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Been
in the auto repair industry for
almost 30 years. RockAuto is the
only on-line auto parts store I
use at a time when there are a great
many to choose from.
Nicely done ladies
and gentlemen. Nicely done indeed!
CW in Virginia
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Upcoming Events
If you would like your event featured here, email us with details. |
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ECCA Car Show
7/28/2012
Ridgewood, NY
e-mail
Garfield Street
Fair & Car Show
7/28/2012
Graham, WA
e-mail
Brookdale
Auto Meet
7/28/2012
Lincroft, NJ
e-mail
Coast Guard
Festival Car Show
7/29/2012
Grand Haven, MI
e-mail
Minis on the
Wreck
7/29/2012
Brighton, UK
e-mail
Cars on Main
7/29/2012
Germantown, WI
e-mail
Madison Classics
Events
8/4/2012
Madison, WI
e-mail
Hooters Car
Truck & Bike Show
8/4/2012
Harrisburg, NC
e-mail
Downtown Sebring
Car Events
8/4/2012
Sebring, FL
e-mail
8th Annual
Abundant Life Cruise-In
8/4/2012
Damascus, OR
e-mail
Stallions
Gate Mustang & Ford Club
Inc
8/4/2012
Maple Park, IL
e-mail
41st Yellowstone
Rod Run
8/4/2012
West Yellowstone, CT
e-mail
4UDREW Benefit
Car Show
8/5/2012
Doylestown, PA
e-mail
Vintiques
Annual Northwest Nationals
8/5/2012
Ellensburg, WA
e-mail
Diablo Motor
Sports 2nd Annual Car &
Truck Show
8/5/2012
Toluca, IL
e-mail
Cruising on
Main
8/5/2012
Manchester, CT
e-mail
Austin-Healey
Sport & Touring Club; Austin-Healey
Encounter 2012
8/9/2012
Morristown, NJ
e-mail
DC Classic
Car Benefit Car Show
8/10/2012
Mooresville, NC
e-mail
Summers Last
Blast
8/10/2012
Vernon, TX
e-mail
Del Shannon
Car Show
8/10/2012
Coopersville, MI
e-mail
US Car Stammtisch
Bremen-Born to Drive
8/11/2012
Charlotte, Germany
e-mail
Spectacular
Summer Cruise In Concert
8/11/2012
Piqua, OH
e-mail
Car &
Bike Show in the Netherlands
8/11/2012
Tegelen, Netherlands
e-mail
Summer of
Fun Car Show
8/11/2012
Wichita, TX
e-mail
Montgomery
Township Fire Department Car
Show
8/11/2012
Horsham, PA
e-mail
Cumberland
Motorcycle Roundup
8/11/2012
Cumberland, BC
e-mail
23rd Annual
Yellow Rose Classic Car Show
8/11/2012
Irving, TX
e-mail
2012 Flag
City Balloonfest Car Show
8/11/2012
Findlay, OH
e-mail
Car Show AACA
Finger Lakes Region
8/11/2012
Auburn, NY
e-mail
Battle on
the Bay Car Show
8/12/2012
Corpus Christi, TX
e-mail
4th Annual
Ride for Sick Kids Hospital
8/12/2012
Maple, ON
e-mail
2012 Big Saturday
Show (8th Annual)
8/15/2012
Lewes, DE
e-mail
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RockAuto Adds Power Stop Brakes |
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RockAuto
has added Power Stop brakes to the
RockAuto.com
catalog. The addition includes
new options for high performance brake
pads, high performance rotors, as
well as performance brake upgrade
kits. The new brake pad and rotor
options include:
- Z16 Evolution;
Ceramic Clean Ride Scorched Brake
Pads with 20% more stopping power
plus noise and dust reduction.
- Z26 Extreme Performance
Brake Pads perfect for high horsepower
cars and big wheel upgrades.
- Z36 Truck and
Tow Brake Pads designed to avoid
high temperature brake fade and
for long life.
- Gold Zinc Plated
Cross-Drilled Rotors run up to 180
deg(F) cooler and provide up to
37% better stopping power.
- Silver Zinc Plated
Cross-Drilled and Slotted Rotors
include slots to sweep away gas
and dust.
- Slotted Rotors
improve brake performance in off
road, racing or other extreme, dusty
conditions.
The performance
brake upgrade kits include high-performance
ceramic brake pads and a complete
set of cross-drilled & slotted
rotors that will deliver the big brake
feel without the big brake price.
The kits have custom-matched components
that are engineered to work together
for maximum performance. These kits
are available for the front, rear,
or a combination that will include
pads and rotors for the front and
rear.
Power Stop has earned
a reputation for high quality by assuring
tight tolerances and the best materials.
Their demanding criteria mandates
high pad bite without high temperature
fade or pedal pressure deterioration.
Using independent dynamometer testing
to validate brake performance including
pre-burnish (green) friction, high
temperature brake fade, pedal pressure
sensitivity, and speed sensitivity
ensures quick stopping performance.
Whether you're
in it for performance or style or
both find the Power Stop brakes in
the "Brake/Wheel Hub" category
of the RockAuto.com
catalog. The performance brake
upgrade kits will be listed in the
"Rotor" category.
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Forum of the Month |
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Coloradok5.com
is the world's largest online Chevy
K5 Blazer forum community where over
60,000 enthusiasts from around the
world come to discuss all issues related
to the Chevy K5 Blazer, Jimmy, Suburban
and Pickup Truck.
By joining
our community you will have access
to post topics, respond to polls,
view the photo gallery, and access
many other special features. Registration
is fast and simple. Join our community
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.
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Repair Mistakes & Blunders
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Love
the Repair Mistakes and Blunders stories.
For some reason it's nice to know
I'm not the only one out there whose
brain malfunctions every once in a
while! I have a few stories that might
qualify. Here's the one that took
the longest before I'd admit to it.
I bought a very used
1969 Plymouth Satellite for a winter
car in late fall 1981. It was a real
yawner -- 225 ci Slant Six engine,
three-on-the-tree transmission, no
A/C, very few extras except for some
reason a towing package including
a heavy-duty Dana rear end and a Class
III tow hitch. (Maybe they were only
considering towing on flat land?)
$125 and the car was mine -- such
as it was.
Driving it home revealed
an alarming lack of real power, even
for the small 6 cylinder engine. Having
almost no money I was committed to
spending as little as possible. A
few hours cleaning the spark plugs,
sanding build-up off the points, and
twiddling here and there woke up the
old Slant Six. Greatly emboldened
I decided to "invest" in
an oil change. $20 brought home oil
"recommended for older cars,"
a new oil filter, a new drain plug
gasket, and a bottle of carb cleaner.
The instructions
on the oil filter had the now-common
advice to "spread a drop or two
of new oil on the oil filter gasket
before tightening." Well the
old Slant Six had been leaking oil
for a while, so everything looked
pretty oiled up. I decided I knew
better and didn't lube the oil filter
gasket according to directions. I
did, however, torque the drain plug
to the specified value.
The Satellite practically
jumped to life! I drove it around
the block feeling like I'd hit the
lottery! Making the last right turn
back onto our street I caught the
first whiff of burning oil... Pulling
over in front of the house let the
dense blue cloud catch up with me.
I saw a thick, dark trail of oil leading
away from where we'd done the work,
down the block, around the far corner,
then coming up behind and under to
where the car now sat. Yikes! My big
investment!!!
Opening the hood
revealed just how valuable those two
drops of oil are. Turns out two drops
of oil spread around the oil filter
sealing gasket are worth almost one
engine-load of oil. The Slant Six
had dutifully pumped out 3.5 quarts
of oil in exactly one block of running.
Not a drop from the new oil drain
plug gasket, which had been treated
according to instructions. Imagine
that.
Needless to say,
off came the oil filter, rags cleaned
up a lot of mess in the engine bay,
and the oil filter was lubed and installed
according to instructions. What do
you know -- sealed perfectly.
I've never made THAT
mistake again!
Mike in New York
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 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 |
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Today,
SKF makes axle bearings, wheel bearings,
wheel hubs, seals, and more. SKF has
a long automotive history. What car
brand did SKF register in 1915 and
begin to assemble in 1927?
A. MG
B. Saab
C. Volvo
Answer
below
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Better Yardsticks to Measure With
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Gates
Corporation has a smartphone
app that evaluates the condition
of an automotive serpentine belt based
on a photo of the ribbed side of the
belt. That sounds neat and worth a
try if I ever get an iPhone. Even
without an smartphone, Gates’
new app already sort of worked by
pushing me to inspect the serpentine
belt on my wife’s Ford Tempo
with the assistance of my digital
camera.
Wear often can be
hard to detect on today’s newer
belts. The belt, especially the smooth
side, might look fine up until the
day it snaps. The Gates Corporation
app is designed to measure wear indicators
like belt rib depth which are next
to impossible to evaluate with just
your eyes.
But eyeballs assisted
with a bit of magnification can still
work well for inspecting serpentine
belts. I used my camera to zoom in
on a spot where the rib side of the
Ford’s belt was exposed. There
were other parts in the way and a
half dozen or so pictures did not
turn out, but, a couple did. After
I loaded the belt photos onto my computer
and zoomed in, it was easy to see
the belt’s ribs were covered
with splits and cracks.
I doubt the Gates
app would know how to interpret this
mosaic of cracks. The Haynes repair
manual for the Tempo says small cracks
running across the belt ribs are “acceptable.”
If pieces of the belt ribs are missing
then it is time to replace the belt.
This serpentine belt is about 85 inches
(216cm) long. I would really need
to remove the belt to see if any of
the “acceptable” cracks
had turned into unacceptable missing
chunks.
Another belt inspection
resource for this Ford and many other
cars is the wear indicator mark on
the belt tensioner (see photo below).
If the mark on the moving part of
the tensioner goes beyond the marks
on the fixed piece, then the belt
is over-stretched and/or the belt
tensioner is worn out. The wear mark
on the Tempo was still in the acceptable
range and did not move about when
the engine was running.
This example Motorcraft
belt is over seven years old but has
less than 50,000 miles on it. My wife
mostly uses the Tempo as a comfortable
place to sit in city traffic. Engine
hours and years rather than miles
are better yardsticks to measure what
this belt has been through. Five years
or 75,000 miles is the typical recommended
replacement interval for serpentine
belts. The Tempo’s belt is way
past the five-year mark and including
all the hours of engine idling, it
has probably endured the equivalent
of 75,000 miles.
Without further ado,
I am going to go ahead and replace
this old, cracked serpentine belt.
A new serpentine belt for this 2.3L
Ford costs between about $10 and $30
at RockAuto depending on the brand
(Dayco, Gates, Goodyear, Motorcraft,
etc.). July is our wedding anniversary
month so I needed a gift idea. Thank
you Gates for the nudge from your
belt inspection app!
Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com
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Luke's
1993 Mazda MX6 |
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This
is my 1993 Mazda MX6. My previous
being an immaculate bright red 1992
MX6 which was written off in a crash.
I still had the MX6 bug and quickly
bought this abused and neglected car
feeling that, with the loss of one
MX6, I had to restore another to keep
the legacy going.
It spent its first
fortnight in my garage as I quickly
swapped out the entire interior from
my old MX6 and fixed up a bunch of
issues and leaks with the help of
RockAuto.com, which also provided
me with a whole new ignition system
and engine mounts to massively improve
driveability. At the moment, I'm just
taking this car one step at a time
to bring it back to its former glory
with the use of the 1992 MX6 parts
car and an extensive list of parts
from RockAuto.
Cheers,
Luke in Victoria, Australia
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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, your favorite
images, and what parts from
RockAuto you have used.
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Let
RockAuto Help |
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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.
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Automotive
Trivia Answer |
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Today,
SKF makes axle bearings, wheel
bearings, wheel hubs, seals
and more. SKF has a long automotive
history. What car brand did
SKF register in 1915 and begin
to assemble in 1927?
A. MG
B. Saab
Answer: C. Volvo
Back
up to trivia question
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© 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.
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