Hellwig Helper Springs Now Available At RockAuto

Find these parts and more under "Suspension Helper" in the "Suspension" category of the Rockauto Catalog.

Forum Of The Month

FirebirdNation.com is a Pontiac Firebird forum dedicated to all generations and models of the Pontiac Firebird. It's not one of the largest forums on the web, but we have a tight knit online community whom welcomes all new members. Our forum includes a massive collection of tech articles and more than 4,000 Firebird enthusiasts who are more than happy to help anyone experiencing a problem with their Firebird. We also have an extensive gallery, blogs, online radio station, and chatroom. Firebird Nation is also home to the Firebird Nation Car Club aka FBNCC, a new nationwide car club.

As for RockAuto, I shop exclusively with RockAuto for all my automotive parts. I love the easy to use site, excellent pricing, and top notch customer support (which is extremely rare 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 jessa@rockauto.com.

Repair Mistakes & Blunders

Many years ago, I owned a shiny red 1978 Pontiac Firebird which I had bought almost new with 12K miles on it. For several years it ran like a top, until one day when my wife mentioned that the engine was making a strange knocking noise. I went to check it out, and sure enough, there was a definite knock-knock-knock coming from the engine as it idled. Although I was no expert in diagnosing engine sounds, it sounded to me like a bearing had failed. With only 60K miles on the engine, and my use of synthetic oil (Mobil 1) which I changed every 5K, I certainly didn't expect anything like this.

I began making plans to pull the engine and do a teardown & rebuild. Living in an apartment building with only a small single-stall garage (without electricity), it wasn't going to be very convenient, but I was determined to do whatever needed to be done. I borrowed some equipment and pulled the engine, and then began the teardown process. I didn't know exactly which part had failed, but I decided to just replace all the bearings & rings, and have the crankshaft, camshaft, and block checked for damage. Everything looked OK, so I began the reassembly process.

After many evenings of working on the engine, I finally had it back together and in the car. I started it up and began adjusting the rocker arms to center the hydraulic lifters (to eliminate the clackety-clack). After the last one was completed, my heart sank as I realized that there was still a knock-knock-knock sound coming from the engine. I couldn't believe it, but as reality sank in, I took a long wooden rod and with my ear pressed against one end, I began probing various places on the engine in order to pinpoint the noise. As I placed the rod on the mechanical fuel pump, the noise grew much louder.

About an hour later, with a new fuel pump installed, I once again started the engine, but this time the knocking noise was gone. I sheepishly realized that I had just overhauled an engine that didn't even need it!

Jim in Minnesota

Tell us about your most infamous auto repair blunder. Use your woe to help others avoid similar mistakes. Please email your story to flamur@rockauto.com. Include your mailing address and shirt size (large or extra large) and we will mail you a RockAuto "Do it yourself?" t-shirt if we publish your story. 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!

Learn New Skills On Your Least Favorite Car

A great way to improve do-it-yourself, automotive repair skills is to try daring, risky repairs on a car you have little emotional or financial attachment too. You could sneak over to your neighbor’s driveway to practice replacing the valve stem oil seals on his Impala. However, a picky neighbor might grumble and hack down your hedge if you accidentally dropped just one valve down into his car’s engine. It is better to look around a bit longer and find an unloved vehicle.

I earned my BS degree (seriously) at Wayne State University in Detroit. The streets and alleys around my apartment building would gradually fill up with abandoned vehicles. Once a year several police cars and tow trucks would descend on the neighborhood and tow them all away. Those cars were a gold mine for automotive learning. My only regret is that I did not spend more time taking those cars apart and less time studying calculus. Even my extended family benefited from my college education. My brother was learning how to weld and my neighborhood was his source for body panels to practice on.

Do-it-yourself training cars got harder to find when my career pulled me away from Detroit. Then, nearly twenty years ago, I met my future wife. Sure she was smart, beautiful, etc. but what really caught my eye was her dowry, a Mazda 323. It was the luxurious LX model with the rare luggage rack on the trunk lid, but it was also pokey and had as much personality as my toaster oven. The perfect car for worry-free tinkering!

Soon after we were married, our careers took the Mazda and us to Thailand. I installed an oil cooler and some gauges. We crawled through sweltering Bangkok traffic, shared the highways with amphetamine powered truck drivers, and bounced over country roads. The Mazda survived and we brought it back to the USA with just a few more dings and the windows heavily tinted.

The 323 started racking up the years and miles as my wife’s daily driver and I learned how to do repairs on a little front wheel drive car. Will I break something while digging into the front of the engine to replace the water pump? Won’t replacing the front struts and disconnecting the rack and pinion steering knock the car’s front end out of alignment? Will bearings and springs go flying everywhere when I pull out the CV half shafts? Are my tools too imprecise to adjust the valve lash? Will I have to learn COBOL to replace the engine computer? The answer to all those questions was no. I found the car was as easy and forgiving to work on as the older rear wheel drive cars I was more familiar with. But it was nice to be able to try new things without much worry. I might even be growing fonder of the Mazda now that about 40% of it has been replaced with parts from RockAuto.com!

Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com

Hi!

This is my 1970 International Harvester 1100 D 4x4 pickup. It has 80K original miles. I like RockAuto and have purchased many parts chiefly because of the way parts are thoroughly and easily catalogued by your website. It was difficult to find parts for such an old and "obsolete" vehicle, so I appreciate the breadth of parts RockAuto carries, even for obscure vehicles. And I enjoy the ease of finding them on your website.

Thanks!
Brian in California

Share Your Hard Work
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