Ever have a GREAT wrenching session?

I know we've swapped stories about how things have gone terribly awry, but ever have a wrenching session go remarkably, scarily, well?

I just finished replacing the front wiring harness and ABS/AWD controller on the 964. I bought the car dirt cheap because the AWD and ABS lights were on. Dealer cost on the parts was stupid - well over $6000.

I managed to find a wiring harness and ECU for $350, and the replacement went remarkably well - no rusty bolts, easy access to everything, and an extremely logical design. You'd almost think they'd been building the same basic car for 30 years and kept tweaking the design to improve it.

In any case, $350 and about 10 hours (stretched over 3 months) later, the warning lights are off, the center diff lock works, and the speedo works properly again.

I've had a few 'failed' projects, and it sure feels great to succeed, in spite of myself! :)

yes, but it is a rarity that I get everything done in a session that I had planned. Had a good day in the shop today, catching up on projects and now some editorial.

um, yeah. Last night to be exact.

control arms on a 2nd gen Neon. I prepared for the worse buy purchasing new bolts at the dealer and planned on cutting the floor out of the car to access the welded nut in the subframe. 2 hours later I was standing next to the car with my buddy who's shop we used with beer in our hands looking at each other like we couldn't believe it could have gone that well.

Nope. Never.

The day I worked on a rust free car. it was heaven.

Nope, never.

I just had one on my 924s. It has been really really cold out for the last couple weeks so Sunday when the temps got in to 20's I ventured out to take a look at my car. It had died in the parking lot of Autozone about a month back.

Short of it was not tach bounce when cranking so it was the speed and reference censors. I have been having issues with them for 10 years but I just kept wiggling the wires at the connectors to the main harness and it would always start.

With the cost of new or eons over $150 each and the BMW / land rover ones at about $75 each AND the job of changing them a serious PITA I decided to investigate. It became immediately apparent that the sensor wires had separated them self from the connector that plugs in to the harness. So I took the plunge and cut them off leaving the sensors in the car. With careful precision I dissected the connector plug with my dremel tool using of all things a small stone grinding tool usually used to sharpen things. It was the perfect tool to slowly take layers of plastic plug away until I revealed the crimp connectors that were cast inside the plastic plug. And better yet there was enough of the wires remaining so I could determine what color wire when where. After carefully cleaning things up I crimped and soldered pigtails of matching wire color (cut from a wiring harness from one of my previous projects) to the exposed stubs I had carefully whittled out of the plastic connector. I then heat shrink wrapped everything so it looked kind of factory. I repeated the process for the second one and then took the out to the car and crimped and soldered the pigtails to the wires in the car. I even remembered to put the shrink wrap on the wires before soldering them.

After getting it all back together in the car and the plugs in the correct place (I even remembered to make them as the two connectors are exactly the same) I put the key in and it fired up almost instantly. It has not started that quick in 10 years. Probably less than 2 full revolutions of the motor and it came to life.

So. Everything went smooth. It cost me no money. I saved my self at least $150 and the car is running better than it has in 10 years.

Yes. Some number of years ago working on a friend's MINI. She needed lower control arm bushings and a passenger side engine mount. Since installing a 15% reduction pulley on the supercharger is about 2 extra steps on the engine mount R&R, we decided to do that as well.

I had been doing a number of the LCA bushing R&Rs and the car was still new enough that rust wasn't an issue, so I had both sides done in about an hour and a half. The engine mount and pulley swap also went pretty quickly - maybe two hours.

But what made it such a nice session? Well, the whole thing was a bit of a party. A bunch of friends came to the house, making food, drinking... and they all stayed out of the garage and left me alone. Thus I was able to go about my work without interruption or explaining what I was doing. Fortunately, I had mentioned the engine mount/pulley R&R is something of a scary looking procedure (practically jacking the engine out of the car) and the owner took that to heart.

I haven't had a wrenching session like that in a long time...

I don't think I've even had one that was "just OK."

yup, but I usually try to jam some other repair/fix/mod in in the spare time I've just accumulated and end up screwing the pooch on that instead

I think the closest i came was this past May at the local Probe/MX6 "BAMM" meet.

Meet was on Saturday morning, so naturally i figured i'd go through the car and fix a few things beforehand.

Tear down the car on Thursday. "Oh this will be nothing, i'll get it done Friday afternoon and it'll all be gravy."

Everything goes wrong. I rage quit.

Come back to it Friday night, work all night on a million different things. Button it all up at 7am. Have a celebratory beer. I find a few hours later that the car had apparently NEVER run correctly since i bought it 3 years prior, because the fruits of my all-nighter have yielded a gain about about 100-150whp.

It wasn't a GOOD wrenching session, but the juice was certainly worth the squeeze.

Yes, When I did the clutch and fuel leak on the SC everything went right. It was a long day, but a good one.

the biggest improvement i have made since i started wrenching 40 years ago on cars is that i have slowed up. i was always looking for a short cut. like when replacing engines not disconnecting the accessories just wire tieing them up out of the way but they always fell in the way anyway. now if something gives me a hard time i take a little break and think about it. since my attitude has changed i find myself enjoying wrenching again it relaxes me. the tougher the job the better because when i'm done it brings more enjoyment.

The time I assembled my engine together and it went together right the first time and with no extra parts left over! (think Ikea)

I was gonna say there is no such thing as well, but one time I had to install a gearbox in my 4wd protege on jackstnands in my driveway, and it... just went right in. No hassles getting it onto the input shaft, no trouble lining it up, it just went right in. Less than 3 hours start to fiinish. Dunno if that'll ever happen again.

Appleseed wrote: The day I worked on a rust free car. it was heaven.

Agreed.

I have, but they're few and far between.

I've had a few, but the angry days are much more plentiful.

I was recently able to drop my subframe, remove 2 lower motor mounts, replace the mounts with aftermarket ones with every bolt hole lining up perfectly between the subframe and the mounts, the mounts and the block, and be back on the road the same afternoon - no stripped bolt heads, no frozen threads, everything came apart in order, and re-installation was reverse of removal...that NEVER happens to 14 year old DD cars in Cincinnati...EVER

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: I know we've swapped stories about how things have gone terribly awry, but ever have a wrenching session go remarkably, scarily, well?

swapping a 6 speed where there was never one before.....

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/1983-corolla-aka-surreptitious/52845/page1/ 2/3rds the way down the page

Just did the front brakes on my '06 F150. Pretty easy. Took a me a bit, but I was taking my time.

The day I bought my s2k. I low balled the guy because the car would not shift into 6th gear. Got it home an disassembled the shifter assembly. It was horribly dirty and full of muck. Cleaned it all up and caked it with new grease from Honda and had it shifting into 6th and cruising around town in under an hour from when I signed the title. Berk yeah.

Spoolpigeon wrote: The day I bought my s2k. I low balled the guy because the car would not shift into 6th gear. Got it home an disassembled the shifter assembly. It was horribly dirty and full of muck. Cleaned it all up and caked it with new grease from Honda and had it shifting into 6th and cruising around town in under an hour from when I signed the title. Berk yeah.

My buddy bought a Silver 02 S2k like yours...

With something like 18k miles. For $8k.

Dude had hit a curb and thought the rear subframe was tweaked. He bought it, brought it over to the garage, we loosened the adjusters, toe went right back to where it should have been, tightened it down, and drove.

Just had things go great on the wrenching front last night. Ignition coil failed on the e36 - it ended up sending a ground fault back through the brain box - promptly frying a portion of it. The wrenching win for me was being able to logically work through the symptoms - inspecting and testing along the way. Following the logic I ended up chasing down a cascade of issues (coil shorted, original plug wires and a damaged dme) without any wild goose chases. All the new parts improved the condition - and I was prepared for issues that could have been nasty surprises (like sychronising the security system with the new brain - or bypassing it with an aftermarket chip).

I'm at a point that I trust me, the GRM collective and my google fu more than I trust a shop or anyone else with my cars.

Had one yesterday. Was ready to take the carb about on the punky buellster then read the manual. The manual mentions a main fuse which can cause running issues. Remove burned fuse replace with another one and the bike runs like a dream again. I've done enough wrenching for awhile it was nice to get an easy repair.

Usually when I repair something the first thing I do is pull whatever is broken apart. Then I let it sit for 2months, finally I get sick of looking at it and finish the project usually in a couple of hours.