How much maintenance to give?

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yellow3800
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Location: Maryville, TN

How much maintenance to give?

Post by yellow3800 »

Facebook has held a post of mine for 3 days now because I mention that a primer for aluminum (and only real alum. primer contains this for non-ferrous metals) containing zinc chromate is so bad that is causes cancer in “other states beyond California.” It’s true. It’s bad stuff for real and because of this, is very hard to get. Disgruntled at that, I came here because this forum is more important and needs massaging more than we visit and I’ve got a topic that contributes beyond a day, unlike Facebook. This notion has been going for 80 years.

HOW MUCH MAINTENANCE TO GIVE?

A large premise that we’ve all heard before is “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. Let’s roll with that.

My cars (and beyond) undergo this type of maintenance schedule combined with the service manual preventative schedule. My 1988 car has original plug wires and spark plugs are 23 years old. My 1989gt has 25 year old plugs and wires. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had to recrimp ends after pulling a boot clean off before. Oops! It burns me to see parts replacers post to Facebook looking for help that don’t search for an answer first. Forget the fact that they don’t have even a Haynes manual, which is a great starter book that is the minimum in my mind. I won’t fault them for that! However they have potentially caused multiple failures by replacing good parts. “I’ve replaced all the plugs and wires” they say. Then all the sensors for no reason. Were they proven bad to begin with? The answer is no, and I recently read an article that supports how I’ve dealt with maintenance since I learned how. This is worth sharing.

World war 2, England. B-24 bombers were approaching a very low 50% ready status. It wasn’t battle damage, it was preventative maintenance that kept the planes on the ground. It took an unlikely occupation of a biologist named Conrad Waddington to fix this mechanical debacle. He found that inspections are good, but not inasmuch to break something down to inspect it. This causes time and is unnecessary because the act itself can cause a maintenance-induced failure. We have all forgotten a bolt, (freeze plug behind the trans bell housing for me one time) and screwed something up at some point. It was proven in the long run, that waiting until a component squawks consumes less time than turning wrenches on a witch hunt. Now this ideology is called the WADDINGTON EFFECT.

This helps decide for example, fuel pump replacement. This single-point-of-failure can leave us stranded at any time. However my last pump needed 3 replacements due to bad new pumps. I’m not alone.
Sometimes the pump can fire a warning shot of losing pressure and lack of acceleration to nominal pressure. The pressure spec is for example and can provide insight… don’t replace a pump just because it’s old. It’s good to inspect at proper intervals, respecting what is working doesn’t need fixing when service guidance leaves us a gray area.

Thank you Mike Busch for keeping this up and let’s hope that it remains up for a long time. I am a big fan of Mike Busch and there are dozens of videos regarding maintenance on the savvyaviation site that extend to cars as well. They are worth every minute.

Here is the article:

https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp- ... effect.pdf

Stay savvy and thanks for the bandwidth.

Andy
Yellow3800


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Rettax3
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Re: How much maintenance to give?

Post by Rettax3 »

Fantastic Post, Andy! Thank you so much for the insight, I couldn't agree more. Well, almost anyway... :wink: I can at least relate pretty much across the board, hahaha... "If it isn't broken, AND IS OPERATING CORRECTLY OR AT LEAST SUFFICIENTLY, don't fix it", might be a better paradigm for me personally. :D

Example: Okay, so I used a Honda 750 V-4 model (-yes, I said "V-4" and meant it, a 90-degree V-4 four-cam 16-valve liquid-cooled monster whose engine was the predecessor to the famous (or infamous?) 32-valve oval-pistonned NR750 Endurance Racer of the '90s), as my exclusive and later primary mode of transportation for years, commuting to work, to college, and even touring coast-to-coast on that bike. And one of the things I learned, was to replace the spark-plugs annually. Period. I would pull them, they would look a bit dusky (I learned to 'read' plugs very well with that machine too) but never showed any wear on the center electrode, nor were they fouled around the insulator. They were nonetheless ready for replacement almost every year, as the engine would start to feel sluggish or sometimes even run rough if I ignored this basic attention. The plugs sat a couple of inches down in recesses of the cylinder-heads, and tended to get quite hot. I believe the sealant used to retain the ceramic insulator into the metal base would break-down somewhat, and allow spark leakage directly to ground, weakening the spark jumping across the plug-gap. Now, years later, I have found it common to find newer plugs 'burned' around the base of their ceramic insulators, and often times, a simple basic tune-up cures many drivability issues. So, I am not opposed at all to replacing plugs at regular intervals, mostly because I have seen first-hand dozens of times that lost performance can be regained, or actual problems can likewise be cured. Dito for plug-wires, though I too have some cars with 'ahem' VERY old wires still in them. :roll:


My background is, well, 'varied', but for one of my several careers, I spent 18 months acquiring the education for aviation maintenance. And while I agree that swapping parts out, blindly poking for a potential culprit in a -haha- "diagnostic" witch-hunt is a waste of both time and money nearly every time, there are some aspect of 'maintenance' that should be accomplished, to avoid 'repairs', which is truly a different thing. It is worth noting too that the Liberator (B-24) ran 112 spark plugs in it's four radial engines, so that is a bit cumbersome versus say 6 plugs in an average car...


Ahh, face-plant/fake-book/ palm-in-the-face, whatever. I am sure there is a lot more traffic there. I don't care. I will NEVER use that BS. EVER. I think fb is destructive, period. Useful? Maybe in the aspect that jumping out in front of a speeding bus might be 'useful' in helping you avoid a mosquito, I suppose. Glad to hear you aren't a fan either. :beer:

Zinc Chromate primer... Awful stuff, I concur. I mean, "Zinc", what else needs to be said -it is a heavy metal, aerosolized in with the other chemicals... Our bodies have difficulties filtering heavy metal contamination, and the stuff tends to build-up over repeated exposures. Though california (notice the lack of capitalization...) has gone overboard in the nanny-state direction... It would SAVE the use of (certainly) toxic and anti-environmental inks if they labelled products they DIDN'T believe were carcinogenic... :crazy: I am pretty sure you could talk 99% of californian politicians into trying to ban the very toxic and corrosive di-hydrogen oxide... :P


1989 SuperCharged 3800 Srs-II (First)Six-Speed GTU
1990 Turbo 3.4 5-Speed T-Type
1990 4.0L 4-Cam 32-Valve V-8 5-Speed Indy GTi (Project)
1990 Stock(!) 3.1 MPFI Auto Indy
1995 LA1/L82 4T60E Z-26
1995 3.4 DOHC Turbo 5-Speed Z-26
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woody90gtz
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Re: How much maintenance to give?

Post by woody90gtz »

But isn't H2O required to sustain life? :lol:

My father has always preached the "buy once cry once" and "if it's worth doing it's worth doing right" kind of philosophy. And he also never finishes anything. Haha. And here I am with the 10yr "perfect" Camaro project.

I've definitely been embracing more of a David Freighburger sort of "if it's running it's perfect" kinda mindset lately. Some of that is kinda by necessity, with so much stuff and so little time. The only preventative maintenance I've been doing is oil changes. Haha. I literally just slapped pads on pass rear of the blazer cause it was squeaking...didn't even pull the rotor off and sent it. (Works fine.) But now I hear a slight squeak from the front of the truck, and that's actually gonna get new rotors calipers and pads. I did everything new on the rear last year when I had a caliper sticking, and that's gotta be my old reliable.

BTW, the "SS" ran the 1/4 record with the OEM plug wires, coils, bottom end.... Haha


91 "SS" - WOT 3400/5spd - 13.29@101.6 - World's fastest N/A FWD Beretta
96 "T56" LS/6spd/8.8 RWD swap - 13.45@104.7 lol
GEARHEAD dezign youtube
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Rettax3
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Re: How much maintenance to give?

Post by Rettax3 »

woody90gtz wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 9:46 pm But isn't H2O required to sustain life? :lol:

My father has always preached the "buy once cry once" and "if it's worth doing it's worth doing right" kind of philosophy. And he also never finishes anything. Haha. And here I am with the 10yr "perfect" Camaro project.

I've definitely been embracing more of a David Freighburger sort of "if it's running it's perfect" kinda mindset lately. Some of that is kinda by necessity, with so much stuff and so little time. The only preventative maintenance I've been doing is oil changes. Haha. I literally just slapped pads on pass rear of the blazer cause it was squeaking...didn't even pull the rotor off and sent it. (Works fine.) But now I hear a slight squeak from the front of the truck, and that's actually gonna get new rotors calipers and pads. I did everything new on the rear last year when I had a caliper sticking, and that's gotta be my old reliable.

BTW, the "SS" ran the 1/4 record with the OEM plug wires, coils, bottom end.... Haha
Ssshhh!! Don't tell the californians! They are still probably trying to put it at the top of their 'proposition 65' everything causes cancer schtick. :crazy: Right after they are done burning down more forest-land to pollute their air that cars aren't allowed to exhale into. (I learned they have now banned diesel vehicles above 14,000 pounds (not sure if that is GVWR, scale-weight, or empty weight) from operating on their roads if they are older than 2010, -and just a year or two ago they banned gas-powered lawn-mowers! :lol:

Yeah, I am more of a 'get 90% there and it should be good'. Unfortunately, it is now becoming 90% finished, not 90% perfect, anymore -same issue of too much going on and not enough time. Like my skylights -90%... No texture on the drywall panels in the wells, no paint (obviously), but the holes got cut, the curbs got built, the flashing installed, the skylights themselves installed, and everything sealed. :pardon: Just 90% finished...

I don't turn brake rotors unless they are warped or rusted. Now that I am out of the last shop I worked for, turning isn't a good option anymore anyway. That shop turned them every time, period -I hated that requirement, and so did the shop Manager. A fresh surface is nice, but turning takes material off, makes them thinner, more prone to warpage in the future, and will hit min thickness sooner too. Rotors are cheap, to me if they aren't serviceable as is, replace 'em. Calipers, if they are wearing pads unevenly, that is when they get replaced. Fords and their love of phenolic pistons, ruin their seals frequently upon resetting for the fresh thick pads. I tried to convince that last shop I worked at to replace the hydraulic hoses if we were doing calipers after having a couple come back due to interior deterioration, but they didn't accept that -I ALMOST convinced them that at least GMs should get new hoses while we were there... :wink:

Nice on the history of the SS -can't argue with success. :good:


1989 SuperCharged 3800 Srs-II (First)Six-Speed GTU
1990 Turbo 3.4 5-Speed T-Type
1990 4.0L 4-Cam 32-Valve V-8 5-Speed Indy GTi (Project)
1990 Stock(!) 3.1 MPFI Auto Indy
1995 LA1/L82 4T60E Z-26
1995 3.4 DOHC Turbo 5-Speed Z-26
FedirO
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Re: How much maintenance to give?

Post by FedirO »

Rettax3 wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 10:55 pm
woody90gtz wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 9:46 pm

I don't turn brake rotors unless they are warped or rusted. Now that I am out of the last shop I worked for, turning isn't a good option anymore anyway. That shop turned them every time, period -I hated that requirement, and so did the shop Manager. A fresh surface is nice, but turning takes material off, makes them thinner, more prone to warpage in the future, and will hit min thickness sooner too. Rotors are cheap, to me if they aren't serviceable as is, replace 'em. Calipers, if they are wearing pads unevenly, that is when they get replaced. Fords and their love of phenolic pistons, ruin their seals frequently upon resetting for the fresh thick pads. I tried to convince that last shop I worked at to replace the hydraulic hoses if we were doing calipers after having a couple come back due to interior deterioration, but they didn't accept that -I ALMOST convinced them that at least GMs should get new hoses while we were there... :wink:

Nice on the history of the SS -can't argue with success. :good:
Here I agree with you. And I will listen to your opinion


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