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Beau

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Beau last won the day on November 20 2020

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  1. Well, I was able to get it apart after all. I ended up just pounding and chiseling it out with a 4 lb sledge hammer. What a chore! New bearing is installed and the car is back on the road. I managed to damage the wheel speed sensor in the process, so that'll be another hit to wallet.
  2. Hi all, Tried to replace a wheel bearing in my garage, got in over my head, now I'm stuck. Looking for help. Advice is welcome, but I'm also willing to pay someone to come assist me in my garage if that's what it takes. The bearing / hub ass'y was rusted frozen onto the knuckle. I used various pullers to try to pop it free, and while doing so I somehow managed to pop the bearing apart. The outer part of the hub came off, but the part that attaches to the knuckle is still on there, still very stuck. So I'm in a pickle. I can't put it back together to take it to a shop. I can't figure out a way to get the remaining part out. The only remaining bolt holes are tight against the bearing so I can't mount a wheel or rotor or anything on there for leverage. I've hammered away on the thing but it's not budging. So now what? Does anyone have an air hammer I could borrow? Or should I try to make for a custom bracket for leverage? Any ideas, short of taking off the whole knuckle and having a shop press it out? I only imagine that taking off the knuckle will come with its own complications (I might break more stuff).
  3. Thanks for the advice, guys. I've temporarily solved my problem buy picking up a used set of tires. @Curtis - I originally wanted to just patch my 1 tire, but due to a number of factors not discussed here, I decided not to bother with it. RE: smart cars and traction control. Is that a "feature" of the car trying to work as an electronic LSD? I would think there's at least a little tolerance allowed or you'd never be able to turn. But how much is too much? That is kinda related to this thread. Whether it's your diff that gets all heated up and worn out or a computer that intervenes, or ABS failure, lots of stuff can go wrong if you have a bad mismatch. Some of them will be car-specific. In a perfect world, all tires are the same, but we all know that's not always true. I'm thinking there's a lot more tolerance for uneven tire sizes than the MFRs want you to believe. Is it 1/32nd (< 1 mm)? Doubtful... 2/32nds? 4/32nds? 7/32nds? Seems like nobody spends much time detailing these things because the general consensus is to just replace your tire(s). And that's probably the best advice overall. But from a technical point of view, I'm still quite interested in this.
  4. Thanks for the long, detailed explanation @donrolandofurioso. I think along the same lines as you do. Get as close as possible, but it shouldn't be a big deal if one tire is a bit taller/shorter than the rest. To add a bit more - tires wear at different rates due to misalignments, uneven driving patterns, etc. I'm guessing 1-2 32nds difference in wear is normal. On a 25" tire, that works out to only 0.25% difference. I thought more about this problem during the weekend. I think there's an additional reason that wise people recommend against mixing tires when have to replace just one. Once you start, when do you stop? You now have an uneven replacement cycle. Additionally, a car with mixed tires will have poor resale value. This is generally thought to be true, but I think even more so for an AWD vehicle. Still, I'm interested in the technical details. If anyone has more to add on this subject, please do! How much difference in circumference is going to cause excess heat/wear on a centre differential? Are there other considerations?
  5. I believe it is full time AWD. But I don't have a lot of info on how it really works. Lexus doesn't really "promote" their AWD system technology like some other MFRs. I agree with you that part-time (detect slippage) systems are probably quite different when it comes to mismatched tire sizes.
  6. Thanks for weighing in on this, Dason. I appreciate the recommendation. I may end up going that route, just curious if there are other viable alternatives. Like you, I also don't know if my AWD system is that sensitive. I suspect there's gotta be some allowable margin. Just how much is the question. FYI this is not a track car by any stretch. It's just a boring "daily" driver, although these days it's more like "once a week" driver since we don't go anywhere!
  7. Hi all, It's been a while since I posted here. Hopefully the forums are still active. Long story short, can I just replace 1 or 2 tires on an AWD car instead of replacing all 4 tires at once? I understand why a tire shop recommends to replace all 4 (safety, wear & tear on vehicle, and profit motive). I'm cheap, and I'm curious, so I want to try to salvage what I have. I am hoping to find a used tire to closely match the other 3 on a set (same size with a similar tread level remaining) with the goal of minimizing the difference in circumference. So how much leeway would I have here? I found one decent reference, but other than that, just a lot of fear on the internet. This article indicates 2/32 - 4/32nds should generally be okay: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=259 Would it matter if I put the different tire on the front vs rear? What about replacing 2 tires so that at least each axle has a matched pair? Would that be better than replacing a single tire, or with open diffs would it not matter? I'm thinking if I had to replace two, then it might actually be better to put them on opposite corners so as to even out the speed front-to-back. I believe I'm overthinking this now. For background, I have an IS250, which I believe has open diffs at the front and rear. Centre diff appears to be clutch pack type. The reason I ask is that I have 2 sets of wheels and tires (winter/summer) and each set now has 1 tire with an irreparable leak. I really don't want to replace 8 tires this year, especially considering I might sell this car soon. I realize there will be no perfect solution here other than to buy a matched set of 4. I am also aware I can buy a 1 new tire and pay to have it shaved down. This post is not about those options. Those will be my backup plans. Curious what others have done in this situation and if there have been any real life lessons learned.
  8. Update to close this thread. I ended up using JB Weld to "glue" on a larger (M14) nut onto the rounded head. And it worked! I ground down some of the internal threads on the inside of an M14 nut and then pounded it onto the bolt head with a hammer. I put JB Weld on the bolt head first, so it got "into" the joint, and onto the mating surfaces, and then filled up the entire nut with more JB Weld and let it cure overnight. I guess that heating up the bolt several times in my original efforts probably loosened it up because it actually came out fairly easily with the new nut. After it was out, I tested the JB weld joint to failure and it came apart at less than 50 ft-lbs, so take that for what it is. Below are some pics. Anyway, this might be an option for someone else out there who cannot weld and is stuck in a similar situation. It worked for me! The bolt after extraction, showing JB Weld: After testing to fail:
  9. Thanks for the advice, guys. I tried for about 2 hours yesterday to no avail. :( I tried grinding a slot into the bolt and using a 1" by 1/8" thick piece of aluminum bar as a very wide screwdriver but I just ended up twisting the aluminum. Yeah I know steel would have been a better choice, but I don't have any lying around. Anyway that tells me it's still stuck in there pretty good. I heated the bolt with a torch a couple times and tried again and still no luck. Used lots of PB blaster. I tried a couple bolt extractors including hammering them on first, didn't matter - they still spun. I now have a very round bolt head. I also tried drilling it out from the centre, but that would take all night. I think I need better drill bits. I have a set of LH drill bits with "titanium coating" (crap) and all my standard bits are also the yellow kind (crap). I applied considerable force and barely made a hole in the bolt head maybe 2-3mm deep. A screw extractor couldn't even get started. I doubt it would work anyway, judging by how much torque is needed, so I'd probably break the extractor off if I got it to bite. Anyway, I gave up after 20 mintues of drilling upside down. Not worth it. The central problem is still there - cannot grip the bolt well enough to apply enough torque. I will take this somewhere and ask them to weld on nut for me later in the week.
  10. Not sure if this is the right forum - feel free to move this thread if necessary. I've run into a rusty bolt that I cannot remove. It has a rounded head and is recessed. I'm looking for advice on how to remove it. See the attached photo. It's an M10 bolt (14 mm head size) fastening a cross-brace to the frame under my car. The bolt head is recessed into the cross brace so I need to use a socket or similar (wrench or vice grips won't work here). The head is rounded enough that all my 14 mm sockets slip very easily, but it's still too large for a 13 mm to fit. Closest SAE socket would be 17/32", which is not a standard size. I've already tried using 2 different bolt extractors (the kind w/spring loaded pins and the spiral socket kind), but they didn't work. I also tried a hammer and chisel to "spin" the bolt, but because of the angle I don't think this is very effective. I got the chisel to bite into the head a bit, but it's not at a good angle. This might come in handy later. Okay so the real question is what else can I use to grab the bolt head tight enough? Most online articles say to heat it up good then turn it with vice grips or similar, but that won't work here. I bought a torch so I'll try heating the bolt up to hopefully loosen it up (break the rust bonds), but I still need to grab the bolt to turn it after that. I'm not sure what else I can do here. Some options I've thought of, but haven't tried yet. Would any of these work or just waste of time? Can I somehow grind or chisel the bolt head to allow either a 13 mm socket or one of the extractors to bite better? E.g. chisel some detents into it and use a smaller socket? Not sure if this will help. I could buy a sacrificial 13 mm socket and grind out the inside of it with a dremel until it fits snugly (effectively creating a 13.5 mm socket). Tough to do accurately. Can I shim the inside of a 14mm socket somehow to make it a tighter fit? I would need some very thin steel bar or maybe stack some foil or steel wool, other material to create a better bite? Or similarly, could I fill the 14 mm with some JB Weld or Epoxy or something and let it set overnight to get a good fit on the bolt? I could grind a slot into the bolt head so I could turn it with a flat head screwdriver, but I doubt I could get enough torque on it that way. Maybe after heating it up enough this would work. I could weld on a sacrificial nut - well, not me, but someone could for me. I would need to ask a favour or take it to a shop. How difficult would that be since the bolt is recessed? Would one need a MIG welder or special skill to be able to do this? My very last resort is to cut the brace off with an angle grinder or saw, then remove the bolt with big vice grips or something, but I really don't want to do that as the brace cost $$. Any advice is appreciated!
  11. Sorry to hear that the Cookie Monster project is being scrapped, but it's probably a good decision, all things considered. Looking forward to a badass MR2 down the road someday.
  12. Long overdue update - I bought a G37x sedan. It's as good as I hoped for as a DD, but slightly less fun than I hoped for as a winter fun car. It's quite large so I'm hesitant to chuck it around like I used to do with my Subie. But still can be fun. Lots of power and a TC off button. I'll still keep my eyes open for something else and try to do some comparison research/shopping this next winter.
  13. I've seen at least two of these C8 vettes in Winnipeg so far this summer. Beautiful car in person. Very exotic looking! The first time I had to double-take and wonder WTF is that? Took me a sec until my memory caught up and reminded my brain that a new mid-engine Corvette was recently released. With the pandemic's effect on the economy I'm guessing sales have been a bit slower than anticipated. Not great timing for GM for a historical milestone.
  14. Me too, Chris. I used to watch a few of those Spike TV car shows for years, and definitely remember her as being a good host. Sad.
  15. I will be going up to Gimli that afternoon if anyone wants to join me. Probably won't be doing any hot laps, just some ride alongs for me. There should be some family fun as well if you want to bring your spouse and kids.
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