The Five General Rules of Wrenching

[livi]

Setting out to perform any task of wrenching in a car will infallably encounter at least one of the Five below. Often more than one or even all of them.

1. Typically the job requires a tool you do not posses.

2. You have the specified tool but canīt reach into the tiny space.

3. You can reach it but it has been Gorilla handled by the PO and wonīt budge.

4. You finally manage to loose it but to the cost of massive hemorrage.

5. You find it impossible to screw everything back the way it was.


There is a sixth rule that dictates that having gone threw all the above you will conclude that it did not solve the problem you set out to fix.

[onewhippedpuppy]

How about: Your mastery of engineering allows you to reassemble the area in question, with pieces left over.

[Dan in Pasadena]

- The likelihood that the VERY LAST bolt in a mulitple bolt removal situation will become rounded off or refuse to budge; no matter the number and volume of profanities directed at it, is directly proportional to:

- The importance of the job
- The fact that this multi-hour, multiple skinned knuckles job is nearly complete EXCEPT for this one last bolt or
- The time you have left to complete the work


This has ALWAYS been my experience.

Oh, and one last proviso: If you are experienced enough to know to remove the difficult-to-access bolts first and save the easily accessible ones for last, where no extension or flex socket joints will be necessary? THAT final bolt head will effing snap off, sure as $hit, leaving you with no bolt head to wrench on. The GODS of WRENCHING must win at all times. So it is Written, So It Shall Be Done!

[legion]

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

Oh, and one last proviso: If you are experienced enough to know to remove the difficult-to-access bolts first and save the easily accessible ones for last, where no extension or flex socket joints will be necessary? THAT final bolt head will effing snap off, sure as $hit, leaving you with no bolt head to wrench on. The GODS of WRENCHING must win at all times. So it is Written, So It Shall Be Done!

Yes, but at least you have gotten the part off and can use vice grips to go after the bolt remains...

BTW, I think Porsche intentionally put the clutch inspection hole on the 944 right next to the main ground on the bellhousing and intentionally made it the perfect size for a 13mm socket to drop through--so that when you are changing your main ground and the socket comes off it won't harmlessly drop underneath your car.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally Posted by legion

....BTW, I think Porsche intentionally put the ...

And I think ALL car manufacturers intentionally....whatever.

I can't tell you how many times I have worked on a car and said out loud to the person who designed it, "Did you EVER f*cking work on an actual car yourself? EVER turn an f*cking wrench, you moron!"

Of course these designers heard me and have mended their ways..............yeah right!

In the large civil construction industry, we actually have things called "constructability reviews" so that senior level management (and that is the fly in the ointment) can actually tell us IF you can build it the way it is designed. Anyone know if the automotive industry has something like a "Serviceability Review" or some such?

Legion, BTW in my experience the friggin bolt head snaps off flush with the part it is in. Fun times were had by all!

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

And I think ALL car manufacturers intentionally....whatever.

I can't tell you how many times I have worked on a car and said out loud to the person who designed it, "Did you EVER f*cking work on an actual car yourself? EVER turn an f*cking wrench, you moron!"

Of course these designers heard me and have mended their ways..............yeah right!

In the large civil construction industry, we actually have things called "constructability reviews" so that senior level management (and that is the fly in the ointment) can actually tell us IF you can build it the way it is designed. Anyone know if the automotive industry has something like a "Serviceability Review" or some such?

Legion, BTW in my experience the friggin bolt head snaps off flush with the part it is in. Fun times were had by all!

I'm in the civil construction industry. It is crystal clear that just because something can be drawn does not mean it can be built. Design/Build is considered a new approach to construction, but really it isn't. It is simply an overt recognition that the design phase of a project isn't finished until the construction work is done. Craft workers regularly point out construction impossibilities and, in an ideal world, also explain to the engineer and architect how the problem will need to be resolved. This is a case of guys who have not completed high school offering instruction to guys with Masters degrees.

Porsche is different from all the other car manufacturers. We wish that all manufacturers required their design engineers to spend a couple of months each year working on the components they designed. Not only do Porsche engineers work on the cars, they do in in a pit area where they are in a hurry. Working on a Porsche 911 is VERY different from working on a Lexus. VERY different.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Superman, Good to hear there are others here on the board in heavy civil construction. Where are you working? Project?

Not to hijack but I am on the Gold Line Eastside Extension project in L.A. I am the Project Quality Manager for the Authority and this job has been done as BOTH D-B-B (tunnels and station box excavation) and partially as D-B (the rest). I agree fully that D-B isn't new and in my opinion, isn't the panacea the industry would have you believe it is. We have had a great degree of success so far....but the game isn't over yet. I'm one of those guys you mentioned with a graduate degree and I learned a long time ago to LISTEN to craft. Worst possible thing you can do in my role is to act like you know more than the guy on the ground. They go out of their way to prove to you that you don't! If you defer to their experience and LISTEN, they go out of their way to share their thoughts and their concerns. Makes my job almost easy sometimes.

Back to legion's comments, given what you posted, why then do Porsches STILL have what seems to me to be just dumb mechanical issues? Things that seem like they're made harder than they had to be? I'll give you a real simple example. The left front signal light on my '76 coupe doesn't work. Why? The bulb "socket" isn't a socket like most other cars. It is cast with two sort of "ears" that have a ridge the electrical contact plate/spring slide upon and when the bulb is pressed in this plate slides back until it hits these little crimped tabs on the "ears" and the plate- being pushed by the spring, keeps contact with the bulb. On mine, the little tabs are worn and won't hold the plate. Clearly I can take the whole signal assembly out and probably can re-crimp the tabs or some such to fix it. Yet, as far as I can tell you've got to remove the entire front bumper to get the damned thing out. Why was that necessary? If an enginerr had to work on this I am sure they could devise a simpler method to access that stupid signal housing.

[legion]

I own a set of reverse-threaded tapered drill bits. They are the best thing in the world for removing broken bolts that are flush-or-below the surface. Come to think of it--I bought them because I stripped the adjustment screw on my throttle-body last year. A trip to Sears and an order from Pelican and I was good to go.

The thing that really sucks is when you have to disassemble much more than you originally intended to get the drill in....(and I do own a 90š drill for such occasions).

[djmcmath]

I've worked on Fords, Hondas, Toyotas, Chevies, VW's (old), my BMW, and a few Porsches. By far, my favorite cars to wrench on are Porsches. While there are occasional "Why did they build it that way" questions, the engineering is overall noticeably better than other cars. And no matter what you own, if you drive it for 30 years, expect some of the bolts to come out a little hard.

[masraum]

It's going to cost 3x what you expected, and it's going to take 3x longer than expected.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by livi

Setting out to perform any task of wrenching in a car will infallably encounter at least one of the Five below. Often more than one or even all of them.

1. Typically the job requires a tool you do not posses.

2. You have the specified tool but canīt reach into the tiny space.

3. You can reach it but it has been Gorilla handled by the PO and wonīt budge.

4. You finally manage to loose it but to the cost of massive hemorrage.

5. You find it impossible to screw everything back the way it was.


There is a sixth rule that dictates that having gone threw all the above you will conclude that it did not solve the problem you set out to fix.

all that is covered by Murphy's law

Murphy's Law was named after Captain Edward A. Murphy and is formed by eight laws.

* If anything can go wrong, it will.
* If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
* If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
* If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
* Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
* If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
* Nature always sides with the hidden flaw
* Whatever has happened wrong, is bound to happen again .... maybe even worse.


i just have these

Always leave one thing unfixed as to not offend the Porsche Gods

if you start wrenching, and 2 things go wrong back to back, drop all tools, leave it for another day before you break more things

[on2wheels52]

"Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind"

Jim

[djmcmath]

Originally Posted by svandamme

all that is covered by Murphy's law
Always leave one thing unfixed as to not offend the Porsche Gods

I've seen a more complete version (not sure of the original source):
When wrenching upon thy Porsche, always leave one small item unrepaired, lest thee offend the Stuttgartian deities in thine arrogance.

[Por_sha911]

O'Toole's Commentary to Murphy's Law:
"Murphy was an optimist"

[Aerkuld]

Why is anything in the shop manual that begins "Simply remove the..." is always the worst part of the job?

[nostatic]

I'm down to three rules:

1. Take car to TRE
2. Pay by credit card
3. Drive the snot out of it

[911pcars]

File to fit
Hammer to shape
Paint to match

.... or something like that.

Most engineers are less concerned with service accessibility than other engineering priorities, thus the difficulty in performing certain procedures. For example, locating the oil filter at the top of the engine should have been a no-brainer from day one. Computer-designed cars, wonderful as they are to conceive and design, also allow their designers to successfully package more parts into a smaller space than before.

Many parts are very accessible on the assembly line, that is until the vehicle reaches the next assembly station.

Anyone every change the rear bank of spark plugs on a transverse V-6? Wonderful. I think they must have developed the 100,000 mile spark plug specifically for these cars.

Sherwood