Power Stop Brake Pad Wear Sensors

Need brake pad wear sensors for your BMW, Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz? RockAuto's selection of brake pad wear sensors is now even larger!

RockAuto is pleased to offer Euro-Stop brake pad wear sensors by Power Stop for European vehicle applications. When replacing brake pads, manufacturers and professional installers recommend also replacing the brake wear sensor to avoid premature failure of the original sensor due to corrosion or thermal fatigue. With Power Stop's “Plug and Play” replacement of electronic pad wear sensors, installation is made easy.

Factory Direct Pricing on Lift Supports

Cold weather is often when tired lift supports first begin to show they are losing pressure and failing. A hood or heavy glass hatch might refuse to stay open or dangerously close without warning.

There is no need to struggle for months with bad lift supports. On most vehicles, replacing the lift supports is not difficult. In minutes, the hood, trunk or hatchback can be operating smoothly and consistently once again.

Forum of the Month

LxForum is the largest and oldest resource dedicated to Modern Mopar Muscle on the Internet. Featuring nearly 5 million posts and members from all over the world, we are your destination for all things Mopar. We feature an extensive Knowledge Base where you can research every detail of your vehicle and even learn how to do the work yourself. Our members take pride in helping one another and often meet up in real life to talk shop. We have an extensive network of clubs around the globe for you to join so you can get out from behind that keyboard and behind the wheel of your car. There are hundreds of meet-n-greets large and small and our members even host their own national drag racing series. Come join us…it’s free.

Repair Mistakes & Blunders

I was 17 and my dad was a mechanic. This automatically qualified me as the “expert” among my friends when it came to anything wrong with their cars.

Well one summer day down here in Alabama, a friend asked if I would help him change the brakes on the front of his C-10 pickup, so I said OK. We rode to the parts house and picked up the brakes and then off to his house for the work.  When I pulled the tire off the truck something looked different; there was no drum. I had helped my dad plenty of times change rear brakes but never front disk. I thought, “This can’t be that hard.” So off came the caliper and old brake pads and on with the new.

Now a new problem: not only did I not know how to change these "weird" brakes, but the new ones loaded into the caliper wouldn’t fit back on the rotor.

My friend and I looked at each other for a moment and then he said, “What if I push the brake pedal, will that make it go back in?”

I said, "It can’t hurt!" Boy, was I wrong! Flying caliper pistons do hurt. He mashed the pedal down…HARD!

Well one black eye, lots of laughs from the guys at the parts house, and one repair manual later, the brakes were in fact replaced and working like new.

Can you believe that friend still lets me work on his car?

Jason in Alabama

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 e-mail 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 Tools & Universal Parts 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

"Flathead" or "L-head" car engines were common into the 1950s. The Ford flathead V8 is more famous than many of the car models it was installed in. What makes a flathead engine a flathead?

A. Above the pistons the cylinder head is machined completely flat rather than slightly domed. The combustion chamber is confined to the upper end of the cylinder.
B. The valve covers are made of cast iron which gives them a flat appearance compared to stamped metal valve covers. Sturdy cast iron (or alloy) is necessary because the rocker arm shafts are bolted to the valve cover rather than the cylinder head.
C. The exhaust and intake valves are located beside the piston in the engine block. The cylinder heads appear flat because they only contain combustion chamber space rather than all the valve train gear (rocker arms, valves, springs, valve covers, etc.) found on overhead valve (OHV) engine cylinder heads.


Answer below

The $50+ Per Mile Car

Last week, I had the good fortune to be alone with a few hours of free time while in the vicinity of Orlando, Florida. I headed for the Disney World Speedway. It is a one mile (1.6 km), triangular racetrack with three corners and three straightaways of various lengths. Originally built to host Indy car races, it is now the home of the Richard Petty Driving Experience. It was a chance for me to drive a 600+ HP NASCAR racecar!

When I was in high school, I worked on a SCCA race team at the Waterford track outside Detroit. The car was a 2.0 liter Ford powered Pinto. We were amateurs but it was a real racecar and the owner/driver was a serious racer. I enjoyed the work, but I never completely understood why the driver was so eager to bruise her forearms and lighten her purse every race weekend. I handled lots of tools and parts, but I never got to drive the car. Over thirty years later, I was finally going to get a racecar driving experience!

The Richard Petty cars are real crawl-through-the-window and snap-on-the-steering wheel racecars. The only obvious safety compromise made for tourists was the instructor sitting in the passenger seat. If things got too crazy, he could flip some switches and detune the engine. My instructor actually made my short time on the track much more productive by helping me follow the best “line” and advising when to accelerate and let off the gas. If he was not panicking then I would not either!

Automotive Trivia Answer

"Flathead" or "L-head" car engines were common into the 1950s. The Ford flathead V8 is more famous than many of the car models it was installed in. What makes a flathead engine a flathead? A. Above the pistons the cylinder head is machined completely flat rather than slightly domed. The combustion chamber is confined to the upper end of the cylinder. B. The valve covers are made of cast iron which gives them a flat appearance compared to stamped metal valve covers. Sturdy cast iron (or alloy) is necessary because the rocker arm shafts are bolted to the valve cover rather than the cylinder head. Answer: C. The exhaust and intake valves are located beside the piston in the engine block. The cylinder heads appear flat because they only contain combustion chamber space rather than all the valve train gear (rocker arms, valves, springs, valve covers, etc.) found on overhead valve (OHV) engine cylinder heads. Flathead engines have significant advantages such as fewer parts and are still in use today in lawnmowers, etc. A significant disadvantage compared to OHV engines is low compression. Compression is lost in the larger, upside down L shaped combustion chamber that results from having the valves off to the side. Back up to trivia question

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