Adding oil to the engine

[HTRN]

A couple months ago, one of the rear lights burned out, I couldn't figure out how to get at it, asked the dealer and I had to take it in so they could drop the rear bumper to get at the light. Dealer blamed it on bad engineering. Still charged me for it though.

It makes sense in the context of the new LED taillights, which basically last the life of the vehicle - it's probably cheaper to install it that way, and if the odds against you replacing it EVER are fairly high, it makes sense.

[evan price]

I think the worst example of automotive engineering I heard of was (IIRC) the 1980-something Chevy Celebrity where, in order to change one of the rear spark-plugs, you had to pull the engine out of the car.

This is the "A"- chassis with the V6. GM "A"- bodies were the Chevy Celebrity, Olds Ciera, Pontiac 6000 and the Buick Century.

You don't actually have to pull the motor out of the car. What you have to do is remove the through-bolts from one side of the motor stabilizers (metal brackets that attach at the top of the radiator support to the engine block to quell vibration). Then you need to rock the motor forward on the lower mounts towards the radiator so you can get in there to get the rear plugs out. Some guys used an eyebolt in the wall of the shop and a come-along to pull the motor forward. I built a replacement for the stabilizer unit out of 1/2" allthread rod bent into a hook shape. Hook the one end into the through bolt for a stabilizer, put the other end through the stabilizer mount itself, then use a nut and washers, deep socket and air wrench, draw the motor forward.

It sounds pretty involved but it really isn't that bad once you know the trick. Don't even need to unhook hoses or wires or anything. This also applies to about all of the FWD 60-degree V-6 powered GM cars and minivans.

They put the 2.8, 3.1, and 3.4 V-6 in everything FWD. The GM 3100 V-6 was a revision of the 2.8 liter V6, which originally used a distributor, carburetor, etc. and they even tried dual-overhead-camshafts in the performance 3400 versions.

The 2.8 design, like most GM motors of the era, the oil pump is driven from the bottom of the distributor shaft.

When they went to the coil packs they eliminated the distributor but still had to keep a dummy distributor shaft in the block to run the oil pump. They put a plug in the hole in the block to stop the distributor drive oil hole from leaking, when the O-ring cracks, you get a major oil leak, and to replace a five-cent O-ring, you need to pull the intake upper and lower mainfolds out to get the plug out of the block to change the O-ring...

When they went to the dual OHC heads for the 3400 dual-cam high performance motor, they eliminated the camshaft, however the distributor was driven by a gear on the back of the camshaft (see where I'm going?) so they had to install a dummy camshaft with a distributor drive gear, to run the dummy distributor shaft, to run the oil pump. This necessitated keeping the entire camshaft drive- gears & chain. So they tapped off the camshaft drive to run the timing belt that also ran the four camshafts in the two heads.

So they have a dummy timing chain and gears running the timing belt and sprockets for the OHC. The dummy timing set runs a dummy camshaft, that in turn runs a dummy distributor shaft, that runs the oil pump.

Talk about inefficient, clumsy, excess parts...and to top it off, they did not put timing marks on the parts, you have to use a GM service tool (like a degree wheel) on the cams to set the cam timing and install the timing belt correctly.

That motor didn't stick around that long fortunately.

[evan price]

OK, here's another one:

The 1998 and up Ford pickups and Excursions.

Ford assembled them with line speed as the design factor.
So they put the fuel tank retaining strap bolts on before the body goes on the frame. The heads face up into the floor and you can't get them.
Need to change a fuel pump? Better cut the straps.
On a pickup it wasn't too much trouble to unbolt the bed. On an SUV you cut the straps.

Then if you needed to service the motor, you couldn't do anything on the back of the motor, or pull the heads. The motor was built under the dash partially.
To do head gaskets (a common problem with Fords) you need to pull the motor. Which means you need to pull the cab off the frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-jdZCzz9U8

Done it, it sucks.


Then there's the Camaro/Firebird gas tank. Want to chane a fuel pump? Got to drop the tank. Which means you need to pull the rear axle out of the car to get the tank down.

-Or cut a hole in your floor.

[Weetabix]

Talk about inefficient, clumsy, excess parts...

Sounds like the machinists pushed the engineers into it.

[Yogimus]

Everything about the HMMWV.