filled up the ps fluid. pump was getting very loud.

10/18/2016 6:56:40 PM

Thank you RockAuto for sending me a radiator cooling fan motor that doesn't fit in my cooling fan shroud

10/31/2016 9:33:26 AM

I nailed a fox going a little over 70 on US1 South the other night...cracked the front bumper of my Impreza in half

10/31/2016 8:03:40 PM

oil/filter and CVT fluid change in the Insight. Replaced a few underbody fasteners that were damaged or missing.

178,xxx miles now. Still nothing besides scheduled maintenance and consumables.

10/31/2016 11:41:13 PM

^impressive.


changed heater core hoses that ruptured on V70R, did lower radiator hose while i was there. coils and plugs after misfires. 171k now.

M5s nothing lately which is good. 125k on e39. saving miles on e34.

11/1/2016 3:48:16 AM

And the Mach 1 is at Fast Lane. Notice it was burning oil and would top every 2 weeks, maybe half a quart to fill back up. After another 2 week period it took 4 quarts to fill up. Few days later a noticeable tick showed up and she died at a red light. Took push starting it to turn over and as soon as it fired up the tick was a knock that shook the car. Sounded like automatic gun fire it was so loud. Cut it off right away and had the Mach towed to Fastlane.

Hoping to be able to rebuild but its looking like a new motor is in order. Also looking into a complete cobra sway with a 6 speed to turn this shit situation into a positive one. Plus at 130k on the Mach 1 the transmission isn't going to last too long.

Oh and I'm in the middle of swapping a new front end on my 90 Suburban after hydroplaning into a down tree on Athens leaving the Notre Dame game.

Fun times.

[Edited on November 18, 2016 at 1:23 PM. Reason : the]

11/18/2016 1:23:07 PM

Dropped my '98 Civic for a 2012 Kia Forte.

11/22/2016 12:43:27 PM

Changed the oil in the Maxima.
Looks like my axle boot has been leaking for a while.
My traction control, VDC, and ABS lights have been randomly coming on. Last time this happened, it was under warranty and a $1400 control module fixed it.
My rear sway bar end links are making noise.
I also have two tires that are at the wear bars.

I'm going to take care of the tires in two weeks, but the rest I'm just letting go until I have to fix it.

Dealer wants $600 for the axle, no labor, but I think I can get an aftermarket axle for $100 online.
A used control module is $160 online as well.

11/22/2016 7:04:19 PM

changed the starter on my wife's TL in a parking lot this morning

11/23/2016 10:21:50 AM

^ what was your upcharge for on-site service?

[Edited on November 23, 2016 at 10:24 AM. Reason : ^^ how many miles?]

11/23/2016 10:23:15 AM

saved me $tow

[Edited on November 23, 2016 at 10:47 AM. Reason : takes 9 or 10 basic hand tools]

[Edited on November 23, 2016 at 10:48 AM. Reason : depending on whether or not you need the 1/2" breaker bar for the fine thread bolts that hold it on]

11/23/2016 10:44:49 AM

^^ 162,000 miles on the maxima.

11/23/2016 12:17:58 PM

^^that's impressive. It was a huge PITA to swap out the starter on my Integra a few months back.

11/28/2016 9:26:24 AM

Picked up a front sway bar for the hatch. Need to find a rear sway bar and then the suspension will be complete...

11/28/2016 10:34:48 AM

Just jump-started my car in the garage.

11/28/2016 10:44:19 AM

R100RT motorcycle: changed oil/filter, adjusted valves.

An oil filter change is actually more of a pain in the ass than a valve adjustment. No kidding. By the book, you have to remove the fairings, remove the exhaust (with a specialty tool for the exhaust nut where the headers fasten to the cylinder head), remove the oil cooler, and then the filter itself is this fucking ridiculous hinged affair with a bunch of O-rings and seals that has to be assembled, snaked into place around obstructions, and then have a bunch of seals held in place while you reattach the oil cooler. It is fucking ridiculous. Oh, and if you fuck up with one of the O-rings, you will lose oil pressure and eat a bottom end.

A valve adjustment, on the other hand, I'm pretty confident that I could talk my 10 year old daughter through. The worst part is getting the engine to TDC twice (boxer twin), and that's not bad.

11/28/2016 11:10:54 PM

hahaha i forgot that I bitched about this in great detail on pages 61-62 last time I had to do it.

I learned a few things from last time that allowed me to "cheat" a little and avoid removing the exhaust...and I bought some long, ball-end allen wrenches to facilitate reaching some of the bolts without removing everygoddamn thing and tearing off all of your knuckles in the process. It's still an asspain, though.

11/28/2016 11:21:16 PM

el oh fucking el

s2000 is parked...because I got pulled and they yanked my tags due to "lack of insurance" - I showed the cop my insurance card. Doesn't care.

Go to DMV..."This doesn't make sense. It's showing a lapse in 2011."

1) No lapse
2) Even if that were true, how the hell have I been able to get it registered since? How have I been pulled and no one said a word about it until now?

What the fuck, DMV? Now I've gotta get a god damn online only insurance company (I knew that'd bite me in the ass) to get me an FS-1 so I can prove I had insurance.

And what pisses me off the most? Why was the cop running my tags to begin with instead of pulling the guy driving 75mph in the dark without any fucking lights on?

[Edited on November 28, 2016 at 11:26 PM. Reason : ]

11/28/2016 11:25:35 PM

I'm confused. If you've had insurance coverage all along then clearing this up shouldn't be an issue.

11/29/2016 9:13:06 AM

So... if you got pulled.. did you have to tow your car home and uber a ride to where you were going at the time?

11/29/2016 1:27:05 PM

NCDMV has been fucking up lately. I got a letter 6 months after buying a car saying I had a lapse of coverage on that car. "GEICO reported to us..." The supposed lapse was the day I bought the car and added coverage to it.

11/29/2016 3:01:44 PM

Mother of god. DMV actually apologized. Took all of 10 minutes this morning. They were acting like it was going to take an act of Congress to straighten it out last night.

Still, insane waste of time. Now I still have to go by the DA's office.

^ lol

[Edited on November 29, 2016 at 3:17 PM. Reason : ]

11/29/2016 3:16:26 PM

NCDMV has been fuckin' up lately...






They've always been fuckin' up, but they've been fuckin' up lately, too!

[Edited on November 29, 2016 at 7:01 PM. Reason : ]

11/29/2016 7:01:03 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_Ot0k4XJc

12/1/2016 12:10:41 AM

Ordered a new license plate from the dmv

12/1/2016 9:34:32 AM

#5 cylinder has a broken rod in my 03 Mach 1. It was burning oil faster than I thought.

New motor time. Looking into a complete low mileage Cobra swap with the 6psd transmission. Should know soon if the motor is completely toast.

12/1/2016 6:42:29 PM

^ any update? she boom?

I just had some 185-60r14 winter tires mounted on the MR2. I know our climate near Raleigh doesn't require them but it's good peace of mind in this little beast knowing my tires will probably grip.

I'll be throwing on some wheels and performance tires in the spring. Going to try to find an acceptable set of decent, used 15x7 this winter.

And your're damn right I'm going to go play in the snow when it comes.

Wrapped the steering wheel with cotton handlebar tape in a harlequin pattern. That was fun (not)

Here's a recent pic:


[Edited on December 16, 2016 at 7:53 PM. Reason : d]

12/16/2016 7:44:29 PM

Re: Ticket for supposedly having no insurance.

Have to go to court in the morning. DA's office refused to even listen to the fact that I have paperwork showing no lapse.

If I actually have to argue this shit in front of a judge because the DA is too big of a dickhead (or mentally inept piece of shit) I may need someone to bail me out after the contempt of court charges.

1/6/2017 1:52:40 AM

^that type of crap is why i think cops should be like fireman and just sit tight until we need them and quit fuckin with us

1/7/2017 8:21:50 AM

Replaced the front lip that was ripped off by a retread in the highway last year, added side splitters, painted the front grill and bumper support. Also put two new tires on a couple weeks ago.

1/8/2017 12:39:51 PM

Swapped the 13" vx rims for 14" bottle caps that have Winterforce tires on them.

Then drove around and had fun...

1/8/2017 1:49:51 PM

Got the Integra back this morning, after having been in the shop since 12/27. She's got a new 3rd gear, courtesy of the shop that rebuilt the transmission 20 months ago!

1/12/2017 11:46:50 AM

Had the Mach 1 towed from Fastlane to a friends shop. He located a replacement motor with only 50k and comes with long tube headers. Should be back on the street next week.

Fastlane wanted $9800 to build a new block from the ground up. Can't afford that. With the used motor option I should be right under 5k which I actually have saved up.

Next my 1990 Suburban will be getting some love.

1/12/2017 1:05:10 PM

^might as well go ahead and throw an eaton from a terminator on top of it

1/12/2017 2:58:38 PM

^ I wish! Next step is suspension upgrade. New struts, springs and beefier sway bars.

1/12/2017 5:37:24 PM

Removed my R100 wheels and had them powdercoated. Shop is putting new bearings in, too...along with new tubes and a set of Michelin Pilot Activs.

I also removed the heads to have them bead blasted and rebuilt, with new valves and seats (old ones were recessing, due to not quite having the metallurgy figured out in the early days of unleaded fuel). They're getting machined and worked right now.

Oh, and I had to pull the exhaust off to remove the heads, and it kinda needs new exhaust...at least new mufflers. I'm thinking about putting a set of good polished stainless pipes on it. Maybe Keihan?



Oh, and I ordered a pair of front struts (with mounts and boots) and a pair of sway links for my Insight. At 186,000 miles, this will be its first repair. Everything else has been scheduled maintenance or consumables.

1/12/2017 11:20:25 PM

Glad we went with a motor from a junk yard that guarantees/warranties their motors are in good running condition. Shop pulled the timing covers to find the timing chain hanging off on one side. Owner of the junk yard is taking the motor to Modular Performance to have it looked over. Hopefully no damage was done but I don't have a good feeling.

1/18/2017 11:33:08 AM

sold the V70R for double the price. great flipper and too many mechanical issues.

1/18/2017 2:34:04 PM

put some spark plugs in my outboard and adjusted the idle

1/18/2017 6:49:10 PM

New to me motor is in the Mach 1. It came with American Racing Headers which is great besides the fact they are just about the only company that uses a V-band style clamp. Didn't realize this when I order a BBK X-Pipe since every single X pipe I saw bolted to the headers. Picking the car up today and taking to a friends shop that does exhaust work in Wake Forest. Should be a fun drive to WF with open headers...

1/27/2017 1:27:50 PM

Resurrected my '92 Civic hatchback rally car this past weekend. It had basically been sitting for a year, full of tools and parts for my E36 M3 track car, since I didn't have a garage. I sold the M3 to a buddy, and will have a garage soon, so it's time to start RallyX'ing again

The exhaust had completely rusted out, so I put a new cheapo OEM replacement on it. Changed the oil and replaced the clutch master and slave cylinders since the clutch system had been leaking.

Everything works great...took the car down the gravel road behind the NCSU farm school off Lake Wheeler Rd, and man had I forgotten how fun this car is at speed on gravel. The 175/70R13 snow tires always surprise me with how well they grip on gravel.

I'm signed up for the February 25th rallyx at VIR. Anyone else going? H8R?

1/31/2017 4:28:44 PM

HAha. that's awesome...

When I get back to Raleigh (one day), would love to go out with you and see that thing in action... I've got a legit track suspension on my civic, but kept the old '91 manufactured strut assemblies. They dampened great the few times I offroaded my EGH (also a '92)

1/31/2017 5:24:15 PM

Oh, I thought you were in Raleigh, where yah at now?

BTW are you using a phone as your speedometer in your Civic? My speedometer is wonky most of the time, occasionally works but most of the time just goes to 100 or all the way around to under 0. It's also inaccurate since the final drive is different on the Si transmission, and the tach has the redline at like 6300 from the VX engine but the Si engine will rev to 7800 hah. But EX/Si gauge clusters are like $100 on ebay, so screw that.

2/1/2017 9:51:06 AM

I'm in Wisconsin for work... Here for another 6 months ish... loving the roundabouts and the snow. Work gave me a 2015 Mustang for a daily; it's been fun!

My speedo was also wonky. I replaced it with a ~$20 lkq unit thinking that'd do the trick. I figured it's gotta be a wiring harness/grounding issue since the problem didn't go away. I had the same issue yours, not worth the time to hunt down the issue, so I just reused an old phone.

It had an EX transmission before, but I swapped in the VX trans; I love that really tall final.

I re-purposed my old Galaxy S smartphone (now 7 years old) with a GPS speedo app. It's fairly accurate (enough to ballpark and keep me out of trouble), and I just charge it with the aux 12v from the car (not hardwired) If it's too hot or too cold, the phone won't charge, so I have to bring it inside sometimes so it doesn't die overnight. But driving it 5 days a week to and from work was enough to keep it charged, even over the weekends. I also have some offline GPS maps saved to it in case for some reason I need to GPS my way around the United States.

[Edited on February 1, 2017 at 8:32 PM. Reason : .]

2/1/2017 8:31:41 PM

Received a letter from the DMV yesterday. Apparently they're going to revoke my license in April for failure to appear for my court date for the bogus driving without insurance charge.

You know, even though I clearly wasted my time showing up to have the shit supposedly dropped.

This shit is such a fucking joke.

Had to waste more time going to the DA's office today. Of course, there was no DA around after I finally got the idiots that were there to realize, oh yea, I had to have actually shown up that day because the DA at least bothered to do half of what she claimed she was going to do.

2/10/2017 8:56:18 PM

similar shit happened to me in Person County a few years ago.

got a speeding ticket, went to court and ADA knocked it down to 9 over, went and paid the lady at the window. few weeks later i get a letter saying they've issued a warrant for failure to appear. had to go back to the courthouse with my receipt and was told that i "slipped through the cracks".

one of the lackeys there gave me a letter to keep in the glovebox that would hopefully keep me from getting arrested. that was very reassuring.

2/10/2017 9:11:16 PM

Insight:

Two weekends ago: new airbag inflators (recall work done by Honda dealer)

Last weekend: front struts and sway bar end links, brake fluid flush (all done by a shop)

Today: new tires mounted/balanced; 4-wheel alignment.

2/11/2017 6:45:38 PM

Brought home a new one yesterday!

2/11/2017 10:50:40 PM

damn, the new tacomas are ugly

2/12/2017 9:05:34 AM

New rear main seal, oil pan gasket, oil, and filter on the jeep 4.0

2/12/2017 10:45:15 AM