What did you do to the G today?
#8311
Was driving the G in Portland the other day, the roads are like no man's land. Afterwards noticed clunking coming from the front whenever I turned the wheel left or right while stationary.
Parked, turned the car off, and had my dad turn the wheel and the noise seemed to be coming from the power steering rack where the gears mesh. I tightened up the steering rack preload screw until the steering was too tight to turn with the wheels off the ground, then backed it off about 1/4 turn until it felt normal.
Clunk is gone, and so is a pretty significant dead spot I've had since I bought the car and didn't notice because it still handled better than anything else I'd ever driven. The wheel zero input now when cruising, I can easily smoothly drive it with 1 finger even though fast sweepers and highway lane changes unlike before when I had to always make little corrections subconsciously back and forth through the dead zone.
My car has 130k, I highly recommend everyone with this kind of mileage tighten this even if they aren't clunking - it made that much of a difference and it was stupid easy. If I had to use a word to describe the steering now I would have to use "telepathic"
Parked, turned the car off, and had my dad turn the wheel and the noise seemed to be coming from the power steering rack where the gears mesh. I tightened up the steering rack preload screw until the steering was too tight to turn with the wheels off the ground, then backed it off about 1/4 turn until it felt normal.
Clunk is gone, and so is a pretty significant dead spot I've had since I bought the car and didn't notice because it still handled better than anything else I'd ever driven. The wheel zero input now when cruising, I can easily smoothly drive it with 1 finger even though fast sweepers and highway lane changes unlike before when I had to always make little corrections subconsciously back and forth through the dead zone.
My car has 130k, I highly recommend everyone with this kind of mileage tighten this even if they aren't clunking - it made that much of a difference and it was stupid easy. If I had to use a word to describe the steering now I would have to use "telepathic"
#8313
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Washington State
Posts: 14,817
Received 2,473 Likes
on
2,164 Posts
Coupe 6MT Premium RAS
#8314
Urban, the screw is on the driver side of the rack to the left of the two mounting bolts facing towards the back of the car, you can easily get to it with just the driver side wheel jacked up. I used a monkey wrench to tighten it, worked great.
Cleric, I actually did look for that screw in the FSM and the procedure was much more involved than I was willing to undertake and involved measuring rotationg torque of the whole rack assembly, and getting that adjusting screw to a pretty small torque value. I'm definitely not over that value as I backed off quite a bit and the rack is much tighter than it was before so I'll call it a win! I do have to replace both my boots though (one is very slightly ripped where I had to cut it to get it off, my epoxy "fix" didn't hold) and use something other than zip ties to keep them on as some water has gotten in there and was beading on the grease.
Until then I'll avoid driving it in the wet.
Cleric, I actually did look for that screw in the FSM and the procedure was much more involved than I was willing to undertake and involved measuring rotationg torque of the whole rack assembly, and getting that adjusting screw to a pretty small torque value. I'm definitely not over that value as I backed off quite a bit and the rack is much tighter than it was before so I'll call it a win! I do have to replace both my boots though (one is very slightly ripped where I had to cut it to get it off, my epoxy "fix" didn't hold) and use something other than zip ties to keep them on as some water has gotten in there and was beading on the grease.
Until then I'll avoid driving it in the wet.
#8315
Installed my nexus tablet
Bought a pre-owned nexus 7 for $35 using it with my cellphone Hotspot for navigation and music.
https://imgur.com/a/iq6Wpw0
https://imgur.com/a/iq6Wpw0
Last edited by Narutonish; 05-13-2018 at 11:49 PM.
The following users liked this post:
Blue Dream (05-14-2018)
#8316
I drove ttrank's car solo
iTrader: (50)
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: By the sea, Tx
Posts: 18,299
Received 1,487 Likes
on
1,222 Posts
G35 sedan w/ too much money in mods
#8317
#8319
#8320
Just ordered some Michelin Pilot Super Sports (rears only) from Tirerack for $187/tire, plus free shipping. Fortunately I don't need fronts as those are $217, which oddly enough is about the same price as the new Sport 4S. (Although I'm wondering if that's because they're BMW spec.)
#8321
I've been watching these almost daily for the past few months, as I knew I would need new rears when I put the G back on the road for the summer. I saw them at ~169 (+ship) for a day about two months ago, then they went up to $187 (+ship) for a few weeks, before going all the way back up to ~200! Early last week they went back down to $187 (+ship), and a few days later they added free shipping to certain tires. So with the free shipping it's about the equivalent of when I saw them at ~169 without the free shipping. I wouldn't be surprised to see them drop again if they get low on stock, or if they have some older date codes in inventory.
As far as the rears being cheaper than the fronts, it happens. As I mentioned in my original post the 225/45/18 they have listed shows that they're BMW spec, so that's my guess as to why our "fronts" are more than our "rears".
Last edited by MikeG35Coupe; 05-15-2018 at 02:16 PM. Reason: Fixed many typos
#8323
Took my G a few body shop to get the rust looked at. The highest rated shop around quoted me $1700 to do a complete job of removing all the trim, windows, etc, cut out the damaged metal, replace, and paint with the understanding that "rust always comes back". They wouldn't give me a quote if I did the rust repair work, essentially saying that they didn't want anything to do with that because they can't guarantee I'd be satisfied with the results.
Took it to local Maaco and asked them what they would charge if I were to do all the rust repair, prep, etc and gave them the car with primered left and right quarter panels for them to paint. They told me $400 a side, which is better but still too way too much for a college student with more important bills to pay, not to mention saving for more important car parts
Looks like I have no choice now but to do both bodywork AND paintwork myself - I had hoped to farm out the paint to a professional so at least that would look half decent, not to mention saving my sanity, but I guess not. The upside is that while I'm painting my QPs, I might as well repaint my front bumper and hood while I'm at it. Anybody have any experience with DIY car painting (rattle cans, Rustoleum roller paint, etc) around here?
Most of the paintwork on my car looks like the surface of the Moon from 10 feet away so I figure any paint that lasts is an improvement.
It drives great now though! Ever since I tightened up my rack the other day I've had lots of confidence to push my car. Really enjoying my commutes to work and back, can't wait to take it to autocross so I can really see what it can do!
Took it to local Maaco and asked them what they would charge if I were to do all the rust repair, prep, etc and gave them the car with primered left and right quarter panels for them to paint. They told me $400 a side, which is better but still too way too much for a college student with more important bills to pay, not to mention saving for more important car parts
Looks like I have no choice now but to do both bodywork AND paintwork myself - I had hoped to farm out the paint to a professional so at least that would look half decent, not to mention saving my sanity, but I guess not. The upside is that while I'm painting my QPs, I might as well repaint my front bumper and hood while I'm at it. Anybody have any experience with DIY car painting (rattle cans, Rustoleum roller paint, etc) around here?
Most of the paintwork on my car looks like the surface of the Moon from 10 feet away so I figure any paint that lasts is an improvement.
It drives great now though! Ever since I tightened up my rack the other day I've had lots of confidence to push my car. Really enjoying my commutes to work and back, can't wait to take it to autocross so I can really see what it can do!
Last edited by cswlightning; 05-17-2018 at 09:04 AM. Reason: TMI
#8324