What repair do you fail at?

[JamesDean]

Hey everyone,

Just thought I'd vent a bit about my recent failures on my 420SEL and 300SD.

I'm hanging up my hat and never going to replace another pan gasket on these cars. Gah. What disappointments.

First car, the 420SEL. Whole endeavor was to replace the leaky oil level sender seals. That was easy. Got my new pan and gasket all in place. Went nice and slow, torqued them down as per spec. OH LOOK. A LEAK. So I snug up the ones around the leak by a 1/4 turn, move the car, and check again. OH LOOK LESS LEAK BUT STILL A LEAK.

I threw in the towel, I wasnt about to replace the gasket and lose the oil only to fail a second time. Send it to the shop, they replaced it and the same o-rings that I did. I should have been more clear in my note I suppose.

Second car, 300SD. Transmission has been flaring when cold but once it was warm is was perfect. After I did the spring kit it had a small leak at the passenger front corner. So I said I'm not playing games, new pan + new gasket, $65. My other 300SD I over-torqued the pan, broke the gasket and it leaked a river a few days later. Not again.

Soon as the pan and gasket arrive I put the gasket on the pan and let it sit for a day or two to let the gasket loosen up and return to its normal shape. Today I drop the pan, put the new pan and gasket in. Use my new 1/4" drive torque wrench to get it right at the proper number. It converted to 70 inch pounds.

I start putting in ATF. After the third quart. OH LEAK, whole front of the pan. OH LOOK MR. GASKET ROLLED INWARDS. THAT *******. So down goes the pan and my nice three quarts of ATF. I reseat the gasket, making sure to install bolts caddy-corner. Visually checking the gasket to make sure its all seated.

Start putting in new ATF. 5 Quarts are in good, no leaks. Drove it around, parked and tried to check the fluid level. I cannot for the life of me read this dipstick. It seemed a bit low to me, so I add 1/2 quart. Drive off. All is good, some flaring at 3-4, so more adjustments of modulator. I make my final adjustment, and what do I see.. OH A LEAK. Rear corner, passenger side.


So thats 0/2 for pan gaskets for me. How about you guys? Whats your Achilles's heal of repairs?

[disley]

Body work, rust.
I thought I'd done a good job until i put the paint on, then all the flaws in the sanding show up.

[nate300d]

Well, I am not good at anything in my book. With that said the work that I absolutely detest is anything involving touching coolant. I do not know why. I could be covered head to toe in oil and grease and it does not bother me. But coolant..I HATE to touch it.

I do like rigging something broken into working condition. Not saying I am an expert, but growing up on a farm and working for other farmers looking for ways to keep something working for a few more hours was common place. You learn to invent on the spot.

[Dave Donaldson]

First , I'll try anything, but I never give up.
1984 Kawasaki 900 cc, GPZ R,
put in new bearings ,shifter forks, rings and guides. upon reassembly the manual said to line up the marks for the counter balancer shaft to the crank.. uhmmm 4 marks on it pick one,, the counter shaft spins 2 times the crank RPM.. the red line is 10,200 RPM. put the engine back in the frame
Started her up and she shook like an old Norton ,,, had to remove engine pull the cases apart and re-index the crank to the CB shaft. 10 hours latter, she was running fine.

[cmcdonnell]

It's the simple stuff that I always screw up. I put on a new fuel filter, buttoned it all up, and it leaked. I replaced the distributor caps and rotors-stripped all the hex screws trying to take them off-so I took a hammer and pulverized them to get the screws out. Worked well, especially if you use a screwdriver as a chisel to get at the rotors.
But on complicated things I do pretty well.

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by nate300d

Well, I am not good at anything in my book. With that said the work that I absolutely detest is anything involving touching coolant. I do not know why. I could be covered head to toe in oil and grease and it does not bother me. But coolant..I HATE to touch it.

My bug-a-boo is ATF. Same illogical dislike as yours for coolant. It seems as though one drop can expand itself to cover my entire body, wrenches and shop area. And the smell of it just makes me gag.

[berryrice]

James Dean...that ATF pan gasket is a pain in the rear! Mine did the same thing and the gasket kept on rolling inwards as was tightening it down...dorve me nuts! I think I re did it 3 times before it finally seated correctly and could torque it down in a "star" pattern...going up 3-5 lbs of torque on every pass until the correct torque was reached. Hope this helps but keep at it. I gave up on the hatch struts 3 years ago...but returned with fury a month ago, and presto. Some of the easiest stuff turned out to be mind numbing. I'm going to attempt suspension work next as the wagon is a clunky over small pot holes, seams, and crack in the road. But I'm a little nervous about going into it and not coming out of it sane.

[daddi]

If you never do nothing, you never do nothing stupid. After fixing cars for the better part of almost 40 years i've learned that if you are asked to do something you don't wanna do just do something spectacularly stupid and no one will ask you to do it again.

[pwogaman]

Glued-in windshield removal without cracking from parts cars: I'm 0 for 2.

[TheHof]

I actually stay away from anything involving gasoline on all my cars ... even fuel filters. I just don't want to go anywhere near heavy gas fumes or actually spilled/dripped out fuel.

Fuel filters on my non-Mercedes cars can be done for so damn cheap including filter at any lube joint. Reality is it only costs about $10 more at most to have someone do it for you in 10 minutes while you sip a cup of coffee.

For my 560 sel I buy the fuel filter and places like Midas will slap it on for me for $25.

Even though the fuel pumps are so easily accessible on the 560, if it came time to do them I'm not sure if I would. One stray drop hits a light bulb or someone walks by with a cigarette to say "hey man, cool car" and my car, myself and/or house is in flames. It's just not worth the chance - albeit pretty slim if you are very careful and in a controlled environment - of something to go wrong in the blink of an eye.

But other than that i'll try anything and make it happen no matter what it takes!

[Hit Man X]

Paint and body work here too. Not my forte.

[JamesDean]

Its good to know there are others out there lol.

I'm pretty good with most mechanical and electrical problems. Paint nope. Body work I can do underneath the car... the pretty stuff.. nah.

[Fimum Fit]

what I really dislike most about carfixing is to take an item apart, not see any reason why it isn't working, put it back together and find that it now works fine.

When I fix something, I want to know exactly why it works now.

[RANDY P]

I'm not bad, just messy. The car turns out fine.

The garage floor OTOH? Looks like someone committed human sacrifice there 9 times out of 10.

[disley]

Originally Posted by Fimum Fit

what I really dislike most about carfixing is to take an item apart, not see any reason why it isn't working, put it back together and find that it now works fine.

When I fix something, I want to know exactly why it works now.

Happened with my odometer.
It stopped working when I reset the trip meter.
Took out the cluster saw nothing wrong, put it back, still not working so I took it out again, fiddled around, got the cog to catch and now it works again.
I have no idea what caused it to reconnect, all I did was push and poke at a few things in there.
Something decided to go back into place.