My Review of Gas-Matic Strut

Originally submitted at Advance Auto Parts

Restores ride quality and provides a more controlled response for today's vehicles.

Product Features:

• Nitrogen gas charged
• Application engineered
• Improved comfort

Gas-Matic Strut

Great Part

By Shadetree Wannabe from Aiken, SC on 9/12/2010

 

5out of 5

Pros: Easy To Install, Improves Handling, Comfortable Ride

Best Uses: Replacement, Restoration, Everyday Driving

Car & Truck: Casual Driver

Easy to install, you will need to cut a slit in the mounting bracket for the brake line to remove and reinstall. This will keep you from having to disconnect the brake lines and having to bleed them. Be sure to make reference mark on the top of the strut mount and the top on the strut itself with a marker or something so that you can align and reinstall properly

(legalese)

Change Yours Engines Oil Regularly

Topping the list of important things that you can do for your vehicle, besides putting gas in it, is changing the engine oil and filter. Changing the oil and filter regularly, every 3,000 to 5,000 miles will extend the usable life of your engine dramatically. The cost of regular oil and filter changes far out way the alternative, major engine repairs.

Changing your vehicles engine oil and filter is definitely a maintenance job that you can do yourself and save money. While there are many "quickie lube" and the like type places that will be happy to overcharge you to change your oil, don't be afraid to tackle the task yourself and save some bucks and time. A typical Do it yourself oil and filter change should only cost $18 to $20. Shop around for sales or buy oil by the case and you can save even more. This is a job that can easily be accomplished in your driveway on a lazy Saturday afternoon in about 20 minutes.

First look in your vehicles owners manual to locate the type and amount of oil that your vehicle requires. This information is usually found towards the back of the manual under the heading "refill capacities" or "fluid capacities". You can also look in the topic index section of the manual. The manual will list the type oil, for example 5W-20 or 10W- 40 etc. Oil is sold by the quart and the manual will tell you the amount of oil needed with and without the filter change. However, it is in my humble opinion that anytime you change the oil you should always change the oil filter. If you are unable to locate the vehicles manual or the information in the manual you can also get the information from any auto parts store. You will just need to know the year, make, model and and engine size.

For example, 1998-Chevrolet-Silverado-350

If your vehicle has over 50,000 miles I recommend that you also add Slick 50. It is an oil additive that I believe extends the life of the engine. You would substitute (1) quart of Slick 50 in the place of (1) quart of the oil. There has been some reports and charges by the Federal Trade Commission that Slick 50 does not help extend the life of an engine, but I beg to differ. While I do not claim to be a "chemical engineer" or for that matter any kind of "rocket scientist", I have a 1998 Chevrolet Pickup that I bought brand new in 1998 and it now has over 300,000 miles on the original engine with no major engines repairs and still going strong. I have always changed the oil and filter myself every 3,000 to 5,000 miles and used Slick 50 at the initial 50,000 mile mark and every 50,000 miles thereafter. Due to the length of this article, I will be submitting subsequent articles that will detail the actual steps for a successful oil and filter change.

Make Your Own Drain Opener

If you've ever finished brushing your teeth only to find an ugly backed up mess of slim and water in your bathroom sink, or finished taking a shower to find yourself standing in a slurry of dirty ankle deep water, then you know too well the nightmare of a clogged drain. But what to do? Call a plumber to come out and charge you for what you can easily remedy yourself? Of course you can always go to your local discount store and pay good money for a bottle of overpriced drain opener which by the way will kill the the good bacteria in your septic system. There is a better cheaper solution! I have experimented with several variations of homemade drain cleaners that can be made using common items that you may already have on hand around the house. Keep in mind that this may not solve all your clogged drain problems but will certainly take care of minor drain restrictions such as hair and dirt. This is very simple and works amazingly well, not to mention very inexpensive! You will need a 1/4 cup of baking soda, a 1/4 cup of vinegar and a kettle of boiling water. Pour baking soda directly into drain then pour vinegar in drain. Place drain stopper/plug in drain opening and let stand for 15 minutes. Remove drain plug and pour hot water into drain and replace drain plug. Let stand for about 30 minutes and your drains will be running free. For really bad clogs, you may need to repeat.

Make Money Taking Online Surveys

You will bump into so many free cash paying survey sites that your head might jut explode. It would be so great if all of them paid top dollar, but we all know that this isn't the case. In fact, nineteen out of twenty will pay you very little and it's getting very hard to find the ones that give you top dollar. It doesn't have to be that difficult to find free cash paying survey sites that give good money any more, and I'll show you why.
You don't have to spend all of your spare time joining random places, hoping that one or two of them live up to expectations and pay you well for your efforts. To stop that evil trend from occurring, you only need one tip: Completely stop using search engines to skim the web for free cash paying survey sites. It's a small tip, but it's very important. The listings you get are littered with worthless websites that underpay you.
My next tip is even more crucial. It's going to show you the simplest way to get directly to the top dollar websites. Also, it's even simpler than the last tip. To get right to the free cash paying survey sites that pay high, you only need forums. Big forums to be exact. For starters, this is probably the only reliable place left where you can gather all sorts of honest info on surveys. Have you tried looking for honest info on this subject lately? Well, then you know how hard it can be. You don't have to worry about that much when inside of big forums, because they are well established and have strict rules about posting there.
With that said, the part of the forum you need is the archive section. This is your golden ticket. These archives are always huge and are always stacked with past topics on surveys. This is where average people, just like you, have share their inside info and knowledge about what they have found over the years, including the free cash paying survey sites that they are the happiest with. That's just one example of the information you can gather there, but the rest is just as good.

(2) QUICK STRATEGIES TO SAVE MONEY NOW

Remember "SAVED" Money is "MADE" Money (every little bit counts)

1. Review your most recent Automobile Insurance Policy/bill. You can instantly save $40 - $ 80 every 6 months by dropping unnecessary coverages such as under insured motorist coverage (this is not to be confused with uninsured motorist coverage which is required by law in most states), extremely low deductibles and medical coverage.

2. If your bank charges you a fee to have a checking account you should definitely shop around for another bank. There are plenty of banks that would be happy to have your business and not charge you a fee for letting them use your money. Some will even pay you interest, while it may not be much, remember SAVED MONEY IS MADE MONEY. This strategy could put an extra $5 to $10 dollars a month in your pocket.

SAVE MONEY BY MAKING YOUR OWN LAUNDRY DETERGENT

I’ve been experimenting with making lots of cleaning supplies at home, but this one is by far the craziest - and the most successful. Basically, I made a giant bucket of slime that works incredibly well as laundry detergent at a cost of about three cents a load. For comparison’s sake, a jumbo container of Tide at Amazon.com costs $28.99 for 96 loads, or a cost of $0.30 a load. Thus, with each load of this stuff, I’m saving more than a quarter. Even better - I got to make a giant bucket of slime in the kitchen and my wife approved of it.Here’s what you need:- 1 bar of soap (whatever kind you like; I used Lever 2000 because we have tons of bars of it from a case we bought a while back)- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store - it comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches of this stuff)- 1 box of borax (this is not necessary, but I’ve found it really kicks the cleaning up a notch - one box of borax will contain more than enough for tons of batches of this homemade detergent - if you decide to use this, be careful)- A five gallon bucket with a lid (or a bucket that will hold more than 15 liters - ask around - these aren’t too tough to acquire)- Three gallons of tap water- A big spoon to stir the mixture with- A measuring cup- A knifeStep One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat up on high until it’s almost boiling. While you’re waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you’ll shave up the whole bar, then stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some highly soapy water.Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket - the easiest way is to fill up three gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then mix in the hot soapy water from step one, stir it for a while, then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two, then add a half cup of borax if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, then let the stuff sit overnight to cool.And you’re done. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that’s a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it’s a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this slime will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you’ll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you’ll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and make 288 loads of laundry. This comes up to a cost of right around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.