Everything Else

So yesterday, my girl's 2013 Sonic's cylinder no.3 decided it was too hot and cracked, so I've got a dead rebadged Daewoo in my back yard I have to replace the engine in and then sell off. Clearly, after such a boneheaded event, I've made my girlfriend promise to let ME handle her car choices. She sucks at choosing reliable vehicles. She's getting a used IS300 after I sell this off, since my buddy has one he's gonna sell to us for a good price, and that way we don't need an auto loan.

Other than that, parts for my Miata's AC repair came in. New condenser, drier, compressor and PAG 100 oil with plenty of r134a. Fingers crossed when I get around to installing it.

Outside of that, the Miata needs some rust repair on the right wheel arch, right rocker, right side of the truck (inner arch) and the left rocker, although thats far more solid than the right, and a new front core support since the one in there is tweaked a bit, I straightened it out using the old come along trick, but that's not perfect nor safe lol. I know it's probably gonna cost more than its worth, but its *my* money pit lol.

Raion-Fox wrote: So yesterday, my girl's 2013 Sonic's cylinder no.3 decided it was too hot and cracked

I wonder why it happened. Bad quality oil?

GM's aren't meant to last more than 3 years. This one was on borrowed time.

The only good thing about GM cars is that you can lease them for $39 or $49 / week. Which is honestly not a bad deal if you don't care about cars and don't live in an area that has a good rideshare/carshare program.


But if you go through all the trouble to replace the block why not keep it?

>But if you go through all the trouble to replace the block why not keep it?

Because I refuse to work on it after this. The engine bay is tiny and there's no way to detach the engine from the transmission so I have to remove them together. I want to fix the car and make it someone else's problem.

The IS300 I'm buying her after the car is sold is far far more reliable with the legendary JZ engine by Toyota. Unfortunately my girlfriend is smart when it comes to art and fashion, her majors, but she has been forced to admit she was a bonehead buying the car. I actively discouraged her from buying it but she didn't listen.

I have asked her to never buy a car again and not take my opinion seriously. It's costing me the weekend after this, beer and pizza for my helpers and $900 for a replacement shortblock, mounts, headgasket and headboard and a timing belt kit, since I'm changing the engine, why the hell not? Plus machine shop work on the head.

The engine in the Sonic is a terrible design. It is an open deck with very thin aluminium walls, insufficient water jackets, and valves that aren't adjustable easily. You have to replace the entire rocker/tappet assembly.

Well I washed my wife's car. Took the 90 seconds to adjust the trunk lid stoppers so the inner and outer tail lamps actually line up with each other. I've never seen another challenger that has these set properly, even brand new they are waaaay off and nobody cares :/ Could probably do with another slight tweak but it's 90% there.


Should probably file under "what pointless thing are you doing now" but starting on a prototype wire harness for an electric bus... I guess it counts as car talk. Notice, I got smart and took the hood off the hinges after the *first* time I hit my head. Normally it takes 3 or 4 goose eggs before the hood comes off

P.S. see the "bone" creeper? 300% recommended!

guardian452 wrote: P.S. see the "bone" creeper? 300% recommended!

Wow you guys have very nice facilities, must be nice to work in such cleanly appointed spaces...

Speaking of creepers we have a couple of the Creep-Zit Pro kits, also worthy of the coveted 300 percent recommendation...

We call those things fish sticks.

http://www.bonecreeper.com/

guardian452 wrote: I've never seen another challenger that has these set properly, even brand new they are waaaay off and nobody cares :/

They look pretty straight to me ... headlights could use a bit of adjustment tho.

vince gebardi wrote: ...

Hi hamei

Miata did pretty well on my trip to Arlington. It has developed a bad habit of not staying in second gear for some reason but I'll try replacing the mounts this week to fix the problem.

I had a '71 Challenger once, made the mistake of driving it in the winter and it rusted bad. Driving in Minnesota in the winter means driving through a continual fog of flying salt spray, absolute hell on everything but Deloreans...

Yeah, that's why I didn't get a Volkswagen until I moved out to California. Woulda just been eaten away...

Fluid Film.

Put it on under our old escape and not a spot of rust after many ohio and ontario winters.

IIRC only the bodywork on DMC's were aluminum. The rest of the car rotted away even more quickly than normal. I talked to an owner at a car show once so I'm now instantly an expert

commodorejohn wrote: Yeah, that's why I didn't get a Volkswagen until I moved out to California. Woulda just been eaten away...

That's right, you have a bug right? Pics please! Do you do your own work on it?

As for the DMC-12, it's actually stainless steel panels, not aluminium. The car has a mix of steel/fibreglass parts, and they rust if the assembly isn't perfect, which being they're in early-80s Ireland, not many of them were!

Raion-Fox wrote: As for the DMC-12, it's actually stainless steel panels, not aluminium.

I knew this, somewhere deep in the back of my head.

Regardless, the body may stay shiny but it takes a lot of proactive work to keep them from disintegrating underneath.

Raion-Fox wrote: That's right, you have a bug right? Pics please! Do you do your own work on it?

Heh Here she is. It's a 1969 Beetle with a rebuilt 1971 1.6L engine from the previous owner. Not the prettiest, but under the pockmarks the body's in good shape, and it runs very well. (For being almost fifty years old, it's been the most reliable car I've ever owned Far better than any of the mid-'90s sedans I drove prior to this.) My dad assists with the maintenance as he cut his teeth on vintage VWs (I'm gradually getting a handle on doing it myself,) though the most involved we've had to get thus far was a carburetor rebuild when I first got it. We replaced the distributor with a Pertronix electronic model, so I don't have to adjust the points; beyond that, regular oil changes and tappet adjustments and the occasional tightening up of the brake drums have given me two years of regular usage without any major issues...by this point, each of my previous cars had started in on their final death-spiral, and they were all thirty years younger.

Very nice. My grandmother had one in the exact same colour.

My 1999 Miata is a rust bucket, it originally came from Ohio so I'm not surprised, but it has been reliable with all new brakes, oil changes and the like it just keeps on chugging. For a near 200k miles car it doesn't burn much oil, doesn't overheat and doesn't have any problems other than it did have some of the filthiest coolant out of any car I have bought in it.

The transmission on the other hand is eventually going to need a rebuild. The previous owners have manhandled the synchros and thus it grinds occasionally going in or out of gear 2. I've been changing the gear oil regularly in an attempt to flush out any crap in the system, and while no big chunks have come out it's a lot of small bits of brass and steel coming​ out.

Inevitably I'm simply considering driving the car until the body goes and swapping the engine into a Miata with a good body.

The Sonic has been sold with it's new engine. My girlfriend has her silver IS300 and is happy and I am happy knowing I won't have to afford to pay for her piece of shit Daewoo rebadge, plus I got to keep the profit on selling the Sonic since I did all the work for her.

The IS300 has 160k on a well maintained engine. No rattles, knocks or anything. The transmission fluid was brown but I replaced it and no metal shavings were on the drain plug so I think we're good. The AC had a leak at the drier so I just popped in a new one and vacuumed it down, charged it up and it blows ice cold.

Now to change my Miata's transmission oil, diff oil, rip out the half assed cruise control and fix the A/C. I'm also in the market for a manual rack but those are expensive so that won't be until after I've recovered some expenses. I mean the PS rack is fine but I prefer fuel economy over light steering.

I've been surprised by how easy plain mechanical steering is to get used to. I don't miss power steering at all - and certainly not what happens when the power steering fails and you're left working up a hernia trying to horse the wheel off to one side or the other because the damn thing wasn't designed to fail gracefully.

Well here is my current project... Modified 1955 Dodge truck. Just finishing up the frame and suspension work.




This is a photo of it 10 years ago.