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[quote=”hondaguy453″ post=147377]+1 ^^ I use that site. Nothing beats OEM parts.[/quote]
Well, when you think about it OEM parts are just parts from specific aftermarket suppliers in a different box and with a massive markup… the manufacturer puts out its spec for a given part and usually accepts the lowest bid that meets that spec. Just about every brand of car has issues with OEM parts that are known to be under-designed or too cheaply made, and there are usually aftermarket parts that correct those problems.
I’ve only ever heard good things about Fel-Pro, and I have their gaskets all over my Jeep. Never had a problem. Maybe they’re not so good with Toyota though.
[quote=”wafrederick” post=146371]Another thing with metric is most socket and wrench sets leave out 18mm and sometimes 15mm making the set worthless.[/quote]
“Worthless” would mean it’s no good for anything at all, which is clearly not the case. When I first started I made a point of buying a socket set that included everything from 8mm up to 23mm, but for a good 90% of the jobs I do I only need 10, 11, 12 and 13 – so a basic set would work just fine. In any event, surely it’s up to the buyer to check what’s in the set and if any sizes are missing – in my experience, 16mm is the size most commonly missed out in DIY-level sets – to buy them separately. Every tool shop I’ve ever been to has sold individual sockets as well as sets, and they’re hardly expensive.
[quote=”ToyotaKarl”]I like the metric system much better, but must admit I will have a hard time letting go of Ft-lbs and Horsepower….[/quote]
Well, we haven’t had to do that here in the UK!
As I mentioned earlier, even though we’re an officially metric country, many things are still expressed in imperial units. Official documentation for cars usually quotes PS, but in the real world people still talk in horsepower. We still use miles for road distances. I prefer Nm to ft-lbs, simply because my three torque wrenches are all Nm and it’s a pain having to convert, although fortunately the torque specs in both my factory service manuals for my Jeeps give both Nm and ft-lbs for almost every case.
Even if the USA doesn’t formally switch to metric, it’ll probably end up with a situation much like the UK (or Canada) – over time, vehicle fasteners will become metric as standard and people will just find themselves using metric tools.
[quote=”Hanneman” post=146372]
In turbocharged applications, priming the oil filter (and the oil supply for the turbo) is often recommended[/quote]But presumably, in those applications the filter mounts in such a way as to allow it to be filled before it’s installed, unlike my Jeep with its upside-down filter mounting. For the average car I can’t see an empty filter being an issue, because all the internal components will already be covered in oil (as they will be in the turbo engine, but there are clearly other considerations there).
I’m not saying “ignore the manual if it tells you to pre-fill the filter”, because if pre-filling is specified by the manufacturer then go for it, but I do think that an awful lot of “cheap insurance” related to cars isn’t insurance at all because it doesn’t make the slightest real-world difference, it’s just superstition, like the 3000-mile oil change.
I’ve often wondered about the real-world usefulness of tip #3 (pre-fill the filter if possible). Surely there’s no real danger of a “dry start” because all the internal engine components will have a film of oil on them anyway? And as is implied in the video, some oil filters are mounted in such a way as to make pre-filling impractical or impossible; my 4.0L Jeep filter mounts with its fill hole pointing downwards, so the designers can’t be worried that starting up with empty oil filter will cause damage.
Giving some British perspective here, we actually use a hybrid system similar to Canada’s. Distances are still given on road signs as miles, not kms, and car speedos typically have both MPH and KM/H scales with the MPH numbers being larger.
Weights and measures (including fasteners on vehicles) are typically all metric, although older people tend to prefer using imperial for weights – pounds and ounces instead of kilos and grams. And the construction industry still talks of “two by fours”, even though the actual measurements are done in metric.
As far as fasteners go, metric makes total sense to me, whereas SAE makes no sense at all (because I’ve never learned it and I see no reason to start now). I work on two Jeeps, one from 1992 and the other from 2005, and 99.9% of the time I only use metric sockets. I think I have about three SAE sockets for specific fasteners where the closest metric equivalent either doesn’t quite fit or might run a risk of rounding, and I rarely ever need to touch those particular fasteners anyway.
Seriously, I just don’t understand why anybody would prefer an ascending sequence of fastener size going 5/16, 3/8, 7/16, 1/2, 9/16, 5/8 when you could have 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. SAE isn’t intuitive and the relationships have to be learned, whereas the typical three-year-old knows enough about counting to have basically mastered metric.
Yes, of course people are used to what they’re used to, but sometimes change is necessary and useful. In the UK in 1971 we switched from our old imperial currency system (which had existed since Roman times) to decimal. It was a massive change and cost money to do, and there was considerable resistance from a large chunk of the voting population, but the old system was extremely confusing to anybody coming from a country with a decimal currency – which was just about every other country in the world. It was an antiquated relic and needed to change.
To anyone born in the UK after decimalisation (which includes me, by just a couple of months), the pre-decimal currency system seems ridiculously complicated – it used units with two different ratios, one at 12:1 and the other at 20:1 – but ask anyone old enough to have worked with it every day, and it makes perfect sense. I guess like SAE fractional sizes do to American mechanics 🙂
I’ve had the W7150 for about 3 years now. So far, I haven’t found a bolt or nut it wouldn’t break free in a matter of seconds. Lug nuts, axle nuts, suspension bolts… it just rips ’em all out.
[quote=”notoriousDUG” post=139596]Was moving the P/S cooler and going to all that trouble really a time saver? [/quote]
It took all of 30 seconds to move the cooler. I didn’t have to disconnect the fluid lines, just remove its two mounting bolts and it was free, with enough slack in the lines to move it far enough over to allow the extensions through.
You’re right that a ratchet with more engagement points would have helped, but I didn’t have one so I had to improvise if I didn’t want to be there cranking away at the nut a tiny bit at a time (I was getting one click’s worth of swing in the space available). And I was already using a 3/8 ratchet, because anything bigger wouldn’t have fitted (it’s actually specified in the FSM to use a 3/8 drive). Trying to break the torque on a factory-tight suspension bolt that hasn’t been touched in 10 years using a normal-length 3/8 ratchet with extensions, one-handed, isn’t fun.
PAG46 is the exact same thing as ND8.
Buy it from a parts store, not the dealership. Mopar’s own-brand ND8/PAG46 is, as you would expect, overpriced. And it’ll be the exact same stuff you can buy anywhere else, just in a container with the Mopar logo on it.
Any reason why you can’t get a socket on there, rather than a wrench? A socket with an extra-long breaker bar would seem like a good approach for this.
I had a shop do it. I don’t have the equipment and there’s nowhere I could rent it from where I live. Cost the equivalent of $76 for the vacuum and recharge.
It’s an easy job, seriously. Nothing to worry about. Just take your time and be methodical. It took me less than 10 minutes to connect up my new liquid line, receiver/dryer and discharge line.
As to your question about the condenser oil, it’s up to you. Personally, I’d ask the shop – otherwise you’ll be buying an 8oz bottle of PAG and wasting about 7/8ths of it (I think condensers typically take about an ounce of oil, but don’t quote me on that). It’s not recommended to keep PAG oil on the shelf once the bottle has been opened, you’re supposed to use it all at once.
I’ve been using RockAuto for about 5 years now, no complaints. Sometimes you just can’t justify OEM prices.
I’ve also just replaced my entire AC system. I couldn’t avoid making all the connections on a humid day, and then I wasn’t able to get the system vacuumed and charged until the day after, but it’s working just fine – blowing cold air like a champ.
As has been said, no need to spend anything close to $1300 to replace a compressor. The junkyard route is one way, or you can buy a brand-new one for around $220 from a reputable online supplier like RockAuto.
As has also been said, get a dye test done so you can be sure of where the leak actually is. It’s possible that it may be from a cheaply-replaced hose rather than the compressor itself.
Thanks for the input. On the grounds that the ICE32 is really just an additive, like Slick 50, and isn’t actually necessary to the operation of the compressor, I’m going to drain and refill.
As mentioned, there’s nothing online about this oil (which is Yokohama brand, but not necessarily the actual famous Japanese Yokohama).
I just checked to see if Mopar sells its own-brand PAG46, and it doesn’t. Or rather, it only sells PAG46 for use “specifically with Visteon AC compressors”. For other compressors you’re supposed to use Mopar’s “universal” R134a PAG, which doesn’t specify a viscosity anywhere.
EDIT – just for the hell of it I checked Motorcraft too, and it’s the same, they now sell a universal PAG that replaces their previous separate viscosities.