Well why the fuck didn't you say so... Just go at it with a punch and hammer, and put some paper down to catch the piece. Easy peasy.
Had to break out an even bigger hammer to coax the new pin in. Took about an hour and a ton of patience, something I'm not known to have. Thankfully, I had very little room to swing or I may have beaten the transmission in to pieces. All reassembled, shifts brilliantly again.
I'm looking to plasti-dip my wheels with a metallic coat for the shine. I've never worked with the stuff before, but I'm following the instructional video on Dipyourcar.com. I plan to remove my wheels one at a time and do the inside of the barrel as well going for a black shine to change the look. Any suggestions for doing something like this?
Troubling news from Dodgeland. Lately I've noticed that when I accelerate hard I'll hear a single knock from my engine; or to be more specific based on the location the knock seems to be originating from it sounds like it's coming from my transmission. It's an automatic though, so I'm not quite sure what could be causing. Just revving the engine doesn't do anything, nor shifting into gear. I'm hoping it's either just a worn mount or something else that's minor.
My initial guess would be a broken motor mount. Torque the engine hard and it goes up and then it comes back town with a thump. With hard acceleration you're more likely to jump the engine harder then you are just revving it. I broke a motor mount on a '70 340 Duster and it not only made a horrible thunk, but my floor shifter went about 6 inches sideways while I was holding on to it. It was quite unnerving.
I'll take a look at it this weekend when I have time. Hopefully if it's a broken mount it's one of the easier to reaplace mounts...
Welp, I didn't find any obvious damage to any of my motor mounts, but it's pretty tight in the engine compartment and I wasn't able to very closely examine all of them. Unfortunately I've got an oil leak; I changed my oil today, which had 4500 miles on it and was down 2 quarts. I'm gonna do some spelunking when I get the chance; my first thought is that it's leaking from my valve cover since the leak seems to be high in my engine. Though I'm wondering, how bad of leak is 2 quarts after 4500 miles? (Then again that assumes it's been leaking since I last changed my oil which the more I think of it I don't think is the case.)
Probably not to horrible. The dealer can tell you what is considered acceptable. I know the early 2000 f150 takes about 7 to 8 litres of oil and 5 litre loss over 5000km is acceptable.
These last two posts - the question and the answer - are amazing to me. I have 320,000 miles on my Chevy truck and have parked in the same spot in my garage for that entire lifespan. At 300,000 miles, I saw the first drip mark. It was about a half a quart low after 5000 miles following oil change and I was worried.
You usually don't SEE bad motor mounts on a visual inspection with the engine off. Here's an easy test (for an automatic transmission vehicle): Have a helper in the car, with the hood open, the emergency brake on, and the helper STANDING on the brakes. You are watching the engine, standing to the side of the car, NOT in front of it. Instruct helper to put the car in gear, then rev the engine to about 1500 RPM, or whatever RPM your vehicle's engine needs to load the drivetrain and cause some movement. THERE WILL BE SOME MOVEMENT, even on a perfectly functioning system. During this test, the engine will tilt over to one side as the crankshaft turns. That is normal; how much is normal will be determined shortly. As your helper continues to stand on the brakes and rev the engine, have them let-off the gas immediately. If the engine "bounces" back into place, or moves an excessive amount ("excessive" being a term that should be determined by someone experienced), you've got a bad mount. Do this in reverse and forward gears; it stresses the mounts differently. In my opinion, any oil LEAK is bad news, and needs to be addressed. Oil consumption can be a different issue. Can you see oil leaking somewhere on the engine? Are you getting spots on your driveway? If not, you might be burning the oil. Like Wexton said, Ford (and GM too, at least awhile back) allowed 1 quart per 1000 miles as "normal" oil consumption.
I think it may be a combination of both. From what I saw from underneath the engine I could see a small drip of oil from above [the oil pan] and I've got an oil stain on my garage floor, but it's not very big.
Are you running a thin synthetic oil? There's something to be said for running a slightly thicker (same weight, but different formulation) oil for "older engines"... it's formulated a bit differently so as to not squeeze through loosened up tolerances. I know a lot of friends who had older 911's that went on a huge Mobil 1 kick because "it was the best", but all their seals started leaking. They went back to what they were using before (non-synthetic, or synthetic blend), and the leaks went away.
Yea, or if you are using what ever it calls for say 10w30, run 10w40 or 15w40, doesn't hurt at all when you have high millage.
Other than cold-weather starts, there's nothing wrong with non-synthetic as long as you change it regularly. Hell, in the race car, we used break-in oil a lot because it was loaded with zinc which was awesome for the roller tappets, but it was changed after just about every race.
So the other day one of our most esteemed board members, toytoy88, sent me a rep comment about this post: https://www.theidiotboard.com/threads/the-rant-and-rave-thread-visualized.2271/page-32#post-549736 He said: "The worst part of headers is changing your fucking starter once a year." I totally understand, toytoy88. Headers generate a lot of heat, and that affects many components under the hood. It's probably why the solenoid went bad on my starter (I had to replace it - it would click about 10 times before it would actually crank the engine). See, when I put headers on my car about 6 years ago, I insulated them with the dimpled aluminum that many car manufacturers use to insulate their cabins/firewalls. I bought it from local junk yards, and it's like really heavy aluminum foil. You need heavy-duty scissors to cut it. I put it on my headers with hose clamps. (there's a picture on here, I think). But I think that our starters need even more when running headers. Anyway, here are some new pictures of what I'm running: Bottom view of the starter installed. Spoiler Starter wrapped up with insulation, on the bench: Spoiler Here's a view of the passenger side header, with the valve cover off. Spoiler EDIT: The insulation that I used to wrap the starter with was a special design that had a layer of fiberglass in it. I can't tell you what vehicle it came off of, because I can't remember. Check out your junk yards, it's out there, used by many manufacturers.