I recently returned a Gatorback belt to the store. On my 3800 V6, it was causing a whistling noise where it wrapped around the alternator pulley. I went to PepBoys and bought a Dayco, which is the same brand as the OE belt. No problems since.
Those 1 hours repairs that go wrong.
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My cheap, old spark plug socket deposited the inner rubber boot on the top of one of my plugs during my last plug change on my 2002 Protege5 without me realizing. Looking back, I dimly remember having a hard time pushing the coil pack down on top the plug. DUH! After 10k miles, it baked and expanded. When I went to replace the plugs again, the socket wouldn't go on. Had a devil of a time getting the old, baked on rubber off the plug as the plug is about 6" down a tunnel in the valve cover.
I was forewarned however as this old POS socket would never stay on my Sears "lock-on" ratchet extensions. Only after I bought a Sears spark plug socket did I figure out what the cause was, the old POS plug socket just didn't match up correctly to the detent. Funny thing was, you could hold it in your hand and couldn't pull it off the lock on extensions, but down in an engine it came right off.
I fought that stupid thing on many spark plug changes. I will never buy a cheap tool again and I'll always be looking for that boot whenever I pull the socket out after torqueing down the plug.
One last thing, besides oil/filter changes on 5 vehicles that week-end, three tranny drain/fills, five suck out power steering reservoirs and replenish and one brake fluid flush/bleed, I also pulled all the spark plugs on my Ody with 4k miles and put never-sieze on the threads prior to re-torqueing. I have nightmares about a plug destroying the aluminum head threads after 60k miles when I try and pull it because the factory NEVER puts never-sieze on the spark plugs.
[ June 04, 2005, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: ex_MGB ]
I was forewarned however as this old POS socket would never stay on my Sears "lock-on" ratchet extensions. Only after I bought a Sears spark plug socket did I figure out what the cause was, the old POS plug socket just didn't match up correctly to the detent. Funny thing was, you could hold it in your hand and couldn't pull it off the lock on extensions, but down in an engine it came right off.
I fought that stupid thing on many spark plug changes. I will never buy a cheap tool again and I'll always be looking for that boot whenever I pull the socket out after torqueing down the plug.
One last thing, besides oil/filter changes on 5 vehicles that week-end, three tranny drain/fills, five suck out power steering reservoirs and replenish and one brake fluid flush/bleed, I also pulled all the spark plugs on my Ody with 4k miles and put never-sieze on the threads prior to re-torqueing. I have nightmares about a plug destroying the aluminum head threads after 60k miles when I try and pull it because the factory NEVER puts never-sieze on the spark plugs.
[ June 04, 2005, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: ex_MGB ]
Sears loves the gotcha of selling things that will not work with anything else. Personally, I hate the Sears ratchet I have because it is an oddball requiring a different technique to remove sockets than the extensions do.
my work day is filled with 1 hour jobs that take 4 hours. the only reward for them are the 4 hour jobs that take 1 hour.
you are always a hero when you get the job done early and you are always the villian when your jobs run overtime. I always estimate a fudge factor into my repair time quotes. the boss thinks i'm the best ever when I come in 1 hour ahead of the schedule that I gave him!
you are always a hero when you get the job done early and you are always the villian when your jobs run overtime. I always estimate a fudge factor into my repair time quotes. the boss thinks i'm the best ever when I come in 1 hour ahead of the schedule that I gave him!
So if you take that law into account, the job will actually take 9x as long! Moral: don't take that law into account to keep your labor times down!
Topic content: A couple years ago I was replacing the distributor cap and rotor on my Caprice. GM pushed the base of the windshield/cowl forward for 1991 so the distributor is (in)conveniently nestled under the cowl, in front of the firewall. The dist cap has two hold-down bolts, one in front and one (invisible) in back. I got the old cap and rotor off and was installing the new Accel brand cap. As I tightened the rear bolt blind, I felt the metal fail and started cursing. Turns out the bolt sheared right in half! Now I have a piece of a cheap bolt stuck in my distributor base and no amount of vice gripping is getting this sucker out.
So I had to pull the distributor entirely out of the car. This actually went easier than I was expecting (inverse Hoffstadter's law?). It's the drilling and tapping that was the real problem. To this day, I have an oversized screw holding down the rear, with a flat head (annoying). I have many more stories from this car.
The one that takes the cake ended like this:
Big mistake
The short of it is, I wanted to run a power cable for an audio amplifier that I was installing in my trunk. I couldn't find any holes in the firewall so I thought I would drill through the plastic of the engine harness bulkhead. Turns out that the wires go from the engine to the interior of the car (where the ECM is) at different heights. So what started as a hole below the wires (from the interior) ended up drilling right through several wires (on the engine side). And I made it worse in the above pics by cutting ALL the wires and attempting to solder them together by color, one at a time. Midway through, a fellow car nut explained that simply matching color didn't mean I was hooking up the original wires. So that was a waste of time. One junkyard engine harness later (and parents who had my car towed from their garage to a repair place to install it) and it was fixed....
Was that an LT1, Wayne?
Yesterday I replaced the DEVIL's THERMOSTAT. I should have checked to see if 666 was stamped on it somewhere. I guess I had it coming, penance for an unclean life when I was young :^)
I just wanted to replace the coolant and thermostat in our 93 Taurus. Since I was using a newer 'extended life' Prestone, that's what they had on the pallet at the place where I buy such things, I bought two gallons so that I could flush the old stuff out. The old stuff wasn't too bad, no rust or anything, but it was getting to be about 2 years old. The car tended to run hot in some situations since the dealer worked on it, getting to 2 o'clock on the temp gauge, so a new thermostat seemed in order. Everything went well until I tried removing the 2nd and 3rd bolt on the thermostat housing, where the heads just popped off with little effort. Groan, quiet curses. I got the housing off, and after an hour of tapping and soaking with penetrating oil one of the studs came out. The bottom one, which was hard to get to because of a large wiring harness, broke off flush instead of coming out. Loud curses with flung wrench. An hour of drilling, checking, recentering with a Dremel and carbide cutter, drilling, I managed to end up with an oversized hole. Deep in the hole of depression, I took a break and rumaged thru my toolbox, looking for my taps, when a light evidently from heaven itself illuminated a Helicoil kit that I've been carrying for over 20 years, a kit with inserts for the size thread that I needed :^) They were shorter than I wanted but I managed to get two in the hole. Everything went back together quickly, and so far the car runs cooler than before. The old one didn't seem to be installed correctly as the 'jiggle valve' wasn't up, but I don't know if that would affect running temperature.
I hope for no more excitement from my thermostat, and continue my praise for good tools.
I just wanted to replace the coolant and thermostat in our 93 Taurus. Since I was using a newer 'extended life' Prestone, that's what they had on the pallet at the place where I buy such things, I bought two gallons so that I could flush the old stuff out. The old stuff wasn't too bad, no rust or anything, but it was getting to be about 2 years old. The car tended to run hot in some situations since the dealer worked on it, getting to 2 o'clock on the temp gauge, so a new thermostat seemed in order. Everything went well until I tried removing the 2nd and 3rd bolt on the thermostat housing, where the heads just popped off with little effort. Groan, quiet curses. I got the housing off, and after an hour of tapping and soaking with penetrating oil one of the studs came out. The bottom one, which was hard to get to because of a large wiring harness, broke off flush instead of coming out. Loud curses with flung wrench. An hour of drilling, checking, recentering with a Dremel and carbide cutter, drilling, I managed to end up with an oversized hole. Deep in the hole of depression, I took a break and rumaged thru my toolbox, looking for my taps, when a light evidently from heaven itself illuminated a Helicoil kit that I've been carrying for over 20 years, a kit with inserts for the size thread that I needed :^) They were shorter than I wanted but I managed to get two in the hole. Everything went back together quickly, and so far the car runs cooler than before. The old one didn't seem to be installed correctly as the 'jiggle valve' wasn't up, but I don't know if that would affect running temperature.
I hope for no more excitement from my thermostat, and continue my praise for good tools.
Really simple. I was checking the spark plug wires and tubes in my '95 Integra GS-R. No particular reason to do this, but I was bored. The plug wires are covered by a plastic piece held on by a nut. So I do all this then put the cover back on. I tighten one of the nuts, and all of a sudden I hear a crack. I just overtightened it and cracked the bolt the nut tightens onto. Nothing really disastrous, but I had to find the part on a Saturday, and the closest dealer that had it was 50 miles away. Eventually I got a factory service manual and found out the torque specification for that bolt was 8 ft-lbs.
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