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2001 Mazda Protege 1.6 DOHC 5-speed MT crank windows no AC c. 190,000 km at the time I had changed the timing belt a few weeks before. Oil was probably vanilla Mobil 1 5W-30. In August 2012 Jr and I drove out to the Rockies to hike. (We hiked Mt Indefatigable and Mt Ha Ling. There was still...

That puts Costco's Kirkland (Warren) oil at about the same price as Walmart's SuperTech (also Warren).

But the equivalent $1.44/litre price in Hawaii is in USD, correct? And I think the B.C. prices are in C$. If you do the currency conversion (1 C$ typically 0.72 USD), B.C.'s prices are high, but not as much above Hawaii's and California's prices as they first appear. (C$2.00 = US$1.44...

The owners bought it new, but I have to wonder ... They had a set of stabilizer-bar end links replaced at Midas a few years ago, and the ball joints replaced at Canadian Tire, so others have definitely worked on the front end in the past. They are pretty sure that these outer tie-rod ends were...

I did the other (passenger) side this evening. Everything came apart easily. Why was the other side such a beast? Unsolved mysteries ...

Agreed, 7.3" total travel for one intake or exhaust stroke sounds plausible - 7.3"/2 = 3.65" which sounds like a typical stroke. (A few small-block Chevy strokes from the memory banks: 265/283/302 = 3.00", 307/327 = 3.25", 305/350 = 3.48", 400 = 3.75".) But wouldn't piston travel for a...

In chronological order: 1963 Chevy Biscayne* 1968 Vauxhall Viva* 1962 Chevy II 1970 Toyota Corolla* 1971 Toyota Corolla* 1971 Chevy Biscayne 1968 Chev Impala 1971 Imperial 1979 Mazda GLC Sport* 1982 Mazda GLC* 1980 Plymouth Volare 1990 Mazda MPV* 1985 Mazda 626* 1997 Mazda MPV 1995 Mazda Bongo*...

There's the issue of modifying the vehicle to meet Canadian safety standards (typically DRLs and a child seat anchor), but that could be done by the Canadian vendor. A fellow in the neighborhood goes to Vancouver Island to buy his used cars. As amazingly rust-free as we Prairie dwellers find...

Please find a way to export to Canada! :)

It's good to hear something positive about the > 6-speed transmissions. I hear accounts of engine lugging due to very low RPMs, or of the vehicle seldom being able to actually use some of the higher gear ratios.

I think any number of gear ratios beyond six is more to impress automotive journalists than to provide an improved driving experience.

Jeff, I've just placed a hold on this at the library. Thanks for the recommendation. When I said before I hadn't read the classics, I should have capitalized it, as in Classics, i.e. the ancient Greco-Roman lore.

I read that voluntarily back in Grade 11. My buddy Brian, in a different English class, had to read it. He raved about it, and said it was the first book he'd ever enjoyed. I read a bunch of Steinbeck voluntarily. Of Mice And Men had really stuck with me. And of course, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Somehow I got through school without ever encountering the classics. I think I really missed out.

Twenty years ago a bunch of us were doing a roof for an older Dutch couple from church. At the end of the day, the wife of one of the guys showed up to pick her husband up. She had just gotten a stud in her nose. The lady of the house was delightful, and had a fairly porous filter, thus...

There was a Substack post with photos of two young women. One was very wholesome looking, in a nice farm-girl sort of way. The other one had what I think of as the "angry painted cat" look (lots of warpaint, hair pulled back really tightly, haughty expression). The poster said that men...

I think the Cortina was last sold for MY 1973. Sometime after that a Ford dealer in Edmonton still had a big plastic marque along the front of the building listing the brands: FORD MERCURY LINCOLN CORTINA. My friend had a green '70 4-door. It was known as The Green Box. We rebuilt the...

You've reminded me of a Dave Berg cartoon in MAD magazine back in the time of the 1973/74 gas crisis. This older man smoking a cigar is driving a big black upscale domestic sedan - based on the square corners, it's probably supposed to be a Lincoln. There's a small American flag flying from...

One of my roomies had a new '76 Mercury Bobcat - a blinged-up Pinto. It was orange, and nicknamed The Jellybean. The gearing (4 on the floor) was far too tall, resulting in very leisurely acceleration from a stop. The other roomie had bought a new '77 Celica around the same time. No...

The U.S. entered an economic recession c. 1957. One casualty was Ford's Edsel, too expensive for the times. Sales of economical imports were increasing rapidly. The Rambler was the one brand that offered competition in that category. The Big Three countered for the 1960 model year by...