On Tunerism!

[Doc_Mello]

Hey, everyone! I'm excited to share my thoughts on what it means to be a Tuner, to live a lifestyle as an automotive enthusiast with a passion for customizing one’s ride(s).

This is a post I've been meaning to share for some time because I often reflect not only on my own life experiences developing as a GearHead , but also on the incredible number of wonderful like-minded folks with whom I've had the honor of bantering over the decades. Indeed, wrenching seems to necessarily include realizing the pains and joys involved with learning about, and customizing, these wonderful machines. However, it’s important to note that Tuners are never solo; I could never be where I am today without the many professional and garage mechanics with whom fantastic, often humorous, sometimes angering, tales of our ideas, our struggles, our adventures, traumas, and successes have been swapped.

In this exposition, I'll be describing Tunerism as I’ve come to experience it, and how I've learned to live in the moment not just with a remarkable machine much crafted by my own hands, but with a lifestyle founded upon art in motion. I'll be updating my thoughts here as often as the the muse permits, and I've already developed a bunch to share. So, stay tuned!

If you feel so inclined, please feel free to share your experiences, if anything I discuss resonates with you, or not (that's cool too), but let's all agree to keep our convo respectful and cordial. The last thing the world needs is more conflict. It's okay to agree to disagree, and, in fact, good collaborations can be the result.

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[Doc_Mello]

I was inspired to make explicit my Tunerist intuition by Ezra Klein’s January 25th, 2022, podcast entitled Learning to Listen to the Voices Only You Hear, in which him and his guest, Ruth Ozeki, discuss Marie Kondo’s perspective on appreciating those objects in our lives who have served us so well.

In that light, I'd like to start by outlining this concept. We can think of Tunerism as a philosophy based on an appreciation for exploring, understanding, and customizing the mechanics and aesthetics of automobiles. Given the scope of possibilities, Tunerism is a scale ranging from folks who enjoy the outcome of the customization, but have very little, if any, desire to perform the actual installation themselves, all the way to those of us who want to know every bolt and weld of their ride.

 

[Doc_Mello]

***Interlude: fun mechanic‘s story***

Feel pretty good that I was able to help a neighbor dx and fix a major brake issue with his truck today!

Check this out: he had a friend of his come over to change the brakes F/R on his 2011 F150 (my neighbor is a landscaper, and house handyman, but knows very little about cars, apparently). Immediately after, he drove a few feet, heard a horrible grinding noise from one corner, and parked it. This is his work truck, so, he needed it fixed by tomorrow. I happened to stop by his place to see if he wanted extra car cleaning supplies I wasn’t using, and I had time to take a look at the truck.

The noise was gut-wrenching! It was a solid metal-on-metal grinding that begins as soon as the truck started moving. My neighbor drove the truck just a few feet forward, while I stood outside listening, and immediately saw the issue: the brake caliper was contacting the inner surface of the rim, shaving off metal! So, we gathered supplies, and got to work.

Once the truck was jacked up, and the wheel removed, I started by comparing both front corners to see just what was the issue (I have zero experience with this vehicle, but some experience with brakes, which was a boon). Using small rivets on the brake pads for reference, I discovered that the caliper at the damaged corner was set back more than the other side, suggesting it wasn’t seated correctly, which was causing contact with the rim. But, why was it set back?

I was able to remove the lower caliper bolt in order to swing the caliper a bit to investigate if, maybe, the pads weren’t seated correctly. They were, however the outer pad was contacting the caliper’s inner surface in an odd manner, something that was not occurring for the inner pad, suggesting that maybe the wrong type of pads were installed (it happens. How many off us have gotten the incorrect part, necessitating a second trip to the parts store for a swap out? ). I also though a possibility might be that… no, did that really happen?! Did homeboy mechanic not realize that the outer and inner pads had different shapes, and install two inner pads on this corner (which means two outer pads are installed on the opposite side)?! I was considering investigating this theory by removing the other front wheel, but, luckily, my neighbor still had the old pads in a box in his garage. Sure enough, I was right! The inner pad has partitions for the caliper pistons, while the outer pad had no such design. Thus, installing an Inner pad on the outside was causing the caliper to be offset, and thus contact the rim!

I’m sure you can see where this was going. I took one of the pads from the damaged corner (the pad that was on the outside, which is really supposed to be used for the inner rotor face), then tightened up the rim on that side. We raised the other side, removed the wheel, and… couldn’t get the caliper off! WTH?! Ah! The caliper pistons were caught on some small rivets on the pads, locking the caliper onto the pad, which is locked to the brake’s pad frame! After trying a few different methods, I settled on the best method to push the caliper pistons back into the caliper just slightly in order to loosen it from brake pad. I carefully twisted a large flat head screwdriver seated between the pad and the rim of the piston I order to free the caliper. Afterward, I inspected the caliper pistons for damage. Luckily, only some superficial scoring from the flathead, nothing too bad at all, the I made sure not to touch the boots, which seemed perfectly intact, with no sign of weeping.

Once that was completed, I swapped in the correct inner pad for that corner, buttoned everything up, then buttoned up the other damaged corner. On that side, everything slide nicely into place, as it should’ve been the first time!

Once everything was tightened up, a visual inspection of the original issue showed no more contact between the caliper and rim, and the test drive was an instant success! What an adventure! I’m proud that we were able to figure out the issue, and I‘m happy that I was able to use my skillset as a garage mechanic to dx an issue on an unknown platform. I found this to be a great example of Tunerism because I used all of my skills to fix the issue, which is wholly satisfying.

 

[Doc_Mello]

AAAAAAAAAND we're back with another tale from Adventures in The Garage!

In today’s tale of daring do, Doc Mello replaces the rear shocks of a friend’s 2016 Civic Sedan (that has 130,000 miles, and has been in a minor accident before), and discovers not only some lazy engineering, but that other hands of touched the vehicle before, placing it in peril! 🫣

Whew, where do I start?! So, a friend told me about this minor accident that had occurred, and I've been included in the updates in getting the vehicle fixed through their insurance. They've recently gotten the car back, and it's back to what it was, but now they're in the process of performing deeper maintenance to replace old equipment. Up next is the struts & shocks all around! Knowing about my mechanical aptitude, they told me about how they were going to get the suspension replaced due to the mileage, and I suspected how they asked kinda hinted toward me doing the work. BUT, I did not want to touch the front struts because of all of the parts, the risks, needing spring compressors, etc. That said, I told them I could replace the rear shocks, and they should get the front done at a shop that would warranty the work.

So, on with the replacing the rear shocks! Relatively simple job, yeah? Oooooh, you might think so, but, remember, this is a Civic sedan with 130,000 miles driven across many conditions. Having replaced my own with the Tein kit, I had a strong idea of into that I was getting myself. ...I also remember the issues with which I had to deal.

Removing the shocks is easy, for sure. Afterward, I needed to transfer the OEM top hats to the new shocks. Now, personally, I find this to be a perfect example of lazy engineering.

This is the top hat. See that depression in the center? The lock nut attaching the hat to the strut shaft sits within that depression, which means that the nut sits at or below the upper rim of that depression. Why would anyone engineer something like this?! Makes zero sense!

Luckily, I had a pass-through ratchet that is deep enough to sit within that depression, BUT the top threaded portion of the new shocks was not as long as the OEM shocks, which means that the pass-through I used to remove the original lock nut was too thick to use for installing the new lock nut. I could not find a rectangle bit to hold the strut shaft (the shaft must be held while the nut is tightened), which means I needed an offset wrench. I searched everywhere for two hours, and I was able to find one in stock, actually! Something like this...

Se that lip extension? That's what needed! Stupid Honda engineering in this case, but overcome with a random speciality tool.

Anywho, moving on to more stupid engineering, I've always found, unfailingly, that the upper shock bolts are always tricky to install! They should just twist right in, but because of the suspension geometry, the shock has to be somewhat maneuvered for those bolts to twist in without cross-threading. PRO TIP: install those top bolts while the lower end of the shock is free-hanging. This allows enough play for the shock to be bolted in up top, then the lower bolt can be installed. Again, poor engineering, but it is what it is.

Once those obstacles were overcome, I buttoned everything back up like normal, until...

(disclaimer: not my hand. Image shown only for reference purposes. )
A lug bolt snapped!

Now, anyone who's been following my car's, The Hotness™️, build thread knows that I do not cut corners, nor do I use mechanical practices that lead to broken lug bolts. Remember how this car has 130K miles on it? Yeah, pretty sure many shops across years have been using their impact guns to install lug nuts, and this is a perfect example of what happens with carelessness.

Of course, I informed my friend of everything I did to the vehicle, all of the inspections I performed, and how this occurred. I also informed him that I'm highly confident that this consequence was not the result of my work, but since it happened on my watch, I'm happy to pay for the replacement. Seems like a relatively straightforward install.

Other than that, the car sounds and feels newer than it has in a long time! The old shocks were both completely blown, and the new ones made a great difference.

Stay tuned for an update!

 

[Sport-injected]

Hey, everyone! I'm excited to share my thoughts on what it means to be a Tuner, to live a lifestyle as an automotive enthusiast with a passion for customizing one’s ride(s).

This is a post I've been meaning to share for some time because I often reflect not only on my own life experiences developing as a GearHead , but also on the incredible number of wonderful like-minded folks with whom I've had the honor of bantering over the decades. Indeed, wrenching seems to necessarily include realizing the pains and joys involved with learning about, and customizing, these wonderful machines. However, it’s important to note that Tuners are never solo; I could never be where I am today without the many professional and garage mechanics with whom fantastic, often humorous, sometimes angering, tales of our ideas, our struggles, our adventures, traumas, and successes have been swapped.

In this exposition, I'll be describing Tunerism as I’ve come to experience it, and how I've learned to live in the moment not just with a remarkable machine much crafted by my own hands, but with a lifestyle founded upon art in motion. I'll be updating my thoughts here as often as the the muse permits, and I've already developed a bunch to share. So, stay tuned!

If you feel so inclined, please feel free to share your experiences, if anything I discuss resonates with you, or not (that's cool too), but let's all agree to keep our convo respectful and cordial. The last thing the world needs is more conflict. It's okay to agree to disagree, and, in fact, good collaborations can be the result.

Found it! I envy your writing ability... when in highschool I was already neck deep into tunerism, I would day dream about my older friends cars and when in 10th grade I bought my 1992 VW Gti. Immediately I was hooked and the wrenching began almost instantly. That was in 2000, so forums were rare and if they were around I didn't care to find them, social media was maybe at it's starting stages and again I didn't care to find out. I learned by watching and listening to my dad as he would tell me stories of hot rodding when he was much younger along with wrenching on our family cars. My next door neighbor was a mechanical genius and had a lawnmower repair business when he was 14, so starting at the age of 9 I spent a lot of time watching him tear down and rebuild lawnmower engines, in a couple years he was doing the same with cars. I had tons of people around me and all of them though they knew what they were talking about, but I quickly learned who was a reliable source and who really didn't know what they were taking about. I also had subscriptions to alot of auto magazines which had lots of great articles on engine building, performance parts, just alot of great info that I would absorb.

This is a great thread Daniel and I hope to see some great stories and experiences!

 

[Doc_Mello]

Found it! I envy your writing ability... when in highschool I was already neck deep into tunerism, I would day dream about my older friends cars and when in 10th grade I bought my 1992 VW Gti. Immediately I was hooked and the wrenching began almost instantly. That was in 2000, so forums were rare and if they were around I didn't care to find them, social media was maybe at it's starting stages and again I didn't care to find out. I learned by watching and listening to my dad as he would tell me stories of hot rodding when he was much younger along with wrenching on our family cars. My next door neighbor was a mechanical genius and had a lawnmower repair business when he was 14, so starting at the age of 9 I spent a lot of time watching him tear down and rebuild lawnmower engines, in a couple years he was doing the same with cars. I had tons of people around me and all of them though they knew what they were talking about, but I quickly learned who was a reliable source and who really didn't know what they were taking about. I also had subscriptions to alot of auto magazines which had lots of great articles on engine building, performance parts, just alot of great info that I would absorb.

This is a great thread Daniel and I hope to see some great stories and experiences!

Thanks so much!

Yeah, I had a lot of the same experiences. The classic Hanes and Chilton’s manuals were life-savers! But, as we know, many lessons came from trial and error. …many errors. Not sure how my knuckles have survived this long.

 

[Sport-injected]

Thanks so much!

Yeah, I had a lot of the same experiences. The classic Hanes and Chilton’s manuals were life-savers! But, as we know, many lessons came from trial and error. …many errors. Not sure how my knuckles have survived this long.

Oh man I miss flipping through manuals, mine were all covered in grease lol.

 

[SethNES]

Used Hanes a decent amount on old Civic and usually pretty decent. However some jobs were lacking in detail or seemed to skip steps or assume you knew how to get to part. I remember a few I'd have to look on YouTube or forums because I'd be looking at the manual dumbfounded. On the other hand they go into a ton of detail on others.

 

[Sport-injected]

Used Hanes a decent amount on old Civic and usually pretty decent. However some jobs were lacking in detail or seemed to skip steps or assume you knew how to get to part. I remember a few I'd have to look on YouTube or forums because I'd be looking at the manual dumbfounded.

Yes they weren't the best, there was a lot left to figuring out! That was all part of the journey hah.

 

[Doc_Mello]

Used Hanes a decent amount on old Civic and usually pretty decent. However some jobs were lacking in detail or seemed to skip steps or assume you knew how to get to part. I remember a few I'd have to look on YouTube or forums because I'd be looking at the manual dumbfounded. On the other hand they go into a ton of detail on others.

Yes they weren't the best, there was a lot left to figuring out! That was all part of the journey hah.

Yep, both spot on!

 

[Doc_Mello]

To continue my musings on Tunerism...

Now, while I don’t remember the first time I slammed my knuckles into sheet metal trying to break loose a bolt, I can say with confidence that my career in tinkering with machines, and cars, by extension, began during the formative years of my childhood. Before adolescence, my unbridled creativity usually manifested in Technicolor upon plain white paper, but as I aged, my fanciful wonderings transitioned from abstract imaginations to concrete realizations. I started becoming more curious about the mechanical workings of common items, and, oh, the many times I was chastised by my parents for disassembling appliances! Not in vain were my explorations, though, because they provided novel experience with understanding industrial design. Over time, I began customizing my own and my friends’ bikes, often swapping parts with one another, and tweaking settings and linkages with no end goal other than to simply understand how all the many pieces came together to form the gestalt machine. Little did I realize at the time, however, that while I was adjusting cables, and painting segments of the frame, I was also making the machine uniquely my own.

During this period of my life, I also found that my hands-on training with bicycle mechanics seemed transferable to even larger machines. I distinctly recall many moments helping my father perform a variety of services on our family’s myriad vehicles over the years, as well as being allowed to assist other folks in my neighborhood with their garage projects. In fact, it was this one-on-one instruction that helped me understand the distinction between static and wearable parts on cars, which includes items designed simply to keep the machine running, such as oils and coolant. Moreover, this nascent foray into automobile mechanics is when I began to realize the importance of having the correct tool for the job because there were so many more nuts, bolts, and clips on cars than on bikes. I learned Standard and Metric socket sizes, when and why to use different wrenches, and the potential for disaster when trying to adapt inadequate tools in the moment. In all, I found that the basic physical principles of ratios, leverage, and lubrication remained the same across platforms, but the small lessons garnered from working on bikes seemed to have amplified consequences on cars.

Stay tuned...

 

[Sport-injected]

To continue my musings on Tunerism...

Now, while I don’t remember the first time I slammed my knuckles into sheet metal trying to break loose a bolt, I can say with confidence that my career in tinkering with machines, and cars, by extension, began during the formative years of my childhood. Before adolescence, my unbridled creativity usually manifested in Technicolor upon plain white paper, but as I aged, my fanciful wonderings transitioned from abstract imaginations to concrete realizations. I started becoming more curious about the mechanical workings of common items, and, oh, the many times I was chastised by my parents for disassembling appliances! Not in vain were my explorations, though, because they provided novel experience with understanding industrial design. Over time, I began customizing my own and my friends’ bikes, often swapping parts with one another, and tweaking settings and linkages with no end goal other than to simply understand how all the many pieces came together to form the gestalt machine. Little did I realize at the time, however, that while I was adjusting cables, and painting segments of the frame, I was also making the machine uniquely my own.

During this period of my life, I also found that my hands-on training with bicycle mechanics seemed transferable to even larger machines. I distinctly recall many moments helping my father perform a variety of services on our family’s myriad vehicles over the years, as well as being allowed to assist other folks in my neighborhood with their garage projects. In fact, it was this one-on-one instruction that helped me understand the distinction between static and wearable parts on cars, which includes items designed simply to keep the machine running, such as oils and coolant. Moreover, this nascent foray into automobile mechanics is when I began to realize the importance of having the correct tool for the job because there were so many more nuts, bolts, and clips on cars than on bikes. I learned Standard and Metric socket sizes, when and why to use different wrenches, and the potential for disaster when trying to adapt inadequate tools in the moment. In all, I found that the basic physical principles of ratios, leverage, and lubrication remained the same across platforms, but the small lessons garnered from working on bikes seemed to have amplified consequences on cars.

Stay tuned...

Jesus you should be an author, composition skills are stellar.

 

[Doc_Mello]

Jesus you should be an author, composition skills are stellar.

TY. I read for a living, which might be helping.

 

[Doc_Mello]

...And I continue...

As one might imagine, finally being able to drive the machines on which I had worked for so many years brought a fresh perspective to my abilities. Before then, I knew that my ability to remove and replace parts had direct consequences for the operation of the machine, lessons I had learned from years of bicycle mechanics, but that notion was somewhat abstract with cars because I had always been a passenger. Once I had obtained my own driver’s license, being in direct control of the machine made my tuning efforts that much more salient to my consciousness and identity, and I believe it is that moment I realized my own craftsmanship. Suddenly accountable for the fate of an expensive machine weighing thousands of pounds, my own life, and the life of others, it’s easy to feel the gravity of responsibility equal to or greater than the kinetic potential of the machine itself! The magnified consequences for my actions relative to bicycles meant that I had to be even more diligent in my operations with my car, as seemingly small oversights could have life-altering ramifications.

Along with a renewed focus on safety, the diligence derived from this sense of duty allowed me to develop a resolving pride and appreciation for my own handiwork, something akin to a signature. I found that possessing in-depth and ever-growing knowledge of the machines so important to our lives provided a wellspring of utility on which others could draw. In turn, every new experience was an opportunity to revise or renew my own skillset. This iterative synergy between my knowledge base and opportunities to apply my skills was a revolution of refinement through which I came to develop my own brand of mechanical aptitude, one that shaped not only how I approached the issue, but also how I went about resolving it. In essence, an inadvertent consequence of developing as a Tuner was the formation of my mechanical fingerprint, a unique pattern stamped across the machines I had touched that identified my work. A notable example of this ‘mechanical fingerprint’ is how my personal eye for uniformity in design, whether that’s art, interior or automotive design, translated into small details during the build process that makes the completed project appear elegant and professional. Such attention to detail resulted in not only a comprehensive approach to repairs and upgrades, but also a positive reputation for thoroughness.

Stay tuned...

 

[Doc_Mello]

The next segment of Tunerism!

It is important and pertinent to mention that tuning isn’t all ‘sunshine and rainbows’. In fact, when tuning, one of the worst feelings we might experience is a faulty repair or upgrade, not only because one’s reputation may be on the line, but, and more importantly, lives be on the line, depending on the failure. I’ve personally endured acute, partially traumatizing stress due to hardware and software failures that resulted in property damages. Moreover, I’ve suffered long-term stress, including sleepless nights, both from failures themselves, and from the anticipation of failures. Any quality Tuner will devote considerable mental resources to thinking about a build of any complexity from multiple angles, though especially repairs or upgrades involving substantial investment of time, money, and dissection of the vehicle. In the moment, there seems to exist a positive potentially-linear association between the complexity of the job and the amount of stress it produces for the Tuner, and this association may be longitudinally curvilinear. Stated a different way, the more complex a repair or upgrade, the more a Tuner will stress about the details at any given moment, and that stress will most likely rise and fall as the project unfolds. Furthermore, the completion of a repair or installation is not automatically linked to a removal or dissipation of said stress. Rather, the greater the complexity of the project, the more likely a Tuner is to continue cogitating on all of the details of the project well after its completion because of the magnitude of the investment. Thus, Tunerism may be as psychoemotionally and monetarily demanding as it is fulfilling.

Somewhat related to the inherent stress of Tuning is the remarkable possibility that Tunerism facilitates the addition of relatively unnecessary complexity to life. Consider this: aside from repairs, which may be needed to enable further upgrades, Tuners are modifying a perfectly functional machine to suit their tastes, often with parts and/or materials that have not been specifically tested in, and OEM-approved for, the mechanical and environmental context in which the machine will be used. Quality Tuners, whether an individual or a business organization, will utilize or develop replacement or upgrade products while taking into consideration an incredible number of factors related to the machine’s context, including but not limited to: cost and quality of the product itself, ambient and contact temperature the product will experience, the possibility and risk of contamination or damage from fluids and/or abrasion or and/or electricity, lifetime wear of the product in nominal conditions, and product maintenance after installation. Given the above, now imagine how all of these factors, plus others not mentioned, multiply with project complexity. Yes, it becomes that intense for Tuners, especially when the project involves performance and safety equipment, hence the varying demand tuning places on our psychoemotional state of mind. So, the next time a Tuner is stressed about a project, to the point of losing sleep, please be empathetic to our plight!

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