 and take about half an hour to replace. PBCrunch fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 19, 2022 23:04
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Jaded Burnout posted:I'll take a look, thanks. What am I looking for specifically, or is it a know it when I see it sort of thing? you're looking for oil man. me and ioc got the same suggestion, it goes all the way around the engine between that red part aka "valve cover" and the cylinder head. i have traced what's visible of it on your picture in pink  vtec solenoid is a good thing to check too but you're really just looking around to see what's the most oily. kinda hard to see around the back is why i said to check the front
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May 20, 2022 00:20
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K!
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May 20, 2022 01:02
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Yeah, I only mention the back in particular because the exhaust is on that side of the head. It's possible that the gasket could only be leaking from one side instead of all the way around the engine, and a leak on the front probably isn't going to get the exhaust wet enough to smell. Also since you mention it running less-than-optimally, that engine may be quite overdue for a valve lash adjustment.
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May 20, 2022 01:38
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Did the K series still require regular valve adjustments? Or did they at least get less frequent than the old school Honda engines? I'm used to the B/D/F/H series supposedly needing them every 30k (my mechanic talked me into every 60k).
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May 20, 2022 02:34
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i think most honda engines out there just run to 300k leaking oil and ticking like a sewing machine lol
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May 20, 2022 03:01
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At least as of my 2013 CR-V, even boring-mobile K24Z3s are supposed to get a valve adjustment every 100k. I never did mine but it also still ran as good as ever and never leaked a drop, but I did rack up 170k miles on it across just seven years.
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May 20, 2022 03:52
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Do we have a welding thread? I'm planning on replacing/repairing the rocker panels on the '65 Econoline, and I'd like input on how to cut my patch panels for the job.
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May 20, 2022 04:17
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PainterofCrap posted:Do we have a welding thread? I'm planning on replacing/repairing the rocker panels on the '65 Econoline, and I'd like input on how to cut my patch panels for the job. Sounds like more of a fabrication question than a strictly welding question, I'm not sure we have a thread for it but lots of goons here have done similar work, I'd just post it here.
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May 20, 2022 05:47
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I'm gonna get started on a cyclekart here in a couple weeks which ought to involve a bunch of welding, as well as buying and setting up a welder/welding station/jig I'd be interested in a welding thread if one were created
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May 20, 2022 08:45
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PainterofCrap posted:Do we have a welding thread? I'm planning on replacing/repairing the rocker panels on the '65 Econoline, and I'd like input on how to cut my patch panels for the job. There's a metalworking thread in DIY/HC&H, but it's not car-specfic. They know their business re welding though. IOwnCalculus posted:Also since you mention it running less-than-optimally, that engine may be quite overdue for a valve lash adjustment. Sounds like anothing thing for the list! Is that a reasonably DIYable job or mechanic?
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May 20, 2022 08:56
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PBCrunch posted:Could be valve cover leak.Another likely culprit is the VTEC solenoid gasket. I think Honda might call it something different on K-series engines (spool valve maybe), but the o-ring-like gasket still gets brittle over time and starts leaking. The solenoid is on the back side of the engine so when it leaks it leaks right onto the exhaust manifold. The gaskets are pretty easy to replace. The parts department at the Honda dealer will know what you're looking for, these gaskets fail on pretty much every Honda with VTEC. When that VTC gasket really goes, it will piss oil.
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May 20, 2022 11:07
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C-Bangin' it 
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Jaded Burnout posted:There's a metalworking thread in DIY/HC&H, but it's not car-specfic. They know their business re welding though. watch a yt vid and see if you think you're up to it, not too hard imo. only special tool you need is a feeler gauge and they're cheap. just rotating the engine to different positions and checking clearance of valves. i'd link a vid here but poo poo internet
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May 20, 2022 16:05
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pnac attack posted:watch a yt vid and see if you think you're up to it, not too hard imo. only special tool you need is a feeler gauge and they're cheap. just rotating the engine to different positions and checking clearance of valves. i'd link a vid here but poo poo internet I managed to find some instructions for a similar engine and it seems doable. I've got feeler gauges already.
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May 20, 2022 21:16
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Yeah if you already have / know how to use feeler gauges, you're 90% of the way there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=959I0wF5NH8
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May 20, 2022 23:32
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PBCrunch posted:Could be valve cover leak.Another likely culprit is the VTEC solenoid gasket. I think Honda might call it something different on K-series engines (spool valve maybe), but the o-ring-like gasket still gets brittle over time and starts leaking. The solenoid is on the back side of the engine so when it leaks it leaks right onto the exhaust manifold. The gaskets are pretty easy to replace. The parts department at the Honda dealer will know what you're looking for, these gaskets fail on pretty much every Honda with VTEC. Looks like the workshop manual calls it the "VTEC solenoid valve filter" and the "VTC filter" (click for big).  A kind soul on youtube has all the part numbers.
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May 21, 2022 12:10
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On a whim, I'd like to get a cargo net for my '02 Ranger. The kind that clips to tie-down points and holds stuff in the front of the bed so it doesn't rattle around. Unfortunately the built-in points are not in an ideal location and I'd like to put in a pair of U-bolts through the front lower corners of the bed, with nuts/washers to make sure they're accessible. There seems to be a set of flat surfaces in the ideal place already. This would require drilling two pairs of holes through the bed and the bed liner. Is there anything I need to be sure to do to avoid problems in the future like accelerated rusting of the underside or anything like that? I'm not in a place that salts the roads in winter so it might not even be that big a concern, but since I'd potentially be exposing bare metal it's on my mind.
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May 21, 2022 14:33
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Lemniscate Blue posted:On a whim, I'd like to get a cargo net for my '02 Ranger. The kind that clips to tie-down points and holds stuff in the front of the bed so it doesn't rattle around. Unfortunately the built-in points are not in an ideal location and I'd like to put in a pair of U-bolts through the front lower corners of the bed, with nuts/washers to make sure they're accessible. There seems to be a set of flat surfaces in the ideal place already. I'd try to clean up the edges of the holes you drilled and then just dump some touch up paint on them, let it dry and call it probably good.
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May 21, 2022 15:03
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Pulled the cover off, looks pretty conclusive. I couldn't find any obvious oil around the VTEC solenoid but it does look like the rear is leaking too (based on the paint peeling if nothing else).  I also assume this is what you meant when you said "ticking like a sewing machine" (you may need to right click and unmute): https://i.imgur.com/RhGjpvn.mp4 My plan then is to replace the valve cover gasket, and I may as well replace the gasket/filters in the VTEC/VTC components. IIRC there's a few other small seals and washers that can be replaced at the same time. And I'll do a valve adjustment while the cover's off. Since I'm working on it I may as well do an oil and transmission fluid change. I've not done any of this before, but I'm sure it'll be fine, I'll just make sure I'm not blocking in my alternate vehicle 
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May 22, 2022 17:19
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Hi again. Could I have some directions on what's the best way to sell a car I can't drive? I bought a good condition 2017 vehicle last year to get out of an older vehicle that was one of several possible things that's been making me very sick. Unfortunately the 2017 car slowly revealed itself to have it's own health risk, the cabin seems to be loaded with cleaners or something that burns my lungs and may have been making brain feel even worse. I did everything I could try to remove the problem outside of replacing the flooring, but at this point my health has gotten so bad that I can't physically afford to fool around with it anymore. Note that I do not believe this car on it's own is very dangerous, merely a complication to a health problem that I cannot be adding to. Much of the cleanser in the seats and flooring I was able to remove myself, and I also figured out the cabin air filter was installed backwards since before I bought it as well, lol. Anyways, at this point I'm just going to go without a car for a while instead of trading it in, and need to get out from under this thing. How do people sell cars? Do I take it somewhere? Selling it myself seems like it would be a hard to do. Amorphous Abode fucked around with this message at 20:36 on May 22, 2022 |
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May 22, 2022 20:25
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