Labor Day Marred By Labor

[Cranky]

Back in 2001 i had a 91 'gnat' ford festiva(kia/mazda). Took it to the lube outfit across Westminster blvd from Santini's where i was contracting cut & polish jobs on His custom paints. I was busy as hell & the 'gnat' needed an oil change. I asked them to change transaxle fluid too which they did, but with 90 weight......those t-axles run ATF. About 5 K miles later the differential developed a noise akin to an axle bearing goung south, which got louder & louder, but it never broke.
How could someone drain the axle, see red fluid & then refill with grease.....ay caramba.

Exactly! I'm shade blind but know the difference in the color of ATV and 90w lol. When I first drained the 3 speed trans in my 74 D100, I thought WTH when ATF came out of it.....that's when I went to the manual. 90w made it harder to shift when it was cold but man, if you're going to do something heavy duty with light duty stuff, ya gotta make the blood heavier at least.

 

[beanhead]

Easy enough fix... I had one of my lug nuts go bouncing down the road past me when I slowed to take a corner at an intersection a few months back
( of course that was nobody's fault but mine...)

 

[Budnicks]

Bruzilla;
1st off I'm glad nothing really bad happened, this time...

I assume you're talking about them leaving the lug nuts lose {?}

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Disclaimer;
Sorry Bruzilla, please my following statements are not meant to insult you,
or offend you, that's not my intentions at all,
I'm just pointing out something, I've noticed regularly with you now...
Albeit; I rarely ever have any of these types of numerous issues
that you've seemed to had regularly on here
I gotta' say it, "Damn dude";
Is it just bad luck ?
or are all the venders/shops in Fla. that incompetent/bad ?
are you pissing these people off "somehow" when you go there ?
or maybe it's a black cloud following you around {?}...
Again not meant to offend/insult you BUT;
Seems like you post something negative "a lot/often" about suppliers
venders or about labor some/most the shops you've dealt with,
screwing you over, or stealing, overcharging, doing shitty work
on your RR or other cars {?} posted about on here...

Is it just me ?
You have a bad luck streak or something else is going on...

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My opinions take it or leave it...
IMO If you're going to have someone else do that sort of work...
& I regularly have my wheels & tires mounted/balanced,
sometimes even rotated at Les Schwab, part of my purchases,
contracts, free rotation & balancing, tire repairs, life of the tires etc...
Only rarely on my Dakota or more especially the F-350 dually
& they do a great job "usually"...
1) I know a few of the techs personally & trust them somewhat...
2) I watch them like a hawk too...
3) I tell them to hand start the lugs & check after they use the air guns,
for torque on the lugs too...
4) I'm sure they think "oh **** he comes that guy
who always wants his stuff done, his way", but I don't care,
because my due diligence means that I don't have any issues...

There's some techs, that I wouldn't ever let touch any of my stuff
under any circumstances...

BUT;
On my RR, no one touches that car or
my nice expensive wheels & tires, brakes, bearings etc.
I usually just put them in the back of the truck,
I'm not that trusting to have someone else do it,
not the removing & installing them on my car part...
I'll let them mount the tires on the wheels & balance them...
Or do some machining or pressing etc.
I'll do the all removals & installations thank you...
Nobody to blame but me then, I trust me...

5) When I do "rarely ever" have anyone else do anything on my stuff...
I will always go back & check torque etc.
When you get it home or sooner, nut & bolt it,
that means go over all the fasteners etc. check their work,
re-torque the wheels etc., it's cheap insurance IMO...

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what the hell is ? "The rallye centers were lose as crap" ?,
you mean the Lug nuts ?

 

[Cranky]

When I first started driving, my dad would let me use his pickup on the weekends to make some extra money cleaning up home construction sites....ones that I usually worked in when I was working for my dad. Anyways, I had a flat with the truck and changed it and even dropped off the flat to be fixed since it went down on my watch. When I reinstalled the fixed tired, I guess I didn't get all the lugs tight enough because it came loose. Luckily, there was no radio in the truck and I heard something knocking and it turned out to be that LF wheel but the lugs were barely loose so no harm. From then on, making sure lug nuts are always tight but even so, over the years of double checking myself it seems that one will get by me from time to time. Even lost one a few years back and I got stung at a safety inspection for it. God only knows how long it had been gone. I rarely wash my Dakota....well, not in the last several years , and things go unnoticed so, I'll do a walk around and check things at every fill up.

 

[Bruzilla]

Bruzilla;
1st off I'm glad nothing really bad happened, this time...

I assume you're talking about them leaving the lug nuts lose {?}

Negative... thank God. They got the lug nuts on fine. It was the bolts that hold the Rallye center to the wheel they didn't tighten and that came loose. I did notice that the guy who tool the wheels off wasn't the guy who put them on, so my suspicion is the guy who took them off probably slipped the socket/drive he used in his pocket, then when Guy #2 showed up to put the wheels on, he didn't see the socket/driver and rather than go find one he just put the bolts in finger tight.

 

[Bruzilla]

Now if we could only find some M/T Indy tires the look would be complete!

The tires I've always wanted were the Goodyear Eagle Daytona tires they made in the 90s.

 

[69 GTX]

I'm a little older than you I'm guessing.

 

[Bladecutter]

I'm a little older than you I'm guessing.

Remember Good Year Blue Streak Sports Car Specials? Just looked online, apparently there's some NOS still available.....350.00 a pop

 

[its-a-mario]

View attachment 511248

I had these on my '79 Firebird, mounted on Centerline wheels. It was a cool look at the time!