When you saw the image at the top of this article, you probably knew what you were looking at. If you hang panels all day, you said, “A body shim!” If your life is spent undercar, you said, “An alignment shim!” You might also think they're for antiques. But shims have...
This article is a quick reminder to buy (and use!) a surge protector on your (or your shop’s) scan tool(s). The modern vehicle scanner has WiFi, a screen, and touch input. It is, for all intents and purposes, a computer, and it doesn’t like “dirty” power. Protect it...
Description If you're an experienced technician, you may feel as though you've seen, heard, and repaired just about everything. But don't let your wealth of knowledge and experience prevent you from learning more to stay up to date with today's complex...
I’ve mentioned the easy business you can score by offering to perform trailer service for customers that pull. When doing a job not long ago, someone asked me why I was adding lubricant to the dust caps. It’s a fair question. When getting into bearings, I know I’m...
Disclaimer: I purchased this tool at full retail price at my own expense, with no compensation to write about the item. I was watching a video the other day of Eric O. at South Main Auto replacing a manifold on a Pentastar. We have a little experience with that here...
Description Yellowed, hazy headlights aren’t just ugly; they can reduce a headlight’s effectiveness for your customers. Would you rather polish the old lenses, or simply install a Dorman replacement?Related Videos
Dorman makes an item to join wires, the parallel connector, that is both helpful and widely misunderstood. If one reads reviews of these, they’re often rather negative. More than a cursory examination yields the issue, however: these are often purchased mistakenly by...
Description Your customers may have heard the terms "lifetime" or "permanent" antifreeze, but those confusing names have very specific meanings. Make sure your customers know the limitations of antifreezes to protect their vehicles for many years of service.
The easiest way to remove a cotter pin (VIDEO) Description For the longest time I used to remove cotter pins with either a hooked mechanic’s pick or a pair of needle-nose pliers. And when I say a long time, I mean, probably 15 years. Then my friend Zito showed me a...
The in-dash cup holder on certain late ’90s to early 2000s F-150s, Expeditions and Navigators – which also holds an ash tray in some vehicles – has a tendency to break in service, leading to a cupholder that has to be pried into the open position in...
Not every Phillips head fastener is a Phillips head fastener. I believed this was common knowledge until today, when I was speaking with another tech who had no idea what I was talking about, and I relived a lesson from my salad days of wrenching. Many moons ago, when...
Way back when, torque specs didn’t exist. Oh, mechanics were familiar with busted fasteners. Prior to torque wrenches, factory tools often had handles of specific lengths, with the understanding that “cheater pipes” were not to be used and that an average man of...
Ever drain and fill a coolant system and watch the temp gauge spike afterwards? Air trapped in there can cause a car to act like it has a cooling problem. It’s annoying to let the car cool so you can work on it, then re-bleed and possibly still have the same...
Bleeding brakes is one of those jobs most of us know how to do, but when a hard-to-bleed system pops up, experienced techs have a few additional tricks up their sleeves to help get the job done. You can certainly vacuum bleed or power bleed if you have the equipment,...