After trying to fix a water fountain today with a clogged drain (QUIT dumping coffee down them ok!) without pulling the unit, and getting damn frustrated because the connections are in so tight, I thought it would be fun to start a thread on things in life that you swear, the idiot who designed it deliberately made it hard to repair.
Or how they are difficult to repair in similar units. As in Honda mowers which are damn hard to overhaul the carburetor compared with Briggs and Stratton motors.
Our Kubota tg1860 diesel lawn tractor is a nightmare to work on. The first time the mower blade drive belt broke I tried to replace it. There is a tensioner pulley that can be in a few different configurations, but unless it’s correct the belt comes off when engaged. But you can’t tell without engaging it, which sucks.
Look at a diagram? Sure, except we didn’t have the manual and Kubota actively fights to take down any online posting of the diagram. I ended up paying Kubota $50 for a photocopy of the few dozen pages. Fuckers.
Then there’s the transmission. I drained and refilled the hydrostatic oil this weekend. I had to do this without any help from the manual, because Kubota considers this job beyond my pay grade. But, I can’t take the damn thing to Kubota because they’ll remove the workaround safety interlock bypass most Kubota owners rig up to make their mower usable. Fuckers.
This should be so easy: Remove the belt and electrical connections, undo one nut, slide the bolt out that holds the alt to the bracket, lift.
But no - the bolt that holds it in is about an inch too long to be able to remove it - it hits the bulkhead before it comes out. So instead, you need to find (two of them are almost impossible to even see) and undo the three incredibly hard to get to bolts and remove the entire bracket and alternator from the engine block.
For the sake of rejigging the design to use a slightly shorter bolt, the removal and refitting takes about half an hour longer than it should. God help you if one of the bolts is seized or rounded off. :dubious:
Another one I came across: I needed to replace a couple of suspension bushes to cure a squeak. I looked in the manual: ‘1. Referring to chapter 2, remove the engine and gearbox from the car.’ For a suspension bush? Are you fucking kidding me? :eek: It was true though - the layout was such that it was impossible to remove the suspension arm with the engine in the way.
On the other hand, swapping out the clutch can be done in less than an hour, so there’s that.
Eyeglass hinges. Pepper Mill (who normally wears contacts) needed to use her glasses, and found the hinge falling apart. Something similar had happened with mine, and I knew the solution was to remove the screw, gently compress the two halves with a pair of needle-nose pliers so that the screw would be able to engage the threads in the lower part, then re-assemble.
The “re-assemble” turned out to be damned near impossible. Getting the screw back in the holes, through the “wing” of the glasses, and into the threaded part proved elusive. We were at it for over an hour.
Miraculously, we didn’t lose the damned tiny screw. Equally miraculously, I got the glasses back together. And it worked. But there was much frayed nerve there.
Harleys. Every model has at least one place designed to burn you should you decide to do your own repairs or even routine stuff. And everything is harder to reach and has more layers than there is any need for.
I had an MG Midget for a few years. Spark plugs needed changed way too often, and one of the plugs couldn’t be removed without busting knuckles. One time I took it to a garage for a tuneup. The next time I changed the plugs there were three Autolites and one Champion. The bastards hadn’t bothered changing the difficult one.
I had a BMW R1100S that frustratingly had it’s battery located mid-bike. To get at the battery to give it a quick jump or run a trickle charger to it you had to remove half the fairings beginning with taking off the turn signals. Most of the fairings were attached to the bike from the underside by a dozen torx screws.
Major PITA when the battery was low.
I just had to fix my dad’s $30 Timex watch. He replaced the battery but couldn’t get the back to pop on. They make it very hard to get the back plate back on. I had to Google the issue and then use a pill bottle cap, some electrical tape, vise grips and channel locks. And I just barely got it and I dented the plate. Sheesh!
If the drain is filled with coffee grounds, can you just plunge it? A hand plunger can work. Do you have access to an air compressor? If so, put the air hose in the drain, wrap a wet towel around the hose and drain to seal it, and blow the drain clean.
Cell phones are super hard to fix–iPhones in particular. So many tiny parts that very hard to work with.
To change the fan belt on my Cherokee I had to loosen/remove FIVE bolts in three different sizes to loosen the alternator sufficiently to slip the belt off…and of course four of them were 1/8 turn at a time.
Why has there never been an improvement on lamp bulb sockets? If they once come apart they can’t be fixed to hold, and wobble ever more. (the brass things on top of floor lamps, etc.)
When the battery died on my old Dodge Stratus, I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t find the feckin’ thing at all!
I made my Mom drive me to Pep Boys to buy a Haines manual, fully refusing to tell her why I needed it. Then when I found the page and saw the problem I wasn’t embarrassed anymore. I showed it to her and she laughed for about an hour.
My Ruger .22 target pistol is really easy to disassemble and clean, but a real bear to get back together correctly - and if it isn’t juuuust right it won’t operate. The manual is garbage, Youtube showed me the secret, but it still takes multiple tries.
