RockAuto.com RockAuto February Newsletter

RockAuto Home

Parts Catalog

Customer Service

Privacy Policy

Newsletter Archive

Email Subscription

RSS Feed

 

Another Happy Customer!

Great Selection, Great Prices, and Quick Delivery!

RockAuto always seems to have the parts I need, when I need them, and at the most affordable prices...

I have, and will continue to, recommend them to friends and family.

Tony in Arizona

 

Upcoming Events
If you would like your event featured here, email us with details.

WTW Pontiac Car Show
2/18/2012
Orlando, FL
e-mail

Brill's Motor Speedway
2/18/2012
Nicoma Park, OK
e-mail

Orangeburg Dragstrip
2/18/2012
Yemasse, SC
e-mail

Oro Valley Classic Car BBQ & Blues Show Family Festival
2/18/2012
Casas Adobes, AZ
e-mail

Vistancia 4th Annual Car Show for Charity
2/18/2012
Peoria, AZ
e-mail

Bairnsdale Motor Expo
2/18/2012
Victoria, AU
e-mail

MFMC's 25th Annual Mustang & Ford Roundup
2/18/2012
Winter Park, FL
e-mail

Norfolk Area Rod & Custom Car Show
2/25/2012
Norfolk, NE
e-mail

Tabacco Road Cruisers
2/25/2012
Hubert, NC
e-mail

25th Annual All Oldsmobile Show
2/25/2012
Gilbert, AZ
e-mail

8th Annual Chandler Car Show
2/25/2012
Chandler, AZ
e-mail

Kansas Rocks Rec Park 9th Annual Frostbite Event
2/25/2012
Lenexa, KS
website

Florida Mopars 3rd Annual Car Show
2/25/2012
Youngstown, FL
e-mail

Atlantic City Classic Car Show
2/25/2012
Great Neck, NY
e-mail

Until They All Come Home Car & Truck Show
2/26/2012
Palm Harbour, FL
e-mail

3rd Annual Capitol City Car Show Parade Festival
2/28/2012
Sacramento, CA
e-mail

Motocross of Marion County-National Vet Race
2/28/2012
Citra, FL
e-mail

Door Slammers Cruise Ins
3/1/2012
Tucson, AZ
e-mail

5th Annual Mopars on the Border IV Car Show
3/2/2012
Misson, TX
e-mail

Autos for Autism
3/3/2012
Trinity, FL
e-mail

MHS Car Show
3/3/2012
San Diego, CA
e-mail

1st Annual Corvette & Open Car & Truck Show
3/3/2012
Mission Bay, FL
e-mail

West Harrison High School Band 2nd Annual Marching Hurricanes Car Show
3/3/2012
Gulf Port, MS
e-mail

RDA Auto Bike & Swap Meet
3/3/2012
Rockdale, TX
e-mail

33rd Annual Snow Poker Run
3/3/2012
Laton, CA
e-mail

3rd Annual American Business Woman's Relay for Life Car Show
3/3/2012
Thiboduax, LA
e-mail

Citrus County Cruisers 28th Manatee Car & Truck Show
3/4/2012
Lecanto, FL
e-mail

Carolina Collector Auto Fest-Spring
3/9/2012
Hillsborough, NC
e-mail

Moog Complete Strut Assemblies

See what we have from Moog

Moog Complete Strut Assemblies

Do you enjoy doing your own maintenance with superior quality parts? Well, look no further! Premium quality parts that encourage you to do it yourself are always being added to the RockAuto catalog. Newly added to the catalog are Moog Complete Strut Assemblies. These complete strut units are pre-assembled for fast, easy, bolt-on installation and come from Moog, a brand you know and trust.

Moog Complete Strut Assemblies are engineered to improve vehicle dynamics, provide a smoother ride, last longer and install easily. Complete strut assemblies save on installation time and reduce the number of required tools by eliminating having to disassemble and reuse components and compress the coil spring. A complete strut assembly with all new parts often costs less than buying the parts individually.

Triple Piston Rod Seal
Inner and outer seals protect the main seal from contaminants and pressure spikes resulting in optimized sealing performance and durability

Top Spring Bearing Plate
Tested to one million cycles for smooth operation and long life

Jounce Bumper
Molded from advanced micro-cellular polyurethane to absorb noise, vibration and harshness

Polished Piston Rod
Highly polished, hard-chrome finish piston rod for superior strength and sealing performance

Valving
Precision valving technology that provides optimum driving performance combined with outstanding ride control

Hardware
OE-Style installation lower mounting hardware included on select applications, making the job easy

Whether you drive a 2003 Mercury Sable, a 1995 Eagle Vision or a 2004 Toyota Tacoma, check the "Suspension" category to see the Moog Complete Strut Assemblies you need for your next do-it-yourself project!

 

 

 

Forum of the Month

Mk1Dubz.com

Mk1Dubz.com is the only Free Speech, non-profit forum dedicated to the early water cooled Volkswagens (first-generation Golf/Rabbit). We are based/hosted in the USA, however we have a tight knit group of members from all over the world.

We have only one simple rule: “Treat each other with respect.” We believe we're the friendliest forum on the Internet today!

 

If you are the administrator or member of a forum and you would like to see your website featured in an upcoming newsletter and receive a discount code to share with your members, contact cynthia@rockauto.com.

 

 

Repair Mistakes & Blunders

Ouch!

My biggest blunder was my first attempt at changing my own oil.

It was on my '55 Chevy (bought for $500.00 in 1968). Enlisting the aid of my best friend, we crawled under the car with a drain pan in hand. The car was propped up on cinder blocks - not something anyone with a brain would do today, but, being teenagers, what did we know?

I had followed the manual instructions carefully, warmed up the engine, etc. Now all I had to do was loosen the bolt on the oil pan. Of course, I started tightening it and stripped the threads. Having no choice but to proceed, I reversed directions and backed out the bolt. The drain pan was positioned directly under the bolt. Little did I know, the oil would spurt out sideways a little - just enough to splatter my face with Quaker State's finest! After my friend stopped laughing, he realized that this was being done in his dad's new driveway, so the new concrete now looked like the floor of an old garage.

We got the filter out eventually, but only after much more oil spillage. We carefully got the bolt back into the oil pan and it seemed tight enough. By now, it was flowing down the driveway into the gutter and down the street.

When we FINALLY got everything back together, we had made a mess on a scale that foreshadowed the Exxon Valdez spill. The new driveway was ruined and the next door neighbors were upset from driving into the oil and tracking it up their driveways.

I can't remember how many lawns we had to mow that summer to pay for the mess, but it seemed like every lawn within a five mile radius!

Tom in California

 

Tell us about your most infamous auto repair blunder or unconventional fix. Use your woe to help others avoid similar mistakes or share off-the-wall solutions that worked (at least for a while!). Please email your story to flamur@rockauto.com. Include your mailing address and if you would like a RockAuto T-Shirt (please let us know your shirt size) or Hat if we publish your story. See the T-Shirts and Hats under Extras in the catalog. The story will be credited using only your first name and your vague geographic location (state, province, country, continent, etc.) so you can remain semi-anonymous!

 

 

Automotive Trivia

Automotive Trivia

Which auto parts manufacturer (using current company name) invented the automotive oxygen sensor?

A. Airtex/Wells
B. Bosch
C. Delphi
D. NTK

Answer below

 

 

Give Them a Little Attention

RockAuto

 

I do a reasonably good job maintaining my wife's portion of our fleet. Her '87 Mazda 323 and '93 Ford Tempo are not exactly finicky exotics. Give them a little attention and they are happy. However, there is one maintenance task I let slip on the Mazda. After procrastinating for years, I decided it was a job to just avoid thinking about, kind of like that mystery container that has been sitting in the back of the refrigerator for months.

The skeleton in the Mazda's closet was an oxygen sensor with around 170,000 miles (274,000 km) on it. Of course it was not completely my fault. Nowhere in the Mazda service manual does it say exactly when to replace the oxygen sensor. I found that omitting when the oxygen sensor should be changed is also fairly common for other owner's manuals and repair manuals. The repair manual for my '92 Dodge van is the only one I own that specifically says the oxygen sensor should be changed every 82,500 miles (132,000 km).

The engine computer needs the feedback from the oxygen sensor to optimize the fuel mixture and other parameters. Waiting until the car fails an emissions test or the check engine light illuminates before changing the oxygen sensor can mean the car has been wasting gas and under performing for years. The catalytic converter(s) might also be unnecessarily damaged. That is why it is so surprising that the recommended maintenance intervals are often missing or vague. The generic recommendation is usually to replace unheated oxygen sensors found on old cars (like our Mazda) every 50,000 miles (80,000 km) and replace heated oxygen sensors every 100,000 miles. A voltmeter can usually test if the sensor is working at all, but will not detect an old sensor that is slow to respond to oxygen levels. A slow sensor with late feedback can be as useless to the engine computer as a dead sensor.

The Mazda had slipped so far beyond all recommended O2 sensor replacement intervals that I guessed the sensor must be hopelessly fused with the exhaust pipe. Best to just leave it alone and not think about it. That all changed last weekend when I came up with a way to turn neglected maintenance into a scientific study! My wife's Ford Tempo had 85,000 miles (137,000 km) on its oxygen sensor, exactly half as many miles as on the Mazda. I would change the oxygen sensors in both the Mazda and Ford and compare the sensors and the difficulty of the repair. If I broke my socket wrench or the Mazda's exhaust manifold, then it would be part of a carefully planned science project rather than just a badly neglected Mazda.

It is embarrassing to admit that an ‘87 Mazda 323's oxygen sensor is one of the easiest to access and change. Some vehicles, especially those with V6 engines, might have an oxygen sensor jammed up close to the firewall. There is no such excuse for this Mazda. The exhaust manifold and oxygen sensor are right out front. Just warm up the engine a bit, unplug the oxygen sensor wiring harness, stick on the special oxygen sensor socket with a cut out for the wires (found under Extras in the RockAuto.com catalog) and unscrew the oxygen sensor. I expected major exertion and possibly disaster, but with a short length of pipe on the socket wrench handle the Mazda's oxygen sensor loosened easily. The threads on the new Standard Motor Products oxygen sensor came pre-lubed with anti-seize compound so I just screwed it right in and plugged in the wiring harness. I might say it was as easy as changing a spark plug, but it was actually easier because the exhaust manifold was high quality steel rather than the more fragile aluminum spark plugs typically screw into.

Next I tackled the oxygen sensor in the Ford. It was slightly more difficult because its oxygen sensor is on the firewall side of the engine and harder to reach. It was easy to loosen once I figured out how to worm in my hand and the socket wrench. Just eyeballing the two old oxygen sensors, they do not look that much different even with twice as many miles on one (sensor nearest the O2 socket in the photo). I do not have test equipment or an oscilloscope capable of heating them up and measuring their reaction times. According to Bosch, the white dusting is likely from fuel additives. I do not use fuel additives so the white coating might be unavoidable over time with just pump gasoline.

Oxygen Sensor Socket & Oxygen Sensors

I am tempted to claim I got away with something by getting so many extra miles out of the Mazda's old oxygen sensor (made by Denso), but I probably did not. My wife and I have no idea what the Mazda's before and after gas mileage is, but if the new sensor saves even a few drops of gasoline per tank then it will quickly pay for itself and start saving us money. New oxygen sensors for our Mazda currently start at less than $11 at RockAuto. Better performance and less pollution are big pluses too.

Newer cars with better engine computers and multiple catalytic converters rely on the oxygen sensor(s) even more. My scientific experiment with the Mazda shows you may not need to completely despair if you let your car's oxygen sensors slip beyond their useful life span. Grab an oxygen sensor socket and a new sensor (under Emissions) and shoo that skeleton out of the closet!

Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com

 

 

Malcom's 1965 Mustang
Malcom's 1965 Mustang

This is my pretty pony – it lives "Down Under" in Melbourne Australia. It is a 1965 Mustang, manufactured on October 13, 1964 (sharing a birthday with my wife). It has a standard 289 automatic with power steering, front disc brakes, Pony interior, and styled steel wheels as original factory options. Finished in silver blue, it attracts admiring glances, even from candy apple red fastback owners!

I maintain the car myself and have sourced parts from RockAuto several times – the most significant being an Eaton power steering pump which is impossible to source here. But, also more basic parts such as an oil sender unit, oil filter, air filter, gaskets, rotor, spark plugs and leads. Each time the order was filled and delivered with no problem to my door. When I need parts, I always consider RockAuto because I know an order of multiple parts, even with shipping costs, will be cheaper and easier than buying here in Australia.

Rock on Rockauto! Keep up the good service!
Malcom in Australia

 

Share Your Hard Work

Do you purchase parts from RockAuto? If so, RockAuto would like to feature you & your car or truck in our monthly newsletter. New, old, import, domestic, daily driver, trailer queen, classic, antique, we want to see them all! Please e-mail flamur@rockauto.com with your vehicle's history, interesting details, and what parts from RockAuto you have used.

 

 

Let RockAuto Help

Let RockAuto Help

Are you organizing a car show or other auto related event? From goody bag stuffers to gift certificates...we can help. We can even publicize your event in our newsletter.

Just send us an email with information about your show.

 

 

Automotive Trivia Answer

Automotive Trivia

Which auto parts manufacturer (using current company name) invented the automotive oxygen sensor?

Answer: B. Bosch

Back up to trivia question

 

 

 

 

© 1999-2012 RockAuto, LLC - Madison, Wisconsin USA. RockAuto name and logo are registered trademarks of RockAuto, LLC. Manufacturer names and logos in the RockAuto catalog are trademarks of their respective companies and are used only to identify their products. All rights reserved.