Something Rick said in this thread gave me pause: He referred to “an experienced shade tree mechanic.”
Now, I like to think of myself as kinda handy around cars. I’ve replaced clutches, I have a 472 from my Eldorado almost finished in the garage (rebuild from top to bottom, but I haven’t started it up yet), I’ve done brakes, axles, gaskets of all sorts, replaced a head, various supension pieces, turbos, set timing, and more.
But man, I am glad that the real mechanics are out there for when I screw things up or need a lot of diagnositc experience. Like this weekend: I did a whole bunch of stuff to a Civic, including replaceing an oil pan gasket, both axles, front brakes, exhaust manifold and cat, and now it’s making a horrible noise that I can’t figure out. My friendly neighborhood garage will have to look it.
So, my question to the gpeople who do this stuff for a living: What do you consider an “experienced shadetree mechanic”? Is there a litmus test that someone needs to pass in order to be considered vaguely worthy by the pros?
It’s a tad intimidating that even the crappiest of professional mechanics make me look like I don’t know the end of a wrench from a hole in the ground.
To me, shade tree mechanic means one that started working on it before he had access to a garage, and therefore had to work under a shade tree. I would consider a “professional shade tree mechanic” to be one that started when they were younger, and have progressed to the point of having their own garage.
Good thing for preview post, I accidently wrote “steel tree mechanic”. Haha!
::: Lays down test:::
Here is your test, it is 100 questions you have 90 minutes, you may begin.
I kid, I kid.
Based on what you have posted in your OP, I would say you qualify.
Actually I ran into more want-to-bes when I was managing a parts house then when I was a technician. This included some guys that owned shops. :smack:
You want to be accepted as a semi-pro/advanced shade treer? Off the top of my head:
[ul]
[li]RTFB Read the frickin book. The very first job I ever did on a car was when my dad’s old truck had a bad starter. I asked if I could do the replacement. I went to the library and read both the Chiltons and Motors on that car and made some Xerox copies. Got the job done too[/li][li]Learn the name of the parts. What-ma-callet doesn’t cut it. Furthermore your car has brakes, it does not have breaks.[/li][li]Learn something about how the various systems work. You don’t have to know it all, but if you are working on a system is will make your life much easier if you understand how it is supposed to work [/li][li]Own (and use) a torque wrench. Understand why.[/li][li]Don’t try and bullshit the us. I once had a kid tell me he was going to hop up his Datsun 4 cylinder L motor by sawing off the last two cylinders off of a 240Z 6 cylinder L motor “Like the real racers do”. All three of us laughed him straight out of the store.[/li]Or if your prefer my favorite quote from the movie Mr. Mom
“Ron Richardson: Yeah? Are you gonna make it all 220?
Jack Butler: Yeah. 220… 221, whatever it takes. "
[li]Don’t break bolts from over tighting them[/li][li]If you do break them learn how to extract them[/li][li]Own a tap and die set[/li][li]Along the same lines, it’s righty tighty, left loosey. Write it down if you have to. I once had a car towed in because the owner’s son wanted to tune it up. He forgot which way to turn the spark plug and broke it in half inside the head. :eek: [/li][li]NO crossthreads. No matter what you have been told, it is not a tight thread.[/li][li]Own and know how to use a digital multimeter.[/li][li]Exhaust your other source and understand how to ask intellegent questions. I once had a guy ask me what I gapped the spark plugs at on a Volvo. My answer was 0.032”. He protested that the book said 0.028" (At this point I started to get just a mite testy, it was a bad day) I said “Sir you asked me what I gap them at, not what the factory spec was. Now if you would like to know why I gap my plugs this way, I will be happy to explain, but if you were just playing 20 questions I have work to do.” Now if he had asked me did I gap my plus at the factory setting or did I use a different gap, I would have been more than happy to talk to him for a few minutes.[/li][/ul]
If you master all or a good portion of the above*, the only thing many pros will have over you is more tools and they are faster.
On and one last thing
If you fucked it up, admit it. I respect a person that will admit they made a mistake. I despise snakes that try to make it somebody elses fault. If you bring a car to me and say, man I screwed up, I was trying to install the new muffler bearing and I broke this bolt. I will have no problem. If you tell the the jackhole in Sweden designed the muffler bearing wrong (esp is I have changed 5 them in the last week with zero problems) then you are a snake.
So when you take the Civic in, tell the guy what work you did and say I must have screwed something up. I don’t know what, but it is making this funny noise. Can you help me?
*Except for breaks. Breaks means you are hopeless.
There’s not a litmus test or a judgment of worthiness. “Shadetree mechanic” is just a specific category of do-it-yourselfer. Substitute " experienced do-it-yourselfer" in Rick’s post and you may see it’s not a matter of rating someone, rather (in the case in the linked post) suggesting that this job isn’t a good place for the inexperienced to start.
Well, this makes me feel a lot better, then. (I even own a tap and die set ;)). I definitely don’t understand all of the systems in a modern automobile, and that mkay be where I am lacking. An EGR system with all the vacuum hoses gives me fits.
I still get intimidated by the amount of diagnostic skill that most real mechanics have, though. The fact that they can listen to something, and know what to check, impresses me. I do know how to troubleshoot, and can think about things in a logical order, so I am able to do some diagnosis, but when Rick or GaryT posts up about something in GQ, and with just a few hints is able to grasp the problem? That’s really cool.
I’m definitely not shy about screwing something up. If I bring a car into a mechanic and ask them to take a look at it, I assume they are going to be able to tell that someone did something wrong, so there’s no point in hiding anything. Plus, the more info I give them, the faster they can diagnose, and the cheaper it is for me.
Thanks for all the responses. I guess I should just keep doing what I’m doing, and maybe in 20 years I’ll be somewhat clueful. One big advantage that I have is that I’m willing to try things out, and pay to fix the consequenses, be they broken parts or issues with what I’ve done. If I only had one car that was my daily driver, I’d be more hesitant to try things. On the downside, I don’t work on cars every single day, so experience is much slower in coming.
Look, most mechanics don’t understand every system in the car. Hell I don’t know everything about every system. But let’s say you have a car that is running rich when warmed up.
If you haven’t looked at any information about how the system works, you might replace the RPM sensor. I seriously doubt that this will fix your problem. If on the other hand you looked at a Motors Manual or a Chiltons manual etc, you would have learned that when warm the mixture is controlled by the coolant temp sensor, the mass airflow sensor, and the O2 sensor. AT least now you are shooting with a full choke shotgun, not a blunderbuss.
That skill is oftem times just a really good memory. The reason we recall it is because we got the crap beat out of us the first time. This is the problem of using experience as a teacher, you get the punishment before you get the lesson. Using logic will fix more cars that wrenches ever will.
You are a very smart man.
I think you are probably a lot more clueful that you give yourself credit for.
My main problem when I worked on my car was getting the right parts. I remember once replacing a broken clutch cable on a vw beetle. It was an inch short and I brought it back to the dealership. They swore up and down it was the right part and I wasn’t installing it correctly. I finally brought it to a mechanic who saw immediately that it was the wrong part. I explained what had happened and he said “I’ve been in business thirty years and that still happens to me”. It was the rare part that did not require at least one extra trip to the dealer. Most of the time they would admit the mistake, but not always.
Mind you, this was back in the seventies. It is possible, what with computers & everything that things are better now, but I wouldn’t bet my lungs on it.
For the OP - you’ve changed out a whole bunch of parts that can make odd noises. What sort of noise is bugging you?
Is it the screams of an oil-deprived engine because oil wasn’t put back in after dropping the pan and changing its gasket?
Exhaust noises from missing a clamp? Banging while in motion from missing a hanger?
Clacking of a bad CV joint? Yes, replacement parts can be bad, especially with rebuilt parts as axles often are.
Brakes occasionally seem noisy at first until all the parts nestle back home. If applicable to this car, you did screw the caliper pistons all the way back in, right? (I used to have a Subaru that would howl terribly if you only screwed them back in enough for the new pads to clear.)
Oh, and one thing I learned some years ago - it may be best to do one job at a time, take a test drive, then go to the next job, rather than doing it all at once.
Heh, so it’s “diagnose the Civic” time?
The noise is a high-pitches metal-against-metal sound. It sounded exacty like the heat shielding of the catalytic converter was rubbing again something. And looking around, the heat shielding was right against a metal brace.
I removed all the mani/cat heat shielding, but no change in the sound. That is exactly what it sounds like, though, a tinny, rattly, squealy sound.
Some datapoints: The car makes the noise moving or not. It make the noise in every gear (this is an automatic). Revving the engine changes the tone of the sound (it becomes more squealy and higher pitched, but it is irregular, and not a smooth progression of sound). There is no leaking fluid (either tranny fluid from the axles or oil from the oil pan gasket). There is sufficient oil, although of the wrong grade – more on that in a second – and sufficient transmission fluid.
Based on what I have done, I am thinking five possibilities:
-Something is still rattling, and I’m just not seeing it.
-There’s an exhaust leak, despite the correct torque on all the bolts I have worked with.
-Something is wrong with the interfaces between the axles and ther transmission inside the transmission. I have never worked on an automatic tranny before, and I don’t know if there would be movement inside it even when in Park.
-Something is wrong with the oil pump getting the needed oil, and it’s making a horrible noise sucking on air (the car does not have an oil pressure gauge)
-Or, the incorrect weight in oil is causing issues. Napa tells me that the correct weight oil for this application is 5w20, but the oil cap says 5w30. I used 5w20. I doubt this is the problem, because I think the difference between 20 and 30 weight is just in the optimal temp categories. Since it’;s been about 40-50F when doing my testing, I’d be surprised if this was an issue.
I think that a first step, after going over the whole thing again to ensure no rattly bits, would be to remove one of the axles and look for wear. Without knowing anything about an auto tranny, though (one of my knowledge holes), I don’t know if that is a good path to go down. It’s a lot of work to take it out, and the tranny is already full of fluid, so that means another drain and fill. Blech.
Then you can eliminate anything related to the transmission, drive axles, and brakes.
First, try to locate the sound. If you can narrow it down to a geographical area, that may really help. Of course, it’s not always easy or even possible because of the way noises sometimes travel.
Since it sounds like it might be exhaust-related, dampen (as in muffle - press with a tool, or your hand wrapped in a thick towel) all the exhaust parts you can reach. If the noise stops/changes, you’ve found it. Also check suspect exhaust parts with a stethoscope (a screwdriver works fine - ear to the handle, tip to the work). It could even be a loose baffle inside an exhaust part.
I have never heard an exhaust leak that sounds like the noise described.
I can’t see it being oil viscosity. It might be related to the oil pump pickup if it was disturbed - removed & replaced, knocked, bent, whatever. Try the stethoscope to the oil pan.
2nd on a belt tensioner or alternator or power steering pump.
Also the engine can make very serious loud mechanical noises if no oil is circulating. It is very easy to diagnose though. Start the engine, remove the oil cap. If oil droplets come flying out of the filer neck and land on everything esp. your glasses, you oil pump is working. If it is dry as a bone, Huston we have a problem. If you still aren’t sure, look in the engine of somebody elses Honda. BTW after you did the oil pan gasket, you didn’t have an oil pickup tube laying on your bench anywhere did you? Also if you did distrub the oil pickup, did you make sure that you got the gasket or o-ring back in place?
how much sealer and what kind did you use on the pan gasket? I saw an engine once that had a knock cold. Turned out the pickup was part way plugged with RTV form a gasket.
Most likely the noise is the exhaust. Follow Gary T’s suggestions.
Thanks for the suggestions! I will get right on them (well, OK, probably not this weekend, as it’s predicted to be snowy, and my garage is full of two other cars that are “in process” right now. ;)).
I am glad to know that I don’t need to remove any more axles. I didn’t touch the oil pickup as far as I know. I used an OEM gasket, and some copper RTV on it when putting back the pan. I was pretty careful not to get any anywhere it should go, but I guess it’s possible. I’ll check to see if I get any “goggles-splatter” when the car is running with the oil pan off.
I tapped around with my screwdriver before posting this thread, actually, and did not notice any appreciable difference in sound, but I will check again.
The sounds SEEMS like it coming from the bottom half of the engine, which could mean either the connection between the cat and the header pipe, or between the header pipe and the midpipe. I’ll check them both more thoroughly. Bottom of the engine could also mean the oil pickup, so I will confirm there is oil flowing to the engine.
I really aprreciate the help, and will report back on what I learn.
