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two forty posted:Recently I visited the hellhole known as Knoxville, TN, and was surprised to see that Conoco stations there charge a small premium over other stations, but later noticed they too make a point of the fact that they sell non-ethanol gasoline. The Conocos always had a lot of cars there filling up, so someone must care. I guess it would be nice to have the option of non-ethanol gas for use in stuff like outdoor power equipment. If I was unfortunate enough to have to live in that god-forsaken shithole corpse of a city, I'd probably drop the extra $3 a tank on real gasoline, but thank christ I stay the gently caress away from there. Knoxville is tied with Dillon, SC as the shittiest place I've ever been. two forty posted:Knoxville is also full of redneck shitmobiles, so it's probably a mix of them and people like me who would pay the extra money for real gas as well. Mystery solved. That is one good thing about living near Knoxville, even the lovely little gas stations in the middle of no where will have an ethanol free pump. Usually charge a bit more for it but I always pay the extra for the older cars that don't get driven as often. But yes otherwise Knoxville, especially downtown is loving terrible.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:51
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Geirskogul posted:Would a cage of any sort change this? I'm scurred Have to be one hell of a cage but yes, especially if the fronk was designed as a crush zone to absorb some of the energy. Pretty much anything is going to be better than a stock beetle/2cv/500/etc when it comes to passenger safety in a crash.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:18
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Tomarse posted:Why can't you helicoil it in situ? I've done it on a car. In a car most of your spark plugs aren't resessed in the head several inches or blocked by a frame. While it may be possible to do it in place it could also be an absolute pain in the rear end and not worth the time saved, I haven't worked on a Ninja 250 in a while. See this for spark plug access issues - http://www.motopsyco.com/2012/12/01/ex-250-ninja-basic-spark-plug-oil-filter-change/
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Oct 10, 2014 14:32
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Powershift posted:and never look down the aisle of an airplane while it's taking off or landing. Never noticed that but I enjoy watching the wings flex. This isn't something to point out if you're flying with someone who is afraid of flying.
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Dec 12, 2014 11:40
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Officer 12 Inch?
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Dec 22, 2014 18:52
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Crotch Fruit posted:Someone took a Lego bot to bot wars? A soft plastic ABS toy up against railroad spikes and the chain of death? drat. . . Lego is cool and all but putting it in bot wars is just stupid. LEGO is just reactive armor if you do it right. Absorb the impact by throwing off chunks of non-essential stuff. Of course when you do it wrong or some mad man brings a chain whip you throw essential parts.
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Jan 30, 2015 16:40
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My mom is a slut posted:I never saw it go wrong, but the job that felt most likely to end in dismemberment was definitely sanding the completed rotor on the lathe.  I touched the end of it to clean some oil residue off... Oh well new part is cheap and easy to install. It runs without dumping oil so drive it until Friday when the part arrives. Damnit VAG 
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Feb 11, 2015 23:09
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InitialDave posted:VAG dipstick tubes are made of the most fragile plastic known to man. Sudo Echo posted:I thought that was BMW radiator end tanks? Wouldn't surprise me if it's the same superior German plastic in both.
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Feb 11, 2015 23:25
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NitroSpazzz posted:
Put the new one in today. Seated into place then 15-20 seconds later a chunk flew off and it cracked 1/4 of the way up. Heatshrinked the bottom 1/2 and called it good. Only lost one tiny piece of plastic into the engine, oh well.
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Feb 14, 2015 23:31
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Someone just posted this on the local BMW Facebook group. Car has been sitting for 3 weeks, went out and noticed a funny smell. Seat switch cooked itself.  Superior German Engineering 
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Feb 25, 2015 00:51
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spog posted:The tire is black, so why not find a cop?  drat
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Mar 3, 2015 01:14
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chrisgt posted:This might help explain how bad the steering was on my outback...  drat that's pretty bad. I've never seen a rack get that kind of play. Did you hit something or did it just decide it was done?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:35
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veedubfreak posted:Am I the only one that hasn't had any issues with their VW in basically 20 years of driving them? My first car was a 1996 GTI. Drove the poo poo out of it, tracked it a few times a year and it was handed down to my younger brother...who promptly rolled it. Only problem this one had was the crank position sensor went out on the way back from a track weekend. Now I have a 2000 Golf TDI that Dad bought in 2004 and sold to me in 2009. 253k and the only failure that was at all unusual was a temp sensor going out and throwing it into limp mode. Dad's now driving a 2012 or 13 Golf TDI that's been in the shop twice for non-maintenance related things.
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Apr 17, 2015 18:09
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GDCS didn't feel like playing in the mountains today I guess Going to go through and replace everything in the cooling system while I'm at it. Changing to the spring clamp type as well instead of the screw type.
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Apr 18, 2015 21:49
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Slavvy posted:Something something BMW cooling systems. I see you're also using the non-bmw-approved naughty coolant. poo poo that must have been the culprit, time for  BMW coolant.
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Apr 18, 2015 23:07
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Well thanks I guess. I hadn't even considered there might be asbestos in old cars until you guys brought it up. So how common was that stuff late 70's (1977) or late 40's (1948)?
NitroSpazzz fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 20:43
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Diesel is consistently 15-20 cents more per gallon than premium at the station I fill at. I've been DD'ing a 2000 Golf TDI since 2009, 16k miles tracked with average at 48.9 mpg. I honestly can't see why more people aren't driving diesels unless they have a super short commute or can't take the extra initial price. I can't say it's seen more maintenance than any of the gas burners but it continues to run well and serve it's purpose as a efficient, cheap daily driver. Is it exciting...no way in hell but with the money I save commuting in it I can take fun cars out on the weekend. The fun cars burn gasoline because it is the superior fuel for fun 
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May 9, 2015 21:05
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some texas redneck posted:I still see plenty of them driving around. I always think it's an Echo until I do a double take and look at the badge. To be fair they did run it over with a tank...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7DFzl6ZU5k
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Jul 2, 2015 11:39
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Had a freshly rebuilt motor in the race car last week, team wanted to rack up some street miles so they were driving it around nicely for the past couple days. Dad took it out last night for some higher RPM driving... Took it up to 6500 RPM and it died, wouldn't start again and sounded funny. Towed it back to the shop, cylinder 1 had no compression and 5 was sitting around 80 psi. Yanked the valve cover and the rocker arms were all missing their retaining clips. Rockers had wandered and weren't actuating the valves anymore. Scavenged retaining clips from the engine we cooked the other week and things are back to how they should be. Still need to set the valves and double check everything else before the race in a couple weeks. 
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Aug 12, 2015 15:19
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Lightbulb Out posted:Hahah. Oopsy. I bet everyone was glad the motor didn't blow up! sofullofhate posted:Wow. That didn't do any damage to the shoulders of the cam lobes? Apparently everything looks good but I recommended they look over things really closely before buttoning it up or running it much. Would suck to have it fail a half hour into the race and blow the whole weekend.
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Aug 12, 2015 16:15
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Beach Bum posted:M20? M20 in this thoroughly beaten and abused car 
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Aug 12, 2015 19:00
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kastein posted:loving Braille batteries I had expected Braille was overpriced but that's a pretty pathetic excuse for a race battery. Personally if you haven't already spread this all over social media and watch them try to cover their asses. I had a braille in an old track car that lasted maybe 6 months, now I just run cheap motorcycle batteries or Chinese lipo's in a fire box. Never had a Chinese lipo catch fire or give me ANY trouble at all on several cars and bikes.
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Aug 13, 2015 12:51
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Have you contacted them about this at all? You could always get in touch via their webpage and say you had a failure out of warranty and wanted to see what went wrong so you opened it up. Then just ask a couple questions about things you noticed. Up to you whether you want to let them know you're knowledgeable or not. Better yet see if you can get directly in touch with one of their engineers or their sales guy since I'm guessing you might have bought these through work.
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Aug 13, 2015 17:23
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Safety Dance posted:Computer Janitors at least occasionally get to lift stuff or climb under desks. Me, I twiddle bits and try to stay as far from hardware as possible. Here's a horrible failure of people being stupid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jytzSA24jFY
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Sep 18, 2015 11:33
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Ended our endurance race early today when the engine felt down on power. Pulled the valve cover and saw both cylinder one rocker arms broken. Oh well, it was a good season.
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Oct 19, 2015 00:24
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Na last time they slipped because the retaining clips weren't installed. We're going to look at the various aftermarket rockers and decide what will work best. It's possible it was due to an over rev from one of our drivers but stock rockers should hold up to 7k+ without failing.
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Oct 19, 2015 01:09
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Hey that's near me, friends towing company got some publicity out of it.  
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Dec 3, 2015 23:23
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Sudo Echo posted:yeah, check that rear camber. something is definitely bent. Rear trailing arm gets more negative camber the lower it goes. With a heavy rear end chunk of steel sitting in the back seat it might just be bottomed out suspension and/or the shocks blew. Apparently they guy just got a scratch on his arm 
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Dec 12, 2015 11:49
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Oddhair posted:It would have been horrible three minutes earlier, this was just a frightening reminder to check out every weird noise. The tie rod end threads onto the inner tie rod, and had somehow gotten wiggled off of said inner tie rod. The ball joint in the steering knuckle was tight as gnat booty, though. I put a new tie rod end on (torqued the gently caress out of the jam nut, too) and drove it around the block in our business-only area, it felt nice and the steering wheel is now straight again. Luckily my boss loaned me his truck for the next week while he's out of town. I'm going to replace the rest of the steering linkage outboard of the rack on both sides as well as the bellows. After that and a few other pieces it'll need an alignment, then maybe I'll feel safe driving it. Like someone else said recently, I went 80 on that (you know, mere moments before it let go, but not after.) For once I'm glad I have a northern VW, that poo poo is corrosion welded together  That's terrifying
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Jan 10, 2016 03:19
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Sagebrush posted:My general rule for harbor freight is "nothing that could kill you if it failed." No jacks, no grinding wheels, no welding equipment. Sure, why not to cheap hand tools, random supplies, painting stuff, parts bins, etc. I've used nothing but Harbor Freight jacks and jack stands for the past ~5 years and have actually had much better luck than I expected from them. We use the 'aluminum racing jacks' for racing, track days, working on cars and even lifting poo poo at work sometimes. I've had no failures, leaks or anything else. Compared to the last one I bought from Sears that lasted ~6 months. Most of the other stuff at HF is very hit or miss and I don't trust it but the jacks have been very good. They're by far the most common make I see at Chump, WRL races.
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Mar 2, 2016 14:34
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metaxus posted:How the everliving gently caress can you have sufficient mechanical knowledge to disassemble a caliper, retract the piston, remove the old pads, reinstall the new pads, and put the whole thing back together, yet still somehow get a pad back to front. All it takes is be in a rush or be way too tired to be working on something that important. My Dad (has been working on cars forever) managed to install a pad backwards in the race car last spring because it was 1am and they'd been working on poo poo since around 10am. They unloaded it from the trailer and I thought it sounded strange, did a lap around the paddock then pulled the wheel. Inner pad was backwards.
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Apr 18, 2016 16:53
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More race car m20 engine failures, amazingly this time it isn't from our car! 
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Apr 29, 2016 16:56
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Slavvy posted:Long left hander? Probably, that's a known problem with the M20. I bought a crank scraper for our car and we run a 1/2 quart high just to prevent this. It's fun because long right handers tend to cause fuel starvation, fixed that with a surge tank.
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Apr 30, 2016 12:06
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Can we do horrible home owner ignoring bad sounds causing appliance failures in here? Dryer has squealed since I bought the house 5+ years ago, never really bothered me enough to look into it. Last week I started a load and left, came back later and everything was still damp. Wouldn't restart and turning it by hand was clunky and difficult. Finally tore it apart... There is supposed to be a ball sticking off the back of the drum here  Found the ball, not exactly where it is supposed to be  Not very round anymore either  Well this explains the metal on metal grinding sound  
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May 5, 2016 21:35
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 Bet that made an interesting sound
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May 30, 2016 20:00
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To get things back on track here's a wheel I probably broke at our last race when I took an optional grass shortcut.  Still held air fine and if it was actually me that broke it that wheel was on the car for another five hours of racing 
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Jun 10, 2016 09:50
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H110Hawk posted:
Grass, curbing/rumble strip at the edge of the track and the edge of the track itself getting back on. Ran wide at a corner then ran in the grass for a while before coming back on.
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Jun 10, 2016 16:09
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There's a chance this could have lead to a fairly horrible mechanical failure. Decent crack in the front rotor of the race car. After taking the picture I found a couple more, one was much closer to the hub.
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Jun 20, 2016 16:27
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We see cracks pretty regularly but they're usually smaller and less of them on the rotor. We always bring a full set of spares for race weekends and check them every morning. We're not even running that aggressive of pads with the Hawk Blues. This was at Atlanta Motorsport Park which has a very hard braking zone for turn one, hairpin at the end of the longest straight. We were going from the top of 5th gear (~100mph) down to 2nd gear (~30mph). I also boiled the fluid about 15 minutes into a 2:45 stint and had variable brake pressure for the rest of the race. 
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Jun 20, 2016 18:06
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CommieGIR posted:You were that close to me and didn't say hi  Another failure from this weekend was the shift linkage. I went for fifth, it felt vague and took a couple tries to get it in. Radio'd pit and told them the linkage was failing and I would be doing the remaining hour of the race in third gear. Next lap forgot and went to fourth then as I went to fifth it broke as I passed the pit in point. Coasted down the straight to the pit out and they towed me in. Ten minutes to replace but an hour to track down a replacement. 
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Jun 20, 2016 18:54
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