What did you do to your car today?

[First Lady]

Blue car got treated to an oil change today as it's become the workhorse of the family and is getting many more miles these days. Tomorrow it and the Charger will get baths.

In other news, just applied for a job at Hagerty and had to answer a question about my first car. I did that but had to toss in the car that's stolen my heart, my M and this club. Fingers crossed I get to speak more about it!

[FIREM]

Good luck with the job, wouldn’t want them to think you would have had a Honda or something .

[Sneke_Eyez]

Good luck with the job application, Lindsey! Hagerty would be a very cool place to work!

Went to the junkyard yesterday with Scott. A balmy-for-January-in-MA 45ish degrees and sunny led to a pretty nice yard day!
I pulled a bunch of small things from a midnight blue 300M for parts for my boomerang Special. Hopefully today I can get some or all of them installed.

[LUNAT1C]

Good luck Lindsey! Good company, I have the M and the Model A insured there.

[Sneke_Eyez]

Friday night the airbag light came on in my Special. Gotta try to explore why. Not feeling all that safe about driving the car around with it.

Saturday Jimmy and I worked on my boomerang Special. Many signs point to a bad PCM. Ordered one. Supposed to be here on Friday. Desperately hoping that's it.

[M-Pressive]

Friday night the airbag light came on in my Special. Gotta try to explore why. Not feeling all that safe about driving the car around with it.

Saturday Jimmy and I worked on my boomerang Special. Many signs point to a bad PCM. Ordered one. Supposed to be here on Friday. Desperately hoping that's it.

Clockspring?

[Sneke_Eyez]

Could be. The horn and steering wheel audio controls work fine though so I hadn't considered it.
Many years ago I had a problem with the cloth passenger seat in my Intrepid shorting the airbag wiring out.
I am concerned that may be it, in which case I will need a new side airbag seatback and to re-skin it, which is not an easy find around here lately.
I need to get a way to check the airbag codes. I just bought a scanner to read ABS codes on the other Special and didn't want to spend $100 more to also read airbag codes and now here we are where I need one that does that. We will see what I do.

[LUNAT1C]

I might be able to assist with an airbag seat, but that will depend on which side is needed and definitely need to be recovered, I've kept them mainly for the airbags.

A quick check could be to dig into the tracks and check the airbag connectors for signs of looseness or corrosion (unlikely without the presence of water, but you never know).

Also could be something may have gotten lodged under the seat. The 2010 Impala my dad very recently sold that had been my sisters car since he upgraded my mom to her Camaro had an airbag warning that turned out to be an empty water bottle stuck under the seat.

[Sneke_Eyez]

Man, not much going on with our cars, huh? This is one of my favorite threads ever on any forum I've ever participated on, so let me try to kick it off again - we can't let this one die!

On January 22, I fixed my side airbag seat issue on my Special mentioned above, which was the two wires had been pulled out of the airbag connector itself. I disassembled the seat, pulled the harness out for inspection, and discovered the problem. I proceeded to wrap electrical tape around them once they were firmly reseated and have had no further issues!

After that, I drove the car for a while, hit 145,000 miles on Friday night, but I knew my valve covers were leaking and my sway bar endlinks were knocking.
On Saturday, Jimmy came over and we pulled off my valve covers, painted them, and replaced the gaskets, and replaced the left (facing the motor) side rear cam plate o-ring, which had been replaced when I did all of the maintenance to the car in 2020 when I bought it, but was leaking again. We also replaced both of my front sway bar endlinks to get rid of the knock. At this point those are about a yearly replacement item for me, which is frustrating, but whatever. Using the Moog ones at least means they're easy to change. Next time I might try another brand.

This morning's drive was knock free, if a bit paint-fume-y as the valve covers continue to cure.

Unfortunately, when we did the valve cover work, we discovered that the coolant heater tube which runs under the lower intake manifold is rusty. Not so bad at this point that I expect it to break immediately, but I ordered a new one and it is already ready for me to pick up at the local dealer warehouse. I also ordered the gaskets, so hopefully in the next month or so I can knock that out.

Next weekend with any luck I will do the valve body in my Ram, which has a transmission code and won't go into 5th gear but otherwise runs fine. Per the internet, this is a classic case of a bad valve body, specifically a bad spring therein. Luckily, 42LE transmission ownership has prepared me for valve body replacement, and if anything, the job looks less complicated on the Ram than on the LH. My preferred source for valve bodies for LH cars, Worldwide Specialty Parts, also sells an improved version for the 545RFE in my Ram. We'll see how it goes!

[M-Pressive]

Man, not much going on with our cars, huh? This is one of my favorite threads ever on any forum I've ever participated on, so let me try to kick it off again - we can't let this one die!

On January 22, I fixed my side airbag seat issue on my Special mentioned above, which was the two wires had been pulled out of the airbag connector itself. I disassembled the seat, pulled the harness out for inspection, and discovered the problem. I proceeded to wrap electrical tape around them once they were firmly reseated and have had no further issues!

After that, I drove the car for a while, hit 145,000 miles on Friday night, but I knew my valve covers were leaking and my sway bar endlinks were knocking.
On Saturday, Jimmy came over and we pulled off my valve covers, painted them, and replaced the gaskets, and replaced the left (facing the motor) side rear cam plate o-ring, which had been replaced when I did all of the maintenance to the car in 2020 when I bought it, but was leaking again. We also replaced both of my front sway bar endlinks to get rid of the knock. At this point those are about a yearly replacement item for me, which is frustrating, but whatever. Using the Moog ones at least means they're easy to change. Next time I might try another brand.

This morning's drive was knock free, if a bit paint-fume-y as the valve covers continue to cure.

Unfortunately, when we did the valve cover work, we discovered that the coolant heater tube which runs under the lower intake manifold is rusty. Not so bad at this point that I expect it to break immediately, but I ordered a new one and it is already ready for me to pick up at the local dealer warehouse. I also ordered the gaskets, so hopefully in the next month or so I can knock that out.

Next weekend with any luck I will do the valve body in my Ram, which has a transmission code and won't go into 5th gear but otherwise runs fine. Per the internet, this is a classic case of a bad valve body, specifically a bad spring therein. Luckily, 42LE transmission ownership has prepared me for valve body replacement, and if anything, the job looks less complicated on the Ram than on the LH. My preferred source for valve bodies for LH cars, Worldwide Specialty Parts, also sells an improved version for the 545RFE in my Ram. We'll see how it goes!

Unfortunately most of our members prefer to post on Facebook instead of a platform that has over 20 years of information.

[cin993]

not me. facebook sucks. censorship there over past 3 years is criminal.

[Sneke_Eyez]

Yeah, Facebook can be a good source if you're looking for a car or a used widget, but it isn't a good place to discuss car work, in my opinion.

[LUNAT1C]

I see a lot of bad information find its way there, even with issues that are extremely well documented. I always plug the forum when I see that and mention it's already been well documented.

But, people somehow think it's better to ask repeat questions there instead of finding the answer here.


Also this thread does tend to be quiet this time of year. I haven't touched my car since Thanksgiving, other than wiping away water from melted snow that dripped between the cracks of the garage door when opening it to go shovel.

[sparky99]

So, I took the Accord to the shop today. I needed an oil change. I refuse to mess with it as its 25 bucks and I don't have to spend my time doing the work. Let alone buy good oil and a filter.
I took it to the shop for a much-needed oil change and fuel injection system cleaning.
Plus I purchased 8 quarts of CVT transmission fluid for 16 bucks a quart retail! (ouch!!!) Luckily I still get a nice discount there and got them for just under 11 bucks a quart. (Still a little ouchy, but ok.) and some new Honda rear brake pads.
This car will most likely hit 60k miles within the next week. Still original brake pads. The rears are getting low, but not close to metal yet.
So, I will be doing a couple of transmission services, 2 drain and fills, driving it around the block in between drain and fills to clean it out well.
I really want to paint the brake calipers when I replace the brakes.

Which color do you all recommend on my SNP Accord for caliper color?

[Sneke_Eyez]

Saturday, after draining and removing the transmission pan and valve body from the Ram in preparation for installing a new one, I took the 300M back apart to replace the heater tube. The existing tube turned out to just have areas where the paint had peeled, but no serious rust. I actually kept it and intend to scuff and repaint it for re-use. The job went smoothly thanks to previous consultation from John Smith and Keith, and I did a lot of cleanup of the motor and cleaned my injectors, which were nasty. I was also able to view my valves, which looked remarkably clean for 145,000 miles. I replaced my PCV valve and cleaned my throttle body as well. I also replaced my license plate bulb as my old LED panel had given up to corrosion. Glad to have the car back with no other immediately outstanding issues at this time!

[HFK]

Washed the car the day before and then took my wife for her first ride in my car to the last spring training for the Braves. Fun was had by all.

[First Lady]

Had a flat fright!

Left to take Keith to an appointment for his back (that's another story) and had a rhymic noise coming from the driver front tire. Pulled over and saw a screw in my tire. Went home to park the car. Put it on a jack and removed the screw. Monitored the tire pressures and low and behold, it stayed! Lowered the car and the same.

glad to not be adding flat repair to my To Do list!! Feewww!!!

[FIREM]

Had a flat fright!

Left to take Keith to an appointment for his back (that's another story) and had a rhymic noise coming from the driver front tire. Pulled over and saw a screw in my tire. Went home to park the car. Put it on a jack and removed the screw. Monitored the tire pressures and low and behold, it stayed! Lowered the car and the same.

glad to not be adding flat repair to my To Do list!! Feewww!!!

Home ownership has a tendency to bring out some aches and pains. Hope its all minor and some PT will resolve it.

Always satisfying "unscrew" a tire without having a hissing snake show up!

[LUNAT1C]

Been there done on home improvements knocking me out afterward... didn't even get a t-shirt for it.

Also been there on narrowly escaping a flat. I had a screw in one of the tread blocks on my Jeeps previous set of 35" tires. Thankfully it was a shallow screw and it found itself right in the middle of a big tread block instead of in the base of the tire between those meaty tread blocks. Used a screw driver to "dismount" the screw and used the tire as-is for another 2 years before they were all worn out enough for regular replacement.

[LUNAT1C]

Finally touched the car this year! Adjusted the driver's headlight to hopefully not be touching the lens anymore with the high beam shroud.

Also popped off the fascia and diddled around with the wiring on the demon eyes to figure out why the high beams were lit on low power with them, and why they wouldn't shut off when the main lights are on (thermal protection function). Root cause was the passenger low beam was mis-wired, and the main light signal wires were somehow crossed on the driver's side. All fixed now!

Took a look and took it for a quick ride. I'll need to pull the driver's speaker and fix the wiring, wire fell off. Also need to do something about the lower rad hose clamp. The factory one was way too tight and couldn't get it on the new hose, so I got a slightly bigger one, which now leaks. Hoping the house has compressed enough now to fit with the OEM clamp. Hoping also I can figure out how to save the coolant when I drain the rad for that.

Overall not a terrible way to start the driving season.

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