The Grey Skid – Chevy Beat TCDi LS (December 2012)

[deville_56]

July 2021 - Installing Rear Suspension Jounce Stopper Bumper

Replaced the other side exactly last year. Didn't bother to remove shock or even wheel this time.

Rear Suspension Jounce Bumper Stop - J95154454 - ₹ 354.00 (It was ₹ 327.00 a year back). Bought from Deedi Chevrolet.

It's a delicate piece of PU foam that holds the rear shock absorber cover and disintegrates in 4-5 years and causes irritating rattling noise. Made by BASF. Ordered another brand called TechNix from Boodmo, which was listed at cheaper price with free shipping. Wanted to try another brand to check the longevity, so ordered on Boodmo, but the delivery date kept delaying, ending up cancelling and buying on from Chevy dealer.

Installation. Make room first.

One star screw

and two retainer clips. Remove them and the panel will loosen up. To remove the panel completely, have to remove seat belt mount at the bottom, which is absolutely unnecessary.

Remove the weather strip a bit and the panel will loosen up and more than enough space to work. Top of the shock would be covered with the plastic cap. Pry it off.

Access to the shock mounting.

A 6-mm socket to hold

and a 15-mm ring spanner to loosen up the nut.

Remove the run and other tib-bits.

Jack up the car.

The shaft will fall off the hole.

Suspension can be compressed by gentle downward pull and will get enough time/room to work around.

Remove one by one. First the rear shock absorber washer

and then the dust shield.

Exposed shock absorber. Disintegrate PU particle can be seen on the shock.

New vs remnants of old.

Squeeze the smaller side into the dust shield.

Washer. Clean it.

Squeeze the wider side into it.

Daewoo.

Installed over the shock and ready to go in.

Clean the strut tower. Compress the shock, aim the hole and release. Falls right in place.

Lower mount.

Clean it

and place it.

Upper mount.

Clean it and install.

Finally washer and nut.

Install everything in order. Before tightening, lower the car a bit and move the shaft and make sure it's in perfect centre. Lower the car and tighten it.

Reinstall the plastic cap

and the side panel and done.

Leftover.

 

[deville_56]

August-September 2021 - Misc Updates

1000 km took 8 months.

Remnants of morning shower.

With the most notorious Amaze.

Celebrating Onam.

And stepping into September, the brake began troubling again. Front RH brake was getting jammed. Initially, it was light jamming, later on car was literally un-driveable and 5-km drive to garage, there were fumes from the brakes and could feel the heat from a distance. The alloy wheel paint and centre cap got melted. Cause was a jammed brake hose. Inquired with Chevy dealer, and it was out of stock and needed ordering and the garage guy tried other hoses, which didn't fit. Cleaned the hose and installed back. Chevy dealer can get in a week, but have to make 2 trips, one to order and another one collect. There was stock in Boodmo, ordered right away. Shipping charge was justified by the saved fuel cost and time.

Custom forged rotor . Boots also swollen.

Took straight to tyre shop to fix the leak I spotted back in April. They removed tyre and sanded the alloy edges and repainted and reinstalled. Asked to do balancing also. Totally ₹ 250.00.

 

[mayankdixit]

What was the age of brake hose? Guessing ,must be as old as the car.
Was there a warning sign before the failure ??
Now you will need complete brake fluid flushing and bleeding.

 

[deville_56]

What was the age of brake hose? Guessing ,must be as old as the car.
Was there a warning sign before the failure ??
Now you will need complete brake fluid flushing and bleeding.

Yeah, as old as the car. 2012 make.

There was no constant warning, tightness came intermittently. It's hard to push the car around, on running tightness hardly noticeable to the abundance of torque.

Brake was last bled in 2020 (also in 2018 and 2015).

 

[deville_56]

October 2021 - New Dash Speakers - Sony Xplod XS-FB102E

JBL had a bit of jarring before, which I felt was from the grille and damped it. Now it started jarring even more and irritating even with MJ.

Checked and saw cone was detached from voice coil and one of the tweeters was dead. The dead tweeter made the jarring more pronounced.

Checked through available options and no replacement from JBL. They had only a full range 4 inchers without much review. Always wanted better ones like Hertz, Rockford or DD Audio, but no one sells 4 inch now as there ain't much taker for that. Commonly available were Sony and Pioneer, more fakes than original and Delhi-made stuff like JXL, JVL, Song Bird, etc. Decided to buy Pioneer 2-way from an authorized dealer, checked the list and found Haran Electronics (a shop run by a Malayalam-speaking Singh). He was Sony authorized dealer too. Now, I was pretty confused between the two, both brands I don't prefer as I had a soft corner for JBL. Ran a quick review and nothing much about Pioneer anywhere, and Indian reviewers were going gaga about Sony. One of the reviewers was claiming only made in India was original and Vietnam is fake. Told him my concern and he said only volume sales stuff like 6-inchers are made in India, rest are made in Vietnam. Bought the Sony. MRP was ₹ 1,990.00. Got for ₹ 1,650.00 with bill and warranty.

Sealed pack even after checking

Opened this side.

One-year replacement warranty.

30W RMS 4 Ohms.

That reviewer claimed serial number would be missing in fake Vietnam ones.

Came with screws and wires, which usually gets swapped on online purchase.

Installation.

After popping the grille, all the dirty bits of damp mat used to prevent the suspected grille vibration.

None of the screwdriver would fit the space as it sits close to the windshield. Suffered a lot during installations on Indica as they had even tighter space to work with.

OE connector.

Previous installer crimped on to stock wiring, none other than myself

Removed the wire and tidied that up.

Male clips.

Had two types, not sure what metals, gold and silver ones.

Crimped on to the bundled cable. Used about a foot of cable.

Plug and play.

A quick side-by-side comparison. JBL CS-4 vs Sony Xplod XS-FB102E. Both 30W RMS and 4-ohm impedance, with Sony peaking at 210W and JBL 90W. Made in China and Vietnam, respectively.

Sony got a shallow chassis and slimmer magnet comparing JBL.

Sony had paper cone, while JBL had waterproof poly or titanium laminate ones. JBL had the bigger tweeters.

Installed. Cut off two mounting points, needed only two.

Done. Tested with my usual playlist. Mid and bass were great, indeed car is filled with bass, but missed the crispy treble of the JBLs. Treble is there, but killed by the mid. Great for pre-90s songs, especially Yesudas and Kishore da.

Search for tweeters ensued. Added old Dapic tweeter for the time being, which was disastrous.

Had to use Super Bass mode plus +2-3 on bass boost to kill the terrible treble from the Dapic. Rear ovals are punching hard in this setting, sitting in the rear seat was intolerable. Even that bass was killed by Dapic for the front passengers.

 

[deville_56]

October 2021 - Misc Updates

The second can of useless AmbiPur, used for the sake of finishing it up. Didn't last much like the first can.

Aftermath of brake jam. The cooked paint got washed off with pressure wash. Did a quick overcoat to hide the ugliness. Have to reprep and repaint once the new hose is in.

Two and a half months for another kay, pretty fast

Another surprise package from Boodmo. A pair of Maruti Suzuki OE tweeters. Bought to throw away the Dapic craps.

Maruti Suzuki 39102M56RA0 - Came in Ertiga 2nd gen/XL-6 and 3rd gen Swift and Dzire. ₹ 205.00/piece with free shipping. Cheapest branded after-market tweeter was Hertz DT 24.3, retailing for ₹1900.00, but these OE ones can't match them and they came with proper high-pass crossover.

4 Ohm 25W. Comes with filter capacitor.

 

[deville_56]

November 2021 – Front Brake Hose

Hose arrived 13 days after ordering from Boodmo.

Front Brake Hose - J96682950 - ₹210.00 + ₹72.00 Shipping.

Installed at FNG. I've got to see whether the issue has resolved.

Rain

 

[mayankdixit]

November 2021 – Front Brake Hose

Hose arrived 13 days after ordering from Boodmo.

Front Brake Hose - J96682950 - ₹210.00 + ₹72.00 Shipping.


View attachment 294318 View attachment 294319 View attachment 294320 View attachment 294321 View attachment 294322

Installed at FNG. I've got to see whether the issue has resolved.

View attachment 294323

Rain

View attachment 294324

Very Good .
Did you tell them to bleed it properly after installation?
Please post before and after pics,if you have them.

 

[deville_56]

Very Good .
Did you tell them to bleed it properly after installation?
Please post before and after pics,if you have them.

Yeah. Properly bled. No snaps, late night job.

 

[deville_56]

November 2021 - Installing the Maruti OE Tweeters

Three-pin JST connectors for connecting the tweeters.

Pop the screwdriver and pull the wire.

Scavenged connector. Right size for the tweeter pins.

Sleeved.

Polarity.

Connects well.

Both readied for install.

Test bed.

Pumped some bass to check proper filtering and distortion.

Checking mounting location. Initial plan was to fit on the mirror adjuster cover, but little room and concealed wiring was impossible.

Space available at the corner. Other space was on the top, which was an odd location.

Depth needed for tweeter (minus 1-2 mm popping out of bezel ring).

Final location.

Test fit.

Now the hole. Approximately 30 cm.

The nearest hole saw bit I had was 32 mm.

Rough cut.

Bit cleaned up.

Fits well.

Clean sanded as best possible.

Symmetric.

Cut off the earlet.

Glued in place.

Disconnected the coaxial tweeter. Made a Y-cable and completed the connection.

Done. Sounds better.

 

[deville_56]

December 2021 - Turns Nine aka Time for Another Insurance Renewal

Sad truth, car is getting older.

Renewed insurance again with Acko, Comprehensive plan.
Basic Own Damage ₹ 1215.97
NCB Discount (50%) - ₹ 607.99
Consumables - ₹ 45.59
Basic Third Party Liability - ₹ 2072.00
GST (18%) - ₹ 490.60
Total Premium - ₹ 3216.18

 

[deville_56]

December 2021 - Misc Updates

Saw this mobile holder at MGP when I was there for Estilo part hunt. Cheap, so bought it. Seems, it was in the display shelf for quite some time.

Magentic Mobile Holder - MGP 990J0M999L1-520 - ₹ 335.00

Had two plates to be stuck behind the phone. Just put them inside the phone cover.

Came with 3M tape.

Replaced with 3M tape

Had a notch for the cable.

Base had two lines to cut for customization and made it a square for better install.

Driver's POV.

Got injector cleaner too. There was a vibration at 2-2.5k rpm. Engine was smoother, but the vibration was still there.

ABRO Diesel Injector Cleaner DI-502 - ₹ 300.00

 

[bhvm]

Did the Injector cleaner work?

 

[deville_56]

Did the Injector cleaner work?

Kind of. It was smoother while running on the cleaner and now getting slightly better mileage post usage, but the vibe is still there.

 

[deville_56]

December 2021 - Brake Trouble, the Third Time.

Brake jams again.

The jammed side. It's not a good idea to spray water on to red-hot rotor, but happens during rain and running over water puddles.

The other side, normal.

Ends up in the FNG again.

The hose was getting blocked again, so he removed the caliper and disassembled fully, and there were some floating debris inside. Cleaned it up and reinstalled. Replaced the swollen boots with Maruti part. Chevy part came as a set of caliper pin and boot and costed whopping ₹900. Bled through that side to check for further debris, and there wasn't any.

Another mishap. Fell in a rain water drain around midnight. Had some traction and the diesel torque pulled it out without much drama.

The cover was run over by truck or bus and sank.