Advice to customer_user_Diyer_detailer_together

Great thanks to our customer support.
Here are some advice/feedback to our customer on some question for detailing and inquiry:

HOW TO USE DA MACHINE?
To those DA user:
Always remember you do not need to put so much of forces on DA. The harden forces and strength you press on the DA will make the DA difficult to spin well. It will rotates difficultly.
Light handling and steady holding is more than enough, remember light and easy going.
It will take more time to correct the defective surface of clear coat. Yes more time.

DA is design for dummy usage and prevent heat. Always remember. "DA is not to design correct and compound but prevent heat!"

WHAT IS BEST LIGHT SOURCE FOR POLISHING?
I will suggest any detailer don't just get satisfy with xenon light or florescence light source. Some swirl you still can't trace out but only with LED/Halogen spot light.
The display of halogen spotlight here is 300W. Initially a 500W after blow..

Multiple light source is a best choice for polishing work.






WHY LED TORCH IS NOT ENOUGH?
To get a handy light source , led spotlight itself is definitely not enough.
If anyone do not believe this can just park your car under the 12pm hot sun and watch/observe you car clear coat for another 2 minutes.
You will trace out the further swirl you miss out during your polishing due to the lack of light source as your culprit in detailing polishing.













HOW MUCH OF COMPOUND DROPS REQUIRE?
Little drops of compound liquid is more than enough.
Need not to apply too much.

Little can help you to prevent polishing residue that stay on your clear coat which took much of your time to remove it.

  Sharing knowledge:  How to wash sponge pad correctly.

  

Clear coat comparison after TAC Korea Compound

How to use DA machine_no force no pressure

For customer who bought auto-coating and wish to DIY. Please refer below url link to youtube:

We are very sorry for the lame camera(Cheap Cellphone & up side down capturing), because we don't have the editor tool to modify that.But trust us that the work is not a rocket science to DIY, you just can do-it-yourself. Please click below url. Thanks.

How to - simple auto coating application(Kalex Car Detailing) with NKB China budget coating

[Click Here]

How to - simple auto coating application(Kalex Car Detailing) -Buff away coating

[Click Here]

We are in progress to redevelop a better video...sorry for the lame catching..

Progression of the Avalon

I am surprised how much different this 2015 Avalon rental was, as compared to my 2013, both from the same generation of design.  Not all in the progression was good.  Details to follow...

Sudden Brake Failure in Shadow-era Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motorcars

How do you know the brakes in your Shadow-era Rolls-Royce are safe?  If you are like most people you trust the warning lamps on the dash.  When you start the car and you see the lamps glow, flicker, and go out – you know they work.  Lamps out - brakes safe.  You expect the lamps to warn you if either system loses pressure, so you can stop the car before brake pressure is lost.

Can that system fail?  Last week, I learned that the answer is yes.   Shadow brakes can fail without warning.  I know because we had it happen to a car in our yard.  The only thing that saved the car from crashing into the building was the simultaneous shift into park and stepping hard on the emergency brake.  And when the car stopped we realized we would not have been so lucky if the speeds had been higher – those tricks won’t do much at 60mph.

The next morning we hooked pressure gauges to the test points and read 2,000psi on the rear circuit, but just 1,300psi on the front at idle, rising to 2,000 as the engine sped up.  That puzzled us because the pumps were recently changed, and the accumulators were freshly charged on rebuilt blocks.  Why the low pressure? 

There was no obvious reason the front circuit should have been low.  And an even bigger question remained – how did the brakes fail with those system pressures?  1,300psi at idle is low, but it’s still plenty to stop the car.  And the rear had full pressure all along.  So what happened?  The pressures must have fallen to zero on the test drive, and we were at a loss to how that could have happened.

We did a flow test, which one circuit passed and the other came close.  That didn’t answer the failure either, but it raised a question.  What would account for low flow in a newly rebuilt pump circuit?  We have seen that happen with collapsed lines from the reservoir to pump, but these lines looked good.  

We suspected the answer might lie in the hydraulic reservoirs, located on the left fender well just forward of the firewall.  We started removing the screws that hold the cover in place - something that never happens on most Silver Shadow cars.  Why would you remove the cover?  You can see the fluid through the sight glasses, and you fill through the caps on top. The unit itself is seldom taken apart.  But it should be, as our exploration revealed!

The first thing to check was the intake screens in the reservoir and that is where we found our answer.

Sludge in a Silver Shadow hydraulic reservoir (c) JE Robison Service

What you see in the photo is a solid inch of sludge, and the intake screens are actually collapsed from the force of the pumps trying to suck solid sludge through the fine mesh.  Take a look at this comparison:

You can see how the pump was straining for a long time to pull fluid through those clogged strainers. Intake restriction is surely a cause of pump failure in some of these cars.  And it can get worse - if a pump fails it can seize and damage the pushrod or even the cam. So you can see how this gel issue can turn into major mechanical trouble in addition to the obvious hydraulic problems it causes.

I was shocked to find such a gelled mess of fluid, but the car in question had been stored for 10 years, and a review of online forums reveals quite a few instances of brake fluid gelling in cars and motorcycles during long term storage.  We have actually seen that ourselves, as shown in this photo of what we found in a Jaguar XK120 brake reservoir after being parked 6 years.

The fix for this - on the Rolls - was to remove and clean the reservoir, and replace the screens.   

For the sake of comparison, this is what a disassembled reservoir looks like on a car in our restoration shop:

A restored RR363 hydraulic reservoir from a Silver Shadow (C) JE Robison Service 

After cleaning this car's reservoir, we also replaced the suction lines to the pumps, and thoroughly flushed the system.  But flushing only goes so far.  After running the car 100 miles this is what we found on removing the reservoir top again

As you can see the rear circuit has turned rather dark, and there are little bits of debris accumulating in the tank.  In these cars the rear hydraulic circuit powers the level control, and we have known the rams to build up sludge, some of which seems to be making its way back to the reservoir.  The photos below show the level control circuit on this car, which was a repository for more sludge:

The cure for that: Take apart and clean the level control circuit.  In this car, the level control hadn’t worked, and the owner had said to ignore it. But we could not do that, when we saw how it was polluting the clean fluid in front. We took apart and cleaned both rams, cleaned the valves, and blew clear the lines. In retrospect I see that the level control failure was due to gelled fluid preventing proper operation. It worked once this was done.

So one takeaway from that is that the whole system should be cleaned and serviced, even if the owner does not care about self-leveling.  What seems like a place to economize on service (level control) could well end up a cause of rear circuit brake failure.

The other takeaway is that the reservoirs should be opened up and inspected when these cars receive major brake service, or when they are serviced after long-term storage (more than one winter.)  There is no external sign of sludge in the reservoir, and if you don't open it up and look your first clue may be the total and sudden failure of the system.

This inspection is a nuisance, with 14 screws holding the cap in place, after which the screens and plates have to come off.  And if the reservoir needs to be cleaned you could be into a half-day project.  But do it anyway, in the interest of safety!  The lesson of this car is that the fluid reservoir should be checked before the car is driven.

And when the reservoir is filled, be sure to use the RR363 fluid that's made special for these cars.  Ordinary brake fluid does not have the castor oil lubricant the brake pumps require, and substitution of a different fluid can lead to brake pump wear and premature failure.  That's a failure that's easily avoided - just use the right stuff!  It is ok to top these systems with DOT3 fluid in emergency but if that is done the RR363 should be put back in at the earliest opportunity.

And one final thing – why didn’t the warning lights come on?  In some of these cars the warning lamps are at the end of long dead-end pipe runs.  In this vehicle, the line to the sensor was jammed by gelled fluid, and there was no live connection between the sensors and the fluid they were supposed to monitor. Yet they looked good from outside!  That just shows how appearances can deceive.  Particularly since this car originally had the warning lights lit, and they went out when the car was first started up.

The advice in this article applies to 1965-1980 production Rolls-Royce and Bentley motorcars that use pressurized RR363 hydraulics.  This includes all Corniche, Shadow, Wraith, T Type, and T2 built in that period.

(c) 2015 John Elder Robison

John Elder Robison is the general manager of J E Robison Service Company, celebrating 30 years of independent Rolls-Royce and Bentley restoration and repair in Springfield, Massachusetts.  John is a longtime technical consultant to the Rolls-Royce and Bentley clubs, and he’s owned and restored many fine British motorcars.  Find him online at www.robisonservice.com or in the real world at 413-785-1665

Reading this article will make you smarter, especially when it comes to car stuff.  So it's good for you.  But don't take that too far - printing and eating it will probably make you sick.

You thought you owned your car? Well NOW you do!

This week the government issued an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to allow the modification of automotive electronics systems. You might not know it, but this has far reaching effects on the entire automotive industry and on you as the owner of a car. I’ll show you why.

You walk into a Barnes & Noble, you pick up a copy of Look Me in the Eye, you hand the cashier money and you leave the store. The book now belongs to you, right? Of course it does. You are free to write notes in the margins, sell it second-hand to a friend, or even rip it up if you felt so inclined. What you can’t do is copy portions of it and claim them as your own work; you own your copy of the book, but not the copyright.

This is pretty straightforward and doesn’t violate most people’s understanding of copyright and ownership. But let's say you skipped the Barnes & Noble and instead went to Walmart to buy a Sony PS3, is it any different? Actually it is. When the PS3 was released, many tech enthusiasts were eager to buy such a powerful computer for such a low price, despite it masquerading as a gaming machine. They would install Linux on their PS3 and use it as a desktop computer. To their dismay, Sony responded with lawsuits claiming copyright violation. Under the DMCA corporations have gained sweeping powers to effectively retain ownership even after the item has been sold. Apple has given the same treatment to iPhone owners who have had the audacity to try to install software that Apple hasn’t personally signed off on, i.e. iPhone owners who "jailbreak" their phones.

Copyright has gone far beyond what its original intent was, and beyond how most people understand it to work. Instead of being used to prevent copying, it is now also used to prevent modification – even if there is no commercial angle to the modification and the only purpose is better satisfying the wants of the owner. Maybe taking notes in the margin of your favorite book isn’t so clearly legal after all; the fact that such an argument could be made demonstrates the ridiculousness of the DMCA and how it hurts customers.

Auto manufacturers have exploited the you-own-what-you-buy-except-for-when-we-don’t-like-how-you-use-it DMCA too. Want to reprogram your engine ECU? You might be violating the DMCA. Really, any work done on the electronics in a car risks violating the DMCA. This exposed tinkerers and independent shops alike to a tremendous risk, leaving official dealerships as the only safe route for these repairs. But fret not, all of that changed this past Tuesday. In a first, the government has issued an exception to the DMCA to explicitly allow tinkering with automotive electronics and software.

So what pushed the government to do this? In large part it was the recent VW scandal. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued that the DMCA had prevented independent shops and tinkerers from testing and identifying VW’s deception for years – and the government listened. That said, it’s a real shame that it takes a very public deception being uncovered to change the law. And it begs the question- how much deception, negligence, and incompetence is still being covered up in all of the areas without a DMCA exemption? Don’t expect an answer, because as the EFF has pointed out the DMCA has a chilling effect on security research. Researchers of both the academic and DIY types steer clear of looking for such problems because by finding them they may violate the DMCA and come under legal pressure. That means the only major effort to root out security vulnerabilities and misrepresentations is under the table, and the hackers doing such work don’t tend to have the good of the public in mind.

The exemption on Tuesday is a great start, but in the grand scheme it is a mere baby step. The DMCA is preventing you from having products that you can trust. And it is quite telling how many corporations view their customers when they pursue unpaid volunteers trying to fix their mistakes. You’d think they’d be happy such people are out there. To be sure, some corporations are – but the good guys don’t have the same lobbying power. And that’s because the supporters of the DMCA view their customers as their own assets, as subjects who are only allowed to play with the toys they’ve bought within the officially sanctioned sandbox. I hope the trend reverses, but we’re going to need to expose deception, negligence, or the more benign incompetence in far more areas than the automotive industry alone.

We strive for the highest quality of repair. Our customers are the owners of their cars, not the manufacturers. This exemption helps both our customers and us; it explicitly clarifies that when you go to get your car repaired all you should be thinking about is the quality of work you’re going to receive. The car’s previous owner, the manufacturer, or anyone else has no place putting themselves in the middle of that. We rely on satisfying the wants of our customers to the greatest extent that is possible, and maintaining good communications throughout the process. You thought you owned your car before, now thanks to this exemption you actually do. This change puts the choice of who works on your car back where it should be – completely in your hands.

~guest blogger: Jack Robison

Crestview Auto Service and the winter tire advantage in Saskatoon

Let's face it, most of us do not think about  our vehicles until we run into a problem....and that problem may be a major inconvenience at best; an accident at worst. Having your vehicle serviced by people that you trust is an absolute must.   Let our team of highly trained technicians at Crestview Auto Service work with you to make sure your vehicle is ready for the road. 

Crestview Auto Service are your Trusted Saskatoon Auto Repair and service Experts!

Winter tires are more than a gimmick when compared to all season tires. The two biggest differences being the rubber composition stays much softer and pliable from 7 degrees Celsius and colder and the tread pattern will have many small incisions in the tread pattern to allow the tire to squirm and stick to the icy road surface. 

All season tires have compromises built into them that limit traction as temperatures drop below 7 degrees C, on ice and in the snow.  The rubber compound is harder and tread patterns are more solid not allowing the tire to stick to the road surface, this gets worse the colder it gets and happens even if the road is dry. Any tire designated with the Snowflake on the sidewall is much better than an all season tire. But even in the winter tire market we have many differences in traction and longevity.  

Generally you will get what you pay for, the entry level, less expensive tires will have less flexibility and traction the colder it gets while the better winter tires remain flexible even in the deep cold we get on the prairies. When purchasing winter tires it is important to buy all 4 not just 2 for the driving wheels, the reason for this is the traction difference between summer and winter tires will have you out of control with the winter tires sticking to the road and the all season tires losing traction and sliding. 

Having 4 winter tires will have you sticking to the road when others around you are hitting the curb. Crestview Auto Service is here to help you choose the right tire for you needs and budget. Contact Kurt or Matt for all your tire needs. Call 306-244-6522 or email us at crestviewautoservice@sasktel.net

Drop in or give us a call at 24 - 23rd St E
Saskatoon, SK, 306-244-6522

Crestview Auto Service

“We’ll Keep Your Car Young a Long Time”

Crestview Auto Service Winter Tire Sale Event on Now

Let's face it, most of us do not think about  our vehicles until we run into a problem....and that problem may be a major inconvenience at best; an accident at worst. Having your vehicle serviced by people that you trust is an absolute must.   Let our team of highly trained technicians at Crestview Auto Service work with you to make sure your vehicle is ready for the road. 

Crestview Auto Service are your Trusted Saskatoon Auto Repair and service Experts!

WINTER TIRE SALE

It's winter tire season and Crestview Auto Service has the winter tires you need.

Most brands and lines of winter tires are now on sale 4 for the price of 3. In addition many of our tires also have manufacture rebates that vary between $30 and $100 on a set of 4 (conditions apply). Winter rims available. Contact Kurt or Matt for all your tire needs. Call or email us at 306-244-6522, crestviewautoservice@sasktel.net

Drop in or give us a call at 24 - 23rd St E
Saskatoon, SK, 306-244-6522

Crestview Auto Service

“We’ll Keep Your Car Young a Long Time”

Engine Noises and Surprise in a Porsche 911 -

How often do seeming disparate problems converge with symptoms that seem to go together?  It’s rare but it happens.

This car – a 2003 Porsche 911 C4s - came in with a nasty rattle in the engine, and a fault code for a camshaft position error.  Like most mechanics the owner took that to mean the tensioner or the intermediate shaft bearing had gone bad, and the engine was in imminent danger of self-destructing.

We saw no reason to disagree with that assessment, and we expected the diagnosis to be validated on teardown.  When we installed the holding tools to keep the cams and crank lined up we found one cam slightly off.

But when we removed the transaxle and looked at the IMS bearing it was tight. 

There were no signs of metal in the oil.

All we found was slight grab marks on one tensioner, indicating it may have slipped back a bit.  We therefore had an explanation for the slack. But we didn’t have an explanation for the nasty rattle.  We looked inside with a fiber optic camera, and saw nothing.

The technician decided to put the flywheel on the engine, fit new tensioners, a new IMS bearing, and start the motor to listen without the transaxle in the way.  When he did, the result was surprising.  The cam position fault was gone, but the noise was unchanged.  The clatter sounded just like it was coming from the timing chains.

But it wasn’t.  As you see in this short video the noise was emanating from the flywheel.

With a new flywheel and new tensioners, the cam faults were gone, and the rattle was fixed.

The dual mass flywheel was not visibly bad, but its slop was at the extreme limit of the acceptable range.  The noise was obvious, though, once it was twisted hard.   

What is the takeaway from this?  Sometimes two totally different problems will appear virtually at once, and by combining their symptoms you can imagine a very different diagnostic path.  Many times motorists come to us with a list of problems and the hope that there is one thing - the magic bullet failure - that will cure them all.  We have to explain that worn brakes and oil leaks have nothing to do with one another.  And rarely - as in this case - the opposite happens.  A car comes in with seemingly related symptoms, but in reality it has two totally independent failures.

Or are they independent?  Thinking more on this, we theorize that the failing flywheel may have set up a vibration pattern at the back of the engine that caused the timing chain tensioners to vibrate internally, and one to eventually stick.  

Many techs would have changed those tensioners and then reassembled everything. And from outside, the noise would have seemed like chain noise for sure.  The next step – an unnecessary engine teardown.

No matter how much you know, cars can always surprise you.  

(c) 2015 John Elder Robison

John Elder Robison is the general manager of J E Robison Service Company, celebrating 30 years of independent Porsche restoration and repair in Springfield, Massachusetts.  John is a longtime technical consultant to the Porsche clubs, and he’s owned and restored many fine specimens.  Find him online at www.robisonservice.com or in the real world at 413-785-1665

Reading this article will make you smarter, especially when it comes to car stuff.  So it's good for you.  But don't take that too far - printing and eating it will probably make you sick.