Thread: Whats the most difficult (stupid,poor engineering,assxxxxx) thing you've run across??

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I think the problem is mainly due to assembly of the driveline separately from the body and then uniting the two on an assembly line. However TechInspector put his finger on the all time tricky mess. I restored an MG Midget and you have to pull the engine to change the clutch disk, If you repair the drive shaft universal needle bearings you have to tape the universal with masking tape to hold it straight when you try to insert it into the (hidden) transmission spline and heaven help you if you have one of the early positive ground electrical systems. It was only discovered in the 1960s that the planet Earth is actually NEGATIVE due to electrons from the Sun (Northern Lights) so a positive ground vehicle will leak charge even through rubber tires!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Well guys, I guess you all understand the side affects of putting 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag... You are really looking at this in the wrong way. You should be AMAZED that the engineers actually got all of that stuff in the bag and it is actually servicable (albeit with a little more work...)
As a designer at GM I know the hoops we have to jump through to package some of this stuff, let alone make it servicable. And don't think the service time isn't an issue with the repair techs, it is but, you can only do so much with what little space they give us. Down sizing for weight and increasing content just make it that much more difficult. And I guarantee every other manufacturer has the same issues, as you are all stating.
Mark

I had an old BMW motorcycle that you had to partially remove the rear fender to replace the battery. What a Pain in the Butt! I'm grateful the Harley battery just requires one screw taken out of the seat, and then you have full access with nothing in the way!
It's amazing what a mess it is to get at the Headlights on any of our Toyotas. The truck you have to remove the skid plate, drop the bumper under skirt, remove a few radiator hoses, and then you sort of can pry them out!

You don't need to SHINGLE panels and components--it is rediculus that to change a radio in the center of the dash that you gotta take the panels all the off to the door hinge--------


and I think it was on a mid 80s vette that we had to do the same to change the trans shift cable??????????


Now I gotta ask-------designer-------do you draw pictures of vehicles or chose the color/cloth patterns??????????

Jerry,
I design chassis and suspensions. I did the suspension work on the Cadillac STS/SRX and also did most of the rear sheet metal cradle designs for those cars.
I designed the front and rear suspensions for the Solstice/Skye and was just working on the "new" full size truck rear suspension until I got pulled onto a new program here in Milford.
And just so you know... I don't draw pictures or choose color/cloth patterns. I design paramaterized 3D CAD models that are used to build actual suspension and frame components. I have to package mufflers and exhaust pipes and spare tires and air compressors and body mounts and frame rails and brake lines and parking brake cables and every other little piece of a vehicle that is used to get you down the road in safe manner with decent gas mileage. Thank You very much...
Oh, I also want to apologize for the advancement of technology that makes it so hard to work on the new cars. I think you can blame Henry Ford for that... He invented the assembly line that makes it easy to put the car together but difficult to take apart... Sorry... Oh and blame the government that mandates all of these FMVSS rules the manufacturers have to stuff in their cars. Airbags and emission controls and frames that buckle during a crash to lessen the impact and CAFE standards that drive smaller lighter vehicles that still have to pass the offset barrier crash and have to have all of this other crap stuffed into them.... Yea, I guess if a few components need to be "shingled" that's what we'll do... Again, Sorry...

Engineer, probably the most misused word in the English language. Many I've come across didn't have enough common sense to pour p%&& out of a boot and many couldn't find their a&& with both hands ad a road map.

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

You don't need to SHINGLE panels and components--it is rediculus that to change a radio in the center of the dash that you gotta take the panels all the off to the door hinge--------


and I think it was on a mid 80s vette that we had to do the same to change the trans shift cable??????????


Now I gotta ask-------designer-------do you draw pictures of vehicles or chose the color/cloth patterns??????????

Wow! Talk about a knee jerk reaction. Last I knew it wasn't the system designer that established the parameters of space constraint, or the overall look of the body panels. Seems to me that there's a clay model that gets done for the "look" that the top brass approves, and then they start listing all of the "features" that have to be accommodated in the space they've dictated. The guys like Mark don't have the luxury of saying, "...you've got to bulge out this panel for the shocks to fit", they have to design the pieces and parts to fit within the space allocated, and oh yeah, it has to perform better than anything we've ever done before, too.

Mark, based on the work we've seen you doing on the Astro I applaud your design approach, and when you say that you were the guy (or one of the guys) on the Cadillac STS/SRX and the Solstice/Skye that means a lot! Those vehicles have suspension that is freaking AMAZING!! Kudos to you!!

Mark------------- Really I do appreciate all the work and thinking that goes into building a vehicle that looks like some bodies clay model---And I really wouldn't want to be a big corporate engineer/designer because these days you probably need more legal training/qualifications to make sure the end result meets all the tree huggers requirements(probably lucky we have had these wars the last hundred years or we would still be using cranks to start trucks and props to start planes------I have looked into a lot of your posts on your build and have just went back over some of it----you are up to your game and I wish you lived closer as I would have liked to touch bases with you on some of my ideas---


But being an old farmboy who stood beside a tractor to work on it up to doing the same on a top fueler---I like to get it on with what I'm fixing instead of appreciating how the factory engineers worked there way around the Ralph Naders, etc


Anyway, my present most involved project is just how I am going to turn the engine over 45* to the right so I can lay down behind the headlight on my Cobra so just my nose/eyes are above the hood/dash line-engine is modified ls7 dry sumped, etc and goal is to run 300mph at Bonneville---------Car has 96 vet alum suspension

Hey Mark, meant to ask you this before! Just an educated guess, but how much of the price of a new car or truck these days can be attributed to some non gearhead bureaucrat in the government dreaming up new gizmos and gadgets that do nothing to improve either performance or safety?????

All I got is, welcome to my 8am to 6pm Mon.thru Friday World....

Originally Posted by HWORRELL

All I got is, welcome to my 8am to 6pm Mon.thru Friday World....

What's up with that, H???? You've got 2 days unaccounted for there!!!!!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

What's up with that, H???? You've got 2 days unaccounted for there!!!!!

Takes all weekend to get my head right from the week before Dave !

Hey, I resemble that comment!!!!

I am sure everyone has come across something that we would have like to see designed better, for instance I recenty changed the belt tensioner on a friends Dodge Neon srt4. I litteraly had to remove the motor and transmission mounts to lower the motor enough to get the tensioner off of the car.
Some years ago I had to change the evaporator core on a Ford Escort sits right behind the stereo, one problem you have to remove the stereo and the mounting supports for the stereo that are welded to the floor board of the car. Thus it required cutting and welding just to fix this poor girls A/C system. Installed a $70.00 part and took and booked for 12 hours.

Originally Posted by aahx2011

I am sure everyone has come across something that we would have like to see designed better, for instance I recenty changed the belt tensioner on a friends Dodge Neon srt4. I litteraly had to remove the motor and transmission mounts to lower the motor enough to get the tensioner off of the car.
Some years ago I had to change the evaporator core on a Ford Escort sits right behind the stereo, one problem you have to remove the stereo and the mounting supports for the stereo that are welded to the floor board of the car. Thus it required cutting and welding just to fix this poor girls A/C system. Installed a $70.00 part and took and booked for 12 hours.

Several years ago, I bought a brand new '94 Nissan Quest to use in our courier service in the Phoenix area. It was mostly a good vehicle and I did most of the routine maintenance myself. It developed a coolant leak from a hose that was in between the cylinder banks and I didn't feel like fooling with it, so I took it to the dealer. It cost me a little over $1,400 to replace that hose, as the tech had to almost completely disassemble the motor to get to it. Ask me if I wanted to have my hands around the engineer's neck!!!!!

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