The Rumble Strip is hosted by Andrew Smith and Mark McChesney. Andrew is a Senior Marketing VP, I am an automotive styling designer. We are friends that share a common obsession with internal combustion. We have many other interests, but we will concentrate (or scatter) our prose on our passion for great automobiles – history, racing, design, marketing, leadership, personalities, and just about anything else that moves us on wheels, wings, or water.
My co-conspirator is a man of great intellect, wit and charm. Expect great things from Andrew. My contribution however will likely be more ramble than rumble.
I am going to dive straight into the shallow end here and tell you what I have been doing for the past 2 weekends. I have been busting some knuckles.
I do not like to wrench on cars, I’d rather drive them, look at them, design them, critique them, wax them, anything but work on them. But necessity has a habit of producing a mechanic now and then.
Last weekend I replaced the front struts on my Gen 7 Civic (my beater/commuter/winter car err and summer/fall/spring car). I will talk more specifically about my choice to own this car at another time, but tonight is DIY report.
The strut issue seemed to start after I bought new tires at Discount Tire. A vibration had developed. I took it back and had the balance rechecked – they told me it was right. Instead of arguing I swallowed my pride and set my mind at figuring out what else may be wrong. I noticed that the wheel shook when I hit ruts or pot holes (Michigan). A check of the ball joints/tie rods showed them to be good. After some more deep thought I came to the conclusion that the problem was the struts.
This was a job that would have cost me $600 or more at the dealer. I paid $199 for the struts at Parts+ (net – fast shipping btw) and did job in an afternoon and learned some things – chiefly that I COULD do it myself. Struts are not as difficult as might be imagined. Advanced Auto has a great tutorial (I didn’t watch it = male ego). It only required a few hand tools (ratchet, torque wrench, 6 sided metric sockets, various swear words, a blanket, and a space heater). First side took 3 hours – mostly wasted looking for the right wrenches. Side two took an hour. Steep learning curve.
I did not use a coil spring compressor, that would would have taken an extra 5 minutes to go rent at AutoZone. I took the dangerous route, wrapping the removed strut assembly in the blanket to contain the recoil and undoing the top mount with one hand while covering my privates with the other. No damage done, but remember that there is a lot of energy in a spring. Do not be hasty – be careful. Do as I say not as I do and rent a strut compression tool.
The car is doing great now. I feel great for doing it myself, and my wife feels great that $400 was saved for doing better things.
Later that night, sporting my new found mechanical confidence, I tore into the front suspension of my son’s 1st Gen Miata. More on that tomorrow. – Mark
