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!
Foxbody or SN95 Mustang heater core replacement with adult hands. Nope. I’d rather set the car on fire. I’d rather set myself on fire!
I was redoing the suspension on our old ’09 Camry, and the choice was to either get a bushing and figure out how to swap it on the factory part, or get the whole control arm with the bushing already in it at AutoZone for basically the same price. I bought the control arm, but we had to jack the engine and transmission up (an amount that made me pretty uncomfortable) to get the control arm out. I guess that alternative would have been to somehow replace the bushing with the control arm still attached to the car. Either way was less than optimal.
I had to do a thermostat on a Altima and the first step in the shop manual was “support engine” which implies somewhere down the steps is going to be “remove engine mount”. I used a u-joint socket and was able to get to the bolts without removing the engine mount but that was not fun. I’ll add accessory drive belts on most FWD cars and any company that puts the starter under the intake to the list.
I have a 2004 Mach 1. That means a DOHC V8 in an engine bay designed to fit a pushrod V8. The cylinder heads nearly touch on all sides so things like valve cover gaskets are incredibly difficult. It is also the last year that utilizes a cable driven clutch and seemingly the increase in HP output/clutch aggression combined with the decrease in quality of available throwout bearings has led to them leading very short lives. I have replaced mine 4 times in 20k miles and it is DIFFICULT to do, although that is also partially due to my aftermarket headers.
Let me guess… you didn’t use a factory ford TOB. I made that mistake myself, one lasted as little as 1,300 miles before failing.
I have used McLeod, and 3 of the Ford HD throwout bearings. The McLeod lasted 10k miles and was making very little noise but I changed it when I had the engine out for timing chain replacement, one Ford lasted around 5k before it got squeaky and the other barely made it to 1k. The one currently in it has about 1500 miles and is starting to make some noise. I am thinking about trying a McLeod again.
Damn, that’s rough man.
#8 spark plug on the LS1 V8 in a 1999 Camaro. Engine sits halfway under the dash so the back two are already a bit of a pain. But no, that one on the passenger side they had to make the HVAC box come about 1″ from the cylinder head. You can get it out from above with a couple swivels and three extensions on your ratchet. Putting the spark plug back in you have to do by feel and hope you dont cross thread it. Helps if you have small hands. The whole design of that engine bay is just a PITA, just leave it stock, not a good car to do a build on unless you are a total machosist
There are minivan V6’s where the entire bank of cylinders are questionable.
2000 Chevy Malibu rear sparkplugs. It took all afternoon. Even had to borrow a borescope when one of the new plugs went missing. Couldn’t find it. Was laying on the exhaust manifold just out of reach.
Thos cars catch alot of grief from people but it was a good car especially for what little we paid for it.
Yeahhh, chevrolet lumina apv with the 3.8 comes to mind.
In order to access the oil filter on my NA miata, I have to remove the front passenger wheel and snake my arm through the fender well to reach it. Its tucked under the intake manifold and there isnt enough clearance between the frame rail and intake manifold to fit my arm through from up top.
I never remove the wheel when I do it on my NBs. Turned the steering wheel all the way left gives a perfect window to reach in. I used to be able to do it from above by reaching in behind the intake manifold, prior to my coolant reroutes being installed. Surprised you can’t do the same on a NA with their smaller manifold.
I can’t fit my arms through that window with the charcoal canister in the way, on my Dad’s NA I can get through no issue since his had all of the emissions stuff minus cats removed by a previous owner.
Oh, that makes sense. I may have misplaced all of my emissions equipment, allegedly, which frees up a lot of room for sure.
I had a 1991 Dakota 5.2 V8 where the previous owner just cut a hole in the inner fender to access the oil filter. All I had to do was crank the wheel all the way to the right and I could reach it. I just kept it like that the whole time I owned it because it was easier than going over the top to do it.
My 98 Mazda B2500 (Ford Ranger) had 2 spark plugs per cylinder, and the furthest back one was virtually impossible to get out.
The early 5.7 Hemis had 2 spark plugs per cylinder and they used copper instead of platinum so the service interval was like 30k miles with OEM plugs. It was very silly.
That’s at least twice as bad as the pitiful four banger in my Mazda
My Mach E’s (tiny) 12V battery is positioned so that you cannot access the positive terminal without removing two bolts that hold it in the battery tray. Why not spec a battery with different terminal locations? Why not make the part of the plastic shroud that blocks access removable like the area over the negative terminal? There are a lot of easy ways they could have solved the problem. They just didn’t.
The worse thing on the 2020 Connect to access is the passenger head light bulbs.. you actually have to remove the front bumper cover to access a single bolt holing the lower part of the headlight assembly to the chasses. Once removed, you can then pull away the headlight assembly/housing to access the bulb. But even then, you hands have to be kid size to squeeze your fingers inside the housing to extract the bulbs.. The drivers side isn’t so bad..everything else has been easily accessible.
I am sure others will agree with me:
1. Removing/replacing the EGR on a Prius (stud from hell).
2. R/R or checking fluid level on the power steering pump, 1998 Olds 88
3. Impossibly small access hole to R/R rear bulbs on Toyota FJ Cruiser
4. Heater core, early Fox Mustang (already mentioned, but worth a 2nd vote)
5. R/R fuel pump on a Dodge Stealth
Honorable mention (not for difficulty of access, but placement) power steering pump mounted above alternator on Chevy trucks w/250 6cyl motor.
Best design ever: headlights on Chevy GMT800 trucks; unclip snd slide a bolt, whole assembly comes out without sharp edges or cramp-inducing hand twisting.
This is why I tried to stop buying newer American cars. My dad had a trailblazer everything was a fight with that thing. You just looked at it and went why would you do that. I’ve worked on other gms of the same era and unless it was the gmt800 trucks it was nope. It’s funny now because a lot of claimed the 4.2l is the American 2jz it’s an Isuzu engine and that is the best part of that SUV. Alot of Ford’s of that era I remember fighting over stupid things going who did this. I’ve had to pull a cab on a ram and while it wasn’t exactly fun it wasn’t the end of the world. The Japanese and Korean stuff is just so easy to work on except Nissan that’s a whole bunch of no.
Tell me how great Toyotas are!
2005 Toyota Camry 4cyl
Part of an era without working temperature gauges.
Buffered so heavily, the needle rises normally to center, then locks there regardless of complete loss of coolant, fire, white hot glowing cylinder heads and steam worthy of a mystery movie.
First Toyota agreed to cover it, but when I tried to get it done, suddenly they want me to pay a dealer thousands to replace the gauge package, then they might consider covering their known factory defect.
Is my engine irreparably damaged already?
Unknown.
How about the least reliable water pumps ever made that require specialty tools and unbolting the engine/transaxle mounts to swap, because they routed brake lines and AC lines over access to the water pump.
Italian cars were so. much easier to maintain.
Japanese and Korean cars are NO MORE easier to work on than a comparable Chevrolet/GMC product…and in some cases, here is the following:
1) Starter buried under the intake
2) Alternator also buried
Both of those were on the 4.7 UZ and 3UR V8 by the way…
The newer 2.4 I4 looks atrocious in the Prado and the 4runner…so much mess.
Those eras of Camrys were horrid..I’ve seen so many with blown engines. You don’t see many in the road anymore and I’m not surprised. The stuff before them was pretty good minus fighting cv shafts. Toyota dealers are indeed super scum.
I hear the 4 cylinder I have is good, but it won’t matter if you overheat it.
It will be getting a non Toyota gauge next.
I think I have timing chains.
I hope it’s worth keeping.
The 1.8 is pretty bullet proof. 2.4 ring and oil burning issues among other things. The Japanese made ones seem to be less problematic not sure why. The highlanders with the 2.4 seem to be survivers.
It’s a 2.4 under 100K miles.
Fwd drive cars in general. I’m 53 so I grew up with rwd cars. Things were more spread out and easier to get to. I just pulled a transmission out of a 2011 Impala parts car, and I can tell, going back in the good car is gonna be a trick! If it wasn’t for my daughter, I’d send it to the scrapper.
This is why I prefer to hobby on cars built before 1970… and the older the better. Replaced a head on an ‘87 Dodge Aries 2.2 and it took days of ham-fisted mucking around with accessories and the timing belt. (And that was a “simple” car.) Changed a head gasket on my son’s 1929 Model A and it took three hours because we were slow. Favorite trick with the Model A was shoving coiled rope down on top of the pistons through the spark plug holes, then cranking the engine to pop the head loose. Yes, this was recommended in the repair manual.
The 7mm allen head bolts securing rear VW/Audi calipers that require you to grind down a socket to access definitely get an honorable mention. Was annoying in 2004, still annoying in 2019.
Was going to mention these bolts but for the MK5 platform. They changed them to triple square (of course) and unless you want to disassemble all the multi link arms, you cannot fit power tools in there to break them loose. Furthermore, a breaker bar does not fit into the wheel well. So you’re forced to get the car at least 24″ off the ground and snake the bar between suspension arms so you can turn those stupid bolts 3° at a time until they’re loose enough to put a ratchet on them.
I’m so fortunate that the caliper rebuild went well and the self adjusting mechanism hasn’t failed (yet) so I haven’t had to revisit them. Unfortunately the oil filter housing on the EA113 has resumed leaked after I’ve resealed it for a THIRD time so either I’m stupider than previously diagnosed or the VAG gods truly loathe me.
Hmmm. Clutch master cylinder job in my old E28 was not enjoyable; getting the cylinder mounted on the pedal bracket was hard enough. Getting the hard line attached without cross threading was harder. Doing the job 3 times before discovering the crack in the pedal bracket that was causing failure was a learning experience accompanied by much swearing and gnashing of teeth.
More recently, the rear shocks in my ’06 Sequoia were a complete no go for me. There’s about 3/4″ between the bottom of the body and the frame rail to get a wrench on the top shock nut. I took one look at that rust covered piece of shit and said nope. I’m assuming the shop I sent it to cut them off to install the Ranchos I got.
I’ve worked for BMW, Audi, VW and Stellantis
How much time you got?
Jokes aside, the new inline 6 from stellantis is such a shitshow of terrible layout choices.
You know how on their old v8s and v6s they just put the thermostat at the front top of the motor in the open? maybe takes a half hour tops to replace it and be on the road.
So for the inline six they put in at the bottom of the motor, bolted to the back of the water pump and for extra “fuck you mechanics” covered access to the bolts with hard coolant tubes. The book is 3 hours I think, and can take longer than that. Double bonus; they’re unreliable and fail stuck closed!
Captive brake rotors could only have been designed by the devil himself.
Having to press the bearings out of the knuckle to replace a rotor is nothing but spiteful meanness.
Not sure all vehicles they were on, I’ve encountered them on the Ford festiva that was a Mazda Kia mashup mentioned in today’s morning dump and also older Hondas.
Not that hard to fix, but a stupid way to break, repeatedly, was the 90-degree fan belt routing on Corvair engines (with its vertical crankshaft pulley and horizontal cooling fan pulley). https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CMD5RQJngT8
Recency bias!
The cam phaser leak just happened on my 2016 Sonata. Repairing it requires supporting the engine , pulling the engine mount, and replacing the parts.
The upper intake manifold needs to come off to replace the plugs on my wife’s ’13 Sienna. They’re almost due.
And heaven help those who need a head gasket job on the Sienna. Full engine drop needed. 23.5 hours book rate.
If you are still having nightmares about the control are bushings on that HHR i raise you a PT crusier. Those are traped in the frame rail of the unibody and are held together with a clip that rusts and breaks. The only way to get to the nut is cutting the frame rail open and claping the nut with vise grips. Also the hell that is a water pump and timing belt job.
I had a first gen Audi 5000 (circa 1979) and the parking brake cable went diagonally through the gas tank
Jeep XJs and TJs driver side motor mount bolt. The bolt goes in from the front and can not be removed because the AC compressor bracket is in the way. You cut the bolt in half and put a new one in from the BACK of the mount.
I mean, at least 70% of every repair I’ve ever done on a 21st century VW product was in some way hampered by an irritating engineering decision.
So fun comparison;
On some BMW and Volkswagens/Audi sedans the dashboard is bolted down near the windshield with a long bolt that will hit the glass before it can be removed.
For the VW/Audis you need to remove the windshield to remove the bolt to slide the dash out.
BMW just left an open groove where that bolt holds it down, so you just loosen the bolt a couple turns and remove the dash without having to remove the windshield.
Gotta love the “service position” where you slide the entire front of the car out to access things. (Early 2000’s VW/Audi products).
Soooo… my 1963 Chrysler 300J.
Let’s just make the engine, SOLID LIFTER and long ram manifold. Take the entire intake system off (8-12 hours) to set the valves. Granted, back in the day ( and lots today) definitely performance focused, but sheesh!!