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I changed the oil in the Mazdaspeed3 for the first time tonight. Not a bad job actually, even with that drat undertray to remove. I do need to get a filter wrench that fits it specifically, though, none of my strap wrenches work very well on it. I then went for a drive and then proceeded to get chased home by some fuckwad in an Escalade who thought I had cut him off when I was passing on a two-lane highway and had to brake for oncoming traffic. 
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May 30, 2009 06:51
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 21:06 |
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On the Mazdaspeed3: *Changed the oil and filter *Cursed the useless rubber strap wrench and too-small metal strap wrench, ordered a 10-pack of OEM Mazda oil filters with a free filter wrench *Removed the air filter (AEM Dryflow, Mazdaspeed CAI) and washed it, about six hours ago *Discovered one of the hoseclamps on the CAI was barely holding on and trashed, bought a bag of six at Lowes for the price of two at Autozone Still waiting on the goddamn air filter to dry. Got fed up with trying to air dry it in 105 degree heat and put it in the passenger seat of the Miata to bake at about 130-140. On the Miata: *Drove it a bit. Sounds like the battery is going soft. On the Truck: *Thought about ordering steering components. I haven't driven it in so long 
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Jul 25, 2009 23:13
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Installed the airflow straightener for the MAF in my MS3's Mazdaspeed Cold Air Intake...mine is an old one made before they realized they needed the straightener. Also clocked the intake a bit better to keep PCV tubes from pointing up too far and making the engine cover rub one of the rubber pads on the hood.
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Aug 8, 2009 23:54
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akeidolon posted:Trying to eliminate some slack in the system and the new box was free, so might as well give it a try. I've replaced almost the entire steering setup at this point and it still grabs like a motherfucker into ruts because there is a lot of play before the car actually gets any input from the wheel. How much above the box have you replaced? I want to tighten up the steering in my truck (a remarkably similar design, go GM!) and I was planning on replacing everything above the Pitman arm. The Pitman, idler, and tie rods are all recent and should still be perfectly good so I'm not worried about them. The gearbox has only had a reseal done once or twice and is the original '70 which is 4.25 turns lock to lock...I'll at least be upgrading to '78-spec which is a variable ratio box that is 3.25 turns lock to lock. Then I'll also be trashing the rag joint and old column for a brand new column and a U-joint based setup.
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Aug 18, 2009 01:41
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Nothing on my cars, but I did replace the door handle on my mother-in-law's '98 Camry. God I hate working inside of doors, and I hate trying to work in / around rain. Dealt with both today  Tomorrow, oil changes for both Mazdas.
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Sep 6, 2009 04:55
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PBCrunch posted:I think its because the general design of this car so closely mimics that of the LS400. You're not kidding, I scrolled past that post initially without realizing that it wasn't a LS400.
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Sep 15, 2009 00:13
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Wasn't mechanical injection mostly gone by the '80s? Our old '79 280ZX had electronic L-Jet (with the loving flapper valve), and my '88 Volvo had proper MAF-equipped LH-Jet injection. GM was well into it too with their TBI and TPI engines.
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Dec 13, 2010 05:36
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MATLAB 1988 posted:^^^ Don't forget OptiSpark and laughable safety design! Don't blame the '80s for OptiShit, that belongs squarely with the '90s. PBCrunch: I think it was for their Corsica, but my dad tried to find those split boots for ages to just half-rear end it back on the road instead of replacing the whole axle. Couldn't find them. Who carries them these days?
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Dec 14, 2010 00:30
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Splizwarf posted:You'll get caught up in the! Basically a dual-TBI setup with a ridiculously poorly designed intake manifold - huge plenum with mile-long runners and teeny rear end ports. Look at this site for the before photos. Of particular interest is one of the direct shots of the intake ports before they matched them to the gasket. The large outline there is the size of a typical SBC intake port on a cylinder head, and indeed the size of a typical SBC intake manifold port. For some reason (I think they wanted retarded-high velocities) they made the ports half as big as they used to be.
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Dec 14, 2010 22:32
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Comrade Flynn posted:I had a catastrophic suspension failure! That must've had a high pucker factor. Is that bodywork damage or just a strange camera angle?
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Jan 17, 2011 04:40
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Ugh, replacing the R&P on my 240 is pretty high on the list of just plain unpleasant automotive jobs I've ever done. The really lovely part for me was I had maybe a few months earlier replaced the boots and tie rod ends, only to have it start pissing through the input shaft seal - which apparently cannot be replaced without just rebuilding the fucker.
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Jan 21, 2011 01:11
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Are you getting oil fouling in 1 and 4?
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Mar 4, 2011 20:58
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Yesterday, locked my keys in the Ranger, but was able to get them back out in less than four minutes of fiddling with the sliding rear window from outside. Today, spent far too long replacing the master cylinder on my mother-in-law's '98 Camry so I can sell it, and apparently didn't do something right because there's still a lot of air in the lines. I think I let the reservoir go too low during one of the bleeds, so I'm going to try it again tomorrow night. If I can't do it, the Mityvac is going in the garbage and I'm going to try one of those injector units.
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Mar 14, 2011 04:59
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Good: Rebled the brakes on my mother-in-law's '98 Camry so I can sell it. Brakes feel perfect now. Bad: MOTHERFUCKING CLUTCH STARTED SLIPPING gently caress THIS loving PIECE OF poo poo CAR 
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Mar 19, 2011 20:30
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I can also hope they drive like my mother in law does. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been like this for at least 5000 miles; she rarely goes harder than 1/3 throttle, and the clutch still holds for that. Can't decide if it's just worn out at 140k, or if it's a combination of wear and contamination. The loving thing is leaking both engine oil and transmission oil, so either one could be all over it.
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Mar 19, 2011 20:56
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Belldandy posted:I didn't think it was possible to make the Miata gayer but you proved me wrong. Without the stupid stars it would look pretty good, though.
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Mar 29, 2011 19:20
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You're an rear end in a top hat who's blinding everyone else on the road with your poo poo rear end lights.
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Apr 12, 2011 15:29
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thelightguy posted:Unplugged the torque converter clutch solenoid on my Jimmy. Which goes well with the ABS pump which has been unplugged since shortly after I got it because a replacement for it it is It should only be a matter of time now, 700R4s with the TCC disabled almost always die. The torque converter will be slipping like hell in overdrive and will generate a shitload of heat.
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May 18, 2011 08:55
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and 
x 70 for a car barely worth that much.
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thelightguy posted:Oh I'm well aware, but hopefully it'll make it the 3 weeks until I can get it to a shop so they can tell me what's wrong with it specifically. And if not, well, time for another early 90s junkyard Chevy. Nice. I will say this, a friend of mine drove around a late '80s K5 Blazer with a 700R4 that lost reverse, but still worked perfectly in every other gear, for more than a few years. Ended up getting into something less ghetto eventually but as far as I know that ungodly 700R4 was still holding up just fine. And yet, the one I put in my truck died after 20,000 miles, despite treating it right the entire time.  lovely rebuilds
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May 18, 2011 18:21
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Lowclock posted:I couldn't hear the fuel just blasting straight out of a 255lph fuel pump on to the ground over the sound of the starter. I replaced the plastic tees with brass parts and replaced the hose and it's all good now. You haven't lived until you do the following: *Start up your truck *Back it out of the garage *Wonder what that fuel smell is *Look under the driver's side frame rail to find your Walbro 255LPH giving your exhaust a 91-octane bukkake
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May 23, 2011 07:00
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Aha, I knew that handle looked familiar. My mother-in-law's '98 Camry had the same thing happen, and the new handle stuck out just the same - I figured it was the fact that I bought it for drat near nothing on eBay, though. She didn't mind or possibly even notice. I noticed but didn't mind, I hated that car.
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May 25, 2011 23:11
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Yesterday, made a valiant attempt at bleeding the clutch on my Ranger. Slave was visibly obviously replaced by the PO as part of his clutch job, but randomly (and increasingly so) the pedal gets further and further down before biting. Finally got to the point where I couldn't shift in or out of first with it running. Got a decent (at best) feel out of it now after pulling clean fluid through with a Mityvac, and also tried what someone else mentioned on a Ranger board (pulling vacuum on the air over the fluid in the reservoir with hopes of pulling bubbles up), but I don't think that part helped. I think the master itself might be failing, but if it stays where it's at or close to it I will just leave it be.
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Jun 13, 2011 05:19
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Tentacle Party posted:Im only going to post this once but let me tell you im doing this every two to three days. If it's a Mazda that's not running rich, it's because it's not running 
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Jun 28, 2011 01:12
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One Day Fish Sale posted:Also the first test for my new plastic ramps. My old steel ones are too narrow for the pickup tires. Since I change my oil on my gravel driveway, I built some "shoes" for the ramps to distribute the load and prevent them from digging in. Worked pretty well. That's awesome, I should do something like that as a run-up to my ramps - my MS3's low air dam rubs before my wheels hit the ramp unless I drive onto some plywood first. Nerobro posted:I replaced the headlight on my Mazda 6. The manual says you should take it to the dealer to have it replaced. Is it as bad as the HIDs on the 3? Step 1: Remove front bumper.
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Jul 8, 2011 18:51
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trouser chili posted:Oh boy, here it is. I'm really dreading doing this job. Godspeed, and post lots of pictures about how spotless your engine bay is.
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Jul 19, 2011 21:50
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I HATE CARS posted:Exhaust repair kit from Halfords, tighten up your handbrake, new horns, adjust headlights. £50 total. Doesn't touch the single priciest repair in the bunch though - I'd bet the steering rack makes up the majority of the 800 moon-currencies that I can't type on my American keyboard.
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Jul 19, 2011 22:23
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It all depends on how the parking brake is handled. On Mazdas it's pretty easy, you spin the piston back down the bore instead of just clamping it - that's about it. Others like my old Volvo use a drum in the rotor hat for the parking brake so the caliper was as dead simple as a front one. Still others, are clusterfucks. The late-'70s Eldo calipers are desirable for rear disc conversions simply because they've been around forever and are basically the standard GM D52 caliper, with a parking brake mechanism shoved into it. By all accounts, however, the parking brake is poo poo. Whenever I get around to ripping the rear drums off of my truck, I'll try the early fourthgen F-Body calipers.
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Jul 28, 2011 06:53
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Spent some quality time on the Ranger this weekend - yesterday, pulled all four wheels and inspected things. Confirmed that I need new upper balljoints (which means control arms, they're one piece), new lower balljoints, a set of wheel bearings for the right front (there's slack in the hub and the parts are so cheap it's not worth trying to adjust the ones that are in it), all four shocks, and a full rear brake job (shoes and all hardware). The shoes are pretty worn but are clearly not autoadjusting because it looks like most of the recent wear is at the very tips at an angle. I manually adjusted it and suddenly the parking brake stops it from rolling backwards too! Today, I used it to sell some speakers for $250, and then turned around and threw that money into buying all of the above parts. Thanks to Rockauto and Amazon, I'm in for just under $300 for all of it.
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Mar 12, 2012 08:07
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I couldn't justify the Moogs yet, compared to the cheap-as-poo poo option even the replacement balljoint only is more expensive than the whole arm. The number one goal of this Ranger is to be cheap, cheap, and cheap again, which so far it's done quite well. And on the pricing...Autozone wants $98+tax for the Dorman upper control arms for my Ranger. Rockauto and Amazon have the exact same part for about $40 shipped. I'll have the one from Amazon at my doorstep today or tomorrow, and the one from Rockauto by the end of the week. My Ranger is a '98 2WD four-cylinder, so I also have the wheel bearings integrated into the rotor (as opposed to a separate hub like the 4WD trucks). The PO did the front brakes not long before I bought it, though; I can still clear-as-day read the Monroe label on the back of the pads, and it looks like he had replaced the left-front wheel bearing at the time, judging by the blue grease. Too bad he didn't do a good job hammering the drat dust cap on so I had to throw some more grease in there and hammer it on properly. I'm into all of those parts for right about $300 total.
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Mar 13, 2012 20:01
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I haven't touched the plugs or wires yet No idea what the plugs look like, even. When I bought this thing I was planning on keeping it around for a year or two tops and just being as cheap as possible with it, but now it looks like it may end up as my daily driver for a while and it's a lot cheaper to fix the ignored maintenance than it is to buy something else. I only jacked it up to actually do anything other than an oil change for the first time in the year I've owned it about two weeks ago. I'd like to know where you got your Moog upper control arms for $45 total, though (unless yours is a torsion-beam front and not a coil-spring front) since that's a lot cheaper than anything I'm finding.
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Mar 16, 2012 18:27
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Yeah, AAP (I don't have any locally so I didn't check them) wants $83 for the balljoint alone and you still need to have already replaced the control arm with one that can have the joint replaced, rather than the OEMs where it's one big rear end piece. I will say I was pleasantly surprised with the <$10 lower balljoints from Rockauto, they actually come with greasable zerk fittings unlike the OEM parts! Try bedding your pads in again? I've heard that sometimes really unequal lug torque could do it but I don't buy that idea personally.
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Mar 16, 2012 20:24
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Check Greyhound for freight, they're supposedly really cheap as long as you can deal with the caveats of having to get it to/from a Greyhound station.
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Apr 10, 2012 23:37
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Holdbrooks posted:I cleaned up the exterior of the newly wrapped STi. poo poo, that's vinyl wrap? Looks nice. If you don't mind me asking, how much did that set you back, and how does it hold up over any imperfections in the paint below it?
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Aug 17, 2012 00:55
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Not my ride anymore, but did front pads and rotors on my mother-in-law's '99 Miata. "It's making a noise" turned out to be both outside pads being worn way down, one of the inside pads being metal-to-metal, and the other inside pad having a layer of pad material so thin that it was only visible by way of not having any metal-on-metal evidence. Annoyingly, even though there are at least 10 different Autozone and OReilly locations within a 10-mile radius, the only one of either that actually had both the pads and rotors in stock was an OReilly 12 miles away.
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Oct 14, 2012 06:23
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Alternatively, my MS3 had a clunk develop back there and it was literally a loose nut holding in the endlink. I think I may need to replace the endlinks eventually though, and if I do I'm using the Moog parts so I can use a socket instead of a goddamned crow's foot to torque it.
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Nov 3, 2012 17:07
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trouser chili posted:Oh that sounds like a tremendous pain in the rear end. I'm out of warranty and have been for some time. That sucks. If it's the uppers (and I don't possibly see how the lowers could clunk) they're simple parts, it's just two nuts holding it to the car and one holding the shock to the mount. Only pain in the rear end is getting the rear of the car up enough to get the shocks in/out.
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Nov 5, 2012 06:05
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KozmoNaut posted:Why do people use automated washes again? I'll be honest, I do it because drying off a car with the rock-hard tap water we have in AZ without getting water spots everywhere is a royal pain in the dick.
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Nov 27, 2012 19:10
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Why have you not posted a thread about this?
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Dec 20, 2012 21:02
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Ahaha, I was thinking of doing something like that, I just rolled past 120k in my MS3.
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Jan 16, 2013 04:50
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 21:06 |
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drat son.  Why are you selling it already?
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Feb 5, 2013 20:10
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