At Home Mechanic

Tools. I love tools. I love tools the way some people love shoes. Not to get off track, but what is the deal with shoes? How many pairs do you need? A black pair, a brown pair and a pair of sneakers. Slippers do not count, nor do flip-flops. And how do you spend $400 on a pair of shoes? I suppose that if you got a set of really nicely tooled boots in some fancy exotic leather you could spend a lot of money, but I cannot for the life of me understand spending huge money for some strappy Italian sandals that have a postage stamps' worth of leather.

The at home mechanic needs a place to work. Ideally this place to work is covered, well lit and protected from the elements. It should also have a place to store tools and parts in an organized manner and it should be secure so that big jobs can be wrapped up at night for a second day's effort.

Contrary to popular belief, your brakes do not stop your car. The brakes on your car stop the wheels turning; the wheels are attached to your tires and the tire friction with the road is the factor that stops your car. All of your car's motion or lack of motion is really dependent upon the tires and their contact with the road. And the tire's contact with the road is an area about the size of the palm of your hand. Imagine, those four palm prints are all that starts, stops and turns your car.

Yesterday we talked about the basics of tires and brakes and that they are dependant upon traction/friction to do their best work. But that the tires and brakes with the best traction/friction factors are also likely to wear out faster so that most consumer tires and brakes are a compromise of long life and reasonably good performance.

There are three distinct phases of any project you take on in the garage. The first phase is the enthusiastic euphoria of confidence that comes when the handy guy or gal tells them self, "I can do this job. I have studied the manual. I have the parts, I have the tools, and I have the time. There is no way that I can screw up this job. I will ________ (fill in the blank) to my car and I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done it myself. I can show the guys back at the office how handy I am. And I will save enough money to take my significant other out for a lovely dinner."

I recently read a posting on a Honda web site from a fellow in Australia who wanted to know where his car's "bushes" are and if changing them was worthwhile. Unless they have another word for these parts in Oz, they are called "bushings" and these are a bunch of little rubber "donuts" that connect the moving parts of the car's suspension to the body of the car. In time they wear out and it is a good idea on cars older than 10 years to replace them if you want to keep the car.

"The Junkyard." Just the sound of those words is enough to get me salivating. The Bone Yard, The Wreckers, Auto Salvage Yard, Used Parts Recycler. In England they call it The Breakers. What ever you call it, I love them all. The world of possibilities is endless in the Junkyard. Think of it as a treasure hunt for the At Home Mechanic.

A car's engine makes power, but where exactly is the place in the engine does the power get made? Most will argue that the output of the engine is transmitted through the crank and that is where the power is made. Others will say that the pistons move the crank so that is where the power is made. And while those arguments do hold plenty of weight, for me an engine's power is made in the head.

A low car is a cool looking car. When a car has been lowered the tires fit better in the wheels wells, the contours of the body flow more smoothly when they float just above the ground and a low car has the look and feel of a racecar. Lowering you car will also lower the car's center of gravity by a corresponding amount and this will increase cornering ability.

LSD are three letters that incur strong emotions. For many people they represent a utopian ideal that should be shared with everyone. Others view them with suspicion and mistrust, wondering how anyone could possibly benefit from them. For me, LSD represents pleasure beyond description and I believe that it should be shared with all freely.

Rust. Road Rot. Car Cancer. The scourge of the automobile owner. Nothing will kill a car faster than uncontained rust. Out here in the dry Southwest, rust is not much of a problem. Maybe if you live within a few miles of the ocean's salt air, a scratch or other unprotected surface may gather some rust after a couple years of exposure. But in humid regions, or worse, in regions of the country that put salt on the roads to improve traction during the snowy, icy winter, rust is a guaranteed occurrence.

How much car is too much car? Do you need to be driving a car that is capable of 150mph? Do you need to be able to generate 1.2g's of lateral force? Is getting from 0 to 60 in three seconds important to you? I used to think that I needed a car that could do all that as my daily driver. But once I built a high performance car for myself I discovered that all that performance is a waste for a daily driver.

Those wacky British, they drive on the wrong side of the road. The driver of a car in Britain sits on the right side of the car and drives on the left side of the road. And the British have convinced all of their former colonies to drive on that crazy left-hand side of the road... with the notable exception of the Canadians. The Canadians may have emotional have ties to Dear Old Blighty, but know that their financial bread is buttered on the US side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Is your engine friendly? Is it bubbly and out going? Or is it reserved and shy? Just exactly how would you describe your engine's personality? When I ask about your engine's personality, I was not actually asking about its social skills but rather how it behaves under the hood of your car. Does your engine make lots of low-end torque but run out of poop in the higher rpms? Or does it not make any decent power until the engine is spinning nearly at its redline? The manner in which your engine behaves is mostly dependant on the cam and changing cams can change your engine's personality.

Change a car tire? Easy as pie. A basic skill that everyone can do. But it is also the single most commonly messed-up automobile repair that can end up costing you a lot of money if it is not done correctly. And most "professional" repair shops and tire stores get it wrong every single day. But I will give you the secret to doing it right and also give you a measuring stick by which you can determine if a repair shop knows what it is doing with your car.

They don't build them like they used. They build them better. Automobiles manufactured today are better in every way than cars from the "good old days." They are faster, safer, more fuel efficient and more economical than those old cars we often pine for. If I were given a choice between a restored old car in perfect original condition and a run-of-the-mill new car as my daily driver, I would take the new car every time.

Back in the 1960's, Uniroyal Tires advertised their "Tiger Paws" automobile tires by claiming that the treads of their tires gripped the road. Today, most people think that the tread of their tires also grip the road and that traction on dry roads comes from good, deep treads. The truth is that treads on your automobile tires has nothing to do with gripping the road. And in fact your tires increase their road traction as the treads wear down.

How many key do you have on your key ring? Only a few right? If you are like most people, you have a house key, a work key, a car key, a key to your mother's house, a safe deposit box key, a garden shed key, a garage key and a gym locker key and maybe a key to your old house that you just never got rid of. Add in those affinity cards that you leave on your key ring to scan at the check out counter or gas pump, plus a flash light, a tiny Swiss Army knife plus an emergency whistle and you key ring is getting pretty heavy.

Are you running on empty? A gasoline tank in your car that is less than half full represents a danger to a vital part of your car's fuel system and I do not mean the danger of possibly running out of gas on the road.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Honda has announced a new line of engines for the Civic for the upcoming model year. Based upon their successful K-series of engines, the new Civic engine will expand in displacement from 1.7 liters to 1.8 liters, gain an increase in horsepower and fuel efficiency, all while reducing engine parts by about 10%. Wow! What a break through in engine design. How did they do that? Maybe Honda did it by rediscovering an engine design from nearly 20 years ago.

We all know that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Even small children know that the Moon orbits the Earth. And everyone knows that disk brakes are much better than drum brakes. Common Sense, Conventional Wisdom, Accepted Practice are all names for the type of knowledge that we all collectively know. But every so often we learn that what we have always thought to be absolutely true is in fact completely wrong. At one time we thought that the Earth is flat, that traveling faster than 20 miles per hour will cause suffocation and that tomatoes are poisonous. And there are a few select instances when drum brakes are a better choice that disk brakes.

Not that it physically hurts to pound out a story or two on the keyboard, but I am playing in pain for you today. Yesterday I was doing some research for this blog in the garage when I suffered an injury. In a sense, I "took one for the team." Normally the At Home Mechanic can expect to suffer a skinned knuckle or two in the course of a project. I like to think of the tiny scars on the back of my hands as battle decorations that demonstrate years of devotion to the cause. I will never get a job as a hand model, but that career path was never really an option for me. But yesterday was a new and troubling injury that may signal a change in the way I will work in the garage in the future.

You are going to start working on your hobby car, but before you start answer one question: What do your want your car to be? Is it going to be a Show Car, a Racecar or a Daily Driver? A car can be one of those three definitions very well; it can have the qualities of two of those things fairly well. But it is nearly impossible for a car to be all three things at the same time.

I am on the horns of a dilemma. Of all the car related decisions that anyone could have to make, I should be happy that my problem is relatively minor. But that does not make the solution to the problem any clearer. I have to make a decision about modifying my hobby car, I want to make the car as light as possible. It involves removing a fairly large part of the car. But I also want to the car to look aesthetically pleasing once the job is done.

A guy invites his neighbor the surgeon over for Thanksgiving Dinner. He makes a big show of carving the turkey to impress the doctor with his knife skills. When he was done, he asked his guest, "Well Doc, how did I do?" The physician inspects the well-carved turkey and then says to his host, "Anyone can take them apart. Let's see you put it back together."

It is always something with an old car. You find and fix an engine oil leak and then your fuel injectors get clogged. You root out the problem with the fuel injectors and then a suspension bushing goes south. I swear; keeping an old car in running condition is like a full time job.

My name is Scott and I cannot stop spending money on my hobby car. I am weak and I have no control over my life. I am revealing myself to you in the hope that you can learn from my addiction and avoid my fate. If it is too late for you and you already have fallen under the spell of a hobby car I am here to offer support.

In Greek mythology there is the legend of Sisyphus. As I recall, he made some sort of Olympian boo-boo and was sentenced by the chief god Zeus to an eternal punishment. I maybe be wrong about the “why’s� of the story but I am certain about the punishment.

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy gave up his career as a computer system analyst for IBM’s Atlanta office to make a new career out of observing the foibles of rural Americans. His comedy act largely revolves around examining the behavior patterns of “just plain folks� that indicate that, “You may be a Redneck.� In that vein I say that if you behave in certain, predictable manner, “You may be a Car Person.�

There comes a time when a bad relationship must be broken off. A romance gone badly, a destructive co-dependency, or an evil influence are all reasons to cut your losses short. While this is painful in the short run, it is generally beneficial in the longer view of things to just Move On. It is not always easy to admit that you made a mistake getting into the relationship in the first place. The fear of admitting your errors keeps some people in those bad relationships for far too long. Hopefully a “way out� can be found in time to stop the emotional (or even worse physical) bleeding. Our relationship with a hobby car can turn ugly and it is important to recognize the danger signals before it is too late.

Only a very few species create and use tools. Chimpanzees strip the bark from a twig and stick it down a hole to scoop out termites for eating. Egyptian Vultures use a rock to smash open Ostrich eggs and Green Herons will toss a pebble into a pond to lure fish to the surface. But the all time champion of tool usage is the human species; if Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey� basic premise is correct, the assent of modern man is a direct result of our primeval ancestors discovering the use of tools. Nearly everything we touch in our life can be considered a tool and we use them without much thought about the process. The At Home Mechanic knows just how important tools are for enjoying our automobile hobby and has a large investment in a wide variety of hand and power tools.

Size matters. Now take your mind out of the gutter because I am talking about something entirely different from what you are thinking about. I am talking about the size of your car and the effect size and weight has upon performance. As we all know from Physics 101, a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion. It requires energy to make a car go and stop; the less mass that needs to be moved into action or stopped from rolling the easier it is to perform those tasks.

It is time to start planning my next project for my hobby car, a1987 Honda CRX Si. Right now the car is at the very peak of performance, it is running better now than it has ever run before. I am not one to leave well enough alone, like Tim Allen’s character on the old TV show “Home Improvement� I believe that batter is… well, better. And I will not rest until I have made another improvement to my hobby car.

A serendipitous event is the happy result of one good thing that comes equipped with an even better thing attached. We can not count on something so good happening all the time; in fact we are lucky if we experience serendipity once in our lifetime. But there is one place that can usually be counted upon for a regular series of serendipitous moments and nearly every middle-sized town in America has at least one of these magic playgrounds. Could this be the store that sells beer AND lottery tickets? Could this be the United States Postal Service that loses bills but delivers large checks in a timely manner? While those are both wonderful, the answer I am seeking is.... Your local junkyard.

Perhaps the scariest event in a car owner’s life is when the “Check Engine� light comes on. What does it mean? Should I get the car to a repair facility as soon as possible? Is the car safe to drive? Is my engine about to fall apart? That light does not come on randomly for no apparent reason, there is something going on with your car. But most times it is a relatively minor problem and your car is safe to drive until you have the problem fixed.

In a previous post we discussed the Check Engine light and the associated electronics that are attached to that light. Basically, the modern automobile engine is controlled by a central computer system that monitors and regulates fuel, ignition and in some cars cam timing to make your engine as powerful, fuel efficient and clean burning as possible. And this type of central computerization makes your modern car smooth and efficient to drive.

An unexpected oil discovery made TV’s most famous hillbilly Jed Clampett a wealthy man, allowing him the money to move away from the backwoods to the Hills of Beverly. But an unexpected oil discovery on the driveway under your car is probably going to make you a bit poorer. But worse than the mess on the ground is the specter of engine damage that looms over an oil leak. Just about the only way to damage a modern engine is to run it without enough oil so it is imperative to keep the oil in the engine and off of your driveway.

I appreciate the beauty of a highly polished, carefully detailed show car. I admire the dedication it takes to get every seam on a car’s body straight and spaced proportionally. No one is more reverential to a car that has every period correct optional feature added to make a car a complete example of the make and model. I can understand the desire to customize a car with chrome, candy flake paint and cushy upholstery as an artistic expression. But for me, I want my hobby car to be light and fast, pared to the bone, nothing onboard that is not absolutely necessary. If it does not make my car faster or safer, I do not want it on my hobby car. If given the choice between a beautiful car or fast cars… well, that is not a good example because a fast car is automatically beautiful to me.

Acquiring a used car is an adventure; selecting the make and model you want, tracking down just the right car, inspecting it for mechanical defects and then negotiating the price are all part of the used car experience. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt for just the right used car, and I see the task as an exercise in detective work to determine exactly what kind of life a used car lived before it came up for sale.

In a previous post I wrote about the adventure of tracking down and buying a used car. I also pointed out that a used car can also hide some interesting treasures that are waiting discover under the seats and within the nooks and crannies of the trunk. Hopefully, the used car buyer has enough information to sleuth out any serious mechanical defects and use that information as negotiating leverage. One of the clues to potential electrical problems is if the original factory stereo has been replaced.

Patina is not the name of the fanciest Italian restaurant in town; it is the word to describe the faded, dusty finish of an old car. In the old days a car worthy of collecting was worthy of an extensive and expensive restoration that would refinish the car to a lustrous shine that was every bit as good, if not better, than the finish that came from the factory. But today there is an appreciation for an original car with its faded finish. The feeling seems to be that anyone can repaint and recondition an old wreck of a car and breath new life into a hulk, but a car that is untouched yet still in servable condition is rare and special.

It only took 30 plus years of car ownership, but I now officially own a car worthy of presentation at a car show. And wasting no time to exploit this opportunity, I entered my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si, in the first annual Japanese Classic Car Show this past weekend in Long Beach California. Open to Japanese cars from 1985 and earlier, my 1987 model qualified for entry by being a model that was first offered for sale in 1985 or earlier.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I entered my hobby car (a 1987 Honda CRX Si) in a car show for old Japanese cars. This was the first car show that I have entered as a participant although it was far from the first car show I have ever been to. From the carefully manicured lawns of Pebble Beach, to parking lot of the local mall, to the dazzling halls of the Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas, I have been to many car shows. The settings may vary and the featured cars can range from manufacturer's concept cars to clapped out, but beloved clunkers, but all car shows share a few similarities.

I have been corresponding with a fellow Honda CRX enthusiast about an upgrade to his car's suspension. He is very happy to have found a relatively rare set of front torsion bars to replace the stock items in his car, and he is looking forward to installing them for a stiffer ride. I am happy for him and I know that he will get plenty of enjoyment from the new parts, but I also told him that in order to get the maximum benefit from this set of front torsion bars, he is going to buy and install a whole host of other parts that are necessary to facilitate the new torsion bars working to their top potential.

I have known and loved some strange automobile engines in my lifetime. I suppose is part of my obstinate nature to embrace the odd or the unusual, it is far too easy to run with herd, I do not roll that way. Me, I prefer to stand out in the crowd, follow the path least traveled, and explore new territory. In my view a 400 hp small block Chevy is boring; seen one, seen a million of them.

Have there been any US presidents that we would consider a "car guy?" The last US presidential election fostered a lot of discussion about which of the two major party candidates the average American would like to sit down and have a beer with. But there has never been any discussion in the popular press about whom the average gear head would want to talk cars with. Presidents, and those who aspire to become president, will often go to great pains to show through photo-ops that they are men of the people, you would expect to see a candidate hanging out in a garage talking cars. Motor sports and home mechanics are popular American pursuits, but it seems to me that we have not had any potential candidates who could be realistically expected to differentiate between a differential and a drive shaft.

Of all the troubles in the world to have, trying to decide if I should replace my perfectly good three year-old