Recent content by Garth Libre

My uncle was a mechanical genius even as a child. He built his own radios as a boy, eventually became a mechanical engineer who helped design missile guidance systems to win WWII. When you went to his house he had a half dozen cuckoo clocks he restored on display. He even had a working pinball...

I've changed a few cabin air filters. They generally run 20 to 30 dollars and take no more than a couple of minutes to change out. As far as the Mass Air flow, I think those are best done with a spray can designed for them. It can take about five minutes to disassemble the duct work to spray one...

I would never consider going to a quick oil change place. Years ago I had a friend who I helped getting his old car road worthy. I showed him a few things he could do himself and gave him basic instructions on where to go for more complicated things. Suffice to say, he was a horrible d.i.y...

I was told the Hurst kit has no ventilation for the crankcase and will result in blown seals. Is that true?

I've never seen inside a manual transmission as it's turning. I was wonder how much splashing there is, and could the couple of quarts of of fluid at the bottom splash up that high. I suspect it does but I don't know for sure.

Looks like brown rice to me. White rice is like a show truck where nothing ever goes into the bed.

What's your estimate of your total cost so far plus the cost of the engine rebuild? Will you send it out to the machine shop and do the assembly yourself or send the engine itself and let them do the rebuild but you install it, or just drop off the truck and let them do all of it?

What time frame would you estimate this job to be? I get the deal about replacing the hose and only using a Motorcraft PCV. Removing the tire and wheel well cover and jacking the car seems like it would be a majority of the job.

You didn't mention the throttle plate and where it intersects with the throttle body. I have not had this problem with modern cars but I have seen it often with older carburator cars where the throttle plate has worn out the holes in the carb where it pivots. As a result the plate gets hung up...

Exactly right about expecting trucks to handle. I have experienced driving at 150 mph but I fully expect my Ranger to be a work horse, not a race machine, and not even more than a passenger car with realistic expectations about it's ultimate handling abilities. Motorweek understands trucks as...

Videos show conclusively that it took dozens of attempts to get the 1980's Suzuki Samurai to tip off two of its wheels. In fact, they had to modify the course and they still couldn't get it to lift in a high speed avoidance maneuver. This kind of scientific fraudulence by C.U. could easily have...

Sometimes the EPA numbers were correct. My 1993 VX Honda easily got 50 plus mpg and was rated at 48. My VW Jetta diesel wagon always got 45 plus (before it wouldn't pass inspection for being a polluter). My 2019 Mazda 3 manual gets 40 plus mpg all day.

The best I get with my 4 cyl manual 2010 is 30 mpg.

At my local big box hardware stores and smaller places like True Value, the employees all seem pretty sharp.