friend, fellow turner, and endless bench racer M___ and I came up with the idea for this page after a long night of turning wrenches. We generally buy used cars and make them good by tuning them carefully instead of buying a new car and spending that money on interest and payments. That plan is starting to get old but I still believe that a 3-7 year old car is your best bet financially and for a good aftermarket.
The point of this page is to document the failed parts, broken tools, crumbling bits, and general decrepitude that can happen working on cars. M and I have at our disposal a press, a five foot pipe, a hack saw, a 1/2 drill, and my trusty BFH to exert monkey like mechanical advantage over the hopeless items in question. Enjoy the carnage!
oh cool!
220k+ miles is a pretty stellar lifespan for an OEM radiator. If there is one system on an mr2 that wont die the cooling system is it.
The forked up fork
Many of you know what this priceless item to the left is. Whenever you need to pop out an axle or get that freakin ball joint loose (and traditional methods don't work) you reach for this thing. Its guaranteed to fubar your ball joint boot but that doesn't matter if you can't get it loose. This one fell victim to the 5 ft pipe. That ball joint didn't come off. Well, not until we hammered that end into it for about XX minutes.
The artist formerly known as ur- caliper
You can see on the top center edge where the chunk fell off of this pristine antique Audi rear caliper. That whole mess is going in the trash. Note the hex hole in the piston, for backing it into the caliper to make room for new pads. Lots of hex heads on this car. The other side was actually different leading to the conclusion that one of them had been replaced (in the last 20 years- imagine that?!). We clipped that parking brake cable to get these off since the new rear calipers take a different model cable. And I thought that the Accords were bad! HAh!
Sasquatch toothbrush
This is a brass wire brush that my dad gave me, along with a bunch of other tools, when I moved out. It was old and straight then....about 6 years ago. For some reason I won't buy a new one, or a bigger one. If you try to use it, it doesn't really do anything but I can pretend.
1200 hp F22 Accord DX engine
This is the Accords stock SOHC 2.2l F22 lump. It needed a tune up and had a high end miss. The 1-2 synchros where shot. The power was about on par with a lawn mower. I gave it to someone who would take it, and the stock exhaust, away quickly (after cannibalizing it for my engine transplant).
Saturn < Lemon
This Saturn was a lemon that M bought off of his dad as a reliable daily driver. We drove it up to Rhode Island to pick up his much-more-reliable-than-it 1985 Audi 4000s Quattro. It was a great daily driver until on the way back at a gas station, out of curiosity, I checked the oil. Nothing. Nothing on the dipstick. Hmmmmm.. We just drove hundreds of miles. After putting oil in it and driving it back it quickly went down hill. Turns out loosing quarts of oil and seizing is not uncommon for these engines. First there were a joyous series of clutch jobs that, without a FSM, was guesswork at best in regards to some creative Saturn engineering. Then a friendly parts person sold M the wrong axle which quickly machined a nice hole in the transaxle. Then, of course, the engine seized. I don't recommend early Saturns +_+
So thats where that horrid clunk was coming from
Well, here is some real neglect on my part as a mechanic. I've had this ball joint loose on several occasions and never did anything about it. This thing is absolutely destroyed. The boot was in two pieces and the stud floats around the housing like a straw in a glass of lemonade. The problem is that you can't get a front upper Accord ball joint alone, you have to buy the whole arm. Which is somewhere around 130$ compared to 30$ for just a ball joint. The car felt a lot tighter after I fixed that (Der! +_+)
Aw nuts!
These sad items used to be lug nuts on a Subaru 2.5RS. They got a wee bit cross threaded. One was so reluctant to come off that, with the help of the 5ft pipe, the wheel stud came with it! We replaced all 5 on that wheel and the studs too in the name of not dying a fiery death on the freeway when the wheel shoots off into the forest at 75mph. Good as new! That's off of the same Subaru that M and I drove to pick up the A4. Thanks C!
We can built him, we have the technology!
The story with this hideous thing is that when I bought the Accord the previous owner was this eccentric Indian engineer guy. He though it was a good idea apparently, to reconstruct this broken door handle out of bent staples, epoxy, and some kind of peculiar gray putty rather than to spring the astronomical 30$ for a new one. What's perhaps even more pathetic is that it took me 2 years to decide that this guys hobby shop nightmare should be replaced.
Here's a shot from the back where you can make out some kind of cardboard structure mixed in with the epoxy and staple things. Truly awesome engineering.
That bit on the lower right is all staples and glue.
And now with the gray putty! Most of which has already crumbled away never to be seen again.
Here is what the new handle looked like after 30$ + S+h were shelled out to my favorite Honda dealer. I got this immense joy from opening the door after I fixed it.
Audi 4000 Quattro wheel bolts:1 Stanley 3/8th extension:0
This was one of M's 3/8's extensions. It lost a battle with the 4000's rear wheel bolts with the help of the 5ft pipe.
SK waning or halfs of the half inch extension
Yeah, you guessed it. M and the 5 foot pipe strike again. This time with a 1/2 inch extension. 3/4" is next I guess!
Give these pads a break
These are some wafer thin brake pads off of another bus drivers Hyundai. They would make a thin mint want to go on a diet. You can see where the upper edge was metal on metal with the rotor. The design on that particular car is hub over rotor so a presumed 45min brake job turned into a 5 hour all nighter. Wee!
The drill on using bits
When I installed the shock tower bar on the A4 using stock pieces from the S4 and S6 I had to drill new holes on the crossbar. The first bit was bad to begin with and eventually would no longer cut anything let alone a steel bar. The second bit i bought, an 11$ Cobalt hard metal bit, got caught coming out of the far side of the last hole that I needed and promptly exploded sending pieces flying everywhere. These are a few of the bits of the bit that I found. I'm damn lucky this didn't go through my leg or my face or something 0_0'
"I'll just hammer it in, it'll be OK"...
This thing used to be the only thing holding M___'s S6's front drivers side ball joint on. A couple of good whacks and that whole corner of the car could have become but a fond memory. It has been replaced with an actual bolt.
Cross drilled for lightness!
This shot doesn't do this S6 rotor justice. There are cracks all over the place, bluing from overheating, and severe rust. That plus they're undersized by about an inch and a half for this 3800lb car Yet another case of the graveyard narrowly escaped.. no, really..
non-stainless lines
These fuel lines are still providing a 300hp engine with hydrocarbons. They're also trying very hard to turn into iron oxide or FeO(OH) if in the presence of water. Science!
Another notch in your belt
This is the serpentine belt for my sister in laws indestructible Mercur-Ford Tracer-scort. It was working just fine without any complaints but the bad old inspection mechanic said no, so we put a new one on. haha! This belt is by far in the worst working condition I've ever seen.
These could be textbook fried belt photos. the ribs on the other side are all cracked and falling off as well.
Koolaid powered engine damper
This was the original stock engine mount on the A4. They leak that purple stuff when they go bad. I didn't taste it but it looks like burnt koolaid. They held the engine about as well as a pair of jelly doughnuts.
If you have any good graveyard part photos email me a photo and a thorough description and I may throw it up here!