Reminiscing Some Of The Big Three's Automotive Fiascos

[mchan68]

When I was a kid I would watch the neighbor swap rims and tires on his Pacer. Chrome rims in summer and factory steel and hub caps in winter. Fast foreword two houses and 25 plus years later, guess what my new neighbor had in his back garage yep a "sweet" Pacer same red color too.

Which engine? The 4.2L inline six or the 304 V8?

[Aaron]

The way I stated is the lazy man's way of getting it to fire up. Your way is the correct way. My way you can do without spinning the engine a bunch of rotations. The way you stated needs to be on the cam base circle.

[8WA Sman]

 

Brainfart. Mistake #2 was overtightening all the rocker arms on that engine. Almost all valves were stuck open when I was finished. No wonder it didn't have any compression.

 

 My was on a S-10 after I torqued the rockers down, I decided I would go back and recheck the torque...Same thing no compression

 

 The two jobs that have take the cake as far as dumb moves are... A 4.6L local police cruiser that I did a tune-up on, the ones where the big plastic underhood cover would make the accelerator pedal stick if not installed correctly. Yeah well the gas pedal stuck and I had cars in front of me, so just put it in N, then I coasted to a stop, popped the hood and unstuck the accelerator BUT when I went to back up I had no reverse....I guess when I put if into neutral I must have  went to far....Let just trans was toasted ++++ boss was not too happy

 Other job was my first 3.8L head gasket recall. Got the car all back together went for a test drive and about 3 miles out oil light starts to flicker then comes on solid. Get car towed back to the dealership.. pull the oil pan and I find a million pieces of cotton....I guess the shop rags that I put in the valley of the engine never got removed and the balance shaft did a fine job of shredding them into more pieces the I cared to count as was cleaning them out.   Engine ended up being just fine after the pieces were cleaned out.

 

 Lets just say on both of these jobs I probably would have ended up @ the bar had I been old enough

[jimmy57]

When I was a kid I would watch the neighbor swap rims and tires on his Pacer. Chrome rims in summer and factory steel and hub caps in winter. Fast foreword two houses and 25 plus years later, guess what my new neighbor had in his back garage yep a "sweet" Pacer same red color too.

That is some Twilight Zone shit. Scary. Very scary.

[mchan68]

 Other job was my first 3.8L head gasket recall. Got the car all back together went for a test drive and about 3 miles out oil light starts to flicker then comes on solid. Get car towed back to the dealership.. pull the oil pan and I find a million pieces of cotton....I guess the shop rags that I put in the valley of the engine never got removed and the balance shaft did a fine job of shredding them into more pieces the I cared to count as was cleaning them out.   Engine ended up being just fine after the pieces were cleaned out.

 

HOLY SHIT I thought I was the only who did that. Mine was a '96 Windstar 3.8L for a set of intake gaskets. Like you, I covered the "valley" with shop rags. Luckily for me, I didn't even get as far as going for a post repair road test. Let's just say I never heard so much laughter by all the co-workers when I removed the intake to find the rag shredded by that balance shaft.

[mchan68]

On the subject of memorable moments. Another very "early" job I remembered. Transmission R & R on a 1975 Chevy Malibu. After the "mechanic" (my mentor at the time) had removed the transmission crossmember and all the bellhousing bolts, I was intstructed to loosen the transmission cooler lines at the transmission. The moment I put a wrench on one of the line fittings, I had to immediately jump back as fast as I could as the transmission borke free from the engine and fell, after which it was literally hanging by the transmission lines and dangling around like a pendulum swinging back and forth. The "mechanic" just stood there calmly while he was in the middle of shooting the shit with a buddy of his, as I was scared shitless as you can imagine. Even back then, I stil questioned why he didn't have a transmission jack supporting it BEFORE removing the bellhousing bolts and crossmember.

[Fredsvt]

I had the joy of working at a Limo company early on in my career.

 

4100 cadillacs (100 of them) in STRETCH limos.  Using thousands of GM coolant cookies to seal the POS freestanding iron liner's o rings to keep coolant out of the crankcase.  Then the eventual engine knock and seizure from liner and block shifting.

 

5.7 diesels in buicks and cadillac sedans (300 of those), injection pumps about once a week, head gaskets every other month, oil leaks like the Valdez, blocks breaking since they are the open web main bearing saddle Olds 350 gasser block. 

 

4.3 diesels in FWD Buick Park Aves with the early 440t4 auto.  they vibrated so bad we had shelves of accessory brackets for them, the transmissions were velcro'd in as they had to be changed so much.

 

We had several Lincoln stretch limos with 5.0 throttle body injected engines, what a total nightmare they were.

 

We also had 200 Merc GMQ, with 5.0, 1987-1988, most made it well over 1.2 million miles on original engine and trans barring driver idiocy.

 

As time went by, we got many 4.6 Lincoln/Merc/Ford sedans.  What a revelation, reliable, but slow, until around 350k miles and we'd have to do valve stem seals on 1991-1994, after 1995, we never had to do another set of stem seals.  Most of those cars made it 900k easy.

 

In 1994 the owner went with Buick Roadmaster with the 5.7 LT1 reverse flow cooling engine.  Power!  Other than the hideous distributor and ignition wire setup, they were very reliable.  The interiors fell apart though, nothing unusual for a GM.

[Aaron]

And the water pump pissed out the weep hole directly onto the distributor. Brilliant. I owned a few of those cars. With a little more gear and torque converter they were downright fun. 3.73 gear and a 2800 converter and a tune was good for 13.80's at 4600lbs.

[2006]

I think first prize still goes to GM: the Vega. Make an aluminum parent bore block and treat cylinders with some silica Pixie dust. Then due to lack of rigidity you make the cast iron cylinder EXTRA tall so it braces up the block. Save weight in the lower end and add it all back to the head.

 

 

 

Your right about the Vega getting first prize.

 

It was Motor Trends Car Of The Year!!!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Trend_Car_of_the_Year

[Fredsvt]

And the water pump pissed out the weep hole directly onto the distributor. Brilliant. I owned a few of those cars. With a little more gear and torque converter they were downright fun. 3.73 gear and a 2800 converter and a tune was good for 13.80's at 4600lbs.

Ours never got to leak.  250k was 2 years, and "tune up time" plugs were never really worn, but the distributor bearing would be gone and all 3 seals, w/p drive, distributor drive and front hub seal would be leaking, which soaked the ignition wires, and the misfires were there.  Never had to open one up, and a small handful had broken exhaust manifold bolts.  At around 700k cold engine piston slap was quite pronounced, but they kept on going. 

 

With the pathetic 2,29 gears they still got up and moved rather well for a whale. 

[mchan68]

Anyone remember a stupid promotion where a purchase of a new Caddy got you a new Yugo thrown in as well as a freebie? Those cars were such pieces of junk that no one wanted them.

[Bruce Amacker]

Ford had that too, buy a Lincoln and pay sticker, and get an Escort (or whatever the small car was) for free.  That was quite a while ago, maybe the 80's.

 

[Aaron]

My buddy's fairmont has the horn mounted on the turn signal arm lol

[mchan68]

My buddy's fairmont has the horn mounted on the turn signal arm lol

As did ALL Ford cars from 1979 to 1983.

[mchan68]

Ford had that too, buy a Lincoln and pay sticker, and get an Escort (or whatever the small car was) for free.  That was quite a while ago, maybe the 80's.

 

I believe the car you're referring to was the Festiva.

[Aaron]

Rebuilt the carb on the old fairmont yesterday. She feels like a solid 68hp now.

[mchan68]

Rebuilt the carb on the old fairmont yesterday. She feels like a solid 68hp now.

Carb? What's that?   With that low a figure, I'll assume this Fairmont has the 2300 four banger?

[Aaron]

Heeeeel no. 3.3L and 200 cubic inches of screaming mediocrity.

 

It's actually not bad, drives along real nice now and I haven't even played with the mixture or added some timing to it yet. We are also thinking the catalytic converter is likely partially plugged simply due to the fact that it is original, and the carb was incredibly fat. Although the car only has 20,000 original miles on it.

[mchan68]

I ask is because I vaguely remember driving one as equipped. It was a four door, with virtually no options (not even a radio), with the anemic 2300 four cylinder and four speed manual transmission with a bench seat!!! It was easily the most gutless POS I had ever driven (save for the Hyundai Pony). I would like to get my hands on a VW bus to take for a spin. I think THAT would top the list of the slowest creation on four wheels ever. Hell, even a Chevette with an auto was probably quicker!!!

[Aaron]

Two door auto in this one. Bench seat.

 

Coyote and 6R80 on the floor ready to install.

[Chase]

Two door auto in this one. Bench seat.Coyote and 6R80 on the floor ready to install.

That sounds like a good time! 

[Aaron]

It's gonna be a sleeper for sure.

[lmorris]

Back in 1982, my Dad bought a himself a brand new Mustang. I remember one day riding with him, shortly after getting it, someone cut him off and he hits the steering wheel and there is no horn, man was he pissed. By the time he realised where the horn was the moment had passed, thankfully no-one was hurt, and I learned a few choice words that I was told never to use.

[mchan68]

Back in 1982, my Dad bought a himself a brand new Mustang. I remember one day riding with him, shortly after getting it, someone cut him off and he hits the steering wheel and there is no horn, man was he pissed. By the time he realised where the horn was the moment had passed, thankfully no-one was hurt, and I learned a few choice words that I was told never to use.

The good old, "Do as I say, not as I do...." thing yup. When I was younger, I had my share of adults tell me "Don't fuckin' swear!!!"

 

Wow, I wonder how many more stories there are, of Ford in their infinite wisdom re-locating the horn button during those years? Come to think of it, another stupid idea of theirs was locating the interior door handle on the bottom of the door of the '79 Mustang if I remember correctly. An uncle of mine, had one and I remembered commenting on how stupid that location was, hence I guess why it was re-located to the top of the door in '80.