Wrenchin... Adventures under the hood... Put em here.

[Dantheman]

Body rust on my truck is worse than it appeared. Paint was minimally blistered, but just found this underneath. That cavity is close to 1/4" deep and a little over 1" dia. How screwed am I? Any way to mitigate it some and slow down the inevitable?

[m2711c]

[jamal]

Outback shocks and springs are a little longer to raise the car, plus tires are bigger to make up for the full height difference.

But in addition to the taller suspension, all the crossmembers and inner suspension mounting points are dropped down. Sticking legacy suspension on an outback without pulling all those spacers will mess up the suspension geometry. Most notably by putting the front end in a bad part of the camber curve and lowering roll centers (which means more body roll).

I got some bilsteins for a guy and put them on his tacoma recently. He's got a camper and extra rear leafs. Rides and handles a lot better now.



Should have done new front top mounts or at least tracked down something to replace the rubber shock bushings. They weren't in horrible shape but some fresh poly pucks that fit in there probably would have been reasonably easy to find. Also lower control arm hardware was all seized so I'm probably going to have to deal with that in the near future.

[Ted Striker]

@ Dan, do you have a friend with a MIG?

'cos bondo won't do shit for the rust.

[Dantheman]

No, no one I know with a MIG. Stuffing bondo into rusty holes seems ill advised.

There's 3 other spots, one as bad as that and two others that haven't gone full hole. Each one is near the corner of the bed. Getting under it there's a reinforcing piece bonded behind the body panel in each of those spots. The outer body panel is fully rusted through and the metal you can see in the hole is that reinforcing piece. The spots that don't have a hole yet are probably really bad just underneath.

I'm guessing that there was a slim gap between the two sheets of metal that held moisture and it rusted from there out. That would explain the severity of the rust underneath with minimal paint blistering on the outside. Since this seems to be the cause, maybe it will stay contained to those areas?[/hopelesswishfulthinking]

[hawkgt]

Jesus, just spent an hour trying to move the crossbars of a 2011 Traverse. The most shitty design I have seen, well done GM.

[Ted Striker]

My friends and I used to call that a rust sandwich.

If it's just the bed, and the frame is ok, I (personally) wouldn't get too excited.

[Dantheman]

Rust sandwich is exactly what it is. Nicely done, Ford. Sucks because while it is a '02 it's in excellent shape otherwise.

[John_B]

Outback shocks and springs are a little longer to raise the car, plus tires are bigger to make up for the full height difference.

But in addition to the taller suspension, all the crossmembers and inner suspension mounting points are dropped down. Sticking legacy suspension on an outback without pulling all those spacers will mess up the suspension geometry. Most notably by putting the front end in a bad part of the camber curve and lowering roll centers (which means more body roll).

You called it correct Jamal. The car is sitting significantly lower than it should be and since I do a lot of crummy travel road driving I've gotta put the correct ones in. I also only swapped the rear struts, so my car currently looks like it has 2000 pounds sitting in the trunk.

For what little it is worth it all ended up bolting together just fine.

[lifelinksplit]

Someone learned how to plug a tire today. Had full size spare but good opportunity to learn a useful skill. Also no matter how many times I use them, i still fucking hate hi-jacks despite their usefulness.

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[basinbeater]

Por15 for rust? Haven't used it myself. Supposedly it's the shit, bit finicky to apply.

sent from Utah.

[Obstruction]

Dan,

What I did on the wheel wells of my 02 beater Dakota is just repair the outer layer. Anything further would have required a full on restoration and well screw that.

So I bought some 18 gauge preformed fender panels, 3m 2 part expo you body adhesive and an applicator (like a 2 tube caulking gun) and bondo, color match rattle can and clear coat.

I cut away about 20 inches of arch about 2 inches high. Drilled holes for sheet metal screws, ground off the paint on the surrounding surface and applied the epoxy to the bare metal on the truck and the slug. Then I screws the pieces together so they would stay aligned. Next day I found off the screws and started the bondo, sanding and painting. Looked OK for home made on a beater. But I would have been pissed if I paid for it. Better paint and bondo skills would have made a real difference. It’s held up fine for the past two years. Only problem is that I probably should have gone further.

[The Tortoise]

Jesus, just spent an hour trying to move the crossbars of a 2011 Traverse. The most shitty design I have seen, well done GM.

That's absurd. I moved the crossbars on my 12 year old Highlander the other day. I am sure it was the first time they were ever adjusted and it took all of 2 minutes.

[snowaddict91]

Did the spark plugs on my 5.0 F150 yesterday at 95k miles. Guessing they were the originals (spec'd to 100k) and they had a lot of wear. Gap is spec'd at .051 and all the old ones were about .060. Seems to idle a lot smoother now and hoping to pick up a little mpg!

Pretty nice how easy of a job it is on this engine, didn't have to take anything extra out of the way!







Working dog my ass.

[Yanos]

^Glad Ford figured out how to make an engine that doesn't take a half a day to change the sparkplugs. Anyone changed plugs on a 5.4L??? Love the dog btw.

Speaking of Fords, looks like I'm buying a broken one for a project


6.0L Diesel, I know, I know... apparently I like a good challenge, or just enjoy pain.

Going to attack headgaskets, egr cooler, oil cooler and a myriad of other potential issues. After that, hopefully I like the truck enough to continue and covert the box to a winter camper. Already has two forms of heat in the box, aux batteries, inverter and insulation. Plus its 4wd. Not very incognito, but may just fit my needs.

[snowaddict91]

Man you just mentioned 5.4 and 6.0 in the same post! But yeah when I bought this truck I was specifically avoiding any 5.4s in my search.

It seems like bulletproofing a 6.0 can make a pretty solid truck, and honestly at this point most 7.3s out there are pretty damn tired. I've been wanting to build a 4x4 box truck or ambo for a long time, should be a sweet rig!

[highangle]

Man you just mentioned 5.4 and 6.0 in the same post! But yeah when I bought this truck I was specifically avoiding any 5.4s in my search.

It seems like bulletproofing a 6.0 can make a pretty solid truck, and honestly at this point most 7.3s out there are pretty damn tired. I've been wanting to build a 4x4 box truck or ambo for a long time, should be a sweet rig!

Just replaced a High Pressure Oil Pump in my old 7.3...After the "Performance 17* Stage 1 HPOP" from Diesel Auto Power in Kaysville, Ut straight up shit the bed 3 weeks out of warranty, and put me down on the side of the Sterling Highway.

Diesel Auto Power in Kaysville, Ut has so far declined to RMA the pump, since it was 3 weeks out of warranty...

[snowaddict91]

Just replaced a High Pressure Oil Pump in my old 7.3...After the "Performance 17* Stage 1 HPOP" from Diesel Auto Power in Kaysville, Ut straight up shit the bed 3 weeks out of warranty, and put me down on the side of the Sterling Highway.

Diesel Auto Power in Kaysville, Ut has so far declined to RMA the pump, since it was 3 weeks out of warranty...

Good to know. I no longer have my 7.3 but am thinking about picking up another. I will keep their name in mind to avoid since they are local.

[highangle]

Good to know. I no longer have my 7.3 but am thinking about picking up another. I will keep their name in mind to avoid since they are local.

Considering their failed pump and their behavior wrt a borderline RMA case...Not impressed.

Rlly&trlly, I just opted for that pump because turnaround time for a Dieselsite Adrenaline pump didn't fit my window right then, or something...

Upside is I met a seriously good 7.3 wrench in Soldotna. JT took about 60 seconds to diagnose the "no-start" as a mechanical rather than electronic issue, then about another minute to rule out fuel pressure. 2 minutes later, he had a liquid-filled gauge plugged into the DS oil rail. One long crank later, he was pulling the PS valve cover. Another long crank (244rpm cranking speed heh) showed no erl flowing from injector spouts.
Truck oil between hashmarks=enough to rule that out. Only thing no oil to injectors can be is hpop or lpop. Check hpop reservoir: full=not low pressure oil pump
=HPOP

Motorcraft 17* HPOP, gasket & IPR= $1080
3.4 hours shop time @ $120/hr=$408
Tow=$171
----------------------------------------------
$1659

(He also changed my oil for another hundo, but it needed that before the problem, so it's not really "a repair" per se. )
.................................................. ......................................

But a HPOP is a 300,000 part, usually. That's like, 4 vacuum pump-lives, at least.
And any well-equipped shadetree should be able to do his own HPOP too. They are easier on a 99-2003 because you don't have to pull the fuel bowl. (RIP DieselTechRon on YouTube)

[SirVicSmasher]

Just put a fuel pump in my ml430. Total time including trip to the parts store and r/r the pump twice because the float arm fell off the first time i jammed it in the tank

3hours.

Taking the seats out and replacing took the majority of the time.

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[basinbeater]

Fun times yesterday. I replaced the idler arm in the steering linkage. The clunk in the video is now gone, today I tightened a nut on the steering column (still not quite sure why this works, but it does) and the clunk went away, steering now feels tight.



sent from Utah.

[detrusor]

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve been taking the cars in to the shop a lot recently. Had some time so did the brakes on my rav last week. One hour and $500 richer.


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[powbmps]

My son bought his first vehicle over the weekend. Slightly beat up 2006 Jeep Commander with 168,000 miles (3.7L V6). Pretty sure the plugs were original. .044 gap burned into .090. Were a pain in the balls to remove. Front brakes came off much easier. Replacement parts will be here tomorrow.

Damn kids .

[Thaleia]

Completely unrelated to current discussions, but the geek in me is dying to know:

My sisters car (2005 Honda Accord) is parked here while she is travelling, hasn't been touched for about 7 weeks - I turned it on today just to see how it was doing.. It turned over and started better than expected, but a cloud of smoke came out from underneath (I was in that ass on car seat with legs on the driveway pose so it was pretty evident it came from under the car, as opposed to from the exhaust) and I'm curious if there's a common thing that could be? No real identifiable smell, just a sudden smoky cloud that appeared then cleared pretty quickly.

I'd assume it was just dust that had accumulated from it sitting but it had a purple tinge to it. Swear it was smoke.

Anyone experience something similar? I'm not worried really, just genuinely curious.

[hawkgt]

Slight valve leak? Can remember, rings white smoke and valve seals blue or vice versa.

High mileage car? Add more oil and drive it like a rental