A four cylinder or a V6 is put in a truck - and the whole engine bay is stuffed full of things that make it a mission from God to get simple jobs done.

But a V8 has enough room around it to raise chickens and store spare rims and tires up in there...

You can find smallblock parts for a dime a dozen, and rebuild the transmissions with a kit, but a four banger manual tranny is as rare as hens teeth because nobody fixes them for less than buying another truck costs...

Advance Auto sells used trannies for twice as much as one from a junkyard nearby costs. They get them from junkyards in California... What's the difference?

The least expensive way to get from Tiajuana Mexico to Seattle Washington is through Arizona and Idaho - it's faster too...

 

Heh good post wolf, how true too.

 

Wolfie you haven't looked under the hood of a 97 to 03 F150 V8 have you. There is no room to do anything under there.

 

I think I'm going to go back in time, people. Carbueretted, or HILLBORN - ain't no sence to packing things that tight.

 

No kidding. Try working on a '97 or newer F-150 with a Triton V8 sometime if you think that V8s are easy to work on.

 

Simply put,it is because manufacturers hire engineers who haven`t a clue what it takes to turn a wrench.All they are concerned with is making it cheap and operational.And if they can make it work,(regardless of the fact that I have to pull 28 other parts to get to the defective part) they get a pat on the back for a job well done.YEAH RIGHT! Or the simple but stupid mistakes they make when in the research and development stage.A couple of examples that come to mind are,the electrical connection on the tranny of an Explorer.Lets remove it from a horizontal connection and make it a vertical connection that can get filled with dirt and water?Duh .And lets put the heater core fittings right on top of the coil pack on an a F series,so it can leak and fry the coil pack .But lets be fair here,Ford is not the only company with problems.Jeeps,ball joints,come on you morons,ball joints have been around for decades and you got to mess with them and cause them to fail bad enough that they have to be recalled?And how long have carrier bearings been in existence? So,why is it that they are failing prematurely on GM trucks?And the new Dodge trucks with the new Cummins engine?Who designed the particulate converter?Now there is a guy who should be working for NASA!Dont let the truck idle for extended periods?Try telling that to farmers,firemen,or anyone else that needs the truck running in park!

 

Reminds me of my first 6 cyllinder truck. I could stand between the block and inner fender to change plugs. Oh... I was a tad skinnier back then too, but hey....

Now, my Intrepid. I love the car and it's speed and power, but looking under the hood is like looking into a packed sardine can. Only it smells better. They build these things to supposedly save gas. Heck... the intrepid weighs more than my old Falcon did. Now...hmm... I should go get another old Falcon and drop that V6 into it... and go street racing...hah hahha hahahahahahah ..oops...sorry... wrong thread.

Besides Wolfie... they did it to jerk our chains and make us not wanna fix but rather "replace" when broken. Psychologically, who in their right mind wants to tear into one of those cramped engine spaces? Not me. I paid a fortune for my truck... the danged thing better last a fortune's worth.

 

i dont understand it either .in my wifes 01 ranger theres stuff under that hood ive never heard of and ya cant hardly get to the oil stick.even my 92's almost as bad.i wouldnt even think of doin an engine swap in one of those.but on the 71 i can and have been under the hood with the motor,and it gets the same mpg as the 92

 

Sample resumes:
(Future Goals and Summary line)

"I've been turning wrenches since I was sixteen, and know what sucks from what doesn't at the maintenance level. I want to design cars and trucks that are more efficient to maintain, and user friendly for upkeep."

"I have a degree in Automotive Engineering at Poh Boy Community College, and have an interest in upper management combined with sales incentives for productivety"

GUESS WHICH ONE WINS?

 

Yet another example of just because something looks like it would work well in an engineer's head or on paper doesnt mean it will work well in the real world.
I work as a technician for a comany that makes generators and Ive given our engineers a piece of my mind on several occasions. Im sure they didnt like a lowly shop floor worker telling them they design things wrong, but I dont much care. Somebody has to look out for the poor fella who has to work on this stuff.

 

Everyone always asks why I have extra parts left on every job I do and I tell them because us mechanics know how to make things run better with less parts than engineers do. Just think, If engineers knew what they were doing us mechanics wouldn't have jobs coming behind them to fix it right and make it better.

 

Thats why I love my old inline 6, I can do a complete tune up in the amount of time it takes to remove the back two plugs on my 96's 5.0.

I do think the easiest tune up ever was my buddy's 1.9 liter escort, all 4 right out in the open. took less then a minute per cylinder.

By the way Wolfie, you ever been stuck doing a tune up on a Taurus SHO? It was simply the absolute most tedious thing I ever had to do, i got talk into doing twice one year. The first time we did it "the regular way", by removing the intake and pushing everything aside. The second time i got talked in to it we tried a short cut. using a hundred swivel attachments and sockets I manged to bend my way around the intake to torque the plugs out. Either way I tried it the process took over 5 hours.

 

If engineers were required to spend two years in the field; you would find more reliable and technician friendly items out there.

 

Had this discussion before with some friends who are/were higher ups at the local Ford plant(s, as one plant isn't).


You guys are looking at this from the same perspective I did. Ford hires engineers/designers, to make sure it's quick to assemble on the line. After that, another set has to figure how long it will take to disassemble and repair for the flat rate book.

 

What are you working on that made you post about this?