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-   -   What have you done to your car today? (http://www.astinagt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11436)

rodhog 27-03-2008 12:19 AM

bunny hopping hurts usually stock engine mounts. but they have flex

I run solid mounts - stright to my frame.
I bunny hop it on the odd time I'm falling asleep. It wakes you up.
but here is the thing.

on my front radiator engine mount that bolts to frame to are fine but all the bolts on the gearbox keep falling out. So I had to lock tight them in - with hi strength as plain lock tight would not do.
So think about that engine mount.

on a RWD - it's suspension and rear diff mounts or panhard rod or even rear gearbox input shaft.
Stock clutch and open car park with witches hats or some sort of non damaging items is best to stop it. They will learn better then on the road.

I had to learn on or at least R-learn on a 5 puck clutch. but as all my cars run heavy clutches I run always slip stock full face ones too much.

Dogo 27-03-2008 08:59 AM

I've broken the front left steering arm.
Not sure if its snapped or come loose from the knuckle.
Luckily I was parking at the time, not driving !
I turned it to full lock and 'CLUNK' , now the wheel isn't responding to the steering wheel.
I can see the end of the arm hanging in mid air , and can turn the wheel by hand.

Waiting for a tow truck as I write.
Getting a car as low as mine onto a tow truck is going to be interesting ...

:(

Putonyourshoes 27-03-2008 09:21 AM

that sucks man. lucky it was while parking! hope you get it sorted.

Rupewrecht 27-03-2008 09:31 AM

Fark dave! Lucky it didn't happen at speed.

marcs_sp20 27-03-2008 09:42 AM

Can anyone say SCRAPE :(. Thats going to be a handful getting it onto a towtruck me thinks...

Dogo 27-03-2008 10:36 AM

... and still waiting !

wet weather has overloaded the tow company with crashed cars.
good thing I brought my work laptop with me last night :)

I suppose it'll need an alignment now too before I get it back on the road

Rupewrecht 27-03-2008 10:52 AM

You should be adjusting your coilovers up!

Dogo 27-03-2008 10:58 AM

good idea.

want to bring me a jack ? lol

Rupewrecht 27-03-2008 11:13 AM

Ahh...nope, haven't got one in my car either lol

Putonyourshoes 27-03-2008 11:17 AM

go loooking for things to help it on a ramp. or ask someone for a jack hahaha have fun with that one mate.

phly 27-03-2008 02:44 PM

I installed some ngk iridium spark plugs into my car on the weekend. I dont think theres any difference whatsoever. Hopefully itll have better fuel consumption in the long run to pay the 60 odd bucks off I paid for them LOL

spedwards 27-03-2008 02:50 PM

Here's hoping to save more than $40 in fuel between now and the next time you change them ;)

Dogo 27-03-2008 02:52 PM

car is home. Ive got new scrapes on the front bar but they blend in with the others.

rodhog 28-03-2008 02:02 AM

When problems arise like that - old cars - you shoudl do all the bits

from Ball joints to bushes.

I've never done a steering linkage - because I'm runing ATX steering setup on manual shafts.

but it's amazingly easy how you can kill a ball joint and not even notice.

most of mine is over done and when the last one went only noticed when I checked it on the hoist.

but had due to al lthe virbration in the car -you can't feel it at 60-80kmh

Lawsy 28-03-2008 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spedwards (Post 161586)
Here's hoping to save more than $40 in fuel between now and the next time you change them ;)

The fact that he wont have to replace them for nearly 3 times the duration of normal spark plugs will help as well... just take them out and give them a clean up every 15 thou and they'll last ages.
Oh, and I drove to UNI in my Astina today.. Does that count?

This isn't exactly today, but I only found the thread now, so meh...
Be prepared for a long read if you're interested in lights on a BG and how to get around certain legalities regarding hi beams if you want to use projectors....
Lately, I have been totally obsessed with lights. Read: HID's, LEDs and making them perfect.



Situation and/or problem. (bourbon I'm looking at you).

You have a BG Astina and you want/have projector lenses with HIDs (they rock, you DO want these). Thus, you wont/don't have hi beams anymore from the main assembly. You'll also find that if you flick hi beams on, the low beams turn off (since there are two filaments in a H4, and both shouldn't be run at the same time under most conditions, which is why they are wired this way).

Solution.
Part 1.
I have spotlights. Win.
I have also used some engineering trickery to have my lo beams stay on when hi beam is selected.

I have 3 relay's and a capacitor installed to run my headlights. I've made an AND and an OR gate from three relays in order to have my low beams stay on if either hi or lo beam is selected. Lo beams stay as normal. On off, see the genius?
Now, for high beam, projectors stay on and spotties come on, resulting in ownage, with semi normal hi beams again. When I get HID's for my spotties, you better look out, cause if I hi beam you for 5 seconds strait (the time it takes for HIDs to get to max brightness) you'll die from the photons cutting through your eyes and melting your brain.
The capacitor is used to keep the HIDs on for a short period of time, as HIDs don't like igniting on and off quickly, this helps against accidents or switchgear problems (so it eliminates any flickering during switching).

Next post, part two of my little bogan lighting fun.

Lawsy 28-03-2008 12:38 PM

Solution
Part 2.


I'm working on a new linkage setup so that my low beams have the headlights sit down about an inch, almost with a bit of a sleepy eye look (but the lens focussed high, resulting in normal focal point) and pop up to normal height with high beams on (results in HID projectors dominating the retina's of the Camry drivers cutting me off).
Heres how.

Skip this first paragraph if you know how the linkage for pop up headlights work in an Astina

If you look at the linkage in a BG, the motor responsible for driving the headlight assembly has a small inch long cranking/moment arm. This is connected to a 3.5 inch linkage (think crankshaft - conrod). This linkage attaches half way up on a four inch swing arm, which moves in fixed axis rotation. The base (pivot point) of this swing arm is roughly on the same horizontal plane as the center of the crank. This swing arm has a 5 or so inch linkage at the top that is connected to the headlight assembly. This point of the headlight assembly is around 4.5 inches from the pivot point (the 'pop up' pivot point). If you can picture all this, its a crankshaft moving a lever, and the lever doubles the resulting motion before connecting to the assembly, since the driving motion of this lever is half way up a lever (which moves a short swing in circular motion) and the driven motion double, which doubles the movement... Right? Right...

Ok here goes.

I'm working on making a crank/moment arm from the headlight motor that is less than half of the current length (instantly halving the total movement of the headlight assembly, closer to 40% is what I'm aiming for). I'll be drilling a new hole and connecting the 1st linkage higher up on the lever arm, thus reducing the total movement of this arm (now total movement is about 10-15%). I'll then increase and/or decrease the other linkages in order to have the top point the same as the current top point (bit of machine dynamics coming in handy).
Thus, the electronics controlling the headlight assembly don't have to be modified, other than to connect the switch to my hi beams. So the motor does its normal rotation to the down position (sleepy eye position) and fully rotates up to its high position. All I have to do is change the height of the bump stops in the assembly to prevent any vibration. Which is fairly easy.

Tricky eh? Its a fair amount of work, and I haven't started yet, but I enjoy doing this sort of thing so it doesn't bother me.
If you want to know how I wired up the relays, just ask and I'll scan up a circuit diagram. Its really, really simple.

All my external lights are now LED, all but the reversing lights (couldn't be bothered, they're rarely seen). They all look tops now; I'll never have to replace them again either.

Yes I leave my lights up all the time, otherwise water gets into them (I park facing downhill, no seal works in this situation when it gets really wet). So I just leave them up...
See what I mean by obsessed though? I'm spending more money that I don't have on lighting, when I could probably get a 300 dollar DOHC motor from a wreckers with the money I would have saved; and at least started to pull it down...
IDIOT!!!

Argh back to lectures :(

walterkramer 28-03-2008 11:30 PM

today done a wheel alignement on my car front and rear checked under car
no spiders good went test drive after wheel alignement up browns plains road
no cops he he he back to work

DavoAust 29-03-2008 12:23 AM

Lawsy we'll have to have a shootout, your lights vs my white 55W lows, 70W high and rally style 100W spotlights. yes, its overkill :D

what i did? traced a bum speaker wire connection.

karamello 29-03-2008 03:14 AM

what have i done to my astina lately?

sent it to heaven...thats what i did :(

FEM 29-03-2008 12:13 PM

i have given my car a service.

flushed engine
new oil filter
new fuel filter
new oil
new g.box oil
degrease.
new plugs
new leads
dizzy cap and rotor
de carb
cleaned intake
adjusted CAI

i gave it a clean too, just a quick one..


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