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When I was a kid, I had an ’86 Camaro, 305 V8, with the Q-jet. Anyway, the Q-Jet was running super rich, and I didn’t know anything about carbs. I had to replace the plugs every 2 months. I got it down to a science, where I could do the 4 on the right side (passenger) in about 6 minutes, I could do the front 2 and back one on the left side in about 10 minutes. The 3rd one back was DIRECTLY lined up (looking at it from the front of the car) with the O2 sensor, and offset about 1 inch laterally. That one took almost 30 minutes of cursing just to get the spark plug socket on it. Granted, normally spark plugs aren’t normally an every 2 month item, but I was screaming, ‘What the F**K were you thinking?’ everytime I swapped ’em.
My least favorite. Toyota camry rear struts. Besides removeing the back seat. You have to undone every abs wire holddown in the wheel well, otherwise as soon as you undone any of strut bolts the flex in the control arms is so long it will stretch and break the abs wire. Some of those camrys are $300 per wire per side.
With my early 90’s S10 with the 4.3 V6 I was never able to change the back two spark plugs the engine was just too big stuck out so far in the back I couldn’t get any tools back there to take them out.
EDIT: Just for fun I googled it. Looks like the preferred method is remove the front wheels and go up from the fender. I wouldn’t have thought about that.
How about the starter on a northstar ? what kind of idiot would think putting the starter in a place where you have to take half the engine apart was a good idea ?
btw… years ago I had a 71 duster ( 318 ) we pulled that and put in a big block 383 out of a 67 polara ( with a 727 tranns ) with the headers there was basically no room under the hood. changing the plugs…. spark plug socket would not fit… had to use a modified 13/16 box wrench … 2 hour job to change the plugs..
what was I thinking ? LOL….. Although this was one stupid fast car.
Lexus V8s have the starter in the valley under the intake manifold, just like the Northstars. I had the displeasure of changing the starter on thoe of those cars twice in the same day. The car was towed in with a no-start condition. I traced the problem to the starter motor under the intake. I got the intake manifold off, which took forever since I had never pulled a lower intake manifold off before, got the old gasket material off of the cylinder heads, replaced the starter with a rebuilt one, gave it a fresh intake manifold gasket, reinstalled everything, and when I hit the key I was rewarded with the sound of a starter motor enthusiastically spinning, but the engine wasn’t cranking. The starter I had just spent almost 9 hours installing turned out to be defective. So I had to tear everything down a second time and put on another starter. At least the second starter worked as intended. I told the boss that I was never going to do one of those again, ever.
On a completely unrelated note, but still deep withing the realm of “What were they thinking?”, has anyone here ever done an oil change on a Mazda 3 with the 2.3L engine? it’s got a plastic skid plate mounted under the engine, which is not really a big deal, lots of cars have that. This car uses a canister-type oil filter, similar to the one used on the GM Ecotec engines, which is mounted near the bottom of the engine. Again, this isn’t a big deal as lots of cars use this setup as well. The stupid comes in when you actually look at the plastic skid plate. It’s got a hole cut into it, seemingly for oil filter access, except where the filter housing is mounted is right on the edge of the access hole, rather than directly above it. So, if you don’t remove the skid plate before you try and change the filter, you’re going to get oil all over the inside of the plate and make an even bigger mess that you normally would have simply by changing the filter.
Quoted From 3SheetsDiesel:
On a completely unrelated note, but still deep withing the realm of “What were they thinking?”, has anyone here ever done an oil change on a Mazda 3 with the 2.3L engine? it’s got a plastic skid plate mounted under the engine, which is not really a big deal, lots of cars have that. This car uses a canister-type oil filter, similar to the one used on the GM Ecotec engines, which is mounted near the bottom of the engine. Again, this isn’t a big deal as lots of cars use this setup as well. The stupid comes in when you actually look at the plastic skid plate. It’s got a hole cut into it, seemingly for oil filter access, except where the filter housing is mounted is right on the edge of the access hole, rather than directly above it. So, if you don’t remove the skid plate before you try and change the filter, you’re going to get oil all over the inside of the plate and make an even bigger mess that you normally would have simply by changing the filter.
Those were a terrible design from all that I have read about them. There was a guy that did videos and a nice picture walkthough about how the Mazda 3 were a nicer version of the Ford Focus but the cartridge oil filter was expensive, very messy to change, sometimes one of both o rings leak on the then dealer only filter (which cost $7-8 back then instead of $3 canister), and that you had to remove the skid plate shield to access everything. He actually found out that you could go to a Ford dealer, buy the oil filter mount adapter for about $40, and simply unbolt 4 screws and install the oil filter mount adapter using a normal canister filter. This car was under warranty at the time so he threw the OE oil filter mount adapter in the truck and could swap it back in if the car broke down in about ten minutes.
I came across another stupid design today. I had to replace an alternator on a 2003 Ford Focus sedan, with the 2.0 DOHC engine. That was a nightmare and a half. I hope I never have to replace one of those again. After getting the battery loose, and removing the serpentine belt, I had to move the coolant overflow bottle, and the power steering reservoir, undo 2 chassis grounds, then unbolt the motor mount on the belt side of the engine and then pull the engine as far forward as I could, before putting the rear bolt back in it’s hole to hold the engine forward. Then, the alternator could be unbolted. The top bolt came out just fine. The lower alternator bolt looks like it has enough room to come out of the alternator and then out of the way. Looks being the operative term in that last sentence. It’s actually about a quarter of an inch too long to come out of the alternator with the engine still mounted in the car. I wound up removing the bolt holding the engine forward and shoving the engine back into it’s original position and then shaking the crap out of it before the bolt just fell out. Then I had to fight to get the electrical connections undone from the back of the alternator. The nut that holds one of the wires to the back was seized to the shaft it sits on, so I wound up breaking that to get it free. I wound up removing the bracket that holds the right CV axle in place and shoving the steering rack backward about a quarter inch to get the alternator out the bottom of the car, then I had to force the new one back up into place. Once I got it most of the way up there, I had to figure out how I was going to get that lower bolt back in, as there isn’t enough room to install it. I wound up just cutting some of the bolt off and then grinding the end flat. There was still a good half inch of bolt sticking out the backside of the alternator when I got done, but the bolt went in like gravy after I trimmed it. It toom the almost 4 hours to install that accursed thing. I hope I never have to do that again.
Who told you it takes 8 hours to lift the cab on an F250? It actually takes about 45 mins. On 08+ Ford Superdutys, its even faster with quick release tabs. Its hard to pack a big diesel under a hood, so the easiest way to get to them is to take the cabs off for major work. So to do this they make cab removal easy. But if you dont have access to a lift, you CAN do it with out removing the cab. Its just much easier with room to work.
1. The blend air door on a Ford Explorer requires you to remove the entire dashboard. It took me about 8 hours to change the part, which in reality is about 25 cents worth of plastic. C:P It doesn’t help that the design is so flawed that they’re essentially made to break every couple of years.
2. The rear spark plugs on a Mitsubishi Eclipse 3.0L engine. You have to remove the intake, throttle, plenum and a bunch of other parts. Takes 6-8 hours to change 3 plugs.
3. Anything that requires a triple square (XZN) socket tool to fix. You listening Volkswagon??? No one else uses these things, so why do you!?!
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