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Yea its my Buick, I am ordering 2 fronts, the rears are fine. I’ll toss a set of linkages on there too cause for 5 bucks each, when the struts is out of the way, they are much easier to do.
Speaking of my stable, the van might go away for a 5 year old Subaru Forester.
yea, the tires aren’t cupping and it doesn’t bounce excessively. So I think they are good, I am just going to change out the fronts. Quick-struts are the best idea ever. The reason I brought up weight is most people that drive W bodies don’t carry a 12 inch miter saw and various tools for weeks in their trunks (I do volunteer stage set construction and lighting) or move a couple hundred feet of heavy theatrical cables. 🙂
I am going to pick up the quickstruts today. Trying to decide though, go with Monroe, or try out the Moog’s or Raybestos ones.
Seems like the promo this month is only for trucks. http://www.monroe.com/promotions
that being said, they are 114 each on amazon with free shipping.
i think that is how I am going to go.
Yea, that is called starting to date somebody that her past boyfriends didn’t know what a wrench was, let alone how to use it. My buddy inspected the car and was like, you know all the work you did to this car so far? you missed something, you have more homework.
So I swapped it out, took like 20 to 30 min, not a big deal.. but i pulled it out and if fell into 2 pieces.. needless to say, it runs better now and I don’t have to worry about the engine rocking forward and pulling out all the crap on the backside.
I like Buicks. I have had a 3800 Series II and now a 3800 Series III, great motors! The trannies have something to be desired, but easy to drain and change fluid at least.
I like the Caddy I had as well, 1989 with the 4.5 litre.
If its idle, as Eric said above, and I learned this past week, get every last air bubble out of that system. Your idle issue is probably due to this. I had what I would consider a little bit of air in the system and it caused all kinds of issues. I spent 30 min. bleeding the system and now it runs like a dream.
Seems there are a lot of posts recently about air in the cooling system causing issues, seems really common.
I use whatever is cheapest and name brand, in my car I use synthetic since I bought it new and started it that way with the 1st change. My van runs the cheapest name brand I could find (dodge). I am using Quaker State now (keep on wanting to say Quaker Steak, guess I want some wings), and my 3800 seems to love it, so I will keep with it. My GF honda has Quaker state in it now and its running like a dream (after I fixed the idle issue).
Filters, everyone tells me to not use Fram, but I have used them now for 19 years an no issues.. I use AC Delco a lot though on my GM’s. I figure the 25 cents more is worth it.. I also like WIX filters too… I also agree, walmart is your friend..
For reference, I got an Alero up to 146,000 on fram filters and cheap regular oil (quaker state, pennzoil, etc.) when I was a service tech. I think it all comes down to regular oil and filter changes. Any filter will go to crap if you don’t change it.
yea.. it is really odd, from what I see the ETC sensor is at the very top of the cooling system. so if there is air, it will go to that sensor and cause it to error out.
now I have to fix the smell of gas, which is error P1456, but that can wait a bit.
buy the kit with the belt, tensioner and water pump. I just did a timing belt on a 01 civic (thanks for the help everyone) and its well worth it to do these. The time to get down to the belt and its friends i a lot more than it takes to swap them. plus you won’t be taking it all apart in 20k to do the water pump.
I think Honda is a mix of interference and non-interference engines, I think it depends on year / model of the engine… though I could be wrong, I have been known to talk out of my you know what…
Another thing I learned recently, by recently I mean yesterday, watch the video on bleeding the cooling system and do it thoroughly.. I had only a little bit of air in the civic’s cooling system and it was causing idle problems. Once I got the cooling system bleed, it is now running smooth.
From what I have read, you are correct that it could be the coolant temp sensor.. which I just find odd (not saying I doubt you at all). I just don’t see how coolant level has anything to do with Idle. At least if it is a ETC, they are 20 bucks on amazon, so that is much better than the Torque Converter than I thought, cause they do the same thing with the idling…
We shall see if this is it this weekend when I can get back at it with this.
Any other suggestions I should try if that isn’t it?
well I think it was the coolant thing. I opened up the radiator with it cold and it was full, I start the car and let it idle until it warmed up to operating temp with the heat on high, but the fan off… it warmed up and as soon as it hit temp, I started to get some air bubbles.. not a lot but enough. I had to top off the cooland 6 to 8 times. I then reved the engine to 1500 – 2000 for 30 seconds, came back, added more coolant, did this step several times. until I didn’t have to add coolant,. I let it idle for about 30 seconds and reved it again, no movement or bubbles. I left it idle a bit more, then shut it down and capped it. I tossed in a little 50/50 into the resivour too and took it for a spin.
The drive was 1.5 miles of city / neighborhood streets. Then 1.5 miles of highway and through the tunnels back home. No studdering, not dropping of idle and almost stalling. nice smooth idle drop,nice smooth pick up. Ran it hard out of the hole a few times and it was still fine. Basically gave it a good lashing if you will.
So I think that is what it was.
I did see the grounding wire from the block to the front of the car (by the radiator) is fraying, so I guess this is something I should change out…
thanks for you help 619DioFan.. Dio rocked for a long long time….
I use whatever brand name synthetic is on sale. They all have to pass the same tests to get SAE certified, so they are all pretty good IMO. Lately I have been using quaker state. For tranny fluid, I have been using Coastal or whatever is the cheapest DEX VI I can find as long as it is GM certified. As for coolant, while under warranty, I’ll run Dex-cool, as soon as the warranty is out, the yellow goes in…
For the Honda, I stick to honda tranny fluid and such.
One of my favorite things is SeaFoam. I use it as a top end engine treatement. A 1/3 of a bottle into the break booster line as the engine is running, as soon as 1/3 is in, shut it off. Leave it sit 10 to 15 min and then start it and run it to the white smoke is gone. Engine runs great after that. I also use it as a fuel injector cleaner, dump some in the gas tank every 6 months to clean it all out (especially since my Lacrosse doesn’t have a fuel filter, 07 did, not 08, I have looked for it, it ain’t there, just the in-the-tank one).