What are you boys working on and what are you waiting on? What monkey wrench has been thrown in your lovely weekend plans?For me, I just discovered I need new rear drum cylinders when doing the full brake job and lift on this old tracker. Thank God, Amazon delivers on Sunday.
still cleaning the underside.went over most of it with a grinder to remove most of the rubber, now using wirewheels on angle grinder to get as close to bare metal, then i plan to sandblast it. All the underside.but this is it for the weekend. I ran out of wirewheels so ill have to pick them up on monday after work.also the holes were filled in with some body filler.previous owner did a shite job of the bodywork.Fucken hate bodywork, but my body guy said that he is only willing to do the welding part and i need to clean the underside myself or find someone else to do so. Since i couldnt find anyone who would do it without me having to ship the car across the country or without me having to gut it to the bare chassis, im stuck with the job
>>29017657shit the photo is upside down.here is another photo but before i removed the filler from the last 2 holes.also >with a grinder to remove most of the rubberby that i meant i was removing it manually with blade.
>>29017663>>29017657Must be a shit ton of dust from removing that much bondo. Makes me want to change the filters in my respirator just looking at what's left.
>>29017664honestly i just used a screwdriver to take it out in chunks.honestly it might be smart to get a respirator.but even without it my eyepro tends to fogup often and its pissing me off.
>>29017663man that rust is narsty, I just cleaned up and painted my fuel tank skid that was getting spotty with surface rust.
I did an oil change yesterday, might clean my headlights and see if I can get the sunroof to work today.
Just bought a car (Alfa) and I live in the salt belt. Spent like a grand on random parts to stockpile for a rainy day. Fuses, belt, coolant vent hose, sensors, grommets, grounding strap, etc. Did a full undercarriage inspection and it doesn't look like its ever been driven in snow before. Took pictures and recorded to plan out how I'm going to spray corrosion free formula 3000 around all the areas where salt can sit, sneak into, any little gaps, weep holes, etc. Brake fluid next week. Aux belt and tensioner week after that.
>>29018030what kind of alfa my man?>>29017677looks pretty with new coat of paint
I replaced the outer seal on my car since it was leaking pretty bad to the point of introducing air bubbles into the transmission. Unseating the CV axle caused so much contaminated-looking CVT fluid to pour out. Thankfully I have some OEM stuff on hand. Getting the seal out required dropping the front exhaust so that was a bitch, and I faffed up seating the new seal so I had to take it out and it ripped a little... fucking whatever man at least it seals now. I'll get a new seal for when that one inevitably fails
And then this shit had to happen on the driver side. The boot was so far gone it just ripped off and now the cv axle gear is stuck inside the tranny. I'm getting a slide hammer because I dont want to put any more strain on the transaxle housing. What was supposed to be a four hour job turned into an overnight fucking chore with my car still on stilts in the road and my neighbors looking at me.
>>29018038damn that sucks, you might try rotating the axle a bit and prying again, to rotate the C-clip that's holding the axle in. Eventually the gap will be facing downwards.
>>29018049thanks anon, I'll do that but I'm waiting on the slide hammer. I'm not trying to turn a 80 dollar repair into a 3000 dollar project
>>29018052Smart man. Last time I had to do that job, I at least had space to put a chisel on the axle and hammer directly instead of trying to pry.
>>29018031Giulia quad. Every car I've ever had, scan for any little cavity or seam like this where salt can sit, spray the fuck out of it in the summer or early fall so it stays hot and creeps upward. If I spray inside door frame weep holes, a few months later I see it staining the plastic on door handles and other interior bits, which means its working. CF3000 doesn't warp plastics either. Had few cars when I was younger, where fluid film warped the plastic wheel well liners.
Ran some datalogging before messing with the tune and found out I have some issues with just one cylinder pulling timing slightly. Now I've gotta start troubleshooting the coil packs/plugs/injector to figure out what needs replacing. annoying.
>>29018219wow that is clean, I see why you want to protect it
>>29018022Her smile and optimism: restored!Fixed the sunroof too. Now I just need to figure out what's wrong with the moving part of the headlights.
>>29018587oh yeah, the meguiars headlight kit would do those up nice. The sandpaper discs are the first thing to wear out, and they'll do 5 or 6 cars.
I've been doing the front end on my wife's car and its a fucking nightmare. It is literally 9 bolts per side. Im at 8 hours and still have to finish the right side. Partly my fault since I wasted quite a bit of time on the first side I did trying to get these things off instead of just going right to the angle grinder.Everything is seized and rusted. My angle grinder has removed as many bolts as my wrench. The ball joints use a 19mm castle nut that sits right under the CV axle and you cannot get a socket on it. There isn't even room to maneuver the angle grinder in. It rounds immediately due to rust. I literally took this big of a chunk out of this fucking nut and i still had to get it to move with a screwdriver and hammer and unthread it.I got a tie rod tool and the passenger side tie rod came right out. Driver's side is seized and the tool keeps slipping, so tomorrow I have to go and buy the other style of tool (looks kinda like a bike like) and an extension for my breaker bar to try and get it out. I knew this would take a while but hold fuck I've spent my whole weekend on it. Rust penetrant, propane torch, breaker bar, and angle grinder have been getting their moneys worth of use on this shit. What's worse is I also need to do ball joints on my F250, which I can only imagine will be an even bigger fucking mess.
>>29018660boy am i glad i don't live in a rust area. worst i had to deal with was 50 years of caked on mud and crud on the upper control arms that i just chiseled off. all the bolts were stuck on tight but broke loose without much further trouble.afterwards i realised i probably could've just blasted everything with the pressure washer.
>>29018626I know it doesn't look great lol, but it's a huge improvement for the $10 i spent on a set of wipes. She's 16 years old in the rust belt, she looks better than most cars her age.
>>29018684Why even do ball joints on there own? Every shitbox I've ever driven has had the ball joints pretty much integrated into the control arms. As much as it can be a pain in the ass to get them out, control arms are still usually only 3 bolts. Not trying to be condescending, I just don't have much experience with other types of vehicles.
>>29018684yeah it sucks so bad>>29018692on my wifes shitbox its 3 bolts to hold the ball joint to the control arm. they came without issue. much cheaper to buy just the ball joint.ball joint to steering knuckle was a fucking mess.
>>29018692Most things a little older have the ball joints held on with regular bolts, and even where they're riveted into the control arms, after you grind out the rivets the first time and replace them with bolts, it becomes super easy to do them again. Plus, cost of new arms vs. new joints is usually like $30 vs $150.
>>29018705>ball joint to steering knuckleThat's always been the hard part for me, even with a sledgehammer and a pry bar. >>29018706I've honestly never looked at the prices, the manuals for my last car and current one recommended just doing the whole arm since they aren't very expensive to begin with
>>29018709>even with a sledgehammer and a pry bar.That's what a pickle fork is for.
>>29018709I guess it depends on the car, but on my wifes car, the ball joint has a small metal plate on the bottom which attaches to the control arm with two nuts and a bolt. All are 17mm and all are easily accessible. Rust penetrant and a breaker bar with a 6 sided socket got all off on both sides with no issues.Getting the ball joint off the steering knuckle was a nightmare since the nut cannot be accessed with a socket and its torqued to fucking 96ft/lbs and had to be tore apart like my previous pic shows... but once the nut was off, like the other guy said a pickle fork (basically a wedge you hammer in) got it removed from the steering knuckle pretty easily.
>>29018719>>29018712Pickle fork... How have I never heard of this?? Thanks anons. Will definitely get one of these next time I need to do control arms. I was essentially using a small pry bar and small sledge for this same purpose. Somewhat related question, can driving habits influence how quickly control arms wear out?
>>29018692i was replacing all the suspenson rubbers at the time, this was just one small part of the whole thing. bushings and ball joint.ball joint is screwed in, at first i tried a 12 ft long breaker bar and it still wouldn't get it off. i ended up taking the arms to work and one of the guys in the workshop had a 1100 ft-lb cordless impact that zipped it right off like it was nothing, that was pretty damn cool.also i can't buy complete replacement arms easily, i'd have to pay race/performance part prices for aftermarket stuff with international shipping on top of that.
>>29018726>can driving habits influence how quickly control arms wear out?It's basically just the joints and the bushings that wear out unless you physically strike the metal and bend it out of shape. The more weight and force you put on that stuff, the faster it wears out. For example, my land yacht needed front lower ball joints at 100k because heavy beast, and my little suzuki offroad toy has them in perfect shape at 150k because light as a feather.
>>29018727Not to mention, the metal quality on a lot of the replacement arms is garbage these days. I'll save my 1960's heavy metal if I can.
>>29018730So absolutely sending it when I'm driving my car's ass off in the twisties, that might hurt the ball joints? Say it ain't so.
>>29018727>12 ft long breaker bar>12x multiplier cheaterJesus Christ. I thought my four foot cheater was excessive.
>>29018731the aftermarket stuff is actually decent, tubular arms that allow for more caster than factory. but not cheap at all and overkill for my application unless i ever decide to make my barge a twogay masheen.>>29018735yeah, i was yanking on the motherfucker too with all my body weight and gave up when the socket slipped and i fell back on my ass. you can imagine my surprise when that rattle gun took it off like it was a toy. the threads got pretty got too...lots of work was done
>>29018740>gothot*
>>29018735fuck im retarded. it was 6 feet, not 12. but i just called it in when yanking on it failed
>>29018726I bought a pack of various sizes on Amazon for $25. Would recommend since the ball joints and tie rod ends are different sizes
>>29018750I like the little claw foot clamp thing for tie rods, and you can rent both from the Autozone free tool rental program. That reminds me. I gotta rent a spring compressor tomorrow...
>>29018052Job's done. I got the slide hammer but it didnt work so I cut the cv axle boot that fell out, cleaned off all the mily grease, put it back inside the housing, attached clamps around all the sides of it, then pulled it out. The penetrating oil might've helped but who knows desu. The new part slid in fine and getting the exhaust back on was a bitch because I was squished up underneath my car, but everything was put back into place and I finished the repair by overfilling my tranny... I'll drive it as is but if I get bubbles then I'll siphon some out. The thing runs a hell of a lot quieter now that all that sludge fell out.
found a TDI at the junk yard, took the head, wiring harness and ecu, injection pump, gonna make another standalone harness for a rabbit truck TDI swap literally cannot stop buying TDIs and putting TDIs. in things
>Turn>SlipTurn>Slip>Turn>Slip>Slip>SlipAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH
>>29018752I'm not sure how those claw foot things work desu. The tool I rented uses a crows foot wrench and a long pipe looking thing that seats it, with a socket insert on the end. You put the crows foot over the flats on the head of the inner tie rod, insert it into the long metal tube and put a breaker bar on the end. For whatever reason my drivers side tie rod is so fucking tight that the tool just slips when I apply pressure. There is another style that uses pressure to clamp it, I'm going to buy one today and try it out. People also say you can use a pipe wrench but I don't think I have the clearance for that.>>29018823That's fucking sick dude. There was a TDI swapped 5 speed ranger on Facebook marketplace near me and k wanted it so bad
Any of you guys ever use a bolt induction heater?
Was chasing an evap issue for the longest. It was leaking smoke near the gas tank. So I dropped it to inspect and found a crack on the fuel pump. Car was previously in a collision and the whole fuel pump was cracked and broken inside, but still functional.Had to drop the driveshaft, cut the exhaust. Working in tight corners with those fuel/evap connectors. It was a pain. Welded the exhaust back with a v band clamp for easy removal in the future.
