Been getting a lot of requests for work on the daily drivers, some of it is pretty easy to handle and I don’t have a problem helping out.  Had a little civic in the other day for brakes as they were starting to make noise.  Swapped in front pads and rotors, and checked the rear drums/shoes which were still good, and the car was on it’s way. Inserting bolts in the rear to pop the drums off for inspection. Here …

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Had a buddy bring over his beautiful M3 the other evening to change the gear oils.  Not a big job, but a littler tricker to get in the air than the Porsche’s are, but after a couple hours he was back on the road.  Most of the transmission experts I have talked to in the German auto world recommend changing your drive gear fluids annually.  The transmission says lifetime fluid on it, but that is a joke IMHO.  Nothing kills …

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Audi DE 2010

Some more footage of the Audi club DE last weekend at HPT.  Friday was a pretty nice day, Saturday was pretty rainy, and Sunday was a mix of both.  Good times were still had by all 🙂 Something seemed to be missing? Even Steve looked puzzled…… Wait a second, this isn’t the Lin Burney Arrive and Drive program….food from a bag?  Paper plates?  What is this nonsense about…… After lunch, they decided to figure out how to replace a pollen …

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Nissan Sentra?

Yesterday a good friend (and my shop supervisor babysitter!) called up and said she was having stalling problems in her Nissan.  She had taken it to the shop, and they weren’t really sure what was wrong with it, but recommended starting with a tune up (mileage was about 125k).  Correct diagnosis and correct plan of attack IMHO.  The kicker, was the tune up was going run almost $500 to replace the spark plugs, cap, rotor, and clean the throttle body.  …

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A friend of mine has acquired a new to him 993TT which is in excellent condition.  Very low mileage, well taken care of, but the previous owner installed a set of Fabspeed mufflers a few hundred miles before selling the car, but the problem was, the tips just wouldn’t line up straight.  While we could get them somewhat close, it was still like the tailpipes had walleye vision, with one tip pointing one direction, and the other rotated and pointed …

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Ooops, I said it, the dreaded IMS issue of the boxsters and 996’s.  This weekend we tackled upgrading the IMS bearing in a buddy’s 1999 996 C2.  The IMS issue is the main cause of failures on the engines found in the early boxsters and 996’s.  The early design was a dual row ball bearing, followed by the later design of a single row bearing.  Typically failures are seen on lower mileage cars that are driven sporadically.  The theory for …

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Brake light on?

Is your brake pad light on? Car making odd grinding noises, worse when you hit the brakes? Weird fluid seeping out underneath one of your wheels? Might want to get your brakes checked! This is from a BMW that came in yesterday.  I have never in my life seen a rotor this bad, it was so bad the piston actually popped out of the brake caliper because it was over extended!  No wonder the car didn’t stop!  Seriously, brakes are …

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One of the major issues of the 993 is clogged secondary air injection ports in the cylinder head which causes a dreaded CEL light.  The thing is, the SAI system is only active on start up, and really is only an emissions thing to prevent excess hydrocarbons on initial startup.  The nice thing, is that the 95’s are OBDI and do not have a CEL light to trigger.  So most likely the majority of 95’s are running around with clogged …

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Last time the car was in we noticed some cracked spark plug wires, and really had no history of a full 60k service, so we decided to take the plunge and get it done.  Picked up a set of wires for a song, and we will reuse the old boots since they are in nice shape. First up was to install a front bumper bar to prevent some curbing. Right side muffler off, going after the spark plugs. Top side …

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Audi DE Inspection

Finished an inspection on a 951 last week getting ready to do the upcoming Audi DE event at Heartland park.  A quick brake bleed, inspection, and replacement of a few missing door check bolts, and it was ready to rock!