[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46812159]Today I fixed a broken fender and broken quarter panel on my Saturn. It now has ZERO broken body panels! The bad news is, when it gets warmer, there are 4 panels that are going to need a serious polish job to look like the rest of the car.
The quarter panel had been busted right in the center by a deer. The previous owner took the broken piece, duct taped it back into place from the inside, then filled the entire cavity between the panel and the actual chassis with SPRAY FOAM. As in, home insulation spray foam. At least two entire cans of the stuff. I had to dig out a shitton of foam just to get the bolts loose to take the panel off.
Seriously, guys, if your plasic body panel breaks, just go to a yard and get a new one. Do not fill the entire ass end of your car with spray foam. Or any part of your car.[/QUOTE]
when I popped the trunk on my buds wrecked maverick to take pictures for a friend who wanted to maybe buy it I found that at some point someone filled massive rot holes in the rear of the car with spray foam.
Massive.
[QUOTE=sHiBaN;46808515]
Also replaced my dome light with like a 50-LED panel board replacement from eBay. $2 shipped to my door and beats the dinky bulb that was there before.[/QUOTE]
I bought a ten pack of 24 LED panels a while back and I'm really impressed with how bright they are. I gave one to my brother, who put it in his 2000 Corolla and forgot about it for the rest of the day. He told me that he got off work and turned on the dome light to find something in his back seat and nearly blinded himself.
So I got the alarm working, door lock actuators installed and setup and everything jammed into their places, tied up and hooked up. This car has seriously fuck all space, I either stick it in the cluster cover which is basically just a cluster cut into and bolted on the dash or I half ass install it and jam it around the harnesses. Instead I decided to utilize about a fist sized space around the throttle cable/pedal next to the heater core and ziptie it to the speedo cable and tied back to what I assume are either brake lines, fuel lines or evap lines. I set the backup battery on top of the vents behind the cluster, jammed the module between it and put the door lock module behind the carpet behind the center console. Tomorrow I'll hook up the alarm kill and just tap some stuff off the ECU harness because I don't want any more shit under the steering column.
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5601782/EF%20Pics/2014-12-28%2019.14.12.jpg[/t][t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5601782/EF%20Pics/2014-12-28%2019.15.25.jpg[/t]
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5601782/EF%20Pics/2014-12-28%2019.40.18.jpg[/t]
[video=youtube;4Y2rKmB6b08]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y2rKmB6b08[/video]
Now my drivers window doesn't close easily and requires the strength of a thousand men to seal shut, I think I finally toasted the window reg from hammering in the door to fit the actuators. I'm just going to get a OEM window since it seems like both my cars have a retarded window that was replaced and the aftermarket glass doesn't seem to fit.
I also tried to JB Weld a gauge cluster socket back into existence, still annoying as hell though I can't actually buy bulbs for this stupid damn thing.
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5601782/EF%20Pics/2014-12-28%2021.39.39.jpg[/t]
This all went fairly smoothly other than almost no documentation on the fuse box since I spent 3 hours troubleshooting the alarm acting funny but it ended up that it was running off the battery. I feel like it's a step back a little through since now the window is screwed up and one of the valve cover studs broke when I did the VC gasket...
[editline]28th December 2014[/editline]
Oh, I also have a secondary siren in the vents that is near impossible to tell where it is because it plays straight up and blasts out everywhere even more if the defrost isn't on.
[t]http://oi60.tinypic.com/208ed8g.jpg[/t]
Fuck, what have i done.
K swap time!
Nahh, I want to see that D17 pull some awesome numbers! If you convince some ITR/CTR bits under that thing and get it all dialed in you could easily have one of like a handful all out D17 EM2s around. You could embarrass some stuff pretty hard with that if you're gonna turbo it again.
That's the goal! I'll be mounting up the new LSD transmission, clutch, any flywheel tomorrow(gonna be installing on new motor mounts).
Might try and get it all put back together, but i have until the end of Saturday to get it finished so i'm not really rushed. This is sort of intimidating though, i won't lie.
I changed the head and that wasn't so bad, but this is just different. Shit everywhere.
I've got my extra bottom end sitting in the corner there on that stand in the picture. I plan on building that at some point for the turbo setup.
This car has so much potential, i can't wait to see how far i can go with it.
I fixed some vacuum problems in the Chrysler's dash and replaced the front speakers with some new 3.5s. It sounds soooo much better than the scratchy old paper cone stock speakers.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46819247]I fixed some vacuum problems in the Chrysler's dash and replaced the front speakers with some new 3.5s. It sounds soooo much better than the scratchy old paper cone stock speakers.[/QUOTE]
I can't stand factory paper cones. It's literally the first upgrade I do in any vehicle I get. For such a cheap upgrade, it makes the whole experience much more pleasurable. The only stock speakers in my Mustang are the 8" subs that are in the door panels, because I'm trying to find replacements that will fit..
In another life, I replaced the stock paper speakers in a subaru forester with quality speakers.
They sounded worse.
I actually replaced the paper speakers.
I've had very bad experiences in car audio systems, I figure if I had installed an amp with the new speakers they would have sounded better, but that is quite a bit a time and money.
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;46819266]I can't stand factory paper cones. It's literally the first upgrade I do in any vehicle I get. For such a cheap upgrade, it makes the whole experience much more pleasurable. The only stock speakers in my Mustang are the 8" subs that are in the door panels, because I'm trying to find replacements that will fit..[/QUOTE]
The Chrysler has a rear speaker amplifier (with an amazing "press here for loud" switch under the dash) that totally drowns out the front speakers. If I had known it would sound this much better with speakers that can keep up, I would have done this job a million years ago. Even these $25 Kenwoods are amazing by comparison.
Well you got to remember that if you'll get some really meaty speakers you WILL need an amp to have them make some noise
I had 85watt RMS mid basses in the front doors for a while, they barely made any sound compared to stock speakers because I was running them without amp, put in some 50W pioneers and now I get enough bass to make the doors rattle annoyingly
[editline]30th December 2014[/editline]
Also the difference with stock head unit and the pioneer head unit I got made a HUGE difference even with stock speakers. The stock head unit didn't even play audio from the rear speakers for some fucked up reason
[IMG]http://s24.postimg.org/ni6or57md/IMG_20141229_200800_469.jpg [/IMG]
[IMG]http://s24.postimg.org/olqt33s9h/IMG_20141229_202531_051.jpg[/IMG]
Commence Operation Mud Truck
Got my Suburban as a daily driver so now I can do all the crazy stuff I want to the Bronco
Before :
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1031910/Owned%20Vehicles/92%20Chevy%201500/IMAG0193.jpg[/t]
I could eat out of this oil pan!
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1031910/Owned%20Vehicles/92%20Chevy%201500/IMAG0200.jpg[/t]
After :
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1031910/Owned%20Vehicles/92%20Chevy%201500/IMAG0201.jpg[/t]
Gotta fix all the PO fubars that you can see.
I have to say my Audi's oil pan was 50x simpler than this bastard.
But the rear main is 50x simpler on this chevy than on the audi so.... it goes hand and hand.
Just turned it from a full day of car handling. It's hard to believe i spent a whole day, and all i did was take of the old trans, clutch, and flywheel, put on the new stuff, put the engine back in the car except for the front motor mount because i lost one of the bolts (it happens..).
I'm gonna go to Lowes tomorrow and get a replacement, and should hopefully get to drive the car by thend of tomorrow! I'm excited. I hooked up the shift linkage and clutch slave fir a functions test. The clutch feels totally different, kinda close to the floor. I'm gonna bleed the clutch to be sure i have all the air out. I just can't feel the 'pop' really until it's about to be on the floor and it doesn't feel very crisp. It's heavier for sure though, but not bad.
What clutch did you go with? A pucked "racing" clutch feels and engages nothing like a OEM hydraulic full disk. I recall someone getting an Exedy Stage 1 though, that clutch is pretty similar to OEM but it's just a beefier unit for the most part.
[editline]29th December 2014[/editline]
My previously weeping clutch master also gave up after I got my ACT 6 Puck, if your clutch master and slave aren't newer it's very likely they'll start to go with a newer clutch and fresh fluid.
The slave is new, the master isn't. It's the stage 1 yeah. I was expecting it to feel exactly the same but a bit heavier. I think maybe there is air in it, and the heavier pressure plate is making it more obvious now. I hope at least.
Usually the slave doesn't go bad for the most part, the master will cause most of the bad feeling in a clutch. Don't forget to use high temp grease on the clutch release fork pivot point(little too late) and slave cylinder piston/ball end and on the fork "socket", if you don't it'll feel like crap and squeak too as I just came into this with a buddy's Civic. I'd replace the master too, they're really cheap online.
I did grease those things. The slave had to be replaced not due to a hyrdaulic failure, but one of the bolts backed out and the bracket snapped off while i was driving home from work one night. That was fun. The car is at about 150k miles and i'm pretty sure it's the original master, how long are they supposed to last?
[editline]30th December 2014[/editline]
I'll look into getting a new master cylinder if bleeding the slave some more doesn't help.
Good, well then it's definitely your master then lol. It's actually fairly common for Honda clutch masters to leak(or in rare cases on 8th gens fail) by 100k miles, I know that my buddy's 68k 93 hatch was weeping a little even. Mine leaked when I got my car at 103k and by the time I changed it 30k miles later it had already left a huge black stain on my tan carpet.
I'm not thoroughly happy with my Exedy unit as it doesn't have the proper throw and there's free play in the pedal but I can't complain for $13. and $9 for a slave. I'd opt for the Centric unit from Rockauto, seems like a pretty good deal. I'd also consider rebuilding the OEM unit as the OEM unit is far superior to aftermarket cheap imitations.
Any older volvo owners here know how difficult it is to replace the alternator and power steering belts on a 240? gotta go out to autozone to grab some belts in an hour or so but if anyone has any pointers for actually doing the swap that'd be dandy
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;46821391]Any older volvo owners here know how difficult it is to replace the alternator and power steering belts on a 240? gotta go out to autozone to grab some belts in an hour or so but if anyone has any pointers for actually doing the swap that'd be dandy[/QUOTE]
It's a 240 so probably not hard at all.
I think Siminov's got some experience with it.
[editline]30th December 2014[/editline]
His 240 burnt through a couple alts, didn't it?
Ontop of that question, do you need to get the same exact belt or do companies make kind of 'replacement' belts that fit a certain size that you can just grab
cause that'd be really nice
There are companies that make aftermarket parts for cars, yes, like serpentine belts.
im about to go double check but the belt that flew off is the middle one in this diagram
[img]http://cdn.2carpros.com/diagrams/23634/large.gif[/img]
so that looks the easiest to fix
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46819575]The Chrysler has a rear speaker amplifier (with an amazing "press here for loud" switch under the dash) that totally drowns out the front speakers. If I had known it would sound this much better with speakers that can keep up, I would have done this job a million years ago. Even these $25 Kenwoods are amazing by comparison.[/QUOTE]
I popped some cheap kickers in my old F-150 and the sound difference was amazing. If you didn't get a vehicle with "X brand soundsystem package!", then replacing the speakers will make a major difference.
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;46822698]I popped some cheap kickers in my old F-150 and the sound difference was amazing. If you didn't get a vehicle with "X brand soundsystem package!", then replacing the speakers will make a major difference.[/QUOTE]
Yup, this car had Chrysler's top-of-the-line sound system from '87. Ha.
Not true for today's cars, though. Everything made in the last 5 years that I've driven has had an excellent stereo. Plus, with the head units basically becoming a structural part of the dash, there is less and less reason to pour stereo money into a newer car.
[t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1031910/Owned%20Vehicles/92%20Chevy%201500/IMAG0203.jpg[/t]
Every god damn time.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46825862]Yup, this car had Chrysler's top-of-the-line sound system from '87. Ha.
Not true for today's cars, though. Everything made in the last 5 years that I've driven has had an excellent stereo. Plus, with the head units basically becoming a structural part of the dash, there is less and less reason to pour stereo money into a newer car.[/QUOTE]
the biggest exception to that rule:
Any GM product with this lump of shit in the dash;
[img]http://replacementradios.com/images/25850125_chevy_cobalt_radio.jpg[/img]
shittiest radio I've ever seen in a car made newer than 2000. You turn it to max volume and can hold a conversation over the output, easily. It's awful beyond words to the point that I'm breaking in to a cold sweat just thinking about it.
BUT! fear not, because you will soon forget about how shitty the stereo is when both front door speakers stop working, because they will... they always do.
Here's the culprit
[img]http://www.yourcobalt.com/forums/attachments/audio-video/334d1332043014-quick-n-easy-speaker-swap-100_1773.jpg[/img]
GM cars make me a lot of money.
Even just replacing the stock head unit in a car makes the stock speakers sound a lot better. It was noticeably better in my Cavalier, though in my brother's Corolla it was impressive. My brother doesn't give a shit about audio normally, I think he was more excited about being able to charge his phone with the USB port of the new stereo. But in the first ten seconds of listening to a local rock station, he turned to me and said he noticed a huge difference.
I replaced the front speakers in my Cavalier with some half-decent JBL speakers and added the MTX 12" subwoofer kit in the trunk, though I've been neglecting the rear speakers. Though that's summer's problem.
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