Angelo Limnios' Datsun has a story to tell. It involves two cars, a few transmissions, one worked 1200 cc engine, multiple trips to the boneyard, and about 160,000 miles of commute drudgery turned into daily entertainment. His 1973 Datsun 1200 is currently driven 25 miles each way from home base to work at NUMMI in Fremont, California. What started out as a weekend race car … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Snap-Ring Pliers
From the how did they get that thing in there division comes the snap-ring pliers edition of Tool of the Week. Snap-rings themselves are also known as circlips, rotor rings, and retaining rings. These flattish rings are usually found holding in a bearing or assembly by way of being stuck into a machined groove. In this case a pair of snap-rings was holding a piston onto a … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Universal Joints
Welcome to the we'll make it fit bonus trick edition of Tool of the Week. If there were an equal amount of space around every nut and bolt, we would all only need one kind of wrench. The reality is getting the twist to the fastener in just half the battle. What goes together like butter at the factory usually puts up a fight in the garage. Why did they put that bolt up there … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Spark Plug Socket
Welcome to the dissimilar materials edition of Tool of the Week. Specialty sockets to remove oddly shaped oxygen sensors or inner ball joints are less common choices than the oft used spark plug socket. The genius of this specialty socket is the rubber donut that grabs onto the ceramic bit of the spark plug. The donut not only makes fishing the spark plug out of the hole an … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Engine Code Reader
Welcome to the one if by land, two if by sea 50-in-1 electronic playground edition of the Tool of the Week. This time around we're peering into computerized technology. The 1987 Mitsubishi Starion is a fuel injected car, but by no means modern. The transitional period between carburated and electronically injected engines produced some interesting if not cantankerous systems. … [Read more...]