Mazda 6–Throttle body ground

Well, this can be one of those mods which don’t add any value, and in fact there is a long debate on forum on how useful it is. But it cost me ~10$ so why not. And besides, I felt immediate improvement in throttle response (but that could be just in my mind). Anyway…

You’ll need:

• 8mm and 10mm wrenches
• 4 AWG wire + connectors (I got preassembled wire from NAPA with connectors and stuff for 6.99 + tax)
• Cable housing, some cable ties

Procedure is dead-simple: take the wire, wrap in cable housing, fasten with some cable ties, connect one side to the body (where your negative battery is connected), and another side to one of the throttle body bolt. You’re done. Pics below:

Mazda 6–How to clean throttle body

Today I’ll tell how to clean throttle body on Mazda 6i 2008. But, as usual, disclaimer:

I’m not responsible for any damage you may cause to your car or, even worse, to yourself using instructions provided bellow. I’m not a professional mechanic and whatnot, so use these instructions at your own risk. Read entire post first and be sure you understand everything before you start it. If you’re in doubt – seek professional help.

NOTE: Chemicals you’ll be using are extremely flammable and poisonous, so use your brain, work in well ventilated area, away from open fire and don’t spray anything on hot engine (you’ll injure yourself and set your engine on fire)! Don’t work on engine when its hot, you’ll have to disconnect the coolant hoses and you can get injured. Don’t spill coolant as it poisonous, especially for animals, your dog will die from kidney failure :(!

Dirty throttle body can cause all sorts of problems: “sticky gas pedal”, poor gas mileage and poor throttle response.

For this job you’ll need:

• hex screwdriver
• 8mm & 10mm metric wrenches
• needle nose pliers
• Piece of plastic bag and couple of cable ties
• Empty 1 gal. milk bottle
• small brush (toothbrush, painting brush, any king of brush you don’t need)
• Carb and choke cleaner (or throttle body cleaner)
• Brake cleaner

Let’s get started.

Start by disconnecting the negative terminal off your battery.

Loosen two bolts holding intake hose (one on throttle body, and another one next to MAF sensor). You need to remove the hose that goes from intake hose (just squeeze the blue clip and slide it off).

Once the intake hose is removed, disconnect the throttle body position sensor. Slide the red clip a little bit and disconnect the TPS connector.

Disconnect the the upper coolant hose the goes to throttle body. Use needle nose pliers and slide off the clip that holds the hose. Than CAREFULY disconnect the hose. Use a small piece of plastic bag and cable tie to seal the open end of removed hose.

Now remove 4 bolts that hold throttle body (8mm wrench) – green arrows on picture below.

 

There is another lower coolant hose that goes from throttle body (red arrow on above image), you can reach that once you detach the throttle body. Do the same what you’ve done for upper hose.

This is how surge tank looks like inside (below). Cleanup that mess a little bit. Spray a little of carb cleaner on a rag and wipe it off (you won’t be able to remove everything though). Don’t spray carb cleaner inside surge tank!

And this is how your dirty throttle body may look like:

Now the fun part: get your carb cleaner, brake cleaner, brush and cut off the top of the milk bottle.

Cover the connector, coolant lines and remove rubber gasket from the throttle body (as carb cleaner dissolve it). Its better to replace the gasket each time you remove the throttle body, but I reused mine.

Now, spray good amount of carb cleaner inside the throttle body. Use brush to reach everywhere, clean it thoroughly. When its clean, spray the throttle body with brake cleaner, it will clean remaining carb cleaner.

DISPOSE USED CHEMICALS PROPERLY (or at least don’t dump it on the ground).

Clean TB:

Assemble everything in reverse order:

And you’re done!

Mazda 6–Replacing front fender inner liner

Its hard to call a DIY or a guide, it just some random pics I took replacing mine… The other day I found out that my driver’s side fender liner has a big hole in it. Probably some big debris got caught between the wheel and liner and destroyed it. Not a big deal I’d say, but I really didn’t like it.

So I found a replacement line off eBay for 15$ shipped. And here is the replacement process

First of, disclaimer:

I’m not responsible for any damage you may cause to your car or, even worse, to yourself using instructions provided bellow. I’m not a professional mechanic and whatnot, so use these instructions at your own risk. Read entire post first and be sure you understand everything before you start it. If you’re in doubt – seek professional help.

And pics :

New inner fender liner:

And the old one removed from the car:

And.. done

How to resize all images in Word document?

Here’s a simple VBA macro that will resize all images in a Word document to 16 cm width preserving the aspect ratio.

Code Snippet

1. Sub AllPictSize()
2.     Dim targetWidth As Integer
3.     Dim oShp As Shape
4.     Dim oILShp As InlineShape
5.  
6.     targetWidth = 16
7.  
8.     For Each oShp In ActiveDocument.Shapes
9.         With oShp
10.             .Height = AspectHt(.Width, .Height, _
11.             CentimetersToPoints(targetWidth))
12.             .Width = CentimetersToPoints(targetWidth)
13.         End With
14.     Next
15.  
16.     For Each oILShp In ActiveDocument.InlineShapes
17.         With oILShp
18.             .Height = AspectHt(.Width, .Height, CentimetersToPoints(targetWidth))
19.             .Width = CentimetersToPoints(targetWidth)
20.         End With
21.     Next
22. End Sub
23.  
24. Private Function AspectHt(ByVal origWd As Long, ByVal origHt As Long, ByVal newWd As Long) As Long
25.     If origWd <> 0 Then
26.         AspectHt = (CSng(origHt) / CSng(origWd)) * newWd
27.     Else
28.         AspectHt = 0
29.     End If
30. End Function

Mazda 6 – 60K? Time to clean your throttle body!

Check out the next post on how to DIY!

Sonata 2006 v6–Changing Spark Plugs

First of all, disclaimer:

I’m not responsible for any damage you may cause to your car or, even worse, to yourself using instructions provided bellow. I’m not a professional mechanic and whatnot, so use these instructions at your own risk. Read entire post first and be sure you understand everything before you start it. If you’re in doubt – seek professional help.

Stuff you’ll need:

• Please refer to this post for most of the tools required;
• In addition to that you’ll need 10, 12, 14 mm sockets
• needle nose pliers

Well, here are couple useful links from hmaservice.com that contain some information on how to remove intake manifold and spark plugs. This post is not a replacement and its recommended to use official manual as primary source, but those links below are not compete (some steps are missing, some are irrelevant and can be accomplished in a different way):

• intake/exhaust manifold removal/installation
• spark plugs removal/installation

OK, let’s start.

• Pop up the hood and disconnect the battery’s negative terminal. Using the 10mm socket remove engine cover:

• Remove brackets that hold engine cover, you’ll need 10mm socket and needle nose pliers to detach wires, blue arrows are pointing to the places where those wires are attached. Just squeeze them with pliers and push them through.

• Loosen spring clamps securing hose coming from airbox to throttle body (red arrows). Use pliers to squeeze the spring clamp on a breather hose, slide it off and disconnect breather hose (yellow arrow). Do not disconnect mass airflow sensor connector (green circle), just unfasten the airbox cover and leave it as is. Those connectors are pain in the *ss.. Remove the intake hose.

• breather hose disconnected

• “disconnect” oxygen sensor. Well, its not necessary to disconnect them, just slide them of the W-shaped bracket (surge tank stay), and leave them hanging.

• Disconnect camshaft position sensor (in fact its not necessary, but it would be easier to move airbox cover, since MAF sensor is connected).

• Slide off injector connector (left) and ignition coil connector (right) from its bracket and remove bracket (or leave it there).

• Remove surge tank stay bolt (14 mm) and W-shaped bracket.

• Yet, another connector (which must be the one for variable intake solenoid, but I’m not quite sure).

• Disconnect manifold absolute pressure sensor (MAPS).

• Remove 10mm bolt holding purge control solenoid valve in place (red arrow), disconnect its connector (yellow) and remove spring clamp and hose (blue one). Don’t disconnect another coming from it, disconnecting from surge tank is enough.

• Time for throttle body. There are 3 10mm and one 12mm bolts holding it in place. Remove the bolts, don’t disconnect any harness or hoses as there are no reasons to do that (unless you want to). Be careful, as this ‘thing” is somewhat fragile…

• Disconnect the two hoses (se below):

• .. and there are couple more bolts to remove – 2 10mm and one 12mm at the back of the surge tank.

• Now, the fun part – removing surge tank. There are 2 10mm bolts with with white rings on them and there another 3 10mm bolts and 2 nuts holding surge tank in place.

• Once the surge tank is removed, cover intake manifold with some rag or towel immediately.

• Now you have an access to the rear spark plugs(!).

• Replacement procedure is straightforward for engines with coils, and I described it in details here, but in nutshell:
  • Disconnect coil wire;
  • Unscrew the bolt that keeps coil in place;
  • Remove coil;
  • Remove old plug;
  • Take a new plug, put anti-seize lube on it and install it;
  • Put a little of dielectric grease in coil, secure it with a bolt;
  • Attach the wire;
  • Repeat for all 6.

• Once all plug are in place, reinstall everything in reverse order.

That’s pretty much it. Time start to finish: 3 hours (give or take half an hour).