Well my nomination for the most knuckle brusing , stupid design fastenered pile of crap goes to the Renault Laguna.
I think it was specially designed to 'just' outlive its warranty and has a huge list of special tools required just to open the bonnet ( if you're fortunate enough to have a bonnet without rusted & siezed catches.
My aux belt tensioner pulley is held on by a cap head screw that has been butchered by some dealer gobshite. To actually access it , I have to either :-
A) remove the alternater....but can't because the main bolt fouls against the ecu....thats held on by special head screws..
B) remove the o/s headlight......which has to have all the grill assy removed and ( this is the killer ) the bleedin front bumper and undertray has to come off.
The Haynes book says bumper for 98> models has to come off, refer to bumper section.....I daren't check the bumper section....it'll probably say remove exhaust , rear suspension , consult dealer for a dozen special tools.
I knew I should have paid more and bought a Passat !
My sisters bodykit modded agila (dont ask) needs the bumber taking off to access the light pack to change a bulb. A c**t of a job especially when another bulb fails on the other side the following day.
Its about time someone did Haynes under trade description or something.
There manuals are s**te. and written with backhanders from the motoring industry no doubt.. Example-: My old micra manual, says things like, see illustration photo 22 A or B etc.
Now ,with the vauxhall corsa manual its see photo. Which f----kin photo, Mr Moron Haynes.
If you can give me a warning light on my dash to warn me of an error.
If you can get a diagnosis from the diagnostic socket on my car into your machine.
Why T F---k did the Manufacturer not make the codes just appear on my dashboard when something is wrong.
Why build a great big ''''expensive to use machine''''.
I'm hanging on to my old G Plate micra distributor and all.
All the pirated software about-:
When is someone going to sell a dashboard mounted diagnostic reader for a reasonable £20.00
Wimp!!! When you've removed the autogearbox from an old 525e bmw on your own, with the car only on trolley jacks ... then split the gearbox and replaced the front (a) clutch pack, reassembled it, refitted it to the car (on your own) in
9 hours flat then every single job ever again is a piece of piss. Some mechanics have it too easy!!!
Remove plug from end of gearbox, wind a long bolt in, pull, and the input shaft nicely slides out for you? :)
Only experienced that on a mk2 Cav GLi I swapped an engine on. Wondered at the time why more cars didn't use the same idea. I guess Cavs (and associated) being fleet cars meant they could claim lower maintenance costs due to designs like that, which is why they did it.
There's a similar arrangement on my fwd Triumph - But I've not looked at it yet, and it's slightly different in that the clutch isn't between the engine and box (think Mini, but slightly different). You've got to take half the dash out to get to it though, so still a sod to do.
Bloody brilliant design, that! Only slight trouble I had was that my clutch kit didn't include the little clamps that you have to tap over the two plates, to hold them together against spring pressure, so I had to buy them for about a fiver extra. Then they were a bit narrow, so I had to bent them out slightly and then tap them on with a hammer. Then it started raining and I had to finish it off the next day, so saying it took less than an hour all in all was a bit of a white lie (more like a day and a half), but it basically did!! I reckon I could do another in less than half an hour if need be, but in all honesty I'd rather just get a car with a good clutch and drive it nicely and hopefully never have to replace it!
And then they realised that a lot of people were doing it themselves instead of taking it to their friendly main dealer, so they redesigned it again!
You want to do a turbo manifold flange gasket on a CA18DET in a 89-94
200SX. There is one nut at the rear on the engine side that is almost impossible to get to. Cut spanners or bend them to suit then use an adjustable on what's left of the shank to get leverage on them. Then you can't get the lock tab bent over properly so it fails again after less than 15K miles. To do it properly the manifold has to come off but the studs between 3 and 4 are directly behind the manifold flange so the turbo has to come off first and ... go on last. Else you abuse a combination spanner to get them off. Then forget about using a torque wrench and just wang the manifold nuts up. When they designed the later SR20DET motor they got it right and inverted the stud pattern so the two in line with the flange are on top.
Forget Haynes, get a Nissan 200SX, full genuine workshop manual is on line and available for download. My dashboard diagnostics is made from a switch and led front panel from an old Amstrad printer bought for £1. Had to remove the leds and put them in other way round to get polarity right. The green on-line and red paper out leds are connected to the green and red output on the engine check connector, with the on line button being the mode selector. For good measure the spare green power led is connected to the ECCS feed that operates the main power relay after internal diagnostics have been done, so if that one don't light the ECU is dead.
Later Nissan's with Consult you just short two pins on the Consult connector and it flashes the code on the check engine light. The shop manual for the 94-98 200SX has procedures that don't require the use of the consult box at all, you just unplug a few things in sequence to conduct a test or operate a set sequence of switches. Could locate a fault in the middle of the Australian outback with a paper clip and multi-meter.
It was seen that the big car makers use of propriety systems was stopping independent shops doing service work on newer models and would eventually put thousands of out of business. OBDII was proposed to US congress as a universal system to allow any shop to do maintenance and repair on any engine. Ford and GM saw it as a way to lock all customers (not just the completely witless ones) into their franchised dealer chain. Money was spent, congess lobbied. It got a couple of amendments so Ford's and GM's patented data encoding was accepted as part of the legal standard completely negating the original intent of the act. Low cost third party code readers cost as much as a shop manual but only yield numeric codes, if it's not one of the defined standard codes but a makers extended code you need a shop manual to translate the makers unique code. Universal pro and one make dealer systems cost about £3-5K, pro systems have identity packs for different makes at about £500 each but do allow stored settings to be changed and interactive diagnostic modes to be used.
As you say they should have made it law to put a proper interactive diagnostic panel in the car. But how to stop the witless customer messing with it? Use a key that costs £1K? Use a PIN that only a franchised dealer can obtain from the maker?
-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!
I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that I have to apparently remove the complete engine and transmission on my H registration Astra
1.7 diesel, to gain access of the two bolts which secure the right hand engine mount to the engine block.
I've toyed with the idea of using a tank cutter to make two holes in the bulkhead, but don't really like the idea of mutilating and possibly weakening the body... any suggestions someone?
I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that I have to apparently
how are you supposed to remove the engine and geabox to get to th ebolts that hold the engine in place in the first place? the mind absolutly boggles :)
The remains of the rubber engine mount are contained in a metal box which bolts flush against the bodyframe behind the wing, so the engine needs to be dropped below the body frame to gain access to the bolts (securing the rubber mount to the engine) inside the box.
I have written previously asking how far the engine can be safely dropped with the drive shafts still in place, but unfortunately didn't receive any replies.
Many thanks Duncan, I will have access to a hoist on Friday, so I'm hoping that if I remove the engine mounts, exhaust and hoses, I can then lower the engine sufficiently to gain access.
I tried to replace it the other week and managed get the engine down far enough to see that there is literally no rubber suspension left inside the mount, in fact the RH front of the engine is just 'resting' on a small piece of metal bolted to the bodyframe.. and to think I recently did a 200 mile trip down the motorway at a 'good' 70 miles an hour, I wondered where all the excessive vibration was coming from!
If it's close I reckon you could drop the suspension arms & struts out as well for less grief than pulling the driveshafts. Don't pull the inner driveshafts apart accidentally, they're boring to reassemble, thereagain they come out of the box fairly easily.
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