When Bad Car Repair Days Come in Bunches | The Car Doctor Podcast
Some days in the auto repair shop feel like “grape days” — problems arrive in bunches, and every job fights you. In this episode of Ron Ananian The Car Doctor, Ron shares real mechanic shop stories from one such day.
It starts with a Ford Escape turbo repair—a pricey vacuum line assembly tied to a rare fault code that turned into hours of labor. Then, two Hondas roll in with comeback potential: a Honda CR-V no start caused by a worn ignition switch, and a Honda Odyssey AC problem that turned out to be more about temperature settings than refrigerant.
Listeners also call in with their own challenges. One Lexus owner fights brake squeal after an aftermarket pad and rotor install, while a classic car restoration enthusiast seeks Dodge Dart tire fitment advice after a Dana rear-end swap.
Packed with car troubleshooting tips, repair shop insights, and practical fixes you can use, this episode proves even bad days in the shop can lead to solutions — and sometimes, a good laugh.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor. Nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by Mechanics, Weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
pm Eastern by calling eight five five five six zero
nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five five
(00:25):
six zero ninety nine hundred, your direct line to honest
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and be sure to subscribe to The Car Doctor YouTube
channel for exclusive videos, real repair footage and more.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now start your enginies.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The Car Doctor is in the garage and ready to
take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Somebody once said to me, bad days and order repair
are like grapes. They come in bunches, and I hate
grape days. They're just they get on your nerves because
you feel like you're treading water and you're just in
quicksand just trying to keep your head above it and
get out of the day. Wednesday, this week was a
(01:11):
grape day. It started off simple enough. Some of it
didn't make sense to me at first. I had The
first car out of the shoot was a twenty seventeen
FOURD Escape. Needless to say, I made a YouTube video
for it, which it's in production right now, so when
you see it you'll understand why. The vehicle had set
a very simple P ten sixteen ten thirteen fault code
(01:34):
of vacuum issue to the waistegate for the turbocharger. Not
a common fault code, but it's there. It's legit. And
the long and the short of it was, and you'll
see it in the video, a very short section of
hard nylon, plastic whatever that material is. Vacuum line coming
off the vacuum pump had split where they pushed it
(01:55):
onto the nipple of the vacuum pump, and then that
vacuum line went out and fed the wastegates. Solnoid management
group I'll call it, because there was a couple of
different pieces and components to this over on the right
side of the cylinder head that in order to get
to it, I had to take out the cowl, the
wiper motor, the you know, we had a disassemble half
(02:17):
the front of the car. It's it just seemed silly.
And that wasn't even the break. The backbreaker. That even
wasn't the bad part. The bad part was this short
little piece of nylon hose which led to a rubber
sleeve which then read to the rest of the tubing assembly.
Was only available as the assembly. You couldn't buy the
(02:37):
individual piece, which I'm still scratching my head because it
was literally four and a half five inches long and
it went from hard plastic into rubber, and they could
have very easily made just a section and you would
have patched it in. Now to preempt all the internet
trolls that are going to say, Ron, why didn't you
just do that? You know, I'm kind of giving the
(03:00):
engineer the benefit of the doubt and saying he must
have a reason for selling it the way they did,
because they required me to buy the entire hose assembly.
And I don't know if that's because did they update
the design, did they change the wastegate solenoids, did they
reduce something electrically, is it a different vendor. There's a
lot of I don't know in this conversation, because you're
(03:22):
not privy to that information. Unfortunately, it was a five
hundred dollars piece for a pile of plastic and electrical
solenoids that you look at it and you go, oh,
come on. Really. That set the tone for the day.
Then I had two nine hondas, one an Odyssey, one
a CRV, and both had the potentials to be comebacks.
(03:43):
And I hate comebacks. I absolutely hate comebacks any mechanic does,
especially when it's not for something you did, when it's
related to parts, because as I always tell you, parts
are an issue. The first one was an nine CRV
and about a year and a half ago we put
a starter in it. The starter had filled. You put
a starter in it, and the note said on the
(04:04):
ticket hard to start intermittent, no crank starter. Sounds funny, hmm,
This isn't gonna end well. Starters on crvs are a
pain in the neck. They're painting something else, but this
is family radio. The starter's located under the intake manifold
and you can only do it from underneath, and the
interior bolt the fourteen millimeter about eight inches long. You
(04:27):
have to take it out and find it and tighten
it and loosen it and put it back in by
the braille method, and you have to do it with
your back to the car, and you twist your arm
around backwards and you're fondling and feeling up there, and
it's it's just a hot mess. As a matter of fact,
there's a video on the YouTube channel where I talk
about my rubber band trick. This is the car that
(04:48):
I would use the rubber band trick on where I
use a rubber band to hold the bolt in, so
then all I have to do is find the bolt head,
which is easy enough with a with a small head
ratchet and a fourteen millimeter socket and I'm home free.
Sure enough, this car was an intermittent no crank, and
I was able to actually duplicate it. I was actually
(05:10):
able to make it happen. But it wasn't the starter.
It was the ignition switch, and I had to prove it.
And I pinned out with wiring and I went in
and you know, I tagged voltage in, I tagged signal out,
and sure enough, when it went into the no crank,
I had voltage in, I had I had correct power
(05:31):
and grounds where I was supposed to signal, I had
nothing coming out of the switch. It was a bad
ignition switch, and I learned how with the cut. With
the cover off, I got out my two ounce diagnostic
hammer in my little ballpen hammer. I always hear you go,
I'm gonna have to do a video with that. And
I always loved doing this because it kind of makes
Danny pay attention, not that he doesn't pay attention, but
he always kind of smiles and giggles. He's waiting for
(05:52):
his own two ounce ballpen hammer, but the snap on
guy doesn't seem to be able to get it to him.
He wants the official snap on ballpen hammer. And you
catch the car in the failure moting, you off over
with your two ounce ballpeen hammer and you go and
the car starts. Okay, that's bad. We should do a
video on that. That would really freak people out. But you know,
it does work. So I put an addition switch in
(06:12):
that the car started normal starter had a little bit
of noise to it, and then the more we drove it,
the more we started it, the less the noise became.
So I'm not sure. This is also a very low
mileage car that it's almost like the only thing I
think of in my head is the starter was starting
to rust from lack of use, and that would not
be a lie. I think this car went two thousand
(06:34):
miles in the past six months during its oil change interval,
because while it was there, we also changed the oil, which,
by the way, for all you people that talk about, oh,
two thousand miles isn't long enough to change oil, twenty
three hundred miles isn't long enough to change oil, look
at the color of this oil and tell me that
it's okay to leave it in there. It was absolutely black.
It looked like it was a diesel engine. That's how
(06:55):
dirty and dark this oil was. So for all the
trolls that say no, say do it on your own card,
don't judge anybody else. The third grape in this bunch
was an nine Odyssey that we had just repaired the
air conditioning on. We had just put the air conditioning together.
It needed a condenser. The condenser itself had failed, and
(07:20):
pret condenser in it clear cut leak playing is the
nose on your face went through normal diagnostic routine, added
green to it, and you know green dye, and sure enough,
you always have to wait about an hour, right, It's
not something you can do right away, you know. We
waited an hour, we ran it, we drove it. Yes,
green dye came out both bottom corners of the AC
(07:40):
condenser and I think I did a video on that
too on the YouTube channel. I have to remember now
because it was such a good example of you know,
failure die and how to diagnose. And here we are
three weeks later, ticket says AC blows warm. All right, rats,
So I drew the ticket. It was my lucky day,
(08:02):
you know, And usually i'll do that, I'll I'll keep
the bed days to one guy. This way, only one
guy's aggravated, not two or three or four or five.
So it was my day in the barrel the car.
And I don't understand this. I'm not sure what everybody's thinking.
And that's why I really wanted to bring this up.
I got into the car and it was a three
(08:22):
zone AC system left, right and back, and the comment
was AC blows warm. On the left side, the left
side air conditioning was set to seventy two degrees, the
right side air conditioning was set to seventy degrees, and
the rear air conditioning was stuck all the way in
the high position and set it seventy five, and I'm thinking, huh.
(08:47):
And here's the point when I set the air conditioning
down low. And I did put it down low. You know,
we always do our testing in a set prescribed manner,
industry manner, so to speak. And the air conditioning blue
forty seven degrees, and sure enough, the air conditioning had charged,
the air conditioning was called. The air conditioning was working properly.
(09:09):
It's not that the air conditioning had a problem. It's
an older vehicle. Things go out of calibration, and you
have to remember that. Stop using your vehicle air conditioning
like a thermostat in your house. It's not that accurate
as it ages. And that's really the truth. And I
find this a lot. I think if you want to
be accurate with your air conditioning, you need to get
(09:30):
a little dashboard mounted thermometer. Be like the Inanian kids.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
My kids all went to high school and college with
thermometers in their dashboard, and their friends always commented, how
can we have a thermometer in your dashboard? Because my
dad's an air conditioning nut. And I am because I
will prove that the air conditioning unit, even though the
dashboard might say it's seventy two degrees, the air conditioning
unit is really blowing coming out of the duck. That's
seventy six, and that three or four or five degrees
(09:58):
makes a huge difference. So the takeaway here becomes, if
you're trying to use a three zone, two zone, even
a one zone air conditioning system based on what the
dashboard says, remember it's only as accurate as the quality
of and the age and condition of the vehicle. And
you've got to keep in mind it's similar to when
(10:19):
you call me up and say, hey, Ron, my car
says I'm getting twenty six miles to the gallon, but
I'm really only getting twenty three. Yeah, and that's you
know what. Sometimes that's just the way they calculated, and
the mathematical formulas for all this just go out or
censors go out of calibration. In the end, I showed David,
I said, David, the car is called. Instead of asking
(10:40):
for seventy two, make it seventy, make it sixty eight,
and lo and behold, he was able to find a
temperature that he could adjust to that made him want
to keep it in that position. And that's the point
I'm trying to make bad days may come in bunches
in order repair, but there's usually a solution. And sometimes
you got to make those grapes into wine and sit
back and chill. Five five five six zero nine nine
(11:01):
zero zero. I'm running ady in the car doctor. I'll
be back right after this. Let's go to Deepak in
Toronto sixteen Lexus and some break squealing issues. Deepak, Welcome
to the car doctor. How can I help hi?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Ron, good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You're enjoying your summer?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Sure, thank you? Yes, I am you? Everything good?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Good? Thank you? Yeah, everything's great. Well small, small, sorry,
go ahead, the guy.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I was gonna say, but here you are, right, what's
the matter.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
It's not fun without a car issue?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Right, yep?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Ye, I had a small rant. I recently broke some
tabs on the cabin filter of my Lexus, and I said, oh,
that should be easy. I'll just go buy a door
from the dealer. Nope, I have to buy the whole
unit and the sub assembly. So a door that should
be maybe forty fifty dollars is now a three hundred
dollars subassembly.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's crazy, right, It makes no sense when I had that,
When I had that problem with the Escape turbocharger line kit.
You know. The first thought I had was that I
went to the Dorman website and I started because Dorman
will typically, you know, they'll they'll take those stupid subassemblies
that nobody makes and they'll make them. And I've actually
sent a suggestion and explaining the turbo charger issue on
(12:16):
the escape that I, you know, make this section of line.
Why not? It just it would just have been so
much easier, would take a two hour job and turn
it into a twenty minute job, you know, So don't
be surprised if someday you find a Lexus cabin filled
the door over. You know, Dorman's Dorman's website, go to
Dorman Products dot com. Keep that in the back of
your head for future issues.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So I'd wait. But for right now, electrical tape is
my friend.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well yeah, and duct tape. Listen, duct tape doesn't a
lot of things that you can't normally do. So, but
that's not why you're calling in today, is it?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
No let break?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So, ron I did my due diligence, and I thought
I did, and I bought some pads and roaders for
my independent mechanic and I didn't buy the cheapest stuff.
I bought coded roaders and ceramic pads. But they're not
the you know, the the name brands, the AQI bonos
and so forth. Oh gosh, I think, gosh, I can't
(13:09):
really remember. We're on a power stop or something.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Power I don't know, power stop. That's what I wanted
to know. Power stops a great break bit.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, but okay, So then what happened is I got
them installed and after a little while. So, by the way,
they have about maybe six thousand miles on it. It's
the dealers said, it's eight millimeters. So they're like, you know,
barely broken in, right, So they squeal. So every morning
they squeal, and I'm so embarrassed, like I'm driving on a lemon,
you know. And then when they when they heat up
(13:37):
a bit, they stop squealing. And then if the car
sits for a few hours, they do the squeal. So
the squeal is not all the time, you know. So
the dealer advisor told me we'll just drive it. It should
quote clear up on its own. And the Independent said, no, no,
you bought the wrong stuff. You should replace your rotors
(13:57):
and pads. And I said, what, it's only eight million
middle meters and five six thousand miles on it, so
it seems a little premature. What do you think? I
told this independent to take it off and maybe do
some surface cleaning and stuff, and he was really not
into that. He just wanted to tell me new parts
all around.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I can answer this about four different ways. The
first thought is that you know you may be in
a hole here because you brought your lettuce and tomato
to the diner and sit here, make me a salad,
and if you get intogestion, it's your issue, not theirs,
provided they made the salad correctly. So what I would
(14:36):
want to know is did they use Caliber grease? And
that's a real thing. There's products like CRC makes something
called CRC caliber grease. It is a specific silicon break
rated break related grease that would go on the Caliber
slide pins that would go on the contact points of
the brake pad to provide so that the pads could
(14:58):
move freely and not find and not chatter and not
create noise. They CRC, as long as we're on the subject,
also makes it's the orange group in a bottle, is
how I remember it? Then the brand name actually escapes me,
but I know CRC makes it which you would put
on the back of the pads as an insulator against noise,
(15:18):
And did they do any of that or have they
tried any of that? Now, power Stop if we're talking
power stop pads, and maybe power stop rotors, because power
Stop does make a coded rotor. We use them all
the time. They work great. So if you find out
that's what you used, I'm going to tell you that
it would be odd for you to have that problem,
(15:39):
and I would look more towards in Stoller error. What
you can try is and this is real simple. This
is something you can do tomorrow or today when you
go out in the car for the first time, find
a quiet stretch of road and when no one's around,
back up slowly eight nine, ten, fifteen miles an hour
(16:00):
and start popping the brake pedal hard. You want to
scuff the pad in the opposite direction. You want to
break the bond of friction. If I can say it
like that, it's almost like think if you were sending
a piece of wood, you want to go against the grain.
And if there are hard spots on the brake pad,
if something didn't see properly after the break, repair it's
(16:22):
going to knock that fuzz off, makes sense, yes, and
see if that eliminates the noise or changes the noise. Okay,
And then it's a conversation with whoever installed it, can
you you know, are you sure? Can you tell me?
And you know, it gets a little insulting because you're
questioning their workmanship, and so you've got to do the
delicate dance, you know, are you sure that you you know,
(16:45):
did you put anti chatter? Did you put a dielectric
grace where you were supposed to? And you know, is
it possible?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
It's that I asked for you the hardware as well
ron making the hardware.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and listen, you know, honest the industry says change
hardware every break job. Does everybody do it? No? Do
I do it?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Why? Because a lot of times the hardware that's on
there is really clean and the oe hardware works really well,
and a lot of times you don't want to disturb
it because you don't have issues. But you have to
clean the hardware, wire brush, scrub it down, make sure
it's you know, there's no rust, there's no corrosion. Typically,
hardware becomes a second break job related issue, not necessarily
(17:28):
a first time break job related issue. But go back
and try those things, see what that does. If that
doesn't work, by all means, give me a call back
and we can talk about it some more. Deep Pock.
I hope the rest of your summer goes well, my friend.
So eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
I'm running ay in the car. Doctor, I'll be back
right after this. Hey, I'm just warning everybody that football
(17:51):
season has started. So Tom's already keeping track of the Giants.
So if we do go off the air, that means
Tom faint that fell over, hit the board and wiped
everything out because she thinks the Giants will amount of
something this season.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
But well, if you see the thing starting to throw
things on the video link, you know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Right, That's what I kind of figured. So just let's
keep in mind this is a car show. This isn't
sports talk. Let's go over and talk to Dan in
Tennessee sixty eight Dodgs dark uh right, I tell you
these football guys, Dan, it's it's hard to be a
football fan here in New York, New Jersey, the Tri
state area. So someday we're going to get a team,
I'm hoping. So what's going on? Kittle?
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Thank you for thinking cars. None of the bout thing
on that one. No, I've got to not sixty eight
dollard I'm trying to put together on Okay, I got
a brand new naner Areyan out of California. I guess
(18:50):
it may be the same spects on the late springs.
Thing is Fender Whales from the area. But the guy's
got a set of wheels. Uh, it's going to the
bigger boat pattern. It's the five four factory, right, I'm
going four and a half. H Well, my question is
eight antil I still use a seventy inch tire. I've
(19:11):
got two inches from a lay sprang two inches from
Fender Whale. Well, that seventy series.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Sounds it sounds reasonable, but I think we have to
have a bigger conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So, so is the Dana rear the same with right
as the factory rear?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yeah, I should have ordered it there.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
But right, well, it's never too late to narrow. You
just cut the tubes and weld the flanges on and
you know, now's the time. Now's the time to correct it.
Don't wait until after you get it in the car.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You have shortened axles too, well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, sure you'd have to go, you know, do everything,
so you'd sell those axles and just buy shorter axles.
But you know, and I always encourage everybody to do this.
And I'm listen, you've built a few cars in your
in your lifetime. I can tell, all right, this isn't
a This isn't a you know, for the faint of heart,
endeavor what you're trying to do, and I applaud you.
I think it's kind of neat. I have some great
dart memories from my childhood. I remember getting picked up
(20:07):
by I was hitchhiking Russell and I and I remember
getting picked up by two guys in a dart and
they had put a four forty in it. Actually it
was a sixty eight. They had changed the K frame
and they put a four forty in it. And I
still remember the burnout they did downtown Main Street rams
you all the way to the railroad tracks and beyond.
It was just amazing. So you know, it's it's I
get what you're doing here? What are you doing? Though?
(20:30):
In the sense of how wild do you want this
to be? Is this going to be just something the
cruise nice with but I doubt it you're putting a
data in it, so you know what motors in it?
Speaker 5 (20:40):
And got I've got a three sixty in it and
I couldn't find the block complete block.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Right, so you know it's it's but it's got a
good cam and everything right. You want something with a
little you know, dump and pumping away we go, and
you know, maybe maybe a seventy series tire. And this
is my point, depending on what you're gonna do, a
seventy series tire is probably more than enough. You know,
(21:09):
we've we've all reached the age where there's always somebody
faster and we don't need to be We don't need
to be the fastest, you know, we don't need to
be the fastest car in the valley anymore. Those days
are long gone.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And you know, and the ability right listen for a
mile block or big block and I'll put it in
with the dinerarian night, a new bush and and everything and.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
You are so so if you leave at the stock
the stock with Dana, you know it's really or you know,
whatever the factory was, it's really a matter of what
fit under a stock Dart two twenty five seventy fifteens
fit to forty five seventy fifteens if I remember right fit.
But they were getting kind of snug, you know. So
(21:54):
it's it's it's a matter of fitment. It's a it's
a good problem to have because you've got a variety
of things that will work on that. But it's also
you know, what do you want the stance to be
on the car? Do you want it level all around?
Do you want a little higher in the back, and
all those are the things you got to start to
think about.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Yeah, right, I'm all have it. I've got iris shock
selling it, but I'm all have probably just four to
six inches higher than in the back, right.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Right, And you've got to think about that too, right,
you know, Listen, some of the fastest cars I ever
had or were in sat level or they were just
a skoshup in the back, and when the nose came up,
it was the idea weight transfer planted the tires on
the ground harder. So you can't I guess this is
my point, Dan, You can't think about any one thing.
(22:44):
Tire size predicates on horsepower. Horse Power predicates on suspension,
Suspension predicates on hookup what are we trying to do?
You've you know, Billy, my first boss May rest in peace,
always taught me you've got to look at a car
as a package. Everything works with everything else. That's why
it's all attached together. So so you know, what do
(23:04):
you want to achieve with this? Some of the nastiest
cars I've ever seen. You ever watched cars at the
drag strip, the ones that really hook up, you ever know?
You ever notice how they lift from the center right right,
There's no there's no way transfer. The whole car just
seems to go straight up in the air and hooks
up and it's gone. And you know a lot of
that's based on how you make that suspension work and
(23:26):
how you put that suspension and chassis together. And that's
what's important.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yeah, I've got an eight and three quarter positive getting
it under it, and the reason is changing the boat
fighter and taking it out.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
It hooks up now, it does not spind. It hooks
and goals now right, well, probably do well?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You know, you know, we can always look at it
as like, let's let's make it more complicated. All we
can do is screw it up, so you know, and
you know that's what I always Sometimes I also remember
something else Billy always taught me. Billy always said, mild
goes wild, and I never forgot that. And you know,
sometimes the simplest things work the best, and we all
seem to overcompensate. I always look at the guys that
(24:09):
put you ever look at the crazy ignition systems, guys
putting hot rods and muscle cars MSD, this multi spark
discharge that and the cargoes thirteen too. Wow, I'm really impressed,
you know where you know stock ignition. The car was
going thirteen to three? So what did they gain?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So I guess the lecture, And I don't mean to lecture.
I respect every hot roder out there, you know what.
Just understand what you're doing and what you're trying to do,
and what results are you looking for and can you
achieve that? That's really it. You want to look that's different.
You want to make it go. That's a different conversation.
I think what you're doing is great. I think a
data is probably the way to go. It's stronger than
(24:49):
an eight and three quarter for sure, But I would
probably stay with either stock or maybe a scoch More
rubber on the ground just to feel the Wheelwell, all right,
to me, it'll we're a little bit of a better look.
But it's not me, it's up to you. It's what
you want.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
It's your car look too. But I don't want to run.
You know, if you're go in a car, it tailts
the tire to the spraying the body.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Now you know, keep in mind too, and then I'll
let you go, dan Is. Keep in mind that the
size rim with the correct backspace, maybe you could run.
Maybe you could run a street slick on it for
Friday night Crewis and that would get everybody's attention to
whether you spend the tires or not. Just make everybody
look into a double take.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
So all right, this is right money trial, right, A.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Lot of it is trial and error. Brother, And at
this point there's a lot of guys out there that
have done it, and it's a matter of we can
just read and follow and see and play in tune.
And it was a lot easier when we were kids, right,
I remember being a dumb kid taking a taking a
what was it? It was a four inch bor Chevy block
and a two eighty three crank. It was a three
twenty seven block a two eighty three crank, I put
(25:59):
it together, made a three two. After I did that,
five years later, somebody said you can't do that, and
I said, well it's too late because I already did
it and the car's gone. So you know, the things
we don't know that we don't know that somehow worked, Dan.
I appreciate the conversation, sir. Good luck to you and
I hope this. I hope you got something out of this.
And if you need anything else more, you know where
to find me.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
All right, Okay, God bless and have a safe day.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Thank you, sir, you too. I'm running ady in the car. Doctor.
We'll be back right after this. Well, I see Virginia's
coming in loud and clear, one of our three affiliates.
Let's go over and talk to Dale. Dale You there, sir, Yeah,
I'm here, So tell me about your eady four Ltd.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Okay, here's the problem that the way I found I
had a problem. I went to a restaurant one day
and it took me thirty minutes to get there. All right,
I shut the engine off, I went in eight came
back out forty five minutes later to start it at
and it miss is real bad. It's just like you
went out there and pulled two spark clug wars off,
(27:03):
and when you give any RPMs, there is no RPMs.
You put the accelerator owy floor and it does absolutely nothing.
But if you sit and wait a minute and a half,
it clears itself right back up and you go on,
what the hell is it?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Okay, well, so what's your first reaction? Because I can
tell you've already got some preconceived ideas. Do you think
this is fuel related or ignition related?
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Oh? It has to be ignition because I burned non
f andol gas. Because the f andol gas I lose
two and a quarter miles per gallon. Okay, so I
don't burn that crap?
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Can you?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Can you replicate this? It will? Will this happen every
time if you'll let it sit and go through a
forty five minute heat soak.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yes, yeah, every time, every time.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So why don't we eliminate instead of looking for what's bed?
Why don't we eliminate what's good? Can we do a
fuel pressure test? I know it's going to be a
little awkward hooking up to an EFI, but there's got
to be a way whether we pull the filter out
and tap into that. But why don't we least verify
system fuel pressure on the forty five year old vehicle
and at least get rid of that and take that
off the table. The ignition system on this do have
(28:15):
you had the Have you had the the ignition rotor
out of this car? The distributor cap off? Have you
looked inside the distributor?
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Yeah? I looked at it and couldn't find anything wrong
with Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Is this is this a multi layer ignition rotor or
a single layer ignition rotor. It's a single so it's
one point of contact. What color I want you to
pull the cap back off? Look at the there's a
hall effect or a stat or piece, which was the
pole piece?
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
This is electronic ignition this generation. Is this the silver
ignition box over on the fenderwell ignition Duras spark dur
as spark free me. So look inside the distributor. What
color is the pole piece connector? Where the ignition module
the ignition? Is there an ignition module in the body
of the distributor or? Is it it's on the fender.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
Well or both It's on the fender wheel.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Okay, So where that connects in. This connects in. There's
two pigtails correct at the distributor to oval shiped pigtails. Okay,
so this doesn't have the hale effect on the inside.
This is a pole piece. Uh you know, is this ignition?
I'm thinking you've got more likely a fuel related issue here.
I want to know that fuel is okay, Because this
(29:24):
is an e FI car. Fuel comes out of the
center throttle body.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
Uh huh all right, Oh no, no, wait wait a
minute now, it's electronic fuel injection right right on the side.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, it's an e FI car. It's a throttle body
electronic fuel injection car.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Oh is that what they call it?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, it's it's. It's it's it's got a two barrel piece.
It looks like a two barrel carburetor with an air intake,
and it's got a central injector mounted right in the
throttle body itself, right, and you can actually sit there
and watch it spray. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You know there's a method we used to use, you know,
if we want to look at quality fuel pattern. Do
you still own a timing light you? Oh yeah, okay,
you know you could hook up your timing light and
use its strobe effect to look at the spray pattern
coming out of the shower head of the injector. It's
kind of it's kind of an interesting thing. You'll see
if the fuel is coming out in globs, or if
(30:16):
the fuel is coming out in a fine shower head.
There's a bunch of different there's a bunch of different
tricks we can do. What I'm trying to point out
is if is this really an ignition problem or is
this a fuel problem? And because of the age of it,
it's going to be difficult because of tooling and information.
If this were in the shop, first thing I want
to do is fuel pressure. I want to know I've
(30:37):
got good fuel pressure.
Speaker 6 (30:38):
Okay, let me stop you right there. Okay, Now the
engine was retotally rebuilt. Don't care twenty two thousand miles ago.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Don't care because it's it's I don't think this is
an engine mechanical I mean, I do care, but I
don't care. I don't think this is an engine mechanical condition.
Right unless somebody's got unless somewhere somebody's got an incorrect
ground that they didn't reattach or I've got a ground
attached to a painted surface. Area that but by you
would have had that problem right out of the gate,
not twenty two thousand miles later. Right, So I want
(31:10):
to know what's fuel pressure at the point of failure?
Do you have any propaine around the house, you know
in the show? Can we provide pro paine enrichment if
you think this is If we think this is fuel related,
if we give it a little bit more fuel, what
does it do to the car? Does it make the
car run better or worse? Is this car running leaner? Rich?
And that's the other side of this. Could this car
(31:32):
have a rich condition?
Speaker 6 (31:34):
We do?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
We have a problem there, this car should have. This
car still has oxygen sensors in eighty four, correct, right?
I Can I look at the two sensors? Do I
have an O two sensor that's biased and stuck in
one direction or another? And you'll never pick it up
with a scan tool or the diagnostics capable of an
eighty four automobile. I might have to look at it
on a scope. I might have to look at it
(31:55):
with a meter. Let's do this in stages, all right, Dale,
check fuel pressure, call me back and let me know
what you find, and then we can talk deeper all right,
because the clock's going to take me. I don't want
to leave you hanging. So find out what fuel pressure is.
Give me a shout back, and we'll do a deeper
dive and we'll talk about this together. But don't eliminate
the obvious, and don't look for what's bad, look for
(32:16):
what's good, and we'll come to a conclusion of what's failing.
Ron and Andy and the car Doctor. I'll be back
right after this. Hey, let's do this. We're flying in
a pinch here. Let's go help one of the boys
in blue, Mark wrights In, Mark Miller, Newburgh, New York. Ron,
longtime listener to the show, began listening in the nineties.
I'm feeling old while patrolling the streets of NYC and
(32:37):
a New York Police Department car quick with an AM radio.
They had those, huh. I'm looking for help and sourcing
a replacement manager for my son's twenty seventeen Ford Focus.
I'm sorry with the infamous one lead three cylinder motor.
I'm really sorry, five speed manual. Now I get why
we're going to fix this. The car iss one hundred
and fifteen thousand miles on it, and I'm certainly smoked
the head guess that the car was losing cooling over
an extended period of time and ultimately overheated and was
(32:59):
driven a distance. Yeah, it's a learning moment, Mark, right,
We're going to talk to our son and this is
how we teach them and hopefully they pick out a
good retirement home for us to live in. At this point,
cool and level drops quickly with no signs of external leaking.
There's plenty of white smoke out the exhaust. I have
a well equipped home shop in Newburgh, New York. Do
you have any suggestions on where to source a reman.
I'll tell you what I would probably if we're going
to do this, I'd go find a local machine shop
(33:21):
with a reputation, somebody I could talk to and go
the extra freight and pay to have somebody build me
an engine, Somebody I can go back to if I
have a problem, Somebody that's not going to do something
assembly line, but particular in custom to that vehicle. That's
the way I would justify it. Mark. If you need more,
you know where to find me. I'm ronning Andy and
the car Doctor till the next time. Good mechanics aren't
expensive they're priceless. See uh
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor. Nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by Mechanics, Weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
pm Eastern by calling eight five five five six zero
nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five five
(00:25):
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Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now start your enginies.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The Car Doctor is in the garage and ready to
take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Somebody once said to me, bad days and order repair
are like grapes. They come in bunches, and I hate
grape days. They're just they get on your nerves because
you feel like you're treading water and you're just in
quicksand just trying to keep your head above it and
get out of the day. Wednesday, this week was a
(01:11):
grape day. It started off simple enough. Some of it
didn't make sense to me at first. I had The
first car out of the shoot was a twenty seventeen
FOURD Escape. Needless to say, I made a YouTube video
for it, which it's in production right now, so when
you see it you'll understand why. The vehicle had set
a very simple P ten sixteen ten thirteen fault code
(01:34):
of vacuum issue to the waistegate for the turbocharger. Not
a common fault code, but it's there. It's legit. And
the long and the short of it was, and you'll
see it in the video, a very short section of
hard nylon, plastic whatever that material is. Vacuum line coming
off the vacuum pump had split where they pushed it
(01:55):
onto the nipple of the vacuum pump, and then that
vacuum line went out and fed the wastegates. Solnoid management
group I'll call it, because there was a couple of
different pieces and components to this over on the right
side of the cylinder head that in order to get
to it, I had to take out the cowl, the
wiper motor, the you know, we had a disassemble half
(02:17):
the front of the car. It's it just seemed silly.
And that wasn't even the break. The backbreaker. That even
wasn't the bad part. The bad part was this short
little piece of nylon hose which led to a rubber
sleeve which then read to the rest of the tubing assembly.
Was only available as the assembly. You couldn't buy the
(02:37):
individual piece, which I'm still scratching my head because it
was literally four and a half five inches long and
it went from hard plastic into rubber, and they could
have very easily made just a section and you would
have patched it in. Now to preempt all the internet
trolls that are going to say, Ron, why didn't you
just do that? You know, I'm kind of giving the
(03:00):
engineer the benefit of the doubt and saying he must
have a reason for selling it the way they did,
because they required me to buy the entire hose assembly.
And I don't know if that's because did they update
the design, did they change the wastegate solenoids, did they
reduce something electrically, is it a different vendor. There's a
lot of I don't know in this conversation, because you're
(03:22):
not privy to that information. Unfortunately, it was a five
hundred dollars piece for a pile of plastic and electrical
solenoids that you look at it and you go, oh,
come on. Really. That set the tone for the day.
Then I had two nine hondas, one an Odyssey, one
a CRV, and both had the potentials to be comebacks.
(03:43):
And I hate comebacks. I absolutely hate comebacks any mechanic does,
especially when it's not for something you did, when it's
related to parts, because as I always tell you, parts
are an issue. The first one was an nine CRV
and about a year and a half ago we put
a starter in it. The starter had filled. You put
a starter in it, and the note said on the
(04:04):
ticket hard to start intermittent, no crank starter. Sounds funny, hmm,
This isn't gonna end well. Starters on crvs are a
pain in the neck. They're painting something else, but this
is family radio. The starter's located under the intake manifold
and you can only do it from underneath, and the
interior bolt the fourteen millimeter about eight inches long. You
(04:27):
have to take it out and find it and tighten
it and loosen it and put it back in by
the braille method, and you have to do it with
your back to the car, and you twist your arm
around backwards and you're fondling and feeling up there, and
it's it's just a hot mess. As a matter of fact,
there's a video on the YouTube channel where I talk
about my rubber band trick. This is the car that
(04:48):
I would use the rubber band trick on where I
use a rubber band to hold the bolt in, so
then all I have to do is find the bolt head,
which is easy enough with a with a small head
ratchet and a fourteen millimeter socket and I'm home free.
Sure enough, this car was an intermittent no crank, and
I was able to actually duplicate it. I was actually
(05:10):
able to make it happen. But it wasn't the starter.
It was the ignition switch, and I had to prove it.
And I pinned out with wiring and I went in
and you know, I tagged voltage in, I tagged signal out,
and sure enough, when it went into the no crank,
I had voltage in, I had I had correct power
(05:31):
and grounds where I was supposed to signal, I had
nothing coming out of the switch. It was a bad
ignition switch, and I learned how with the cut. With
the cover off, I got out my two ounce diagnostic
hammer in my little ballpen hammer. I always hear you go,
I'm gonna have to do a video with that. And
I always loved doing this because it kind of makes
Danny pay attention, not that he doesn't pay attention, but
he always kind of smiles and giggles. He's waiting for
(05:52):
his own two ounce ballpen hammer, but the snap on
guy doesn't seem to be able to get it to him.
He wants the official snap on ballpen hammer. And you
catch the car in the failure moting, you off over
with your two ounce ballpeen hammer and you go and
the car starts. Okay, that's bad. We should do a
video on that. That would really freak people out. But you know,
it does work. So I put an addition switch in
(06:12):
that the car started normal starter had a little bit
of noise to it, and then the more we drove it,
the more we started it, the less the noise became.
So I'm not sure. This is also a very low
mileage car that it's almost like the only thing I
think of in my head is the starter was starting
to rust from lack of use, and that would not
be a lie. I think this car went two thousand
(06:34):
miles in the past six months during its oil change interval,
because while it was there, we also changed the oil, which,
by the way, for all you people that talk about, oh,
two thousand miles isn't long enough to change oil, twenty
three hundred miles isn't long enough to change oil, look
at the color of this oil and tell me that
it's okay to leave it in there. It was absolutely black.
It looked like it was a diesel engine. That's how
(06:55):
dirty and dark this oil was. So for all the
trolls that say no, say do it on your own card,
don't judge anybody else. The third grape in this bunch
was an nine Odyssey that we had just repaired the
air conditioning on. We had just put the air conditioning together.
It needed a condenser. The condenser itself had failed, and
(07:20):
pret condenser in it clear cut leak playing is the
nose on your face went through normal diagnostic routine, added
green to it, and you know green dye, and sure enough,
you always have to wait about an hour, right, It's
not something you can do right away, you know. We
waited an hour, we ran it, we drove it. Yes,
green dye came out both bottom corners of the AC
(07:40):
condenser and I think I did a video on that
too on the YouTube channel. I have to remember now
because it was such a good example of you know,
failure die and how to diagnose. And here we are
three weeks later, ticket says AC blows warm. All right, rats,
So I drew the ticket. It was my lucky day,
(08:02):
you know, And usually i'll do that, I'll I'll keep
the bed days to one guy. This way, only one
guy's aggravated, not two or three or four or five.
So it was my day in the barrel the car.
And I don't understand this. I'm not sure what everybody's thinking.
And that's why I really wanted to bring this up.
I got into the car and it was a three
(08:22):
zone AC system left, right and back, and the comment
was AC blows warm. On the left side, the left
side air conditioning was set to seventy two degrees, the
right side air conditioning was set to seventy degrees, and
the rear air conditioning was stuck all the way in
the high position and set it seventy five, and I'm thinking, huh.
(08:47):
And here's the point when I set the air conditioning
down low. And I did put it down low. You know,
we always do our testing in a set prescribed manner,
industry manner, so to speak. And the air conditioning blue
forty seven degrees, and sure enough, the air conditioning had charged,
the air conditioning was called. The air conditioning was working properly.
(09:09):
It's not that the air conditioning had a problem. It's
an older vehicle. Things go out of calibration, and you
have to remember that. Stop using your vehicle air conditioning
like a thermostat in your house. It's not that accurate
as it ages. And that's really the truth. And I
find this a lot. I think if you want to
be accurate with your air conditioning, you need to get
(09:30):
a little dashboard mounted thermometer. Be like the Inanian kids.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
My kids all went to high school and college with
thermometers in their dashboard, and their friends always commented, how
can we have a thermometer in your dashboard? Because my
dad's an air conditioning nut. And I am because I
will prove that the air conditioning unit, even though the
dashboard might say it's seventy two degrees, the air conditioning
unit is really blowing coming out of the duck. That's
seventy six, and that three or four or five degrees
(09:58):
makes a huge difference. So the takeaway here becomes, if
you're trying to use a three zone, two zone, even
a one zone air conditioning system based on what the
dashboard says, remember it's only as accurate as the quality
of and the age and condition of the vehicle. And
you've got to keep in mind it's similar to when
(10:19):
you call me up and say, hey, Ron, my car
says I'm getting twenty six miles to the gallon, but
I'm really only getting twenty three. Yeah, and that's you
know what. Sometimes that's just the way they calculated, and
the mathematical formulas for all this just go out or
censors go out of calibration. In the end, I showed David,
I said, David, the car is called. Instead of asking
(10:40):
for seventy two, make it seventy, make it sixty eight,
and lo and behold, he was able to find a
temperature that he could adjust to that made him want
to keep it in that position. And that's the point
I'm trying to make bad days may come in bunches
in order repair, but there's usually a solution. And sometimes
you got to make those grapes into wine and sit
back and chill. Five five five six zero nine nine
(11:01):
zero zero. I'm running ady in the car doctor. I'll
be back right after this. Let's go to Deepak in
Toronto sixteen Lexus and some break squealing issues. Deepak, Welcome
to the car doctor. How can I help hi?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Ron, good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You're enjoying your summer?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Sure, thank you? Yes, I am you? Everything good?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Good? Thank you? Yeah, everything's great. Well small, small, sorry,
go ahead, the guy.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I was gonna say, but here you are, right, what's
the matter.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
It's not fun without a car issue?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Right, yep?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Ye, I had a small rant. I recently broke some
tabs on the cabin filter of my Lexus, and I said, oh,
that should be easy. I'll just go buy a door
from the dealer. Nope, I have to buy the whole
unit and the sub assembly. So a door that should
be maybe forty fifty dollars is now a three hundred
dollars subassembly.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's crazy, right, It makes no sense when I had that,
When I had that problem with the Escape turbocharger line kit.
You know. The first thought I had was that I
went to the Dorman website and I started because Dorman
will typically, you know, they'll they'll take those stupid subassemblies
that nobody makes and they'll make them. And I've actually
sent a suggestion and explaining the turbo charger issue on
(12:16):
the escape that I, you know, make this section of line.
Why not? It just it would just have been so
much easier, would take a two hour job and turn
it into a twenty minute job, you know, So don't
be surprised if someday you find a Lexus cabin filled
the door over. You know, Dorman's Dorman's website, go to
Dorman Products dot com. Keep that in the back of
your head for future issues.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So I'd wait. But for right now, electrical tape is
my friend.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well yeah, and duct tape. Listen, duct tape doesn't a
lot of things that you can't normally do. So, but
that's not why you're calling in today, is it?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
No let break?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So, ron I did my due diligence, and I thought
I did, and I bought some pads and roaders for
my independent mechanic and I didn't buy the cheapest stuff.
I bought coded roaders and ceramic pads. But they're not
the you know, the the name brands, the AQI bonos
and so forth. Oh gosh, I think, gosh, I can't
(13:09):
really remember. We're on a power stop or something.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Power I don't know, power stop. That's what I wanted
to know. Power stops a great break bit.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, but okay, So then what happened is I got
them installed and after a little while. So, by the way,
they have about maybe six thousand miles on it. It's
the dealers said, it's eight millimeters. So they're like, you know,
barely broken in, right, So they squeal. So every morning
they squeal, and I'm so embarrassed, like I'm driving on a lemon,
you know. And then when they when they heat up
(13:37):
a bit, they stop squealing. And then if the car
sits for a few hours, they do the squeal. So
the squeal is not all the time, you know. So
the dealer advisor told me we'll just drive it. It should
quote clear up on its own. And the Independent said, no, no,
you bought the wrong stuff. You should replace your rotors
(13:57):
and pads. And I said, what, it's only eight million
middle meters and five six thousand miles on it, so
it seems a little premature. What do you think? I
told this independent to take it off and maybe do
some surface cleaning and stuff, and he was really not
into that. He just wanted to tell me new parts
all around.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I can answer this about four different ways. The
first thought is that you know you may be in
a hole here because you brought your lettuce and tomato
to the diner and sit here, make me a salad,
and if you get intogestion, it's your issue, not theirs,
provided they made the salad correctly. So what I would
(14:36):
want to know is did they use Caliber grease? And
that's a real thing. There's products like CRC makes something
called CRC caliber grease. It is a specific silicon break
rated break related grease that would go on the Caliber
slide pins that would go on the contact points of
the brake pad to provide so that the pads could
(14:58):
move freely and not find and not chatter and not
create noise. They CRC, as long as we're on the subject,
also makes it's the orange group in a bottle, is
how I remember it? Then the brand name actually escapes me,
but I know CRC makes it which you would put
on the back of the pads as an insulator against noise,
(15:18):
And did they do any of that or have they
tried any of that? Now, power Stop if we're talking
power stop pads, and maybe power stop rotors, because power
Stop does make a coded rotor. We use them all
the time. They work great. So if you find out
that's what you used, I'm going to tell you that
it would be odd for you to have that problem,
(15:39):
and I would look more towards in Stoller error. What
you can try is and this is real simple. This
is something you can do tomorrow or today when you
go out in the car for the first time, find
a quiet stretch of road and when no one's around,
back up slowly eight nine, ten, fifteen miles an hour
(16:00):
and start popping the brake pedal hard. You want to
scuff the pad in the opposite direction. You want to
break the bond of friction. If I can say it
like that, it's almost like think if you were sending
a piece of wood, you want to go against the grain.
And if there are hard spots on the brake pad,
if something didn't see properly after the break, repair it's
(16:22):
going to knock that fuzz off, makes sense, yes, and
see if that eliminates the noise or changes the noise. Okay,
And then it's a conversation with whoever installed it, can
you you know, are you sure? Can you tell me?
And you know, it gets a little insulting because you're
questioning their workmanship, and so you've got to do the
delicate dance, you know, are you sure that you you know,
(16:45):
did you put anti chatter? Did you put a dielectric
grace where you were supposed to? And you know, is
it possible?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
It's that I asked for you the hardware as well
ron making the hardware.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and listen, you know, honest the industry says change
hardware every break job. Does everybody do it? No? Do
I do it?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Why? Because a lot of times the hardware that's on
there is really clean and the oe hardware works really well,
and a lot of times you don't want to disturb
it because you don't have issues. But you have to
clean the hardware, wire brush, scrub it down, make sure
it's you know, there's no rust, there's no corrosion. Typically,
hardware becomes a second break job related issue, not necessarily
(17:28):
a first time break job related issue. But go back
and try those things, see what that does. If that
doesn't work, by all means, give me a call back
and we can talk about it some more. Deep Pock.
I hope the rest of your summer goes well, my friend.
So eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
I'm running ay in the car. Doctor, I'll be back
right after this. Hey, I'm just warning everybody that football
(17:51):
season has started. So Tom's already keeping track of the Giants.
So if we do go off the air, that means
Tom faint that fell over, hit the board and wiped
everything out because she thinks the Giants will amount of
something this season.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
But well, if you see the thing starting to throw
things on the video link, you know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Right, That's what I kind of figured. So just let's
keep in mind this is a car show. This isn't
sports talk. Let's go over and talk to Dan in
Tennessee sixty eight Dodgs dark uh right, I tell you
these football guys, Dan, it's it's hard to be a
football fan here in New York, New Jersey, the Tri
state area. So someday we're going to get a team,
I'm hoping. So what's going on? Kittle?
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Thank you for thinking cars. None of the bout thing
on that one. No, I've got to not sixty eight
dollard I'm trying to put together on Okay, I got
a brand new naner Areyan out of California. I guess
(18:50):
it may be the same spects on the late springs.
Thing is Fender Whales from the area. But the guy's
got a set of wheels. Uh, it's going to the
bigger boat pattern. It's the five four factory, right, I'm
going four and a half. H Well, my question is
eight antil I still use a seventy inch tire. I've
(19:11):
got two inches from a lay sprang two inches from
Fender Whale. Well, that seventy series.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Sounds it sounds reasonable, but I think we have to
have a bigger conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So, so is the Dana rear the same with right
as the factory rear?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yeah, I should have ordered it there.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
But right, well, it's never too late to narrow. You
just cut the tubes and weld the flanges on and
you know, now's the time. Now's the time to correct it.
Don't wait until after you get it in the car.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You have shortened axles too, well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, sure you'd have to go, you know, do everything,
so you'd sell those axles and just buy shorter axles.
But you know, and I always encourage everybody to do this.
And I'm listen, you've built a few cars in your
in your lifetime. I can tell, all right, this isn't
a This isn't a you know, for the faint of heart,
endeavor what you're trying to do, and I applaud you.
I think it's kind of neat. I have some great
dart memories from my childhood. I remember getting picked up
(20:07):
by I was hitchhiking Russell and I and I remember
getting picked up by two guys in a dart and
they had put a four forty in it. Actually it
was a sixty eight. They had changed the K frame
and they put a four forty in it. And I
still remember the burnout they did downtown Main Street rams
you all the way to the railroad tracks and beyond.
It was just amazing. So you know, it's it's I
get what you're doing here? What are you doing? Though?
(20:30):
In the sense of how wild do you want this
to be? Is this going to be just something the
cruise nice with but I doubt it you're putting a
data in it, so you know what motors in it?
Speaker 5 (20:40):
And got I've got a three sixty in it and
I couldn't find the block complete block.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Right, so you know it's it's but it's got a
good cam and everything right. You want something with a
little you know, dump and pumping away we go, and
you know, maybe maybe a seventy series tire. And this
is my point, depending on what you're gonna do, a
seventy series tire is probably more than enough. You know,
(21:09):
we've we've all reached the age where there's always somebody
faster and we don't need to be We don't need
to be the fastest, you know, we don't need to
be the fastest car in the valley anymore. Those days
are long gone.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And you know, and the ability right listen for a
mile block or big block and I'll put it in
with the dinerarian night, a new bush and and everything and.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
You are so so if you leave at the stock
the stock with Dana, you know it's really or you know,
whatever the factory was, it's really a matter of what
fit under a stock Dart two twenty five seventy fifteens
fit to forty five seventy fifteens if I remember right fit.
But they were getting kind of snug, you know. So
(21:54):
it's it's it's a matter of fitment. It's a it's
a good problem to have because you've got a variety
of things that will work on that. But it's also
you know, what do you want the stance to be
on the car? Do you want it level all around?
Do you want a little higher in the back, and
all those are the things you got to start to
think about.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Yeah, right, I'm all have it. I've got iris shock
selling it, but I'm all have probably just four to
six inches higher than in the back, right.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Right, And you've got to think about that too, right,
you know, Listen, some of the fastest cars I ever
had or were in sat level or they were just
a skoshup in the back, and when the nose came up,
it was the idea weight transfer planted the tires on
the ground harder. So you can't I guess this is
my point, Dan, You can't think about any one thing.
(22:44):
Tire size predicates on horsepower. Horse Power predicates on suspension,
Suspension predicates on hookup what are we trying to do?
You've you know, Billy, my first boss May rest in peace,
always taught me you've got to look at a car
as a package. Everything works with everything else. That's why
it's all attached together. So so you know, what do
(23:04):
you want to achieve with this? Some of the nastiest
cars I've ever seen. You ever watched cars at the
drag strip, the ones that really hook up, you ever know?
You ever notice how they lift from the center right right,
There's no there's no way transfer. The whole car just
seems to go straight up in the air and hooks
up and it's gone. And you know a lot of
that's based on how you make that suspension work and
(23:26):
how you put that suspension and chassis together. And that's
what's important.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yeah, I've got an eight and three quarter positive getting
it under it, and the reason is changing the boat
fighter and taking it out.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
It hooks up now, it does not spind. It hooks
and goals now right, well, probably do well?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You know, you know, we can always look at it
as like, let's let's make it more complicated. All we
can do is screw it up, so you know, and
you know that's what I always Sometimes I also remember
something else Billy always taught me. Billy always said, mild
goes wild, and I never forgot that. And you know,
sometimes the simplest things work the best, and we all
seem to overcompensate. I always look at the guys that
(24:09):
put you ever look at the crazy ignition systems, guys
putting hot rods and muscle cars MSD, this multi spark
discharge that and the cargoes thirteen too. Wow, I'm really impressed,
you know where you know stock ignition. The car was
going thirteen to three? So what did they gain?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So I guess the lecture, And I don't mean to lecture.
I respect every hot roder out there, you know what.
Just understand what you're doing and what you're trying to do,
and what results are you looking for and can you
achieve that? That's really it. You want to look that's different.
You want to make it go. That's a different conversation.
I think what you're doing is great. I think a
data is probably the way to go. It's stronger than
(24:49):
an eight and three quarter for sure, But I would
probably stay with either stock or maybe a scoch More
rubber on the ground just to feel the Wheelwell, all right,
to me, it'll we're a little bit of a better look.
But it's not me, it's up to you. It's what
you want.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
It's your car look too. But I don't want to run.
You know, if you're go in a car, it tailts
the tire to the spraying the body.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Now you know, keep in mind too, and then I'll
let you go, dan Is. Keep in mind that the
size rim with the correct backspace, maybe you could run.
Maybe you could run a street slick on it for
Friday night Crewis and that would get everybody's attention to
whether you spend the tires or not. Just make everybody
look into a double take.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
So all right, this is right money trial, right, A.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Lot of it is trial and error. Brother, And at
this point there's a lot of guys out there that
have done it, and it's a matter of we can
just read and follow and see and play in tune.
And it was a lot easier when we were kids, right,
I remember being a dumb kid taking a taking a
what was it? It was a four inch bor Chevy block
and a two eighty three crank. It was a three
twenty seven block a two eighty three crank, I put
(25:59):
it together, made a three two. After I did that,
five years later, somebody said you can't do that, and
I said, well it's too late because I already did
it and the car's gone. So you know, the things
we don't know that we don't know that somehow worked, Dan.
I appreciate the conversation, sir. Good luck to you and
I hope this. I hope you got something out of this.
And if you need anything else more, you know where
to find me.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
All right, Okay, God bless and have a safe day.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Thank you, sir, you too. I'm running ady in the car. Doctor.
We'll be back right after this. Well, I see Virginia's
coming in loud and clear, one of our three affiliates.
Let's go over and talk to Dale. Dale You there, sir, Yeah,
I'm here, So tell me about your eady four Ltd.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Okay, here's the problem that the way I found I
had a problem. I went to a restaurant one day
and it took me thirty minutes to get there. All right,
I shut the engine off, I went in eight came
back out forty five minutes later to start it at
and it miss is real bad. It's just like you
went out there and pulled two spark clug wars off,
(27:03):
and when you give any RPMs, there is no RPMs.
You put the accelerator owy floor and it does absolutely nothing.
But if you sit and wait a minute and a half,
it clears itself right back up and you go on,
what the hell is it?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Okay, well, so what's your first reaction? Because I can
tell you've already got some preconceived ideas. Do you think
this is fuel related or ignition related?
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Oh? It has to be ignition because I burned non
f andol gas. Because the f andol gas I lose
two and a quarter miles per gallon. Okay, so I
don't burn that crap?
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Can you?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Can you replicate this? It will? Will this happen every
time if you'll let it sit and go through a
forty five minute heat soak.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yes, yeah, every time, every time.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So why don't we eliminate instead of looking for what's bed?
Why don't we eliminate what's good? Can we do a
fuel pressure test? I know it's going to be a
little awkward hooking up to an EFI, but there's got
to be a way whether we pull the filter out
and tap into that. But why don't we least verify
system fuel pressure on the forty five year old vehicle
and at least get rid of that and take that
off the table. The ignition system on this do have
(28:15):
you had the Have you had the the ignition rotor
out of this car? The distributor cap off? Have you
looked inside the distributor?
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Yeah? I looked at it and couldn't find anything wrong
with Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Is this is this a multi layer ignition rotor or
a single layer ignition rotor. It's a single so it's
one point of contact. What color I want you to
pull the cap back off? Look at the there's a
hall effect or a stat or piece, which was the
pole piece?
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
This is electronic ignition this generation. Is this the silver
ignition box over on the fenderwell ignition Duras spark dur
as spark free me. So look inside the distributor. What
color is the pole piece connector? Where the ignition module
the ignition? Is there an ignition module in the body
of the distributor or? Is it it's on the fender.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
Well or both It's on the fender wheel.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Okay, So where that connects in. This connects in. There's
two pigtails correct at the distributor to oval shiped pigtails. Okay,
so this doesn't have the hale effect on the inside.
This is a pole piece. Uh you know, is this ignition?
I'm thinking you've got more likely a fuel related issue here.
I want to know that fuel is okay, Because this
(29:24):
is an e FI car. Fuel comes out of the
center throttle body.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
Uh huh all right, Oh no, no, wait wait a
minute now, it's electronic fuel injection right right on the side.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, it's an e FI car. It's a throttle body
electronic fuel injection car.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Oh is that what they call it?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, it's it's. It's it's it's got a two barrel piece.
It looks like a two barrel carburetor with an air intake,
and it's got a central injector mounted right in the
throttle body itself, right, and you can actually sit there
and watch it spray. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You know there's a method we used to use, you know,
if we want to look at quality fuel pattern. Do
you still own a timing light you? Oh yeah, okay,
you know you could hook up your timing light and
use its strobe effect to look at the spray pattern
coming out of the shower head of the injector. It's
kind of it's kind of an interesting thing. You'll see
if the fuel is coming out in globs, or if
(30:16):
the fuel is coming out in a fine shower head.
There's a bunch of different there's a bunch of different
tricks we can do. What I'm trying to point out
is if is this really an ignition problem or is
this a fuel problem? And because of the age of it,
it's going to be difficult because of tooling and information.
If this were in the shop, first thing I want
to do is fuel pressure. I want to know I've
(30:37):
got good fuel pressure.
Speaker 6 (30:38):
Okay, let me stop you right there. Okay, Now the
engine was retotally rebuilt. Don't care twenty two thousand miles ago.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Don't care because it's it's I don't think this is
an engine mechanical I mean, I do care, but I
don't care. I don't think this is an engine mechanical condition.
Right unless somebody's got unless somewhere somebody's got an incorrect
ground that they didn't reattach or I've got a ground
attached to a painted surface. Area that but by you
would have had that problem right out of the gate,
not twenty two thousand miles later. Right, So I want
(31:10):
to know what's fuel pressure at the point of failure?
Do you have any propaine around the house, you know
in the show? Can we provide pro paine enrichment if
you think this is If we think this is fuel related,
if we give it a little bit more fuel, what
does it do to the car? Does it make the
car run better or worse? Is this car running leaner? Rich?
And that's the other side of this. Could this car
(31:32):
have a rich condition?
Speaker 6 (31:34):
We do?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
We have a problem there, this car should have. This
car still has oxygen sensors in eighty four, correct, right?
I Can I look at the two sensors? Do I
have an O two sensor that's biased and stuck in
one direction or another? And you'll never pick it up
with a scan tool or the diagnostics capable of an
eighty four automobile. I might have to look at it
on a scope. I might have to look at it
(31:55):
with a meter. Let's do this in stages, all right, Dale,
check fuel pressure, call me back and let me know
what you find, and then we can talk deeper all right,
because the clock's going to take me. I don't want
to leave you hanging. So find out what fuel pressure is.
Give me a shout back, and we'll do a deeper
dive and we'll talk about this together. But don't eliminate
the obvious, and don't look for what's bad, look for
(32:16):
what's good, and we'll come to a conclusion of what's failing.
Ron and Andy and the car Doctor. I'll be back
right after this. Hey, let's do this. We're flying in
a pinch here. Let's go help one of the boys
in blue, Mark wrights In, Mark Miller, Newburgh, New York. Ron,
longtime listener to the show, began listening in the nineties.
I'm feeling old while patrolling the streets of NYC and
(32:37):
a New York Police Department car quick with an AM radio.
They had those, huh. I'm looking for help and sourcing
a replacement manager for my son's twenty seventeen Ford Focus.
I'm sorry with the infamous one lead three cylinder motor.
I'm really sorry, five speed manual. Now I get why
we're going to fix this. The car iss one hundred
and fifteen thousand miles on it, and I'm certainly smoked
the head guess that the car was losing cooling over
an extended period of time and ultimately overheated and was
(32:59):
driven a distance. Yeah, it's a learning moment, Mark, right,
We're going to talk to our son and this is
how we teach them and hopefully they pick out a
good retirement home for us to live in. At this point,
cool and level drops quickly with no signs of external leaking.
There's plenty of white smoke out the exhaust. I have
a well equipped home shop in Newburgh, New York. Do
you have any suggestions on where to source a reman.
I'll tell you what I would probably if we're going
to do this, I'd go find a local machine shop
(33:21):
with a reputation, somebody I could talk to and go
the extra freight and pay to have somebody build me
an engine, Somebody I can go back to if I
have a problem, Somebody that's not going to do something
assembly line, but particular in custom to that vehicle. That's
the way I would justify it. Mark. If you need more,
you know where to find me. I'm ronning Andy and
the car Doctor till the next time. Good mechanics aren't
expensive they're priceless. See uh
Host
Ron Ananian
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