The Driver's Seat: The Wrong Tools for the Job

[AF News Desk]

The Driver's Seat:
The Wrong Tools for the Job
Sometimes a job requires improvisation to complete. An internal combustion engine is not one of those jobs.

Jonathan Swigart - AutomotiveForums.com
March 9, 2012

We, as humans, are nothing if not resilient.

I often marvel at our innate ability to make the best of situations that we find ourselves in – no matter how bad they may seem – and come out on top.

In terms of everyday situations, this is best applied to trying remedying a particular set of circumstances that otherwise appears to be insurmountable.

Unfortunately, there is another side to that coin, and that comes in the form of applying improvisational techniques to situations that will be hindered because of them.

The best example I can provide for this occurred recently for me.

My father is currently working on a late model car that required some exploratory work on the engine head, which he believed was the cause for the car not running properly.

Based on his knowledge of the car he was working on and the problems he was facing, he assumed the car needed a head gasket – which turned out to be correct.

The fascinating part of this, however, is that the previous owner of the car had attempted a new head gasket not long before selling it to my father. It turns out, the guy wasn’t too keen on what is required to perform a head gasket replacement, so he “improvised.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the “improvising” performed on the head gasket of a car:

FROM LEFT:This engine block was put back together with – that’s right – bathroom caulk.

I wish I could say the photos above are fake and that someone didn’t actually use bathroom sealant on the engine block of a car, but I would be lying.

I also wish I could say I doubt this happens very often, but I am confident that, too, would be a lie. Which brings me to my next point: If you don’t know what you’re doing or don’t have the resources to fix a car, DON’T.

This isn’t a deck you’re working on where you can just go out and buy a new board and fix your mistakes or slap a couple of pieces together to fix a joint – this is a car that requires specific items to be fixed correctly.

You wouldn’t entrust your kid’s health treatment to a guy who said he’s seen a lot of medical shows on The Learning Channel, would you? No. So don’t be that guy when it comes to your cars.

There’s no shame in taking your car to a mechanic if you don’t know how to perform a major job on the engine block – especially if it means the car actually runs when you’re done. Otherwise, you’ll have a car that ends up like this, requiring the entire engine to be disassembled and machined from the residue that crept into the injection ports, combustion chamber and cam shaft.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not discouraging you from working on your car – I’m encouraging you to know what your limit is in terms of the work you feel comfortable doing. There’s no reason for a good car to end up being junked or garaged because of someone’s stupidity (which means if you know someone who is about to do this to their car, please – stop them).

Remember, it might cost you a little more to take it to a mechanic, but at least the onus is on them if they mess it up.

Just because you think you can fix it, doesn’t mean you should always try.

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Jonathan Swigart is an award-winning journalist and has been around the automotive world his entire life. "The Driver's Seat" will explore some of the basic aspects of driving that drivers often overlook, among other topics related to driving and the auto industry. He lives in Champaign, Illinois with his wife and son and works at the University of Illinois.

You can reach Jonathan by emailing [email protected]

[mike@af]

Great article, Jon! I completely agree. Always have the right tools for the job. If you're going to do it, might as well do it right the first time!

[Oldengineer]

Sometimes even professionals do stuff like this. Years ago, my father rammed another car in his Jeep wagon. The front end damage to the Jeep was repaired by a professional shop and returned to Dad. A couple of weeks later, I got under the car to change the oil for him, and, discovered that the wreck had broken the mounting ears off the Jeep's transfer case. The repair shop had used pieces of 2 X 4 to wedge the transfer case in and hold it in place. A quick call from Dad's lawyer prompted them to replace the transfer case housing.

Regards:
Oldengineer

[Tony]

I am going through something similar at the moment with a 85 Rx7 SE I bought last year. Car has been sitting for, I'm guessing, 10 yrs, with people trying to tinker with it here and there. I bought it knowing it would start but wouldn't stay running and the heater core needs replaced. When I took the dash out I learned every lower dash panel was cracked because someone didn't know how to remove a dash and pulled too hard...and kept pulling. I finally get the dash out and get the heater core housing out, and find out it wasn't the heater core that was leaking! This isn't the typical core that its the same lines running through the firewall, it has separate lines for that. Someone had removed the rubber lines from the engine side, and apparently had no experience with that as well. For anyone who hasn't had to remove rubber lines from the soft copper heater core lines, they get a little attached and its a pain to remove them. Most of the time you don't have enough room to try and turn the rubber line to break it free so I usually always end up cutting it off and buy new hose rather than keep pushing my luck and damaging the copper lines. Whoever removed these had their way with the copper lines and there were 3 cracks in the line! Now I get the fun job of searching for another piece which will require me finding a salvage yard that happens to still have something this old sitting in the yard and removing the dash and everything else all because someone didn't know what they were doing.

[Black Lotus]

That's a valve cover gasket surface shown, or a cam tower surface, not a head gasket.
Big difference.
He shoulda used oil resistant caulk anyway

[CivicSpoon]

One of the favorites that I've seen was house wiring used on a car.

Another one was a car that someone used butyl ribbon sealer (sticky black windshield tape stuff) to connect 2 wires together, instead of soldering the wires together and wrapping with electrical tape. Even those quick splice things would have been better than that.

I've seen valve cover bolts broken, and the bolt siliconed to the valve cover, so it would somewhat stop oil from coming out of the hole. Rather than drilling and tapping the hole, and replace the broken bolt with a new one. (I may or may not be guilty of this one myself)

[MagicRat]

Originally Posted by CivicSpoon

One of the favorites that I've seen was house wiring used on a car.

Another one was a car that someone used butyl ribbon sealer (sticky black windshield tape stuff) to connect 2 wires together, instead of soldering the wires together and wrapping with electrical tape. Even those quick splice things would have been better than that.

I've seen valve cover bolts broken, and the bolt siliconed to the valve cover, so it would somewhat stop oil from coming out of the hole. Rather than drilling and tapping the hole, and replace the broken bolt with a new one. (I may or may not be guilty of this one myself)

I used house wiring in a car once when I was a kid. It only took seeing the engine heat turn the insulation to goo to never repeat this experiment.

A friend of mine had an older Cadillac with the aluminum 4.1 V8. One of the cylinder head bolts pulled the threads out of the block, but all of the others were fine. Instead of using a Helicoil, he simply removed the oil pan, drilled the headbolt shaft clear through to the crank case, got a really long bolt and simply used a nut, accessible through the oil pan area.

[Tony]

Can we say spam?

[Frohmankf1]

I used house wiring in a car once when I was a kid