Tag: car repair

  • Exhaust Pipe Repair Hack – DIY GF Video

    Exhaust Pipe Repair Hack – DIY GF Video

    Here’s an exhaust pipe repair hack I learned how to do a while back. It is a simple DIY muffler repair that will last long enough until you have time to take your car to the repair shop. This is not meant to be a permanent repair, this is simply a emergency stop gap measure. Maybe you don’t have the money quite yet to go to the muffler shop, this will knock down the noise. Heads up, this won’t help your car pass an emissions test but it is a neat little DIY hack to fix an exhaust pipe leak temporarily.

    The flexible metal that I used is called roof flashing, but you could also use a metal can, like those that contain tomato paste or chopped up tomatoes for making spaghetti sauce. You can also use a soda can, but soda cans are made out of aluminum, so the hack will not last nearly as long. Aluminum has a lower melting point. Any kind of flexible metal that you may have laying around, something from a gutter repair or maybe your neighbor has some sheet-metal laying around that would work. You basically want to curl the metal around the exhaust pipe and then tighten it with pipe clamps.

    exhaust pipeYou can also use this hack to do a muffler pipe repair. You would have to find a really long pipe clamps or connect together several pipe clamps. You can you can usually get clamps about 4 inches in diameter, if you buy a bunch of those you could connect them end to end and then wrap a big piece of metal around the muffler. This kind of muffler repair is not going to last really long but it would reduce the noise but your car is making – fewer people would stare at you at the red light intersection!

    exhaust pipe

    exhaust pipe

    exhaust pipe

    Video Transcript:

    One of our cars has a hole in the tailpipe. I’m gonna show you how to do a quick exhaust pipe repair, until you have time to fix it properly, all right? So, you could be stuck somewhere, you can run to the hardware store, buy two clamps, borrow some tin snips, and get some roofing flashing. You could also just use, like, a tin can. Like a soda can, or a tomato can, or something like that. something that has flexible sheet metal stuff. All right?

    Get under the car, let’s go. So first I’ve got to cut the old pipe. I’m gonna cut the clamps off and see what’s left there. We’re gonna use what’s called a right angle grinder with a metal-cutting disk on it. And be sure to have eye protection and ear protection. Be careful, all right? A lot of times you can just pull this out. Just put some pliers on here and you work it back and forth and it’ll come out.

    Slide two pipe clamps that are slightly bigger, one on each side of the gap, of the hole. And then put your flashing up here and you’re gonna curl the flashing around the break in the pipe. This has sharp edges so careful not to cut yourself. And then slide these clamps over the metal and slide that on like that, there we go. There we go. All right, so you’ve got two clamps on, this is, you wanna center this in the break, and then we’re gonna screw these on. By the way, if you have one of these four in one or six in one screwdrivers, if you take the screwdriver part out, You have a nut driver here. So as the clamp tightens down, it wraps the sheet metal around the gap and it tightens it up. Tighten these up.

    All right, there you go. Just a quick muffler exhaust pipe repair. If you’ve got this hole, and you drive down the highway, you could stop at a hardware store and buy those parts and fix it up, until you can get home and order the right parts or take it to the shop. It’s just one of those things that’s helped me out a couple of times so I just wanted to show you about it.

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    Car Battery Dead? Probably Not. Learn why here.

     

  • Changing Your Headlight bulbs & When to Call the Professionals GF Radio 354

    Changing Your Headlight bulbs & When to Call the Professionals GF Radio 354

    Rick tells of how he tried to change the headlight bulbs on his Toyota Prius, and how it all ended up a the mechanic’s garage instead. We learn when its time to call the professional and walk away from a DIY repair.

    headlightEric has been watching great car repair videos by Eric The Car Guy on YouTube, lots of great car repair how to videos done well. We learned that we will not attempt to change the struts on our car, we will take it to the experts who have the right tools. Eric the Car Guy also has a website and discussion forum on his site here.

    We read a letter from GF team member Kent, or at least Eric tries to read the letter, mangling several sentences.

  • Tornado Safe Rooms, Tornadoes, & Storm Chasers GF Radio

    Tornado Safe Rooms, Tornadoes, & Storm Chasers GF Radio

    Tyler joins us to talk about building tornado safe room or tornado shelter, his sister built a tornado safe room in the floor of her garage, and safe rooms were discussed at ChaserCon. Safe rooms can be pre-fab or built on site out of concrete or steel or a combination of rebar, cement, and cinderblocks. Storm Chasing comes next, is storm chasing really like how it looks on the cable shows? Tyler talks about what its like to chase storms and the science behind what causes tornadoes, how to tornadoes form?

    Car repair comes next, Tyler is having some car repair issues with his Jeep, we talk about what a crankshaft is, a harmonic balancer, and flywheel do.

    We talk about beekeeping and Tyler’s beginning beekeeping experiences, Eric and Tyler agree that using medium supers, not the large deeps, are the best way to keep bees. Siting your bees is an issue, as you have to keep in mind how you are going to get to your honeybees in winter and summer, you can’t always just drive your truck right up to them, think about where they are going to live.

    If you want to listen to our Beekeeping for Beginners Questions & Answers shows, click here.

    Car and Truck safety on the highway rounds out the show, a viewer mail asks out loud what will driving be like in 20 years?

    photo by cohdra

  • Replace the Front Wheel Bearings On Your Car GF.TV video

    Replace the Front Wheel Bearings On Your Car GF.TV video


    Yes, you can learn how to replace the front wheel bearings on your car or truck. Eric shows you how to repair your own truck wheel bearings, using his Ford F150. The front wheel bearings of his truck are making that classic wheel bearing ‘whorl’ sound, so we take an afternoon to make a wheel bearing video.

    Front wheel bearings are usually easy to replace, but can be a bit messy, wear latex or nitrile gloves and save your hands from grease. Buy the new wheel bearings and new wheel bearing grease before you start, and work on one wheel at a time. It helps if you have a car repair manual, we like the Haynes manuals, available here.

    You need only basic car tools to do this, it helps to haveĀ  few wood blocks to prop up the hub while working on it. You might also consider changing the disc brake pads while you’re replacing the front wheel bearings, since you have to remove the disc brake calipers to remove the wheel hub anyway. here is a video we did on how to replace your disc brake pads.

    Consider having the disc brake rotors turned, or replacing them also, again, since you have to remove these to work on the bearings.

    Be sure to safely raise the front of the vehicle off the ground using jackstands.

    Have some suggestions or questions? let us know below:

  • Disc Brake Replacement How To GF.TV Video

    Disc Brake Replacement How To GF.TV Video

    Its easy to change the disc brakes and rotors on most cars. Here’s a disc brake replacement video we made on GardenFork.TV . Use this video as a initial introduction on how to repair the disc brakes. Consult your car’s repair manual for the exact procedure for your vehicle. Be sure to jack up your car on the frame and to use jackstands. Chock the rear wheels to keep the car from moving while you are working on it, work onĀ  flat surface, and set the parking brake. Also be careful of brake dust, as its not healthy to breathe.

    Be sure to buy disc brake grease and some spray brake cleaner, it gets messy with all the dirt under the wheel wells. We wear latex or nitrile gloves to keep our hands clean, the nitrile gloves work best. And you get what you pay for when buying disc brake pads, don’t cheap out, these things stop the car, you know. Work on one wheel at a time, that way you can look at the other wheel as a reference.

    We also have a front wheel bearing replacement video that show how to remove the brake caliper and how to install new wheel bearings.