I can see it, but I can't get a wrench on it...

Ever curse a desinger or factory engineer when you were trying to get to some important componant for service? Especially when it seemed to something you really should be able to get to?

That was me today, trying to get to the leaking oil pressure gauge fitting on the back of the block on the 472 in the Fordillac. I could see it, I could touch it, but I could NOT get a wrench on it and move it! This time, I had nobody to blame but myself, as I'm the guy who wrapped the '36 cowl around the Cadillac 472 in such a way as to make it un-do-able.

Ultimately, I cut a hole in the firewall after pulling the carpet. And that wasn't easy either, as the cowl brace behind the dash was smack in the way to get the cut off tool in there... Finally got it though, and I decided I'm not going to curse the manufacturer when I'm trying to get to a leaky heater core, headlight switch, or some fastener on a water pump etc. when it goes arwy. Sometimes, you HAVE to build a car around whatever little bit ends up going bad!

Now, I hope I never have to get the valve covers off that Caddy, 'cause without pulling the motor/trans, there's no way they are coming off under that cowl...

Brian

 

I have to unhook the shocks, and drop the rear of both leaf springs, in order to change the back tires on the 47. Oh well, I like how she sets.

 

Alright Brian... we've all drooled over your car for quite some time now.

Now post pics of that half-***ed access hole you hacked into your car.

I can't tell you how many times I worked on FE Ford powered vehicles that had holes cut through inner fender wells and even shock towers to access sparkplugs lol...

-Chris

 

Murphy's law man. Ain't that how it works? I modified a wrench to get to a chrysler oil pres. sending unit many years ago, and I was going to suggest the same thing to ya Brian. Hit it with a torch and bend it to your liking. I'm sure you thought of that long before making an 'access hole'. ****s to hear the trouble you had to go through, but glad to hear you got it fixed.

 

I cant put the fan and pully back on without either pulling the radiator or gluing the washers on the inside pully. Guess which one I did.

 

I was a tooling-designer (draftsman) for 25 yrs. Tooling designers design the machines and tooling to make the cars, as opposed to product-designers who design the car or parts of the car. We used to have a saying for too much "stuff" in a given area..."10 lbs. of **** in a 5 lb. bag." We were required to make sure that there was not only enough room to get a wrench on any given fastener, but that there was also room for the hand holding it. But guess what? Sometimes things like clearance and such were inadvertantly overlooked! And what looked good on paper, didn't always work in reality. Tooling-designers sometimes have a way of really ******* off the tooling-builders...or at least, makin' 'em laugh their ***es off! One time, when I was younger, and newer to the design-world, I drew a tool that had a shaft threaded only in the middle portion...and no, the ends weren't of a smaller diameter...now how in the heck would that work??? Hahahahaha!!! Luckily, it didn't make it to the shop. So don't feel too bad, flyn...even the "professionals" sometimes get it wrong. What really grinds me though, is that nowadays, it seems that 10 - 15 lbs. of **** in a 5 lb. bag is the norm for modern cars. They really pack it in, with no regard for the guy that has to work on it...along with "special" fasteners that require "special" tools, or plastic fasteners that are impossible to remove without breaking, or even latches as on glove-box or console doors, that break the first time a penny gets in the way. Now, who in their right mind, designs and builds plastic latches?! Aaaaarrrggggghh! Anyway, access holes work, eh flyn? "The best-laid plans of mice and men." - Rick

 

I had to make a special wrench to get the ****** out of the blue truck....

When I was talking with the original builder, and told him....

he goes" ha I still have the wrench I made for doing that job on the top of my tool box"....

we laughed...

 

There were Chevy Vegas in the early seventies that were so poorly designed by the GM engineers that the engine needed to be pulled to change one or two of the sparkplugs! Can you imagine that?

 

ahh dont beat yourself up..cant think of everything especially when your excited about getting it all together and ready to go.

**** happens

nice lookin rod BTW

 

I have a drawer with already heated and bent wrenches and ones awaiting there fait .

 

Some models of mid 60's Mercurys with big blocks had tune up instructions where the first sentence read Raise car and remove front wheels and remove access panels to reach spark plugs.
My best one when working in a shop was getting my arm stuck behind the engine is an o/t sideways engine front wheel drive car and having to have the other mechanic in the shop pull the engine forward enough to get my arm out.

I've got a drawer full of wrenches that I modified to do specific jobs where I couldn't find one that worked at the time.

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No....

I had a Stock '71 and a '74(insert Vega joke here) with factory A/C and never had to pull the engine.
I could change the head gasket in under an hour and also replaced a piston without pulling the engine.

 

1 of the hardest thing i ever had to do on a car, is change the starter on a dodge omni.the bolt is in the middle of the back side of the motor.cant get it from below,have to reach over and down the backside.can barely get on bolt ,no room to turn wrench,and no room to get leverage.and the bolt is hella tight.

 

Think that's bad? The new O/T VW W-8 engine (not a V-8 - it's a W-8) has eight separate oxygen sensors. To access any of them, the engine must be lifted from the car. Oh, and the cost is $500 PER sensor. Long as the engine is out (12 hours labor @ $125/hr...$1700 right there!), you might as well do all eight, because oif one goes bad, the others can't be far behind to fail, correct? So, $4K for the sensors, $1,700 for labor, another $300 for whatever other **** they fell like charging you for, and you have SIX thousand dollars in a sensor replacement job!

The Chevy V-8 fiasco was with the V-8 Monza of the mid-'70s. To access the rear two plugs, the engine must be lifted up from the crossmember about eight inches, but not completely removed. The seven remaining cars on the road probably still have the original two rear plugs!

 

I think that story is really cool. The custom hot rod wrench is still around 50 years later and probably in the same spot he put it after using it decades ago. Amazing he still has it.

 

That was me this weekend with a loaded trailer on route 9 south in Old Bridge when the distributor in my OT late 90s Dodge PU decided to explode. That thing is BURIED under a cowl. Yours was custom at least, this was factory! I dont know anything about diesels but I know that they dont have distributors, and wished I had a diesel at that very moment for that very reason.

 

The car that TotallyCustom is thinking about is the Chevy Monza V8. One of my buddies had one and he's right... you can't get to the two rear plugs on the driver's side without pulling the engine at least partially out of the car. We ended up dropping a 350 into Kev's car. Didn't help the sparkplug problem, but it ran a heck of a lot better than the 262

 

Thanks....I knew there was some Chevy like that. Close but no cigar!

 

Not on your life! Actually, you CAN see it, with a trouble light, and a mirror from under the hood, or, by pulling the carpet. My dirty little secret...

 

car can be bad but i have allways found thing like, forklifts, backhoes, loaders, any kind of equipment like that just nuts to work on.

 

Just tonight I was cursing the design of an OT vehicle I own. V-type engine mounted transversely. Changing the plugs. Riiiiigggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttt..............

....can't see 'em, cen't get you arm over the engine (unless you have an extra elbow joint in your forearm), can't get a wrench on them, cant's swing the wrench, and of course the only position you can use to work on the plugs in the back bank is the one where you arm is getting impaled by some jive-***, sharpened gizmo atop the motor so that tonight I have an indentation in my arm......

..OK I will quit *****ing now. But never again a tranverse-mounted V engine. Never.

 

Completely normal.

Many straight-8 engines had areas that were only accessible by drilling a hole in the firewall and plugging it up when done. This was SOP at the dealerships of the time.

 

I have a drawer in my tool box for 'special' wrenches.

These are the ones that I've ground down, heated, bent, cut-off or designed for a single purpose. Sometimes they come in handy again on a non-related job.

 

Back in the 80s a thief broke into the shop and stole our toolboxes a**** other things. Over time replaced most of my standard tools lost and of course added a few more to the point that the theft was a more of a memory than the initial headache. So when a job would present itself calling for one of those modified tools I'd head right over to my box and of course it was gone. Instant rage! The burn never goes away.F@#*ing thieves nothing lower.

 

Had to change the right (front, if the engine had been in the car as God intended) motor mount on Wifey's OT Pork Avenue Ultra. I've been working on my cars and bikes for close to 45 years and that was, hands down, the hardest, most frustrating thing that I've EVER done. I had to take half a dozen breaks to let my blood pressure go down and gave several tool flying lessons. I'm getting pissed again just thinking about it.

 

I feel for ya. Just changed the plugs and wires in a buddies '01 Exporer. After getting the p***. side 2 and 4 plugs out I ended up removing the receiver/drier just to get #6. At 116K miles I can see why the p***enger side were still the originals!

And yeah, I also have a drawer full of homemade wrenches and tools. I definately know the feeling.

 

I put a 392 Hemi in my 47 Mercury
and left 1/8" clearance between the starter and the steering box.
Whenever I have to change the starter,
the easiest thing to do
is drop the steering box out of the way first.

 

Did that last summer on the Mrs. 2000 Malibu V6
Cut a piece of plywood to fit across the rad to engine then I laid down across it with my forehead against the firewall. Using a trouble light and the Mrs. makeup mirror I could SEE the rear plugs. Removal wasn't too bad but trying to get the new one in without getting it full of grease and dirt was an adventure. With my boy holding the trouble light and mirror I managed to change out the back 3 plugs and wires in a long afternoon. Apparently it got a little noisy 'cause 2 different neighbors came over to see what was up

 

One of the special wrenches I made was cut and welded in order to get to the lower bolts that hold the factory cast iron headers on a '64 Galaxie with a 427.

Sometimes working on restored musclecars can stretch your patience to the breaking point. Recently I could not start a bolt that held the bumper bracket to the frame on a '62 Corvette. I finally threw down the tools, closed the garage and went in the house for the night. I came out the next morning and the bolt went right in with no problem. I guess just a good nights sleep is sometimes the answer.

 

My old 57 Dodge PowerWagon Pickup had access holes I cut in the fenderwells for fuel pump and plugs and a hole in the firewall for bolt access and whatnot..and of course in BB MEL engines there is the top blind bolt on the starter, me and the one in the 59 Edsel are old friends...