(no subject)

[randomdreams]

New starter in the Spitfire. In theory this is the easiest job around: unscrew nut, remove battery cable, unscrew two bolts that mount the starter, remove starter. It's also right on the side of the engine where it's easy to get to.
In practice, Nissan decided to use a different bolt size for the bolt on top, that I can see, than the bolt on the bottom, that I can't see, so I remove the top bolt and can't get the socket to unscrew the one I can't see, that I've placed by feel. They did this for a decent reason: the top one is huge because it's the negative ground for the whole car, with the battery cable tab attaching to it. But it's a drag to spend a lot of time trying to figure out why the socket won't turn the bolt when it's clearly over the bolt head.
However, the car sure starts nicely with the new starter motor in place.

Comments

[randomdreams]

My first Subaru seemed to have been designed by a team that was selected for simultaneous possession of sheer mechanical genius and zero experience working on cars. It was a huge mass of design decisions that made sense if you were wanting to assemble and disassemble things, but was absolute lunacy if you were a shade tree mechanic.

[acelightning]

My Nissan was designed by a team that was highly trained in efficiency, and had never given any thought to putting things together or taking them apart. There was usually no more than a millimeter or two between adjacent components - a man with typical American male-size hands couldn't even get his fingers onto many of the pieces. My husband was lucky that I have small hands, and my father taught me how to work on cars.

[randomdreams]

The Triumph was definitely designed for hamfisted british mechanics. You lift the hood and the whole front of the car lifts away, then you sit on the front tire and you can reach everything on that side of the engine. I thought a while before I made the engine mounts for putting the Nissan engine in there, so there's scads of room, and the places there weren't, I've moved stuff. The oil filter was going to be difficult to remove, so I moved the whole filter to behind the bumper with hoses to attach it. As a result, the Triumph is, comparatively, a joy to work on, especially compared to a modern Japanese marvel of compactness and efficiency.

[acelightning]

I remember hearing about one British model of car (either Jaguar or Triumph) which was designed so that you had to remove a frame brace that ran across the engine compartment in order to get at one specific spark plug.

I really miss the Ford Maverick - it had been specifically designed to be easy for shade-tree mechanics to work on. I also had 3 VW Jettas (over time) that were almost as easy as the Maverick. Today's computerized wonder cars should be labeled "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" - there's nothing you can adjust. But how are you going to communicate to your car how you want it to behave?