At Home Mechanic

« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 »

July 30, 2005

My mistake

I made a big mistake; the kind of mistake that many people make. But here I am, the At Home Mechanic, making the kind of mistake that I generally chide other people for making. I am so ashamed; the only way I can repent is to confess my sin. Hopefully you will learn from my mistake and not repeat it.

The mistake I made was to ignore what my car was telling me. My car is not a special car; it has no KIT technology out of the old Knight Rider TV show. It does not tell me, "Your door is ajar," when I leave the door open with the motor running. (Do you remember when Japan sent the US "talking" cars in the early 1980's? Adapting the technology of talking dolls, the Japanese manufactures led the automobile industry in cars with prerecorded messages. Very quickly, American consumers got tired of being nagged by their cars to put on their seatbelts, get more gas or turn off their lights when the motor was stopped.)

My car was talking to me just like every other car on the road speaks to its owner. Your car and mine all speak the same language, although there are no recognizable words in this language. The language of "Car" is composed of the calliope of sounds plus the subtle nuances of symptoms our cars exhibit.

Being a car mechanic is a bit like being a Veterinarian or a Pediatrician, your patient cannot tell you what the problem is in words. But like a Veterinarian or a Pediatrician, an At Home Mechanic has to be able to interpret the signs of trouble.

Back to me and my problem: My 2003 Honda Accord was telling me that my car's battery needed to be replaced. The signs were clear, the hesitant start was a dead give away. I had a week's worth of starts that there were weak and tentative. Intellectually, I knew that all I had to do was to pop the hood to check the fluid level in the battery. At the very least, I could have put the battery on my at home charger for a couple of hours to top off the charge.

But I was swimming in an ocean of denial (And that ain't just a river in Egypt. That's a joke. Get it? Denial... river in Egypt? See? If you have to explain your jokes I guess they are not very funny). Anyway, I knew that there was a problem and I did nothing about it. And just like any dieing battery, mine died at the least opportune moment. You know what I am talking about: You are running late to an important meeting. You jump in the car, pray to the Gods of All Things Automotive to give you just one more start, turn the key and get that sickening lack of anything happening that tells you your luck has run out.

The key mistake I had made was not popping the hood to check the battery. I assumed that my new-ish car came with a modern sealed battery that has no provision of service. Of course once I did look at the battery I could see that it was an old fashioned battery with a service port. The recent spate of hot weather had allowed the fluid in the battery to evaporate to the point that the cells were uncovered and the battery was cooked. I could have gotten another year or so of useful life out of that battery if I had been paying attention.

A handy set of jumper cables, and a helpful neighbor got my car started. It cost me about $75 to replace the battery, which is a financial kick in the butt to remind me to not ignore what my car is telling me.

Listen to your car; be sensitive to the warning signs. And then act on the problem when the car starts telling you about them.

Posted by Scott at 3:34 PM | Comments (2)

July 29, 2005

Cars and Perception

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling new book Blink he explains the human phenomenon of making a nearly instantaneous judgment about a person, a place or a situation. Even if we cannot articulate what causes us to form an opinion so quickly, we intuitively react to stimuli based upon small clues that we subconsciously perceive. If your eye does not get all the visual clues it expects from a car's design, your subconscious is inclined to dislike the car.

Gladwell sighted a marketing research investigation of a particular brand of inexpensive brandy that was losing market share to a rapidly rising competitor. Blind taste tests by consumers could not identify a significant difference in the two products. When the products were identified to the test subjects by their bottle, the competitor's brandy emerged as a clear favorite. But when the brandy within the bottles was switched so that the competitor's brandy was in put into the bottle of the slipping brand, the rising competitor's more impressive looking bottle tilted the test tastes to the brandy in the fancy bottle. The researchers found that consumers were making an instantaneous selection of the competitor's brandy strictly because of the more impressive and attractive packaging.

This should not be news to automobile designers. Supposedly they know that if the new car buying customer does not get an immediate positive response to the shape/style/look of a car, he just will not like it no matter how accomplished the mechanicals are under the body. But sometimes a design slips through that fails because of a simple omission.

One of the best examples of a very good car that did not sell well due to a cosmetic design fault was the original Infiniti Q45. The most expensive and luxurious model of Nissan's upscale Infiniti name plate, the Q45 got nothing but great reviews from the car magazines and it was poised to be a sales success in its upscale sedan market. There was nothing radically different about the Q45; it looked pretty much like all the other full sized luxury sedans in its class. It came with a powerful V8, leather seats and a wood paneled interior.

What it did not have was the deciding factor for the older, conservative consumers of expensive luxury sedans consumers to reject it. Rather than sporting a conventional radiator grill, it had a blunt front panel with no discernable opening. The car had no radiator grill. This lack of a single design element was enough to put off the Q45's target. Responding to dealer's demands, Infiniti added a "radiator grill" opening with the requisite chrome gilding the following model year and the car became a reasonably successful seller.

You can instantly identify a Rolls Royce by its Greek Revival radiator housing, you can tell it is a BMW by the twin kidney shaped openings and the Bentley is known by its wire mesh grill. Even if the make and model are not known for a particular radiator shape, a sedan as pedestrian as a Camry or an Accord has a ceremonial grill because consumers of sedans will reject a car that is missing an important design element such as a radiator grill.

How was it that Infiniti could sell a car without a radiator grill? Today's radiators draw the majority of the cooling air from below the front bumper; modern car designers have found that they can generate better airflow through the cooling system with this technique. That shiny "radiator grill" that you proudly polish on your modern cars is as functional as a set of tail fins on a 1958 Desoto.

The Infiniti Q45 was a conventional car targeted for a conventional market, its unconventional looks made it a flop with its intended market. But unconventional looks can be an advantage when manufacturers are looking to appeal to an unconventional market segment.

The original VW beetle was not a major success in America until VW recognized that they had a unique product that needed a unique consumer. They directed their advertising toward quirky individualists; generally better educated and younger than the broad car consumer market. The VW target market adopted the Beetle as a fashion statement as much as a mode of transportation. And this pioneering market segmentation paved the way for loveably odd-looking cars to find their niche in America.

Posted by Scott at 6:13 AM | Comments (2)

July 28, 2005

Maintenance

The cost of owning an automobile is not restricted to the purchase price, petrol and insurance protection. Maintaining your car has a cost and ignoring your car's preventative routine will end up costing you more in the long run. Motor oil is the lifeblood of your engine, changing it every 3,000 miles is cheap insurance that your engine's innards will live to serve you for as long as you can possible want to own your car. And a regular check of your tire pressure will enhance tire life and reduce fuel consumption.

All the other service items your car may require are in your car's owner's manual contains a list of regularly scheduled maintenance items that you should be doing to your car on a routine basis. But if you are like me and nearly every other new car owner, once you figure out how to program the clock and the radio, the owner's manual gets stuffed back in the glove box until the next Daylight Saving's Time.

Even the most ardent At Home Mechanic will begin to tire of checking the fluid levels ("They were fine a couple of months ago"). Gas stations that offer truly Full Service disappeared with 25-cent gasoline; nobody is offering to check your tire pressure, oil level or coolant level any more. If you are vigilant, you could do all that stuff yourself at your local Self-Serve gas station. But the reality of modern life is that you only dash in and out of the self-serve with time only for some gas with a Big Gulp, a Slim Jim or an order of double latte to go.

Your new car dealer is more than happy to help you keep your car serviced regularly, in many cases he will give away oil changes for little or no money. The dealership makes it most money from the service department so their motivation is to sell you service and repairs that your car may not strictly need. His motive is to get you car on a rack so that the service writer can call you with the grim news that unless you change the coolant right now, they cannot be held responsible for your car's engine lasting the night.

Roadside retail oil change specialists aggressively advertise low cost, high-speed oil changes for the busy motorist. But their profit margin on an oil change is razor thin so the real money in that business is selling air filters, windshield wipers, and radiator flushes. Those helpful young people writing down the details of your make, model and mileage are also subtly pressuring you to add-on services that will drive your bill beyond the range of a crisp portrait of Ben Franklin.

So how do you protect yourself? Start by digging out that Owner's Manual in the glove box. When exactly does the manufacturer recommend a coolant change, a transmission service or a tire rotation? Does it match what the kid with the clipboard is telling you?

While there is no danger in servicing your car earlier than recommended, there is no reason to spend more than you need to as well. Get the details from your service manual. Be prepared to look that kid straight in the eye and tell him to keep his lubrication system flush, his fuel injector cleaner and his radiator service to himself until your car is truly in need.

Posted by Scott at 7:32 AM | Comments (2)

July 27, 2005

Physics and cars

Physics is a daunting topic to most people. All that egghead, Einstein, stuff about splitting the atom and the time space continuum is just to so hard to grasp. So when I say that physics is the single most important topic that an automotive engineer can study and the principles that can be learned from physics are applied to car design and improvement, I can hear you groan and roll your eyes.

But if you go back to the father of modern physics, Sir Isaac Newton, the apple falling on his head and his writings about the principles of bodies in motion, you have the basis of the science of making a car go and stop. I could bore you worse than you are already are but instead I will boil it down to a few basic points: A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Throw in some ancient Egyptian discoveries about leverage and you have all need to know to improve the performance of your car. Got that? Good. There will be quiz on this materiel at the end of the week.

So what does this have to do with your car and its performance? Bottom line: It is easier to make a light car go, stop and turn a corner than a heavy car. An American Muscle car that weighs3800 lbs with a 400 horsepower engine has a power to weight ratio of 9.5:1, you only need to create about 300 horsepower in a 2800 lbs. car to get the equivalent power to weigh ratio.

Where the weight is on your car makes a difference also. As an extreme example, think if you had a couple hundred pounds hanging off the front bumper of your car. That weight acts like a pendulum when you turn a corner; your car will want to continue to turn after you straighten the steering wheel due to the momentum of that weight. This example demonstrates the principles of both a body in motion combined with leverage and how they act on your car. So by this example we have learned that we want as much of the cars weight within the wheelbase of your car to fight this pendulum effect.

The height of the weight in your car makes a difference as well. All those SUV's on the road have a very high center of gravity and it is relatively easy to push them over. Again, leverage and the principle of bodies in motion act together to tip over a tall vehicle with its high center of gravity. So clearly, a car with its weight as low as possible is less likely to tip over and can turn a corner more quickly.

As an aside it is easy to determine approximately where the center of gravity (CG) is on your car. Roughly, the CG on a modern car is about the height of the driver's seat bottom cushion. I can judge how well a car will withstand tipping motion by standing next to the vehicle. If the seat cushion is at my knee or lower, the car has a fair chance of being safe and stable in an emergency maneuver. Many SUV's and trucks put the driver's seat bottom at hip level or higher; you can expect those autos to be candidates to roll over much more easily.

As the American consumer base ages, car buyers as a class prefer taller cars that are easier for older, less flexible drivers to get in and out of. Other consumers prefer the view form a higher seat position. This has induced manufacturers to create taller cars that sacrifice stability for comfort. I prefer a low-slung car that has a better chance of safely maneuvering around an obstacle that might suddenly appear on the road.

Posted by Scott at 8:13 AM | Comments (1)

July 26, 2005

Join the club?

All I wanted to do was join the club. I figured that if I got a cool old car, I could join the cool old car club. In retrospect, my image of a car club was terribly out of whack with reality. In my fantasy of what a car club should be, I expected to find a group of professional people who gather upon manicured lawns to tastefully appreciate achievements in the automotive arts. Think of a lawn party from The Great Gatsby crossed with a sherry tasting in the Oxford faculty lounge... with some cool old cars in the background. I expect that sort of car club exists somewhere, but not for those of us who appreciate Hondas.

The real problem was that I got back into the car hobby after an extended hiatus. As a teen I had built and rebuilt foreign and domestic cars for fun and profit. But I put that all aside for a television career and a family life for about twenty years. Sliding into my early 40's and its concurrent mid-life crisis angst, I chose to get a little red sports car as my outlet rather than engage in an age inappropriate liaison that could jeopardize my happy marriage. I had my eye on a couple of little cuties (cars) and I figured that ownership of a cool car would allow me to join The Club.

My Uncle is a Morgan man. The automotive object of his desires is a 1960 Morgan Plus Four which is as typical an English sports car as ever existed. To be a member of the Morgan Club one you practically are required to wear a tweed coat with leather elbow patches and smoke a Bier pipe. The Morgan Club is a linen tablecloth affair; they throw wine and cheese parties and plan trips up the Coast for a Spa Weekend at a fabulous resort.

Dad has restored and enjoyed a variety of Fords, but the five Mustangs that have passed through his garage tell you his major automotive allegiance. He and Mom have been members of the Mustang club for years and they attend the club meetings. More of a back-room-of-the-local-Denny's affair, the Mustang club is well organized with regularly scheduled shows and rallies.

Toss in the image of the local Corvette Club (a gathering of really successful Plumbers) the Ferrari Club (a gathering of really successful Dentists) and the Porsche Club (a gathering of really successful Jerks) and I had created in my mind's eye of what a car club should be: Mature folks who organize sedate social soirees with a couple of days each year at the local racetrack so that we can exercise our favorite cars.

When it came time to pick a hobby car, I did the research on the cars but I did not research the car clubs. I figured that an appropriate club would support whatever car I chose. After long and careful thought, I picked an early version of the Honda CRX as the right combination of solid engineering and competitive performance. I was right about the car, I was wrong about the Honda Club.

Actually, there is no "Honda Club" per se. I was expecting a nationally organized association with maybe a little encouragement from the manufacturer to continue to buy and enjoy their products. But that is not in Honda of North America's marketing strategy so the organization of any kind of club to enjoy Honda products is left to the owners.

I have discovered that the owners of Hondas fall into two distinct categories: The general public who buy and use Hondas like the reliable household appliance they are. And a sub-culture of quasi-law abiding performance freaks that the manufacturer may not care to acknowledge.

The Honda-as-an-appliance crowd only cares that their cars run reliably, hold their resale value at trade-in for another Honda and have no interest in Car Clubs. This leaves the potential group of Honda club members to The Freaks (and I do not use this term in a pejorative manner as I consider myself one in spirit).

Generally a younger, less affluent and ethnically diverse, the performance crowd that is drawn to Hondas may loosely organize into "crews" but the limit of their organization is to spread the word about possible mid-night street races. At first glance to the casual observer, the typical gathering of Honda performance fans looks like a gang fight about to erupt. Closer inspection finds nice kids who are stylishly attired in baggy clothing listening to contemporary music that Hips and Hops.

I enter into this world as a bald, fat suburban white man old enough to be their father. My search for chronological or socio-economic contemporaries in the world of Honda performance has proven fruitless in my local area. Conventional Wisdom holds that guys like me should be playing with American Muscle Cars and leave the "rice burners" to the kids. And so it seems to be; I am an anomaly within the world of Honda performance.

My car is "just" a "lowly" Honda, the other clubs do not want to know about me and my Japanese econo-box; there is no club for me to join. It is not so bad, I get invited to participate in track day events at the local road course and I try to run as many Autocross events as I can in my area. But the social scene for us older Honda lovers is pretty thin.

Posted by Scott at 8:26 AM | Comments (1)

July 25, 2005

Lessons learned in school

Did you take shop class in Junior High School? Back in the days of adequate public school funding and less emphasis on college preparation, young men were given instruction in the "Manufacturing Arts" and young ladies were taught "Home Economics." Conventional wisdom of the time held that we needed to prepare your youth for their eventual careers: Men on the assembly line and girls at home keeping house. American society has outgrown this quaint anachronism, (although the children's school year is still constructed around a three month summer holiday so the young'uns can be home to help bring in the crop at the family farm). Shop class is now a distant memory for us older folks, kids today are more likely to get a computer arts class that is certainly more relevant to today's job market. Which is kind of a shame since the basic skills learned in shop class are important to the At Home Mechanic.

We learned in Wood Shop how to appreciate the danger of power tools; at least one kid each year discovered a way to permanently disfigure himself with the band saw. In Metal Shop we learned that making toolboxes was boring, but you could use scrap sheet metal to make your own Ninja Throwing Stars (imagine a palm-sized, star-shaped Frisbee, used for teen-aged mischief), which would be confiscated if found by the shop teacher.

But we also learned how to use hand tools, the importance of measuring carefully twice so that we only needed to cut once and we gained confidence in fabricating something from raw materials as opposed to assembling form a kit of pre-formed parts. Fabrication is to assembly from a kit as free hand painting is to paint by numbers.

There is eventually come a time in the garage when the "guaranteed to fit" parts may not or you will be forced to make what you need on your own because no one sells that kind of part for your car. Those fabrication skills will serve you well in this situation. I take pride in being able to define a problem and then design a solution using scrap metal and my imagination. A garage vice, a ball peen hammer and a hacksaw have served my needs well.

I created a front air dam for a 1958 VW Beetle using sheet metal, a hand drill and some screws. I made a new set of seat supports for a 1966 Mustang using a hacksaw and some angle iron. And I have fab'ed a Cold Air Intake for my 1987 Honda CRX from some PCV plumbing supplies. While none of these items will ever earn a design award, they are perfectly functional. And I was able to make them from raw materials because I had the experience of building stuff from scratch that dates back to Junior High School shop class.

My next fabrication project is also for the '87 CRX. I am going to remove the power sunroof and all of its associated mechanism from the car and I need something to fill the hole that will be left in the roof. I could just screw down a sheet of metal over the hole, but that offend s my aesthetic sensibilities, I want something that looks as if I made an effort to creatively solve this problem. So I will be doing some fabricating to make a slick filler for the resulting hole and I will be posting the process in the coming days.

Posted by Scott at 7:19 AM | Comments (2)

July 24, 2005

Orphans

My heart goes out to orphans. Foundlings, puppies and kittens all tug at my heartstrings but the orphans I am speaking about are orphans cars. An orphan car is one whose parent company has gone out of business, leaving a small but loyal group of car owners all alone in the world.

Car companies come and car companies go, but the products they leave behind often find a loving home that wishes to preserve and conserve them for years to come. Name plates like La Salle, De Soto and Studebaker are only distant memories and a few remaining survivors. Over the course of the last couple of years, once strong sellers like Plymouth and Oldsmobile have been dropped by their corporate parents for lack of consumer interest. In the former examples, loyalists blame Chrysler and General Motors for failing to sufficiently creating enough product distinction for sow sales. But the sad truth is that the abundance of manufacturing over capacity for North American car manufacturers made reducing nameplates a must.

Orphan cars are not totally alone in the world; stockpiles of spare parts are generally good for even the most obscure obsolete marques. Entire industries are dedicated to keep old cars in spare parts; a simple search on the Internet can help you find a Rambler radiator or a Hudson header.

But there is another type of orphan car, and for some reason these cars end in my collection. This other type of orphan car is the sports coupe that is no longer is or never was supported by the Aftermarket. The Aftermarket is the hundreds of companies that make the "go fast" parts for cars. Better flowing intake systems, higher compression pistons, stiffer suspension stuff, and much more does not come from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) but from small to medium sized businesses who cater to the auto enthusiast market.

The Aftermarket is interested in making money so they tailor their products to what sells. Lots of people want to improve the performance of their Mustangs, so the Mustang Aftermarket is large and robust. Very few people want to improve the performance of their Mercury Marquis, so the Aftermarket for that car is nearly non-existent. That all makes perfect sense.

What does not make sense is the lack of Aftermarket support for some popular sport coupes. And I am not talking about product offerings from some obscure Serbo-Croatian cobbler; I am talking about reasonably good selling Honda products. Honda products have led the renaissance of interest in the automobile hobby that has blossomed in the last 15 years amongst young consumers. The Aftermarket for most of the Honda product line is deep and wide, meaning it is nearly possible to build a Honda Civic strictly from the parts available at your local import speed shop.

But I have had the misfortune to fall in love with maybe the only two Honda products that is not supported by the Aftermarket with any kind of enthusiasm. My 1987 Honda CRX was once at the cutting edge of the current Sport Compact Car phenomenon. At its introduction in the 1984 model year, the CRX became the prototypical Honda performance platform in America. The Aftermarket quickly embraced this car and a good supply of performance enhancing parts came to market. But when Honda fundamentally changed the design of the CRX and its sibling the Civic in the 1988 model year, the Aftermarket dropped the older CRX like a hot potato. Today, is I need or want a performance part my choices are slim. I have found that my best source for performance parts are garage sales, eBay auctions and my local junkyard. But at least the parts for my car were once available and can be found with a little scrounging.

The other enthusiast car in my stable is a 1990 Honda Prelude 2.0 Si. This car might just as well never have been born as long as the Aftermarket is concerned. Other than some sketchy Cold Air Intake kits from eBay and some dodgy looking body kits the Aftermarket ignores this car. This handsome sports coupe featuring a torquey 2 liter B-series Honda engine and a fully independent double wish bone suspension and four wheel disk brakes is an orphan at the performance parts counter.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the lack of things to buy for the Prelude is going to save me a lot of money in the long run. Rather than plotting how I will spend my next paycheck making the Prelude faster, I will be saving my money for the next "fun" car I will buy. Do you suppose the Ford Thunderbird has much Aftermarket support? If I buy one, you can count on any that exist to immediately dry up.

Posted by Scott at 5:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2005

Project time

How often do you take on a new project on your car? Obviously you can not wait to fix a car that is your daily ride to work, school, etc. But those discretionary jobs, the hot-up jobs, the "make it run better" or "make it look cooler" jobs; how often do you take them on? If you spend every free moment in the garage with the project car your social life is going to suffer. So how do you space out the time you spend playing with the car?

Is it based upon money? Do you only buy parts and work on the car when you are flush with cash? In my case the performance parts to improve my old Honda CRX are hard to come by; when you find them you have to buy them. But I have been known to let a set of parts sit on my work bench until I have the courage to tear apart a working engine, suspension, brakes, etc. So in my case my hobby car work is not regulated by money alone.

Do you let a deadline inspire you to start or finish a project? Is a car show, enthusiast's meet or race coming up and you want to be ready for that? I have to admit that I have been known to hurry up a project so I can show off for the other guys. And you always want to be prepared for a race so that is a good incentive to get something new ready on the car. But a deadline is not the most important factor in determining when I start or finish because my car is generally ready to go to the show or the track.

After long thought on this topic I realized that there is a subconscious timing device that regulates how often I take on a new project in the garage. I have just recently come to recognize that I will not take on a new project in the garage until the wounds on my hands heal from the last project.

Even though I wear protective mechanics gloves when I am busting bolts in tight spaces and I wear latex gloves when handling fluids and grease, the At Home Mechanic's hands do take some wear and tear when working on the car. A small cut or scrape is fairly routine for every project, a major gash is the price to be paid about once a year or so.

The guarantee that you will do injury to yourself while working on the car is not an enticing inducement to take up the hobby, is it? But there is a macho pride in displaying your scars to the guys; think of them as badges of honor. No pain, no gain.

Of course if I was more careful maybe I would not be injury prone. Maybe if I read the service more carefully I could find a more adroit method of getting into tight spots. But as Popeye the Sailor proclaimed, "I yam what I yam." In this case I am just a clumsy but enthusiastic At Home Mechanic.

Posted by Scott at 3:57 PM | Comments (2)

July 22, 2005

Does ATC and ABS hate your tires?

Automatic Traction Control (ATC) and Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) are a pair of great modern safety features on many modern automobiles that will give less-than-fully attentive drivers a chance to recover from a driving mistake. These systems prevent your tires from skidding, which in turn allows the tire to maintain as much traction as possible. And with that traction, the driver can stop or steer the car away from danger.

ATC and ABS both use a system of sensors in each wheel of your car that is linked to central computer. The computer compares the rate upon which each wheel is turning. If the computer senses enough difference in the rate that wheels are turning, it will send signals to the either the engine (for Traction Control) or the brakes (for Anti-lock Brakes) to keep the tires turning no matter how slippery the road or how hard you mash on the brakes.

In the top levels of auto racing, primarily in Europe and Asia, ATC and ABS combined with very sophisticated automatic transmissions are incorporated in the design of racecars to wring the last bit of speed out of the cars. But all that technology is complicated and expensive so race organizers who want to keep costs down for competitors outlaw this technology.

So this ATC and ABS stuff is great right? Well when it works, it is pretty darn good. For the average inattentive driver on the cell phone, it could be the margin of safety that prevents an accident. Personally, I am of the opinion that an attentive driver who drives within the limits of the car, the road and his own abilities does not need all this "nanny" technology for normal driving. And I have seen reports that ATC and ABS can be a disadvantage in gravel and snow. Apparently, being able to lock up the tires on those surfaces allows a "wedge" of gravel or snow to build up in front of the tires and facilitate stopping.

OK, so most of the time ATC and ABS are great. And I would not avoid buying a car because it has this technology. But sometimes the ATC and ABS lights will light up on your dashboard for no apparent reason. And in some circumstances, you will feel the Traction Control "grip" your wheels to prevent slippage when you are on a dry surface. Why would this happen?

It is not unknown for this mysterious bad behavior by ATC and ABS to be caused by tires that have worn unevenly or just have different air pressure. If your tires are approaching the end of their usable tread, there could be enough slippage to set off the systems. And you can imagine the havoc that would be played with the system if you put miss-matched tires on your car. So if your car is alerting you to ATC and or ABS activity when you do not think it should be, check your tires for wear or uneven inflation.

Posted by Scott at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)

July 21, 2005

Point of impact

What is the single most vulnerable spot on any car when driven by a new driver? I can say with absolute confidence that the one point on any automobile that is most likely to suffer from a new driver's over confidence is... the right front corner of the car. Even though it is within the line of sight of the driver, because it is slightly off center from where the driver is looking, it might as well be invisible to the new driver.

How do I know that this is the point of impact most commonly struck by the new driver? In my first week of driving my Mom's then-new 1971 Ford Pinto, I found a way to burry the right front corner of the Pinto into the fender of a parked truck while making a U-turn. I was concentrating so hard on the inside diameter of the turn I was making, I did not consider the consequence of my wide turn. The result was a crumpled right front fender, a sympathetic truck driver who never mentioned it to his boss (his damage was barely noticeable, but the Pinto took it hard) and my Dad made sure that I learned my first lesson in hands-on body and fender repair.

Thirty-three years later, my nearly 16-year-old son Andrew is learning to drive and he has found a way to smack the same point of our family sedan, a 2003 Honda Accord, into perfectly innocent cement wall while pulling into a parking spot at the local mall.

Andrew is driving as much as possible under the supervision of a licensed driver under California's Learner's Permit program. As I have written earlier, he is doing a good job operating the automatic transmission-equipped Accord and we have purchased a 1990 Honda Prelude with a 5-speed transmission, which will become his daily driver when he gets his Driver's License. Now that he has had some time behind the wheel of the manual transmission Prelude, he assures me that driving the auto-tranny Accord "is easy." Maybe too easy. While he must give his fullest concentration to driving the stick shift car, the automatic-equipped car allows a young mind to wander.

And wander it did, because he was watching the left front corner of the Accord as he pulled into the angled parking spot. The poor, defenseless right front corner got short shrift and a crunch into the wall.

Maybe I am at fault for Andrew's first contact with a solid object while driving. I was the licensed driver riding with him at the time, and legally I bear the burden of responsibility of his actions behind the wheel. As such my job is to instruct and critique as he navigated the local roads.

Under the very best of circumstances I am a very poor passenger, I prefer to be the master of my destiny and generally do not trust the driving skills of others. As a nervous parent with responsibility for my son's misadventures while motoring, I tend to keep a steady stream of instruction flowing while Andrew drives. "Not too close to that parked car. Traffic is slowing, use your brakes. That was not a complete stop." And so on.

I constantly have to withstand the withering sarcasm and exasperating eye rolling of the Modern American Teen when I am giving this lifesaving help. Nothing will deafen a teenager faster than the sound of his parent giving advice. As we approached the wall that was about to be struck, I went into protective-mode. Issuing warnings about the impending impact with the wall in rapid-fire succession only worked against the wall, the Accord's front bumper and me. The more I warned, the more he ignored. Andrew's full concentration was on the front left corner of the car in his direct line of sight and the right front corner's distance to danger was ignored.

The impact was at crawling speed, the wall will live to see another day. The impact resistant front bumper of the Accord resisted the impact with no structural damage although the paint was gouged from the plastic bumper cover. From a distance it is barely noticeable, but the anal retentive such as myself it is a mar that will live with the car infinitely. And Andrew's confidence got shaken just a bit from the impact and the righteous tongue-lashing I unleashed on the poor guy, "I told you to not hit the wall! But nooooo, you would not listen."

And thankfully the lesson learned from the first "crash" came at a pretty small price for Andrew. After I crumpled my Mom's Pinto I have never had another appreciable automobile accident. Hopefully Andrew's minor brush with the wall will be all the experience he needs to avoid any other incidents.

Posted by Scott at 8:40 AM | Comments (1)

July 20, 2005

No more American F1 Champions?

The United States is not likely to produce another native born Formula 1 world champion in the foreseeable future. The US can rightfully claim Phil Hill as our only native-born Formula 1 champion and we will also claim Italian-born, but US-raised, Mario Andretti as the last American champion of the world's premier auto race series. I can reliably make the prediction of a dearth of new road racing talent springing from American shores ever again based solely upon the emergence the dominance of one particular type of racing in America. It is a form of auto racing that is sucking the life blood out of every other form of American automotive competition by attracting all of the emerging driving talent into its dark hole. Once attracted like moths to light, these talent young drivers who otherwise could be representing the US on the major road racing courses of the world are enslaved into the grip of this uniquely American form of racing, never letting them escape.

I am speaking of NASCAR and its overwhelming popularity in the United States. Arising from the backwoods and sandy beaches of the American South, NASCAR has morphed from a regional curiosity of lightly prepped, "stock" cars driven by near-amateur drivers to a national attraction of spec-series cars, (All manufacturer marques represented in NASCAR are using a common body shell and largely similar suspensions. Only the engines differ amongst the brands and they are regulated to such a degree that the power difference is largely nil.) Driven by hugely compensated professional drivers on largely undemanding oval tracks, NASCAR is a huge money creating enterprise that absorbs the cast majority of sponsorship money (the Mother's Milk of professional auto racing) available in the United States. The only other auto-racing event that can compete for the hearts and wallets of the American consumer is the Indy 500. And that is barely surviving on the life support of long-standing tradition that has made the Memorial Day race a part of American heritage and the recent excitement of Danica Patrick becoming the most successful woman race car driver in the nearly 100 year history of the Indy 500.

As NASCAR grows and absorbs more of the racing limelight in America, the gravity of its attraction to young US drivers grows. The bright lights and big money that sustains the dreams of youngsters wishing to be a professional race car driver are glowing brightest on the NASCAR end of the American racing spectrum. The entry-level point onto the road to NASCAR stardom is relatively low; local oval track events are cheap and easy to get started with. The cost of equipment is relatively cheap and success in all forms of oval track racing is more dependent upon courage than skill. An American youngster can climb the racks of NASCAR stardom and develop his career in his figurative backyard of the US without having to prove his ability against the world's best drivers competing on road racing courses, primarily in Europe.

If an American youngster wishes to chase the dream of starring in any of the upper reaches of road racing, he must eventually leave the US to live and compete in Europe. While Asia is emerging as a growth market for road racing, Europe is the center of gravity for the international road racing community. As early as 14 years old is the time to be jockeying for a single seat, open wheeled ride that matters and it takes a truly special teen and his equally dedicated family to withstand the expense and separation that chasing the Formula 1 dream requires. The competition for a chance to rise in road racing is the most highly skilled imaginable. Rather than just turning left in a circle, these drivers are making decisive moves over tracks that can throw a dozen or more variations of left and right turns that must be driven as a complete set rather than a few barely connected bends in the same direction.

The money that comes with success in Formula 1 is astronomical, the worlds highest paid athlete is seven time F1 champion Michael Schumacher at about $60 million per year. But the majority of road racing professionals make nowhere the same kind of money that comes relatively easily to even a mid-field driver in NASCAR's lazier form of auto racing.

So as long as the money is easy, the entry points for youngsters remain relatively accessible, and you do not have to leave your home country for the unknown of a foreign culture it is highly unlikely that any home grown American will ever emerge as a world champion of road racing on the Formula 1 circuit.

Posted by Scott at 8:11 AM | Comments (1)

July 19, 2005

Read with caution

The automobile enthusiast magazines are not your friends. In fact, these magazines will publish deceptive or even flat out wrong information deliberately. And gullible readers will spend their money and waste their time making "improvements" to their car's performance that may not be needed or that actually reduce performance. Is every car magazines evil? Heck no, but a discriminating reader needs to be skeptical of claims and that same reader should know that there may be cheaper alternative ways of achieving the same performance.

The magazine business is interesting. Every magazine has a lifestyle personality and a target demographic. By carefully styling the contents, a magazine tries to attract that lifestyle demographic as readers or more importantly they are trying to attract people who aspire to that lifestyle. For example Yachting probably sells as many issues to people who wish they could afford a yacht as they sell to actual yacht owners.

With the exception of club newsletters that are home printed, bound with a stapler and distributed by hand, auto enthusiast magazines are businesses designed to make money. The cover price of a magazine is a small drop in the bucket in terms of magazine revenues; the cover price just about covers the cost of distributing the magazines to newsstand and home delivery.

The real money in the magazine business is selling advertising. Manufacturers make money by selling their products and they advertise in car magazines to help sell those products. It is quickly apparent that the cozy relationship between the magazines and their advertisers exist. The magazines are happy to feature manufacturers products on their pages and the advertisers are happy to buy paid advertising in the same issue that has feature stories about their products.

Reading the typical car magazine, the casual reader could easily be convinced that larger wheels and tires are the key to better performance. The concept of "Plus One" and "Plus Two" wheel and tire sizing (adding a set of wheels that is one or two inches larger than stock diameter and adding tires that are a correspondingly smaller in profile to create a wheel and tire combination that ahs the same outside diameter as the stock wheels and tires) is often featured in the enthusiast magazines. But what the magazine will not tell you is that larger, heavier wheels will reduce your acceleration and create more unsprung weight. Combined with changing the moment of inertia (Moving the weight of the wheels outward with large diameter wheels creates more inertia to overcome) and those flashy new wheels have made your car slower.

So read and enjoy the car enthusiast magazines, but keep a skeptical attitude when they tell you what parts and services you "need."

Posted by Scott at 7:24 AM | Comments (2)

July 18, 2005

The shape of cars part 3 of 3

We continue to examine the shape of cars in this the final installment of three.

For consumer cars, the wing at the rear of the car and the front air dam below the front bumper have become profit centers for manufacturers, dealers and the aftermarket. Rear wings out of all proportion are sprouting on trunk lids. While the aesthetic value of these wings is debatable, their function is nearly nil as they sit on street cars. Creating a hazard to the driver's vision and a comical visual blight upon otherwise respectable automobiles, the rear wing is at best a homage to the truly functional wings that function to create true down force on race cars.

On the other hand the front air dam on most cars generally serves a real purpose. Popularized by General Motors in the early 1970's to direct more cooling air to the radiators, these little extra bits under the front bumper can also prevent some air from passing under the automobile. Reducing the amount of air passing under the car in turn helps to prevent lift. On my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si that is reserved for sporting purposes and is retired from daily use, I have combined a deep front air dam that allows only a small amount of air under the car with a very large passage under the rear bumper to speed what little air does get under the car out from under it. This combination acts to create a tiny amount (and I do mean a tiny amount) of vacuum that helps to suck the car down on to the road.

Aerodynamic considerations are incorporated into automotive designs and it is why many different manufacturers create cars that seem to appear similarly. Perhaps the most predominate characteristic of modern cars is the high trunk. The rear area of cars has gotten higher and higher over the years as designers have come to recognize that air flows more smoothly over a car if it is slightly wedge shaped. And because the laws of physics apply equally to all automobiles, various different brands of cars are all beginning to resemble each other. And the distinction we used to associate with style has become a victim of the times.

Posted by Scott at 7:21 AM | Comments (1)

July 17, 2005

The shape of cars part 2 of 3

We continue to examine the shape of cars in the second of three parts.

In the 1960's innovative Texas racer car builder and racers Jim Hall introduced the concept of the wing to motor racing. Standing on stanchions well above the car and flying in the clean air traveling above the car's body, Hall's wing was a revolution in extra down force for racecars. But a wing also has a cost in drag, the down force acts like an anchor when you are trying to travel at the greatest speed in straight line. Hall designed his wing to flatten out for the straight and to dip down for extra down force when the brakes were applied for a turn. It was not long before other racers complained and the moveable wing was soon banned. But the floodgates of wings were let loose on nearly every form of auto racing and wings appeared in a bizarre variety.

Racecar driver and builder Dan Gurney made the major improvement to the wing in the early 1970's. He discovered that putting a small "lip" at the trailing edge of a wing works to increase the effective area of the wing. The Gurney Flap as it became known seems counter intuitive, this little tab sticking up at a 90-degree angle to the wing, would be a drag inducer and ruin the flow of air over the wing. Which is exactly what it does, it creates a small eddy of swirling air juts behind the rear edge of the wing. But his swirling air acts to create a boundary that lengthens the effective length of the wing and gives it the effect of a wing with a much larger area. This principle is used by NASCAR racers who have a blunt spoiler at the rear of the car sticking up almost straight into the air. Again, the swirling air of the NASCAR spoiler creates a swirl effect that lengthens the flow of air over the race cars and reduces the kind of drag that the Kamm Back did.

Another round of aerodynamic research was unleashed upon auto racing and the effect of air passing under the car was harnessed with the concept of ground effects in the 1970's. By limiting the flow of air under a car and then controlling what air that did pass under the car, it was possible to create a low pressure zone under the and in effect "suck" the car down onto the pavement. Side skirts to limit air travel under the car were used by some racers. Innovator Jim hall combined side skirts with a second engine in the car to drive a large fan that would operate like a vacuum sucking the car to the ground. The greatest drawback to ground effects is that disastrous things happened to the car if the low pressure zone under thc car was disrupted and nasty crashes were the result. Side skirts, sucking fans and creative shapes to the car's bottom were all outlawed by most sanctioning bodies as present too many risks against the danger of some part of the ground effects failing. Today, most sanctioning bodies today have struck a relatively safe compromise of designs to create down force without radial appendages.

The notable exception to the radical appendage rule is Formula 1. Today's F1 racer is a dazzling array of wings, winglets, bargeboards and various types of air shapers that create awesome down force. But the high strung racing cars of Formula 1 are designed to create down force at speeds approaching 200mph, the common consumer car spends its life at much lower speeds, the advantages wings and other dooh-dads plastered over every surface like a F1 cars are lost at those speeds. A clean, uncluttered shape is the best for the street. And those wings you see hunched over the rear deck of daily drivers are there for no reason other than style.

More on the shape of cars tomorrow.

Posted by Scott at 9:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2005

The shape of cars part 1 of 3

This is the first of a three part series on the shape of cars.

Automobiles are shaped all wrong; if the laws of aerodynamics were taken into consideration, all cars would be turn upside down. Of course this would present a packaging challenge to the engineers, but the shape of the automobile should be reversed from its current configuration.

An automobile moves across the road and through the air. The road and the air both have an effect on the car as it moves across one and through the other. As speed increases, the air resistance and the dynamics of the air flow over and under the car increase. At highway speeds, the flow of air around the typical car is trying to lift the car off of the road The air acts to lift a car off the road because the typical car is roughly shaped like an airplane's wing, curved on top and flat on the bottom. the curve on top of the wing/car acts to create a longer path for the air flowing over the car than the shorter distance travels for the air going straight under the flat bottom of the car. The air traveling the shortest distance is more densely packed and thus a zone of high pressure exists under the car compared to the lower density air flowing over the top, which creates a zone of low pressure. High pressure below and low pressure above creates lift. To prevent lift and to create down force, which helps stick the car to the road, a car should be flat on top with a curved underside.

Of course this is not a practical shape for packaging purposes and we will continue to see cars with the same general shape. We are seeing more slab sided and box shaped vehicles whose sole purpose is to maximize interior shape while minimizing the exterior "foot print" of the vehicle. These cars are particularly popular in the old cities of Europe and Asia where road are narrow, parking is scarce and all space is at a premium. In Japan, road and parking space is so limited that the government bases some of the tax burden on each car based upon the width of the car. This why Japanese cars meant for their domestic market tend to be tall and narrow.

The principles of aerodynamics have been applied to automobiles since the 1930's as the result of trickle down technology from the emergent aircraft industry. As airplanes shed their two wings in favor of one, automobiles began to become more sleek and in tune with the airflow over them. The 1934 Chrysler Airflow and the Bugatti Type 57S were smoothly shaped to encourage easy passage of air over the body. After World War Two, racecars borrowed engine and aerodynamic technologies from the military to increase speed. At speeds of 150mph and more, their was so much lift and such little contact with the road that car would begin to yaw (twist side to side), compromising traction and safety. The first reaction to yaw was to equip racecars with vertical stabilizers that sprouted like dorsal fins from the rear. But this did not address the problem of lift and loss of contact with the road.

By the late 1950's sophisticated research was being applied to racecar aerodynamics and the more voluptuous shape emerged as the style of choice. Front panels bent farther down to skim above the road and a short abbreviated tail was the fashion. This chopped off tail was the design of Dr. Kamm who believed that the short tail would induce a swirl of air behind the car and push it through the air. Called the Kamm Back and seen on the Cobra Daytona coupe amongst other cars of the early 1960's era, subsequent research demonstrated that the swirl did occur, but that it acted as a drag rather than as help. This led to the long and elegant tails that we see on high-speed cars such as the type that race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

More on the shape of cars tomorrow.

Posted by Scott at 2:41 PM | Comments (2)

July 15, 2005

Readers speak back to AHM

There is immediate feedback from working on a car, either it runs or it doesn't. And part of the joy of projects in the garage is the instant gratification. We don't get that same instant feedback here on the At Home Mechanic, so it is up to you the readers to make comments to what you read and provide the cheers or jeers for us on this end. Here is a sample of the comments we have been receiving.

On my rant about Targa topped cars Bryce wrote:
"There have been a few Targa topped cars in history that have been pretty good.

The Fiat X1/9 was engineered from the start to be that way, to have an open top while meet safety requirements that never actually materialized. My Lancia Beta Zagato uses a targa top over the front seats and convertible top over the rear seats to meet safety requirements. The targa bar is tied to the windscreen which gives framed windows and a stiffer body structure. The mk1 Zagatos did not have that and were considerably more flexible.

The original Porsche 911 Targas were similar in this regard, the rear window area zipped out and the targa top could be stowed. You ended up again, with a fully open car with a roll bar.

The Honda Del Sol is probably one of the best targa topped cars ever. With the targa top off (and secured in the brilliant pivoting rack in the trunk) and the rear window down, you are driving an open top car with a roll bar. It's quite safe and feels just about as open as my Fiat Spider did. And it feels quite similar to convertibles I've been in with roll bars.

Finally, the Lotus Elise is more or less a targa car, except it has a soft top (a hard top is available, but cannot be stowed in car). Standing next to one with the top off and windows down leads me to believe that the ratio of open to closed is basically that of a convertible. Seeing them driven and seeing the wind blow around the drivers confirms that belief."

ATM replies:

Cars that were originally engineered to be Targa topped vehicles are measurably better than cars that just had their roof sawed off by some guy in a figurative back alley. But the rigidity of an open top car will generally be less than a closed top car.

The other lesson I learned from Bryce is to never mess with the Italian car crowd, they are the most heartfelt car enthusiasts on the planet.

Regarding my mentioning Chyrsler's use of torsion bar suspensions starting in the 1950's Dave Darling writes:
"The torsion bar suspension was patented by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche back in the 30s. (See the earliest VW Bugs for examples.) ChryCo had to wait until the patents ran out to come out with their own versions"

ATM replies:

An interesting bit of trivia that I did not know before. I had always thought that Chrysler adopted the torsion bar suspension from the Sherman tank that they helped mass produce during World WarII.

ATM got two responses about my observation about retro inspired car designs.

Spira writes, "why not design cars with the flare and joy of the 50's and 60's (preserving your woodys...) and equipt them with the techno wizzardry of the 00's..."

And Scott (not me, I swear) responds, "Spira asks a good question. The answer is that the car manufacturers are turning out "retro" inspired cars like the Ford Thunderbird (Cancelled due to poor sales) and the Chrysler PT Cruiser and many others. But modern manufacturing practices (They have to make a profit and can not afford to be as lavish with sheetmetal and chrome as they once were) and modern safety regulations (Airbags, seatbelts, roll over standards, etc,) make it impractical to just build a '56 Chevy with a modern engine management system."

And finally I had to stick in a thumbs up from crxfisher, for my observation about the three phases of any car repair project.
"This is so true! I had to laugh while reading it. That's just exactly how it is."

Posted by Scott at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

The Neighborly At Home Mechanic

Are you a good automotive neighbor? Do you care how your neighbor's view your car hobby practices? Do you want to insure the good will of everyone on your block? How you conduct yourself as an automobile enthusiast can have a huge impact on your image in the community you live in and how society in general views the car hobby.

If you have derelict cars strewn across you property maybe you are not helping your standing in the community. If you are pounding out body dents late at night or early in the morning you may not be winning any friends amongst your neighbors. If you are testing reaction and 60-foot times in the street in front of your house, you are probably not going to make the local residents happy. Our actions do have an impact upon how we are seen by others.

A man's home is his castle, which is the English Common Law tenet that implies that each homeowner is the master of his domain. How a property owners uses his property is solely up to him, right? Not always. Without going into long and boring discussions about the legal findings on the topic, suffice it to say there are some very clear laws regarding Eminent Domain and Community Standards in the United States and they can be applied to property owners whose use of their property is not up to some set of standards. If you are sloppy about how you store and work on your cars, you could invite unwelcome attention from the local authorities.

I love my cars and I enjoy the time I spend in the garage working on a variety of Do It Yourself (DIY) projects. But I am also aware that my neighbors may not share my enthusiasm for old cars. That is why I make sure that my "project" cars are kept well out of sight until they are ready to be displayed on the street. I have torn a car completely down to its frame, sold off the parts that I did not want and have the hulk towed away without my neighbors knowing I had a junker on my property. I do all of my work on my cars during reasonable business hours, never early or late at night, and I keep dismantled cars in the garage well away from public view.

When I test my cars, I drive cautiously and courteously from my neighborhood. It is not until I reach a highway that I reach highway speeds. And I do not rev my exhaust where the local folks can hear and take offense.

I know that the value on my neighbor's home is dependent on the manner in which I keep my home. If my neighbor spends time and money to turn his house into a showplace, my house will drag his house's value down if I do not keep my home in a presentable manner. And this works in reverse as well; if my home is freshly painted and my garden is neatly trimmed, a dumpy house next door to me drags my property values down.

I have no sympathy for some in the auto hobby who claim to have the right to keep "parts cars" in full view of the public or operate their garage as long and loud as if it were a commercial establishment. We live in a society of cooperation; I try to be a good citizen by not offending my neighbors with my cars, my noise or my driving.

Posted by Scott at 8:36 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

General Motors is in trouble

General Motors is in big trouble. They have a bloated product line with confusing duplicate models across their various brand names. And the recent steep rise in fuel costs have soured consumers on GM's profit-center, large fuel guzzling vehicles, to the point that they have been forced to offer steep discounts and rebates to reduce the giant inventory of unsold cars off the dealers' lots. Additionally, GM is hampered with a huge contractual commitment to provide health insurance coverage to their employees and their retirees (who now out number current employees) that combine to add $1600 per vehicle in costs not related to making or marketing cars. And if that was not bad enough, General Motors was forced to pay FIAT a $2 billion divorce settlement when it appeared that was a more cost effective move than invest several times that much to complete a corporate merger with the Italian automaker. In balance, all is not well for GM.

Say what you will about General Motors, they do try to sell cars. The above-mentioned discount program, the "You pay what we pay" Employees Price for most GM models has effectively moved a lot of excess inventory off the lots in the month of June 2005. In the 1930's General Motors stirred consumer interest with elaborate car shows called "Motorama" in major cities that offered an idealized World of Tomorrow. These shows touted the easy and luxury of modern living, featuring dream car versions of future car designs along side current models offered for sale right now.

In the years directly after World War II, GM took the show on the road in a direct marketing approach that was based upon a barnstorming circus of specially constructed truck/bus vehicles that brought the Motorama show into the US hinterlands. Rural consumers could see and touch the new cars and future models in their own home town rather than reading about them or seeing them in the newsreels. As TV made a greater penetration into the US market, the need to take the products directly to consumers diminished and by the mid-1950's the General Motors traveling Motorama was a memory.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and GM is desperate right now. From a market share of over 50% of the US market, GM has slipped to holding less than 20% of the American car market. Along with innovative marketing and brand positioning (Led Zeppelin's rock music anthem "Rock and Roll" used to sell Cadillacs is unthinkable to those of us who remember when that song was fresh on the music charts 30+ years ago) GM has reached far back into its marketing bag of tricks to revive the traveling Motorama... with a twist.

The General Motors traveling car show is now called Auto Show In Motion and rather than a static display of only General Motors current offerings, this show offers examples of the competition's cars for comparison. But wait! There's more! At this show, you the consumer, are invited to test drive the GM and competitor's cars in a side-by-side comparison right there at the show. Bring your driver's license and you get to flog everything GM has to offer from the smallest Cobalt to the most powerful Corvette and then jump into a comparative model from the other manufacturers.

I received an invitation to my local edition of this traveling car show to be held in the large parking lot of a local sports stadium in a direct mail solicitation. But it is possible for anyone to sign up for the event by going to www.autoshowinmotion.com and filling out the simple questionnaire.

I normally resist marketing come-ons like this; I am immune from time-share free gift offers, chances to win a dream cruise or similar huckster ploys. I am especially loath to give up any of my free time for a blatant marketing event such as this. But this event runs four days, Thursday to Sunday, and I can slip a little spare time into my schedule to check it out early on a Thursday morning. And in the interests of providing you, the At Home Mechanic faithful, with objective observation I am planning to attend and report my findings.

Posted by Scott at 9:22 AM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2005

Registering your car in California

I received at notice in the mail from the California Department of Motor Vehicles popularly know as the DMV. It is time to renew the registration of my oldest and most beloved of my three cars, the 1987 Honda CRX Si. The cost of registering an older car like my CRX is pretty benign; a total of $51 for the privilege to use all of the public roads, streets and highways in the state of California. And by extension, all the other states in the union will recognize my California registration as a visitor. So all I have to do is slip a check into the mail and my car will proudly display its shiny new registration sticker on the rear license plate. Oh wait. This year I need to have my car's emission system checked and approved before the state of California will accept my check.

California is the nation's most populous state and we own the greatest number of automobiles here. We also have lots of sunshine, large cities nearly entirely dependent upon private vehicles for mass transit and nearby mountain ranges. To add this up: Lots of cars, pouring out lots of emissions. The emissions get trapped by the mountains and heated by the sun. The result is California's world famous air pollution, called smog. In the bad old days, California got lots of smog.

Starting back in the late 1950's California had led the nation in requiring automobile engines to reduce their emissions. And with California being such an important market for cars, most of the world's manufacturers have spent billion of dollars searching for innovative ways to meet the ever more stringent California emission requirements. The stuff coming out of the tail pipe of a modern car that is legal for sale in California is nearly as clean as the air that goes in the engine in the first place. This technology has been shared with the rest of the world and we all enjoy cleaner air because California pioneered emission requirements. California is still perceived as the air pollution capitol of the Untied States, but thanks to our emission laws, we have surrendered that distinction to Texas and their concentration of oil refineries. Stationary sources like oil refineries are now the major source of air pollution in the US.

To insure that cars registered in California stay clean, California State Certified test stations must retest them periodically before the DMV will issue a new registration tag. Newer cars only need to be tested less frequently; older cars like my CRX get tested every two years. Really old cars, 25 years old and older, do not need to be tested at all.

The old car exemption is the result of clever and determined lobbying by the Hot Rod crowd and the companies that supply parts for their American Muscle Cars. The argument is that these are "hobby" cars that get only limited use; their contribution to air pollution is negligible when compared to the total fleet of cars in California. And this is great for the Muscle Car/Hot Rod crowd.

But for those of us whose hobby car is less than 25 years old, we have to meet the emission requirements set for the year of manufacture of our car. Simple enough if you have not modified your car's engine for greater efficiency and power. And if you use parts that are tested and approved by the California Air Resource Board (CARB), the DMV will allow them. But regardless of the purity of your tail pipe, if the emission tester sees a part that does not have the all-important CARB tag of approval, your car will be instantly failed and no registration will be issued.

In a sense, this policy creates two classes of automobile enthusiasts in California. The old car fans get the benefit of benevolence from the DMV; the newer car fans are the targets of suspicion and roadside inspections. And not that I am a conspiracy fan... But I find it curious that the old car crowd tends to be older, wealthier and whiter. And the newer car crowd is younger, poorer and ethnic. A coincidence? I think not.

In an ideal world, the state of California would recognize that auto enthusiasts and their cars span a broad range and that an emission exemption for hobby cars that are driven a restricted number of miles per year (Less than 2,000) would not make much impact on air quality. But alas, the collective we of the state of California are not so progressive and the newer hobby cars need to pass the emission and visual inspection test.

And that means my 1987 Honda CRX will need some tweaking to insure passing the emissions test. A tune up, a new O2 sensor and a fresh catalytic converter is generally all that is required. But I know some people who essentially rebuild their cars' engine every two years just to pass the visual test.

I am resigned to jumping through hoops to make sure my older hobby car conforms to California's strict emission laws. I guess it is the price we pay for cleaner air.

Posted by Scott at 7:17 AM | Comments (2)

July 11, 2005

What is a Hemi?

"Ya got a Hemi in that?" That is the question posed by a slack yawed yokel to the proud possessor of a shiny new Chrysler product in a series of advertisements. The smug reply from the Chrysler product owner is, "Yeah, its got a Hemi." And then he zooms off in satisfied automotive bliss. The implication is that a Hemi is a good thing, it makes your car more powerful, and ownership of a Hemi entitles you to an elevated level of respect from less worthy cars and their owners.

The name Hemi is closely associated with Chrysler dating back to the 1950's and today that association is being exploited in an advertising campaign that promotes Daimler-Chrysler's newest V8 engine sold in their largest US-made cars and many trucks. The campaign is working, even with the rapid rise in gasoline prices Chrysler is selling Hemi-equipped trucks and Magnum/Charger cars (based upon Daimler-Chrysler's parent Mercedes E-class sedan) at a brisk pace without the need for rebates or discounts.

The name Hemi is a shortening of the word hemisphere, which refers to a round object. In the case of the Hemi engine, the combustion chamber of each cylinder is hemispherically shaped. Imagine that the top 1/8th of a tennis ball was sliced off and that will give you the basic shape of the combustion chamber. The shape of the combustion chamber, along with the design of the cylinder head that each combustion chamber is contained within, are influential upon the engine's ability to burn the air and fuel mixture efficiency. And as we know, increased efficiency in the engine increases power and economy.

Chrysler in the 1950's promoted itself as "The Engineer's Choice" and pioneered many technical innovations, including torsion bar suspension, push button automatic transmission and the Hemi engine. The original Hemi was a 5.7-liter pushrod V8 that was an immediate success on the track and was a favorite amongst the Hot Rod crowd. But the cost per unit to produce the original Hemi and limited appeal with the general public caused Chrysler to drop the original Hemi by 1960.

By 1964 the importance of NASCAR racing success as a marketing tool was too powerful for Chrysler's managers to ignore and they rushed a 7-liter version of the Hemi into production in time to capture the Daytona 500 with a 1-2-3 win in February 1965. This solidified the Hemi mystique and through the Muscle Car era the Chrysler Hemi was revered for its power. Other engines in the Chrysler line made more torque but the Hemi was the top power champ, which added to the allure. But by the early 1970's the gas guzzling big cars from Chrysler had fallen far out of favor, the company tilted on the brink of receivership and the Hemi and its big cars got dropped in favor of smaller cars engineered by Volkswagen and Mitsubishi.

Time passes, Chrysler survives, and with an infusion of cash from new partner Daimler-Benz the Hemi name is revived. An all new design of a pushrod operated V8 with 5.7-liters of displacement, the new Hemi appears to be a consumer favorite and the Hot Rod crowd seems to be impressed as well. As the after market develops performance enhancers for the new hemi, you can expect to see it adapted for use in performance cars.

So what is special about the new Hemi engine? A pushrod design, there is nothing innovative about that. It uses electronic fuel and ignition control, but you would be hard pressed to find an engine sold today that does not have them. Duel spark plugs per cylinder help to burn the air/fuel mixture cleanly, but aircraft engines and racing engines had this back in the 1930's. So that hemispherical combustion camber shape must be the deciding factor.

Well actually, no. Other manufacturers have caught on to the design and have a hemispherical combustion chamber shape. My 1987 Honda Civic CRX engine has hemispherical combustion chambers, and nearly all modern engines have a variation on that design. While it may be cool to have an engine with the Hemi label, nearly all car engines today have that feature. So if you are asked if you have a Hemi in there, you can say "Sure."

Posted by Scott at 8:06 AM | Comments (4)

July 8, 2005

Do you like sunroofs? Not me.

I hate sunroofs on cars and I have two words to support my position: Greenhouse Effect. The Greenhouse Effect is the property of physics regarding sunlight entering a glass-contained space. The sunlight enters the space through the glass and the reflected heat created by the sunlight is trapped within the glass-shrouded area. It is this principle that allows tropical plants to be grown within greenhouses in temperate climes and it is also the same principle at work turning your car, truck or mini-van into a death chamber for pets and small children locked inside a closed car on a warm day.

A sunroof has none of the appeal of a true convertible roof; you do not get the great view outside your car and spectators do not get any better look at you and your passengers. You are not fooling anyone; a car with a sunroof is not a true open-topped automobile. And I challenge anyone with a sunroof-equipped car to tell me the last time you turned off the Air Conditioning and opened the sunroof on a day that did not fall into the temperature range of 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit. Any cooler and it is uncomfortably cold. Any warmer and the burning rays of the sun fry you in your seat.

It could be argued that I could just ignore a sunroof and keep it closed 100% of the time. But a sunroof comes with two costs that I am not willing to pay. A sunroof and its complicated mechanism for opening, closing and sealing the opening panel(s) is bulky and heavy. The bulk translates into 2-3 inches of lost headroom that tall people or those who wish to wear hats will miss instantly upon climbing into a sunroof-equipped car. And the weight of all that stuff riding above your head raises the car's center of gravity by an appreciable amount. In effect, a sunroof and its tracks, motors and the such make your car top heavy. Your car is more inclined to swaying in a turn and possibly overturning in an extreme situation.

Sadly for those of us who do not like sunroofs, we seem to be stuck with them. Most manufacturers will include a sunroof as part of a greater option package for their cars that require you take sunroof in order to get a nicer interior, a more powerful motor or other features. I wish that it were possible to pick and choose freely from the dealer's option menu, but today most cars come in a only a couple of "flavors" and that is it.

But at least a sunroof does not compromise the structural integrity and rigidity of the car it is built into. That square hole in the roof is rimmed by extra metal to support the weight of the sunroof and its associated bits and pieces. The sunroof-equipped car can claim some extra strength through the roof that a sheet of thin metal can not. Far worse that that single square hole in the center of the roof is the horrible abomination of the Targa-Top and its cousin the T-Top.

The Targa-Top and T-Top are the result of manufacturer's response in the 1970's to declining sales of convertible cars and the possibility that the US Federal government was going to impose standards for roof strength to protect car occupants in the event of a roll over. Rather than continue to engineer expensive convertible top mechanisms for the then-disappearing drop top market and include roll bar-type structure in the windshield frame, it was discovered that cutting out the middle section of the roof from left to right would result in a open topped structure that consumers would accept. The section of remaining bulkhead and roof behind the front seats would be strong enough for rollover protection and the windshield frame was sufficiently strong enough to not need special reinforcement. The open section was usually covered by clear or opaque plastic sections, but some shade tree Targa installers would stretch a piece of canvas attached by hooks. The T-top variation on this theme would be a thin section of roof metal running for and aft connecting the rear bulkhead with the windshield frame.

Why are the Targa and the T-Top, those fashion disasters from the 1980's even worse than a sunroof? Because the removal of all that sheet metal required for a Targa or T-top robs the car frame of vital bracing. Literally, the front and rear of the car would lose most of their connection to one another with this hack surgery. At the very worst, the Targa and T-Tops would leak in the rain (and car wash) and rattle on even the smoothest roads. At very worst, the car's structure would shake apart with extended usage. Unless great care was made by the manufacturer to add structural strength (and extra weight) to a car that was destined to have a Targa or T-Top, the unfortunate automotive victim was sure to end up on the scrap heap in less than a full service lifetime. Thankfully, Targa and T-Tops seems to have fallen out of fashion with the consuming public and you do not see any manufacturers eager to revive that trend.

Posted by Scott at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)

July 7, 2005

When parts are hard to find

The modern At Home Mechanic can find the service parts to repair his or her car online or in the local auto parts store with ease. The supply of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) parts for cars made in the last 50 years is truly impressive. Need a set of sparkplugs for a 1960 Rambler? Chances are that you can get them delivered to your doorstep within 48 hours.

But what if you want to improve your car's performance? Go faster, stop quicker or get better mileage? Parts that provide that kind of improvement are also generally available at your local parts store... providing that your car is supported by the Aftermarket. The Aftermarket is the broad term that refers to the huge industry of specialty manufacturers who make parts to dress up or speed up your car. If there are enough enthusiasts with a need for speed, there will be an enterprising businessman who will fill that need. Want a set of exhaust manifolds for a V8 Chevrolet from the 1970's? There are several manufacturers who will be happy to sell you a set.

But what if you want to improve that 1960 Rambler? How many different manufacturers do you think are supplying dress up or improvement parts for a car that has been out of production for over 40 years and did not sell a lot of units originally? A businessman would go bust if he committed his time and money to a product for a slender (if nearly non-existent) market segment.

Lets say, for the sake of argument, that you want to add a front air dam to the your 1990 Honda Prelude 2.0Si. It just so happened that I was faced with this dilemma recently. The first place you go is to the online Honda parts retailers like www.Hondaautoparts.com , look up the part you need and simply order the part. But in this example, Honda does not carry this part. And the local junkyard does not have one in their inventory.

Knowing that Acura is Honda's sister company, I look up a same year Acura product on www.acuraautoparts.com that is roughly similar to the Prelude. In this case, the 1990 Integra is about the same sized car and I can see from the illustrated list of parts that both cars' front air dam have the same number of attachment points.

I ordered the Acura front air dam for sue on my Honda Prelude. But I was disappointed to find that of the eleven attachment points on the Honda only one (the middle) matched the attachment point on the Acura part. Plus, the Acura air dam had some extra tabs that did not fit into any Honda slots. But the Acura part was approximately the right size and a pre-installation test fit revealed that it could be made to work.

I trimmed off the extra tabs with a razor blade and I connected the air dam using the one common attachment point in the middle, which centered the air dam on the front bumper. Using self-tapping screws I was able to firmly attach the air dam to the car and the finished product looks factory correct.

My 1990 Honda Prelude is sporting a 1990 Acura Integra front air dam and for all but the fussiest perfectionist, it looks as if it was designed for the car. It is possible to mix and match parts from one side of the corporate family with the other side if the original parts were never offered. Chevrolet parts will often fit a Pontiac, Ford parts will often fit a Mercury and as much as it may annoy Porsche fans, Volkswagen parts will sometimes fit their cars. Do not get discouraged if you can not find what you want in your car's parts catalog, the chances are good that a determined search will get you close on the other side of the family tree.

Posted by Scott at 8:53 AM | Comments (4)

July 6, 2005

Three Important Tools

The three most important tools in your garage may not be tools in the traditional sense of the word. Craftsman or Snap-On, or my current favorite Husky (which is the Home Depot house brand) does not make them. You may already be using them and not thinking of them as tools. But for the At Home Mechanic they may become your favorite tools once you realize their value in the garage.

Of the trio, the first is perhaps the most unexpected. The one thing that every At home Mechanic has in common with every other mechanic, professional or otherwise, is the inevitable drips of oil, coolant, fuel and grease on the floor of your work space. A professional workspace usually has some sort of sealed floor that resists the spilled fluids from seeping in. There are many paint-type products offered for the At Home Mechanic to brush or roll on a sealant that will protect a concrete floor from staining. For a more finished look, some companies offer a type of interlocking floor tiles specifically meant for the garage that resist staining and by clever application can create a decorative design. But for the majority of us, the cold hard concrete floor of our garage is all we have. Being porous and absorbent, the concrete grasps oils and keeps the mark nearly forever.

But a simple household product that you may already have in your home is the secret to removing oils stains from concrete and asphalt. Kitty Litter. Invented in 1947 by Ed Lowe, Kitty Litter started out as a solution to a messy pet problem. But its absorbent properties make it the best may to soak up standing fluids and if left on a stain for a couple of days, it will draw the stain out of concrete nearly entirely. I keep a five pound bag in my garage and I try to get if onto any spillage as soon as possible. Of course the best solution for spills is to no make the in the first place and to use adequately sized receiving pans when draining sumps and reservoirs. Kitty Litter applied to a stain can often be reused on a second, third or fourth stain before the stuff is completely saturated. I have been known to keep a small pile of slightly used kitty litter (not by the cat) in a corner of the garage for later use upon future stains.

The next two tools are fastening devices. While nuts bolts and screws have their place, it is Duct Tape and Tie Wraps that can salvage a seemingly impossible situation from disaster.

Duct Tape is the binder of all things flat. Artistically applied to body work, upholstery or even clothing, there is no limit to what Duct Tape can do. Invented in the 1920's as a descendant of medical tape, the sturdy green colored tape was backed with "Duck" water resistant fabric was used during World War Two as a sealant for ammunition cans and from this description it received the name "Duck Tape." After the war, the color was changed to a silver materiel and used in the application of joining ventilation ducts and the name evolved into Duct Tape. Racers often refer to it as 100-mph Tape because it can withstand high speeds while protecting headlights and other fragile glass pieces plus is can be used to smooth out the gaps between body parts and give a car a smoother aerodynamic profile.
The Tie Wrap or the Cable Tie as it is sometimes called, emerged during the high tech boom of the 1960's as simple and cost effective way to control the jungle of electrical cables that modern aircraft and technical installations were becoming. A strip of strong plastic with a self-contained locking mechanism, The Tie Wrap comes in a wide variety of sizes and colors and be looped through nearly any opening to secure body parts, hoses and stray wires. It is only limited to the user's imagination how Tie Wraps can be used in the garage and applied to a car. I use Tie Wraps to secure my air cleaner, hold the front bumper cover to the framing underneath and keep interior trim pieces from rattling. A collection of various sized Tie Wraps is a vital part of my garage collection.

The use of non-traditional tools is not limited to Kitty Litter, Duct Tape and Tie Wraps. As time and necessity dictate, other items will be pressed into service in ways that the original designers had never intended. What will you use to solve a problem or finish a job in a creative way?

Posted by Scott at 7:11 AM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2005

Car Shows

Concours d'Elegance has such a nice ring to it. But it seems so many things sound better when you say them in French. In this case the words, Concours d'Elegance has a much classier ring to them than "Car Show." A Car Show can be just a bunch of dusty daily drivers parked in one section of the mall parking lot for the amusement of the local shoppers. But a Concours d'Elegance is literally an examination of elegance, or in this case an examination of beauty. Beautiful cars will not just be shown, but examined and appreciated for their beauty. The French words conjure a much more gentile and refined image that plain old Car Show.

A Concours d'Elegance suggests a high society charity event of smartly dressed couples strolling over manicured lawns to view pristinely restored classic cars from the far distant, but far more elegant Brass Era of refined carriage building that evolved into the first automobiles. Dashing runabouts from the 1920's driven by Flappers and Swells. And 1930's sedans owned by (but not driven by) the Captains of Industry who never felt the bitter bight of the Great Depression. Set on great estates or private country clubs, a Concours d'Elegance is a social event of the summer season set at places like Amelia Island or Pebble Beach. Strictly a white linen affair. Please, no loud noise, no oil drips and certainly no automobiles from the past 20 years.

But there are some chinks forming in the armor of this snooty crowd. The old boys and girls who can remember when that Stutz Bearcat was sold as new are dying out and new blood is required to keep the Concours d'Elegance tradition alive. Over the course of the last few years, the post war examples of Italian and German marques have been allowed to join this exclusive club. Sometimes included in the main festivities and sometimes allotted their own "corral" as a sub set of the main show, these newer cars are admitted to draw a broader and presumably younger audience to the Concours. And as a shocking and controversial addition, Hot Rods from the "classic era" of the 1950's are also being invited to participate as the resell value of these old street rods climbs into the range of six figures.

There are two major alternatives for the car show audience to the Concours d'Elegance. The 1960's Muscle Car Era is booming with interest and the owners of these cars will dedicate shows entirely to their appreciation. Although the cars are often just up-optioned versions of pedestrian American models of the era, the owners and fans if these cars are every bit as snobby as the up-market Concours crowd and clannishly exclude Japanese cars of the past 35 years.

In the course of the last 35 years, Japanese cars have made a huge impact on the US and the World's automobile industry. Affordable and well engineered, the Japanese automobile has revolutionized consumer expectations for value and performance. The fan base for these cars skews young and far less affluent and it is the fastest growing segment of the auto enthusiast market. Vast halls are filled in major cities by the Hip Hop Generation at events that celebrate their taste in cars, music and lifestyle. In this generation of car fans, emphasis is placed on chrome, paint, and entertainment suites rather than restoration and preservation. It is not uncommon for huge sums of money to be invested in these show cars that are too "valuable" to be driven on the street in the pursuit of judged competition.

So where does this leave you and me, the average Joe, with a cleaned up old car and no niche to fit into? Feeling that my 1987 Honda CRX Si does not have enough pizzazz for the Hip Hop crowd, no American Muscle qualifications and certainly no credentials for the Concours crowd, I decided to throw my own Car Show. I invited all my car-loving friends and family along with their hobby cars to come to my house for a celebration on the cars that have fallen into the gaps between the major categories of car shows. No prizes and no judging, we just all came together for a day of comradely enjoyment of the cars we have fun with. And because I was the host, I parked my CRX on the front lawn so that I could pretend I was showing it at one of those snooty Concours d'Elegance.

Posted by Scott at 7:00 AM | Comments (1)

July 4, 2005

Car seats

Car seats have come a long way from the old days. I can remember when car seats had the contour and comfort of a park bench. Covered in shiny vinyl, they offered nothing in terms of support or safety. With the rise in popularity of foreign sports cars in the 1950's, the American public came to recognize the "bucket seat" as a sporting alternative to the three across seating that most domestic cars came with. By the late 1960's American cars with sporting pretensions like the Camaro, Mustang and the like offered high back bucket seating that suggested some lateral support.

But it was the German manufacturers who lead the industry in offering supportive and stylish sports seating for street cars. Recarro emerged as an industry leader, providing seating to Porsche, Audi and others as well as selling a popular line of seating as replacements to other less-sporting models.

Today the aftermarket offers a wide variety of "racing seats" to dress up even the most pedestrian car to look like it belongs on the front row of the Le Mans starting grid. When choosing replacement seats for your car there are some important factors to consider.

Real racing seats in real racecars are not particularly comfortable seats. In the world of high lateral g's generated by racing tires and suspensions, it is important to keep the driver's butt nailed down in one spot. I guarantee you that it is impossible to drive a high performance car are its peak efficiency if the driver is slipping and sliding around in his seat. Designed to hold you in tightly, race seats are narrow in the hips (painfully so if you need to wear jeans with a touch more room in the seat) and envelope you upper body neck and head to protect against injury in an accident.

Better suited to street use are aftermarket seats that have a "racer" look. Less deep and restrictive as real race seats, these seats are easier to slide in and out of. Plus they provide more padding and general comfort.

Fitting aftermarket to most cars is a simple job requiring only simple hand tools. The only consideration is that after market seats come without the sliding rails that allow easy adjustment; these must be purchased separately and are designed for specific applications. Most aftermarket seat manufacturers will have a list of car models that their sliding rails will fit into.

If you are very handy you might be able to modify the sliding rails that your car's standard seats ride on to accept the new aftermarket seats. But care must be taken to insure that the new seats are safely attached permanently to the body of the car and can withstand the forces of an accident.

Posted by Scott at 5:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 3, 2005

Removing the Air Conditioning

I just removed the air conditioning out of my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si. The air conditioning has not been working very well and I was not inclined to repair it, again. Over the course of the 6 years that I have owned this car, I have had an expensive relationship with the air conditioner on this car. I replaced the compressor initially and that required a second trip to the ATM to get enough cash to satisfy the wholesale parts guy.

Of course you can not just replace the compressor, the dryer also needed to be replaced and I needed the oil that lives inside the guts of the air conditioning system, all of these things help run up the bill for parts to a point that required four portraits of Ben Franklin and not much change in return. Having spent all that money, I cheap-ed out and did not replace the tiny gaskets that keeps the Freon inside the A/C system (Hey, they looked good to me). Once the system was all put together and charged with $50 worth of hard to find Freon (the old A/C Freon that my old car requires puts a hole in the Ozone Layer) it worked fine... for about a month before all the Freon leaked out through the gaskets I had not replaced.

Sloth led me to ignore the non-functioning A/C for a couple of years. In a burst of energy and boredom I tore the entire system apart, replaced the gaskets and had the system recharged again. The A/C blew ice cold and I felt vindicated.

I do not use the car very much; it is meant for amateur speed events and the occasional car show, it was never intended to be a daily driver in my fleet. Over the course of the last year I have become more serious about producing power from the engine and so I changed the throttle body (think of a carburetor but without the gasoline, that is fed by the fuel injection) for a high performance piece. This new high performance throttle body has no provision for adjusting the engine's idle speed when the A/C is on (the A/C adds drag to the engine and it might stall if the idle is not adjusted up during A/C operation). Every time I came to a stop sign I had to turn off the A/C to keep the engine from dieing. That got old in big hurry.

Finally I came to the realization that 40-50 pounds of air conditioning equipment that I do not use in a car that needs every ounce of weight reduction for optimum performance was a waste. The A/C must go!

I started by having the Freon removed by a qualified facility that could keep it contained and not contaminate the atmosphere. I brought the car back to my garage and began the orgy of removal.

Usually when you remove something from your car, you intend to replace it eventually. Great care and attention to detail should be taken so that the At Home Mechanic can put everything back in the same way as when you removed it. But when you are tearing something out with no intention of replacing it, the At Home Mechanic can indulge in a bit of blood lust in ripping and removing. High-powered power tools, shears and plain old brute strength are allowed.

Ah, the cathartic pleasure of lightening you car. As legendary Lotus Cars designer Colin Chapman was famously quoted as saying, "Add lightness." The lightness has been added; 50 pounds of weight removal in my car is equal to adding about three-horse power to my engine. So with the removal of air conditioning from my car I have taken a decisive step to casting my 1987 Honda CRX as a dedicated performance car with little or no provisions for creature comforts.

Posted by Scott at 5:28 PM | Comments (3)

July 2, 2005

Timing (belt) is everything

Timing is everything. The insides of your car's engine is a series of doodads that spin, whirl and go up and down. As long as all those thingies are moving in the correct relationship to each other, your engine runs well and you perceive no problems. But as time passes the gears, chains and belts that connect all those moving parts wear out or even break. Ideally you will keep track of the routine maintenance to prevent major problems. But when you ignore the manufacturer's recommended service intervals, expensive damage can occur.

On most modern cars there is a rubber belt or metal chain called the Timing Belt or Timing Chain which is critical to keeping your engine running right. This belt or chain needs to be replaced every five years or so (check your owner's manual for details). It is possible to do this job yourself with simple hand tools and a long afternoon's worth of time.

Honda products are particularly sensitive to having a fresh timing belt installed. It is not unknown for an old, worn-out Honda timing belt to slip a tooth on the geared cogs that run the engine. That will cause poor performance and in severe cases, expensive valve damage.

Typically, the cost of having a shop replace your timing belt is about $500. But that is mostly labor as the belt only costs about $30. For the At Home Mechanic the hardest part of the job is getting the crank pulley bolt off which is wrenched onto the end of the crankshaft with about 145 lbs. of torque (that is a lot). It is possible to get it off at home without anything other than a breaker bar and a lot of effort. But it is also possible to win the lottery. If you know someone with an air wrench ask him or her to lend it to you. Otherwise you could ask a shop to just loosen the bolt with their air wrench and then get it home ASAP to get it off.

As long as you are tearing that section of the engine apart, you should also change the water pump. The replacement water pump is not that expensive (about $35) and it will aggravate you if you have to come back and essentially redo the whole timing belt job to put in a new water pump. I have made the mistake of NOT changing the water pump while changing a timing belt and it has come back to haunt me.

Changing the water pump is not that hard... but there is a special place in Hell reserved for the Honda engineers who designed the water pump placement on their engines. From a packaging standpoint, it all makes sense to tuck the water pump into that nook it occupies. But to get the old one out and the new one in you will need to remove the timing belt and in many circumstances you will need to move or remove the alternator, power steering pump or some other accessory and their associated belts.

Check your owner's manual carefully for timing belt change intervals. If your car's engine is approaching the due date it is imperative that you either change the belt yourself or have a qualified shop do the work for you. The cost of ignoring that timing belt far outweighs the cost of replacement.

Posted by Scott at 10:39 AM | Comments (1)

July 1, 2005

Beater cars

I like a clean car. Not just washed and polished, but empty of all flotsam and jetsam. My trunk is empty, there is nothing stuffed under the seats, the map pockets are clear and there is nary a drink in the cup holders. I am funny that way, I don't like top hear things rattle around when I drive.

My engine compartment is clean also. Squeaky clean. No grease, dirt or even dust. My wheels are clean and the tires get a regular coating of Armor-All. I like my car clean.

But it takes a lot of effort to keep a daily driver clean. I run my car through the car wash that is just across the street from my office once a week. They have a reduced price special on Tuesdays and Wednesdays that knocks the price down from $9.99 to $6.99 and your tenth car wash is free. For another three bucks, they will Armor-All the tires. Toss in a couple buck tip and for the price of a half a tank of gas I get to drive off in a shiny, clean car. I consider this a small price to pay to keep my car looking sharp.

Not all of my cars get this kind of lavish attention. I have been known to own and drive a "beater." A beater is a car whose cosmetic appearance is of no consequence to you or anyone else (except maybe the neighbors who have to see that thing parked on their block) because you are only going to own it until it drops in its tracks and needs to be towed away. A cheap car that may or may not run so well, but gets you where you need to go, but do not wear your good clothes, and don't let anyone you know see you driving it, is a beater. Beaters don't get washed, and the dents don't get fixed. A beater gets used to haul furniture, pick up lumber or lug potting soil. A beater is easy to own if you have a "good" car at home for dates and important business appointments, because anyone who saw you in a beater would give you wide berth.

In snow country a winter beater is the vehicle of choice for the snow months. Any car you love will become a victim of salted roads, sheet ice and snow drifts if left on the streets during a typical snow country winter. In those places, the good car gets to rest in the garage while the winter beater braces the elements.

Beaters I have owned have included a '66 Ford Mustang coupe that was never going to become a 100 point (perfect) show car and its 6 cylinder engine was never going to allow it to be a performance car. A '82 Toyota Corolla that I inherited from my wife and that served my well until it got stolen and chopped for its parts was a good beater. And a '89 Honda Civic that was simply the best car I ever owned. I should have kept and appreciated that car but I let it go when my car count reached four and that is three more than I could drive at any one time.

But the best beater of all was a '85 Dodge Diplomat that I bought used from the California Highway Patrol. The CHP throws a cheap paint job on their used black and white patrol cars and sells them to the general public, and I snapped one up. They come with a cop engine, cop transmission, cop tires, etc. etc. so you get a heavy-duty sedan with a stout driveline. This car could transport 3 suspects, err, passengers in the back seat, hold an evidence locker's worth of junk in the trunk, and looked like I was on narcotics stake out when I drove it on the street. Nobody messed with that car.

I currently do not own a beater, my three current cars are all "keepers" and I treat them with care. But there is something very liberating about owning a car that can be parked in any neighborhood, can carry any kind of cargo and never needs to be looked after with any particular care. Every car collection should include a beater.

Posted by Scott at 8:24 AM | Comments (2)