You can check ‘pothole’ damage yourself

Dear Mike: I whacked a pothole last week. I hit it pretty hard, actually, and, well, OK, it wasn’t a pothole. It was a curb that I ran into in the rain because I was going too fast. My bad.

Right away the steering wheel started to shimmy. I figured that I had damaged the tire, so I had my old spare, which was on a steel rim, remounted and balanced on my alloy wheel. But it still shimmies.

The Neanderthal down at the feed-store-cum-gas-station hasn’t any idea what’s wrong. I live 40 miles from any decent garage, and I don’t want to order another $600 wheel over the telephone unless I am pretty sure that the old wheel is bent.

— E.H., Espanola, N.M.

A: Don’t give the guy at the local gas station a bad rap. He probably doesn’t have a spin balancer to check an out-of-true condition, and I bet he works mostly on trucks and farm equipment. Those wheels are harder to bend than your alloys.

You can check the wheel yourself. Block the wheel on the opposite corner fore and aft with a couple of chunks of 2-by-4, and use a jack to lift the corner that you banged into the curb until the tire is about an inch clear of the pavement. Lay something long and skinny, such as a pencil or a ruler, on a milk crate, box or other support. Place your pointer so that its end is about 1/32 of an inch from the rim. Now rotate the tire slowly.

You should be able to see clearly any out-of-true parts on the rim. A small variance in the flange is OK, but the bead-seat surface deeper in should be pretty close. I can detect deviations as small as 1/50 of an inch this way.

A variation of 1/16 of an inch or more would have me looking for a new wheel. You can also check a tire to see if it is out of round by doing the same thing to the center of the tread.

If the outer face of the rim seems true, check the inside face of the rim as well. However, most rim damage, especially from curbs, is on the outside.

Check with your local wheel-and-tire dealer or body-repair shop to find a local company that specializes in repairing damaged alloy wheels. Understand that a really damaged rim is not salvageable, but minor dings and gouges can be straightened and the wheel refinished to improve its appearance.

Dear Mike: I tried to reattach my rearview mirror to my windshield with a two-stage mounting adhesive for mirrors made by Permatex. Unfortunately I glued the little tab onto the glass in exactly the right position, but upside down.

I’ve tried a razor blade, but can’t get it under the tab. I’ve thought of simply gluing another tab on top of the other one, but I was wondering if it would hold.

— C.H., via e-mail.

A: Usually people write me because they can’t get things to stay on, not because they can’t get them off.

Don’t glue a second tab over the old one, because the mirror wouldn’t look right. I’d try some old-fashioned nail-polish remover or MEK — respectively that’s acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, for you chemists out there — to soften the adhesive.

Dribble a little into the gap, using an old toothbrush. Lather, rinse and repeat to keep the acetone on the job for a half-hour or so. This should soften the adhesive enough for you to get a single-edge razor blade behind there and pry it loose. Once you have the tab free, clean all the adhesive from both the tab and the glass before you try to reattach the mirror again.

It helps to do this in a warm area. Though you might be tempted to work inside a running, warmed-up car or a heated garage, it’s not a good idea. Acetone is pretty flammable, and may be detrimental to your health unless used in a well-ventilated area.

It may also be detrimental to your plastic dashboard, so before starting work cover the dash with some newspaper.

Dear Mike: My 1994 Buick Regal’s front doors freeze shut several times each winter. Temperatures of about 32 degrees, or direct sun on the doors, cure the problem, but I can never figure out where the trouble spot is. The back doors work fine, and my wife’s 1996 Regal — same body style — never does this maddening thing.

I’m tired of climbing in through the back seat!

— J.O’C., via e-mail.

A: I can’t tell from your letter if the issue is that the door is sticking to the gasket or that the lock mechanism is frozen.

If the door latch works and the door is frozen to the rubber gasket, try thoroughly cleaning the painted surface on the door that the rubber gasket mates to, as well as the gasket itself. Next, spray both with aerosol silicone spray. That will prevent any freezing moisture in the area from sticking the gasket to the door.

If, on the other hand, the lock is freezing, it’s a bigger job. A quick work-around is to heat the key with a lighter until you can barely hold it, then quickly insert it into the lock to melt any ice.

Then, if the key head has no plastic casing, heat the exposed metal head for 30 seconds or so. If the outside temperatures are near freezing, this will often add enough heat to free up the lock.

As a last resort, really cold temperatures might require pouring a kettle of hot water over the door lock — but you’ll have to move quickly to keep the lock from freezing again as the hot water cools.

To permanently fix the problem, remove the inner door panels and check for moisture inside the door. There are drains along the bottom of the door to allow water to escape. Be sure they are clear. Check all the gaskets on the glass to be sure that they aren’t funneling water into the door’s interior. Remove the latch mechanism and get rid of any lubrication, corrosion, spider webs or anything else that might either impede the mechanism or give water a place to cling. Thoroughly dry out the interior of the door — you might have to park in a heated garage overnight.

Lube the lock and latch mechanism liberally with white lithium grease, and follow up with a coating of silicone spray to repel any water. Then button up the door panel, making sure that the waterproofing panel is reinstalled properly — trim adhesive may be useful.