Friday, April 27, 2012

Tail Light Lenses


Have you recently experience problems with the lights on your car, either the headlights or tail light lens? Well as we all know, these lights is necessary to our car especially at night. So checking these lights is really important. Automotive tail light lenses are commonly made from a colored plastic that can fade and be easily break over time or any accident. Well for many companies that make them, they have used interchangeable lenses and for an experienced backyard mechanic can replace one lens in approximately 15 minutes so that means an average car owner can do it in at least 30 minutes to replace tail light lens.

The steps on replacing one is found anywhere on the internet. The process of actually replacing one is really short and can be done by anyone so the problem only lies is if the lens can be replaced independently or if the whole tail light should be replaced. All vehicles may differ, but most latest involve a complete replacement. For cars with separate lenses, it must be pulled out from the tail light assembly. Common parts such as rubber gasket between them that should be checked for condition and replaced if necessary.

Looking for the replacement tail light lens wouldn’t take such a long time. Again, the internet is full of resources that you can look for. Anyway, have a great weekend. Drive safely.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Shock Absorber


Since we have discussed a few things about leaf springs before, let’s now discuss about shock absorbers. Personally for me, shocks are important so it is crucial if we wouldn’t know what kind of shocks to choose and what brand specifically. We should not be careless when it comes to proper car handling cause most drivers tend to not discern when a shocks is about to fail because this change happens progressively over a period of time.

So to proceed, first you need to know what type of shocks you have. Many shocks are “twin tube” built-design. There are also “gas charged” that are more durable and won’t be needed to be replaced quite as often. But the best and suited for high performance applications, the Monotube shocks. So once you determine what type of shock you would want to have, you can now browse for brands of shocks. Personally, I would recommend Monroe shocks. And so far, it is yet to be the best shocks that I have used. But I won’t be biased since there are few brands out there that offer good quality like Monroe shocks. You could also try Edelbrock shocks, Bilsteins shocks and Summit shocks. These are the brands of shock absorbers that most car owners go for. So after you looked for what brand to get, look for when you can buy one. Look for retailers. Be sure to check first different website before buying cause you’ll never know, you might miss a good deal from another website since you didn’t check it out.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Where To Buy Leaf Springs Replacement


I recently posted a tip and shortcut on how to replace leaf spring. It may vary since vehicles don’t have the same system or design, but the whole idea of it is just the same. It may add a certain step or two, but nonetheless it can be used by anyone to replace their own leaf springs to their cars or trucks. Well of course, it would be easier if one owns the tools that are required to do the job. So the reason why I follow up with this post is that I was thinking that I posted steps on how to replace the leaf springs just by yourself but I forgot to somehow mention where to look for one if someone is in need to change it.

Now it has been my habit to post websites here that could be of help to car enthusiasts since I know how it feels to be ripped off by some mechanic or ‘stealership’ when it comes to buying parts and letting them replace it. You guys can go ahead and check out thepartsbin.com if you would like to see reasonable prices for car parts, specifically the leaf springs that I had discussed with you on the previous post.

So yeah, hope the DIY I posted helped out somebody and hope someone as well saved some cash in buying car parts. Have a great day ahead of you guys.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Tips On How To Replace Leaf Springs.


Replacing car parts may sometime gives us headache. But even if it tough and difficult to change auto parts in our cars, it is still needs to be done. And changing leaf springs is not different when replacing other parts. It will need time and patience to do so. So is there a shortcut on how to replace one? More specifically, can leaf spring/s be changed in your garage, without screwing up any alignment? Is it okay to use old shackles or is a new whole setup needed? Or is it a better idea to go to a dealership and let them replace it for you? Here are short tips on how you can replace it all by yourself.

First off, you should have at least the proper tool for doing this. So you would be needing a torch and compressor. If you don’t own one, you can still replace your leaf springs, it might just get harder to do. So you would need to put jack that stands under the frame, also under the rear end. Unbolt the shock and the 4 U-bolt nuts. Now, you won’t need to take out the U-bolts off the axle tubes. Then pull the shock plate off. Loosen the rear shackle nut and work the spring off the shackle. With this, you can now let the spring to come all the way down so that you can remove the 3/4" nut located at the front spring mount. You should be cautious with this step, so you need to wrench on the bolt head to keep it from spinning. The springs now can come out, reverse to get the new one in replaced.

And to add, do one side at a time. To make things easier as the axle assembly stays stable, do not remove both springs at the same time. So with these steps, it will just take 3 hours max. Now there might be additional step since it would depend on what type of vehicle you are replacing leaf springs with but nonetheless, it would take the same step.