My tale of woe…pity party please

[CapitalTruck]

Had to put new lower control arms on my sisters Highlander last weekend. Finshed the job this weekend. Interspersed with having the half shaft come apart at the transmission (was able to get it back together, added grease, replaced clamp, hoping for the best) and having to replace the oil pan (had to lift engine to remove mounts to get to control arm bolts, oil pan freakin bent) it was a great time. I forgot to mention having to sawzall ball joints apart because the nuts were totally rust. All of this in the cold with snow. Finishing up with new rear (transverse V6) valve cover gasket tomorrow. It should be illegal to have this much fun. Thing has 250k on it (it used to be my moms), they need a new car. Brother in law wants to wait a while longer so he can get something “brand new and really nice.”. When I got air plenum off today to start on rear valve cover gasket I noticed high pressure p/s hose starting to weep. Additionally, timing belt interval is coming up in 6k miles and tires are cupped as heck. I’m just doing this to get it past inspection (failed for control arm bushings and leaky gasket dripping onto exhaust) to buy them some time. Book time for new control arms is 13 hours (book says “remove engine and transmission” as step one), so clearly Im saving them a ton of $$. Just frustrating to see them spend their money on other crap when this car is totally at the end of its rope. Anyway, rant over. Hope anyone working on their cars on the east coast these past couple of weekends is doing it in a garage. (edit - Mod).

 

[Oliveoil2]

Had to put new lower control arms on my sisters Highlander last weekend. Finshed the job this weekend. Interspersed with having the half shaft come apart at the transmission (was able to get it back together, added grease, replaced clamp, hoping for the best) and having to replace the oil pan (had to lift engine to remove mounts to get to control arm bolts, oil pan freakin bent) it was a great time. I forgot to mention having to sawzall ball joints apart because the nuts were totally rust. All of this in the cold with snow. Finishing up with new rear (transverse V6) valve cover gasket tomorrow. It should be illegal to have this much fun. Thing has 250k on it (it used to be my moms), they need a new car. Brother in law wants to wait a while longer so he can get something “brand new and really nice.”. When I got air plenum off today to start on rear valve cover gasket I noticed high pressure p/s hose starting to weep. Additionally, timing belt interval is coming up in 6k miles and tires are cupped as heck. I’m just doing this to get it past inspection (failed for control arm bushings and leaky gasket dripping onto exhaust) to buy them some time. Book time for new control arms is 13 hours (book says “remove engine and transmission” as step one), so clearly Im saving them a ton of $$. Just frustrating to see them spend their money on other crap when this car is totally at the end of its rope. Anyway, rant over. Hope anyone working on their cars on the east coast these past couple of weekends is doing it in a garage.

You’re a good man!! Thanks for the writeup

 

[wavinwayne]

You have my admiration, sir!

 

[bullwinkle]

I put a rear end in my Mom’s ‘80 Dodge Aspen, long ago, on the ground, in the snow. Never again!

 

[JimPghPA]

If I were you, I'd tell the BIL "I will watch you do the work, if you do not know how to do something I will tell you how, and if something takes 2 people I will help you. But if it only takes one, you will be the one doing it so you learn how to do it."

Maybe, when he logs in the hours he'l be more frugal about saving for the next vehicle sooner. And he just might someday get to the point where we can also do all the work on his vehicle himself.

 

[JimPghPA]

When I was in High School I put a starter motor on my parents station wagon in the snow at the local grocery store using only a sheet of cardboard to lay on. I'm too old for that kind of stuff anymore.

 

[eljefino]

Good writeup! I usually get one snowy job every winter, and it's a surprise when!

 

[Drew7a]

It was 35 years ago this week, when I swapped and engine and transmission on a firebird in the years using a tree with a chain and come along a limited tools. It was also 15 degrees F. I can feel your pain OP

 

[CapitalTruck]

The overarching sentiment out there seems to be sometimes it is what it is and the job has to be done. That was my feeling on this…just dig in.

 

[CapitalTruck]

When I was in High School I put a starter motor on my parents station wagon in the snow at the local grocery store using only a sheet of cardboard to lay on. I'm too old for that kind of stuff anymore.

You ever wonder what people do that can’t do stuff like that? Everything has to be so much more expensive and hard to pull off (towtruck, open shop, alternative transportation, etc). For the most part, especially early on, if I didn’t do it myself there was no real alternative ($$).

 

[CapitalTruck]

I put a rear end in my Mom’s ‘80 Dodge Aspen, long ago, on the ground, in the snow. Never again!

Those things used to sag so bad in the back. I dont know what the heck they were doing when they designed rear suspension.

 

[CapitalTruck]

If I were you, I'd tell the BIL "I will watch you do the work, if you do not know how to do something I will tell you how, and if something takes 2 people I will help you. But if it only takes one, you will be the one doing it so you learn how to do it."

Maybe, when he logs in the hours he'l be more frugal about saving for the next vehicle sooner. And he just might someday get to the point where we can also do all the work on his vehicle himself.

That is really a good idea and for some reason I never thought about doing it like that. Sometimes its easier to just do it yourself, but thats a setup for doing it forever. Your method would potentially yield dividends down the road of like you said, he learns to repair his own vehicles. And maybe he’d take better care of equipment also.

 

[JimPghPA]

In 1979 on the coldest day of the winter I wired an experimental windmill that was of course located on the top of a mountain where the wind blew like crazy, and it was blowing pretty hard. The heavy gauge wiring was so cold that it wouldn't bend because the covering was too stiff and the only way I could Bend The Wire was to warm it up with my bare hands. I could make one Bend and then I had to warm my hands back up again by putting them back in the gloves for a while, and then repeat to make each Bend. It took me quite a while to get that thing wired in but I got it done. Afterwards, the supervisor of the job said I'm taking you to a really good restaurant and buying you a really good big warm meal, and he did.

 

[daves87rs]

Just had to help my brother in the snow on his Malibu….

 

[The Critic]

Been there, done that. To prevent the cv axle from coming apart, remove the axle nut and push in the axle before raising/lowering the engine.

Use a block of work underneath the lower oil pan to prevent damage.

On the passenger side, you don’t need to raise the engine very much….just a little. Use a swivel socket to remove the bracket from the engine…keep the bracket attached to the mount. Then just remove the mount and bracket together. On the driver side, you’ll need to remove the nuts for the front mount (near radiator) and the top dog bone in order to get the trans to move up enough (for the mount to clear).

 

[RAR]

If this is a thread of your worst repair experience, mine is: replacing a failed water pump on a 1994 Cadillac Sedan de Ville 4.9 V8. In February. In northern Minnesota. When it’s a high of 20*F.

The 4.9 water pump is long and skinny, up against the fender well (steel) and uses three different sizes of fastener. Back then my tool box was not near what I have now, so I was making it work with cheap, crudely made Chinese tools from our local surplus outlet store (Think Harbor Freight in the old, bad early days, but even cheaper).

I got it done. No leaks. Probably went to the scrapper with the car later.

 

[willbur]

Had to put new lower control arms on my sisters Highlander last weekend. Finshed the job this weekend. Interspersed with having the half shaft come apart at the transmission (was able to get it back together, added grease, replaced clamp, hoping for the best) and having to replace the oil pan (had to lift engine to remove mounts to get to control arm bolts, oil pan freakin bent) it was a great time. I forgot to mention having to sawzall ball joints apart because the nuts were totally rust. All of this in the cold with snow. Finishing up with new rear (transverse V6) valve cover gasket tomorrow. It should be illegal to have this much fun. Thing has 250k on it (it used to be my moms), they need a new car. Brother in law wants to wait a while longer so he can get something “brand new and really nice.”. When I got air plenum off today to start on rear valve cover gasket I noticed high pressure p/s hose starting to weep. Additionally, timing belt interval is coming up in 6k miles and tires are cupped as heck. I’m just doing this to get it past inspection (failed for control arm bushings and leaky gasket dripping onto exhaust) to buy them some time. Book time for new control arms is 13 hours (book says “remove engine and transmission” as step one), so clearly Im saving them a ton of $$. Just frustrating to see them spend their money on other crap when this car is totally at the end of its rope. Anyway, rant over. Hope anyone working on their cars on the east coast these past couple of weekends is doing it in a garage.

You are a good man. Appears the BIL is playing you for a sucker, sorry to say. Has $$$ for "crap", but not to fix/buy a car. Instead, you lie in the snow fixing his hoopdi

 

[CapitalTruck]

Been there, done that. To prevent the cv axle from coming apart, remove the axle nut and push in the axle before raising/lowering the engine.

Use a block of work underneath the lower oil pan to prevent damage.

On the passenger side, you don’t need to raise the engine very much….just a little. Use a swivel socket to remove the bracket from the engine…keep the bracket attached to the mount. Then just remove the mount and bracket together. On the driver side, you’ll need to remove the nuts for the front mount (near radiator) and the top dog bone in order to get the trans to move up enough (for the mount to clear).

I used a block of wood, however, I didn’t see near the tranny another “mount” that holds a bearing where passenger side half shaft goes through. So it was fighting me the whole time. Anyway, finally saw that and was able to get engine up enough to take mount out. By that time oil pan was toast, even with the wood. The bright spot is the miracle that all bolts on highlander oil pan are easy to access. Thats a bonus I don’t take lightly. For both sides I just left the front mount unbolted. I’ll tell you one thing, you can believe on the second side I unbolted that half shaft!

 

[CapitalTruck]

If this is a thread of your worst repair experience, mine is: replacing a failed water pump on a 1994 Cadillac Sedan de Ville 4.9 V8. In February. In northern Minnesota. When it’s a high of 20*F.

The 4.9 water pump is long and skinny, up against the fender well (steel) and uses three different sizes of fastener. Back then my tool box was not near what I have now, so I was making it work with cheap, crudely made Chinese tools from our local surplus outlet store (Think Harbor Freight in the old, bad early days, but even cheaper).

I got it done. No leaks. Probably went to the scrapper with the car later.

And of course you can’t wear gloves for a lot of the time during the repair.

 

[ZZman]

I hate sucky repairs. I don't have a garage so am stuck with bad weather sometimes too.

Hope they threw you some compensation for that hard work.