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

The issue with logic is that it's unassailable.

So that means that you are willing to have worse handling for the 99% of the time that you drive so that you can have better handling (which only happens in *deep* snow) 1% of the time.

That's fine. I just wanted you to think logically.

Someone should clue you in to the fact that an anecdote does not make science.

I had a friend of my mom's who was talking to her brother and he was then worried about his girlfriend who drove a red car and then he had an accident because he saw a red car in front of him.

I just proved that red cars cause accidents as much as you proved the same with RWD in the snow.

Your anecdotal "bro" science is for idiots, politicians, and priests. The rest of us use logic. And facts. And statistics.

You're talking about driving in deep snow for heaven's sake.

Do you really think your FWD handling is *great* in deep snow? Why not just put chains on RWD for those days you're in deep snow?

Then you could have good handling 99% of the year and sufficient deep snow traction when you need it 1% of the year.

Doesn't *anyone* on this newsgroup think logically?

Anyone who buys FWD for handling has already proven they can't think logically.

I completely understand everything you say because you can't say anything that everyone else who falls for the marketing bullshit doesn't say because it's *exactly* what the marketing bullshit *told* you to say.

Don't feel too bad. Most people fall for the marketing bullshit.

They, like you, can't think logically. Just don't blame me for telling you the truth.

No doubt. I had a friend who worked at a transmission shop and also rebuilt transmissions in his garage. We'd hang out, talk car repair and he said he had to redo his first few rebuilds. Biggest problem was the effort to pull and replace the trans.

Odd thing was, he hated working on carburetors.

I expect I'd just install a good junkyard trans and rebuild the original. I have no expectation I'd get it right the first time.

With FWD I have good handling 100% of the year. Rear wheel drive handling is OK 99% of the year.

What logic says that 99% is better than 100%?

What logic says that continually installing and removing tire chains to get that 99% to 100% is better than being happy with the 100% without chains?

OK, please tell me. The rotor ran true for about 270 degrees of rotation. Then it dipped inside about 1/16" of an inch. Never saw anything like it before or since.

Warp or runout?

I say warp, but I see NO practical difference. Should warped discs be machined differently than discs with runout?

Should discs with excessive warp be tossed in a different bin than discs with excessive runout?

So, also please tell me the PRACTICAL difference between warp and runout.

Those of us who don't think logically need to know.

The only handling that concerns me is snow and rain handling. The winter of 1978-1979 the Chicago area had 90" of snow. I had about a 20 mile trip to work, and I never missed a day. Except when I showed up one day and nobody was there. Drove back home, passing hundreds of cars stuck in the snow. I was driving a RWD '67 Buick Skylark. With 300 lbs of sand bags in the trunk. That's a cheap method. Since 1991 I've driven FWD cars. Never had to load the trunk with anything. As long as a car handles as expected, it's a non-issue. Aside from snow, ice and rain, handling only matters to car racers and car racer wannabes. I'm neither, so your "handling" logic is immaterial to me.

I never owned either of those two companies. I guess I was too poor. What's it like to be a rich engineer company owner?

Yes, I did know that. Never snapped one off either - even as a kid.

Never snapped one off either - even as a kid.

Missed the imprinted *L* on the end of the stud, did you?

These vans;

Had an integral front hub and drum. It was easily possible to warp the drum purely by overtightening the wheel nuts. Why was that? Was the casting designed by an engineer who was thinking logically that a bolt would snap before the drum warped. Hey, he stuffed up big time.

It's looking a lot like you don't.

I don't know why you have a bug up your ass about FWD. I wasn't going to reply but your utter illogical bias is starting to piss me off. End of discussion.

I learned a long time ago being late in snow is much better than worrying about it or having complications. I used to start work at 7. When it snowed, I'd go out at about 7 to clear the driveway and get ready to go. My commute was 24 miles and a couple of steep hills.

I'm responsible for my car and myself and that comes far ahead of showing up on time. This year will be different though, I'm retired and plan to just go back to bed if it snows.

Thanks Frank. I've read these same discussions on car boards and it's aggr avating. Who gives a s*it about semantics?

I don't understand why certain folks are bothered by a dimensionally defect ive rotor being referred to as "warped". I just had my right side caliper get stiff and overheat the crap out of the rotor. I don't care what anyone calls it but the damned rotor became dimensionally inaccurate enough to ca use a loud banging and steering wheel shimmy when the slightest brake press ure was applied.

If you ask me, the red hot rotor must have warped to cause the run out...

ng.

Some of the worst cars on the road for winter traction are FWD. Several ea rlier Honda Accords were brutal.

The two worst cars I ever drove in the snow for traction was my 77 Ford E25

The Ford van wasn't any better but every winter I'd run to the lumberyard a nd pick up 8 bags of concrete and place them *behind* the wheel wells. The damned truck would go through anything at that point.

There was no room to add any kind of ballast to the front of the Dodge, so it stayed home in the snow.

Generally, FWD cars do offer a better weight bias for traction, but the dow nside is that if the front wheels slip, the steering goes away. At least i n a RWD, you can grind away up a hill sideways keeping the car straight wit h the front wheels for steering. On flat surfaces this isn't a problem.

Living in the NE, I will never own another car without AWD.

Given the half dozen tasks I wish I had done in the days of yore

• transmission
• alignment
• engine
• tires
• paint

I think each has a very special component, which, I posit, is the main reason most of us don't dare to do them, at home.

I'm just using logic when I say what I'm going to say, and what I say below is a summary, and it's not a statement, but more of a question as to what the MAJOR FACTOR is why we don't do these jobs at home, in general.

• transmission auto (takes a LOT of KNOWLEDGE we just don't have)
• transmission manual (takes some equipment we don't have normally)

• alignment (takes a TON of THINKING that would explode most heads)

• engine (takes a TON of down TIME that most of us just don't have)

• tires (it's just too EASY to have SOMEONE ELSE do them for us)

• paint (takes a TON of SKILL to make the job look good)

This is the first time I'm proposing this logic. What do you think about it.

What's the major single reason we don't do these jobs at home?

• transmission auto (knowledge?)
• transmission manual (equipment?)
• alignment (thinking?)
• engine (time?)
• tires (effort?)
• paint (skill?)

Your comment about automatic transmissions made me think.

Given the half dozen tasks I wish I had done in the days of yore

• transmission
• alignment
• engine
• tires
• paint

I think each has a very special component, which, I posit, is the main reason most of us don't dare to do them, at home.

I'm just using logic when I say what I'm going to say, and what I say below is a summary, and it's not a statement, but more of a question as to what the MAJOR FACTOR is why we don't do these jobs at home, in general.

• transmission auto (takes a LOT of KNOWLEDGE we just don't have)
• transmission manual (takes some equipment we don't have normally)

• alignment (takes a TON of THINKING that would explode most heads)

• engine (takes a TON of down TIME that most of us just don't have)

• tires (it's just too EASY to have SOMEONE ELSE do them for us)

• paint (takes a TON of SKILL to make the job look good)

This is the first time I'm proposing this logic. What do you think about it.

What's the major single reason we don't do these jobs at home?

• transmission auto (knowledge?)
• transmission manual (equipment?)
• alignment (thinking?)
• engine (time?)
• tires (effort?)
• paint (skill?)

That's my point.

I've been discussing warp on rotors for many decades so you're never going to add anything to the equation until you begin to use logic on your own thought processes.

The first bit of logic *you* have to figure out is the difference between runout on the car and warp on the bench.

That's a crazy question, but it's a good first-time question.

You throw warped discs out. Period.

Technically, I guess, using logic, you "could" save them, I guess, but in the practical world, you will almost *never* be able to machine a warped disc because if it's really warped, you won't realistically have enough metal left to meet spec when you're done.

You can insult me for explaining logic to you, but anyone here who knew those cars knows what I say is a fact, where it was so *easy* to snap a lug bolt that I lost more than one before I realized they're threaded backward.

Now, you can fault me for being stupid after the first one, and I admit, it never occurred to me that lug bolts were threaded backward on *one side* of the vehicle.

But it happened, where I'm glad it did, because you want to know something? Lug bolts are *easy* to snap.

You'll never permanently bend a typical rotor on that car with lug bolts.

Then you never learned what I learned, which is that lug bolts are so easy to snap that you will never bend a rotor on that car with a lug bolt no matter how much torque you think you can apply.

Point is, that a rotor on that car isn't going to be bent by applying torque to a lug nut. You can avoid that logical fact all you want but it doesn't change that it's a logical fact.

Yes. I didn't even *think* that one side of the car was R and the other side of the car was L. I had cars before that, and cars after that, but only this one had reverse-threaded lug bolts and nuts - so I never tested lugbolt strength since then (which was in the sixties or maybe very early seventies as I recall).

Point is that it's so easy to snap a lug bolt on that car that you'll

If you can show some *other* car has superhuman tensile strength lug bolts, then let's look at your specs.

You don't provide enough data because we need to know a lot about the drums but we have been talking *ROTORS* all along, and not drums since we've been discussing disc brakes.

I don't doubt drums suffer from similar issues than disc brakes but the entire geometry is immensely different (as you know) and besides, what matters first and foremost is the tensile strength of the lug bolts anyway.

What's the typical torque applied to those lug bolts? What's the tensile strength of those lug bolts?

Without that basic information, we can't move forward on your drum brake example, even though we've been clearly talking disc brakes so far.

Classic argument which I've seen for fifty years, so it's not unexpected. Anyone faced with basic logic for the first time always *attacks* the messenger.

The good news is that you will mellow, days, months, years, and maybe decades from now such that you'll think before you start trying to defend marketing bullshit.

It happens every time. You're smart enough to learn. You won't fall into the same mudholes as you did in this thread. What you'll do is be more careful about what you say because right now you're just trying to defend your emotions.

But in another thread, years from now, you won't feel the desperate need to defend your emotions. So I think we have seen some progress with you and that's good.

I certainly learned a *lot* in this thread myself, particularly on the major factors that make an engine run longer nowadays than in the days of yore, and for that, I thank you.

You do not have to thank me for asking you to think logically though, as I understand how people defend their emotions to the last breath.

That's logical thinking. It's like buying a Hummer so that when you do have an accident, you're more likely to be safe. At least it's logically true to your thoughts.

It's the same as if you bought a dump truck as your only vehicle because 1% of the time you need to haul soil. As long as you're logically true to your own thought process, that's fine.

Most people fall for the Marketing Bullshit so they're not logically true to their own thought processes. That's the crime.

If you're thinking logically, that's fine.

Again, if *that* is what matters to you, and if you think everyone in Chicago "missed a day" because they had RWD, then you're being true to yourself.

However, if anyone else got to work on those days who had RWD vehicles, then you're not being logically true again.

It's ok to think any way you want as long as you don't lie to yourself. It's the age-old advice we gave 30 years ago to people who said the same thing.

I'm not as dumb as you need me to be in order to believe in your "bro" science. You think I haven't heard what you just said, a billion times in the past

The moment people start throwing "bro science" at me, I know they're just flailing for lack of any reasonable logic. Happens every time when people believe in Marketing Bullshit.

Here's some "bro science" for you...

I drove RWD in the east-coast states and I've seen in the morning cars all over the median and I've watched them smash themselves against the guardrails.

All (obviously) were driving too fast for the conditions.

The proof was that I was in a 280Z for heaven's sake, and I didn't smash into the guardrail or end up backward in the median.

So your anecdote is exactly canceled by mine (which is the age-old problem with your "bro" science anecdote).

Anyone who is forced to constantly resort to "bro science" to back up their claims is simply lying to themselves about the real issue, which is the most common thing that happens when they fall for Marketing Bullshit.

And I have a bimmer RWD that uses chains in Tahoe. No problem.

Again, you're back to logic and not bro science. If for 1% of the time you don't need extra weight or chains, then that's a fine reason for having worse handling 99% of the time.

Those tradeoffs are yours to make. Just don't lie about them.

The moment you bring in "bro science", I know you're not telling yourself the truth and that you are trying to defend Marketing Bullshit.

Logical. That's perfectly reasonable.

As long as you don't try to defend Marketing Bullshit with Bro Science, you're fine with logical people like me.

I agree vehemenetly with you that when you use logic, your decisions make perfect sense.

It's when people use "Bro Science" to back up Marketing Bullshit that bothers me, because they're just lying to themselves and to everyone when they do that. It's the age-old situation that never changes.

I have an off-color joke that is often used in such situations, which is that I have this fat ugly dumb girlfriend who keeps the bed super warm at night which is why I keep her around.

My friends ask why, and I can give them the logical answer, or I can start using "Bro Science" to defend the Marketing Bullshit.

LOGIC: I can say "she's ugly 99% of the time but warm as fire 1% of the time" and that's why I keep her.

BRO SCIENCE: What? Ugly? Fat? Dumb? No way. My girlfriend is a svelte, gorgeously cute rocket scientist, she is. Why my sister told me so herself just yesterday.

As long as you use logic to back up your decisions, and not bro science to try to back up Marketing Bullshit, then I have no problem with what you say.

Nothing you have said (or even can say) isn't something they said 30 years ago, so, just like with brake warp and drilled/slotted rotors, there's nothing new that you provided that wasn't already logically debunked 30 years ago.

You keep believing it, since logic clearly isn't working within you.

Enjoy!

Especially if you have an old car/truck. The one local shop that said they could do it on the 1970 Dodge pickup couldn't. I found another shop 20 miles away that said they could and actually did it -- I could feel it in the vastly-improved steering afterward.

I watched the guy do it. He used Channellocks during one of the procedures and was amused when I called them water-pump pliers. Is there an actual difference?

I thought that Dodge (and maybe the rest of the Chrysler line) was the only one that did that.