When planning to perform a brake job you will always be faced with these three questions: Should I replace the rotors? Or should I simply have them resurfaced? And how do I decide? Before digging into this topic let’s point out that for most brake jobs the rotors should either be resurfaced or replaced. Not … Read more
Threaded fasteners of many types have been developed over centuries and are generally used to hold two or more parts together. In this article we will include pretty much all types of metal fasteners under the single term, bolt. If all goes well in a lifetime, every bolt needed to be removed simply comes out … Read more
The gasoline or diesel engine in your car or truck produces the necessary power to push you down the road. At the same time, that engine produces a considerable amount of waste energy in the form of heat. And that heat must be extracted from the mechanisms inside the engine and efficiently dumped to the … Read more
As we already wrote about in our in-depth Plasti Dip guide, Plasti Dip is flexible, non-slip specialty rubber coating that comes in a huge variety of colors. It can be easily applied to tool handles, vehicles (wheels, painted surfaces, trim, badges, etc.), and many other creative uses via spraying, dipping, or brushing. The beauty of … Read more
Quite a variety of gasoline-fueled piston engines are offered in today’s automobiles. One thing all have in common is spark plugs. And spark plugs are a periodic maintenance item in your car. A properly functioning spark plug will take the electrical signal from the car battery to the ignition coil and create a spark to … Read more
It is not uncommon for the door of a modern automobile to refuse to latch closed. In this article we will discuss how this can happen and ways to resolve the problem. In addition to latching problems, we will also cover several other reasons why a car door might be reluctant to shut. How a … Read more
Single overhead and dual overhead camshafts have been a part of automotive, marine, motorcycle and aircraft engines since the early 20th century. Some of the first cars with a single overhead camshaft (SOHC) were the British designed 1902 Maudsley and the American 1903 Marr Autocar. Dual overhead camshafts (DOHC) appeared in a French Peugeot which … Read more
Spark plugs may be simple to replace or annoyingly difficult. It all depends on how many covers, hoses, wire harnesses and other miscellaneous parts you must either move or remove to gain access to the plugs. And if the engine is jammed into a tiny space, that can make getting to the plugs even more … Read more
Today, gears are a major part of our lives. Mostly hidden by appropriate enclosures, they do their work in all manner of servile devices from washing machines to laser printers to chainsaws. Many aspects of life would be far different and more difficult without gears. Two specific types of gears are in common use worldwide. … Read more
Around 2012 or so, the first of the small displacement and high performance turbocharged four cylinder engines began to emerge in scaled-down sports sedans and hatchbacks. The Ford Focus ST and the Mazdaspeed 3 come to mind. Manufacturers were then attempting to squeeze a bunch of brake horsepower (bhp) out of small displacement engines and … Read more