Recent content by jmansfield

The man, the myth! Did my upper and lower control arm bushings and ball joints, inner/outer tie rods, and steering rack + sway bar bushings last week with you videos. Thanks for the videos, Tim. Semi off topic but any plan on doing head gasket/head replacement video?

These are good tips. Easy enough to buy a few castle nuts and find the one that lines up. Yes, that is my understanding as well.

Replaced LBJs the other day but couldn't get castle nut to line up with cotter pin hole in bolt. Torqued to 112 ft-lb per FSM, rule of thumb is to keep tightening until they line up, so I did. For fun I kept using the torque wrench and ended up at 180 ft-lbs before the nut and bolt to lined up...

Nah, they're Bilsteins. 40k miles on the struts isn't much. Don't think it's the tires, been rotating them regularly and this problem is new. No 200lb rooftop tent, car is usually about empty. Sway bar end link replacement seemed to help slightly but didn't fix the problem. Tackling a-arm...

Got a '98 limited/4wd with 295k miles with a few suspension issues: Excessive body roll. At freeway speeds, if I slightly rock the steering wheel back and forth I can induce a dangerous resonance with the body roll. You can do this on any car to an extent, but this is bad, feels like you will...

Exactly. There is literally no other option in some mountain scenarios. I was looking around on Google Maps, here are a few of the steeper grades I've been down in California: Whitney Portal (leads to Mt Whitney trail head): 10.8% for 1.4 miles, 9.7% for 4.7 miles, overall 7.6% (4,400ft...

Do you know that for a fact on our 4Runners? Most modern cars do cut fuel for efficiency and emissions (though I don’t know about our 4Runners specifically): automotive engineering - While going downhill, does my car consume less fuel when in neutral or in gear? - Engineering Stack Exchange...

If all else is equal, more flow always makes better cooling. Always. It’s given by the equation Q=mcdT. m is mass flowrate, Q is heat. (Again, all else equal here). The thermostat will regulate flow rate rate of the coolant along with the water pump. You always have a very slight bypass of the...

Lot of bad information here... For starters... No, I’ve replaced my radiator and thermostat, I know how the cooling system works and no, the fact that I’m seeing cooler temperatures is not a sign of a greater problem. My car runs a cool 186-188 during normal operation (thermostat is 82C). It...

Maybe you don’t go down many mountain grades. There’s absolutely a reason... Regarding temps, I encourage you to try it yourself sometime, same grade once downshifted once not, you’ll get cooler temps. Not sure what speed fan clutch engages/disengages but whether it’s fan speed or water pump...

Yeah, on a day to day basis I try to have my downshifted rpm under 2500 as well. In more dire situations like coming down a mountain pass with a lot of weight I will try and stay under 3,000. Driving the car in general I accelerate gradually, don’t ever like my rpms above 3000 except for the...

I have watched on my obd ii reader that downshifting dropped coolant temps and trans temps (I have stock radiator where trans fluid is cooled inside of the coolant). The effect was substantial, the lowest coolant temps I’ve seen are during downshifting. I’m sure you can run into other...

Nobody here engine brakes on an automatic? I get that an automatic trans is a lot more complicated but i don’t see an issue with it. Manual says nothing about not doing it, and not having a direct coupling between engine and trans seems further advantageous

I haven’t gone down the I-80 but yea, same idea — long mountain grades. Coming down the 120 from Tioga Pass was a recent event

When downshifting/engine braking down a grade what rpm and/or speed are you looking at before downshifting to 2nd and 3rd? Is there a speed/rpm you avoid to put less load on the drivetrain? For me (98 automatic, 279k miles), I try to keep my downshifted rpm under 3000rpm. So I won’t downshift...