The Shop’s Blog

Don’t wait too long to check your timing belt/timing chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s an all-too-familiar story from our clients:

Our good friend was driving along and his car suddenly stopped working. He coasted into a parking lot and gave us a call.

A car suddenly not working can be caused by several things: a fuel pump, an electrical issue, a plugged fuel filter, etc. It didn’t take long to realize he had a broken timing belt.

Broken timing belt on a Toyota Rav4 at The Shop Auto Repair Boise

Broken timing belt on a Toyota Rav4 at The Shop Auto Repair Boise

 

Our friend lucked out in this situation. There are two types of engines: interference and noninterference. His was a noninterference. If this happened on an interference engines, there would be furthur damage inside the engine between the pistons and valves. The repair (of either a rebuilt or new engine) would have cost over a thousand dollars. But because he had a noninterference engine, we were able to replace the timing belt with minimal work.

Car manufacturers include a timing belt repair in the scheduled list of tune ups and maintenance. We recommend you follow the recommended schedule of maintenance and replace your timing belt or chain before it breaks. It’s too risky to push it past, especially if you have an interference engine.

If you are concerned about your timing chain or unsure of when it needs to be replaced, give us a call. We can look up your car’s tune up schedule and also find out if it is an interference or noninterference engine.

Is your check engine light on?

gas cap leak causes check engine light The Shop Boisegas cap leak causes check engine light The Shop Boise

This has happened a few times in the last week or so, so we wanted to share this tip with you.

Some customers came in to The Shop with a check engine light on. They had been waiting to get it fixed for quite a while because they thought it would be expensive. We pulled the code and found an emissions leak. All they needed was a new fuel cap, a simple and inexpensive solution.

If you have a check engine light on and have not had it checked or fixed yet, come visit us at The Shop. We can look up the code and get you a quote for free. It may not be as bad as you think.

Our restoration of a classic 1969 Chevy C20

Classic 1969 Chevy C20 truck restoration at The Shop Boise

We’ve been super busy down at The Shop. Here’s one of the classic restoration projects we completed this past summer but haven’t had a chance to share our photos of it until now. Hope you enjoy this sweet 1969 Chevy C20!

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1968 Chevy Camaro gets finishing touches

1968 Camaro at The Shop Boise

When this Camaro came to The Shop this last summer it didn’t need a ton of work, but it certainly had a few issues that needed to be addressed.

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When is it time to get brakes and rotors checked or fixed?

Many people have asked us about when to check brakes and rotors.  The answer is NOW! Contrary to popular belief, don’t wait until you hear sounds.

We recently had a car come in for a quick brake job.  They claimed that they were not having any brake noise but that it was very difficult to stop.  When we took off the rear wheels we found some very destroyed rotors.  Here are the photos we took of this cars brakes and rotors.

Boise Brakes and Rotors at The Shop

You can see the brake pads (sitting on the rotor) are completely gone.

Boise Brakes and Rotors at The Shop

Normally the rotor is about a half-inch thick on both sides of the cooling fins. Here you can see one side of the rotor had been totally worn off and started to wear into the cooling fins. NOT GOOD!

At The Shop we want everyone to have the safest, most reliable car possible.  We offer free brake and rotor inspections.  If you have any questions or concerns about your brake system give us a call or stop by The Shop today.

The 1980 Corvette Stingray “Agent Orange” is complete!

The 1980 Corvette Stingray “Agent Orange” is complete!
1980 corvette classic car

BEFORE

1980 Corvette Stingray

AFTER

We finished this 1980 Corvette Stingray about a month ago and wanted to share some photos of the project. Although restoration projects are a lot of work, they are also a lot of fun. And they look totally sweet when they are done. We always work with our clients to help bring their thoughts and vision of their dream car to reality. This particular client started with a blue car with a silver interior. Now he has the car he has always wanted.

If you have any questions about how we can help you get the car of your dreams, give us a call.

Photos of the 1980 Corvette Stingray

Classic 1949 Studebaker

This beautiful truck is a 1949 Studebaker 2R-5. Although 110,500 were made between 1949 and 1953 you just don’t see them very often especially in this great condition. This truck rewrote the book in almost every way. Leaving the factory it weighed a meager 2,840 lbs., 400 less than its rivals. That helped this truck get great gas milage even in today’s standards. This truck will do better than 22 mpg around town and even better with an optional overdrive exclusive to Studebaker in the truck world. But that did not make this truck a weakling; with a payload of 1,760 it trumped chevy by 640 lbs. This truck is powered by a 169.6 cu.in. flat head straight 6 pumping out 80 hp. Later models would be equipped with 102 hp. Here at The Shop we love these old trucks. They are simple to work on and beautiful to look at — they just don’t make them like they used to. If you have any questions about this project or how we can help with your classic truck restoration give us a call.

Corvette project Agent-Orange

Corvette project Agent-Orange

The shop welcomes a C3 (1968-1982) 1980 corvette. There were 40,614 corvettes made in 1980 and there are still a lot of them around. this car is the second C3 that we have worked on in the past few months. This project is a little more intense than the last.

 

2013 Les Schwab Motorfest Car Show

Finally, after a couple months, here are our pics from the Les Schwab Motorfest 2013 car show! It was a wonderful show this year, despite a lower turnout of vehicles compared to previous years. It was also the 60th anniversary of Corvettes, so there was quite the showing of the car that’s near and dear to many car lovers.

Here are some pics from the 2013 Les Schwab Motorfest, aka Northwest Motorfest:

The car show before the car show: Les Schwab Motorfest 2013

As tradition, we always spend a good deal of time in the parking lot before we get into the fairgrounds to the real show. We always park in the back and admire those cars that don’t enter but really should have. Here are a few of our favorites:

We’ll have more posts coming soon from the actual car show, video the Holeshot Nationals and more!