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Some Sunday afternoon fun on the new toy

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Built myself some cheap, DIY "jack stands" from scrap wood recently and spent some time today playing with them. Even though there's nothing wrong with the car as far as I can tell, too many years buying old BMWs makes me preemptively look for possible issues and try to fix them.

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Got the car in the air and all four wheels off. The first interesting thing I found was a "trough" near the front strut assemblies. Hopefully the pics do it justice. There are two areas on each side that will trap anything that falls in. I suspect for anyone in a winter salty-road state this could be a serious issue. I was able to use my small shop vac to vacuum out a bunch of gravel from those areas.

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I removed all the bottom liners and did a close inspection of everything that I could see. Most everything was good but I did find a spot where one of the cooling lines to the rear motor appeared to be rubbing on metal. Over time this could rub a hole in the cooling line so I added some foam to that spot to hopefully prevent this. This is on the driver side of the car and forward of the rear motor. No idea if this is common to all Model 3s or just a fluke on mine.

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Got the car in the air and all four wheels off. The first interesting thing I found was a "trough" near the front strut assemblies.
Hopefully the pics do it justice. There are two areas on each side that will trap anything that falls in.
I suspect for anyone in a winter salty-road state this could be a serious issue.
I was able to use my small shop vac to vacuum out a bunch of gravel from those areas.
You should inspect the rear diffuser below the rear trunk.
You might need to remove the two screws located below the rear motor.
Unless some modifications have been made, a lot of water and mud get projected and trapped inside the rear diffuser.

 
How did you lift the car and how were you able to put the wood stands under the car using the lifting points?
What kind of jack do you use? (Bottle jack, floor jack,...)

- I don't have a low profile floor jack, so I need to raise a little bit the front of the car with a scissor jack
and then I can use my floor jack to raise the car.
- I use some wood and concrete blocks between the two jacks for safety and stability.

Did you put your car in Neutral to check the free rotation of the rear axial?

Is it an 18" wheel behind the car?
- Because of the red calipers and spoiler, do you have a Performance version?
 
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Thanks on the diffuser. I did check that area and I had very little accumulation.

I'm using the 1.5 Ton low profile aluminum jack from Harbor Freight to lift the car. I removed the little handle on the side of it to make it narrower. 1.5 Ton Aluminum Rapid Pump® Racing Floor Jack

I had some scrap 2"x6" boards and I cut these to 18" length. I added a small 3"x3" square of thin plywood centered on the 18" boards. I then added a 1/2" diameter bolt to that board in such a way that the bolt head "fits" into the round opening on the lift point to help maintain proper placement.

The jack and 18" boards will barely fit at the first lift point. I forget which one has the most clearance (front or rear). Once one is lifted the other three have ample clearance.

The "stacks" are made with some old scrap 2x6 cedar from a neighbor's deck tearout. The cedar is considerably lighter than pine but it should be fine for my use.

Good eye, yes, those are 18" aeros, and I do have a Performance. The original wheels and tires are in the garage. I got the aeros from a local facebook marketplace ad. I wanted the better ride and efficiency of the aeros, plus I didn't want to worry about pothole issues. I had to shave the rear calipers but spacers were not required. The 18" wheels were already machined to clear the hubs - I've read Tesla started selling them that way on the 2020 VINs.

I didn't check the rear axle rotation during this lift but I did when I shaved the calipers last month.
 
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Built myself some cheap, DIY "jack stands" from scrap wood recently and spent some time today playing with them. Even though there's nothing wrong with the car as far as I can tell, too many years buying old BMWs makes me preemptively look for possible issues and try to fix them.

View attachment 599955 View attachment 599956 View attachment 599957

Got the car in the air and all four wheels off. The first interesting thing I found was a "trough" near the front strut assemblies. Hopefully the pics do it justice. There are two areas on each side that will trap anything that falls in. I suspect for anyone in a winter salty-road state this could be a serious issue. I was able to use my small shop vac to vacuum out a bunch of gravel from those areas.

View attachment 599958 View attachment 599959 View attachment 599960 View attachment 599961

I removed all the bottom liners and did a close inspection of everything that I could see. Most everything was good but I did find a spot where one of the cooling lines to the rear motor appeared to be rubbing on metal. Over time this could rub a hole in the cooling line so I added some foam to that spot to hopefully prevent this. This is on the driver side of the car and forward of the rear motor. No idea if this is common to all Model 3s or just a fluke on mine.

View attachment 599965 View attachment 599966
When you found all that gravel/dirt behind the horizontal panel, did you suspect there was anything there? Was there any rattling of pebbles? And, what are your road conditions that you get lots of gravel thrown up in the front, but little in the rear undertray? I guess it's time to check.
 
When you found all that gravel/dirt behind the horizontal panel, did you suspect there was anything there? Was there any rattling of pebbles? And, what are your road conditions that you get lots of gravel thrown up in the front, but little in the rear undertray? I guess it's time to check.

I dropped all the lower panels and there was a little bit of gravel everywhere but not much, considering how much I found in those spots I noted. I bought the car used on 7 September and I've not yet driven on any roads with loose gravel. This was likely from the original owner.

There were no rattles, I just happened to check that spot when I had the front wheels off.
 
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