Question about replacing my 5-speed MT clutch in my 2000 2.4L 2WD base Tacoma

So I happen to be rebuilding a distributer for a 92 Camry I got for fun. The distributer shaft had a slight groove. Typically I would just drive the seal to a different depth to avoid the groove but I figured this was the perfect candidate to demonstrate my plan c.

When you remove the spring from the seal and look closely you see a small section that narrows. Thats the section that can be separated to transform the spring into a straight spring. You would snip a few coils from the wide end then curl the spring back to itself and connect the ends again by pushing them together until you feel or hear then interlock and the spring stays together. I then reinstall it with my trusty pocket screwdriver to it's home. I apply a little anaerobic sealant to the OD of the seal. It wasn't needed in this situation but it doesn't hurt. The sealant between the seal and wall will cure but the excess that is exposed will not and was wiped away by me before continuing reassembly. RTV on the other hand you shouldn't really wipe away as it can pull the RTV out of the area it needs to seal in the process as it tends to stick to itself more than anaerobic sealant. Any on the other side of the seal will remain fluid and be washed away by the oil once the engine is running. I believe they say it seals gaps up to 0.015". Not much but a little. It doesn't really harden for say, it tends to stay kind of gel like but will get firmer.

I sealed up my ranger manual transmission with it once but the surfaces have to be clean clean. Brake clean is not sufficient. For that purpose I used aerosol AcDelco glass cleaner on both case surfaces before sealant application and assembly. For oil seals though I just clean the seal bore with brake clean then install. I don't clean the OD of the seal. Not sure why the case halves weren't happy with just brake clean like RTV is but that's been my experience. My reason for anaerobic over rtv on the transmission is that the thickness of the rtv can space out the case halves too much and add end play it isn't supposed to have. Some transfer cases require anaerobic over rtv for the same reason when sealing both halves of the case together.

If you want extra security when you install your seal then I would use it.

I got my tube of anaerobic sealant back in 2016 and it still works but is almost done. It's nothing special, just the permatex stuff from Canadian tire that was 6$ a tube back then. Somewhere like Pep Boys, O'Reilly's or Napa should have it on the shelf near the other sealants. I also attached a photo of the one that I got.

The spedi-sleeve is brilliant and if it was an option, my distributer shaft would of been an excellent candidate for the repair sleeve but just sourcing the seal alone took over a month and required me to purchase 6. So between having 5 spares now and not wanting to try to get one made as the shaft has a slight taper of a few thou over it's length, I'm going to put it back into service as is. Worse case I have plenty of room to drive the seal to various depths to avoid the groove if that becomes an issue.

 

Ya I apologize for that. I tend to have the time to respond near the end of the work day which is usually when i'm tired. Especially since last set I was on night shift.

I get where you're coming from though. When I got out of trade school I felt like I was worse off than before because I flooded my brain with so much theory and the hands on work we did was absolutely best case scenario and using equipment that either shops don't have or it's not efficient to use such as signal generators to check fuel gauge readings or an oscilloscope to check a fuel pump. It took me a couple years to start to find a balance between theory and the real world.

That's pretty neat though that you and your wife took an HVAC course together so you could do the HVAC work in your home. You're a Jack of all trades ahah.

Home building codes are a big speed bump for sure. Some of my friends that are electricians or carpenters tell me a large chunk of both their schooling and testing is based on their codes books. With the commitment of reading through 6 code books and calculating the required btu's and airflow for your home I can only imagine that everything is swimmingly, especially after having an uphil scrap with the HVAC companies. HVAC companies want to sell you parts like Cornel Sanders wants to share his secret blend of herbs and spices ahah

I'm falling asleep and unfortunately have to retire for the night. Tomorrow i'll respond to your other statements and questions

 

So after re-reading everything, I suspect we were thinking of two different PTFE seals. I feel you were referencing a PTFE seal which resembles the crankshaft seal that you have like my first picture. I was referring to a PTFE seal like the white "o-ring" on the injector and pipe fitting. For the crankshaft "style" (I forgot the proper term for a seal like that) seal I do nothing different to be honest with you. The white o-ring type seal is the one that I warm in my mouth before install. The oil ring type seal has to slip over the cone into position as trying to manually install it without such a tool will almost ensure it gets damaged and leaks or just breaks. They aren't very elastic. After installation you would use a tool like the one I have circled in the third picture which fits over the (in that case injector) shaft and the seal and you let it sit for a few seconds to "size" the seal back down to it's proper shape. Warming the seal there helps increase it's elasticity for install and how easy it contracts for sizing afterwards. Larger PTFE seals used in automatics I don't fit into my mouth due to size

 

Nolan, that is an almost perfect answer, carefully thought out, exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to know about the oil sludge issue. So, I am very glad I was able to querry you about it. Let me first list the possibilities you mentioned that could have caused the oil to get sludged:

• Poor quality/inadequate oil for the engine
  • Oils available when the truck was new may have been of lower quality
    
  • Dealer oil changes using very low quality (but cheap) oil, likely early on in the truck's life
• Excessive service intervals
• Engine design
• Engine faults (such as internal coolant leakage)
• Short trips
  • That don't allow the engine to reach operating temperature
  • Oil contamination, say as by condensation of water inside the crankcase
• Defective PCV valve
• Neglected maintenance
• All aluminum engine (my Tacoma has aluminum head and cast iron block)
• Oil cavitation (like beating an egg due to HIGH RPMs)

That's the longest list I have found before you came along. All of those possible causes in the list seem believable to me. Since I never had the valve cover off prior to the oil leak, I never saw inside before that point, so there is the possibility that it formed over a very long time. I just do not know. I replaced the PCV and made sure the hoses are clear. The California version has a screw in PCV, which I think might have been better.

If there was a coolant leak to the oil, I am thinking that would make the oil form a kind of whitish foamed pudding effect since oil doesn't easily mix with water. I need to show you some (9) photos so you can see the way it was sludged, all the places I have been hand desludging.



Sorry for the many photos, but I was trying to show the sludge, so you can understand how it looked, and where I have hand cleaned the engine, top, front, bottom, and now am replacing the rear main seal, before installing a new clutch kit and then rebuilding the areas I have cleaned, after cleaning more of the parts.

I do not think that sludge was caused by water, or condensation. What do you think? I would have expected it to have a different color and texture.

I don't know this to be true, but in the back of my mind I worry that there may be some other possibility for the creation of oil sludge that has to do with the engine not functioning properly, in some manner that is beyond me to even imagine. For example, I have not removed the cylinder head, or the intake manifold, but there is a picture in my mind of carbon plugging up the input ports or the intake manifold, or something being wrong with the valves that I cannot see with the cheap inspection camera that I own. When i cannot actually see something, there remains this suspicion in my mind that I am overlooking something fundamental that could have caused the oil to form sludge. Maybe it's because of my laziness that I will do all this work, put it back together, only to have it happen all over again because I didn't fix what was actually messed up while I had the engine largely torn apart. Or am I being silly?

Also, I remind you that when I measured the chain, it was out of specifications, meaning it was longer than when first installed, and I think that effects the timing somehow, and I wonder what that poor timing would do to the engine, over a long period of time. With your background, you are much better suited to figuring these kinds of things out than I am.

Your oil cavitation notion is interesting. My model Tacoma is 2000 2.4L L4 2RZ-FE 2WD 5-SPEED MT. i drive conservatively, rarely wind the engine out to high RPMs, however, you must understand that my truck came without a tachometer, which is a PITA to me, someone who had driven manual transmissions all my life. And, although I do not know what a "windage tray" is, or what it does, I have something in my mind that is probably what you are talking about. If so, there is no windage tray under the crankshaft, but there is something in the oil pan that might be what you are talking about. You can see it in the photograph of the dirty oil pan. It's a flat metal plate mounted in the bottom of the oil pan, and has a circular opening that gives room for the oil pickup to get down into the oil. I just looked up "crank scraper," and it says they are good for:

• Reduced power loss due to excessive drag from oil windage [whatever that is]
• Helps reduce engine damaging oil-foaming [this sounds like your egg beater thing, but could that not cause oil to form sludge?]
• Help to cool critical engine parts by quickly returning heated oil to the sump
• Help to prevent cylinder walls from being overloaded with oil
• It can help with fuel efficiency

LCE Performance shows one that looks like a flat oil pan gasket that mounts where a gasket otherwise would. It has protrusions of the same material that go toward the inside of the engine right under the crank and rod section of the underside of the engine. If it can do all of what it says above, why shouldn't I buy one and install it to see if it might not benefit my engine? There is nothing "performance" about either me or my Tacoma, and I already told you that I drive conservatively, but that's not always true. There are times, such as when rain water used to collect inside the bed of the truck because the camper top was not properly sealed, and for a long time, after each rain, I would circle down the cul-de-sacm turning around and roar off uphill as fast as I possibly could to let the water out. So when I looked up "windage" it says:

Windage is a term used in aerodynamics, firearm ballistics, and automobiles that mainly relates to the effects of air (e.g., wind) on an object of interest. The term is also used for the similar effects of liquids, such as oil. . . AUTOMOBILES: In automotive parlance, windage refers to parasitic drag [from friction] on the crankshaft due to sump oil splashing on the crank train during rough driving, as well as dissipating energy in turbulence from the crank train moving the crankcase gas and oil mist at high RPM. Windage may also inhibit the migration of oil into the sump and back to the oil pump, creating lubrication problems. Some manufacturers and aftermarket vendors have developed special scrapers to remove excess oil from the counterweights and windage screens to create a barrier between the crankshaft and the oil sump. [Wikipedia] That crankcase gas is coming from blow-by?

Ever since I got this truck, I have not liked the sound that the engine made. To me, it sounds like the engine is struggling when I am increasing its speed, say on the on-ramp when picking up speed, or when at speed and trying to keep up with the flow of traffic. Or when just driving along on the highway, the sound was similar to "shift now." Without a tach, I have to listen to the engine to know when to shift, so I have gotten used to its sound. It always seemed to be breathing heavily, laboring, struggling, and it was that way the day I got it till the time it was shut down to be desludged. I have read somewhere that the fan "clutch" has fluid inside it that performs the coupling that drives the fan, and when they go bad they make some kind of unhappy sound that I imagined might be the sound of my engine, so I bought a new fan clutch just in case that might be my sound problem.

Now to "Bob is the oil guy" forums. Just a few pages into my logon/in booklet appears "Bob is the oil guy" login details. It took me way back when you brought that site name up. I haven't been there in quite a while, but see you recommend that I follow "High Performance Lubricants"? I am looking forward to a transition moment when I have everything in the engine all as clean as I can get it by hand, and then put everything back in place, and you know what? I don't exactly know what to do at that point to ensure that the engine gets protected when restarted as well as a good final cleaning after I get it running again. Yes, I have listened to and watched people who believe that oil itself could take the cleaning job the rest of the way, but I had not finished thinking that process through, and am not all that close yet, so had postponed that decision. But, I did order the clutch kit yesterday, and had planned on ordering another set of parts that I believe I still need today, but then I got side-tracked, excited, as I read what you had to say about the sludge. That was a burning interest right from the first day, knowing exactly WHY? I don't ever feel good about fixing something when I don't really know why a problem happened, what was the root cause, so I figure that time spend on this is not at all wasted. If you have been followinig that topic on that website, perhaps you might be able to recommend the best oil to use for my purpose, should I not use any harsh chemical flush, as you suggest? The only thing I feel worried about are internal oil galleries that I cannot get to to flush out by hand, and maybe the correct cleaning oil would be the best way to get those clean. I know so little about how the oil system works. I did do a good job cleaning the "oil jet" that splashes the timing chain, and I understand a bit of how the oil pump works, and the oil somehow gets into the under valve cover area. There are oil ports all over the place, so any one of them being clogged might be a catrostrophe.


You said something like "The Ester base of their lubricants provide gently dissolving and completely cleaning of all the engine internals it encounters. I would recommend that over a flush because I feel the best and safest way to internally clean the engine aside from manually is slowly vs attempting to do it quickly with a flush. I've never honestly put much into de-sludging an engine beyond better oil, more frequent oil changes and driving it hard or on the highway for a while to get it hot to be honest with you." I believe you and I have heard that said before. I think it is time for me to decide to do my engine exactly that way. I have filled up my large garage trash can with dirty blue oil towels many times already, so the vast majority of the sludge has been done away with.

Shivers ran down my spine when I read you were miserable the last two weeks working outside before vacationing in Grenada, as the temps were -35 to -45! It doesn't matter that you didn't label whether it was F or C, that is extremely cold in either case! I will not work in my garage when the temperature is in the +40s F (around +7C), so unless somone was forcing me to go outside in those temperatures, I just wouldn't, and I do not understand how you can! You have my deepest respect!!

The temps in Grenada while you were there seem much more to my liking. Sounds like a delightful trip, for both you and your wife. We always called tropical places like that "Paradise"!

No, unfortunately I haven't been back to Kwajalein since I left. It's a US Army base on an atoll smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, close to nowhere, where we were developing the anti-ballistic missile system now called the Patriot. The location of Kwajalein was 5 degrees north of the equator, and whenever we visit my wife's home in Davao City, Mindanao, the Philippines, we are located at 8 degrees north of the equator, and I cannot tell the difference. So, whenever we are back at her home, I am in the closest thing I can imagine to heaven. When she retires we plan on building a house on Samal Island, across the bay from Davao City. She told me we will need a pickup truck and two motorcycles.

 

Free Dealer Services. . . ha. . . right. You need to keep in mind "there is no free lunch," cause somewhere there is going to be a hook into your wallet. They don't call them stealerships for nothing, and they are damn good at it.

9th visit???

Well, it does me good to have a practicing automotive tech tell me that the poor to bad service experiences I have had are true pretty much in general, including places where the population density isn't like that of a big city. Don't know why, exactly, but this makes me feel really bad for women (not to be sexist, it's just because it's not that many women who enjoy working on, or knowing about, their cars). They are such easy marks; they just schedule and pay, and keep paying. They don't know enough to know how to follow up after a service has been provided to check that it has even been done. Not that that many men know enough either. Maybe it's better they don't know, except what they don't know can harm them at a time when homelessness is an epidemic.

And, you did know enough to check, and did, and found services that weren't even done! Did the missing oil cap cause oil to be sprayed over everything inside the engine compartment like happened to me a couple of times already? Is that why they gave you a new cap for FREE? When I add oil, I try to be really careful about putting that cap back on. It's a bitch cleaning up all that sprayed oil.

As for being out of warrantee, that is where I am the happiest. The value of the vehicle has depreciated the greatest by then, another year on the vehicle is just another year, and you are taking care of the PM of your own car DIY like you should have learned to do in the first place; practice makes perfect. Getting stuff done under warrantee sounds wonderful, from a marketing point of view, untill your eyes snap open one day when you find something declared done at the next service that wasn't done during one of the service intervals, and you finally understand how they can offer those services for free.

We (my wife and i together) took her 2006 Infiniti G35 to get an alignment recently (I haven't yet learned how), and when they brought her keys out with the invoice when done (if they did the job correctly), I looked at the invoice before going to the cashier to pay. It said something about them doing the X-point inspection written right on the invoice, as something they were happily doing for their customers for free, another marketing ploy. I asked them where the results of their inspection was and they said something like "Well, we saw that you two were in a hurry, so we skipped that part so you could be on your way sooner."

Since my approach is not normal, and I do my own stuff, I do get taken advantage of on a regular basis. For example, they keep offering rebates and discounts on anything that has to do with energy efficiency here in the US. But there is a major catch. For those money breaks to apply, you have to have a contractor's service tech do the installation. When I installed my own HVAC (18.5 Bosch heat pump) the electric company would have given me a lot of money, except I installed it myself. Hiring a contractor to install it would have cost many thousands, and I would not know whether the job was done correctly, or not. So, DIY runs outside the capitalistic structures in several ways, all to the disadvantage of a DIY guy, and to the advantage of the "industry." Nonetheless, I cannot fight city hall, and I refuse to let someone else do the work, so I just forget about all those indignities. Don't know why, but I figure that I am better off.

 

I will come back to absorb this one later, but wanted to ask if you maybe got the pictures attached too many times? I see two times in the without pics version, but thought I went through three. No complaint, just checking. Later

 

Hey, Nolan, I discovered something good. When I gave a short reply and then posted, at the top of the quoted piece before my short string of words was a string of 10 thumbnails of your photos reading left to right. That smaller version tells the story on one line. NEAT!! I never knew you could do that with the seal spring. Makes sense that you can, else how did they put it in the first place?

 

Holy, thats actually alot more sludge than I was imagining. Only time I saw that much sludge was when a lady came in with 62'573Kms for her first oil change. I believe the Dexos oil spec at that time was only semi-synthetic too. It was a 2015 Chev Trax with a 1.4 ecotec engine.

Before my response I stumbled across an article on Bob is the Oil guy that doesn't specifically pertain to sludge but the relationship between fuel in the lubricant and relates to sludge in the crankcase. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4442/9/9/92

In regards to the sludge in your engine specifically, yes moisture will have a tendency to form more of a whiteish/creamy sludge but when the engine gets up to temperature that moisture/sludge tends to evaporate leaving behind the more difficult to evaporate materials. The varnish though suggests to me the sludge formation is related to the degradation of the oil due to either lack of previous maintenance, excessive blow by from worn rings possibly, or with the mention of your engine sounding "laboured" under load possibly either a partially stuck egr and/or a partially clogged exhaust causing too much exhaust back pressure. I have to refer to a service manual or school books because I don't recall the exhaust back pressure spec... I think 0.25 PSI at idle and 1.25 PSI at 2500 RPM on a gas engine sounds familiar but don't take my word for that. I've never measured exhaust back pressure outside of school. I used to either just feel/check the exhaust temp with an infrared thermometer near the cats (or any other spot I suspected to be plugged)for a significant temperature differential. The outlet(closer to the muffler) should be hotter than the inlet(closer to the engine) when the cat is warmed up and functioning properly. I think around 50*F was the magic number. A reading like 300-400*F hotter on the outlet though suggests that something abnormal is combusting in there. Excess fuel, oil, etc. If It happens to be a plugged cat. Even if that's not found though it's still wise to investigate for possible sources of cat corruption from combusting abnormal substances. Especially if the replacement is due to a cat efficiency code. Coolant, silicone, lead(not really a problem unless you're finding leaded gasoline to purchase somewhere still), oil or excess fuel can ruin the cat. They do eventually wear out with age but atleast a quick check for no other cause of the failure is good practise. I would strongly suggest against aftermarket here as they tend to fall under efficiency standards early leading to a check engine light of P0420 for such. Sometimes I would just use a vacuum gauge or look at the map sensor (if applicable) with a live data capable scan tool but working at the dealership on the same vehicles I could get a baseline easily to know if a vehicle had low vacuum or sometimes driving with the vacuum gauge connected and going up a long hill at a steady speed you could see the vacuum start to decay as you maintained speed up the hill.
To check the egr, if it's vacuum operated I just apply vacuum with a handheld pump while the engine is idling and look for a linear response to it's running state as the egr valve opens due to the vacuum you're applying. If it's an electronically actuated valve then I only really know how to easily check them with a scan tool that can command it on in increments while you observe the change in it's running condition. You may be able to progressively activate it with a variable resistance circuit but they normally operate in a pulse width modulated(PWM)fashion that would require a PWN signal generator to operate properly in the absence of a scantool.

As long as your pcv valve is working properly, you have no mechanical engine faults, compression is reasonable and not too low or excessively high then I would proceed as planned. Deposits in the intake are usually caused by either pcv issues or oil with a high NOACK valve or in other words, oil that evaporates too readily. Cleaning your intake doesn't hurt but I don't consider a dirty intake to ever be a problem on it's own but a unreliable symptom of another issue. Intake condition is yes influenced by engine health but poor quality fuel, driving patterns, oil quality can all drastically change the condition of it and possibly provide a red herring during diag. Some carbon from non-VVT achieved egr systems is normal, some oil in the intake from a properly functioning pcv system is normal. A change in either engine health, fuel quality or oil quality alone can net a big difference in the condition of the intake in a very short time frame. Cleaning it is helpful but I wouldn't go out of my way to clean it unless it were already removed. Maybe an oil analysis could be of benefit here? I wouldn't do it the first oil change after this though as it could give falsely high readings of somethings like silicone from the rtv used in places.

In regards to the oil specifically, unless your engine has a special oil spec beyond the basic SAE, API, ILSAC, or ACEA specs (which I doubt) which are usually all labeled on basically every commercial oil such as
SAE: 5w-40
API: SN/CK-4
ILSAC: GF-5
ACEA: A3/B4
I would say in current times there is no oil that would be inadequate for your engine or have too much NOACK. oil back when the truck was new is another topic.

When a timing chain is worn to the point of causing issues, (specifically with an overhead cam engine) you'll hear the chain slapping inside the timing cover constantly. Momentary chain noise on startup that goes away I would say is more so a chain tensioner or on new engines possibly a VVT gear issue. (For all timing chain engines) the other usual telltale sign is that under light load such as idling or steady speed cruising, the engine will run like garbage and buck, jerk, misfire etc but when you punch it everything will appear kosher as the load from punching it will take up all the slack in the chain. A check engine light related to engine timing is also possible. Even though your chain was worn beyond the limit I don't feel any issues would of been caused with your engine because the chain tensioner I imagine still had the travel to keep the chain tight. You may notice the engine runs a bit healthy with more power and efficiency but I would 't say any damage occurred for say. If the computer could no longer compensate for the chain wear, it would of threw a code for something like timing itself, fuel trims, camshaft-crankshaft correlation error, etc. Measuring your chain and finding it out of spec since you were in the area makes sense. Timing chains aren't actually lifetime parts but I also don't do anything with them unless an engine code points to an issue or a driving concern is present. Typically if I can still see the paint marks sharply that are used for installing it, then I consider the chain okay. If they're dull and otherwise not highly visible like they are when new then I replace the timing components. For the vehicles that have timing chain issues **cough** BMW, GM** cough** yes design plays a role but largely what causes the chain to "stretch" is elongation of the holes the link pins go through due primarily to particles in the engine oil that are too small to be filtered out. Toyota OEM/factory timing chains are fantastic and especially with the fact that oil standards specifically incorporate timing chain wear tests nowadays you'll probably never have another timing chain wear out again. For a long long time.

I do consider the metal plate in your oil pan surrounding the pickup tube to be a windage tray of sorts. What you found is correct and ya it basically just reduces the oil's ability to slosh around as you drive around which in turn helps keep the pickup tube submerged in oil and helps keep the oil from becoming aerated. There is no downside to a crank scraper and the benefits you've found are correct. Don't quote me hear either but I believe the physics term used in school to describe the oil mist and gasses being drawn to the crankshaft was referred to in our literature as the "tea leaf effect" named after the tendency of a tea leaf to find itself towards the middle or the cup when you stir a cup of tea. You may not notice much from a crank scraper though because the difference will be small. If price wasn't obscene and I had the option while in the area I would add one, honestly my reason would be to squeeze a little more fuel economy out of the engine but it would be a low priority mod for me unless I was building a race engine as I don't think the fuel economy or power benefit would be significant or noticeable enough the justify the cost. Mind you i've never looked at the cost of adding one to an engine except when I changed the oil pan on my ranger... at that time though it appeared no one made one for my engine. The crankcase gas does come from blow by. The pcv should pull a slight vacuum on the crankcase when working properly. The vacuum in the crankcase helps the seals last longer and increases performance of the engine. There is a special tool that goes in the dipstick hole to measure it but i've never used it or seen one in my life. Even though it was mentioned in the service manual for diagnosing pcv issues as a gm special service tool (SST) my dealership didn't have one and none of us saw a use for it so no one tried to get their hands on one.

Hey, every technician worth his salt shouldn't just be able to fix the issue but should also look for the why it happened. If you don't you could end up in the same boat again soon.

A stuck on fan clutch will consistently have the roar to it that is characteristic of a cold start when you hear that initial fan howl that settles down after a few seconds or a minute if it's really cold out. If you have the truck running and raise the idle to 1500-2000rpm you should hear the fan disengage and the engine get quieter after a second to a few at that fan idle. If you decide to replace it anyways, I also recommend either OEM or OEM supplier. No matter what though, don't ever get the heavy duty option (if there is one) I don't know what they expect but those heavy duty ones always seem to stay engaged at full tilt boegy no matter what. You will 100% feel the parasitic draw of that fan clutch.

To prime the engine I usually just leave the spark plugs out (depending on how hard they are to access) and crank the engine with my foot to the floor on the gas pedal or otherwise disabling the fuel system until the oil pressure light goes out or I see pressure on the gauge (if applicable). Don't crank for more than like 10 seconds though or you could overheat the starter.

For cleaning of the innards that final step, I would indeed use some of the High Performance Lubricants engine cleaner or even the oil if you feel like it. I want to try some of their products but with shipping to Canada the cost is insane. Otherwise a flush is also an option. I'm not deathly against flushes, I'm gonna try one in my Camry(once It running) but the engine is decently clean given the car is 32 years old. I just feel that a cleaning over a longer duration than 15 mins would work better. It did take more than 15 mins to form the mess inside the engine so I imagine it should take more than 15 mins to clean.

I couldn't find a link to your engine specifically to a "New features" document someone would of posted but I found one for the 3.4 V6 that was optioned for your truck. Different engine but the oiling system will be the same and in general all engines are. Exceptions are engines with VVT and turbos which have the VVT circuit added to the camshaft lube section and the Turbo usually having a separate and direct feed circuit from the oil filter. Parts just might be in a different location or have a different shape to them Lubrication circuit is on PDF page 5. https://www.mr2.com/files/mr2/techinfo/Random FSM Data/3vzVS5vz.pdf

Believe me, I was not trying to be a hero in anyway working in that cold. I would take my time getting to the job and was not shy to take warm up breaks. Fire suppression calls were worse than no heat calls because there was a Fire suppression call they would shut off the machine so by the time you got there all the steel was cold and anything you touched would rob the heat from your body. Atleast with the no heat calls they would leave the machine running so while you were working there was some heat coming off the unit and if you were in the HVAC box for something you could hold the heater hoses for some warmth to your hands. Once the steel toes of your boots get cold though it's basically game over for me until you get home and take a warm shower. Even with socks inside of bama socks inside of insulated work boots.

When we got down to the islands we sweat like hell but compared to what we left here weather wise it was indeed paradise ahah.

Thats pretty neat that while working on the Patriot you were just shy of sitting on the Equator. Atleast after work I imagine it was a bit easier to unwind.

Thats also pretty neat that you guys already have a retirement plan laid out. Are you guys going to bring your current truck with you and motorcycles you may have or will those be acquired once you're there?

 

This is mostly a quick acknowledgement and a curtesy call so you will know that I am working, as and when I can, to absorb all this wonderful information you gathered for me. You are a fantastic teacher, Nolan; I am so very appreciative. You cut through the BS and directly answered my questions. That makes you an unusual and valuable friend, in this day and age. Thanks so much for doing that. I am far behind you in my knowledge. Reading what you wrote made that clear, but what you wrote gave me plenty of leads that should help me close my knowledge gap reasonable quickly, but only in slow, learning, steps, where each topic must get a lot of thought. Hope you have patience, because you will probably think my steps are more like micro-steps. Once I truly understand, and have done the proper testing, some of which will require new tooling to support any conclusions, I will then feel confident that, once the truck is back together, I will be able to monitor the system for what was causing the sludge, and prevent it from occurring again. That will be an extremely positive result, due to YOU!

The article from "Bob the Oil Guy" was excellent (in skimming) for me. That's another thing that will take time for me to absorb, since I will be getting back to detailed work on the truck.

My clutch kit came in yesterday and I need to clean the flywheel so I can take it to the guy I located the other day to have it resurfaced locally. I have the torque-to-yield flywheel bolts on their way also, so my long and involved (and frustrating) parts search is almost over. It was the identification of a clutch kit that I confidently felt would serve the truck well, without throwing lots of money at the problem, that took up so much time. Shopping for parts, so tedious. Then, I have to start by fixing the rear main seal retainer. Thanks for the vector to the anaerobic sealer; that will make me feel much better about that seal not leaking when the truck is running again. We ordered the "high heat" version because it will be residing in the rear of the block.

As for how we are going to manage the fulfillment of our retirement vision, that's going to be another slow process. I just today asked her how much it would cost for us to get one of the containers that travel on container ships, sit it in the front yard, fill it, and have all our stuff transported to the Philippines (yeah, my mental picture of loading that up is not at all firm). I know so little about that. I cannot tell whether or not it would be reasonable to even try to ship the vehicles (would they fit in to a container?), but we both agreed that after spending all the years collecting all the (right) things we have, and have all that stuff we use so often that they are finally well organized such that life is reasonably easy, we surely do not want to just give everything away and buy new once we get there. We don't have financial leeway like that. Got to figure that out as we go.

Will be going now. As I reread what you said above, I will begin to ask you questions to help me fill in my knowldege gap. Here's wishing you the best!

Oh PS: while on Kwajalein, although we worked 6 days a week, in rotations, still every day after work my diving buddy and I would pack up, bicycle down to the marina, and get onto a small motor boat (owned by the army) and ride out to a surface buoy where we tied off and suited up for a SCUBA dive onto a sunken ship. The US had taken Kwajalein during WWII, and some dozen or so Japanese cargo ships were sunk there onto the bottom of the atoll's lagoon, and the last German capital ship, the Cruizer Prinz Eugen, the sister ship of the Bismark, is also sunk there, but on the shores of the atoll wall across from the main island, 3/4 upside down, and stern out of the water and the bow on the bottom (about 90 feet deep). Just needed a T-shirt to keep the tank straps from chaffing our shoulders since water temp there was right at 70 degrees F. I found all that much to my liking.

 

Finding a good shop is hard and even if there are good guys working in the back, the service advisors can kibosh the whole operation. From a technician perspective I feel flat rate is the biggest detriment to both people getting into the field, staying in the field and also doing a good job and the right thing. Unless you are specifically paying for an inspection, it being "included" it more so for warranty purposes than the customer because atleast in GM land, we can't technically call warranty work that isn't a customer complaint or a safety concern unless we specifically find it during an inspection. I'm not anti-capitalist by no means but flat rate combined with warranty times that drop will lead to people taking advantage of the system. For example, head gasket jobs on the 6.6L Duramax used to pay 32 hours of labour but if you pull the cab off the frame and have a few head gasket jobs under your belt then you can power through it in 18-20 hours. Over time the warranty times have dropped progressively down to now 17.5 hours ( as of 2021 when I left the dealership) you can dispute it and provide reasons why the time should be raised but rarely does it work. They look at the average time people are completing the job in and eventually revise the warranty times to match. One of the diesel tech at the dealership( and one of if not the best tech at the dealership) consistently takes around 23 hours to do a head gasket job and persistently would write a revision request each time including associated labour times directly from the service manual added together such as:
Remove and replace cab: labour time of 4.7 hours
Cleaning and inspecting engine components: 2 hours
And so forth which totalled in excess of even the original 32 hours the job would pay. He wouldn't even push for that. He would just push for the 23 hours he put into the job but it was always denied. When all the jobs are like that it leads to guys either cutting corners or scamming warranty such as claiming an additional 1 hour here to extract a (non existent) broken bolt, another 2 hours there for further diag to say remove and inspect the water pump when in reality the head gasket was the first thing checked and they've already got the cab off the frame of the truck. To me what separates a scam/grifter artist from a guy trying to feed is family is guys that do that with customer pay jobs. To me thats flat robbery. Customer pay jobs are already typically charged at 1.5% the warranty labour times and mechanic shops aren't cheap. We were the cheapest in town still when I left at 200$ per hour of work and 250$ per hour for Transmission, Electrical and Diesel work... even when I did those jobs as an apprentice that would take longer as I lacked the skill and experience to work faster and also had a lower pay rate to go with that. The honest guys in the shop would charge a fair rate for customer which was less than the warranty labour times if we knew we could do the job properly in less time or the actual 1.5% extra if it actually would take us that long because if you help the customer out and do job work you'll ensure your job security where as if you try to pillage a guy the first time he has to pay out of pocket you know he's never coming back. Especially if you don't do a good job or just guess and throw parts at his vehicle without diagnosing his concern.

My wife had extended warrant on her vehicle that she purchased before we got together. I looked it over one time before we took it on a cross country trip and had a laundry list of concerns that would of been covered and the jeep dealer said they were covered and had parts orders. She was late to her appointment for all those repairs and they flipped the script and said she would have to pay out of pocket now for everything which amounted to 1500$ in parts alone plus all the labour which was more than double that. I didn't even call them back to try to argue it because I figured if she would try that with her do I even trust them to do the job properly or deserve to get paid by the warranty provider. I decided they didn't and get all the parts else where out of my own pocket and did all the work myself. A good( but of course bad thing) is that because she doesn't know much about vehicles and has never owned a new vehicle she wasn't aware of the issues her's had so as long as nothing glaring stands out as an issue and the car starts she'll drive it. The good in that is that she never used to spend much time at the shop. Express lubes were her only real shop visits and she did tell me that those were uncomfortable visits for her and her default was to deny any additional services they offered her no matter what because she didn't know if there were necessary or they were trying to take advantage of her because she is a woman. I don't think it's sexist, it's just a statistical fact. Yes most men don't know about vehicles. Even among the men that claim they do but, women on average usually don't know more about vehicles and largely in my experience and statistically don't care to. It's just in our biology that on average that's the case. There are of course exceptions but on average women tend to have different interests, views and ways of thinking about things than men. It's why on average some fields are dominated by women and others dominated by men.

 

I can't credit for that trick at all, I never would of though about that it wasn't shown as a "trick from the trade" by one of my first year instructors that spent his whole career at a custom shop then a driveline shop before becoming an instructor.

In fact back when I was in high school and foolishly decided to take my truck to a shop because I couldn't figure out something and got hosed hard in the process, one of the points they scammed me on was by telling me my new seal was garbage because the spring popped out and was sitting in the box with it.

 

I appreciate it, I try to give the best information I can. I am still quite junior to the trade but at the least i'm aiming to point your research in the right direction. Maybe if you ever feel motivated you could acquire the automotive trade school modules to build more on your knowledge. I don't know how the trades work down there. Even province to province here it's a little different. I know Alberta set the standard across Canada for apprenticing in the trades in general but each trade has a "standard" bearer province...i'm not 100% but I believe the highest standard automotive trade province is Ontario? I with the population there and amount of vehicles on the road they have lots of practise on all sorts of vehicles ahah . Still I recommend Alberta's of course because I'm familiar with it and feel that although they're about 10 years behind with the content, I still feel it's quite though and covers all the primary bases to allow you to figure out various designs and how to diagnose them based on how the system should work. To demonstrate the legacy status of the content a couple examples we had is one paragraph talking about gasoline direct injection engines despite basically everything now either having or incorporating direct injection. The same task of injecting fuel is achieved with both but different components are used for direct injection and indirect injection along with different computer strategies and are used with both systems due to the effects of both methods of fuel injections and the issues they can cause. Also zero mention of compression ignited gasoline engines and Mazda has already produced engines with that technology.

Not a problem, take all the time you need. I've been taking a long time to respond lately as even though i'm back from vacation work has been busy so I haven't had much time to respond as when I get home I try to spend time with my Wife before going to sleep.

I'm glad to you found a suitable clutch kit for your vehicle and a solution to replacing your rear main seal with minimal chance of having to do it again.

Thats's completely understandable, wanting to bring your personal effects and appliances you've acquired over the years and grown used to over time. Filling a sea-can and shipping it whole is a good idea. I don't know how that process would work either but with your diligence I know everything will be alright. Some vehicles I know come shipped in sea-cans but whether yours will fit and if thats the best way to ship less than a bulk order of vehicles, I don't know. Either way, you're not setting off tomorrow and I know you'll have the best solution by the time you two are ready to jump across the pond

 

Thank you for telling me that, Nolan. Especially that you see women sensibly. The politics here in the US is so distorted that you cannot say anything about women in general without expecting a barrage of negativity back in your face. I now rarely say anything, even though, I have a clear view of what women do and don't like, or are capable of, in normal situations. Women today, here in the US, were brought up and literally told they were just as good as any man, in every respect, so they should go to college and compete with men on their turf. Well, the truth of the matter is that the "elites" (successful capitalists themselves) here sold women on that idea because they wanted to double the labor force (getting both members of each family to go into the workplace, whereas before that only the men usually went out and "brought home the bacon," so to speak), which cuts their labor expenditures in 1/2! And, so that's what they did. Today, neither sex has enough good jobs, or have fulfilling jobs. And, this goes to the heart of capitalism. I'm like you in that I don't want to dismiss capitalism as a form of economy, partly because it uses greed in a positive way, assuming you have a free and open marketplace, which we currently do not have. What capitalism is today is its worst possible form, the same as existed prior to the Great Depression (but worse), when the world was run by what were called the "Robber Barons," those who had managed to form their industry into monopolies.

An economy is a state of human activities in which people make things and provide services to other people who are then able to get the things and services they need, and want. Capitalism is one form of an economy, communism is another, barter is yet another. Among all previously implemented forms of economy, capitalism seems to stand out for getting the most bang from the buck. However, just as in communism, there are downsides to capitalism, especially the free and unfettered kind.

What I am talking about today's form of capitalism that has no rules of operation. Those rules were put in place, in the laws, after WWII and after FDR had spent all his time attempting to fing ways to put men back to work and get the country out of the desparate situation that was brought about by the Great Depression, where nobody had a job (essentially because the monopolies charged more than the people had to spend because they were not paid enough by their jobs, such a vicious dirty cycle). Over the past 50 years, the US congress has been cutting and gutting all of those laws that were put in place as safety supports that were there to prevent another Depression from happening. That has left us with a system that is teetering on the brink. All the ills you related about working for "flat rate" go to the same problem. Imagine what we will have after that situation prevails over time. The outcome is going to be no good auto techs available at the dealerships, period. What good, skilled, well educated and moral auto tech is going to work that way over a long period?

And because of that, eventually, people will stop going to the dealerships to have their cars serviced. There is an inevitability to that outcome. Even women, those who know the least about their cars, are going to be told by those in the know that at the dealerships they are being ripped-off in truth, so just forget about the warrantee benefits because they are fictions of marketing imagination. It's all a product of capitalism without proper rules.

Another way to see this is that capitalism requires of the capitalist that he/she optimize profits, and only profits, without paying regards to anything moral. The human beings that have gotten involved in a capitalistic economy are not given any rules about how they should treat other human beings while optimizing their profits. Anything not optimized isn't recognized as having any value at all. But who is to say that rules could not be formulated such that to participate in capitalism, one has to optimize profits while also optimizing the amount of good their enterprise achieves for the people in the society in which they operate? Every government has the ability to pass rules of the road so their citizens could be well taken care of, if they so choose. Maybe, because a government consists of human beings, that is asking too much? But, in principle, there should be nothing in their way to prevent that.

Let's look at your example of working in a dealership auto repair shop. What would be wrong with imposing a law that says "flat rate payment" for the work auto techs provide is illegal, that instead all owners must pay their techs based on some alternative optimization, for laughs, say customer happiness over their work, or overall rate that cars are brought back in for the same problem, or any of a number of conveivable alternative optimizations? This is about "incentives." People are incentivized to do work, in this case incentivized to expend their physical and mental labor working to achieve an owner's objective, which today is still just the unruled optimization of profit. All I am saying is that it doesn't have to be that way, and moreover the conditions that currently prevail are leading to a dead end for good, moral tech class of people.

And, possibly, that's where OPPORTUNITY comes in! Given the situation you describe, if someone came up with a better way to incentivize auto techs to utilize their skills more productively without cheating, well there's a good business idea. It could be done right under the nose of the local dealer, setting up an excellent service shop that does the same things that the dealer is supposed to do, but with much better quality, maybe bringing each customer inside the shop to see for themselves, and therefore understand exactly what was involved in the maintenance or repair action they are being charged for, a little teaching of the customer what is today "black magic." Without the OVERHEAD that the dealer has hanging on his shoulders, that pleasant shop just down the street might be able to get customers to even give up their dealer warrantee work as being worthless, or worse, harmful.

I am just talking off the top of my head. You are the one with real world experience and the understanding of how things might be made acceptable to regular dealer customers. I am just following my imagineation that took off when I read how you said things work there, which I suspect is the same over a large part of the world. I believe that most people are basically good inside, and that for someone to expend the amount of energy it took for them to master the art of automotive technicianship, they were most likely to be one of those good people, certainly have good hearts. Hence, the ones who leave the profession for this reason are probably the BEST of those good people. If you collected a number of those that have left, then you would have a stable of excellent techs (or excellent tech wannabees) who could make a different way of being paid work out for the best of everyone. Lastly, just imagine the possibility of owning a car and being able to take that car to a reasonably priced service place where you absolutely trusted that the work they signed up to perform FOR YOU was truly going to be performed to the best of the ability of those guys, and they were not ripping you off?

Very sorry I got so far off track. This should maybe not have been said.

 

Exactly! That's what scammers do. It's in their genes.

Then, your experience has now taught you that if someone ever says that to you again. . . And, thank you for passing that information along. Every little bit helps.

 

YES, on everything, and another big thanks. Now I need to get moving on the work.

But, just one more thing. . .

Really? This is actually happening? [Also zero mention of compression ignited gasoline engines and Mazda has already produced engines with that technology.]

Do you mean like the diesel engine? Is that an advance of gasoline ICE technology?

 

Something strange happened yesterday. I took the flywheel to a local guy to have it resurfaced.

When I was handing it to him, I told him that I had cleaned it well before bringing it to him. . . and before I had fininshed saying [so you wouldn't have to deal with a dirty greasy flywheel] that he came back with "Oh, I really wish you hadn't done that!"

I expressed my shock at hearing him say that, but he was serious, and went on and on about how much it screws him up in having to reset his machine and all. By then I had finished talking about him not having to get his hands so dirty. . . And he held his (filthy looking) hands up and said "These are clean! You should see them when they are dirty"

My wife had been with me during that tansaction, So, on the way home we discussed what he said. I agreed that by using a wire brush, surely I must have taken a skim of metal atoms from the various surfaces of the flywheel, reducing, possibly irregularly, those surfaces, so he might be right in indicating I would have done something like that (infinitesimally), so I cannot understand why he should be cross at my doing that, unless what I did might have been measurable using precise machining tools and he is only about precision, or alternatively, unless he was just a dirty handed machine worker doing work for other dirty handed auto workers who just take their vlywheels back to their shops and slap them back into position and bolt them down straight away after being resurfaced. It was like a whole nother world.

To me, I would have cleaned that flywheel regardless whether it was before or after it had been resurfaced, thinking that what little damage I might do would be totally insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I am dead wrong?

That's MY view. What is YOURS? Surely you have handed out work such as that and should know far better than I what this guys deal was. I do understand that most mechanics don't take time to wash (clean) parts they deal with, so certainly I am unusual from that point of view. The cleaner the engine bay is, the easier it seems to me that it is to work in there. But, then again, I know that some mechanics do wash dirty car parts. I think the interaction yesterday was funny (stange to me) and only want to understand his point better. Maybe I completely missed his point, or am dead wrong?

 

Hehe, don't worry. I'm one of those bigoted right wing conspiracy theorist. I enjoy following US politics because it's like a reality show. Canada's not so much because the things are much worse up here but very few people have a voice or say anything about it up here. All of our news media is publicly funded. Only ones that aren't are small independent organizations online with only enough resources to cover maybe 2-4 stories a day. Better than none but a small segment that you have to either know exists or look under rocks to find. It is very astonishing and has dropped my jaw many times seeing things unfold presently in the States.

They should enact laws to keep Women out of the work force but as my Wife and I discussed, the world would be a better place in alot of ways if Women weren't pushed so hard to go to work like Men and that they are no different than Men. Especially when there are kids at home to be raised. I agree, women in the work force en masse basically doubles the work force which gives companies the reason to essentially pay less are with more competition for the same job there is no need to pay as much to attract workers to your company... especially now that you guys have an open door at your border for everybody.

Capitalism can work great as you mentioned by used the greed of someone to better others. IE greed person has an idea and puts it into action which creates jobs on the manufacturing, service and sales side of things. If the product cost is too high, serves no use to people or just plain sucks then people wouldn't buy it causing the greedy person at the top to either have to meet the consumer in their faults with there products or go bankrupt and lose it all. I feel the government shouldn't really be subsidizing as they do today. Id they were subsidizing things in the general interest of society then I could probably get behind that but, even then i'm not sure because I feel like as soon as the government directly gets involved in something the price shoots up, the time to completion goes down and, quality decreases.. I may be cynical here but I suspect it because contractors will take advantage of the governments "endless money", lack of follow up due to a mix of how many things it's trying to do and, like my current workplace that employs my company as a contractor, lack of care by their own employees because they feel that with the amount of money the company brings in and fact that they've been captured by unions and social justice that nothing they do matters so they'll just do whatever they feel like. Especially because unless you're a contractor there is never a follow up to anything you do really. Where i'm working now has mechanics so terrible that if a guy were to only ever work here and apply somewhere else, most other companies would trash the resume immediately because of the mentality out here. The operators of the equipment will do anything to get out of work. A guy set off the fire suppression system (about $40'000-$50'000 to recharge for use again) not knowing we had to investigate the cause of deployment on the spot along with being able to plug a computer into the system which revealed he manually pressed the "push to deploy" button. Also evidenced by the broken tamper seal and door to the button open still on arrival. When the supervisor showed up he changed the story from not knowing what happened to he was cleaning the dash panel off while driving a fully loaded Komatsu 980E haul truck up a hill... the dust on the dash was completely undisturbed. Another time I show up because the blower motor isn't working. It's about 2 hours from quitting time and he's a 45 min drive through the mine away... luck had it though I was just finishing repairs on another unit around the corner. By the time I heard it on the radio he was already driving out of the mine while calling it in. I when to check it out and not only did he pull the fuse but he put the dusty cover back on and left the nice shiny fuse in the cupholder. Last example is I get a call that the nitrogen cylinder that activates the fire suppression system was missing from the cab. No problem, they're just hand tight so it probably fell off eh? Bottle was no where in the cab to be found. Only when leaving the unit did I see the bottle sitting in a berm on the opposite side of the road which told me that buddy just unscrewed it and fired it out the window. zero consequences or even a talking to for any of those guys. I largely think of government workers the same way in the sense of not being held accountable for their "work" which leads everyone to take advantage of them. Just one of the reasons I feel the government should do much less than they do.

Apparently flat rate mechanics is largely a North American thing. When my old dealership imported half our shop as foreign works because they drove out all the good guys, I was told by guys from Dubai, Philippines, Ireland and the UK that over there it primarily Guaranteed pay plus a bonus for exceeded 80%-90% efficiency which is described in automotive land as a ratio of your actual time vs warranty labour time for that job. Production is described as your time punched onto a job working vs hours in the work day. I support a system like that because you have the security of knowing what you're making along with the incentive and reward for working harder in a way thats achievable. 100% efficiency and/or production is hard to achieve because after going to get the vehicle, test driving it, bringing it into your bay, visually looking around, scanning for codes and looking for service bulletins (none of which is billable time in the flat rate world) you can easily kill 30 mins or more. Not to mention if you have to get parts and wait for them because then you're either waiting for your parts which can take another while. Especially if it's something like tires or a differential which will be brought out on a forklift. 70%-80% is usually the average efficiency of a guy doing things properly but working with a purpose after you consider all those factors. Closest I was offered by my old journeyman that went to a different dealership is 130 hours a month guaranteed or my worked flat rate hours, which ever was higher plus a 5$ per flat rate hour premium if efficiency was 110% for the whole month. Not bad but if you have a slow month because it's December or July/August when noone is bringing their vehicle in because they're either spending money on Christmas or away for summer vacation or you even just have a series of unfortunate events which put you behind on your hours, that only works out to 4 and bit hours a day of pay. Better than nothing but you'll still be having a bad time if you have alot of bills to pay and you don't have a rainy day fund ready. The company i'm working for now is largely composed of mechanics that just had enough of trying to make ends meet working flat rate. Thats not counting possible comebacks which is a vehicle returning for the same issue in a short manner. The dispatcher at the dealer I used to work at would pick favourites in the form of either having a one guy diag a job and another guy repair or vice versa with the same people. Depending on if his favourite guy wanted or liked doing the job that came from the diag. Yes it started events of guys screaming at him because by doing that you're essentially taking food off a guy's plate when he thinks he has an 8 hour job lined up just to find out the dispatcher gave the job to one of his favourites. Leaving you empty handed with maybe just an hour or two worth of pay for the diag. The issue there in relation to comebacks is you don't get paid for comebacks if it's the same issue or otherwise caused by technician error. Maybe time I got a job someone else would diag, I would do the repair they called for and often it would not fix the issue. Since diag was technically done already I can't get paid to diag it again and when the part doesn't fix it a guy has to get very creative in his writing to justify while that alone didn't fix the issue. If it's customer pay then that's how you end up pissing people off and losing their confidence in you and accusing you(rightfully so) of throwing parts at the vehicle. That was also prime time for the grifters to act. Especially once covid appeared and 12 hours on a paycheque every two weeks was pretty good because they told everyone to stay home. No one was bringing in their vehicle to get worked on. With the amount of bad mechanics that came into that shop too before I left, I feel bad for the future apprentices because not only will they have poor mentors but alot of the new guys were also quite young and don't have the diagnosing experience that the older heads acquired from working on vehicles before scan tools. I'm by no means an expert in that department but between the time I had with those guys and me enjoying working on and owning older vehicles for that purpose like my 1992 Camry I presently have, I'm usually not clueless on what to do. Some of the other journeymen that came after never even knew about things like distributers, smog pumps/secondary air injection, wasted spark ignition systems or gang fire fuel injection systems. Alot of them didn't even know how to drive stick. Automotive repair is going far down hill and it's going to take a long time if ever to come back. Especially if things continue on as they are.

I get the purpose of flat rate because in theory it should be fair because you get compensated for the work that you do. More work makes everyone including yourself more money. You motivate yourself. Real world issue is when dealer politics and the manufacture revising labour times. The labour times that are originally set are done with a brand new vehicle setup on a hoist or as otherwise needed by an engineer, using only hand tools but with everything including the parts needed laid out in front of him with the time starting when he picks up the first tool. So it's achievable but you don't start off perfectly setup like they do and if you're from a rust prone area like the maritimes, Ontario or other places where they salt the roads (Alberta just uses gravel in the winter. Our vehicles don't really rust but we have alot of ice on the roads and everyone's windshield is broken or cracked) you're gonna be fighting rust through any job that isn't an interior job. Even with interior jobs through, rust will be there if it's a vehicle from the Maritimes where there's salt in the air.

I think the best option would be a guaranteed income plus a bonus for work put out. Even if it was maybe 6 hours a day with commission for exceeding that it would be fine or Salary in general plus a commission would be fine because you have some pay cheque security but also the incentive to work for more pay. Plus a guy could even negotiate say a higher commission or higher base salary depending on many factors like when others ask for a raise at their jobs.

 

Kind of lead. The name is a little misleading. Basically it has a very lean mixture in the cylinder then a injector shots directly at the spark plug which creates a rich, easy to ignite area around it just before the fuel is at auto-ignition temperature. The spark plug then lights that small rich area around it which will raise the pressure and in turn temperature beyond the point of auto-ignition in the cylinder allowing the lean mixture elsewhere to combust. Those engines have a 16:1 compression ratio I believe. They're not quite fully compression ignition as their biggest challenge is ignition in the cold. They thought about just a glow plug instead of a spark plug but for the reliability and durability of a spark plug along with the lower NHV of having the spark plug and it pilot the combustion they run it. Mazda in my opinion advances the largest with the internal combustion engine so i'm sure in a relatively short time they will be at a point of reliable and durable fully compression ignited gas engines

 

I don't honestly know. Unless you were hitting the friction surface with the wires ? But even then i've wire brushed other cast iron parts using power tools with no issue. A wire brush also wouldn't dig in far enough to really cause issues that I can see. Especially seeing that it's being machined, I don't think that dog will hunt. Unless the flywheel to crankshaft mounting surface or pressure plate to flywheel mounting surface has rust on it though, I don't really clean flywheels beyond some brake clean and a wipe. I feel like he had to have been joshing you. The only issue i've encountered with cleaning a flywheel is that usually shortly after I brake clean the surface or if the air is humid from rain or someone washing something with water nearby, the machined surfaces will flash over with a little rust. Aside from the mounting contact locations though I usually still just install the friction disk as is because with one clutch application it'll be back to okay. If I have to leave a flywheel or pressure plate exposed for a while I'll spray or wipe some oil on the surface to prevent the rust... I know they say not to because the cast iron is porous and can absorb the oil but they also say you shouldn't use brake clean for the same reason which to me makes no sense. Along with the fact that new cast parts that aren't coated via electrostatic methods or otherwise plated come with Cosmoline or some other corrosion prevention applied for shipping that has to be cleaned off prior to use, I don't think that oil would be an issue once it's cleaned off. Especially since it'll flash rust readily again once you brake clean the oil off.

When I was fresh out of college and broke, I exploded the transmission and slave cylinder of my ranger. Shearing the bellhousing and input shaft off the transmission rending it garbage because the bellhousing was cast as a part of the rest of the case. I couldn't afford new clutch components barely could even afford a decent quality slave cylinder. I just took everything off and washed the pressure plate, flywheel and, friction disk in a bucket of soapy water with a plastic bristle brush to get the oil and brake fluid off of everything to be reused. Reset the pressure plate adjustment with some crafty methods involving heavy people and put everything back together after Frankensteining the replacement transmission I got for free because the replacement had a different shifter mounting and the transmission was equip for a speedo-cable where as my transmission had an electronic speed sensor.... 120'000kms after that everything still worked great. Only issue was somewhere along the lines of dealing with the shift tower, I must of lost my reverse switch activation rod/ball or what ever activated my switch because if you removed and manually activated the switch it worked but when installed nothing would contact it, providing me with no reverse lights