Yesterday I was installing new brake lines into my 1954 Willys CJ-3B, and while it was quite a simple job, there is one section of the car that’s just a massive pain in the butt, and it got me thinking about all the engineering packaging decisions that have compromised serviceability and thus lost me hours of my time.
Specifically, where the brake master cylinder bolts to the frame is a bit of a shitshow on an old Willys Jeep. The master cylinder is sandwiched between a bracket and the frame via two bolts that thread into — often brake inside of (after rusting) — the frame. Since my Jeep is from California, I narrowly managed to thread those two bolts out, but once the master cylinder was in, routing new brake lines was rough.
The thing about new brake lines is that they’re rarely perfect, meaning you have to fine-tune some of the bends to get them to meet the fittings. My issue was that the brake line has to go through a small hole in my frame before immediately mating up to the master cylinder. Here you can see it from up top”
Here’s a side view:
And here’s a little closer look:
Trying to bend the line, then thread it through that small hole (which already has a hose going through it) took me forever, especially since the fitting was right there after the bend, and especially since I had to do this while on my back.
Another classic example of a packaging decision that has ruined a few of my afternoons is the oil filter housing location on post-~1992 Jeep Cherokee XJs. These things leak like a sieve, and to fix them one has to remove the oil filter adapter from the engine block; it’s held on by a single torx bolt, whose head is so ridiculously close to the unibody rail that you have to either buy a special tool (shown below) or custom-make your own tool to remove it.
I myself had to buy a torx socket, cut it down with an angle grinder, then use a box wrench to just barely fit between that rail and the oil filter adapter.
Don’t even get me started on the upper shock bolts on the Jeep Cherokee XJ, which tend to break in the weld nuts captured in the unibody. The result? You have to use an air chisel to break the weld nut and then you have to fish the nut and broken bolt out from behind. Then you have to fish a new bolt in through the top and hold it in place while you thread a nut on — it’s rough, as YouTuber D&E In The Garage shows below:
And then there was my multi-day nightmare with my Chevy HHR control arms!
As with many wrenching endeavors, if you have the right tools is key, and once you’ve figured out how to do it the first time subsequent fixes are usually much easier.
Still, this is a thread for us to complain about tight packaging making repair jobs a bear, so have at it in the comments!
97 Chevy K3500. There is 1/4 inch too little space to drop the transfer case and therefore you have to remove the torsion bars and the torsion bar crossmember. This is not easy.
It’s like there was a guy at GM with all this stuff on CAD and the sadistic bastard moved the cross member just enough that the t-case won’t come out.
Yikes…
As someone who has tried to remove GM torsion bars from something much newer, this sounds fucking awful.
There is a way to get it out without messing with torsion bars. I’ve done it a couple times but it’s been a heartbeat. I remember it wasn’t easy, maybe rotating transfer case to a weird angle or something. It took two people and a bunch of curse words.
I feel that. A transmission job on a 97 K2500 is why I’ll never wrench on another GM again.
There seems to be several posts about transverse 6 cylinder spark plug replacement. I think there is some agreement on that.
On an I6? Probably not that bad. On a V6 or VR6? Yeah probably a pain.
Left handed lugs on 60s Mopars. I’ve owned my share and they inevitably get broken off at the tire shop. I have made the service guy write it down on the work order and it still happens. I finally gave up and replace all of the studs with right-hand studs on all four wheels first thing.
Subaru’s stupid boxer engines. Wide engine in a narrow car, so spark plugs, and yes, the head gaskets, require dropping the engine or cutting the frame to get a little extra space 🙁
The 4th gen F-Body Camaro/Firebird engine is under the windshield rather than under the hood, so almost any engine work is impossible.
Transverse V6 designs are inherently shitty, but Toyota takes that up another notch. OMG getting to the back of most of them is fucking impossible. And worse, they tilt it backwards!
^^^^^^^THIS
The plugs on my 2.5L 2012 outback actually werent’ bad. I did not mind those too much.
the SOHC engines are probably easier than the DOHC, as the single cam’s plugs are on top and angled up, whereas the twin cam’s plugs are in the middle and pointing to the side right against the frame.
I was actually able to do the spark plugs on an older non turbo Subaru without pulling anything from/out of the car but it was miserable. Lots of things were very easy to do on that car but anything near the valve covers was awful.
I haven’t had to do it yet, but apparently replacing a headlight bulb in a Bolt EV requires taking off or at least loosening the entire front bumper, and removing the whole headlamp assembly. WHY.
Ditto for my 2012 Outback. It turns out that removing the bumper doesn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, but it’s still a big ol’ hassle and those retaining clips MUST have a finite lifespan.
Because $160/hr is why. . . . The thing is, my (professional) mechanic friend can remove a front bumper on just about any recent car in less than 15 minutes. Much preferred over breaking plastic fins and bleeding trying it the human way.
A lot of cars have this “feature” now, to prevent expensive headlights from growing legs and walking away.
My comparatively old ’10 Ford Focus requires the same thing. And halogen bulbs so I’m absolutely going to have to keep doing it.
Lots of modern gm vehicles require removing the bumper cover to access lights. It’s so dumb. Especially since ABS plastic isn’t known for its tendency to go back to an original shape after it’s been deformed, like when you have to, say, undo the bajillion clips holding a painted plastic bumper cover onto a body.
What’s even dumber is it wasn’t THAT long ago that gm had the brilliant implentation of using vertical rods to lock headlamps in place. This meant that you could pull the rods up and out, then pull the entire headlamp assembly away from the body for servicing the bulbs in seconds. This is (presumably) why UPS uses Oldsmobile Alero headmaps for their large delivery vans, so that it’s easier to change bulbs.
This unfortunately is fairly typical of most modern lights. Sometimes the internet can provide work-arounds that are easier. I spent a half hour trying to put a new bulb for the fog-lights on my G37x – the book says to take off a bunch of stuff, but the internet says loosen a few screws and fold back the inner wheel well liner.
Thanks for the heads up. That will be a frustrating drive home upon noticing a dead headlamp.
the Spark plug replacement on Subaru Legacy models from the past 10-15 years is a terrible design. add in the odd ball spark plug size and it just makes it worse.
The worst though was always the LTI V8 in and F body. No space to work on much of anything, and then the water pump location and design made for the already fragile optispark likely to fail if the block was not fully clear of fluid when the seal broke. That and the Burping process on that same revers flow cooling design.
I recall being impressed by 300 HP and then quickly disappointed when I had to live with one.
The only other really crappy design was the DOHC 3.4 V6 and accessory replacement as well as timing belt replacement process.
The starter on the 2007 Element requires taking the intake manifold off and, at least for me, a whole lot of throttle body hoses. What a pain it was to get the bolts back in to mount the new starter too!
Jeep Gladiator Diesel. Changing the passenger front upper control arm requires either removing the entire exhaust system (not a small feat given the complexity of EGR, DPF, DEF, and a turbo), or you have to get in there with a sawsall and cut the bolt off so it can be replaced with a bolt inserted from the other direction.
There is no reason to make it this complicated when the OE bolt could simply be put in from the other side so the nut is on the exhaust side.
I’d also add the incredibly stupid half-cartridge oil filter that screws into a plastic housing on the engine side – so if you overtorque the filter (or even torque it to spec) you will crack the housing and have to rip half the engine out to replace it. Just make it out of aluminum and the filter out of plastic, so any failure is on the filter side instead of the engine side.
Ford’s insistence on mounting the front coilovers to the upper control arms for no good reason, necessitating massive shock towers that leave less than an inch of clearance between the towers and the pancake-thin exhaust manifolds.
Everybody loves to wax poetic about how roomy 1960s engine bays are, but I cannot stress enough how much that is not the case on classic Fords.
Chevy liked mounting the springs to the lower control arms, making the front suspension nice and compact and leaving a ton of room in the engine bay. This made sense.
Chrysler liked using torsion bar front suspensions, which are nice and compact, leaving a ton of room in the engine bay. This too made sense.
Ford meanwhile, in their infinite wisdom, mounted the springs on top, making the front suspension extremely tall and taking up a ton of space. Why, you ask? Because screw you, that’s why! It raises the center of gravity, necessitates restrictive thin exhaust manifolds that reduce power and fuel economy, and makes it impossible to remove either the exhaust manifolds or the cylinder heads without lifting the engine out to make clearance, due to the exhaust manifolds being bolted to both the cylinder head and the block by design, another Ford feature I hate.
THAT, that right there, was the single most annoying part of rebuilding the engine in my 1966 Thunderbird. Had to get an engine lift and raise the engine several inches just to get access to the bolts holding the exhaust manifolds on. Also, the upper exhaust manifold bolts are exposed on the backside as they reside in the valley where the spark plugs are, so with multiple heat cycles and moisture you better believe they’re not coming out without a fight.
That said, otherwise I loved that old Ford! Exhaust design weirdness aside, the FE V8 is a fantastic and extremely reliable engine, truly Built Ford Tough as they say. Boatloads of torque right off the line, practically behaved like a diesel, only left me stranded once due to the alternator crapping out but otherwise always got me where I was going and disproved the notion that classic cars are all unreliable. And, the exhaust shenanigans were the only difficulties I had working on the engine, everything else was pretty straightforward. That was such an enjoyable and relaxing car to drive, and beautiful too. I was devastated when it got rear-ended, but hey, at least the insurance payout was enough to buy it back for salvage value AND buy the NA Miata which I now drive, so there was a silver lining.
Speaking of the NA, the oil filter location is insane and someone changed it without lubricating the seal so I had to take it to a mechanic to partially disassemble things on a lift so it could be removed with more serious tools when I had to get the oil changed.
Ford has a pretty good reputation, with me at least, for placing oil filters directly above Exhaust pipes too.
Yikes! Fortunately that is not the case on my T-bird. Amusingly though, another thing that comes to mind is that the transmission’s dipstick tube was bolted to the back of one of the cylinder heads, so if you fail to notice that before yanking the cylinder head off, the tube comes with it and you get to clean up a puddle of spilled ATF gushing forth from the hole you just unplugged.
yeah, that sounds about right. they have the oil stick in a 7.3 Powerstroke running through a grommet in the oil pan. guess what breaks down and leaks as a result.
The oil filter on 3.8 in the original Taurus made sure you drained oil directly onto a crossmember.
And on the 4.6 in Mustangs too. I’ve developed an intricate system of plastic bags within plastic bags to try to remove the damn thing without spillage, and I still can’t do it so spend a decent amount of time with a rag and degreaser…
And on my 78 Cougar. The trick is to stick a piece of sacrificial cardboard up there to let the oil run down and into the pan, instead of letting the oil hit the crossmember, flow all the way across it, then do the worlds shittiest Niagara Falls impersonation, creating a curtain of oil far wider than any oil drain pan can possibly catch.
Sounds like you need one of those female peeing standing up devices.
I gotta go with the axle shafts on an XV30 Toyota platform. Once you disconnect the ball joint, that CV axle is held into the transmission by hope and not much else. If you’re not careful, the axle pops out and you have a trans fluid waterfall, plus you’ll have to get it back in there properly.
I’ve taken to cinching the steering knuckle back against the transmision with bungees/ratchet straps just to keep that sucker in there.
As a lifetime owner of mostly German cars, my biggest frustrations have actually been with my ’98 Ford Ranger with the Cologne 4.0 OHV boat anchor engine. Fixing these things with cardboard and bailing wire is easy, fixing things _properly_ can be a challenge. A few years ago I had to replace the clutch. In order to remove the transmission, the exhaust Y-pipe has to come out. Except, the steel Y-pipe is attached to the iron exhaust exhaust manifold with single use bolts that use a special interference thread that just get jammed in there. You can’t just cut out the Y-pipe and work on these bolts later, because the Y-pipe is NLA, and also, the bolts are NLA.
Ultimately I found an old school repair shop with a very confident blow torch operator that got my old bolts out. As new bolts are not available on earth, I did find an exhaust _stud_ kit for a 2005 Explorer which is what they should have used the first time. Interference thread on one end, normal steel threads on the other. They went in no problem, and re-install was easy. The exhaust can now be easily removed if necessary, which looks like I will have to do soon because the oil filter housing is leaking all over the place…
Any manual where the clutch slave cylinder is inside the bellhousing.
Any car where you have to drop the subframe for bushings or steering rack.
Cars where you cannot get the starter out the bottom because of the exhaust headers and the top because there’s just too much stuff there.
The annoyances of mine are often cost cutting or aesthetic not engineering. For one of many the drip rail on the JKU hardtop ends at the back door edge so roof racks are extra difficult. This was for what reason?? The JL has drip rails all the way back, increasing the roof rack options a great deal.
I have a few that come to mind:
1) NA Miata oil filter location. It is incredibly difficult to get to, and when you do, oil goes everywhere. Yes, they make a relocation kit, but I have yet to pull the trigger.
2) 1st gen Tacoma/3rd Gen 4runner lower control arm bolts. The Uppers are easy, the lowers are a JOB.
3) 1st gen Mazdaspeed3 Thermostat. Most cars, this is fairly accessible, on the MS3? Nope! Halfway up the block, under the intake manifold.
4) Any Toyota Tundra with the V8 starter. Not sure what is worse… the 4.7 hiding it under the intake manifold or the 5.7 that requires removal of the exhaust (7 hour book time!)
5) Any old truck where you have to remove the hubs to change the front rotors. C’mon man!
6) The P1 Volvo (C30 in my case) Cabin Air Filter. Go ahead and invert yourself upside down and remove the gas pedal.
7) The P1 Volvo (C30 in my case) clutch bleeder tube. A 15 dollar part was a transmission out job. I was not pleased.
+1 on the NA Miata oil filter. It makes an easy job into a deeply unpleasant one.
+2 on the NA Miata oil filter. Found out after I bought mine that whoever changed the oil filter previously didn’t lubricate the seal, so I ended up having to take it to a mechanic so it could be partially disassembled on a lift to make enough clearance to go at the filter with more serious tools. They got the job done, but that was way more of an ordeal than any oil change needs to be…
removing the hubs was just to ensure you greased the bearings. the current sealed bearing designs are simpler in some ways, but they don’t last as long since they cannot be maintained properly. This design was on literally every car as well up until a point.
I trust you soon learned to cut a hole in the under tray to facilitate oil changes on your Miata. Undertray doubles as an oil catch as well. Just stuff some blue shop towels in there after an oil change. They dry up and blow away eventually.
Nope. Mine is in MINT condition and I didn’t want to cut any holes.
I end up putting a grocery back or 3 over the suspension/steering rack to catch most of the mess.
Mine were all beaters when I bought them. 2-1/2 NAs (split a parts car with a buddy), 1 NB and 1 NC (favorite). Daily drove one or the other for about 25 years.
+5 on the NA Miata oil filter and raise you the same stupid filter on the ’89 Mazda Protege, whose transverse layout sandwiches that filter between the engine and the firewall, leaving you to hope for a shot of good luck finding it, removing it and replacing it, while oil spills everywhere. Still thankful that wasn’t my Protege.
Add P1 Volvo engine airbox removal. What a stupid design that is.
I’ve heard so, but I had the elevate intake, which simplified things.
David “I love XJs” Tracy: here are all the things I hate about the XJ
It’s a weird relationship.
You do know they sell nuts welded to a piece of metal that slides right in don’t you? You can whack the old ones out with a hammer and punch and slide that bad boy right in. Super easy job.
I’ve seen those, yep. Those little Y-shaped (ish) brackets with a little handle.
M104 straight six in my W124 Benz is tilted about 15 degrees (I guess that makes it a German slant-6?), and this means that oil pools on the passenger side of the engine. Specifically, at the seam for the timing chain cover. Which WILL seep, and directly onto the air pump and alternator, which end up slinging said oil drips all over the front of the engine.
That’s just the consequence.
The bad design part is that the timing chain cover only opens a few mm unless you remove much of the front of the engine, the precursor to a full timing chain replacement. So a new gasket has to get fished in using laparoscopic instruments and many German swear words.
“hey, lets make everything big and heavy and expensive. Also, make sure the parking brake doesn’t self adjust, that would be hilarious if the parking brake never REALLY worked.” Land Cruiser Life.
The upper control arm bolts on the 3rd gen Tacoma are installed before the front suspension gets bolted to the truck. Of course once the front suspension is installed on the truck, it is impossible to get those bolts out. Probably why the common removal technique is to cut them off. If the bolts were installed in the opposite direction, there is just enough room to get them in and out without major disassembly.
Whew. So you can at least install new ones the opposite direction?
With a little fighting, you can get them in from the opposite direction.
You can also bend the pinch weld out of the way with a big set of pliers. The pinch weld has to be folded over to fit oversized tires anyway, but I doubt Toyota’s engineers had that in mind when designing the truck.
Top one I can think of right now: Engine oil drain plug on my 2022 Ram 1500 ecodiesel is located directly above a frame crossmember, without much vertical clearance. No matter what, changing the oil makes an absolute mess.
Similarly, the oil filter on my 2021 Jeep Wrangler ecodiesel is tucked in a mess of wire looms, hoses, etc, and at the perfect angle to dump oil all along that side of the engine bay and frame every time I change the filter.
The asshat that “built” the ’65 C10 I’ve been messing with for the last few years made the brilliant engineering decision to weld in the bolt on ebay special airbag setup in front. And the bolt in notch out back. Would have been much easier to get rid of that junk if they welded as poorly as they made decisions.
Yikes!
The PO of my K1500 welded the rear bumper on the frame. Not cool!
Both C chanel bumpers are welded on my 66 Bronco. I’m not looking forward to removal day.
By far the worst was my ’98 Dodge Stratus ES. It was beautiful, comfortable and quick with the 2.5 V6. It was also a packaging nightmare. to access the battery you had to get to it through the driver’s side front wheel well. And it ate batteries on a biennial basis. The rear bank of cylinders was almost completely inaccessible for spark plug changes and it leaked oil from the valve cover gaskets like a sieve. When the AC went out at about 70k miles nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would touch it. At the time I was much more limited in both my wrenching ability and space to do so than I am now, but the few things I did try to tackle were a nightmare.
I bought my daughter a Fiat 500 Sport, and it was a great little car.
However, removing the oil filter required every socket extension I have and one or two universal joints as well. The first time, it was maddening. Subsequent times were merely annoying.
Battery on my Journey, it’s in the bumper, in front of the driver’s side wheel so you have to jack the car up, pop the wheel off and pull back the splash guard all to get to the battery. And then it’s in such a tight spot so you have to wiggle it out and have very few options for replacements. Also spark plugs on any transverse V6.
Turn Signals on my DTS. Remove wheel, remove inner wheel cover, take off bumper and grill. Or as I did, let the garage deal with it.
2004 SRX was similar except it was the DRL bulbs which typically lasted 18-24 months and when the DRL bulb is burned out the turn signals don’t work so you really can’t ignore them. One redneck alternative is to use a hole saw to make bulb access from front and rtv the plastic circle back in when done.
Ford’s decision to put timing chains on the back of the SOHC 4.0L V6. I suppose this is also true of any automaker who puts timing chains in a position where replacing them, or even relatively trivial items like guides and tensioners, is an engine-out affair.
Go purchase a 2010-2019 Taurus SHO and try to work on anything in the engine compartment. “Let’s run the timing chain off of the water pump and bury it three levels of hell in the engine!”
You aren’t doing that job yourself unless you have a lift and a lot of patience. Or no lift and a tiny-handed assistant. Rear bank of plugs are pretty fun to do, too.
This is a TAURUS, Ford! WTF would you make everything impossible to get to AND use shit parts on it? I just can’t wait for the driver’s side blend door actuator to crap out. Oh, and I eventually need to disassemble the entire dash to replace the FCIM that just randomly decides to shut-off.
/rant over, sorry
the old V8 ones used a swedge design on the camshaft gears, no Key way, no glob of booger weld, nothing. Just relying on interference fit from placing a cold gear on shaft and then letting expansion do the job….pro-tip, it did not do the job most of the time.
Also the AWD 2010-2019 units used a sealed Transfer case that you could not do maintenance on, that was a seemingly massive oversight on Ford’s part, though I feel like more and more this was just planned obsolescence at it’s finest.
They put a drain plug in the PTU in 2016. I just have mine serviced (no drain) by having the shop suck out the old fluid through the vent and then put the new fluid in the same way. Hasn’t died, YET.
FOrd was notorious for placing the water pump behind the timing chains on FWD duratec V6’s. the result was usually milkshake and financially scrapped vehicle at 80-100K miles, or also financially scrapped when the cost to do a timing swap while you are in there was proposed to the owner.
Hey, that’s how both Flexes in my family died between 180k and 192k miles!