DIYbanter - View Single Post - What size nut goes onto a typical US passenger tire Schrader valve?

Tekkie®

posted for all of us...

On Thu, 8 Dec 2016 06:44:01 -0000 (UTC), Leon Schneider
wrote:

wrote on Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:46:06 -0500:

Trust me, painting your car is a lot harder than it looks -
particularly to do a decent job "at home"

Fair enough assessment.

Replacing and balancing tires requires either reasonable equipment

Harbor Freight has everything you need, for under $200 overall.
Out here, that's about 10 tires to break even on the tools.
But the best thing is that you get the job done right when you do it
yourself, because I have NEVER seen a tire-changing job done correctly yet
at the tire shops. Not once.

Well, I'll respectfully dissagree. There is NO WAY you can
"dynamically" ballance a tire on a $200 Harbour Fright ballancer. All
you can do is static balance it - which might be ok on an old 4x4 or a
Yugo. Balancing the tire from the inside to outside, or quadrant to
quadrant is REQUIRED for a good high speed balance.

I've had cars where 1/4 ounce of dynamic inbalance caused a tire
shimmy on a customer's car (admittedly at well over the legal speed
limit.) Can't get that fine with a bubble balancer.

Alignment is another story - not hard to measure and adjust toe. Not
terribly hard to check camber, but measuring caster requires special
tools.

Depends on the vehicle, but my sedan only has adjustments for rear camber
and front-and-back toe, so, for me, that's all I'd need to measure.

It's what you CAN'T adjust that you need to measure!!! If parts are
worn or bent, you don't know unless you can measure.

Alignments on today's vehicles really only need to be done if the
vehicle is damaged. or parts are replaced. They don't "go out of
alignment" unless something bends or wears.

I'm not so sure of that, because any good pothole can knock something off
alignment but I can't argue the issue becuase I don't really know. I just
know that I've seen it recommended to get the suspension aligned with each
new set of tires (which is about every two years).

A good pothole can BEND things. Adjustments can compensate for some
of that damage.

And if you cannot measure the caster and camber you don't know if
there is anything wrong - but your tires wear and the car pulls to the
left or right. You can't tell if the car is tracking properly or if it
has a bent or twisted uni-body or sub frame.

As you stated, if you have owned the car, then you know pretty much only
have to deal with alignment drifting out of whack over time so a check of
only toe and camber will do for cars, such as mine, that have no other
adjustments anyway.

If you own the car and hit a bad pothole YOU can knock the caster
out. If YOU own the car and slide into a curb, you can tweak the
uni-body, knocking the track out. You can do all kinds of things tht
CAN change the alignment parrameters you cannot measure - and just
because they are not "adjustable" doesn't mean they are not important,
or that they cannot be fixed.

I KNOW. I did that stuff for a living for over twenty years. There are
many ways to correct "non-adjustable" adjustments.

However, if you're buying a car, then by all means, have the tracking,
steering axis inclination, ride height, etc., all checked at an alighment
shop who has the tools to measure anything and everything.

Oh Clare, lower your blood pressure. I believe it is the alignment troll.
They are cheap asses whom think they know it all and can fix it for free
with everybody else's help. I am surprised they don't invite people over to
help them (actually do the work). Alignment racks are a thing of beauty
these days. Rather than strings and bubbles they use lasers. Out of specs
are printed out and adjustments verified. This guy is jabbering about nuts
on valve stems???

--
Tekkie