This summer, we are having the first ever 1A Auto Video Contest. For the Full Rules, and entry form, go to the 1A Auto Video Contest page. For the cliff notes, here’s the way it works.
You make a video that is 1 minute or less explaining how 1A Auto has saved you time and/or money.
Post it on your the internet so the public can see it.
Go to the Video Contest Page, agree to the terms & conditions, do what it says, and fill out the form.
If you do everything right and follow the rules, your video entry will likely be accepted by the 1A Auto Contest Committee (…of which I happen to be proud part of.).
The first 100 entrees accepted get a Free T-Shirt and more!
The Grand Prize winner (chosen by the 1A Auto Contest Committee) gets $1000!
With the prizes so generous, and ability to enter so incredibly easy, we are obviously expecting a large number of entrees. Make your video ASAP, and tell all of your friends about it!
It isn’t every day that you see a 1934 Pontiac 2 door sedan with dual side mounted spares. It also not super common for a stock bodied 1934 Pontiac to have a giant 428 Pontiac motor stuffed under the stock hood. The thing that really impressed me though, was the absolutely pristine, custom-built, perfectly painted chassis that was hiding the coil-over independent rear suspension and inboard disc brakes. Yes, THAT was impressive. In fact, it was so impressive that it needed a plexiglass floor pan to properly show it off. This is totally my kind of car. Under the radar. Low key. Nonchalant. Powerhouse.
Some cars age really, really well, and the BMW 6 series is most certainly one of them. This past weekend I attended a car show at a local car dealer, and this beautifully BMW 635 CSI was in the parking lot staring at me. Amazingly, this car was not part of the car show. It was shameful really, because this car was incredibly well kept, and easily as nice as many of the show cars. The body of this BMW was flawless, the wheels were flawless, and it had clearly been loved from the moment it left the factory. Well done BMW. You made my Sunday.
Okay fine, maybe it’s only 984 pictures, but sometimes in life you need to massage numbers up or down to suit your needs. This is my time to do so. Regardless, 984 pictures is still a lot of old car wreck pictures to thumb through, so you will want to grab a nice iced mocha latte or something for this little morbid afternoon journey. I’ve gone through quite a few of these and I didn’t see any grotesque stuff (read: blood, guts, etc), but look at your own risk just in case I overlooked it.
The thing that amazes me the most about them, is the picture quality. The vast majority of these images are from between 1925 and 1955, and the clarity of the images is far better than anything that I could do right now. Then again, I am photographically illiterate. Anywho, enjoy the nearly one thousand pictures of old car wrecks, accidents, or whatever you prefer to call them.
This is if you don’t like slide shows and would rather click individual car accident pictures.
All images are borrowed from the links above at the Boston Public Library
We decided to pack up the RV on Friday night and make the 8 hour trek down to Dover International Speedway, AKA the “Monster Mile.”
If you’re a race fan and have never been to Dover, it’s worth the trip. We had an absolute blast at this track. The racing was awesome, and it was a pretty cool place to take in a cup race.
The Monster in front of Dover International Speedway
The first thing that I didn’t realise was how steep the banks were in the turns. At 24 degrees of banking in the turns, and 9 degrees on the straights, it’s almost like a mini Daytona. Watching the race on T.V. doesn’t give the track any justice, when you go there in person, then you know why it’s called the “Monster Mile.” This track chewed up stock cars and spit them out.
The big one happened on lap 9 when Tony Stewart and the 83 tangled coming out of turn 2. The two cars spun blocking the entire speedway causing a 12-13 car pile-up. With nowhere to go, one car slammed right into another down the backstretch. They had to red flag the race for a while to clean up the carnage off of the track.
The two Busch brothers, and Jeff Burton all suffered blown motors as a result of trying to tame the monster, but their cars would have no part of it as one by one their motors decided to expire.
Jeff Gordon seemed to have the only car that could catch and pass the 48 Lowes machine of Johnson. However once again Gordon’s bad luck of 2012 continued when he left his pit stall and reported a loose wheel over the radio a few laps later, which forced him to pit under green. He came back out of the pits in around the 21st place, and luck never really seemed to be on his side to help him make his way back towards the front of the pack He finished 13th for his efforts.
There was no stopping Kevin Harvick, as he also challenged Jimmie Johnson for the lead. He even had to pick his way back through the field after missing his pit stall on pit road, and then had to go all the way around the track to try it one more time so that his car could get serviced by his pit crew. Harvick took home a second place finish.
On of the things that I had to laugh at (or didn’t expect) was that when we pulled into Lot 10 to park the RV, everyone was mowing their lawn. It was pretty comical, to see everyone with red lawn mowers strapped to their motorhomes. In NH the fans all have Radio Flyer wagons to haul stuff to the track.
Cutting the roof off of a car can be a little intimidating, but sometimes you have no choice. In my case, my friend’s 1972 Nova had a vinyl roof for its entire life, which rotted out the steel beneath it quite nicely. With the wheel houses repaired, and both quarter panels finally welded on, I decided to tackle the haggard looking roof skin next. Read More
Think your Subaru has turbo problems? This post reviews how to find out after the owner’s turbo shaft broke in half for not replacing the banjo bolt and its filter. Learn a simple way to prevent turbo problems on your Subaru and a simple way to fix this one if yours has the banjo bolt and filter and you’d rather not replace it with a new one.
Why Does My Subaru Have Turbo Problems?
Those of you that follow the 1A Auto Blog may remember the 2006 Subaru Legacy GT project car that I bought a few months ago. If not, you may want to start off by reading Part 1 and Part 2 of the project before jumping ahead first into today’s post. Then again, maybe you just want to dig right into the meat and potatoes. For that, I can’t blame you. In fact, that makes you a straight shooter, and that’s what I’ve always liked about you.
Okay. The new-ish VF40 turbo on the 2006 Legacy GT destroyed itself in hellacious fashion recently. Yes. It was quite an experience that I won’t soon forget. Raining, muddy, on a steep hill, on a high speed road, and then shrouded in disappointment from my “towing service” who shall remain nameless. If I had only known a month ago what I know now, this horrible event would have definitely been avoided. So now I want to inform turbocharged Subaru owners far and wide of this absolutely simple maintenance that can make a destroyed turbo totally preventable.
For me, I can only blame myself for not researching this car & the EJ25 engine more, because this info is already out there if you just search for it. Sadly, I just didn’t realize that I needed to. Research, research, research when you buy a car that you are unfamiliar with. Hit the car forums. Ask the people that drive them. Be your own automotive advocate. It WILL save you cash and stress.
A Bad Banjo Bolt with a Filter
Now let’s get to the good stuff! Once the red beauty was towed home and placed in the dry, loving surroundings of the garage, I found that the shaft inside the VF40 turbo had been completely starved of oil, and it broke in half at the center bearing. This left the turbine wheel dancing around inside the turbine housing, which is never optimal for peak performance. With the engine running, the sound could have been mistaken for somebody feeding steel chains into a wood chipper. I immediately asked myself “how the heck did this happen?!” The car had brand new oil in it, only about 2,000 miles on the oil that I got it with a couple of months ago, and I knew that the previous owner took amazing care of this car because she loved it. I hit the internet in search for the answer.
Much to my surprise, there was 350+ page thread on Legacygt.com that discussed this exact problem in detail, because hundreds of other Subaru owners have had the same exact problem as me. The cause – the banjo bolt (also known as a “union” bolt) that is part of the oil feed line to the turbo. Inside this banjo bolt is a tiny little (stupid) filter. Over time, this tiny little filter does its job and filters contaminates from going into the turbo. Great, right? No. Not so much. Because most people rarely, if ever, replace them. Left untouched for too long, the filter becomes clogged, and your turbo is starved of oil, which quickly leads it to an early death.
An Alternative Solution to a New Banjo Bolt
Needless to say, I am no longer a fan of this bolt or the filter that lives inside it, and I decided that there was no way that I was replacing it with the same style system. There just had to be something better out there, like maybe an oil feed line with a washable filter, and more oil volume? HUZZAH! The internet saved the day again! A company called “Infamous Performance” in California created an oil feed kit that appears to be far superior to the factory system. The kit that they sell completely eliminates the factory oil feed, and grabs engine oil from a “better” location. It also has a terrific looking, larger oil filter than can be cleaned out easily at your leisure. Since I also needed a new turbo, I went with a hybrid 16G VF40 from BNRSupercars. Both parts got to me fast, and worked perfectly without any drama whatsoever. The car now is now fixed, the birds are singing, and a beautiful red 2006 Subaru Legacy GT is back on the streets again.
Do All Turbocharged Subarus Have a Banjo Bolt?
Now, for those of you with turbocharged Subarus, don’t freak out yet. The first step is to find out if your car even had this banjo (union) bolt with the filter inside it (Not all Subarus do. In fact, the majority don’t.). For the cars that do have it though, it is located on the back of the passenger side cylinder head, and it holds down the turbo oil feed line. A super helpful Subaru owner known as “niemkij” on iwsti.com did a fantastic write-up of how to replace one of these bolts yourself. Currently, a new “union” bolt is around $17 new from a Subaru dealer, and probably take between 15 minutes and an hour to replace, depending on your level of expertise.
For all intents and purposes, replacing this banjo bolt with a new one from the dealer is all you really need to do. I go overboard on everything that I do, so I went with the whole new feed line & fancier turbo instead of the OEM stuff. The moral is, this tiny little turbo oil feed filter needs to be replaced on a regular basis. If you don’t replace it, or don’t know when the last time yours was replaced, you may be risking more problems with the turbo in your Subaru. Check it out, and report back your findings. I want to hear about your Subaru.
Learn How to Diagnose and Replace Parts on Your Subaru
Learn how to diagnose and replace parts on your Subaru and other makes and models. The 1A Auto video library has thousands of how-to videos with step-by-step instructions from real mechanics.
