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Some may remember my post a while back concerning the idiot that designed the left headlight socket assembly. Well today I had to replace the right headlight bulb. Once again an engineering marvel. There is the assembly, in clear view. . .except. . . they placed the hood prop bar and hinge right behind the assembly. I had to dig through various and sundry tools to find one that would remove the cover then more to actually remove the bulb. I am certainly glad that I don't drink.

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Frank
67Z5MA2 Retired
IYACYAS
NRA
Ruger Owners & Collectors Society
Maryland Shall Issue

No matter what life throws at you, NEVER ring the bell.
"Do or do not; there is no try." (Yoda)

Yup, that's what happens when engineers don't have to work on the stuff they design. I remember years ago there was a car that, if you got the big v8 engine in it, if you wanted to change the spark plugs to get to the back two you had to unbolt the engine mounts and lift the engine part way out of the engine bay.

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Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. -- Gen.9:3

I was at the nearest Ford dealership in the service department a couple weeks back and they had the cab taken off the frame of a Super Duty pickup to do some kind of work on the engine. ridiculous.

It's necessary to dismantle the air filter assembly in order to reeplace the passenger side headlight bulb on my Silverado. The other side can be changed fairly easily if you have the arm length of a full grown octopus and the hands of elf. Grrrrrr..

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Are you gonna cowboy up, or just lay there and bleed?

"Liberalism can only exist after conservatism has built society."

I guess that makes things easier for them and more expensive for you.

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Cary Chapman

Hi,

A co-worker and one of our supervisors each had early Fox body Mustangs and both mentioned that procedure for one of the plugs. And these were 302s, not exactly massive in their space requirements. In HS, a buddy's older sister had a 64 1/2 with a 260, and it was fairly easy to get around. Wonder what was going on in their heads with the later ones?

"Dungeoneering" was the term my neighbor used "back when." He'd worked for a few years as a mechanic, and claimed the car companies locked their engineers in dungeons to do their work, and they never even saw the light of day, let alone got dirty, or worse, bloody, working on the stuff they designed.

Rick C

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence." --Robert Frost

I've mentioned it often.
"One of these days,, I'll be in a social setting,, when I ask someone what they do for a living. They reply; "I'm an automotive engineer." And when the silly SOB wakes up in the hospital,, I'll be there to show him what happened,, AGAIN!!!!!!!"

I've said that for over 30 years now. And,, it finally happened. Sadly,, it was in just about the worst place in the world for it to happen. Blackjack table, Las Vegas, just two years ago. When this young man of about 28ish,, about 6'1", Fairly solid looking said he was an engineer,, and lived in New York, I didn't dream he'd be in the automotive industry. Then when asked,, he said; "I work for GM." My very FIRST thoughts were; "Too many cameras & not enough bail money & I'm in the wrong town w/o any friends."
So,, I had to ask him what he owned,, and if he did any mechanical work on his own vehicle. He replied,, that he owned a p/u truck, and he did change his own oil. I replied,, "No,, I mean REAL mechanical work." He said he didn't,, so I gave him my spiel of how I felt about automotive engineers. About 2-3 hands of blackjack later,, he got up & left.


I ALMOST followed him,, but I figured there would still be too many cameras around.

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Shoot straight and safe!

" A fine is a tax for doing wrong,
and a tax is a fine for doing
right! "
NRA Instructor
USPSA shooter
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NC Hunter Safety Instructor
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Eagle Scout, BSA "When it mattered!"

We've had this discussion before so I won't get into the why's again.

I will say this, long, no, I mean LONG (15-20") extensions and QUALITY universal joints are your friend. When used properly much of what you complain about is a non-issue.

Regarding fox bodies with 302's/351's, your friend needs training. I worked on those when they were new and that was never the case. Read the above paragraph and try it.

I turned wrenches for most of my life. I can guarantee you that no amount of extensions OR universal joints would have accomplished what was needed in my particular case. A very large Vanadin Super slot joint pliers removed the cover and a set of angle needle nose pliers accomplished the removal of the bulb and socket.

_________________
Frank
67Z5MA2 Retired
IYACYAS
NRA
Ruger Owners & Collectors Society
Maryland Shall Issue

No matter what life throws at you, NEVER ring the bell.
"Do or do not; there is no try." (Yoda)

Someone told a story about the Lear Jet company requiring all of their engineers to work in maintenance (actually working on the aircraft) before they were actually allowed to design anything, back in the day. An excellent policy, and one that should be mandatory in any industry.

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This ain't New Zealand. Just saying.

You have to remember they are designed for ease of assembly not maintenance. The Ford Taurus was the first car the Detroit engineers invited mechanics to assist with the design process.
If you want fun try to get the right rear plugs out of a big block 67-68 Mustang. Even worse is a Sunbeam Tiger. To get those you crawl under the dash and pull out a couple rubber plugs then try to get the baked on wire off with no room for fingers or special spark plug boot pliers.

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1A-7x57 1B-300WinMag 1H-458WinMag 1RSI-30-06 1S-7mmRemMag 1V-.223 K1V- 22-250Rem Do I need a 1AB to finish it?

I suppose the positive view is that things don't need to be replaced as frequently as in the past. I seem to recall replacing spark plugs every year on my early 1970s cars. Plus rotors,points, caps, wires, etc. I used to do almost all of my own maintenance, and I know that today's cars don't seem to need anywhere near the frequency of repairs and maintenance of those 40 years ago.
Of course, it is true that when things do need to be done, it won't be easy. Occasionally, it is probably worth it to do a few other things when everything is torn apart for one repair.

One nice thing about modern ignition systems and the removal of lead in gasoline is that spark plugs seem to last nearly forever. I had a 1998 Grand Marquis that had almost 200,000 miles on it. Every time I had the oil changed they'd try to sell me new plugs. Just before I sold it I pulled a couple plugs and discovered they were hardly worn at all. All eight were fine wire plugs with very little erosion on the electrodes. Also very little carbon build up either. If that's how good they looked with 200k miles I decided to let them stay.

My test for spark plugs is if the engine starts quickly, idles smoothly, doesn't miss when you punch it and the mileage hasn't dropped the plugs are just fine.

A few month ago I had a slight miss in my 3.7L '07 Jeep Liberty. My diagnostic tool said intermittent miss in one cylinder. In the end I changed out all the plugs and spark coils. The miss was coming from a damaged coil.
$80 and an hour of easy work and I had new plugs and coils and all was well. The old plugs looked pretty good so I saved a few on them as well as a couple of the spark coils. The car has about 135,000 miles on it.

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...extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! ...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! (Barry Goldwater)

Paul W.
NRA Life Member

Hi,

Thanks for the advice, Dan! Unfortunately we're 30 years too late for the two fellows I mentioned, but I'm sure somebody will come up with another Fox body housing a V-8 one of these days... and I can look brilliant when they start to complain!

Rick C

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence." --Robert Frost

I bought a 2018 F150 with the 5.0l V8. They're experiencing oil consumption issues with the 5.0s and mine is one of them.

Fix is replacement of the long block.

Though some dealerships don't, standard practice is to pull the cab. The tech told me that they need to pull the cabs to work on the diesel engines.

Aqualung

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"...Somewhere there are Brownings in a two-hand hold,
Cocked and locked, one up the spout..."
- Jethro Tull