Topic: What did you do to your car today?

[rrocket]

Got the winter tires off...hopefully my new summer rubber is in shortly.

[Dante]

Cleaned up Outlander's interior. Couldn't finish before the rain started but hopefully it will be nice tomorrow. Cleaned up everything  - carpet, upholstery, every nuke and cranny,  cubby and piece of trim, vacuumed the crap out of it. It looks like new now ( save for few minor scuffs here and there) and the upholstery held up unexpectedly well for a 12 years old car.

Exterior tomorrow if weather permits.

[ChaosphereIX]

Drove the Alfa hard on some back country roads to give it an Italian tune up. The Firestone Firehawks held up great under some punishment. Completely thrashed a modded Subaru BRZ from a stoplight. Old girl still has it 

Then gave it a wash.

[ChaosphereIX]

Got the winter tires off...hopefully my new summer rubber is in shortly.

look forward to your assessment of the Generals. So far I am a fan.

[Firm]

LOTS of car stuff going on this weekend - some by choice, some not so much.

Started on Friday with a call from Mrs.Firm stating that the rear hatch on the Escalade wouldn't unlock. Got home early and took the interior panels off so I could manually release the gate from the inside. Once I did, it was obvious that the actuator was dead....Ordered a new one ($45, all in) that should be here on Wednesday.

Woke up early on Saturday to clean up the DD's...washed the DTS then washed and waxed the Escalade. Feeling ambitious I decided to take the SLK out so I could organize some stuff in the garage that needed to go into the rafters above the lift....That's when I had my first FGC experience in awhile....

It started fine after sitting all winter on a maintainer, so I rolled it out and let it idle for 10 minutes in the driveway before leaving to take it for a ride. Felt a bit weird in the neighborhood, and when I got onto the main road and hit the gas I got...nothing. Floor it and the car just very slowly and casually picks up speed. Limped it home and a check engine light popped up....

Code read something about the TPS, so I figured, fine, I'll change a sensor and we'll be good to go.....Wrong. The car is drive by wire and the TPS sensors (both of them) are built into the accelerator pedal assembly. Of course, that's a non-serviceable part, so the entire accelerator pedal assembly needs to be changed - the SLK version, with it's studded stainless steel face is about $400.

So I tried a couple different reset procedures with no luck and called it a day.

This morning I went to the MGB's and with some helping hands made some really good progress. Got the trunk and engine bay in the orange car de-greased and looking good, and made a bunch of little cosmetic fixes on it. Then took the biohazard worthy interior out of the yellow car  - many seized bolts and frozen tracks made taking the seats out a terrible job, but we got it done. Everything will need to be pressured washed or thoroughly scrubbed.....All things considered, the floors ain't too bad at least.

Got home and went back to work on the SLK....removed the pedal assembly and inspected/cleaned all the connections, plugged it back in, and low and behold, it's working fine now! Revs great, no codes....Tomorrow I'll bolt it back up and take the car for a good drive to see if the problem returns or not.







This no cable stuff gives me the creeps....


The culprit, this thing has at least 6 moving points, all of them plastic.

[Firm]

Forgot this horror show

[Firm]

Road tested the SLK, all seems fine now.....FGC

[rrocket]

Road tested the SLK, all seems fine now.....FGC

I started feeling light headed..LOL

[revalations]

Got the 656,000 km Grand Caravan all fixed up after its accident this past December. The kids are thrilled, for some reason they love the “bean bean” van. I lucked out on the hood and fender from the same color van, bumper cover not so lucky.


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[Firm]

Got the 656,000 km Grand Caravan all fixed up after its accident this past December. The kids are thrilled, for some reason they love the “bean bean” van. I lucked out on the hood and fender from the same color van, bumper cover not so lucky.


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Nice! Good to see it keep soldiering on. 

[Bubba]

Got the 656,000 km Grand Caravan all fixed up after its accident this past December. The kids are thrilled, for some reason they love the “bean bean” van. I lucked out on the hood and fender from the same color van, bumper cover not so lucky.

Yay!

[EV Dan]

Good job! Now it's the Inky Bean 

[draghon]

Installed new front strut assemblies on the Acadia, pretty simple job once the plastic cowl is removed. Was pleasantly surprised that Monroe quick struts were 50% off at part source matching rock autos price so i was able to buy them locally. Just need an appointment for an alignment and hopefully thats it for the Acadia this year. (Other than fluid changes)

[UnknownJinX]

Got the winter tires off...hopefully my new summer rubber is in shortly.

Yeah, I need something new.

I Autocrossed yesterday and I am absolutely done with my set of Fk 453, which is garbage and can't grip for sh*t on an Autocross course.

Granted, my skill isn't great and I am not really competitive anyway, but there are people who are driving their cars way harder and their RE-71R tires stick like gum on pavement.

So yeah, stay far, FAR away from Fk 453 if you don't want to be the last few ones at AutoX.

Thinking of Firehawk Indy 500(AKA Bridgestone RE 003) for my next set. Supposedly not as grippy as RE-71R, but if I use RE-71R, I would eat through it in no time.

[Gurgie]

I Autocrossed yesterday and I am absolutely done with my set of Fk 453, which is garbage and can't grip for sh*t on an Autocross course.

Granted, my skill isn't great and I am not really competitive anyway, but there are people who are driving their cars way harder

Thinking of Firehawk Indy 500(AKA Bridgestone RE 003) for my next set. Supposedly not as grippy as RE-71R, but if I use RE-71R, I would eat through it in no time.

Have you considered the Hankook RS4's? They are quite grippy, a bit longer lasting than the RE-71R's and cost less... so cheaper if you gotta replace them sooner.

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[Great_Big_Abyss]

Finally, I've been having an issue with the Integrated Brake Controller.  When the trailer is plugged in, the IBC randomly loses signal, and thinks that the trailer isn't plugged in.  When this happens it beeps, and I don't have trailer brakes.  Then it will randomly reconnect again.  I mentioned this to them when I dropped the truck off, and they found a related TSB from Toyota that they went ahead and applied to the ECU.  I'll find out this weekend if it has fixed it.  I'm not too concerned by my little trailer not having brakes (the truck's brakes are more than large enough to haul everything back down in an emergency), but the beeping was annoying, and well, everything should work as intended on a new truck. 

So, the ECU flash that the dealer applied to the Integrated Brake Controller fixed the issue I was having.  The IBC performed flawlessly on our recent trip with the trailer.  Not one single disconnect/reconnect. 

[Blueprint]

Had my daughter wash her recently acquired 2014 Accent on Friday then we placed it in the garage for detailing & stone chip repair. She's about one fuel tank into ownership, and a CEL popped up this week. Dealers won't do a simple code read without a full service appointment 

I discovered the original owners got, ahem, "convinced" that an electronic rustproof gizmo was a good buy. Well, it's goodbye as I removed it from the car, cutting off its two body connectors so I would not break off the ground bolts. The car also has numerous traces of prior boom box duties, with plenty of wires and stuff at the bottom of the spare tire well. A power cable for an amp or something was cut and exposed in the trunk, but still plugged at the battery - did not come up in the PPI  I unplugged that and zip-tied the fuse holder where it's unpowered and out of harm's way.

It's under the garage lights that I discovered a serious source of buyer's remorse. The roof has rust bubbles all over. Two are at the top of the windshield and could be untreated stone chips. But the others, some tiny, some dime-sized, clearly come from under the paint with no pinhole  I did "emergency surgery", sanding the rust clear with a Dremel (yes, that bad) and covering with touch-up paint, just to stop the rust while I make a plan.

We purchased the car in late winter, and I closely looked at door frames, jambs, fenders, rockers ... all are impeccable. Only the freakin' roof is rusting!!

[BWII]

Picture time for brake job Part II - oh the money I saved, soon I can be rich like you guys and buy more than just a Hot Wheels Porsche.  (no wait, my wife spent almost $500 at the greenhouse too...so there is where my saving went.  )

Passenger side...


Old pads




New vs old


So...I could've gotten easily another 200,000 km out of the front pads.  Nice!  Coulda just gone with rotors!

Old rotors.

Mmmm....corrosion!


For shits'n;giggles...original boots.  I replaced these numerous times on the old Taurus.
Outer

Inner


Whatever this is fell off.  Hope it's not important. Some kind of isolator I'm guessing.


Back to the brakes.
Did not forget to do this, this time.


Painted one caliper bracket for fun.  Maybe should've done all of them.


Would've looked better


Driver side - so much scaling...


I guess my car only stops with the rear brakes. 


Good thing I took it apart.  Yuck.  Cleaned and lubed it real good.


Tada!  So pretty.


Can't even see them. 


Everything up front came apart so much nicer than the rears. 

I also ended up going to Cdn Tire for that brake tool, which they rent.  OK, so it's $80 to rent? 
How long? 
3 days. 
And then what? 
$20/day over. 
So I could end up being hundreds over unless I come in?  Well...it aint like I'm going to be in Wpg in the next 3 days.  How much to buy it? 
$80. 
Sold. 

Bet I can return it for full credit anyway...I mean I bought it, now I don't want it.  Though it looks used since it was a rental, but at least he went and found me the nicest rental unit they had. 

[UnknownJinX]

I Autocrossed yesterday and I am absolutely done with my set of Fk 453, which is garbage and can't grip for sh*t on an Autocross course.

Granted, my skill isn't great and I am not really competitive anyway, but there are people who are driving their cars way harder

Thinking of Firehawk Indy 500(AKA Bridgestone RE 003) for my next set. Supposedly not as grippy as RE-71R, but if I use RE-71R, I would eat through it in no time.

Have you considered the Hankook RS4's? They are quite grippy, a bit longer lasting than the RE-71R's and cost less... so cheaper if you gotta replace them sooner.

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Thanks for the advice!

I looked it up and seems like a good tire, but unfortunately, it doesn't come in the exact size my car needs, which is 225/45/R18, and they only have 225/40/R18 and 225/40/R19. The latter is actually the OEM size for an R3 RX-8, but not my GT.

I mean, I could be more flexible, but I am a bit OCD when it comes to this.

[blur911]

I Autocrossed yesterday and I am absolutely done with my set of Fk 453, which is garbage and can't grip for sh*t on an Autocross course.

Granted, my skill isn't great and I am not really competitive anyway, but there are people who are driving their cars way harder

Thinking of Firehawk Indy 500(AKA Bridgestone RE 003) for my next set. Supposedly not as grippy as RE-71R, but if I use RE-71R, I would eat through it in no time.

Have you considered the Hankook RS4's? They are quite grippy, a bit longer lasting than the RE-71R's and cost less... so cheaper if you gotta replace them sooner.

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Thanks for the advice!

I looked it up and seems like a good tire, but unfortunately, it doesn't come in the exact size my car needs, which is 225/45/R18, and they only have 225/40/R18 and 225/40/R19. The latter is actually the OEM size for an R3 RX-8, but not my GT.

I mean, I could be more flexible, but I am a bit OCD when it comes to this.

In that case you could try Dunlop Direzza ZIII in your size.  Not as fast as the RE71R, but might wear better.