|
I have a headlight polishing kit in my garage. I am just juggling too many projects right now. She was mad because we had six cars at the house on Sunday, another car that belongs to us over at my sister's house and another car that belongs to us at my brother's house. At the time my brother's car was in the middle of the garage on jack stands, eliminating the possibility of two cars in the garage. We had discussed the possibility of buying the Corolla a couple days previous. I thought she had given me the go-ahead as long as my brother's car was all done. She thought she had told me my brother's car had to be done AND the Avalon had to be sold. At the time I bought the car I really did think the Accord was maybe a half-hour's worth of work from completion. At our house: Lexus SC400 (my car) Honda Accord (her car) Honda Accord (my brother's car, project near completion) Chevy Impala (her co-worker's car, paying job) Toyota Avalon (flip-mobile, work in progress) Toyota Corolla (flip-mobile, project just started) On top of this, my brother has my Integra while I have his Accord and our Jeep is at my sister's house due to lack of room at home. The Corolla needs a corner light and a turn signal to be complete, but before that I need to get the Avalon sold in order to not cause too much havoc with our insurance. For the Avalon to be ready for sale the struts and sway links need to arrive and be installed, plus I need to change the two accessory belts. I jumped the gun with the ad, but I want to develop a queue of sales leads before the car is totally ready. The Avalon should be all done by Saturday night in any case. Rear struts are a piece of cake on that car. I was in the wrong. She cooled off about it after I moved the gray Accord and some other garage junk so we could get two cars in the garage, showed meaningful progress on the Avalon AND the Corolla on Monday, and finished her friend's car and got it back to her (and paid) last night. On top of all this: My Integra needs to have its Skunk2 springs swapped out for some Progress units with less drop and less spring rate. My Lexus has a noise in the rear brakes, probably caused by me taking the brakes apart to adress a not-all-the-way-tight axle nut and not greasing everything again when I put it back together I'm supposed to change a set of lowering springs and blown struts for new struts and factory springs on my brother-in-law's Maxima I'm supposed to change a set of struts out on my mom's CR-V My wife drove by our house when she came home from work last night because there were no cars she is accustomed to seeing in the driveway. I really need to just take a week of vacation from work and buckle down on projects. On the other hand I hate not being able to take time off around the holidays (plus Nebraska could go to a bigtime bowl game this year and I want to go if that happens). It has been a boring day at work and I have spent way too much time looking at information about this: http://quantum-auto.com/store/index...ticles&Itemid=4 http://quantum-auto.com/store/index...uemart&Itemid=1 Sorry for the long and rambling not really update.
|
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 22:53 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2013 08:49 |
|
|
Great thread! I'm amazed the hood of that Avalon looks so pristine, every one of the wide variety of cars in my family have a few chips here and there. Maybe we just like driving behind gravel trucks? I like getting hose clamps at home improvement stores, I can pick exactly what and how much I need out of the bins and they're usually fully stainless steel instead of just the band.
|
| # ? Sep 9, 2010 01:16 |
|
|
The Avalon has one of those clear shield vinyl protective films on the leading edge of the hood and fenders. The car looks better in pictures than it does in reality, but isn't that always the case? I had several inquiries about the Avalon yesterday but I really don't have time to even show it to anyone until the weekend, and a couple of parts that need to go on the car have not arrived yet. On my lunch break yesterday I used the Avalon like a pickup truck to buy ten bags of cypress mulch and a fertilizer spreader from Wal-Mart. After work I drove over to my friend James' shop and he pounded out the dent in the quarter panel of the Avalon and helped me bend the front door a little bit to correct a door alignment issue. The quarter isn't perfect but it is a big improvement.    When I got home I noticed that my neighbor had left the Accord (Acura CL) spindle over by my garbage cans with the fresh bearing pressed into it. It was starting to get dark but I decided to mow the lawn anyway. I finished the front yard and half the back yard and ran out of gas. I wanted to quit and finish the next morning but instead I dragged myself to the gas station and bought gas to fill the mower and finish the job. That was it for the night. I got up at 6:30 this morning and put the spindle back on my brother's Accord. It went on very easily. I made sure to shut the garage door before using the impact gun to tighten the axle nut, so sorry neighbors if you still heard that. I put the car on the ground and took it for a test drive. It was now making a noise from the driver's side of the car. I took the brakes apart on the driver's side using all hand tools to keep quiet. The little flat spring that holds the pads down was broken. It had been broken on the other side as well. I put in a spare one I had gotten at the junkyard and cleaned all the brake parts up and put it back together. This time the test drive was silent (finally). So that project is now done and my brother needs to come swap cars with me. I had a little bit of time left before I had to get ready for work so I vacuumed out the Avalon to clean up the mulch that had spilled out of the bags.
|
| # ? Sep 9, 2010 18:28 |
|
|
I delivered the Accord to my brother the other night. He called me yesterday to say thanks for sprucing up the car. He had been pretty bummed about it and now the car is a lot nicer, having stronger brakes, alloy wheels, working power locks, working clutch hydraulics, cup holders, and a fully assembled interior. That Impala that I replaced a coolant tube on had a leak again a couple of days after I did the work. Rear more here if you care to: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3346970 It is fixed now. It was the rubber bypass hose that connects to the metal bypass tube that I replaced because of a bad weld. My Lexus had noise from the front right corner and from the left rear corner. I figured the sound from the left rear was a result of taking the brakes apart a couple of times to deal with a wheel bearing issue and never re-greasing each time I put it back together. I took the brakes apart, cleaned, re-greased and re-assembled. Noise gone! I am leaving to go to Lincoln for the Husker game in a few minutes. When I get home I think I am going to tackle the rear struts and sway bar links in the Avalon. That should be a pretty easy job. Go Big Red!
|
| # ? Sep 11, 2010 13:36 |
|
|
PBCrunch posted:I delivered the Accord to my brother the other night. He called me yesterday to say thanks for sprucing up the car. He had been pretty bummed about it and now the car is a lot nicer, having stronger brakes, alloy wheels, working power locks, working clutch hydraulics, cup holders, and a fully assembled interior. Also, this remains one of my favourite threads.
|
| # ? Sep 11, 2010 20:33 |
|
|
Yes it was the cupholder from an LX/EX Accord. This car is a DX model. When I drove the car I jammed the cup in between the p-brake handle and the passenger seat. It uuuuusually stayed in place that way. The cup holders still kind of suck. If you have a big cup in them it will hit the preset buttons on the radio which activate repeat and random play when using the CD player or iPod.
|
| # ? Sep 11, 2010 22:21 |
|
|
Actually I'd say the Avalon lights aren't tooooo bad. They were far worse on my 2001 Accord when I got it, barely lit the road up. Kinda surprised the 97 CL bearing fit. I know the CL is basically an Accord with different headlights, but I thought it got a redesign in 97 instead of the 98 Accord redesign. It's surprising how much of a difference there is, price wise, between different generations of Avalons. Mom's 2003 XLS still books, private party, at nearly $10,000, though hers is fully loaded except for navigation.
|
| # ? Sep 12, 2010 01:37 |
|
|
Eight years and who knows how many miles makes a big difference. This particular Avalon has 168k miles on it. Another issue is that the older a car is the harder it gets to find financing. Cars that are fifteen years old being sold private party are pretty much limited to an audience of people that can pay cash. It wasn't just the bearing that fit. The whole spindle came from a 1997 CL 2.2. When I got home from the game tonight I took the rear struts and sway bar links out of the Avalon. In the process I broke off two bolts in the left rear caliper bracket. Then I found out the two struts I got on ebay were BOTH right struts. The struts have brackets that bolt to the sway bar links so using a right strut on the left side won't really work. So the car is in the air with one new strut and sway link and one side in pieces. I am not 100% sure about what I am going to do.
|
| # ? Sep 12, 2010 04:18 |
|
|
PBCrunch posted:I am not 100% sure about what I am going to do. I suggest sweet-talking the woman. Edit: VVV is a very angry person. meatpimp fucked around with this message at Sep 12, 2010 around 20:35 |
| # ? Sep 12, 2010 20:13 |
|
|
PBCrunch posted:Eight years and who knows how many miles makes a big difference. This particular Avalon has 168k miles on it. Another issue is that the older a car is the harder it gets to find financing. Cars that are fifteen years old being sold private party are pretty much limited to an audience of people that can pay cash. Ahh ok, if it was still the 2.2 it was the previous generation then. I know the Accord went to the 2.3 for 1998. Still an F series engine until 2003, when it got the K24, I believe. I've seen plenty of 2nd gen Avalons running around with 250k+ on them, the only problem mom has had with her 2003 is the rear end in a top hat dealer's service dept charging her for stuff it either didn't need, or they didn't do. She just rolled over 100k, the CEL has been lit for 2 years and the dealer has "fixed" it several times (by "fix" I think they just reset the ECU). She's got Toyota of America involved now, along with a different dealer - it's getting fixed for free even though she's long, long out of warranty. (it's an EVAP code, so nothing that affects the performance) We've just been resetting the ECU a week before it has to be smogged for a couple of years, since it takes about 2 weeks for the light to pop back on and it's apparently showing everything as ready on the obd-ii scan after a week. I think for the most part, it's a Camry V6 under the hood. But yeah, you're right about a car of that age/price is limited to the cash crowd. A very common problem on Camry V6's and Avalons, both 1st and 2nd gen on the Avalon, is it'll throw 3 EVAP codes at you. It's typically an evap valve by the gas tank (some kind of "bypass valve"), next to the evap canister. Wish I still had the TSB, I even showed the last dealer the TSB and they charged mom $100 for a new gas cap instead... </end dealer rant>
|
| # ? Sep 12, 2010 20:24 |
|
|
I bought a correct strut and will take up the wrong part issue with the ebay seller. I put the two struts and the sway bar links on the car and concentrated on the brakes. The caliper bracket on the left side was broken. I went to the junkyard and found a 1997 Avalon in great shape. Unfortunately the 1997 Avalon has a different caliper bracket than the 95-96 model. I tried to see if maybe swapping the backing plates would make it work, but that was not successful. I also looked at parts from a 92-96 Camry V6 and a Lexus ES300 but nothing matched up. I went to another junkyard and the Avalon that I had taken some AC pipes from was still there. I looked up the VIN with my phone and determined that it was a 1995 model. So I grabbed the caliper bracket that I needed. While I was in the junkyard I also grabbed a pair of rear struts from a 1998+ Chevy Prizm. They looked like they were in good shape and the rear struts on the 1995 Corolla are totally blown and have score marks all over the shafts. I went home and put the new caliper bracket on the Avalon. I figured I would grease everything up while I was in there and that was when I discovered the left rear caliper was frozen. I should have checked that before I went to the junkyard. I had the part in my hand not a half hour earlier. Oh well. So I went back to the first junkyard with the 1997 Avalon and grabbed the caliper. That car had better looking pads than mine so I grabbed the pad set from both sides as well (and put them in my pocket). I went back home and finished putting everything together. I also replaced the serpentine belt on the car. A guy named "Bubba" called and wanted to see the car. From the moment he got out of the car I knew it was going to be a bad deal. He drove the car, beating the snot out of it the whole time. After putting the car through the wringer and telling me it had bad ball joints he offered me $700 less than my asking price. I told him I had other interested parties and declined the offer. I got started tearing the read end of the Corolla apart. I removed some trim that hides the nuts that hold the strut hats in place and removed the nuts. I popped the wheels off and removed the bolts that hold the struts to the spindles. The sway bar links connect the struts to the sway bar so I cut the sway bar links free from the sway bar since I am going to replace the links while I am in there. Cutting sway links tears up blades and kills the batteries for my cordless sawzall quickly.  Click here for the full 1973x847 image.  Click here for the full 1536x2048 image. Newer junkyard strut:  Click here for the full 1877x743 image. $20 Sony CD/MP3 Player:  Click here for the full 1446x938 image. And that was it for yesterday. Tonight I'm going to put it all back together and probably tear into my brother-in-law's 1999 Nissan Maxima that needs struts and probably some other stuff too. I am taking off the lowering springs the car came with and putting on factory springs.
|
| # ? Sep 13, 2010 14:41 |
|
|
Corolla junkyard strut swap and sway links job done! If you have ever changed struts before you have probably removed a little flat spring that holds the brake line to the strut body. Generally once you remove this clip there is a little slot for the brake line to pass through so you can remove the strut without having to bleed the brakes later. Not so on the Corolla. At least years 1988 through 2001 or so. On these cars you have to disconnect the brake lines and then bleed the brakes when you put the new strut in. Yeah, brakes should be bled periodically anyway to remove scuzzy fluid from the wheel cylinder/calipers or whatever. But on old rear end Nebraska cars the bleeder screws get rusty and break off. Which didn't happen this time thankfully. My wife helped me bleed it and everything was cool. Thanks wife! My brother-in-law dropped off his Maxima that I am supposed to put struts on. It has been making some kind of noise lately. My neighbor and I drove the car and it seems to need a left front wheel bearing. Why does every car belonging to everyone I know need a god drat wheel bearing? So the front left knuckle needs to come off. When I pulled the front right strut out it looks like the inner CV joint separated or something. Is there some way to massage that back into place? I was browsing craigslist today and came across an ad for a 2002 ZX2 with a timing belt missing some teeth for $750. I called the seller and broke it down to $500. I went to see the car. It was at some sort of business that does custom work on ghetto hooptie type cars. There were a couple of "Box Chevys" on big wheels and a couple of pickups with chrome wheels. The car's valve cover was loose so I could see the cam gears and belt. He had also removed the harmonic balancer. The timing belt was indeed missing some teeth. The seller told me several times that the car was still "in time" so I think he thinks it is an interference motor. I am leery since the car is at a shop of sorts, I mean why don't they just fix it? He says he doesn't have the cam gear alignment tool and doesn't want to buy it for a car he will never see in his shop again. Also, the guy that listed the car is not the owner. He gave me the owner's phone number but he hasn't returned my call. If I can't get in contact with the owner I will definitely pass. A man came to look at my Avalon at work. I couldn't leave to test drive, so he was supposed to call me back. And he never did. Oh well, I stayed busy with other things.
|
| # ? Sep 14, 2010 04:18 |
|
|
I know the '99 Subaru Forester I changed the struts on had that same issue as well. I was putting in 2006 XT struts in which had a normal clip, so I just bought the brake lines from a 2006 model so it will never have to be done that way again (they're identical minus the attachment).
|
| # ? Sep 14, 2010 14:35 |
|
|
CharlesM posted:I know the '99 Subaru Forester I changed the struts on had that same issue as well. I was putting in 2006 XT struts in which had a normal clip, so I just bought the brake lines from a 2006 model so it will never have to be done that way again (they're identical minus the attachment). The clip wasn't the problem. See the picture below.
|
| # ? Sep 14, 2010 15:14 |
|
|
Yeah that's exactly what I meant. Sorry I wasn't clear. Some people used a dremel on the strut to detach it without disconnecting the line, but I'm not sure that's a good solution long term unless it's still held in well.
|
| # ? Sep 14, 2010 20:59 |
|
|
I thought about notching it with a tin snips maybe. My wife was home so I just decided to do it right and bleed the brakes. They probably had the same skunky 220k mile fluid in them that they were filled with at the factory. The ZX2 with a broken timing belt was already sold when I called about it this morning. My wife is a trooper. She went out to several different Autozone locations gathering up the parts to finish the strut and wheel bearing job on my brother-in-law's Maxima.
|
| # ? Sep 14, 2010 22:21 |
|
|
I met up with a buyer tonight. The most he wants to pay for the Avalon is $2100. I want it gone, so I think I will accept. After all expenses including all parts plus tax & title the total expenses are $1250, leaving a profit of $850. And I get probably $50 when I turn the plates back in, so more like $900.
|
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 00:03 |
|
|
The Avalon has officially been sold. $2100 in cash. The buyer was from China and was new to America so he was asking me all kinds of questions about getting the oil changed and getting insurance. So now we need to turn in the plates then switch our revolving door insurance policy over to the Corolla so we can get it plated and then sold. My wife and I went out for steak to celebrate. I did not even touch the Maxima today.
|
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 03:37 |
|
|
I got up early this morning and got after it on the Maxima. Sorry about the impact gun noise at 7 AM neighbors. At least I had the garage door shut. Should have been up cooking breakfast for someone or something. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSOSJ68xOBA I had already removed the two front struts. I needed to pull the knuckle so I can take it in to have a new wheel bearing pressed in:  Click here for the full 1399x1943 image. Thanks for your help Harbor Freight ball joint popper tool. Beats the poo poo out of whacking the knuckle with a hammer until the ball joint pops loose. Also better than ruining the ball joints by using a pickle fork. Driver's corner with no strut. Take in that 99 cent solution to the expensive problem of blown out hood support struts.  Click here for the full 1453x1288 image. Driver's rear corner with no strut. I had to take off the rotor because of a broken wheel stud and because I couldn't access the nut on the end of the lower strut bolt with the rotor in the way.  Click here for the full 1504x1568 image. On the passenger side rear corner the little captor ears for the strut bolt nut actually held the nut in place so I could remove the bolt without removing the brake rotor. Thanks Nissan for making your design work half the time.  Click here for the full 1497x1662 image. Passenger front corner with strut removed and axle CV joint not together. As soon as I pulled the strut out the two inner joint separated. How do I get this back together?  Click here for the full 1358x1841 image.
|
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 15:42 |
|
|
I wonder if the axle was already broken before you took it apart? I recently replaced the clutch on my 99 max( same gen). Which obviously involved removing the axles. I actually broke my axle in the same place while attempting to remove it and had to have it replaced. I imagine you can remove the boot and put it back together somehow, but I have no experience with that. My understanding is that its usually simpler just to put a reman axle in than to rebuild a broken one. edit: I just checked my Haynes manual, and it gives a writeup on rebuilding the axles. But knowing whats involved, unless you want to learn just for the sake of learning, I would just pop a reman in there. Should take you less that an hour, depending on how easily you can get the 3 retainer bearing bolts off. There only like $70 at any auto parts store. mrglynis fucked around with this message at Sep 15, 2010 around 17:17 |
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 16:58 |
|
|
mrglynis posted:I wonder if the axle was already broken before you took it apart? I recently replaced the clutch on my 99 max( same gen). Which obviously involved removing the axles. I actually broke my axle in the same place while attempting to remove it and had to have it replaced. I imagine you can remove the boot and put it back together somehow, but I have no experience with that. My understanding is that its usually simpler just to put a reman axle in than to rebuild a broken one. Of course the driver's side started leaking again a week later because the differential carrier bearing is worn out inside the transmission.
|
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 17:23 |
|
|
PBCrunch posted:I replaced both axles on this car less than a year ago. I replaced the output seals on the transmission and both axles' boots ripped when they were stretched a little bit beyond their normal range of travel. Yea the carrier bearing is a known problem for the 4th gen. I (knock on wood) seem to be ok in that area. I've got 204k on my 99.
|
| # ? Sep 15, 2010 18:32 |
|
|
I have two different kinds of spring compressors. One is like a set of jaws that is hinged in two dimensions and the other is the conventional kind with two bolts with hooks on the ends. Neither one was long enough to be able to compress the stock style front springs on the Maxima down far enough to put them on. And the fresh battery for my Snap On impact gun was out of juice. And then it started raining so gently caress it.
|
| # ? Sep 16, 2010 00:51 |
|
|
PBCrunch posted:I have two different kinds of spring compressors. One is like a set of jaws that is hinged in two dimensions and the other is the conventional kind with two bolts with hooks on the ends. Are you sure the "stock style" springs are stock? I never had a problem installing springs on my Maxima with el cheapo Autozone rental compressors.
|
| # ? Sep 16, 2010 02:56 |
|
|
I took them from a junkyard Maxima myself. I think the problem is that I am starting with a fully uncompressed spring, not a spring already compressed within the confines of the assembled strut. My electric impact is a wonderful tool but it pretty much sucks for compressing a spring. Anyway I am going to take them over to my friend's shop tonight. He has a better set of the double-hinged-jaw-style spring compressors and also a big hydraulic spring compressor. One way or another it will get done. I hate working on struts and guess what, the next big job on my list is to change out the struts on my mom's 2004 CR-V. Woo.
|
| # ? Sep 16, 2010 14:23 |
|
|
I got the strut assemblies all put together last night. It was a battle against rusty strut top nuts and spring tension, but it got done. I don't know if it has anything to do with the beam axle rear suspension, but the rear shocks on this car are the first rear springs I have encountered that I couldn't just squish the spring down enough with body weight to be able to get the nut started. We had to use the spring compressor on all four struts.
|
| # ? Sep 17, 2010 14:29 |
|
|
It has been slow going the last few days. I gave my neighbor the knuckle and the new bearing last week, but he has been busy at work and hasn't been able to press it yet. I was extremely lazy this weekend. I made a bunch of food and my mom and my brother and sister and their families came over to watch the Nebraska Cornhuskers put an old school beat down on the Washington Huskies. Then I pretty much just watched football the rest of the day. The only car thing I got done was to go to the parts store and get some new wheel studs to replace a broken one and a couple of stripped ones on the rear axle of the Maxima. Yesterday I cleaned up the mess from everyone coming over and that was pretty much it. I was supposed to get up early this morning to go get license plates for the Corolla but I got up late and just went to work.
|
| # ? Sep 20, 2010 15:37 |
|
|
Just wanted to say I read this thread from start to finish last week. Awesome work 
|
| # ? Sep 20, 2010 17:23 |
|
|
The hub from the Maxima is all jacked up from the car being driven on a bad wheel bearing so now I have to go to the junkyard and procure another one.
|
| # ? Sep 20, 2010 21:13 |
|
|
I called my wife and she brought some tools down to me at work. She did a good job bringing the stuff I asked for but she brought the wrong fresh battery for the cordless electric impact gun. I went to the junkyard right after work. When I got there it was less than a half hour before closing time so they let me in without paying the $2 admission. I found a donor car quickly and got to work. I removed the axle nut first since I didn't know how much juice the battery had left in it. I popped the strut bolts out, removed the tie rod end from the knuckle and the knuckle was just kind of flopping around by the ball joint, restrained somewhat by the still-connected brake line and the ABS sensor wire. The impact gun couldn't break the ball joint nut loose, so I used a big Craftsman ratchet with a pivoting head. I broke the nut loose and powered it off the rest of the way with the impact gun. Once the nut was off I could use my kind of trusty Harbor Freight ball joint popper tool to break the knuckle totally free from the ball joint. Once again the impact gun's battery was too low to be of much use so I had to use manual power to break the ball joint loose. From there all I had to do was remove the brake caliper & bracket and smack the rotor off the spindle. Before I went to the junkyard I looked at Alldata to see what the book time for removing and replacing a steering knuckle was. R&R time for one side was listed as 2.8 hours. I only did the removal part but I was done in less than fifteen minutes. A new hub from the auto parts store would have been over $150. I got a spindle and hub for $25 and fifteen minutes. And it was a good thing I went last night because the weather today looks like this:  Click here for the full 2048x1536 image. (It's raining)
|
| # ? Sep 21, 2010 16:09 |
|
|
I've found that mitchell etc. can be really off on the R&R times for certain things. Sometimes its way more than listed time and other times way less. In highschool autoshop, I changed the passenger axle on a CRX, from lifting the car up on the hoist, to the wheels back on the ground was 30 minutes. The shop teacher said that book time was 90 minutes.
|
| # ? Sep 22, 2010 01:06 |
|
|
I got up this morning at 5:30 AM to get some work done! With impact tools! Sorry neighbors. At least I had the garage door shut. I put in a couple of new lug studs on the rear end of the Maxima because one was broken and one had stripped threads. In the process of putting the rear brakes back on I noticed that the caliper bracket slider pins were frozen up, so that needs to be remedied before the car can be put back together. I checked out the bracket on the other side and it wasn't totally frozen, but the slider pins were in pretty bad shape so I should replace them on that side too. When I removed the passenger front strut the other day the inner CV joint over-extended. It could not be pushed back together, so the whole axle had to be removed so that the joint could be repaired out in the open. This job of course sucked pretty bad. Usually once you remove the strut bolts you can move the steering knuckle around enough to pop the axle out. In this case the axle was over-extended so the normal method did not allow quite enough movement to get the too-long axle to come out of the knuckle. So I had to remove the ball joint. The normal process of removing the ball joint starts with removing the axle, which was not an option here. Since the process was out of order, the ball joint nut had to be removed little bit by little bit, instead of using powered wrenches. So all of that got done and I delivered the axle and a new CV joint band and a packet of CV joint grease to my awesome neighbor Corey so he can repair the over-extended CV joint and I can get this cursed car out of my garage. Grumble grumble. Then I met some Russian dude from Lincoln at Kum & Go so he could buy a set of Lexus ES250 wheels I had bought by mistake for the Avalon. I didn't do my research and the wheels didn't fit. They apparently will work just fine for this guy so good luck to him. I sold them for the same $30 I paid. In this pic you can see the over-extended axle joint.  Click here for the full 2048x375 image. Look where you aren't you little cock sucker.  Click here for the full 2048x1536 image. And my wife found out today she passed her Nursing Boards test and can now get her nursing license and become an RN! Congratulations to her!
|
| # ? Sep 23, 2010 14:52 |
|
|
There is a $700 1995 Accord that I am interested in. The owner took it into Firestone and got the customary list of things the car needs in order to be ship-shape. Most of it is easy stuff like tie rod ends and a tune up. The part that throws me is steering rack. This looks like a pretty involved repair that is messy and difficult. What am I looking for to determine if the steering rack really needs replacement?
|
| # ? Sep 23, 2010 15:32 |
|
|
Leaking seals at the tie rods or at the steering knuckle. Loose inner tie rods if they can't be replaced without replacing the rack. Excessively loose steering, grindy steering, poo poo in the power steering fluid. Most likely: 1.loose inner tie rod 2.leaking end seal 3.poo poo in fluid e: in other news, replaced my rack last night. It's on my mind. 
Splizwarf fucked around with this message at Sep 23, 2010 around 18:49 |
| # ? Sep 23, 2010 18:47 |
|
|
Too many other headaches right now. I think I will pass on that one. I went to the junkyard at lunch. I got all wet since it was sprinkling rain, but I got the Nissan Maxima caliper brackets with free-moving slider pins I was after. I also got a perfect arm rest for the Maxima to replace the one with a big piece of duct tape covering a huge tear in the vinyl. I am wondering if I should spend $20-30 or whatever on a set of 14" wheel covers for the Corolla for the purposes of selling the car. I don't want to spend the money, but I think it will make the car easier to sell. I think wheel covers look worse than exposed steel wheels but I think I am in the minority with that opinion. I was looking around on CL and I am pretty sure the guy I sold the Avalon to is trying to re-sell it like a nine days later. For more money than I sold it to him for of course.
|
| # ? Sep 23, 2010 19:54 |
|
|
Every single thing I've sold on CL has been relisted for twice the price I sold it for within a week of the original sale. It's the nature of the site, it's mostly people trying to turn a profit.
|
| # ? Sep 23, 2010 20:52 |
|
|
Is your 18v cordless impact 1/2 or 3/8 drive? Wondering because I was thinking of getting the Ryobi impact but it's only 3/8 drive and to me that just seems a bit dainty for any substantial work.
|
| # ? Sep 25, 2010 00:41 |
|
|
Its a 1/2" drive. Similar to this one: http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item...&group_id=19913 It is the most expensive single tool I own by a lot, but it is awesome. I bought it used with two bad batteries which I sent in to some internet company to have rebuilt. Getting it was a revelation. If I ever lost my job I think I could pay my bills by charging money to loosen nuts and bolts at the junkyard. If it can reach it makes it easy. It is pretty bulky and the impact power is diminished when using extensions. I have some Ryobi cordless tools and I like them, but I don't think they would even know how to make something as ballsy as the Snap On gun. In my opinion it is definitely a piece you want to get from a tool truck brand. And I only have five or six tool truck brand items (a couple of ratchets, a ratcheting screwdriver, and the gun). I got a set of wheel covers for the Corolla after work tonight. I listed the car on craigslist but my schedule has been busy so I have been one of those lovely CL sellers that isn't ready to show the car. In light of this I took down the ad until my schedule clears up a little. My neighbor fixed that Maxima CV axle for me. It was a long week and I had no motivation to work tonight. My wife was offered a job today. PBCrunch fucked around with this message at Sep 25, 2010 around 03:45 |
| # ? Sep 25, 2010 03:41 |
|
|
Turns out the new Ryobi impact is 1/2 inch drive but it only has half the torque of the Snap On. http://www.ryobitools.com/catalog/p...ls_drivers/P260 But for a hundred bucks it may be worth a shot, I don't have rust to worry about so I have that going for me
|
| # ? Sep 25, 2010 21:30 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2013 08:49 |
|
|
It was a lazy weekend. My wife and I went to a wedding and reception on Saturday. I worked on the computer that my friend writes invoices on at his shop on Sunday morning and the early afternoon. It was acting funny and the virus and malware scans both came up positive so I flattened and reinstalled. After that I cut the grass at my house and at my mom's. I secured the floppy front bumper on the Corolla by drilling a hole in the plastic bumper and the steel fender and using a zip tie to bring them together. The new turn signal was supposed to screw into a mount on the bumper, but the mount was broken. Instead the signal is secured with a zip tie. The new corner light should arrive today. My friend is going to help me pull the fender out closer to its pre-impact shape. The car will still look hit, but it will have all its lights and the general shape of things will be correct. I got started putting the Maxima back together. I put the rear shocks on the car, cleaned up all the rear brake hardware and then put the brakes back together. I put the driver's steering knuckle with new bearing onto the car. I got the driver's front strut on the car and then quit. I really need to get the Maxima DONE TONIGHT. I am getting really sick of that thing being in my garage.
|
| # ? Sep 27, 2010 15:59 |
|
