Water would have been fine to get you home. You're right, long term water use causes corrosion. I just have an old jug of coolant in my trunk, although it ran out of coolant a while ago and now it's just water, but better than nothing.

 

Distilled water does not cause corrosion.

 

*In Jack Nicholson voice* Welllll I'm real glad you've come to a consensus on the matter now where are all the fancy pictures?

I remember how good this car looks, every build thread needs car pics! :lol:

 

Haha, thanks Aaron. I'll be sure to post some photos when I do something to the car.

 

:banana: Hi all!

(I just wanna be on the first page!)

:drinky:

:bouncinggirl:

 

Here is a question for you guys. My spark plugs have been in the engine for about 60k miles. The manual recommends changing them every 30k. The engine still runs fine, so I assume they are also fine. Should I go ahead and change them anyway? If so, should I also change the wires? They are ok too.

 

Spark plugs are cheap, change them. If they're copper, 60k is too long. It runs fine, yeah, but I think you'll feel a definite difference with new plugs. Check Rock Auto. I forget if you have a 1.6 or 1.8, I can give you a spark plug part number if you'd like.

As for wires, how old are those? If 60k, I wouldn't bother changing them.

 

I'll change them then. I have a 1.6. Would the dealer stock them?

Yeah, the wires are also 60k, so I will leave them.

One thing I don't understand about changing them is where the Haynes manual says to use a rubber hose to install them. I haven't seen that in any videos online.

 

I just picked up the plugs. Wires were $110 at the dealer so I passed. Plugs were $16 total.

I'm still unsure about the rubber hose method.


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I bought NGK plug wires off of Amazon for less than 40$.

 

Doesn't have to be rubber but the idea is to have a soft extension between your fingers and the top of the plug. Since you're threading it by feel having that soft extension will prevent cross threading since the hose will start spinning or twisting if you cross thread. If you just use a socket extension you could arguably risk cross threading since you can't feel or notice as well if it happens.

That being said I've never bothered using a hose myself and I've been fine. But threading spark plugs is always a bit frightening until you've confirmed you did it right. As simple as it is it always raises my pulse a bit when I do it.

 

Oh I see. Where would I find a hose like that?


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Any hose that would slip over the ceramic part of the plug. Fuel hose, vacuum hose, power steering hose, cheap nylon clear hose (8 or 10 mm?)...

 

I use a spark plug socket with the rubber insert. Keeps the plug in the socket and I thread it in using an extension by hand. Don't use a torque wrench until the plug stops rotating by hand, threaded all the way down. The point is to just not cross thread it, or you'll have a bad day.

Don't buy dealer plugs from now on. Denso K16RU copper plugs for your car are $1.33 on RockAuto.

 

Yep same procedure as I do.

 

The rubber hose trick is for plugs which can't be reached with your fingers, but I've still used it on OHV engines which had more access to the plugs.
I've also used it to pull the plugs out of my Toyota, once they were unthreaded.

I find that when starting and threading-in a plug, that the metal extension and socket offer more feel to my fingers, as to what's happening, than does rubber hose. The hose will stop turning the plug before threads are damaged, so it's safer. But it will also stop, when the threads are properly engaged.

 

Just changed the plugs. Everything went exactly like the Haynes manual described it, although I waited until the engine was cold. I put anti-seize on the new plugs and they were already gapped correctly (0.031"). I used my finger though, a brush would probably be better.

I had to buy a torque wrench for the job, which coincided well with the sale at Sears for a $40 10-75 ft-lbs. click wrench.

The old plugs were Denso Japan, but unfortunately the dealer plugs were just Denso, made in Indonesia. It would be interesting to know if the ones Halo recommended are Denso Japan.

Cylinder 1 had a strange circular pattern for the plug threads as they went in. I thought I was cross threading until I got the same results 8 separate times. I torqued each plug to 13 ft-lbs. as Haynes requires.

The rubber hose is useless. You have much more precise and gentle control with an extension and a rubber glove. The hard part is getting the socket back, it keeps popping off the extension and staying on the spark plug.

One of the plugs (cylinder 2) had some deposits. Perhaps that cylinder is burning a little oil. All of the plugs were whitish. They are probably white because of the very advanced ignition timing a shop set when changing the timing belt that I had to correct earlier this year.

Thanks for the excellent advice all.

As I was poking around, I noticed this under the car. Anyone know what this is?

EDIT: Looks like RockAuto sells the Denso Japan plugs. I'll be buying there from now on. Denso wires are $23.79, which is definitely better than the dealer's $110.

 

The rubber hose is useless. You have much more precise and gentle control with an extension and a rubber glove. The hard part is getting the socket back, it keeps popping off the extension and staying on the spark plug.

I've never found the rubber hose idea useful either. For me, the main thing was that any piece of hose I've had available to use, has been curved from being on the spool, and no manner of hand bending would set it straight. The curve of the hose makes it hard to get the plug in straight.

As for the socket popping off the extension, I bought a 10' locking extension bar at Sears for exactly this reason. Actually, does it technically count as buying if I didn't have to pay for it?

One last after-the-fact tip. If you're going to use a torque wrench for spark plugs, be sure to test your wrench before actually using it. The torque setting for plugs is so low, you're right around the bottom end of the range for a 3/8" torque wrench, and the clicker pawl can actually slip out of place and not work. You can go waaaay over torque without the click happening! I'll usually put my lug socket on, and make like I'm torquing down a wheel to get a sense of what it feels like when the wrench goes click. If there's no click, I'll futz with the wrench (back off all the way on the torque setting, and work it around a bit before bringing it back up to try again. and again. and again.) or switch wrenches.

Better would be to use a 1/4" torque wrench, but my plug sockets and extension are 3/8". So I also "bought" a 1/4" to 3/8" adapter at the same time as the extension bar.

EDIT: Looks like RockAuto sells the Denso Japan plugs. I'll be buying there from now on. Denso wires are $23.79, which is definitely better than the dealer's $110.

I've used Denso's 'first-time-fit' wire set and was a little disappointed with the fit. Some of the wires were noticeably longer than the original OEM wires, and I think I had some other minor compliant about them that escapes me right now. Functionally they were just fine, but were a little messy looking. I'd thought of stretching out the OEM wires next to their wires and taking a photo, but never got around to it. I don't know if mine was an isolated case, or if all their 7afe sets are like that.

 

The rail where the fuel lines and brake lines run. Looks like yours is sagging.

 

Put a little vaseline or similar lubricant on the rubber part of your socket, keeps it from getting stuck on the plug.

 

About 7 years ago, someone rear-ended the car and ran off. It was a very slight impact, so the years passed without doing anything. Here's a recent photo. There was also a hole in the bumper cover from the other car's license plate bolt.

So I went to the body shop last week to finally have it taken care of. When I got the car back, the cover didn't sit very well on the right side, where the impact happened. The rightmost clip wouldn't go in. After I went back, they finally jammed it in there but I said I'd be willing to pay to bend everything back to spec.

When I got the car back today, the owner told me that they had inadvertently scratched the new bumper cover.

And even though the tail light is now closer to where it needs to be, it is now not flush with the body on the right side and you can see how the brace under the bumper cover is still closer to the body on the right side than the left side. Is it impossible to get all the panels to line up perfectly after such a slight impact? I have some out of place panels on the front end, but that is ok because the impact was relatively large.

They offered to repaint the cover for free since they damaged it, but would repainting it be enough? I feel like a new bumper cover is necessary. I'm surprised at such subpar work after the excellent job they did on the front-end when that guy scraped my front end.

 

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. You say they scratched the bumper cover, but do you mean they damaged it to the point that it's now distorted? I mean, if all they did was scratch it, then, yes, a repaint would fix that. I see in the pic where it's uneven. Is that a result of the 'scratch?'

 

The unevenness in the first pic is the before picture.

The scratch is in the second pic. If a repaint is all that required, I guess that's ok.


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Paint should be fine on the cover.

It is possible to get everything aligned again. Just needs pulling and banging in all the right places in reverse order of the impact forces.

 

When I changed the oil today, I noticed that the oil light stayed on a little longer upon first start. About 2 sec instead of 1.

Anyone else had this happen? Is the engine starved for oil after an oil change? I put oil in the filter as always. Only a little though, probably about 1/16.


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When I changed the oil today, I noticed that the oil light stayed on a little longer upon first start. About 2 sec instead of 1.

Anyone else had this happen? Is the engine starved for oil after an oil change? I put oil in the filter as always. Only a little though, probably about 1/16.http://www.autoguide.com/mobile

I would guess that the difference between 1 second or 2 is within a 'normal' variation. I don't think you have anything to worry about. I know I wouldn't.

 

Ah, good to hear.

 

Well, the bumper is finally done. I'll post a photo later. That was quite an adventure, first time the shop didn't straighten out the rear frame so the rightmost clip wouldn't go in easily. Then they took everything apart and straightened it at my insistence, but ended up scratching it. Then they repainted it again. I still had to go back about 3 times because some clips were missing.

However, the end result is good and I am happy with it. They also repaired some major damage from earlier in the year from when that other driver swiped my front end very well. They refused to take any money after the initial job for the bumper. I kind of felt I was nitpicking.

I wanted to say thank you to the shop for their very good work. What would a shop appreciate? I thought about mailing a thank you letter and leaving a Yelp review. Anyone have any experience or input?

 

I wanted to say thank you to the shop for their very good work. What would a shop appreciate? I thought about mailing a thank you letter and leaving a Yelp review. Anyone have any experience or input?

You could do that. You could send them some pizzas for lunch one day, if you've got that kind of money...

 

Yeah, PIZZA is the best currency!!!

 

Back when I knew little about cars, I bought all my parts from O'Reilly. Those days are over. But I did buy spark plug wires by Import Direct, and they fit and look fantastic.

I'm so anal about plug wires, when my friend bought his Corolla wagon I rearranged his wires in a parking lot because they were tangled.