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

All the vega's I ever dealt with never ran long enough to need a plug change!

 

I watched a mechanic lift the body off of the ch***is of a crown vic with his 2 post lift to do a simple tune up. F-dat!!!

 

First of all, you need to put the ***le of this thread on a T-shirt. Next, I've often come to the conclusion that the part I am trying to get at was the first part to roll down the ***embly line, and the rest of the car was built around it .........

 

Every dam day! Working on modern cars all day, hondas wear me out! They are the kings of take three things off to get to one.

 

Guess he was getting paid by 'actual time' and not flat rate.

 

Three examples :

1. DD 2001 Dodge Stratus V6; you have to remove the intake manifold to replace the 3 rear spark plugs.

2. '68 Corvette 327 with A/C. When I got the car 25 years ago, there was a crude cutout in the inner fender panel behind the right front wheel. It was the first thing I was going to fix. When I decided to change the plugs, I found out why it is was there. It still is.

3. I built a "T" bucket in the mid-sixties. I got it on the road and was real proud of myself until the starter packed it in. I found out I had to remove the Master cylinder to get at the starter. Of course the first time, that required bleeding the brakes. When I finally put it back to gether, I added a couple of coils in the brake line so I could move it enough to clear if I ever had to do it again. Everybody used to ask : "What's with the coiled brake line? - Cooling?"

See, anybody can screw up, even my own wonderful self.

 

I worked on a 72 Corvette with a 350 and an automatic transmissions.

You have to pull the starter to change the plug wires. Or at least to put them back in the way they did from the factory. The wires go under the motor mounts.

Looks nice when it's all done, can't see any wires at all.

 

I gave up wrenchin' on cars for a living when the FWD cars were flooding the market... I just got tired of busting my knuckles on those things..

 

Man,you got that right! One if my favorite modern car things is the first design Toyota v8. The starter is in the valley between the heads under the intake. Lots of brittle hoses an wiring to remove to get the intake off to get to the starter-total BS. Things like starters and alternators that are going to fail should be a no brainer to replace. Guess, it keeps us real techs. in business.

 

How about the Plymouth or Dodge minivans with the Mitsubishi engines that had the waterpump under the plenum? You have to take the top of the engine off to change the damn pump.

 

VW-Audi water pumps (which are countersunk into the block behind the timing belt)require that the timing belt be removed. Timing belt removal requires that the bumper & grille ***embly be removed as well as the radiator and everything else in front of the engine.

I have a '92 Toyota pickup that needs a starter and after looking at it three times I still can't figure out how I'm going to remove it.

 

Yup! Thanks for the memory jog! I rember laying under the car looking up at it saying what the F*ck!

 

Try changing an alternator on a an early 2000s ford escape, like a 6hr job in the shop manual, it's an alternator for gosh sakes, have to take suspension, driveshafts, etc. all apart and get out of the way. Ridiculous

 

LOL, another thread back from the dead! I guess it's still relevant though as we all seem to be trying to do the (seemingly) impossible.

I'm just getting ready to paint the hood and bumper cover on my "new" daily driver, an '06 Mercury Milan. It'd been hit in light in front, damaged hood, both headlights, broke the core support (plastic) pushed the hood latch into the p/s cooler core in the A/C condenser, resulting in a spectacular geyser of p/s fluid, and tore the bumper cover.

The radiator/A/C condenser mount into the core support as a unit, and there is absolutely NO WAY to get these in after the core support is in the car. Ask me how I found that out...

The bumper cover, both headlights, and core support have to come out to service/replace either the radiator or condenser. Which is why I replaced them both, although neither were leaking. They were sprung a little, and wouldn't have fit a non-broken core support anyway.

The serpentine belt had dissapeared as well, and what a treat THAT was to replace. Took the inner fender off, which didn't really get me anywhere, but I could at least SEE the lower pulley's. Ended up taping a wire coat hanger hook to a 2 foot long s**** of all thread rod to make a shepards hook to be able to loop the belt around the pulley's. Took me about an hour to get the new belt on.

The GOOD news here is that evidently it's so much labor to repair these things, by the book, that even light damage like this results in a total. The bad news is that aftermarket Mercury Milan parts are non-existant, but parts for it's sister car, the Fusion, are dirt cheap, and interchangeable. My labor is cheap, and I've got a really nice little car for cheap, that needed less than a thousand dollars worth of parts to fix. So, I have a "Mil-usion"!

Now, out to paint it...