Whats the most difficult auto repair job you have ever done .

[fastfredracing]

Every body here is allowed to reply except for Tim Hancock . That guy is off the rails, next level .
Im putting a transmission and subframe/suspension crossmember in a Ford Tranist 250 this week . Total brutality .
Rustly Pa subframe, I have broken every 21 mm socket I own, went through 2 packs of sawzall blades, and ran my acetylene tank empty heating bolts . Took me 2 entire days to remove the frame, and transmission . You can't just he man the bolts, and snap them off up in the vehicle body , or you make tons more work for yourself, so you, just have to go slow, and attempt to remove them without breaking . I only snapped one off, and have one more sticking out, that I still have to extract .
The job is not that hard in theory, but rust belt cars always pose some unique challenges.
I've had some doozies in my day.
Heater core in an eagle premiere waay back in the 90's . No one around wanted to do it . I pulled it off , but hated every second of it . I remember a big block chevy motor replacement in a motor home, that the motor had to come out through the side door, in the passenger compartment . That one was pretty rough .
Id love to hear of some of the more challenging jobs you guys have pulled off. There are some talented and crafty people here in the mix .
Lets hear it !

[ted]

With spare parts and tools in the trailer rebuilt the Weismann 5 speed at the track.
Replaced a couple gears and made the morning session next day.
The funniest part was draining the trans oil into the oil recycle drum at the track.
The broken gear teeth sounded like a bag of coins hitting the bottom of the oil recycle drum.

[maxnine11]

Pretty well any repair that required me to take my mitts off when it was -35º.

[aschen]

My self evaluation of mechanics skill varies on context internet vs real life. The internet is full of people rebuilding cars that burned to the ground or complete engine swaps before lunch, makes me feel like im an oil change guy at best. In the free world consider myself median shade tree.

Things that have tested my patience: 1 replacing resistor pack in an elise took me multiple dozens of hours, clutch for a wrx on jack stands in my driveway, currently still in process replacing rear wheel bearings and trailing arm bushings on a 930

[Arizona_928]

Did a 944 and another 951 clutch when i was 16.

[rfuerst911sc]

Originally Posted by maxnine11

Pretty well any repair that required me to take my mitts off when it was -35º.

X1000 !!! Nothing worse than turning wrenches in below 0 temps . Brutal . Mine was upstate NY in February replacing phenolic timing gear in a V6 European Mercury Capri . Outside in the driveway with a snowmobile suit on . Froze my a$$ off .

[unclebilly]

Getting the hood open without damage on a 2004 Cayenne when the hood closed without the latch cables connected.

Lots of Tourette’s but no damage.

[cjh]

Replacing the cast iron shift linkage on a 4spd transmission on a 1973 Datsun 510 in the parking lot of my future wife's apartment. I had the part to put in, but the roll pin is down in a box inside of the tunnel with no way to get a punch on it to push it out. Took Friday afternoon and most of Saturday to get the roll pin out and 5 minutes to put the replacement in. Did I mention it was 10 below zero in February in Eau Claire, WI with a 10 mile an hour wind? Same car, replacing clutch on Xmas Eve. on the floor of my parents unheated garage or rebuilding a brake caliper in my future in-laws gravel driveway in the snow in the middle of winter with limited tools. God, I hated to see that car go.

[cjh]

Replacing the timing belt on a 1977 Honda Civic (the Datsun's replacement) with aftermarket air conditioning in the parking lot of my apartment in late January in Little Canada, MN with temperatures below zero. Took a day just to break lose all of the bolts on the AC compressor and another to cut the hoses to get it out of the way so I could slip the new belt over the cam gear to the pully on the bottom and set the timing. Found out it was a bad condenser. Hate the mechanic who tuned it up the previous week (plugs, points, condenser) and then told me it was the timing belt that had slipped.

[Gogar]

Took the dashboard out of my X5 to replace the heater core only to find out the heater core was fine.

[JackDidley]

Ive done some semi hard jobs on cars. Swapped my C3 Vette from auto to stick. Built and swapped several motors and pretty much built my V8 S10 from bare bones and painted it. I think the hardest Ive worked was on a 99 S10 I flipped last winter. Simple 4.3 swap. Wrong. Fuel lines near impossible to separate. Motor was locked up so I couldnt rotate it to take the torque converter bolts out. The motor dowel pins were frozen to the trans so I pulled the motor and trans together. Every thing that could go wrong went wrong. Almost every rusty exhaust bolt rounded off so I ended up cutting them. My garage has a low ceiling so it was a pain pulling the motor/trans over the core support. Tailshaft plug came out 1/2 way out. Dumped 10 quarts of ATF on the floor. After all that I ended up having to put in a fuel pump. fix the AC and the cruise control. When I sold the truck I think I ended up making about $10/hour instead of the $30 I should have.

[LWJ]

Well, there was a big pop in my elbow about a year ago working on my GD F250 that the PO air-torqued every fastener to the nth degree. Hand is still numb... Broke a bunch of crap on that as well. Craftsman (OG USA, the good stuff) 1/2 extension, breaker bar, and more.

[Baz]

Well...they all seem to take some time to get completed and to some degree they all require some patience and a little extra fiddling around.

I changed out the gearbox on my '80 TR7 on my older brother's driveway in Virginia once. Thankfully my brother had the tools and jack I could borrow. Had a buddy break into my garage in Florida and ship the spare gearbox I had up to me. This was back in the 90's pre-Porsche.

Then this happened....

[A930Rocket]

I don’t recall that I’ve done anything really difficult, but there were a lot of challenging projects over the years. A lot of the challenges, were because I did not have the knowledge or tools, to do the job. Rebuilt a TR6 engine, a 22R in place, a 69 351 Windsor, 87 930, etc. Rebuilt the 930 transmission twice (due to wear). Replaced the rod bearings on the 330, which necessitated lowering the crossmember. I’m hearing some rattling and it’s either the transmission or the clutch, and I will be replacing it, and then not too distant future.

I’ve been lucky, that all of my cars have been from the south, and zero rust. I see pictures of people working on cars up north, and cannot believe the amount of rust, even on relatively new cars.

What really kills me, is body work. I just don’t have the time, patience and tools, to do it right.

[Bugsinrugs]

Replacing the spark plugs on a 98 Expedition. My hands looked like I lost a knife fight.

[GH85Carrera]

Most difficult is hard to pin down. One of the longest and tedious was the total suspension refresh on my 911. There was a blizzard going out outside and the snow drifts were 3.5 feet deep. My garage was toasty warm.

The 911 complete AC upgrade to the Griffith's Mr. Ice project was a long drawn out project, but with no doubt the best project to do to a G body 911. The AC simply works in any heat.

[Alan A]

Gearbox change on a Morris Marina.
In a hand dug pit. With no jacks, hoists or help. Pig of a job.

The issue was you need to drop the back of the engine to get enough clearance to put the box back. That was not mentioned in the instructions. Took 6 hours of wrestling - holding that thing in the air - to finally get it back. I’m amazed nothing bent tbh.

[sc_rufctr]

I've done lots of big repairs over the years but just recently a power steering pump replacement surprised me.

Going in I thought it would be easy. Early 90s Mercedes V8... One of the bolts holding the pump on is tucked up near the head and exhaust manifold. There's barely any room to get a tool onto the bolt head and you can't see it directly. I spent about 90 minutes trying various tools to get it undone. In the end I used a 13mm swan neck spanner (acquired back in the 80s) and a small hammer to break it loose. There was nothing fun about this job. I kept thinking this is so Non-Mercedes.

[Tishabet]

I've done a lot of "difficult" jobs in that they took a ton of time and patience and maybe some skill to do right: rust repair, body panel and door skin replacement and full body repaints, replacing engine and entire drivetrain on 4x4 vehicles, rebuilding engines, stuff like that. Practically speaking the only category of car repair job I have never tackled in any way is transmission work, I have replaced several transmissions but have never cracked one open and don't plan to start. A man has got to know his limitations!

But, the only jobs I still have bad dreams about are the jobs that were just miserable. Jobs where you are soaked with dripping coolant that runs up your arms while you work under the vehicle. Jobs you had to do laying in a gravel parking lot in the winter. Jobs where you didn't have the right tool and while trying to "make do" you rounded off that hard to reach bolt head and made a lot more work for yourself. Those are their own brand of difficult.

[Bill Douglas]

Not difficult, but innovative.

I was hitch hiking in Africa half a lifetime ago and I got a really good ride in a BMW. Suddenly the mounting bracket for the alternator broke so lose fan belt. I broke some wire off a farm fence and wrapped it around the alternator and broken bracket, then got a lump of wood and whacked that in with a rock to bring it up to the right tension LOL. That got us going again. The guy was very pleased as his car would have been stripped out if he had left it there. He had me to stay at his place and the next day carried on with the big drive south.