I’ve always been a big fan of having both summer and winter wheels for a car.  One narrow set with winter tires for driving in cold weather, and another wide set for spirited driving in the summer.  My tires were badly worn down and were only 15×7, meaning the widest tires I could realistically put on it were 205/50-15… not a very effective contact patch for the winding roads of Western Massachusetts.

Because the tires were worn on the outside more than the inside (shown to the right), I thought I had a positive camber condition (meaning the tops of the wheels are farther apart than the bottoms of the wheels) but it turns out that the rear trailing arms (which control which direction the rear wheels point) had completely shot bushings, and were causing the car to handle oddly as well as wearing the tires down extremely quickly.

I replaced them with wider, meatier wheels off a BMW z3, increasing dimensions to 17×7.5 in the front and 17×8.5 in the rear for the price of $300.  The 15×7 wheels will be great for the winter, as they’re just the right size to get the cold-weather tread down to the ground without “skiing” on top of snow and ice.

Overall, the car feels much more stable and planted now, and although larger wheels weigh more and slow the car down in every way possible, I think it was a great way to spend $300.  Now I just need to get some fresh tires on these wheels, replace the trailing arm bushings, and lower the front end a little, and this car will be ready for anything.

Back by popular demand, a wiring diagram for the obd0 b18a1 in an MPFI 88-91 CRX (that’s HF and Si, not the DX).  This should also apply to EF/ED Civics, but I’m running on memory here and don’t have a car to verify this on.

If there are any questions or corrections (as I’m sure there will be), feel free to leave them in the comments.

My BMW just rolled over 200,000 miles, and I realized that the 200k mile mark is a defining point in a car’s life.  A vehicle that’s survived for 200,000 miles has been through a lot, and came out on top.

So at this point, I’m dealing with problems as they arise and doing normal maintenance.  I need to finish budgeting exactly what I want this car to be when all is said and done.  I think the final build plan will end up in the USD $5k-$10k range.  For not, I’ve just been performing routine maintenance and keeping costs low.

Have you crossed the 200,000 mark?  How many miles have you racked up on your daily driver?

This website…

should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice.

-Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Working on a car is frustrating business.  Bolts round out, parts don’t fit, everything is constantly wearing down, and you’re always fighting a losing battle against nature.  Maintaining your own vehicle is even more psychologically challenging.  The garage is your battlefield, and walking there is a solemn reminder that you’re going alone.  Nobody is there to say ‘thanks’ afterward. You’re doing it for yourself, and sometimes it’s hard to continue on your own.

In this world, you are the engineer, the mechanic, and the driver.

After working on a car for an undefined amount of time, you’ll find yourself ‘in the groove’.  It’s a peaceful flowing time when every problem you’re confronted with is just a solution you’re working through.  The end result is no longer the goal, simply turning wrenches and disassembling or reassembling whatever carefully constructed parts you’re working with.

My garage is my temple, the vehicle is my kōan, and I meditate there every day.  Some days I don’t get anything done, but it is a wholly consuming activity that always leaves me at peace at the end of the day.  It’s a little out of the ordinary, but taking care of my car is what keeps me sane on a regular basis.

Inside your engine, dead dinosaurs (or synthetic dead dinosaurs) get pushed around by modern machinery.  The sloppy mix called oil makes sure none of the carefully crafted pieces of metal grind against each other and keeps efficiency much higher than would otherwise be possible.  While dinosaur fossils tell us about the time the dinosaurs were alive, used motor oil tells us about the time it spent inside the engine.

Blackstone Labs can definitively test your oil and tell you exactly what’s wearing, how fast, and whether or not your engine actually needs the “standard” 3,000-mile prescription of an oil change.  You’ll only get a report since the last oil change, but it’s an inexpensive way to learn a lot about how your car has been driving for that time.  Their standard oil analysis only costs $22.50 (as of this writing) and will tell you all the bare essentials you could want to know.

All you have to do is collect some of your old oil (bear in mind, this can be transmission, differential, or engine oil) in a sealed glass container at your next oil change and send it in to them.  While I haven’t tried this myself, I’m intrigued as to the results.  Have you had your oil analyzed before, and was it actually a useful endeavor?

Make sure your car mechanic has several different torque wrenches in his toolbox. If he does not have any torque wrenches, it may be time to find a new technician.

-Mark

I don’t own a tire machine, or a forge, or a mandrel bender, or any of the other specialized tools that shops often pay top dollar for and the average person doesn’t even need to know about.  There are two compelling reasons for everyone to find a local shop that’s trustworthy to help maintain their car:

You can’t, and you don’t want to.

Any job that requires tools you don’t have or aren’t worth investing in is worth taking in to a shop.  Just make sure the person doing the job knows what you’re looking for and why the car is being brought in, and you’ll do just fine.

For those of you who’d rather just ‘leave it to the pros’, basic regular maintenance can be outsourced to specialists.  Oil changes are tedious jobs that very few of us enjoy doing.  Taking your car into an oil service shop will save time and will often cost less than doing it yourself.  There are people who specialize in changing your oil quickly and efficiently and perform hundreds of oil changes every day.  In an ideal world, they’re getting paid to spot problems with your car before they become problems while they change your oil and recommend maintenance.  Most of the time, a car owner is impressed and happy to be aware of problems they can plan for (and possibly prevent).  It’s a good way for shops to receive repeat business and establish trust, and they lower the price of an oil change considerably (many shops actually lose money on oil changes because of this).  It works out well for everyone involved since the shop gets extra work and you get all your routine maintenance taken care of.

The trick to finding the right mechanic is talking to them and asking lots of questions.  Ask them to verify how they set their prices (it should be based on a standardized service manual price).

Even if you don’t need their services today, it’s worth having a trustworthy contact at a shop that you can call to solve problems in a timely manner.  Just visiting a shop and getting to knew some of the service personnel could tell you a lot in advance.

Beating my drum

My s30 didn’t get much closer to being my daily driver this week.  Our landlord thought it would be nice to surprise us with a new roof, and ours was torn off and strewn across our yard (and flowed seamlessly into my garage) so I couldn’t spend too much time working.  I put forth a massive effort to remove my rear drum brakes though, and they seem to be completely seized to the wheel hubs, and stubbornly refuse to budge.  It looks like I’ll have to cut them off, and I’m not really looking forward to it.  That means replacing them.

If you’ve upgraded your rear drums to a disk setup and don’t mind parting with them, please let me know.  I’m still shooting for this car to be driving on public roads by the end of the month.