Whoever designed the GM jack and tire changing tool set that comes with the Express van has never changed a flat before in their life! The jack has a planetary gear, so it takes forever to raise the vehicle, the handle doesn’t have a “crank” shape, so it is difficult to use, and the tool to lower the spare doesn’t extend past the bumper edge, so it takes forever to ratchet it down – in quarter-turn increments! All the mounts for the jack and tools look to have been cobbed together from random bits of bent metal.
(0)Archive for the 'car' Category
Page 25 of 39
Got correct clutch slave and came home straight from work and installed. Then decided to look at engine slugishness. I started unplugging spark plug and when I got to #4 there was no change in engine smoothness, which meant cylinder 4 was not firing. Nuts. I could see plenty well that it was getting spark. I shut er down and pulled the spark plug. Completely dry and no smell of gas. Looks like something wrong with injector. Left to go meet the boys for ramen at rocket ramen, Yotekko-ya.
Got home, pulled out the multimeter, checked the wiring diagrams and service manual, and went out to take a look at the #4 injector. When I pulled the plug, it became obvious there was a problem. The pin contacts had come out of the connector. Well this would explain things. Just to be sure, I metered the injector to make sure it wasn’t burnt out. Pulled the boot (unfortunately cracking it in process), carefully pried out the retaining tabs, reinserted the contacts, put boot back and plugged it in. Now the test, how’s it run? Aaah, smooth. Buttoned things up and went for a test drive. Now this is what I was looking for! Rev response was snappy, power was what I was expecting. I was not hallucinating driving it yesterday and feeling kind of let down that it didn’t feel very strong. It would be with one fourth of it not running!
Looks like I might just make it to the SCCA event on Sunday, although the clutch won’t have much break in miles on it. See yah at the races!
OK, most of my Toyota’s are pretty good about this, but some designer/engineer was napping when they designed the clutch master cylinder in the AE86 Corolla. After all the engine and tranny work the past weeks, discovered the hydraulics were quite crusty and leaking. 
It was something I was intending to address from way back, but finally got the parts. So I figured this was going to be a quick and easy job, on the FX if you were motivated could be done in an hour. Not so here. For some reason someone at Toyota decided to put one mounting stud into the engine bay, behind the brake booster. In order to squeeze in a wrench and move it, you need to unbolt the brake booster from inside the foorwell. In order to gain easy access to those bolts, you need to remove some dash trim and drop the steering assembly. Sheesh. It’s done now, and then I discovered the clutch slave I bought is the wrong one, looks like its for the SR5 4AC model that has the slave mounted on the opposite side of the bell housing! Nuts! Looks like I’m not going to make the event this Sunday.
Oh my throbing middle finger…. I think every begining mechanic should be required to have and use a torque wrench. For some reason everyone seems compelled to over torque oil drain bolts. I guess since they are large bolts they can tolerate quite a bit of overtightening, but if you look in FSMs (factory service manuals) the torque spec is quite low, typicaly in the range of 15 ft lbs or even less. So I was out in the garage tonight, the heat is finally bearable, and was slowly putting things back together with the swapped engine. Figured I better drain the engine oil. Put the small 3/8 breaker on it and tugged at it. Ugh. Alright, fine, I’ll use the 1/2″ 20″ long breaker. I’m working at an awkward angle, so the bigger bar should make it easier. It works, eventually, and suddenly, unfortunately. Going in the pull direction is usually a good habit, but didn’t save me this time since my arms were extended and the angles were wierd. My middle finger met metal car. Amazingly I did not drop the bar, but I was cursing up a storm. Owwie! This was a good one, owwie!
That was it, I could barely muster removing the drain bolt. I’m done for today.
Oh wait, this engine was out of the original FX and the last person who worked on it and did an oil change on it… was me!
Another car weekend. Saturday was spent cleaning rust off the camshafts, and since I had a spare and the work was more than halfway done already, I changed the headgasket.
So come Sunday the engine was together and ready to fit the transmission and reinstall. This would definitely need more bodies to manhandle. Tranny work always involves some muscle. Finally got that purdy clutch on. Last time we’ll see it like this. 
Tranny mated with minimal fuss and bolted together. Ckucky with his 1 ACP (Angry Chinese Power) output installs the starter, and strips out one of the holes. To be fair he was torquing with wrench set to spec. I think I might need a new wrench.
then it’s worth overdoing. This past friday I picked up my Exedy Hyper Single clutch kit, part #TH01SD (note that it is speced for later 4AGE so does not include the pilot bearing). Since I have the engine and tranny completely out of the red Corolla, figured might as well change out the clutch. And since this is supposed to be my weekend fun and race car, why not go for something a bit more uprated. I have what Exedy considers their “Stage 1” Sport clutch in the FX right now and with the lighter OEM last gen 20 valve flywheel it’s pretty nice and I kill the engine only a couple times a week. What the heck, skip Stage 2 and go right for “Stage 3”. A set with a lightweight chromoly flywheel, forged aluminum clutch cover, and 6 puck cerametalic friction pads. Flywheel is about 9 lbs compared to the original stock of 16. Cover, pressure pad assembly is a pound or so lighter. We shall see how dramatically different this feels. Continue reading ‘If It’s Worth Doing…’
At the bottom of my street, there is a T-intersection. While out riding today, I stopped at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Being the after work rush, there was comparatively a lot of traffic at this otherwise quiet intersection. There were two cars on the left, and three cars on the right.
No biggie.
I clipped out and footed down to wait for an opening. The first right car was a Lexus RX. She (I’m profiling here: Lexus RX + illegally dark tint + bad driving = short Asian mom) stopped appropriately to make a left into the street I was coming out of until the left cars passed. She then waited there. If the windows (including windscreen) weren’t excessively dark, I would have probably seen her waving me through. I had the stop sign: She had right of way. I unclipped the other foot and stood down. I was not going to trust her and go. Continue reading ‘Wrong of Way’
Fool! At the quitting time busy 4-way stop at Cooke and Pohukaina, saw a plateless new luxury sedan (you can probably guess what brand from the dealers in the area) being driven by a dude in the corporate service department uniform pass a car stopped appropriately at the stop sign on Pohukaina and blow through the intersection. He creeped around the stopped car on the right side and narrowly missed being nailed by the cars on Cooke whose turn it was to go. The only thing worse than the drivers in Hawaii is maybe the drivers in Korea, or the bicyclists in Kyoto.
(0)Toyota really believes that Americans hate station wagons. The LHD version of the JDM Altezza Gita station wagon was sold on the USDM as the IS 300 SportCross. Considering the “IS” part of the name is “International Sedan”, that means this station wagon was a really a sedan with a liftgate – in other words, aside from the fact that it wasn’t a sedan, it was a sedan. Just so long as you don’t use the word “wagon”, everything is right with the world. WTF?!
(0)The first generation Toyota Highlander hybrid had LED taillight clusters and incandescent bulbs in the high-mount brake light. The non-hybrid was the opposite. The current Tacoma pickup has the same LED/incandescent thing going on. WTF?!
(0)