That's the VW fix? Not a bandaid, that's a legitimate thing. You'll see those flow straighteners on a lot of cars. I suspect it was left out for a reason, maybe restriction.
That's the VW fix? Not a bandaid, that's a legitimate thing. You'll see those flow straighteners on a lot of cars. I suspect it was left out for a reason, maybe restriction.
How about the Lotus Europa? I think the entire vehicle is a collection of band-aids. As long as they stick together, nothing will touch it.
Convertible 2nd gen Corvairs had "cocktail shaker" dampeners at each corner of the car to prevent cowl shake.
I have seen those factory engine straps from the 60's also (steel cable from the upper suspension arm mount). Apparently the motor mounts would separate and allow the motor to twist. The twisting could jam the throttle, so it's a bit of an early Toyota thing.
The early FI Z cars had an electric fan blowing on the top of the motor to cool the fuel injectors to prevent heat soak. (Apparently there are modern cars that still do this)
Furious_E wrote: In reply to tr8todd: Every single time I lay wrench to my 4th gen Camaro I have at least one "WTF GM?" moment relating to some hokey-assed afterthought design. Like the big freaking hump in the floor pan of the passenger foot well for the catalytic converter. I like to imagine (warning: rampant speculation ahead) that some engineer on the project had signed off on some fantastically expensive stamping die for the floors, then when he went to put the first car off the tooling together had an "oh E36 M3" moment when he realized there was nowhere to put the cat. I picture this poor soul being handed a 4lb sledge and being told that he was to live out the rest of his days beating the cat hump into every single 4th gen f body floor pan ever made, as retribution for his oversight. This is likely completely untrue, but that's how I like to picture it in my head
It's more like "Well, we're using the floorpan from the car we designed over 10 years ago, it ain't broke, why fix it?"
My favorite is apparently the last of the Chevy sixes have a U-joint in the distributor shaft. The engine tooling was so patched-together and worn out that distributors would bind from misalignment, it was cheaper to put a U-joint in the distributor than fix the tooling for an engine they were going to stop making soon.
Note the absence of BMW examples? "Bandaid from the factory" means "deny there is a problem with our perfect cars" when translated into German.
Dr. Hess wrote: How about the Lotus Europa? I think the entire vehicle is a collection of band-aids. As long as they stick together, nothing will touch it.
I wouldn't call them band-aids as much as the personification - like most Loti - of Collin Champan's mantra... "To go fast, add cheapness(it brings lightness along for the ride)".
egnorant wrote: Mid 60s Chevy IIs with a V8 had a refit of a couple of pieces of chain to keep from breaking motor mounts. Bruce
I think that applied to a lot of mid 60s-early 70s GM products, step on the gas and the mount would break, then the linkage would pull the throttle wide open until you crashed or shut the ignition off. Would also happen if you crashed, my dad claims to have rear ended somebody twice in a early 60s Biscayne, once when he couldn't stop in time (stopped car on the road in the rain) and again when the motor jumped off the mounts in the initial collision.
BrokenYugo wrote:egnorant wrote: Mid 60s Chevy IIs with a V8 had a refit of a couple of pieces of chain to keep from breaking motor mounts. BruceI think that applied to a lot of mid 60s-early 70s GM products, step on the gas and the mount would break, then the linkage would pull the throttle wide open until you crashed or shut the ignition off.
Yes. I've seen a number of full size GM cars with the cable bandaid too. I imagine it made one hell of a racket then those engines rose up and that solid mounted fan hit the metal fan shrouds.
aircooled wrote: The early FI Z cars had an electric fan blowing on the top of the motor to cool the fuel injectors to prevent heat soak. (Apparently there are modern cars that still do this)
What? Having owned several Bosch L-junktronic z cars I have never seen this.
In reply to Trackmouse:
Lots have been ripped off, it looks like the flat attachments for a vacuum cleaner, two of them over the valve cover with a turbine looking fan on the other side.
rslifkin wrote: The stock exhaust downpipes on the Jeep were apparently a little bit wrong in shape, so instead of bending the passenger side differently to fit, they did the equivalent of denting it with a hammer to get more clearance. They sorta did the same thing with the pipe over the rear axle too. Gee, I wonder why people have dyno-ed a 20 - 25 whp gain from re-doing the y-pipe and exhaust?
That goes back a long way, its even on cj5's. I was restoring one and noticed it damn near crushed in half so i welded a new section in, gained seat of pants hp only to notice it on every jeep i saw afterwards and realized its some factory cludgery.
Some of my favorite are the "recalls" on my girlfriends 08 honda accord. Rear speaker shelf (hat shelf) rattles, the repair is two pieces of soft side velcro that needs replacing every 6months. Passenger carpet shifts over so they staple these weird plastic anchors in, that do nothing because it still shifts.
Jeep Liberty diesel. Engine made too much torque for the converter to handle so instead of updating the converter they detuned the engine..... Thanks DC.
Trackmouse wrote:aircooled wrote: The early FI Z cars had an electric fan blowing on the top of the motor to cool the fuel injectors to prevent heat soak. (Apparently there are modern cars that still do this)What? Having owned several Bosch L-junktronic z cars I have never seen this.
The 280Zs all had it. So did 280ZXs.
Actually so did Audi 10v turbo engines with K-jet. (K-JET! What is there to cool off?) I'm thinking it is related to having the intake and exhaust ports on the same side.
My 86 CRX was generally well designed and assembled, at least until Honda had to change it for the US market.
The brake lines were routed in a way that made it obvious the master cylinder was originally on the right side of the car.
Most of the metal under the dash was either painted or coated in order to prevent rust. Except for the very kludgy-looking crash bar that was presumably added to meet US standards. Had a nice coat of surface rust despite being in a part of the car that was unlikely to see moisture.
Knurled wrote:Trackmouse wrote:The 280Zs all had it. So did 280ZXs. Actually so did Audi 10v turbo engines with K-jet. (K-JET! What is there to cool off?) I'm thinking it is related to having the intake and exhaust ports on the same side.aircooled wrote: The early FI Z cars had an electric fan blowing on the top of the motor to cool the fuel injectors to prevent heat soak. (Apparently there are modern cars that still do this)What? Having owned several Bosch L-junktronic z cars I have never seen this.
I've never seen it on a 280z. I even walked outside and checked both my 75 and 77. Nope. It was on an 83 280zx turbo that I parted out and I've seen it on some naturally aspirated 280zxs as well. But never a 280z.
You should see the brake line routing on a Series Land Rover. They are RHD vehicles that are only grudgingly converted to LHD for the colonies.
Keith Tanner wrote: You should see the brake line routing on a Series Land Rover. They are RHD vehicles that are only grudgingly converted to LHD for the colonies.
I had one of those! It was the only vehicle I've ever sold because of the fasteners that held it together.
MrJoshua wrote: Lots of cars got little metal trays above the exhaust manifolds that re-direct the oil drips from leaky valve covers around the hot pipes.
Can you say BMW E46? Gotta do something if you can't design a valve cover gasket that works....,
E30 convertibles got a big weight in the trunk for one reason or another. I forget why.
I also like the big cable strap running from the frame of my Triumph GT6 to the engine block. It's not a grounding strap, its a big cable to presumably stop the engine from ending up in the driver's lap during a front-end collision 
In reply to egnorant:
My 68 SS Camaro w/350 had the cable as well. None of my 3 GTOs or 2 Corvettes had the cable.
eastsidemav wrote: My 86 CRX was generally well designed and assembled, at least until Honda had to change it for the US market. The brake lines were routed in a way that made it obvious the master cylinder was originally on the right side of the car. Most of the metal under the dash was either painted or coated in order to prevent rust. Except for the very kludgy-looking crash bar that was presumably added to meet US standards. Had a nice coat of surface rust despite being in a part of the car that was unlikely to see moisture.
I had a Hyundai Excel that still had the master cylinder on the passenger side, activated by linkage that spanned the width of the firewall
Furious_E wrote: In reply to tr8todd: Every single time I lay wrench to my 4th gen Camaro I have at least one "WTF GM?" moment relating to some hokey-assed afterthought design. Like the big freaking hump in the floor pan of the passenger foot well for the catalytic converter. I like to imagine (warning: rampant speculation ahead) that some engineer on the project had signed off on some fantastically expensive stamping die for the floors, then when he went to put the first car off the tooling together had an "oh E36 M3" moment when he realized there was nowhere to put the cat. I picture this poor soul being handed a 4lb sledge and being told that he was to live out the rest of his days beating the cat hump into every single 4th gen f body floor pan ever made, as retribution for his oversight. This is likely completely untrue, but that's how I like to picture it in my head
That floor pan was a carryover from the third gen F body that came out in 1982.. my theory was that the engineers spent so much time making the chassis awesome that they never bothered to think about how they were going to run a street legal exhaust system under the thing.. so they just decided to dump the exhaust over to the passenger side and pushed the floor pan up right in front of the seat to make room for the catalytic converter.. having the lift point placed just inside of the converter where it's impossible to actually get to was just a bonus for the oem engineers that hate people and like to make things unnecessarily complicated..
airwerks wrote: Jeep Liberty diesel. Engine made too much torque for the converter to handle so instead of updating the converter they detuned the engine..... Thanks DC.
This is 'torque management' on GM trucks. They were keeping the old 4L60E transmission going long after they should have redesigned it.
I remember reading somewhere that Deloreans shipped to the US had spacer blocks on top of the springs to bring the bumpers up to US regulation height.
Removing them brought the car down to "Euro" ride height.
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