Make It Mother's Day Every Day!

Mother’s day is rapidly approaching. Step outside the usual jewelry, candies, and flower box and get your loved one a gift that will keep on giving. If mom spends a lot of time behind the wheel, reduce the stress and enhance the enjoyment she feels while in the car!

Promise mom that you will keep her car tuned up all year long. Sometimes it is the simple things that make mom feel special. When her wiper blades start to squeak replace them for her. Give her vehicle a brake job or change the oil to make her feel safe and loved. If her floor mats are worn and dirty from hauling the kids from event to event, then get her new floor mats to spice up the car's interior appearance. Maybe the maintenance on her car will give you a reason to get a fun new tool or two for yourself!

Go to RockAuto.com to get the tools, floor mats, filters, brakes, wiper blades, and other parts you need to fix up mom's ride. If mom is a do-it-yourselfer or professional mechanic and enjoys working on her own car, then give her a RockAuto.com gift certificate and let her have a ball picking out her own parts!

Make it Mother's Day every day with parts from RockAuto!

Forum of the Month

For those that love old International Harvesters, or "binders", OldIHC.org is the place to go. You won't find a more helpful or friendlier forum on the Internet devoted to vintage International pickups from 1907 right through to 1975. You'll also find larger trucks, Scouts, rat rods and hot rods from all over the world.

Affectionately referred to as the "Home for the Hopelessly Addicted", OldIHC.org is a gathering place for those who love a challenge. While International was once the third largest truck manufacturer in the world, they are now known primarily for their semi-tractors; and getting parts for these old trucks is a huge undertaking when compared to owning a Ford or Chevy. The stamina, character and charisma of vintage Internationals makes it all worthwhile.

If you are the administrator or member of a forum and you would like to see your website featured in an upcoming newsletter and receive a discount code to share with your members, contact jessa@rockauto.com.

Repair Mistakes & Blunders

I run a small family garage in Scotland that specializes in converting large vehicles to run on Propane gas (LPG). We had converted about 600 vehicles including V10 motor homes, Dodge Rams, Range Rovers, Mercedes MLs, and dozens of Jeep Grand Cherokees.

We were recently asked to convert a Porsche Cayenne 4.5 V8. Not an easy conversion, but we went ahead with it. But during conversion my technician accidentally dropped a 10mm nut into the inlet manifold and did not notice it. After we reassembled the engine and fired it up...guess what...we heard some strange noises from the engine and quickly switched it off.

After much head scratching we decide to investigate with a bore scope, and lo and behold, we saw the offending nut squashed on top of the piston. We managed to retrieve it through the plug hole, but the engine was still noisy.

The Cayenne was taken to our local Porsche dealer and we authorized them to remove and strip the engine. The piston and bore were wrecked and I had to fit a new engine. The final cost to me was £15,000 ($22,500 US).

I still have the 10mm nut on my key chain as a memento of that catastrophic day. Incidentally, I still employ the technician. We can all make mistakes.

40 years in the motor trade and still learning,
Jim in Scotland

Tell us about your most infamous auto repair blunder or unconventional fix. Use your woe to help others avoid similar mistakes or share off-the-wall solutions that worked (at least for awhile!). Please email your story to flamur@rockauto.com. Include your mailing address and shirt size (large or extra large) and we will mail you a RockAuto "Do it yourself?" t-shirt if we publish your story (see the t-shirts under Extras in the catalog). The story will be credited using only your first name and your vague geographic location (state, province, country, continent, etc.) so you can remain semi-anonymous!

Automotive Trivia

Roughly 40% of new vehicles sold in North America come equipped with ceramic brake pads. Ceramic pads do better than semi-metallic pads in all the following performance measurements except one. Which is the one criterion where semi-metallic brake pads still do better than ceramic brake pads?

A. brake rotor wear
B. brake pad wear with extreme brake temperatures above 482 deg. F (250 C)
C. brake pad wear at start-up with brake temperatures less than 23 deg. F (-5 C)
D. brake squeal
E. brake dust on wheels

Answer: B (source: http://www.akebonobrake.com/company/media_center/white_papers/akebono_ceramic_tech.pdf )

A Tale of Two Springs

Get a half dozen or so men together and at least one will probably have some crazy story about the time he took the coil spring off a strut using a car jack, rope, C-clamps, vice, hack saw, etc. The spring shot off causing massive damage to the ceiling and the storyteller narrowly avoided a grisly death.

Struts with coil springs have been common on front wheel drive cars for a least thirty years. A coil spring horror story or tall tale is nothing to be proud of. A strut spring compressor should be in every do-it-yourselfer's toolbox. Using a strut spring compressor is no more dangerous or difficult than using many other common tools. You should see all the warning labels on a new set of jack stands!

RockAuto.com carries made-in-the-USA, K Tool MacPherson strut spring compressors (under Extras). They vary in price from $30.79 to $166.79, but all basically work the same way. Clamp the spring compressor on the coil spring, tighten it, take the nut off the strut rod, pull out the old strut, slip in the new strut, put the nut on the strut rod, and release the spring. Just follow the instructions that came with your spring compressor. The more expensive spring compressors are quicker to tighten and might have longer lasting threaded rods and clamps. If you change struts once every couple of years and do not care if compressing the spring takes five minutes or twenty then even K Tool's least expensive spring compressors will work fine and probably last a lifetime.

Monroe Quik-Strut (Sensa-Trac), Monroe Econo-Matic (Monro-Matic) and KYB Strut-Plus include a new strut, coil spring, strut mounts, and boots all fully assembled. Quick-Strut, Econo-Matic, and Strut-Plus are a great deal if the coil springs are sagging, the strut mounts are a rusty mess, and the boots/bellows have disintegrated.

I picked a common car, the 2001 Chevrolet Malibu, and compared the cost of individual parts to the cost of the same parts already assembled as a Monroe Econo-Matic complete strut. The Econo-Matic cost about $20 less than buying the parts individually. If you need all the parts then why not pay less for the completely assembled unit plus get to bolt it on as quickly as an old style shock absorber. The up to $150 rebate on Monroe Quick-Struts (until May 31st) make them look even better. If you just need new struts or Quick-Struts are unavailable for your vehicle, then use your spring compressor and take advantage of Monroe's up to $80 rebate on select struts.

Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com

I sure do buy parts for our '79 Scout from RockAuto. I only wish I had found out about you guys when we first started our restoration. I have since compared prices I paid with your prices and found you were on average at least 30 to 40% less.

From now on I have and will check you first to see if you have what I need. You have a lot of parts that pass for original so that we can maintain our "Street Stock" status in the IHC Scout and light Truck Nationals. We won 1st place last year; my father-in-law would have been proud.

He bought the Scout in the early nineties, and it won several 1st place plaques. When he got ill, it was left neglected and put in storage until after he passed. My mother-in-law gave it to my wife and me because she knew we would take care of it. Eight years of non-use took its toll.

John

Share Your Hard Work
Do you purchase parts from RockAuto? If so, RockAuto would like to feature you and your car or truck in our monthly newsletter. Please email flamur@rockauto.com with details.

© 1999-2010 RockAuto, LLC - Madison, Wisconsin USA. RockAuto name and logo are registered trademarks of RockAuto, LLC. Manufacturer names and logos in the RockAuto catalog are trademarks of their respective companies and are used only to identify their products. All rights reserved.