a small, stretchy cable that's hooked to a lever who's mechanical advantage is probably nearing 10:1, yes?

nevermind the actual force that can be applied to such a cable

[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 7:37 AM. Reason : -]

11/30/2012 7:31:56 AM

i agree that the parking brake won't warp drums to the point of being unsafe, but under the right conditions, i definitely see where it could cause enough runout that you could feel it when braking.

the right conditions would be setting the parking brake on hot drums and then letting it sit for a while. it'd be worse with a very low ambient temp. i don't think it's absurd to think there would be some deflection and permanent deformation after a long enough time.



[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 7:44 AM. Reason : asdf]

11/30/2012 7:37:41 AM

OK!

(well crap NRR edited)


I wanted to note that the force applied could be substantial



...although it would take a lot to make that bad-boy pucker

[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 7:47 AM. Reason : -]

11/30/2012 7:42:16 AM

oh my

11/30/2012 7:50:08 AM

Quote :

"the right conditions would be setting the parking brake on hot drums and then letting it sit for a while. it'd be worse with a very low ambient temp. i don't think it's absurd to think there would be some deflection and permanent deformation after a long enough time."

That condition would apply to disc brakes as well.

11/30/2012 8:03:52 AM

but disks are supported on both sides.
the entire outer outer rim of a drum is not supported well...

i'm talking minute deflection but i know the t-bird's rears were ovals when we pulled it out of my grandmas barn and i attribute it (due to the location of the shoes) to the ebrake being on.

11/30/2012 8:17:40 AM

the problem with setting pads on a hot disc is pad material transfer, actual warping is pretty rare.

[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 8:25 AM. Reason : http://www.ductile.org/didata/Section3/3part1.htm to run calculations later]

11/30/2012 8:23:00 AM

^have you ever turned a disc on a brake lathe? or a drum, for that matter?

11/30/2012 8:24:18 AM

Yes, did you read the white paper from Stop Tech I posted?

Quote :

"In fact every case of "warped brake disc" that I have investigated, whether on a racing car or a street car, has turned out to be friction pad material transferred unevenly to the surface of the disc. This uneven deposition results in thickness variation (TV) or run-out due to hot spotting that occurred at elevated temperatures."

http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/-warped-brake-disc-and-other-myths

[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 8:28 AM. Reason : link]

11/30/2012 8:26:08 AM

Quote :

"disc brakes"

11/30/2012 8:30:37 AM

I'm not saying i'm correct... but, cast iron is pretty soft really and pushing a significant (but not substantial) force on something for a long time is going to push it into plastic deformation.
the most obvious case of this are springs settling. It seems logical that a drum not being supported on both sides would cause this to be a higher probability that over time it could be pushed out of round.

ours seriously looked like 0

[Edited on November 30, 2012 at 8:53 AM. Reason : .]

11/30/2012 8:39:49 AM

Hey guys, I have an engineering degree too.

11/30/2012 8:42:00 AM

yeah but i could be making a false, but logical assumption off of what i'd looked at.

11/30/2012 9:08:52 AM

Quote :

"Hey guys, I have an engineering degree too. "

11/30/2012 9:52:21 AM

are electric water pumps just for race cars.

12/10/2012 3:34:51 PM

^because racecar.




I cannot see any benefit to a street driven car... unless that car is: ultra high-revving and blows gaskets/freeze plugs, or it just really needs that 2hp extra.

12/10/2012 4:47:09 PM

Quote :

" Hey guys, I have an engineering degree too. "

I've met an ungodly number of engineers (well, people who possess an engineering degree) who utterly fail at being able to make sensible correlations between theoretical and empirical. I'm talking ones pretty high up the pay scale/food chain.

Truly, there is a scary lack of common sense, field experience, and the ability to troubleshoot and perform some good old deductive reasoning among degrees engineers.

I'm constantly amazed at how few actually have a natural feel for what they do.

12/10/2012 5:34:15 PM

I attribute that to how we teach it at the university level, and I've been complaining about it since I was in college for my BSME. We prepare undergrads to be grad students, not engineers. Throughout the entire program, we worked a shitload of word problems, but scarcely engineered anything. Everything is an academic exercise--draw a free body diagram here, determine the entropy there. All of that is important, but if you never fucking engineer anything, it becomes just like you said--no real understanding or "natural feel" of what's going on.


Also, not that I don't recognize the large difference between an engineer and a tech or fabricator, but I thought it was pretty bad that in my entire senior design class, I was the only person who knew how to weld. I always joked that some of the professors in the ME department probably weren't capable of changing the oil in a car.



I've talked to people with engineering degrees from other universities, and it appears that there are 2 pretty significantly divergent paths that undergraduate engineering programs take. Some are like NCSU, where they prep you almost strictly to be an academic, to be really good at solving math problems out of a textbook, and others do shitloads of practical engineering work--still doing calculations, not just a bunch of shadetree fab work, but actually engineering things.

12/10/2012 8:05:21 PM

Dude there was an Asian kid in my clad who literally was #1 in the mechanical Engineeering class and seriously couldn't change a light bulb.

12/11/2012 12:24:48 AM

I have a 96 mustang that is stalling when I shift into park or neutral. I have read online people have had similar problems and that the likely culprit is a bad IAC valve. However, this stalling started happening not long after I had a new battery put in. Before I look at replacing the IAC, I wonder if you guys think the battery could have reset anything (maybe in the ecu) which is now causing my car to stall out.

12/11/2012 8:40:08 AM

V8 or V6?

12/11/2012 9:11:26 AM

any of that could be the problem but to be honest with the recent battery change a grounding problem would do the same too.

Or maybe you replaced the battery but the alt. was your real issue?

12/11/2012 9:37:01 AM

V8 (had to get an auto so the wifey could drive :-/ )Good point about the alternator I guess I could get that checked...

12/11/2012 11:06:08 AM

Ok. V8 vs V6 doesn't make any difference; I was just gonna say that you should do the honorable thing and sell it for scrap if it's a V6.


(autos suck. your wife needs to learn to drive a manual...but in a pony car, at least they make good bracket racers.)

[Edited on December 11, 2012 at 11:11 AM. Reason : ]

12/11/2012 11:10:17 AM

I forgot women were incapable of learning now to drive a stick.

12/11/2012 11:21:09 AM

lol my wife hate autos

<-- lucky !

12/11/2012 11:33:43 AM

when do hydraulic lifters become a problem... at high rpm i know they can float... what about with boost?

12/11/2012 1:15:47 PM

I taught her on my old mustang in a parking lot a long time ago. She got it going without stalling, but was too intimidated to drive it anywhere other than a parking lot. The best thing about the auto is she can move the car if I'm sleeping or DD

12/11/2012 5:23:53 PM

Fish-like smell from heater.

Proposed solution: radiator stop-leak additive.

Yea or nay?

12/27/2012 11:38:55 PM

Quote :

"lol my wife hate autos <-- lucky !"

+1!

12/28/2012 1:15:59 AM

^^nay

I never think it's a good idea to fill those coolant passages with sludgy crap

12/28/2012 11:38:02 AM

I only know of one person who used stop leak on his radiator.
A few days later it clogged, overheated, and blew the head gasket iirc.

12/28/2012 3:06:14 PM

Does anyone have forged aluminum wheels that look like steelies and use the stock center cap ?

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:34 AM. Reason : Cop look wheels in black aluminum :-)]

1/3/2013 10:34:03 AM

http://www.wheelvintiques.com/

Might have what youre looking for?

If not be more specific!




Several makes use aluminum for their spares... Not sure what size youre looking for and they might be a little skinny! But they do look like steelies.

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:44 AM. Reason : -]

1/3/2013 10:39:30 AM

and a lot of those aluminum spare wheels aren't designed for long term use

the Mercedes S-class spare looks really cool but according to MB you can't drive on it for more than 12k miles

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:54 AM. Reason : ]

1/3/2013 10:50:40 AM

Well he didnt tell us what he was using it for!

Mid to late 80s Caddies had aluminum wheels like this too I believe.

1/3/2013 10:58:22 AM

How much should it cost to pull the front passenger hub for a 1992 Integra? This has to be done in order to replace a broken stud. I've gotten 2 quotes so far: $250ish and $350ish.

Both higher than I had thought

1/3/2013 2:04:27 PM

lol basically a rally look wheel that's actually a decent forged piece and doesn't weigh 22lbs
in a ~ 17" wheel...

it will be for a galaxie or starliner lol



looks like this.... but aluminum.


[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 2:38 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2013 2:36:16 PM

I dont think youre going to find anything like that in my suggestions (at least not wide enough to mount rubber like that).

You would probably easily find 17s in my ideas, but by the time you have them cut and widened to your specifications youre already in custom wheel territory.

There are plenty of companies to make exactly what you want in allow if you provide them with a sample.

On the other hand trying to shed a few pounds with a custom piece on a Starliner is a bit retarded. You would be better off going for aluminum heads, intake, or with an FE even the block nowadays.

Easier, cheaper, more efficient ways to save weight on a big car. Fiberglass or aluminum bumpers, fenders, trunk, hood, etc.

If you just want the challenge though I think custom is your best bet-

Also, alloy wheels on muscle cars are for fags (magnesium is acceptable).



[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 2:57 PM. Reason : jk]

1/3/2013 2:57:25 PM

lol it has all of the above (other than block)

i'm just farting around really its more for strength than anything i don't wanna deal with bent steelies all the time.

1/3/2013 4:00:28 PM

Of all the old cars ive ever had ive never had a single bent steelie.

And if I did they are about as hard to find as my own ass

1/3/2013 4:29:18 PM

Where can I buy a 5th gear synchro spring for an 87 Crx :-(

1/3/2013 5:42:17 PM

('96 3500 Ram) After some mad metal-on-metal grinding developed from my left wheel I figured it was time for a brake job. Drove on it a few times, going as gingerly with the brakes as possible, before I had the time to get my hands dirty

These are what I pulled out of the driver-side caliper:



That's what I get for occasionally peeking at what I can see of the outer pad and assuming the inner and outer pads were wearing roughly evenly. The inside rotor surface is a nightmare but I'm not gonna turn them, I got relatively cheap pads because I'm planning on doing some wheel overhaul/suspension/alignment work in the near future and want to keep it diagnostic.

Here's the new pads installed on the same side, truck still on stands so haven't set brakes yet:



Again, rotor vanes left messy because I'm planning on taking it all off later, PITA to do right now and I'm not doing any significant heavy hauling in the near future.

So here's the point of the thread--here is a picture of the passenger side pads, before installing new ones:



It can't be normal for the driver side to have been worn so badly while the right side has 60-70% left? Truck doesn't pull left or right at coast or during braking (or didn't before that inner pad bottomed out) and tires are wearing evenly so my alignment seems fine. This is the first brake job I've done on this truck since I bought it 2.5 years ago, and the guy I got it from wasn't the type to have done something like replacing the pads on only one wheel.

The passenger side wheel rolls smoothly and only occasionally (and just baaarely) brushes the pads. The driver wheel rolls freely but I can hear a small amount of bearing chatter and the inner pad was rubbing lightly through the whole revolution. What can I do to correct the piston from making consistent contact with the rotor?

What do y'all thank?

1/3/2013 7:23:14 PM

I had the same problem recently. Usually the caliper sits on pins that allow it to slide side-to-side and evenly distribute braking force between the pads. If the pins aren't lubed (or if the lube dries up) the caliper will get stuck and one pad will wear down much faster than the other..

If you can get the caliper off of the pins, grease them up really good (with hi temp grease), make sure the caliper is clean (no junk where the pins go) then slap some new pads on and put it all back together. Also grease the other 3 calipers while you're at it.... your future self will thank you.

If it wont come apart, buy another caliper and swear you won't let it happen again (like me )

1/3/2013 8:16:03 PM

Did it fix the problem for you?

Yeah I always use all-purpose high-temp grease on the pins. I pulled and cleaned the bushings and dust rings, cleaned and greased the caliper bolts (over which it slides), and greased the axle contact surfaces. I'm gonna put a tank of gas through it (~600 miles) and pull that side off again to see how it's wearing, hopefully it was just bound up and there isn't any greater problem

1/3/2013 9:38:50 PM

replacing the pins and the caliper fixed the problem for me. I tried everything in the book to get the pin out of the old caliper but that fucker was STUCK

1/3/2013 10:58:06 PM

So what are the steps and forms I need to purchase a car in state (NC)? I've only ever bought from dealers and had to get new tags before, so everything was pretty much taken care of.

1/14/2013 7:23:48 PM

Private Party

Bill of Sale
Sign Title Over
Lien Release
MVR-1
MVR-180
MVR-181
MVR-615

1/14/2013 7:45:00 PM

Thanks. I know I have to get my insurance policy updated; do I get a tag before hand too (do I just take in all of those forms)? Not sure how that works.

[Edited on January 14, 2013 at 7:47 PM. Reason : .]

1/14/2013 7:47:11 PM

Take all that to the tag office and they hand you plates. There are no 30 day plates for private party sales; you do have the option of a 10 day trip permit but you need to prove you own it now.

1/14/2013 7:49:48 PM