Tell your frustrating repair stories here.

Last night we were driving home from visiting some family and I was telling my wife that one of the map lights was out. I decided to pop the cover off and reach up to try to move the bulb in case some corrosion or something was preventing it from working. Well, crap, the radio cut off and I discovered all of the map lights stopped working. Then, when we got into town, I went to roll down the windows and they didn't work either.

So today I pull out the manual and try to isolate the fuse. Well, wtf, none of the labels seem to exactly match the items involved. Well, on 30 AMP circuit breaker matched the windows but it tested fine with a meter. So I mess with the light housing and discover that the bulb seems fine, it works in the adjacent courtesy lamp. But then messing with the lamps causes the courtesy lamps to go out too.

Now, I've already checked all the fuses that seem to match the items listed so I decide the only way to figure this out for sure is to pull each fuse and inspect them. Literally the last fuse to pull, and the fifth to last, turn out to be blown. I buy replacements and plug them in. Everything works. The fuses were both label "Instrument Cluster". My "Instrument Cluster" worked fine throughout this ordeal.

Breaking two 1/2" drive breaker bars on an axle nut is right up there...

Easiest fix? Non-working map lights...disassemble/reassemble and bingo, it worked.

Front coil springs on my Camaro. 750 lb/in spring rate and I had to compress it about 4 inches with a chinesium Autozone rental spring compressor. Even once it was compressed it required hours of wrestling and fighting to get it into place, properly indexed, and the A-arm secured below it. Keep in mind this is all done on my back in the driveway with a 3500 lb car on jack stands right above my head. I felt like I was holding a bomb that could go off at any second.

Holy **** I have 4 digit hex code under my name! Not sure when that happened (recently? Who can read hex?) but I've been waiting for this day ever since the hex post counts were implemented. Milestone!!

Were you pushing (or pulling) on the breaker bar or jerking on it?



You were. I hate messing with springs, they're dangerous as all hell. Whenever I have to compress them, I wrap a chain over them and padlock it just in case the compressor slips or breaks.

I had to find a CMOS jumper on a DFI nforce 2 motherboard last week, without knowing the model of of said motherboard.

I know it now >:(

Not really a repair job, yet, but some little buggers decided to nab the oil cap off my bike at the weekend, suffice to say I didn't notice until I had riden half way to work and stopped at a set of traffic lights and could smell oil.

My right leg was covered in oil at the right side of my bike splashed here there and everywhere, probably due to the roundabout I took pretty quickly, I got pretty low on the right side of the bike.

Annoyingly I should have checked the bike over more this morning, someone had been on it as when I started the indicators were on, engine stop button pressed and it was in first, they probably got annoyed they couldn't move it because I had the steering lock on. Problem is the oil cap/opening doesn't exactly stand out...

Luckily there was still apparently a good deal of oil left in reserve so I don't think I ran the engine dry. I'm not sure what the temperature is for engine oil to ignite but should I count myself lucky it didn't set fire on the exhaust? (the exhaust is covered in oil).

I think the worst experience I ever had was rebuilding a 700R4 Transmission for a 1984 Camaro. Dropped it once (with less than sufficient tools for this entire ordeal), had it rebuilt, put it back in. Nothing. No function. Dropped it again, turned out the torque converter was bad on the rebuild. Third time it worked, I think I kept the car another 9 months.....

Was that in the TA wookie? I had to fix a blowing cluster fuse (which was helpfully mislabelled) due to the ciggy lighter having a bad earth. Meant taking out the entire dash, kick-panels, centre console etc... Still better than replacing heater core or changing indicator switch though, they sucked.

Huuuuuge extension. No manner of jerking (even with a torch) would work. I ended up buying a 3/4" drive breaker bar and it finally broke the nut with a big bang. My impact was worthless as well (though it does suck anyway).

I remember needing new brake drums on ... can't remember the vehicle now. I think it was a Honda Accord. I called BF Goodrich and they said bring it down. So I brought it down there, and waited. 3 hours go by and they come out and tell me that I need new drums and it will be $650. "Oh, by the way, you can fill this out and get a BF Goodrich credit card and you can put this $650." For some reason that last statement really pissed me off, so I said "Put it back together". "You can't drive that! It's not safe." "I drove it in here, and I'm gonna drive it out!"

0x1000 = 16^3 = 4096

Dude, replacing drums is easy as pie

Uh, not on really old, worn out drums. They tend to bind to the shoes because the shoes have cut such a deep groove in them over time. If you don't have access to the adjustment screw to back off the shoes, you're ****ed. I've had to pound and pull and wail on drums for over 30 minutes until they were finally able to come off.

Actually it's not really hard it's just annoying as hell. Especially dealing with all those stupid springs when you replace the shoes. God, I hate drum brakes. I think they were some engineer's joke that no one else got.

Yeah that's the hardest part, disks can be a ***** too because they rust and get caught on the hub.. Friday night I was up till 4 am banging a disk free from the hub.. another thing, set screws on the disk.. WTF!!!!!! I hate those little things, as soon as I see them, I drill them the **** out and I don't replace them.

I had to replace a starter in a cold, rainy parking lot outside my apartment last year. It wasn't so hard except that, when trying to remove one of the bolts from the underside, I somehow tightened instead of loosened and twisted the head clean off. Yeah, yeah. I was wet and cold and on my side and twisted and my orientation confused me and I turned it the wrong way. Luckily it was a bolt that ran through to the top, so I was able to completely drill it out (took several charges from my 7.2V cordless drill) and replace it with a bolt and nut.

I just stopped by to point out that durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Of course it was the last fuse you pulled. Why you you keep pulling after you found the bad one?

"OMG, my car keys were in the LAST place I looked!" Duh.



Yeah. Drum brakes suck. Sitting there pounding on the outside with a hammer for an hour knocking out soot and crap just to be able to slide it off. Bleh. And there's always one spring that rockets off and you have to hunt around for it for ten minutes.

I had the same problem in the Camaro. That lighter was notorious for that. I just unhooked mine however, never used it for anything at the time.

I think he meant it was the last fuse left in the fuse panel.

There was a two week period where I got really good at replacing a PITA alternator. I think the car was a 2002 or so Nissan Altima (maybe Maxima, can't remember). Anyway, the best (only) way I could figure out to get to the alternator was to put the car in the air and remove both the power steering pump and A/C compressor and let them hang down. Then unbolt the alternator and try to wiggle it out of the little space left while holding the other two as far out of the way as possible. The first one sucked so hard, but after I figured it out the others were easy of course. Six of them came in over this two week period and I never replaced one before and never have since, so it was kinda odd.

2006 F-250



If you actually cared to read what you underlined you would have noticed that I carefully worded it to avoid "dur...r" comments. One of the fuses was the last of all of the fuses in the panel. The other one was a few before it. And I suspected two bad fuses so I would not have stopped at one anyway. If I did, I wouldn't have found the last fuse in the panel to be bad. Reading Comprehension ftw!

It still doesn't make sense, even with your explanation

And I think you meant to use this:

No, I like the warrior version but that's okay too. Okay, just for you I will explain it like this. Two fuses ended up being blown. I pulled every fuse in the box. The last fuse I pulled (having pulled every other fuse in the box before it) was bad. So was the fifth fuse before it. You are right, though, I did stop pulling fuses after I found the two bad ones.

Thanks

I pulled a 700R4 out of my Camaro as well. One of the top bellhousing-to-engine bolt (I KNOW you remember those two top bolts. ****ers.) was rounded off. There is absolutely no room to do any of the usual tricks. I ended up on all fours on top of the engine with my knees on the valve covers looking down with a dremel and cutoff wheel reaching down behind the engine cutting away the head of that bolt little by little. The dremel was barely long enough, I was holding it by the rear of the tool with stretched out fingers. It took me at least a couple hours of sitting like that. It was complete torture. I cut the head into a flat "T" shape and slipped an inverted Torx bit over it to remove it.

When I finally got that thing out, I stayed back and let that transmission come falling down hard onto the driveway. It was a satisfying thud when it came crashing down. Wrapped a rope around that overweight ***** and drug it to the sideyard until somebody came and took it for free. Instead of $1800 for a 700R4 rebuild I pulled off a complete T5 swap for $650. The T5 is a pleasure compared to the 700R4, the gearbox is barely bigger than a large watermelon and I could actually pick it up myself and rest it on my chest under the car mounting it up.

When I bought my Corvette, the parking brake didn't work. I could lift the handle and feel tension, but it wouldn't hold the car. I figured the brakes were bad, so I decided to take off the rear wheels and take a look.

Of course, being that the rims were really nice, they had locking lug nuts. Of course, I bought the car in San Diego, 100 miles away. Of course, the guy didn't give me the goddamn lug nut wrench. Of course, I forgot to look at the lugs when I bought the thing. Of course, this wasn't going to be easy.

I spent the next 3 hours with a ****ing angle grinder, a cheap (expendable!) lug wrench, and a big ****ing hammer trying to get the damn wheels off. Turns out the brakes were fine. The stupid Y cable wasn't getting enough tension to the brakes to engage them. It took 3 minutes to fix once the wheels were off. Of course, this information was not known to me until after the 3 hours lug nut ordeal.

Speaking of Dremels, last year I bought a Proxxon rotary tool, the Professional IB/E model. It's so much better than any Dremel I've ever used. Brushless motor, very quiet, electrically controlled with constant torque, more precise with less wobble because the bearings are up in the front next to the chuck.

In fact it's SO good that when I got sloppy and didn't secure my piece properly, the constant torque tore the tool away from the piece and now I have a scar on my left index finger.

That's how tools are rated now, you know. Not on how efficiently and effectively they handle any sort of problem, but on how dangerous they are to use.

Haha! Really, it was performing exactly as expected. I just got sloppy.

Yeah those top two were a *****. I had to use (very unsafe method warning) a impact wrench with TWO extensions attached, we let the weight of the thing tilt itself back, and had the car quite high in the air (4 stands and a jack holding it, with blocks under the tires... SAFETY!).

We knew a guy who worked at a transmission shop, I think it cost me $700 for the rebuild, even if it did take two tries lol. It sucks when the 700R4s go, you start to lose second gear, or it shifts way late and chirps the tires...

What kind of car? I don't think I've ever seen set screws on a disc...just the threaded holes so you can use a bolt to bust the disc free from the hub (those are a godsend, btw).

I was just busting your balls anyway. I know what you mean, you hear it all the time. Just like your example about the keys. I literally had to pull the last fuse in this case.

Most Hondas from the last 15 years or so have them. I've left them off with no ill effects, so I'm not sure why they couldn't use something like GM's rings that go around the stud to hold it in place during assembly.

Honda it was indeed, my prelude had 2 set screws per rotor. Impact drivers are supposed to get them out but I bent the driver bit and the screw didn't move. It does have the threaded holes to use a bolt to break them free but hammers work fine too especially when I was replacing part with new. I've also done a brake job on a Mercedes and it was the same way, and it was the kind that doesn't have wheel studs so it's really hard to line up the lugs and wheel and rotor without the set screw.

Whenever I do drums or disks I replace all the hardware that needs to be removed, saves a lot of trouble in the future.