Retardedly hard to get to parts that shouldn't be.

[jagec]

intake manifold to engine block coolant hose at the rear of the engine, mounted under the driver's seat of a 84 Toyota minivan. In retrospect, it actually would have been easier to drop the whole engine to remove the intake manifold than trying to wrestle with that thing. I can't tell you how many hours I worked to get that ONE hose off. I got so frustrated I had to take several goes at it over the course of a few days. And getting it back on was even worse. What's sad is that they could have moved the edge of the engine access bay back about an inch and it would have been the easiest thing in the world.

"Hose from hell" turbo oil hose on a 90's MR2 (or maybe all 3SGTE engines). Not a very spacious engine bay in the first place, and this one is truly buried.

Unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy to get to once you remove the turbo, downpipe, intake manifold, oil filter, and take the engine out of the car:

http://www.mrtwo.net/mr2modproject/service/hfh/hfh.htm

 

[Zenmervolt]

Clutch on a 1986 944 Turbo. Shop time for the job is 26 hours. It involves removing the intake, complete exhaust, transaxle, and the rear engine mounts.

ZV

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Spark plugs on a nissan 300ZX twin turbo...yipes....or the neutral safety switch on 240SX

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Owned a '68 Chrysler 300, had to loosen engine mounts to change back two spark plugs.
1980 Oldsmobile S/W had the spare tire and jack assembled at the factory and the rest of the car built around it. Take it out once and forget about tucking it back in.
1980 Camaro, get the carpet wet and it shrinks when dry pulling loose from trim and door seal.
1996 Toyota Camry S/W, broke tail light and no junkyard had one in the state.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Early 2000's (i think) Audi A4 - my buddy's car. To replace the alternator he had to take the front fascia off because there wasn't enough clearance to back the bolt out.

 

[Black88GTA]

Originally posted by: rezinn
Dropping the exhaust, rear end, and gas tank to change the fuel pump on my 87 camaro was pretty retarded. I could change the alternator in less than 2 minutes though, and the spark plugs took about 5 minutes on each side.

Hah, I was going to mention the same thing about the fuel pump on a 3rd gen F-Body. Although the plugs on mine (TPI intake) were kind of a bitch. I had to use a cut down plug socket with flats on it to get all of them out.

 

[LS8]

Any part for any Hyundai outside of Korea.

 

[SearchMaster]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Clutch on a 1986 944 Turbo. Shop time for the job is 26 hours. It involves removing the intake, complete exhaust, transaxle, and the rear engine mounts.

ZV

Sheesh - that's ridiculous for a "normal wear and tear" part.

 

[bamx2]

My experience too with Hyundai and Kia . It is surprising that Hyundai over time have improved and become a fairly popular brand but parts availability is so bad .


"Any part for any Hyundai outside of Korea."

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: SearchMaster

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Clutch on a 1986 944 Turbo. Shop time for the job is 26 hours. It involves removing the intake, complete exhaust, transaxle, and the rear engine mounts.

ZV

Sheesh - that's ridiculous for a "normal wear and tear" part.

The engineers at Porsche decided that the turbo should be placed on the intake side of the engine in order to help keep it from getting too hot and having a short lifespan (this did work, technically, since the turbos in these cars tend to be incredibly reliable), but to get it over there they ran a crossover pipe under the friggin' bellhousing.

This is with the engine out of the car and the intake off, notice how the piping comes right under the bellhousing. With the engine in the car, the only way to get at the turbo is to pull off the intake.

Later models have a two-piece crossover pipe that allows just removing the section under the bellhousing so that you don't have to remove the intake to pull it all off.

ZV

 

[Vetterin]

Removing the drive shaft from an 85 (but I think it's the same with any C4) corvette.

 

[AMCRambler]

Alternator on a 98-00 Ford Contour with the 2.5 V6. The tards wedged it on the back side of the engine, behind the right wheel well up against the firewall and steering rack with the steering arms directily in the way of removal. And of course the heads of the bolts holding to the engine aren't on the outside accessible through the wheel well, they are on the inside with the exahust headers, rear engine mount/roll resistor and everything else in the way of getting to them.
I did manage to get it out with out dropping the mounts or removing the exhaust though. I made 2 foot socket extension out of several swivels and extensions to get the socket on the bolt heads. Took way too long to get it out and get the new one in. I also couldn't get the tie rod end to unscrew from the knuckle without stripping out the allen head on the end of the bolt so that sucker had to get cut off and a new tie rod end put on. What a pain in the A.

 

[Gand1]

Wow! No one mention the Volvo (anything) heater core..... remove entire dash, crack open sealed plastic casing, replace core, glue casing back together... WTF!

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Gand1
Wow! No one mention the Volvo (anything) heater core..... remove entire dash, crack open sealed plastic casing, replace core, glue casing back together... WTF!

Pretty much everyone's heater core is a royal PITA to remove. Worse for the AC evaporator. It is strange that no one has mentioned heater cores yet.

 

[SparkyJJO]

My brother's toyota celica (well, not his now, he sold it and got an SUV as the celica didn't take to going off road to work sites too well ). To change the headlight bulb he had to pull the wheel, pull fender well liner, and pull the inner fender well just to get to that darn bulb. It was totally retarded.

 

[ballmode]

gas

 

[jlee]

Turbo gasket on an MR2..

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: Gand1
Wow! No one mention the Volvo (anything) heater core..... remove entire dash, crack open sealed plastic casing, replace core, glue casing back together... WTF!

Pretty much everyone's heater core is a royal PITA to remove. Worse for the AC evaporator. It is strange that no one has mentioned heater cores yet.

I think it's generally assumed that heater cores should be hard to get to, thus not fitting into the description otherwise this thread would be nothing but people posting the words "heater core".

 

[exdeath]

03 Cobra has two serpentine belts. The outer 8 rib belt that drives the alternator and blower, and an inner 6 rib belt that drives the AC, power steering pump, and water pump. And about 50 lbs worth of idler pulleys and brackets between them.

I have to remove the outer 8 rib belt first, remove this huge bracket that straddles both banks of the timing cover which holds like 3 idlers and the tensioner for the outer belt, and then the outer crank pulley assembly that is part of a cage that bolts over the inner crank pulley with a reverse threaded 14mm allen socket.

I'm glad I decided to do the water pump and inner belt and idler bearings when I upgraded the radiator.

Realistically you could fish the inner belt out of everywhere else with a coat hanger, but that lower pulley cage over the crank traps the belt around the crank pulley and has to be removed. Even just removing the bolts from the bracket and rotating the bracket doesn't work, you need to crack that 14mm allen bolt that glues the two pulleys together to move the cage back far enough to slip the belt around it.


Having to pull a front wheel knuckle completely apart to pull a CV axle and spill gear oil everywhere to pry apart the transmission and engine just to do a simple clutch job in a FWD car is always fun, as is doing a water pump when it's inside the timing cover with 1" clearance between the inner fender and timing cover.

 

[Quixfire]

After 26 years as a mechainc I've seen my fair share of hard to reach/repair parts so I won't bored you with the insane ones but rather the stupid design issues I've seen.

1974-1980 Pinto/Bobcats/Mustang II - Removing Power Steering Rack to access Starter.

1995-1997 Contour/Mystique 2.0L - Removing Power Steering Pump, Exhaust Manifold, & Catalytic Converter to access the PCV Valve. BTW, warranty only paid 0.3 hrs.

1983-1987 Alliance/Encore - Remove the whole left front suspension to access the starter.

1994-2002 Powerstroke Diesel 7.3L - Remove Exhaust Downpipe & Turbo to acess fuel pump.

I'm sorry they are all Ford but I tend to work on those more than any other brand in my area.

Quixfire

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: exdeath
03 Cobra has two serpentine belts. The outer 8 rib belt that drives the alternator and blower, and an inner 6 rib belt that drives the AC, power steering pump, and water pump. And about 50 lbs worth of idler pulleys and brackets between them.

I have to remove the outer 8 rib belt first, remove this huge bracket that straddles both banks of the timing cover which holds like 3 idlers and the tensioner for the outer belt, and then the outer crank pulley assembly that is part of a cage that bolts over the inner crank pulley with a reverse threaded 14mm allen socket.

I'm glad I decided to do the water pump and inner belt and idler bearings when I upgraded the radiator.

Realistically you could fish the inner belt out of everywhere else with a coat hanger, but that lower pulley cage over the crank traps the belt around the crank pulley and has to be removed. Even just removing the bolts from the bracket and rotating the bracket doesn't work, you need to crack that 14mm allen bolt that glues the two pulleys together to move the cage back far enough to slip the belt around it.


Having to pull a front wheel knuckle completely apart to pull a CV axle and spill gear oil everywhere to pry apart the transmission and engine just to do a simple clutch job in a FWD car is always fun, as is doing a water pump when it's inside the timing cover with 1" clearance between the inner fender and timing cover.

A what?

 

[Chapbass]

Spark plugs in my 97 Trans Am (LT1 motor) were a nightmare...maybe im just an idiot (likely).


according to a friend who helped me with an oil sensor on the same car, that wasnt fun at all...

 

[MovingTarget]

Rear 3 spark plugs on a '92 cavalier (3.1v6 - that thing was a beast in that car).

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: lurk3r
Had the same removed the intake problem on my 2.5L avenger, wasn't quite as horrible as it seems, ~8 bolts, put the new gasket on, oh well 2 hr job. The worst I've heard is one of the Ford mini vans (aerostar ~1997 iirc) required you to actually remove the engine to change the spark plugs, and they weren't the 100k mile plugs like the Avenger, it was 8 hours ever 20k miles.

You had to remove the engine? Meh, both my dad and I could do them in a little over an hour through the wheel well and engine access from inside.


I'm dreading the ones on my F150's 5.4l, though.


Waterpump on my '88 Accord was pretty bad. It's on the backside of the engine under the intake and the easiest way would be to pull the intake.

Originally posted by: exdeath
Having to pull a front wheel knuckle completely apart to pull a CV axle and spill gear oil everywhere to pry apart the transmission and engine just to do a simple clutch job in a FWD car is always fun, as is doing a water pump when it's inside the timing cover with 1" clearance between the inner fender and timing cover.

Oh yes, I'm dreading having to do a new clutch on my mom's Eclipse. That car's 5spd is way heavier than the 5spd out of my Accord, but at least now I know I can change a clutch on a FWD car.