UH, need some details buddy. What kinda car you got?

........ any information, including insights from personal experience with regard to steering gear boxes ........

to gravereaper0 ........

Off-topic, but in reply to tire-rot ........

........ if I mentioned starting a new thread on the subject? ........

Please understand that I have never joined any other forum like this for cars. I have joined electronics and a horticulture forums and although the format is the same, the feel is very different. There's tons of information readily available for free on those other two subjects. It's simple to get directed to information sources of high quality and rich detail. This level of information has a price tag attached to it with regard to automobiles. The people who collect and organize information on horticulture and electronics seem more willing to give that info away for free, while there is several orders of magnitude less free info available for auto mechanics.
I really did expect the same for information seeking about my car. I was hoping to get directed to perhaps relevant automotive engineering websites, perhaps some research libraries, and definitely some collections of maintenance histories with jpegs. The websites that I have been to, especially the Oldsmobile website, are perfectly disappointing. No other product is so poorly represented by their manufacturer.
For instance, if I go to the Texas Instruments website to look up information on a microcontroller, every possible detail is illustrated and all questions are answered. The official olds website is oriented toward sales instead of tech support.
Everyone I know learned to work on cars the same way I did...under a tree limb. My goal is to get inside the minds of the engineers who designed the parts.

So that's where I'm coming from and trying to get to.

Doesn’t this PM defeat the purpose of the Forum?


Same with the majority of TOC members.


Because the intent is different.

Does one simply ask for “all the information there is”, on a general subject?


It that because those sources actually exist?


They are totally different fields, and the automotive hobbyists interests are in many different areas.


Not an area where there is lots of interest.


The official olds website is oriented toward sales instead of tech support.


They are in business to sell a product to the “end user” and to take care of all that users needs through a Dealer Network. That site accurately reflects it.


Isn’t that information geared to a different customer base?


It doesn’t get anyone an Engineering Degree, but it’s how most of us learned. It seems that the newcomers are learning on the internet.


Not possible. In the “big picture”, those engineers have less to do with the designs than you would think, as they are given very tight parameters to work within.


If you start a thread, with a specific question, it will start a dialog, which may, or may not help you get there.

........ You missed the point entirely. The point is that something should be done about the lack of information available, not merely to lament it.
The idea I was trying to bring to your mind is that maybe it would be possible to make a change. It was just as such in many other fields of interest as it is in automotive mechanics (as per my description of the lack of available information). What happened is the proliferation of an open source style community. There is plenty of interest in auto mechanics and plenty of experts to accomplish this. Car enthusiasts are simply lagging behind.
What is needed is to get some involvement from the automotive engineering community and engineers of other engineering disciplines, and subsequent to that involvement, to encourage them to contribute further.
Although it may be that many of the people who sign up for this forum do not for some reason maintain active involvement after their initial experience, it just may be that there is enough membership that specific engineers may be impressed upon and engaged to adopt this or another forum as the start of a special relationship.
The end goal obviously is to have provided the quality of information that forums in other fields provide.
So the first step seems to me to be to discover who these people are, how to contact them, and how to engage them. Now do you see what this has been about?

Let us agree to disagree as to whether I should be posting these messages on the regular forum. I am metaphorically dipping my toe in the water. I chose you to try out these ideas as you seem to be the that guy who always is found to have posted something in answer no matter what. You are the LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK AT ME!!! guy. I think I remember that you chose to withhold your age in your profile, and i am theorizing something about that.
Rest assured though that no further messages are forthcoming. I will not in fact be reading your response to this one, no need to waste your time.

Let me give you an opinion though....When you answered my messages you systematically divided up every statement I made(I was very clear to make sure that they were expressed as opinion, not fact) and made a statement as if fact, not your opinion. You make statements as if to "straighten me out". All the while missing my point entirely. It's an ego thing you should get some control of. As a behavior experiment, try to see if you are able, capable, of allowing the next couple of posts in the forum to go without a peep from you. I would bet you are incapable. You need it.

no offense intended, just my opinion.
good-bye forever ........

........ As a behavior experiment, try to see if you are able, capable, of allowing the next couple of posts in the forum to go without a peep from you. I would bet you are incapable. You need it ........

........ I think I remember that you chose to withhold your age in your profile, and i am theorizing something about that ........

We all know you are just a punk teenager.