Several times today I searched for how to do a particular thing on my car. All the results were auto-generated websites with tons of ads and filler text but no real information on what I'm looking to do.
Peabody said:Peabody said:I wanted to race Monday so I took the race bike - the one I built over the winter out for some practice laps. Right away I knew something was wrong and the motor has to come apart.
On a bright note, I discovered the reason for the excessive vibration was not a broken piston, or bottom end bearing like I suspected. It was two loose motor mounts. I tore it down anyway, because two stroke, and being a very aggressively ported and timed 15.5-1 compression engine, I wanted to look for signs of detonation, or wear, and it looks and measures like the day I built it.
But wait, there's more!
There were a few other things going on with the way it was running. I had been tuning, and, while I'm normally pretty good at tuning two stroke race bikes, I seem to be making a lot of bad decisions this year. So I reset everything back to known good settings. It fixed the problems, and holy carp this thing is an absolute rocket.
And, it got away from me and I went down like a ton of bricks. I'm not racing Monday and, unless something changes, probably not the rest of the year.
TravisTheHuman said:Several times today I searched for how to do a particular thing on my car. All the results were auto-generated websites with tons of ads and filler text but no real information on what I'm looking to do.
I have been using Grok3 for all of my searches and it's been working great, with no ads, but I do have to pay for the app
In reply to Peabody :
Hopefully not taking the season off due to a serious injury
As I mentioned in an earlier rant where I was almost run over by a neighbor, I live in a corner house at a 4 way stop in a decidedly residential intersection.
I like to give our three legged dog some outdoor time to watch the world go by, bork at cats and Amazon trucks, and cry for every human to pet her, and the sheer number of vehicles blowing through this stop sign boggles my mind. To top that off, two wheel scooters have infiltrated the neighborhood, and both adults and children (sometimes parents and children together) are blowing through the intersection from the cross street at speed higher than the limit for the street on the street and/or the sidewalk. (none on my lawn thankfully)
I feel an accident is imminent, and it isn't going to be a good day for a couple families.
ShawnG said:TravisTheHuman said:I hope one day right-to-repair agreements mandate jack points for vehicles that are independent of jack stands. So many new-ish cars seem to be designed for lift-service only.
Because they are.
Don't forget the factory mandated lift adapters as well.
GM won't send the lift adapters for the Corvette to dealers that aren't authorized to work on them.
They can get their own chunks of 2x4.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:ShawnG said:TravisTheHuman said:I hope one day right-to-repair agreements mandate jack points for vehicles that are independent of jack stands. So many new-ish cars seem to be designed for lift-service only.
Because they are.
Don't forget the factory mandated lift adapters as well.
GM won't send the lift adapters for the Corvette to dealers that aren't authorized to work on them.
They can get their own chunks of 2x4.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:ShawnG said:TravisTheHuman said:I hope one day right-to-repair agreements mandate jack points for vehicles that are independent of jack stands. So many new-ish cars seem to be designed for lift-service only.
Because they are.
Don't forget the factory mandated lift adapters as well.
GM won't send the lift adapters for the Corvette to dealers that aren't authorized to work on them.
They can get their own chunks of 2x4.
That's all we ever used.
TravisTheHuman said:Several times today I searched for how to do a particular thing on my car. All the results were auto-generated websites with tons of ads and filler text but no real information on what I'm looking to do.
Could be like me trying to find (what should be after 20 years) common information about my F-150.
Like something basic and dumb like what oil for a 5.4? Instead you get:
I use 20w-50
I think the manual calls for 10w-40, but I'm not sure. I use Rotella (doesn't specify weight.)
Use only 75 weight gear oil in my 96 Ranger.
Dumb, non-answer bullE36 M3. God help you if you've got a freak F-150 with 7 lug axles. I have 3 possible, wildly different rear ends, and not a single one of these bastard Ford truck sites had an answer.
In reply to Appleseed :
You could maybe try searching for the owner's manual, instead of the oil type - it's possible someone somewhere has uploaded a pdf of it.
In reply to stuart in mn :
The owners manual threats you like an idiot. Half of it is on infotainment systems that were never installed. The oil capacity and viscosity is burried in the last 4 pages before the index. Axle information just reads, "BERK YOU!"
nderwater said:
This this this. Are there any search engines that aren't broken?
Trying to find a 12x1.25 thread radiator fan switch. Might not actually exist. I wouldn't know, though, because searching for those terms, even in quotes, gets me temperature SENDERS or temperature SENSORS or switches that have 12x1.25 nowhere in the description.
It's like talking to someone who is afraid to say "I don't know" so they just make E36 M3 up.
Or searching for an exact term, to make one up let's say I'm looking for Parslee. "Did you mean 'Parsley'" No. Clicking no... still gets me a lot of pages of parsley.
I actually got my IP banned from Google once. Apparently going further than the tenth page of hits is suspicious behavior.
Appleseed said:Could be like me trying to find (what should be after 20 years) common information about my F-150.
Like something basic and dumb like what oil for a 5.4? Instead you get:
I use 20w-50
I think the manual calls for 10w-40, but I'm not sure. I use Rotella (doesn't specify weight.)
Use only 75 weight gear oil in my 96 Ranger.
Dumb, non-answer bullE36 M3. God help you if you've got a freak F-150 with 7 lug axles. I have 3 possible, wildly different rear ends, and not a single one of these bastard Ford truck sites had an answer.
I think a lot of what you are experiencing here is just what happens when general owners and enthusiasts move away from forums, websites, etc. to facebook & reddit.
In reply to TravisTheHuman :
And search hits get you blogs and not websites.
Recently a technical question came up on rx7club. This info used to be widely available and easily found on a Google search. Now all you get is marketplace hits for parts...
2 bass amps in a row have problems. Different problems, different amps ( although same make and line) and neither work.
berkeley
For those of us looking for better quality search results. This popped up on my FB feed. The couple of links I've visited look promising.
NOT GOOGLE
Google hides other search systems from us. And therefore, we don't know the existence of most of them.
Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent search engines in the world that specialize in books, science, as well as other information.
Here's a list of sites you probably never heard of!
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful research search engines on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Agreed, but also I bet a lot of that info that used to be widely available is simply gone. Those sites or pages may have shut down.
Many specific brand or model car forums are simply a shadow of their former selves.
I know we've ranted about Marketplace buyers here, but I'm not going to let that stop me.
Selling my son's Razor electric motorcycle on Marketplace for $100. I mention the model, that it's ready to ride. I've replaced batteries and the chain. Here's what I keep getting:
"How fast it go?" "Can my kid ride it - he/she is (insert age)"? "will you take $50?" "will you trade for my broken item?" "Where you located". My location is in the ad. And of course, at least 30 "is this available" messages with zero follow up.
I did get one message this morning that said they will come get it Tuesday. My hopes are low.
In reply to Scotty Con Queso :
My standard response to low-ball offers is to raise the price an equivalent amount in my reply. In your example: " I'm sorry, but I can't take $50, but I'm willing to accept $150".
Sure it's a waste of my time, but can lead to some interesting replies.
In reply to Scotty Con Queso :
A while back I either gave something away, or it was very generously priced low in order to get rid of it. In the ad I put a very thorough description, and the words, I will only answer two questions, when and where can I pick this up. It worked remarkably well and I've started using it regularly with success.
Rant: I don't like Paypal to begin with. Yes it's handy, but considering what they bring to the table, it's a very expensive service. I did a small run of parts, and just transferred a few grand to my bank. They now offer instant transfer... for a fee. Thank you, no, I can wait like usual. Except after I transferred it they said it will take 10 days. I'm not in a hurry, but 10 days? They're really pushing this 1.75% service.
After 3 months of being away, I get to revive the Tahoe. I told the GF to drive it every few days to prevent the batteries from going flat but she only drove it like once a week for maybe 10 minutes, so of course the batteries went dead.
So I pull both batteries out (the truck is a PPV so it has a heavy duty charging system and dual batteries), take them to the AdvanceZoneReilly that's a block from my house to get them charged.
After two days without hearing anything, I decide to stop by the store. Of course it's a different person that I gave the batteries to and she doesn't know what's going on. Before she gives them back to me, she offers to test them. Well that's great but she doesn't know how to use the battery tester. After another associate shows her how to test the batteries, one tests bad. I ask what failed and she doesn't know; it's just bad. Ok. What about the second battery? Oh, it just need to charge more she tells me. I'm not sure I trust what is being told to me. I tell them I'll be back the next day and leave
They haven't contacted me today yet. But I have been looking at batteries on their website. They usually have a pretty good discount by ordering online and picking up in the store. But now batteries are excluded from discounts. And the core charge is now $22?! The prices are not competitive at all. Hell, it's more than what the local Interstate dealer charges for a replacement.
Wallyworld has cheap batteries. I found this warning hilarious:
I'd be more concerned that a child could swallow an H6 automotive battery.
I just had to argue with a Toyota Service Advisor that yes, in fact, my GR Corolla is due for an oil change at 15K miles. It is not a 10K interval. It took two arguments, a screenshot of their own service schedule for the first 25K miles and another advisor. Then it took two hours for that oil change (scheduled two weeks ago).
It's never enough. Never. Work, marriage, extra curriculars likes kids clubs, sports, PTA, theatre, etc. Never enough. Someone is always disappointed you didn't do more. My motto as of late: "the more you do, the more disappointed people are that you didn't do that for them."
My turbo shouldn't whine like a supercharger, should it?
I'm preemptively putting this in the rant thread because I suspect it will turn into one.
You'll need to log in to post.
