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 I bought a used Ford F-450 flatbed truck for ranch use in central Texas. The truck served me well until I drove into town to get its annual state inspection. It passed as usual, and I drove over to the DMV to renew the license. But, as I was driving home, I began to hear a clicking noise over the diesel engine noise. Since I am hard of hearing it had to be loud for me to hear it. When I steered left the noise remained. When I steered right the noise went away. Aha...a front wheel bearing going out! Upon arriving at home, I jacked up the front axle and shook the wheels. I could not feel play on either side, but obviously a bearing was going out. I saw that RockAuto had the hub assembly (of course) for my truck, but I wanted to pull a wheel to verify the correct part. When I began loosening the lug nuts, I discovered that seven of them were loose with only one being tight. I tightened all of them to spec and road tested the truck. No more clicking noise! Sometimes it pays to check the less obvious before starting a lot of work! Dusty in Texas Share Your Story |
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 Alcohol's high octane makes it the fuel preferred by many drag racers whether they are DIY hotrodders or just paid $100,000+ for a new Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The E85 fuel available at many gas stations is a convenient source of inexpensive alcohol. The trick for race cars as well as all the E85-capable daily drivers on the road is to figure out how much alcohol and gasoline is actually in a particular batch of E85. E85 fuel is allowed to contain between 51 percent and 83 percent alcohol which means the octane rating for each tank of gas may vary significantly. Engines need to be able to adjust ignition timing, fuel flow, air intake and other parameters to match the octane of the fuel in the tank or the engine will run poorly and/or eventually be damaged by knock (noise when fuel ignites at the wrong time). Some E85-capable engines just rely on the same sensors (oxygen sensor, knock sensor...) that gasoline-only engines use to control timing and fuel/air ratio. Most E85-capable engines have an additional Flex Fuel Sensor plumbed into the (usually incoming) fuel line that tells the computer how much alcohol is in the fuel. Flex Fuel Sensors make it easier for the computer to optimize engine performance, prevent knock and identify the source of problems. Hotrodders will often add a Flex Fuel Sensor to their custom fuel systems. Flex Fuel Sensors typically send the fuel through a double-walled tube where the inner and outer walls form the two electrodes of a capacitor. The capacitance changes depending on how much alcohol is in the fuel. The computer may also use fuel temperature to better interpret the capacitance reading.  Typical Flex Fuel Sensors A "fuel composition" related diagnostic trouble code will be generated if the computer stops getting a signal from the Flex Fuel Sensor (damaged electrical connector, burned-out sensor...) or if the signal is out of range for either alcohol or gasoline (fuel is too contaminated with water, bad electrical ground for the sensor or computer...). Once the computer loses the ability to detect alcohol content or the readings stop making sense, then it will typically set ignition timing and fuel/air ratio to default settings that are relatively safe for the engine for a wide range of gasoline/alcohol ratios. The safe default fuel/air ratio usually tends to be rich. Fuel economy, engine responsiveness and/or cold engine starting may suffer when the computer is using default settings rather than tuning the engine based on the signal from a working Flex Fuel Sensor. See the Flex Fuel Sensor for your specific vehicle under "Fuel & Air" in the RockAuto.com online catalog. Tom Taylor, To read more of Tom's articles, click this link and choose from story titles on the Newsletter Archives page. |
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In January of 2021, as we were all huddled up inside trying to deal with the lock downs, my dad and I got the idea to recreate a car restoration/build we completed some 17 years ago, and we began searching for another mid-90s Buick station wagon. This time, the Roadmaster would be a father-son-grandsons project, with my now 11 and 3 year-old boys joining in on the fun. Unlike the first time around, we wanted to avoid rust, so our search took us from Minnesota to just outside Atlanta, GA where we located this two-owner 1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon. The car had been owned by the same family since 1999 and had every maintenance record and receipt one could imagine. RockAuto has been instrumental in our journey to bring this wagon up to modern-day standards. While most auto parts stores no longer stock parts for GM B-bodies, RockAuto continues to have an amazing selection of parts from a variety of brands. We can always trust the quality of parts and on-time delivery. A few of the many parts we have purchased from RockAuto include: Power Stop brakes & rotors; rear brake drums, shoes, wheel cylinders & hardware; cooling system components, including a heater core; a whole new steering system including an idler arm, stabilizer, center link and tie rods; a fuel pump; lots of sensors; and of course more Wix filters than you could ever imagine. Thank you for being a part of this great father-son-grandson adventure. We just entered this Buick into our first car show this past weekend, and it would not be possible without RockAuto! Cheers to many more adventures! |
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