Ever want to just chuck the wrenches and hit the car with a sledgehammer?

I am frustrated. I am so frustrated I wonder sometimes whether this whole working on cars thing is worthwhile. I have made no progress on my Crown Vic's transmission removal. Allegedly, people remove transmissions from these cars all the time. I can't get the thing out. There are a bunch of bolts I can't even get to, and the once I CAN get to I can't turn because there isn't enough room!

On the inside, I can get the pedals to fit but the clutch quadrant hits the firewall so something will have to be done there. That is the inside, though, and the custom work for this swap so I completely expected to have to do some work in there. But I can't even get the transmission OUT OF THE CAR!!!

Now, the Volvo... I have the manifold off, and of course I broke some studs getting it off. I got the old turbo off but the new turbo has two studs, both of which are broken, and I can't get them out. Even if I DO get them out I need to enlarge all the holes and they need to be threaded so I can't do that, either!

Sometimes I just feel like every project I touch falls to complete crap. Then I have a few wins and some projects go smoothly so I think, great, I'm ok, it was just a fluke!

Of course the next one completely goes to crap again. Why, oh why, is it so hard to take parts off of a car? Do they even design car parts with the idea of potentially one day having to remove them?

Frustrating.

I swear all the manufacturers hire the same guy to make sure at least half the car is impossible to work on.

Seriously though, try unbolting or loosening the motor mounts and putting a jack under the nose of the engine to tilt it upwards. Most newish cars require that little extra to get to the trans bolts.

I rarely lose my temper, but I've been known to dent a fender (yikes). Sometimes one must take a step back, grab a beer, and hurl a few rocks at some squirrels.

Sounds like a reason to buy more tools, long locking extensions with universal impact sockets on the ends are life savers.

I'd bet we've all been in that state. Here's what I do when I hit that state:

1. Stop -- cool down, hydrate, see what the Internet says, re-read the manual.

2. Look around the problem part -- what else can be removed to make room?

3. Call a friend for moral support.

4. Sleep on it.

5. Buy more tools.

6. Recognize that sometimes it is better to pay a professional, and then do so.

Rob

sometimes its better to just call it a day and go back to it another time, or work on something else for a bit... when two different things dont work out that way you want in the same day, its time to go have a beverage, and ask for a plastic cup, just in case...

BTDT. I know exactly how you feel. The fury I felt toward my CRX while trying to remove the cylinder head with the engine in the car was a low point in my "life scale of rage towards cars". Yes, on a Honda.

My advanced years have taught me the key to working on ill-conceived pieces of engineering is to walk away from it, no matter how badly you were hoping to complete a project. Things generally do go better a day later with a fresh, calm perspective. And more tools.

Ridding myself of Fiats and owning an E30 also helped.

I've reached that point many times on various types of cars. I find that when I work on a car that my focus is so intense that time flys and before you know it it is 1am. Since I can't keep track of time well, make sure you keep a clock in the garage, or have some one come tell you what time it is, to avoid getting tired and making the situation seem hopeless. Kind of a round about way of saying that it seems to get worse when you are tired. Walk away from the car get something to eat, have a beer, and use the break time to get some sleep or jump on the net to see if anyone else has faced a similar problem and how they solved it.

Nothing is more frustrating to me then having a problem, taking a ton of time doing it the hard way, getting done then finding a solution that would have made the same job a piece of cake, had I taken a break and searched online.

Get some gearhead friends! I have always found that like minded people, especially those with the same type of cars give the best advise or condolance when dealing with car frustrations. Only problem is most of my car friends are in forums such as this...LOL

Best thing to do is make sure you don't overdo it and relax, take a break, especially if it is a project car. As long as it is not the car you need to get to work the next day, it's nothing that can't be done another day.

Chris Rummel

kcbhiw wrote: take a step back, grab a beer, and hurl a few rocks at some squirrels.

lol

there is a reason it took me a month to replace the trans in my saab by myself... and it was not the fact that the car fought me every step of the way.. but that i need to step back, take a day or two away, come back, do one thing, walk away....

I probably could have done it in two days if I worked 8 hours straight

When I got mad at the car, I'd just not touch it until I was ready. Eventually the urge came back. Never took more than a week.

Having one project at a time is something I try to do, because for me, having 2 or more projects means 0 make progress.

Also, wrenching with others helps. I used to kill myself trying to get stuff done, and when it WAS done, I was so completely filthy from head to toe...I don't even know how I did it now. I ended up helping out my friend John with his car and pretty much re-learned how to wrench.

For example, to do a headgasket on our cars, I'd pull off the throttle body, then valve cover, intake manifold, alternator, turbo and exhaust manifold, unbolt the head, take off the timing belt, and take the head off. He'd undo the headbolts, disconnect the exhaust, take off the timing belt and then pull off the intake manifold, head, exhaust manifold and turbo at once.

Some people just think that way while others have to get shown, I guess.

work gave me a 3 year old laptop to use that two other sales guys used before me.

I had a ton of problems with it and some days I dreamed of seeing how high I could toss in in my driveway and watching it crash to the concrete into a couple dozen pieces.

aaahhhhh, joy for two seconds until it became a bad idea.....

I dented the gas tank on my TL with my fist last week, in a fit of rage. If it wasn't already a rat, I'd regret that. I then proceeded to beat the living hell out of a Rubbermaid trashcan. Popped right back into shape. Pretty satisfying.

When the oil/carbon in the exhaust pipe subsequently caught fire, I stood there trying to decide whether or not to let it burn, just to see what would happen. If it wasn't right outside my parents' garage at the time with a freshly-filled gas tank, I probably would have let it.

After that, it was all I could do to keep from knocking it over and jumping up and down on it.

At that moment, I thought of the Simpson's episode where Homer attempts to build an brick barbecue pit, but promptly dumps the entire contents of the box into his freshly poured cement slab, including the instructions. He resigns to use the French side of the directions, but is quickly stymied: "'Le grill?!' What the hell is that?!" In his final fit of rage, he grunts the line 'Why must I fail at every attempt at masonry?!' between blows to his pile of bricks and cement.

I imagined this scene as I was picturing myself jumping up and down like an enraged chimp on the pile of motorcycle below me, and broke into that special kind of laughter bordering on hysterical crying that can only be described as 'maniacal.'

And then I finished the only bottle of whisky left in the house.

Yeah, been there, done that. Bought the t-shirt.

pull the intake manifold off the vic - the top 4 trans bellhousing bolts are right there. that was my plan the whole time.

Engineer hell should be working on the car you designed for eternity.

Sledge hammer... hmmm...

Now where is that picture of Margie???

I've got a Merkur and a Datsun. I'm surprised I haven't broken out the sledgehammer already.

I actually HAVE chucked the wrenches and grabbed the 3lb hand sledge. Of course, I was working on a '70 Impala, so that was the recommended procedure.

Seriously, my wife won't buy me any tools that won't survive being rebounded off the concrete shop floor. That's when i know it's time to go back in the house and have a beer.

Build a lemons car. When you get pissed at them you can break out the sledge or a piece of pipe and improve you chances of getting through judging. After spending 12 hours shoe horning a 351 into a T-bird I took a 6X6 to it. Enjoyed every second of bashing the hell out of that car.

3 pound sledge was the answer to my problems on a civic brake job last month. i got "upset" and just started beatting the snot out of the calipers and that loosened up the froze slider pins

Try the back plugs in a cadillac transverse mounted V8. About the only thing car repair related that has made me look forward to going back to the Lucas based electrical system that was in my garage at the time.

A couple of my friends bought an old 440 GMC Jimmy to get the engine out of it and sell it. All they wanted was the engine. Easy enough, right? It's a huge vehicle and that blue mystery transmission was pretty small.

Long of the short, they had to cut the entire body off of the truck, get it down to a rolling frame, and remove it from there. The top bolts on the transmission were completely inaccessible.

And yes, I've been to the point that I have wanted to do something that I'd regret to my car. Frustration leads to beer. Beer leads to new ideas. Sometimes, you need a friend to look at it with you and say "well, why don't you just . . . (fill in stupidly-easy solution here)" so that you can smack your head and turn your 20 hour adventure into a 5 minute walk down Easy Street. I know: I've been that friend and I've also been the one who tries things the hard way because the solution doesn't seem to present itself.

when i was dating my wife, she would call my house and talk to my mom who would tell her "He is out in the garage working on his car"

she would then say "I will call back later"

As mentioned above, when it gets that bad it's usually because you're:

A) Doing it wrong. B) Doing it with the wrong tools. C) Not working on a 24 Hours of LeMons car, where you WOULD just hit it with a sledgehammer instead of WANTING to.

I have been helping friends countless times where they were banging their heads against the wall trying to do X job, and within a matter of minutes I get them to calm down and show them how to do it. Most of the time it's just a technique thing, some times it's a tool thing. Penetrating oil is a tool, I'm always surprised at how many don't start a job with a can of PB Blaster or similar, especially in salt states. Wobble joints are automotive gold...a crappy universal joint that came with your Craftsman tools is NOT a wobble socket. Ratchet wrenches are worth every penny, get some if you haven't already. Don't use cheap drill bits, easy-outs, or thread taps...you will seriously regret it, usually about a quarter of a second after you break something.

Most people touched on the walking away part, too. Too many people get frustrated and just start throwing brute force at a job instead of some finesse. It's very, very rare where you just have to grunt harder to get a job done. Usually you need a different tool. Can't get access? Use a wobble socket, extension, shorter socket, etc. Can't break it loose? If you didn't start the job with a can of oil, do that and wait a few hours, if you did that then rather than grunting harder make sure you use a quality socket/wrench and a longer lever arm. If none of this works, do something else for a while and come back to it with a fresh mindset.

Bryce

Been working on my DSM with the whole, get pissed off - take a step back - approach for the last year and a half.

Yes I feel like assaulting my car violently with a jack handle on a fairly regular basis.