What Did You Do To Your Car Today?

[blur911]

I changed the alternator in the Honda Pilot today.  It flashed once for a few seconds after hitting a puddle on the way down, sometime around dark in the middle of a holiday weekend, somewhere near Rimouski, then was good again for a week or so.
A few days ago it started flashing again and getting more frequent, it was on about half the time when I finally got organized.   I'm in NB and don't have all my tools, was looking for a local garage to do it, couldn't find one in a timely manner, so I did it myself.

[RRocket]

I changed the alternator in the Honda Pilot today.  It flashed once for a few seconds after hitting a puddle on the way down, sometime around dark in the middle of a holiday weekend, somewhere near Rimouski, then was good again for a week or so.
A few days ago it started flashing again and getting more frequent, it was on about half the time when I finally got organized.   I'm in NB and don't have all my tools, was looking for a local garage to do it, couldn't find one in a timely manner, so I did it myself.

Tough or easy job?

[blur911]

I changed the alternator in the Honda Pilot today.  It flashed once for a few seconds after hitting a puddle on the way down, sometime around dark in the middle of a holiday weekend, somewhere near Rimouski, then was good again for a week or so.
A few days ago it started flashing again and getting more frequent, it was on about half the time when I finally got organized.   I'm in NB and don't have all my tools, was looking for a local garage to do it, couldn't find one in a timely manner, so I did it myself.

Tough or easy job?

Fairly easy, but a tight fit.  You have to drain and remove the power steering reservoir and coolant overflow to get access.  Had to do a bit of filing to get it to fit into place.

[Firm]

After 20 years and 308K kms the original air compressor for the rear air levelling system in the Escalade packed it in on Wednesday. Got the Dorman replacement and installed it in about an hour on Saturday - pretty simple job. This new one sounds much quieter too, so that's nice.

Today I got motivated to take the Blue 78 MGB out and installed new front shocks and tie-rod ends I had for it. Also pretty straightforward work, other than having to DIY align it. The alignment was out when I started, because the tie rods were bad, got the old jack-stand and string setup out and had it aligned pretty decent within maybe 45 minutes. Took it for a good ~30 mile run afterwards, car runs amazing. Does need tires though...these are from the 80's (!!) and get a little squirly above 60mph. Probably going to swap the SuperLite from the white car onto this and get new tires for them.

[Bridgecity]

^ Nice work Firm!

I did the transmission fluid on the kids Mazda 3 on Sunday.  He wasn't around and I had some time at home so it was a solo job.  It was straightforward, no issues encountered.  I drained the fluid, pulled the pan, cleaned the RTV silicone from the pan and mating surface, swapped the internal filter, and put it back together.  I used a gasket for the pan that comes with the internal filter, rather than RTV.  Fluid looked OK, no terrible burnt smell.  Pan was actually really clean except for the magnet that had a thin coating of sludge. 

Mazda doesn't call for any maintenance on the transmission fluid but glad I did it.  I'll plan on doing drain and fills from here on out.  Kid doesn't put many kms on so may not have to do it again before he's done University and gets something else.  The car currently has 174k km. 

[Firm]

Nice! I need to do the SLK trans service soon....old Mercedes "sealed for death" system, its working fine, but I imagine  it's on the original fluid, but only 80K miles.

[Bridgecity]

Ya I find the Mazda "no maintenance" requirement odd.  Easily accessible drain plug and dipstick tube for draining/filling/checking.