What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never done?

No lead and phosphorous in the gas makes a BIG difference - as does more complete combustion. Stainless steel doesn't hurt either.

That's why you set the camber and caster FIRST!!!!

SNIPP

KD makes a special tool for that - at the value O put on skin and suffering, cheap at twice the price

A cell phone camera makes all of that SO much simpler!!!

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I dont know why this is posted to sci.electronics.repair, but since it's here, I have done all of the 7 on the list above. As far as 2. alignment, I cant say it was a perfect job. I did it with a tape measure and boards, after replacing some front end parts. I got it close, so I could at least drive it, but I took it to an alignment shop soon after. That is one thing a homeowner just cant do accurately without proper equipment. I never rebuillt an entire engine, but I replaced a few as well as transmissions. In my old age, I dont work on a much of that stuff as I did years ago. I still do my own brakes, and oil changes and stuff like that. But I wont tackle engine changes or any of that heavy work anymore. And I wont mount tires anymore. That was always a tough job withoiut a tire machine and only saved me about $12. Not worth the hassle.

I once painted a whole truck with a paint brush. I added some stuff to make the paint flow nicely. A lot of people thought I was crazy, and said you need a sprayer. In the end, it turned out pretty good. It was an old truck anyhow, but the paint made it look better and stopped a lot of rusting. Although spraying is easier to apply, the taping and preparation offsets any time savings. With a quality brush, I cut in a good edge around windows and chrome and other body stuff.

To get back ON TOPIC, I have done a lot of car wiring and changing radios and that sort of thing. Knowing electronics makes car wiring very easy, except it's often hard to get to some of the wires, especially under the car, and under the dashboard.

The mini van I drive now, was at a used car lot. The guy said he could not sell it to me until someone fixed the headlights (they did not work). He had already replaced the bulbs and the switch. He told me to come back the next day, after he got a wiring professional there to fix it. I went there the next day. When I got there, he had a guy under the hood trying ot fix them. I watched the guy and he was not succeeding. A half hour later that guy told the seller that he could not fix it, and the car would have to be taken to the dealership.

After that guy left, I offered to buy the car AS-IS for $500 less thn the asking price. The seller said that according to his dealers license he is not supposed to sell a car without headlights, but he would note in writing on the sales slip "headlights do not work", and accepted my offer, except he said I had to pay for the new headlight bulbs. (about $20). I accepted the offer.

When I got it home, I had the headlights working in less than an hour. There are relays under the hood, in the fuse box, and one of them was bad. For me, that was a simple fix. Apparently the so called "professional" who he had working on it, was not very bright!!!

It'd the suspense that kills you. My Harley has a belt drive and the belt failed at around 45000. No sign of damage or deterioration just a clean break. I rode to work in the morning, came out, started the engine, let the clutch out and didn't go anyplace.

Replacement is fairly easy on a Sportster but Harley is very proud of their belts, around $150 iirc. All things considered that's cheaper than chains if you put significant miles on a bike.

The bike I have that has tube tires is a DR650, dual spot, enduro, whatever you want to call it. I'm not sure if you ever tell if the tire was balanced with knobbies. Dunlop 606s are really rough but the Kendas I have on now aren't a Cadillac smooth ride.

You get good at changing them because those style of tires are good for about 6000 miles at the outside.

The paint fumes didn't help but the #1 guy's choice was Budweiser. #2's choice was anything he could get his hands on but speed makes painting fun.

My grandfather had a pair of Jowett Javelins in the 1950's. With the Solex carbies, tuneup's were more of a morning *and* afternoon thing.

Thanks for reminding me that it's caster, then camber, then toe!

I don't know if they teach auto mechanics anymore in high school, but that class was a godsend, even for me, a college-prep kid.

I used that shop class more than I used calculus in my life. I betcha they don't even have woodshop for the boys anymore. Or homeec for the girls.

My grandkids are taking coed cooking classes in high school, but they don't even offer the shop classes we had when I was a kid.

Yet there is a lot more aluminum in engines nowadays.

I don't see how the lead matters although we all went through the phase where we switched from leaded cars to lead-free cars and had to change pumps in the process.

I still don't see how the *gas* has anything to do with engines lasting longer. Maybe it does, but I don't see the connection.

That reminds me. The white plastic topped and steel legged Costco picnic tables are *all* cracked and sunburned with holes in the corner.

I've been meaning to return mine to Costco to give them a piece of my mind since the tables have "lifetime warranty" molded into the cheap plastic.

They should make everything that is plastic intended for outdoors out of whatever plastic it is that they use for those wheeled garbage bins from the garbage company.

Oh. That's interesting. What you're saying is that the manufacturers are using computers to make cars, which helps make better cars.

That may very well be the case, since computers can be used to easily hone quality, bit by bit by bit, simply because of the inherent re-use that computers easily allow.

You're right but I don't understand why we used to pack wheel bearings periodically and now we don't. Who doesn't remember glopping grease on your palm and then slapping a bearing through that grease?

A kid of 30 or 40 years old doesn't know what we're talking about.

Likewise, who hasn't squirted grease into a ball joint until it squirted back out of the pregnant rubber cup making farting sounds? Or a driveshaft u-joint where is just squirted out noiselessly.

What's with bearings nowadays. Why don't wheel bearings need to be packed anymore and u-joints not need lubrication and ball joints not need it?

What did they do differently?

Computers help make a lot of things not break.

For example, fuel injection and a distributorless single coil per spark plug with a nice high voltage all by themselves prevented a billion tuneups.

The EPA making exhaust systems have to last longer under warranty made the manufacturers make them out of stainless steel instead of pre-rusted Detroit steel.

There are computers in plenty of other places (for example, ABS), but other than the fuel injection, where did computers play a role in engine longevity?

I'm not saying they didn't, but I don't see how they play a role in engine longevity other than in the tuneup arena where they were an immense help.

Are the lubricants really contributing to longevity of the engine?

The main lubricant, of course, is motor oil, which has gone from SB to SC, to SD to SE .... now to somewhere around SL, SM, SN ... but has *that* been contributing to engine life by a lot?

The other lubricants, of course, are the gear oils, but again, GL4 and GL5 are pretty old stuff.

I don't remember seeing Zerk fittings lately, so I think one thing with respect to lubrication is they made permanently lubricated driveshaft u-joints and suspension balljoints.

But really. Do we have any evidence that lubrication is why engines seem to last longer nowadays?

I'm going to have to agree that I think the only thing that really changed over time was the quality.

I think Japan took half of Detroit's profits, and that was the sole determinant that made Detroit start thinking about quality.

If that's the case, you have to hand it to Japan for even coming up with the idea of quality in the first place.

Wow. My timing light is still packed away, along with the dwellmeter. Every once in a while I use the feeler gauges that I used to use for points, but for something else. Even the spark plug gapper is used, but nowadays only on the home tools like the leaf blower. I have a contraption that has a heavy duty switch for "bumping" the engine. I forget even why I *built* that thing.

Why did we bump the engine? I forget why.

I also still have a dial gauge that I screwed into the number one cylinder on a motorcycle to time the points on the bike where there is no concept of a timing light. The points open in millimeters before TDC.

It's rare though for tools to go out of style. I'm still using my first Christmas gift of Sears Craftsman open-end wrenches, for example.

I'm not going to disagree that engines seem to last twice what they used to, but is metallurgy really different? There's a lot more aluminum nowadays, and certainly too much plastic, but rubber is rubber and steel is steel and I don't think either got all that much better in the interim.

Engine controls maybe. But they're mostly emission related nowadays.

The actual danger zone parts are the oil pressure sensor, coolant temperature sensor, oil lever sensor, etc., and I don't think they're all that sophisticated compared to the days of yore, do you?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.... really? The fuel contributes to engine life? I don't dispute. I just don't compute.

I don't disagree that the carburetor is gone, thank God, but it's still in airplanes and they seem to do fine with them (small planes that is).

While EFI is great stuff, I don't see that the longevity of an engine is dependent on the fuel volatilization method.

This one I agree with you on, but I blame Detroit for making crap that they

*knew* was crap. Painting can't be all that sophisticated today compared to yesterday. It just can't be. They just did a lousy job before, I think.

But then again, painting is a job I never did, so, maybe I didn't learn anything! :)

I wish I knew more about painting.

I agree that points were a weak link that just had to go. I'm not sure why timing changed, because, as I recall, we twisted the distributor to time the engine where, the distributor would have no reason to twist back once locked down.

I think they also used lower-voltage coils in those days, where the wires seemed paradoxically to require replacement more often. I remember once diagnosing a misfire where I accidentally worked until it got dark and then realized there was a light show going on with all the sparks to ground.

Heh heh heh ... working on coils and ignition wires teaches a youngster with a steel screwdriver a *lot* about electricity wanting to get to ground!

Oh yeah. I forgot about spark plugs. I had a two-stroke motorcycle, for example, which couldn't go five hundred miles on a set of plugs.

Now you can easily go 100K where the technology isn't all that fancy on a plug. It's just a chunk of platinum-plated metal near a few J hooks of cold steel. I think the higher voltages helped, which, again, paradoxically, you'd think the higher coil voltages would eat the plugs faster ... not slower by the process of electrodialectric machining.

Well, it's *something* that makes car engines last twice what they used to, but I don't see that we've nailed it yet.

I still think it's simply that Japanaese cars existing made Detroit build better engines overall.

Most of us old timers have at the very least a million miles under our belts. When we were kids, all our cars started at 10 or 15 years old, where that was new to us.

In my salesman days, a car lasted 3 years, but now I'm back to the 15 or 20 year range since I retired long ago.

Such things change over time.

I found that 2WD RWD cars are a LOT easier, for the most part, and also if you have the option, the six cylinder options when an 8-cylinder option exists or the 4 cylinder option when a 6 cylinder option exists is a Godsend because you have so much more room in that engine bay.

She's somewhere in the garden, not the garage. The kids have kids already too, so they're off somewhere to play.

I get to see them on Thanksgiving though. Thank God for holidays! You pay for their school. You pay for their grad school. And then you only get to see them on holidays. Or when they need their cars fixed! :)

You're confusing me because you're talking about a drive system for the rear wheel, where there are three types on motorcycles a. Chain (most common) b. Shaft (common on beamers for example) c. Belt (common harleys I guess)

We were talking about timing belts inside car engines.

The problem with timing belts on some engines is when they break, the pistons can contact the valves, which is the dumbest bit of engineering I have ever seen in my life.

In that case, I would agree that the suspense is what kills you because they may last 60K miles but they may not.

This is the interesting thing about tools for working on cars.

Very few of the common jobs require any special tools that you don't already have, which are the common tools that everyone has.

Every once in a while, you need a special waterpump holding tool, or a special brake caliper hex wrench size or a special clutch spline alignment tool or a special balljoint separator tool or a special bearing puller or a special harmonic balancer puller or a special transmission jack.

The nice thing is that the money you save on labor almost always has you more than break even on the tool costs, except in your very first jobs in your life when you're just a kid.

When you're just a kid, you have to buy jack stands for the first time, and ramps for the first time and brakespring pliers for the first time and a dwellmeter and timing light for the first time and feeler gauges for the first time and a floor jack for the first time, and so on.

Truth be told, you often buy the major tools twice, since you try to go cheap the first time, so, for example, you buy the tube-type cheaper $15 jack stands (the ones with holes drilled in a pipe) and finally, when you're older, you spring for the notched ones instead.

Likewise you buy the small cheap floor jack, when years later you spring for the heavy duty one.

The worst is that you buy the least amount of wrenches and sockets in the beginning, then you learn later (way later) that you ended up buying one by one a million extender bars and u joints and deep and shallow and impact sockets, that you should have just sprung for the $1000 set in the first place.

But you never had the money when you bought the tools for the first time (just as you stored them in hand tool boxes until you sprung for the big boy years later).

So, yeah, you buy tools twice sometimes, but that's only because you didn't have the money and you didn't have anyone to advise you when you were a kid.

Yup. The cellphone camera replaced pen and paper diagrams!

That's the thing about brakes that gets me.

Most people I know pay upwards of $1K for a 4-wheel brake job at the dealer, where (a) I would never go to the dealer, and (b) I would never pay even $100 for someone else to do a brake job.

Most brake jobs are so easy that it's not funny since disc brakes are so easy to work on that it's not even close to funny. Drum brakes are harder simply because of the intricacies of the springs, but they're only harder because disc brakes are so easy.

Pads cost about $50 per set and all you aim for is FF or GG or FG, or whatever cold/hot heat rating you want. That's another thing about doing a job yourself, which is parts selection.

If you do it yourself, you have to buy the parts, and if you buy the parts you figure out what matters.

Most of us follow the same rules for buying parts, do we not? a. First we figure out what the OEM parts are, and, then, b. We figure out how much it costs for better parts.

Sometimes the OEM parts are the best, but just as often, the aftermarket parts are better.

In the case of brake pads, we look up the cold/hot friction ratings for the OEM pads. Let's say that they're FG. Then we look at the aftermarket for better pads. Let's say we find GG pads. We look at the cost difference. And we usually buy the better pad.

As for rotors, there's a truckload of hype around slotted, drilled, drilled and slotted, etc., where at least motorcycle rotors are stainless steel and where looks matter a lot. On cars, looks only matter if you have wheels that show off your brakes, so drilled and slotted or all that other purely pretty stuff doesn't matter. Solid is the way to go. The cheaper the better. For example, you can get Brembo rotors for less than the OEM rotors, where a rotor is a rotor is a rotor.

About $50 per axle for pads, and about $50 per wheel for rotors, and you're out the door with parts (a few dabs of high-temperature grease later).

Notice that when you do the work yourself, you LEARN what matters. If you're smart about it, you don't fall for the marketing hype.

And one more thing. Since you do the work yourself, you buy the tools, where brake jobs don't necessarily take special tools (although calipers sometimes need oddball-sized hex wrenches on German cars).

All you need is a mic to measure thickness and a dial gauge and stand to measure runout, and if you're doing drums, two types of brake-spring pliers, and you're good to go with tools.

One more thing, the word "brake warp" or "rotor warp" is banished from your vocabulary. Anyone who uses those two words, is simply proving they're an utter fool.

That's the kind of stuff you learn by doing the job yourself.