Had a buddy bring in his 1500 Chevy that was making a horrible racket from one of the front wheels. The chevy trucks are pretty notorious for having these wheel bearing hubs go out, and they can be a rusted bugger to change out. The bearing assembly is what fails, and it is all part of the hub unit that gets replaced. First, we are going to show you how to NOT grease a suspension. One of his helpers did …
07Mar2012
Mazda 3 Engine Mount
Had the little Mazda back in the other day for an engine mount replacement. Pretty common failure on this car, the passenger mount falls apart and causes vibration at idle. The dealer quoted over $400 for this repair! The part was about 125 bucks, and a half hour of labor only! Not sure how you get $400 out of that. Didn’t even need a lift….or jackstands…..or a jack. There it is bolted to the frame. 4 bolts. The coolant tank …
07Mar2012
Suburban Knock Sensor
Did a little work on this Suburban the other day. It came in with a knock sensor code and a lean bank 2 code. The motors are prone to having water get into the rear knock sensor cavity and kill the sensor. I figured this probably was causing the lean code as well (turns out that is something else, likely a small vacuum leak somewhere). The old 5.3L v8. Top cover removed. The intake needs to be lifted up enough …
24Feb2012
Saab 9-5 Suspension Upgrades
Had this little Saab come in this week to go through the 100k+ mile suspension. No point in putting in stock Sachs shocks when you can upgrade to Bilsteins right 😉 Up and ready to go. First thing to do was to replace the front control arms/bushings/ball joints, so those were removed from the car. Yuck. Definitely an all season car. New bushing versus old bushing (front lower control arm) Rear lower control arm bushing. After that was done, we …
23Feb2012
Tundra Antennae
An odd site in the shop I know, but a buddy down the street snapped off the antennae on his 08 Tundra, and it required a full harness back to the interior to repair the issue. What nice trucks, I love my 2500hd, but this thing is sweeeet. Oh and it’s big….arh arh arh. First thing to do was to start pulling the unit out of the fender. Then move to the interior and trace the line out. You would …
20Jan2012
Infinity FX45
Daily driver business 🙂 This little FX45 came in for some needed maintenance to get it through the year. The brakes were pulsating, it was low on oil, and it needed a seat heater switch repair. All easy stuff….or so I thought 😉 On the lift ready to go. First up was topping off the fluids. Then I moved on to the rear brakes. I noticed the rear inner pad on the left was worn much more than the others, …
17Jan2012
RX-7 Continued
Due to popular request by regular subscribers, I bring you another fine RX-7 post. After getting the intake off the top of the motor, I just couldn’t 100% locate any coolant leaks. It is possible there may be some intake/throttle gaskets leaking, but even under pressure it was hard to pinpoint. Since this car is needed at school, I have to put it back together for now. Unfortunately, I found out that parts for these rotary engines are only available …
12Jan2012
Mazda Gen 2 RX-7 ABS Delete
Parts finally came in for the RX-7 ABS delete project (Non ABS lines, and the coolant pipe to replace a leak). Since the ABS pump was leaking fluid, and new ones cost about 1800 bucks, we decided to convert the entire system to non ABS. The ABS had been disconnected previously for other reasons anyway, lol. While Wes and Richard were plugging away at the chump car, I tackled this one. The leaking abs pump is on the passenger side, …
06Jan2012
Celica CEL
Had this little Celica drop by for some work due to a check engine light that was on. A little diagnostic time with the computer and we were showing bad O2 sensors. They look easy to get to…… Then the wires disappear into the interior, so there is a little work on the top side as well.
17Dec2011
Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD Work
I tried to purge this one from my memory, but came across the pictures on the camera, so figured I post it up. I haven’t updated the blog much over the last couple of hell weeks as the moment I walked out the door at night, I didn’t want to think about it until the next morning….very unlike me. So here it is: Unfortunately due to the unforeseen setbacks with this project, I didn’t get many pictures taken of the …