What did you do to your car today?

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Late model "mini" starter installed and wired today. It's $63.79 at rock auto.

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Today, I got a lesson in humility, My car ran good for awhile, then started running poor and progressed to running really bad... it wouldn't rev enough to move itself. I figured the plugs were fouled because the choke never came off just moving it in and out of the shop. It was skipping, back firing bad, and acted like it had jumped timing. So, I did the normal thing and started replacing parts. I pulled the carb and went back through it ( even though I have built many of these carbs) Then I replaced the coil...no change...I had a rebuilt distributor I had just bought for another car...I put that in...no change, I pumped some gas out and looked at that...looked ok, I knew the spark was weak But what could be causing that...new Distributor, new coil, 12 volts..I was stumped. Then I figured it has to be a bad condenser...looked through my junk and found an old condenser, put it in and like magic, it cranks and runs perfect.

Now, who would have ever guessed that the condenser I bought from the parts store and the condenser in a rebuilt distributor would both be bad? one was from carquest and one from advance...both prolly made in china. Sure cost me a lot of headache.

 
I BROKE IT! :dodgy:

Turning a corner, the driver's side upper ball joint broke making the front wheel wobble and squeal. Good thing that it happened at low speed and that I was just half a mile from where I was going.

I guess, I'm lucky it did not happen on a freeway. I might have braked on the chin spoiler and hurt myself bad in the process.

Puts things like suspension lowered to the max with 18inch wheels and wide tires giving lots of grip, all that increasing leverage on the joints and then driving it like a bat outta hell into perspective.:mad:

 
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Thanks Don!!

Well, here's an update on the previous post. After I took it all apart, I found that the ball joint is only damaged (bent) but not broken, although it looked like it was because the rubber is completely busted and the rod inside was standing at such a weird angle.

Edit:

I wrote earlier today that the outer bearing was shot and that it was the problem.

That's not completely true. Turns out I was jumping to conclusions to fast.

The problem is that the hub broke!!!!

I only found that out, after I started cleaning the parts as the broken off piece adhered to the rotor because of the grease.

Here's two pics of how it should be and what it was like:

hub1.jpeg

hub2.jpeg

Never seen that happen before...... :huh:

 
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I've got a feeling we may be trying to go with too big of diameter wheels than were engineered. This is a great post! We may need to rethink anything larger than 16-17 in rims due to the stresses! JMHO.


My son came in last night and we spent the day going over Mach II. Blew his mind!! Went and got 200# of glass bead to start blasting tomorrow because a case of Bud Light Bullshi##ing got in the way today. Life is goooood.

 
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I've got a feeling we may be trying to go with too big of diameter wheels than were engineered. This is a great post! We may need to rethink anything larger than 16-17 in rims due to the stresses! JMHO.
Click to expand...
I don't think the problem is those modern rims as such.

It's the little straws that add up until one breaks the camel's back.

Lemme explain: First off all, low ratio sidewalls tires. A 245/60/14 and a 245/40/18 will have the same tread width on the road but the new tire wont flex going round a bend, whereas the high sidewalls absorb a great amount of the cornering force.

So, the tire gives the stress to the rim that won't yield. Now the rims have that modern offset requiring 40mm spacers/adapters. And THAT leverage multiplies the forces considerably and passes them on to the suspension.

Now there's the next "problem": The suspension is lowered causing the ball joints to be "out of square" compared to stock specs. Plus the lowered suspension allows less body roll thus again preventing forces to be diverted from the car's body.

All those little details probably add up to an amount of stress that our ponies were not designed for. Add a little material fatigue to the mix and "BOOM" there you go.

In my special case there are two more issues. First I don't pamper this car but I really put her through the mangle and second I drive it a lot, almost every day.

Needless to say that I will stick to the 18 inch wheel thing, though. Just getting other rims with offset 0 and no spacers. :cool:

 
The car is back on the road. ::chili::

I had two old rotors with hubs, wheel bearings and 1 upper ball joint lying around. Swapped all the arts and took a test drive. Came home on all 4 wheels, so I guess it's ok. :D

I figured out what was the main reason for the incident.

All those aftermarket wheels don't sit on the wheel hub!!! So the cornering forces go directly to the vertical part of the rotor/hub part, thus causing stress on the angle where the hub and the rotor meet.

That means that even with the 15 inch Torq Thrust rims I've been applying stress to that area for years.

 

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