General auto repair questions answered

[me and my metro]

I am a life long professional mechanic and am offering advice on auto and truck repair issues. I have been a moderator on a Saturn specific site for a couple years but the site does not like my vpn. So I am offering my services here. I will try to provide correct information to all.
Andy

[Gasoline Fumes]

2003 Toyota Tacoma - Clutch not fully disengaging. Flushing/bleeding helped for a day. How do I tell if it's the master or slave cylinder?

[me and my metro]

Does the system loose fluid? I would suspect the master first if the system holds fluid well. The master has to hold pressure and the slave just pushes the clutch fork or bearing directly.

[Gasoline Fumes]

Originally Posted by me and my metro

Does the system loose fluid? I would suspect the master first if the system holds fluid well. The master has to hold pressure and the slave just pushes the clutch fork or bearing directly.

Thanks! I think the reservoir was full and I saw no evidence of leakage. If it's leaking, it's a slow leak.

[2016 Versa]

Just asking opinion. I have a Nissan Versa with CVT. With Nissan's track record on CVT's how often would you recommend changing the fluid and filter? I've been planning around every 30K miles. It's currently at 21K and I just ordered fluid online a couple days ago but, I still need to order the filter.

[me and my metro]

I would look in the recommended maintenance section of your owners manual. I always follow the shorter intervals that are recommended for city/taxi use. Even if your car only sees highway use I would use the city interval.
If there is no recommended oil change interval then 30k miles should be ok. CVT is a great idea in theory however in reality they have been somewhat troublesome. I would love to hear how the success stories CVT cars are driven. I would bet that people who drive for economy have much better success with these transmissions and vehicles in general.

[redpoint5]

What part of Oregun are you in? I'm in Silverton these days.

I've been meaning to track down the speedo issue on my old Ram/Cummins but haven't got aRoundTuit. Probably a loose wire somewhere as the speedo was intermittently working at one point. Do those senders or gauges have grounds? Probably a bad ground I'd guess.

The truck runs the grid heater until a certain speed is reached, and since it can't ever sense that speed, it just keeps running the grid heater.

[me and my metro]

Sweet Home. Your sender should be a two wire a/c generator type. Check it with a dvom, should be approximately 9 ohms if memory serves me. If it is open or less than one ohm replace it. I have had them fail at less than 1 ohm.

[redpoint5]

I did replace the sender at one point thinking that the damage the previous one sustained may have been the cause. Some bolts had come out in the differential and caused a bit of damage on the tone ring and scuffed up the plastic on the sender.

The crazy thing is the heads were sheared off on some of the bolts, and the diff still functions.

I should probably sell the motor and scrap the truck. The body has probably 350,000+ miles on it, the headliner is massively sagging, the AC stopped working long ago, the speedo/odometer doesn't work, and therefore the cruise control doesn't work, the wiper motor recently failed and was replaced with a weak unit, the windshield seal let loose near the bottom so you can see the glass pop out whenever you close the door... the front end never did track straight except for a few months after replacing the U joints and track bar. The transmission was weak from the day I got it, and now it locks/unlocks at a certain speed around 53 MPH. The calipers need work again.

Still, it pulls a trailer whenever I need it to.

[me and my metro]

I have found that harness worn through on a parking brake cable before. If the sensor is still good you might be able to track down the other end and verify the same ohm readings. Probably at the pcm. Sorry I don’t have access to Mopar schematics.