10 minutes into the LBJ job and this happens...

[T4R2014]

I'm cheap so I use WD40 a week before & then the night before. All 8 bolts came out easily with an impact & I live in the rust belt. My LBJ's had 153,000 when I changed them.

I think spraying it often before the job works the best regardless of product used. The hard part is remembering to spray things daily. Otherwise I've had some awful looking bolts come out smooth as butter.

With that said, I hate working on my cars now so I'm just handing mine over to my mechanic to redo my front end. Too lazy... :frusty:

 

[amalik]

I think spraying it often before the job works the best regardless of product used. The hard part is remembering to spray things daily. Otherwise I've had some awful looking bolts come out smooth as butter.

With that said, I hate working on my cars now so I'm just handing mine over to my mechanic to redo my front end. Too lazy... :frusty:

I feel you on that. I paid a local Toyota guy $80 to do my starter contacts+plunger after I wasn't starting up right and diagnosed it to that.

Best damn $80 I ever spent considering my garage was like 50 degrees at the time I needed this crap to get done last week.

 

[Scramble]

I feel you on that. I paid a local Toyota guy $80 to do my starter contacts+plunger after I wasn't starting up right and diagnosed it to that.

Best damn $80 I ever spent considering my garage was like 50 degrees at the time I needed this crap to get done last week.

If 50* was the coldest it got around here, I could work like that outside.

 

[I_bRAD]

If 50* was the coldest it got around here, I could work like that outside.

Haha, yeah. I actually replaced my starter contacts this past winter and I highly doubt my garage was >50.

That said, 80bucks is a decent deal.

 

[T4R2014]

I feel you on that. I paid a local Toyota guy $80 to do my starter contacts+plunger after I wasn't starting up right and diagnosed it to that.

Best damn $80 I ever spent considering my garage was like 50 degrees at the time I needed this crap to get done last week.

That's a surprising deal. Shops prefer to change the whole starter for warranty reasons. I can totally relate though, especially when the job stops going like the YouTube video does and you start to wonder if it was worth saving $80 because you are now stuck with a vehicle that might not work and your plans to hang out that night are down the shitter.

Never again.

 

[johnbyebye]

That's a surprising deal. Shops prefer to change the whole starter for warranty reasons. I can totally relate though, especially when the job stops going like the YouTube video does and you start to wonder if it was worth saving $80 because you are now stuck with a vehicle that might not work and your plans to hang out that night are down the shitter.

Never again.

Been there done that. They say time is money and these days I don't have a lot of time.

 

[diverscale]

I can't speak for all cordless impacts, but I've done the suspension on my truck, suspension on the Porsche, crankshaft bolt, fan bolt on the Porsche and a large number of other odd jobs, and the thing never broke a sweat. But yeah, air tools are better, I guess?

You live in miami. In the rusty area, cordless impacts are worthless for the bigger rusty bolts.

 

[amalik]

That's a surprising deal. Shops prefer to change the whole starter for warranty reasons. I can totally relate though, especially when the job stops going like the YouTube video does and you start to wonder if it was worth saving $80 because you are now stuck with a vehicle that might not work and your plans to hang out that night are down the shitter.

Never again.

Yeah, well $65/hr for a shop rate is the lowest I've ever found, and that's only because the owner is a family friend we've known for many years, otherwise his rate is $100/hour like any other shop.

The $80 I paid is because the guy wasn't a shop; he is a full-time mechanic for the gubment fixing USPS vans and just does Toyota work on the side out of his house.

I laughed at your "stops going like the youtube video" comment too. Makes you think about [MENTION=120071]mtbtim[/MENTION] and how everything always seems to go perfect for him and Sean, lol. I'm sure they edit out all the hiccups along the way.

My biggest fear is working on a job at home that you mess up so bad you have to tow the vehicle to a real mechanic, lol.

We definitely live in an age of illusion. We think because we see something on YouTube, it must be doable by us too. Sometimes it's the case, but sometimes it really isn't.

 

[amalik]

Been there done that. They say time is money and these days I don't have a lot of time.

29 is one of those fun ages. I don't know what keeps you busy, but at that age (2 years ago for me, lol) -- I had gotten a house, and wife and I had a kid on the way.

I thought I knew what "no time" meant before a kid. I definitely had no idea.

 

[mtbtim]

I laughed at your "stops going like the youtube video" comment too. Makes you think about [MENTION=120071]mtbtim[/MENTION] and how everything always seems to go perfect for him and Sean, lol. I'm sure they edit out all the hiccups along the way.

My biggest fear is working on a job at home that you mess up so bad you have to tow the vehicle to a real mechanic, lol.

We definitely live in an age of illusion. We think because we see something on YouTube, it must be doable by us too. Sometimes it's the case, but sometimes it really isn't.

You're right. We do edit out a lot of struggles because our videos would be even longer than they already are. But, many times we put the struggles in but fast forward them to let the viewer know we struggled with that part of the repair/mod.

What we try to do though is let people know where we struggled and how we overcame it so the viewer will hopefully benefit and have an easier time than we did.

It's my belief that a mechanically inclined person with the right knowledge and right tools can be just as successful as a paid mechanic. And, like many have experienced first hand, paid mechanics screw things up too. They're just screwing it up while charging you $100+/hour. We've got a lot of great DIY mechanics on this forum that I'd trust working on my rig. There are specialized areas of auto mechanics like doing engine rebuilds and transmission rebuilds that are probably better left to the expert who does it day in and day out, but many areas of auto mechanics are not that complicated and can be handled by the DIYer who's willing to learn and invest in some tools.

Struggles are a normal thing with auto mechanics but you overcome them and keep wrenching along. I do feel sorry for people who live in the rust belts of the country. I'd hate to have to PB Blast every single fastener and plan on stripping and breaking bolts every time I wanted to do some wrenching. I think that would take some of the fun out of it for me.

So far, Sean and I have been successful with every repair and mod that we've taken on. Is there anything special about us. No, there isn't. This is the whole point. You don't have to be a mechanical guru to do auto mechanics and it's Sean's and my hope that the videos we're putting out are helping inspire people to tackle their own repairs to save themselves some money and learn about auto mechanics in the process.

 

[T4R2014]

29 is one of those fun ages. I don't know what keeps you busy, but at that age (2 years ago for me, lol) -- I had gotten a house, and wife and I had a kid on the way.

I thought I knew what "no time" meant before a kid. I definitely had no idea.

Haha. I don't even have a wife or a kid. I invested in the tools and learned a bunch as a kid. I even worked in a shop over the summer. But I'm almost done with a degree and so done with sacrificing weekends to do some DIY tasks. No more dirty black hands for me.

 

[Kyngfish]

You live in miami. In the rusty area, cordless impacts are worthless for the bigger rusty bolts.

Thanks for the tip? I do about half the year in SW PA in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains - where I have another Milwaukee cordless, I'll be sure to let it know it isn't working out.

 

[thegipper]

My Milwaukee Fuel cordless impact is an absolute monster. It's rated at like 1100ft/lbs. I would put it against just about any garage mechanics pneumatic.

Not all cordless impacts are created equal. If you buy a good one, it should be able to blast off any bolt/nut you can find. At least mine has....

 

[Kyngfish]

My Milwaukee Fuel cordless impact is an absolute monster. It's rated at like 1100ft/lbs. I would put it against just about any garage mechanics pneumatic.

Not all cordless impacts are created equal. If you buy a good one, it should be able to blast off any bolt/nut you can find. At least mine has....

Agreed - for what it's worth, I think Kroil and any of the newer gen brushless cordless impact wrenches are pretty much alright for just about anything. I know several professional mechanics that use them all day long every day.

If you put them side by side, an air tool will do more, but that's like saying 1000 horsepower is better than 600 horsepower - do you really need it? The added benefit of being able to put it almost anywhere, and tackle projects on the side of the road is just icing on the cake. I have two - the half inch FUEL, and the 3/8 FUEL Compact version. Honestly for 90% of work, the compact version is where it's at.

 

[thegipper]

Unless you shell out some serious money for a high end air impact, the high end cordless impacts will out perform most pneumatic impacts. They both have their ups and downs for sure.

Plus I got my M18 Fuel 1/2" impact for $250 bucks on sale with a battery/charger. $250 won't even get you a big enough compressor for a good air impact. I laugh when I see people using a 10 gallon 3.0 cfm air compressor trying to run an impact.....

 

[johnbyebye]

29 is one of those fun ages. I don't know what keeps you busy, but at that age (2 years ago for me, lol) -- I had gotten a house, and wife and I had a kid on the way.

I thought I knew what "no time" meant before a kid. I definitely had no idea.

It's mainly work. I want to enjoy my rig on the weekends instead of working on it and not being able to use it. Lol.