Working on car frustrations
 

Wanted to replace the AC compressor on Mercury Topaz. What a b1tch.

I didn't know how to do it, so I first removed the alternator. Bad idea. You have to access the compressor from under the car. OK, I was lucky enough to have access to a rack, so I raise it. Then lower it. You have to remove the radiator but before you do that, you have to remove the fan. And disconnect the electrical things, and also disconnect the lines to auto transaxle and upper/lower hoses. Remove the upper cooler line from the top and the bottom from the bottom. Raise it again and remove that metal plate at the bottom as well as loosen the tire rod thing or whatever it is.

OK, unbolt the compressor. 2 screws. Then look for another 2 screws. Raise the vehicle and go from under it again. Then remove the compressor. Try to remove the main hose to it. Doesn't work. The wrench is 1-1/16" and long and hardly fits in there, but worse, it moves the compressor with it. No way to disconnect it. OK, bolt the compressor back in there. Remove its main hose. Remove the compressor.

Install another compressor. Put the radiator back. Put the fan back. Connect the tranny cooling lines. Bolt everything back up. Start doing the electrical connections. Try to connect the electrical wire to compressor and find out it is impossible while it is in there. What an %!$%#!# poor design.

Undo everything I did to remove the new compressor. the radiator, all hoses, everything. The second time, it only took me 2 hours.

Put everything back together - again - and find out I don't know how to get the belt on the compressor. Hm. Read the ever-worthless Haynes manual about 10 times until I finally find the relevant drawings. As usual, Haynes has major gaps in the procedure. Loosen the tension screws, put the belt back on. Tighten it. Not sure how tight it should be, but seems right.

Have a real problem connecting the lower tranny coolant hose. Takes me a very frustrating 40 minutes. I forgot which way it turns but finally got it in. This is compounded by the fact that there is no space at all to work with it. Also the aftermarket Advanced Auto parts lower radiator hose was not up to OEM specs, I think it was smaller in diameter and took me a while to get on there.

I found out that the old compressor disintegrated with only 105K miles on it and damaged the radiator hose, it was on the verge of leaking. The new one I put in there had also very little clearance from the belt, not a comforting thought. The compressor belt is about 1/2" from the lower radiator hose.

All in all, poor design with no room to do anything. You have to remove everything to get to your parts. It is a compact car with not much space in the engine bay. The problem is compounded by the fact that is is transversely-mounted engine, which I hate. Then it is further compounded by the fact that Tempo/Topaz line was very troublesome. Wasted most of the day today on this thing. I think the engine has 100K miles left on it, and oh boy I can tell it ain't going to be trouble-free 100K miles. Even though it has new alternator and water pump and much more.
Another thing that's abundantly clear to me to today is that I will never work as a "mechanic".

don't ya just love front drive?
I think I'll stick with my 74

Yeah, I decided that I will never, ever own a front wheel drive. :-rip

Yeah same here. I hate working on front wheel drive. the rear bank of plus is sometimes impossible to get at. The Overhead cam engines have the plugs down in a deep hole and when you remove the plugs dirt falls in.

On my Ford and Chebby, I can change the fan belt bare handed with maybe a lever to move the spring tensioner. Takes me maybe 1 minute to do a belt change.

On my wife's Mecury Villager, Japanese engine front driver, you have to work from above and below to weasle the tensioner bolts loose and then there are 3 belts, one which you can't even see til you get the other two off. Took me probably half a day to change a fan belt on her car. What a PITA.

Like many have said before, I wish the engineers who design these things are forced to do typical repairs to the models they design so they can see what we are up against.

Just my griping,

Jim Henderson

Carpe_
I feel your pain. My cousin has a 89 Sable that had a motor mount go bad. It was one of those viscous filled types. Well my best friend (her boyfriend) and I get the fun job of replacing the thing. 2 days later, we get it on. We had to jack the motor up (not that big a deal) but when we let it down, my buddy knocked the EEC box and bracket down and it jammed between the block and radiator and punched a hole in it. So we got to take it out. It was not the most fun job in the world by any stretch. I think Ill stick with my 72- where if it starts raining, i can crawl into the engine bay and shut the hood and still have room.

Ouch.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree about the RWD thing. I have some RWD vehicles and some FWD vehicles.

Chebby Caprice is RWD, it is not bad but not as good as my old early 70's Dodge. My 1989 F250 is RWD and the easiest of them all, but still not as easy as it could be. Oil changes on it are a piece of cake, spark plugs are relatively straight-forward. I haven't not yet messed with the water pump and things like that, its miles are not that high.

I also have a Subaru Loyale, that thing is FWD of course but you would be surprised how easy it is to work on it. It has a normally mounted engine the same way as in Caprice and other old RWD cars. Things get a bit tight in it but all in all you can manage. The problematic thing in it is changing the rotor, that thing has a tiny, tiny screw which you can easily loose because you cannot see it while putting it in.

I don't have much faith in the Ford Taurus line at all. Not just because it is FWD but I hear it is of the same quality as my Topaz, which means not very high. I think that around '93-'94 the tempo line got debugged and actually fairly reliable (took them a decade to get there) and then replaced it by Contour, which I don't trust either.


I must however give credit to FWD because they are much more stable in snow, etc. My old Dodge sedan was terrible in rain and other conditions, poor traction. This Topaz is a piece of junk but got to admit it does really well in snow. In fact the sales brochure for it shows it driving through snow.

I agree, The Ford Taurus is one of the most un-reliable cars ever made by FORD!!:mad:

Now you know how much fun I have when something goes wrong on my Escort. If you just take your time, and relax, it all goes smoothly.

Domestic vehicles are designed for ease of assembly, -not to work on. The Japanese and other foreign makes seem to take working on them into account when they design them which makes them much easier to work on.

Just one of the reasons I stick with the old iron as much as possible. When the new stuff has to be worked on you just throw it away.

Yeah, tell me about it, I just finished replaceing the axles on my 88 Camry.. That was fun

A few weeks ago, I got volunteered to do an oil change on a 2002 Honda Civic. No problem I thought, I knew the oil filter was on the backside of the engine.




HOLY COW!!!

It took me about 15 minutes to even FIND the oil filter. Hidden behind this and that, darker than a pit, my flashlight burned out so I couldn't see nothing. When I did find it, I could barely get my arm in and my hand to touch it. I managed to get the job done in 3 minutes though, once I got the filter off.

Good thing I got a case of beer out of it.

You do know that oil changes are optional on Hondas, right?

One word: Case of beer.

That is 3 words...

You have to be under 5 feet tall with itty bitty hands to work on ricers tho. Once you figure out how to do that (find a 12 yr old) they are usually easy to work on.

Remember the old VW bug??? Once you figured out that you needed to remove your brain, turn it around backwards, and put it back in, -then they were easy to work on.

Blame the engineers who design the cars. I swear that the engineers never even turn a wrench on the finished product, nor do they consider ease of maintenence.