Well that was a faff
Discussion
I've just been giving my Clio 182 a service and discovered that to change the HT leads and spark plugs you need to remove the entire intake manifold and all the various bits and bobs to do with that. After this I discover the plugs are hiding miles down inside the block and what should have been a 15 minute job turned into a right old multi-hour faff. I miss old fashioned engines where everything is easy and right in front of you 
.
Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
.Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
chris182 said:
I've just been giving my Clio 182 a service and discovered that to change the HT leads and spark plugs you need to remove the entire intake manifold and all the various bits and bobs to do with that. After this I discover the plugs are hiding miles down inside the block and what should have been a 15 minute job turned into a right old multi-hour faff. I miss old fashioned engines where everything is easy and right in front of you .
Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
Strange? I did this on a Trophy last year and although the plugs were slightly difficult, I managed it with a 3/8 drive plug socket and wobbly extension without taking anything off?..Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
Was it that you couldn't get to the plugs?
buzzer said:
chris182 said:
I've just been giving my Clio 182 a service and discovered that to change the HT leads and spark plugs you need to remove the entire intake manifold and all the various bits and bobs to do with that. After this I discover the plugs are hiding miles down inside the block and what should have been a 15 minute job turned into a right old multi-hour faff. I miss old fashioned engines where everything is easy and right in front of you .
Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
Strange? I did this on a Trophy last year and although the plugs were slightly difficult, I managed it with a 3/8 drive plug socket and wobbly extension without taking anything off?..Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
Was it that you couldn't get to the plugs?
I could do a full sparkplug change in about 20mins on my old 182.
Tried to put my old VX220 on a trickle charger as I wasn't going to be using it over Christmas.
Parked it up in the garage, bought my trickle charger, pumped the tyres up and made sure it had plenty of oil and fuel in it. Put it in gear, chocked the wheels just in case, handbrake off. Popped the bonnet to get to the battery, which in the VXT is under the screenwash bottle. Earlier on, I'd filled up the screenwash bottle as well with a pretty potent mixture of 60% screenwash(!) to 40% water.
In order to get to the battery, I had to move the screenwash bottle out of the way. This was the last task I was doing before heading to the pub, so I was dressed in my pub gear (a decent t-shirt and jeans,). As I tried to move the screenwash bottle, I noticed that it wouldn't move out of the way far enough for me to get easy access to the battery terminals - this was because whoever had worked on the car previously had put the interior fan intake hose over the screenwash pipe (it's supposed to be the other way round). Therefore, I had to disconnect the screenwash pipe in order to remove the screenwash bottle, in order to remove the battery.
In my naivety I assumed that the pump wouldn't allow water to go through when it wasn't active, and as I unclipped the pump a river of screenwash started pouring all over the battery, radiator, and some important looking electrical cables. Quickly I yanked the bottle out of its housing and held it aloft, satisfied that I'd prevented any electrical mishaps, only to realise that the still-flowing torrent of screenwash was going all over my nice coat, my t-shirt and my jeans. Swearing profusely I hurled the screenwash bottle into a nearby plant pot and started drying myself off. Still irritated, I left the car alone while I went back in the house to go and change into something less wet but still decent enough to wear out.
Having got changed and calmed down slightly, I realised I'd forgotten to finish putting the car on charge. In hindsight, I probably should have thought twice and called it a day, but instead, off I toddled to mop up the screenwash that was all over the battery and associated gubbins. This wasn't a difficult job as the majority of the screenwash had landed on the radiator, but there was enough to need two or three cloths. I had only brought one, so I draped the one I was using over the side of the car and went back to get some more. Carrying on mopping up the screenwash, I soon realised that when I'd put the second cloth over the car, I'd inadvertantly pushed the first one closer to the bonnet... which I was now leaning on, leaving a lovely blue stain on my white top. At this point I'd got fed up and just carried on mopping up, hitching up the charger, locking up the car and putting the cover on. Went back inside to get another top.
Just to compound my frustration, about an hour after I got to the pub, someone bumped into a friend carrying two pints of cider back from the bar, spilling them all down my back. In the space of about two hours I'd gone through three t-shirts, two pairs of jeans and two coats.
All this for a f
king trickle charger!
ETA - here's a picture of the offending area (not my car) - you can just about see the red terminal of the battery under the screenwash bottle.
Parked it up in the garage, bought my trickle charger, pumped the tyres up and made sure it had plenty of oil and fuel in it. Put it in gear, chocked the wheels just in case, handbrake off. Popped the bonnet to get to the battery, which in the VXT is under the screenwash bottle. Earlier on, I'd filled up the screenwash bottle as well with a pretty potent mixture of 60% screenwash(!) to 40% water.
In order to get to the battery, I had to move the screenwash bottle out of the way. This was the last task I was doing before heading to the pub, so I was dressed in my pub gear (a decent t-shirt and jeans,). As I tried to move the screenwash bottle, I noticed that it wouldn't move out of the way far enough for me to get easy access to the battery terminals - this was because whoever had worked on the car previously had put the interior fan intake hose over the screenwash pipe (it's supposed to be the other way round). Therefore, I had to disconnect the screenwash pipe in order to remove the screenwash bottle, in order to remove the battery.
In my naivety I assumed that the pump wouldn't allow water to go through when it wasn't active, and as I unclipped the pump a river of screenwash started pouring all over the battery, radiator, and some important looking electrical cables. Quickly I yanked the bottle out of its housing and held it aloft, satisfied that I'd prevented any electrical mishaps, only to realise that the still-flowing torrent of screenwash was going all over my nice coat, my t-shirt and my jeans. Swearing profusely I hurled the screenwash bottle into a nearby plant pot and started drying myself off. Still irritated, I left the car alone while I went back in the house to go and change into something less wet but still decent enough to wear out.
Having got changed and calmed down slightly, I realised I'd forgotten to finish putting the car on charge. In hindsight, I probably should have thought twice and called it a day, but instead, off I toddled to mop up the screenwash that was all over the battery and associated gubbins. This wasn't a difficult job as the majority of the screenwash had landed on the radiator, but there was enough to need two or three cloths. I had only brought one, so I draped the one I was using over the side of the car and went back to get some more. Carrying on mopping up the screenwash, I soon realised that when I'd put the second cloth over the car, I'd inadvertantly pushed the first one closer to the bonnet... which I was now leaning on, leaving a lovely blue stain on my white top. At this point I'd got fed up and just carried on mopping up, hitching up the charger, locking up the car and putting the cover on. Went back inside to get another top.
Just to compound my frustration, about an hour after I got to the pub, someone bumped into a friend carrying two pints of cider back from the bar, spilling them all down my back. In the space of about two hours I'd gone through three t-shirts, two pairs of jeans and two coats.
All this for a f
king trickle charger!ETA - here's a picture of the offending area (not my car) - you can just about see the red terminal of the battery under the screenwash bottle.
Edited by sebhaque on Friday 30th November 18:51
chris182 said:
I've just been giving my Clio 182 a service and discovered that to change the HT leads and spark plugs you need to remove the entire intake manifold and all the various bits and bobs to do with that. After this I discover the plugs are hiding miles down inside the block and what should have been a 15 minute job turned into a right old multi-hour faff. I miss old fashioned engines where everything is easy and right in front of you .
Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
I wanted to take off the plate hanger on my Evo. Got part way through the job before realising that the bumper or front under-tray (Pos both) needed to come off because one of the bolts could only be accessed from behind. .Does anyone else have any similar stories of incredibly simple car related tasks which turned out to be hugely more faffy than they needed to be?
Needless to say it didn't get removed.
Surely the most stupid element of modern car design is bulb replacement on many many cars.
Headlight bulb in DC5.
Remove front bumper, remove headlights which require an extra long socket to undo one of the bolts under the headlight, you then need an Allen key to undo the cover on the back of the headlight to get to the bulb!! This takes all of about an hour to dismantle and put back together to do a 20 second bulb change.
Remove front bumper, remove headlights which require an extra long socket to undo one of the bolts under the headlight, you then need an Allen key to undo the cover on the back of the headlight to get to the bulb!! This takes all of about an hour to dismantle and put back together to do a 20 second bulb change.
Changing the brake discs and pads in my old polo! Was going well until, after fitting the disc I tried to put in the new disc retaining screw. The previous person had not bothered to put any back in after they fitted them. I did not realise this but the thread was rusty. As I screwed it in it got 3/4 of the way in it got stuck and sheared off! This was one of the first jobs I had done on my car. Took me ages to drill it out!
sebhaque said:
Problems charging a battery
Next time you need to connect the trickle charger, just connect the + to the battery and the - to a good earth-point on the car.Or if you have the bottle out again, fit a flylead that you can plug the trickle charger to whenever you need to connect.
Or if the cigarette lighter is constantly live, buy an adapter and connect the trickle charger there.
CTEK supply B) as standard with their battery conditioner, and you can buy C) as an accessory.
Lexus IS250 also requires inlet manifold removal to get to the rear bank of plugs - but then you don't have to change them until 6 years old iirc
Speaking from experience anything French will require knuckle removal at some point - cambelt on a BX 16 valve requires lots of jacking the engine up and down and requires digits of a midget to get at anything
HID bulb change on my 2002 S8, on the other hand, was 10 minutes work which was quite a surprise!
Speaking from experience anything French will require knuckle removal at some point - cambelt on a BX 16 valve requires lots of jacking the engine up and down and requires digits of a midget to get at anything
HID bulb change on my 2002 S8, on the other hand, was 10 minutes work which was quite a surprise!
Mr Tom said:
Changing the brake discs and pads in my old polo! Was going well until, after fitting the disc I tried to put in the new disc retaining screw. The previous person had not bothered to put any back in after they fitted them. I did not realise this but the thread was rusty. As I screwed it in it got 3/4 of the way in it got stuck and sheared off! This was one of the first jobs I had done on my car. Took me ages to drill it out!
Unless anyone knows otherwise, I wouldn't bother with the screw - it is only doing anything until you get the wheel bolted on, and when it has been on for a while it won't even be doing anything when you remove the wheel as the disc will have stuck itself to the hub.GoneAnon said:
Or if the cigarette lighter is constantly live, buy an adapter and connect the trickle charger there.
Unfortunately I only realised why leaving my satnav plugged in would drain the battery overnight about a month before I came to sell the car. Would have made my life so much easier without having to get dribbled on by screenwash when I wanted to charge the battery.Thankfully my 911 has much easier battery access, and has the added benefit that I can shut the trickle charger in the boot and lock the car up (physically on the key) and leave it alone.
N/s headlight bulb on mk4 Golfs requires the removal of the entire contents of the engine bay, including the engine.
OK I'm exaggerating slightly, you can leave the engine in
but everything else needs to be removed and most of the exterior too.
Removing the battery on them is also a 4 hour ordeal that requires much of the engine bay to be disassembled.
OK I'm exaggerating slightly, you can leave the engine in
but everything else needs to be removed and most of the exterior too.Removing the battery on them is also a 4 hour ordeal that requires much of the engine bay to be disassembled.
Quite honestly, changing headlight bulbs on most modern cars.
Do the manufacturers expect us to remove half the engine bay and the front bumper on the side of the road?
I find it`s increasingly hard to a lot of things on new cars that should be easy, almost as if they were deliberately making them hard to work on them at home, imagine that!
Do the manufacturers expect us to remove half the engine bay and the front bumper on the side of the road?
I find it`s increasingly hard to a lot of things on new cars that should be easy, almost as if they were deliberately making them hard to work on them at home, imagine that!
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