Things that are damn hard to fix

[gotpasswords]

[QUOTE=dougie_monty]
Try to FIND the spark plugs on a '92 Ford Taurus (V-6)!
[/QUOTE]

I had a '93 Taurus. Only time the plugs got changed was when the engine was torn down for a head gasket replacement.

The sixteen plugs for my '06 Ram with 5.7 Hemi are well hidden under individual coil packs, but half of them on the left side are under the firewall and brake booster. It’s theoretically possible to change them without pulling the body off the frame, but I don’t know the magic combination of extensions, flex joints, etc. needed to do it. Making it all worse is that these engines run badly with 100,000 mile platinum plugs - it’s best to stick with the OE copper Champion plugs, but they have a woefully short 30,000 mile lifespan.

[mbh]

Boat engines.

My father inherited a boat from a relative, and decided that my brother and I should learn how to repair the engine. We had to replace a widget that was attached with two bolts to the back of the engine. You could not reach the bolts from the back of the engine compartment. You had to squeeze into the front of the engine compartment, reach underneath, and snake your hand up the back side. We also had to bend a wrench, in order to get it to reach the right spot.

My brother and I spent three days, taking the nuts off the ends of two bolts.

[Mr.Nylock]

Shimano 600 tricolor intergated levers. It involves a windspring, among other things.

[gotpasswords]

Just thought of one that will probably make anyone who owns a soldering iron shudder… Microphone cables, headphone cables, telephone cables, etc. made of “tinsel” wire. It’s ultrafine wire or foil mixed in with thread - very flexible, but insanely hard to repair. The thread just burns and gets in the way when you try to solder it to a connector.

[dougie_monty]

@mbh

Boat engines.

My father inherited a boat from a relative, and decided that my brother and I should learn how to repair the engine. We had to replace a widget that was attached with two bolts to the back of the engine. You could not reach the bolts from the back of the engine compartment. You had to squeeze into the front of the engine compartment, reach underneath, and snake your hand up the back side. We also had to bend a wrench, in order to get it to reach the right spot.

My brother and I spent three days, taking the nuts off the ends of two bolts.

I wonder if you could use a basin wrench ( a plumber’s tool) there.

[Rick]

@kayaker

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.

Seriously? MG Midget hard to change the plugs on?
BwaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!
Og you’re killing me here.
Get a long extension and a universal joint and you don’t even have to bend over. Has to be in the top 3 or 4 easiest car to change plugs on that were built in the 60s or 70s. Takes 5 minutes, 10 if you dawdle.
Trust me if you think a Midget is hard do not ever look under the hood of a Jag V-12 or Volvo with the PRV V-6. In both cases you can’t even see the plugs.
Hard job on a car? Water pump on a PRV designed V-6 (Peugeot, Renault, Volvo) also used on Deloren, and some Chrysler products.
If you are a pro the first one takes 6 hours with practice you can get it down to maybe 2.5-3 hours. If you are a home mechanic plan the weekend and it won’t hurt to have a backup ride to work on Monday.

[P-man]

For me, anything with more than one part. My mechanical skills are in the terlit. I can’t fix one of them either.

[SuperAbe]

@Chefguy

Toasters. Fuck toasters. Fuck them right in their gaping slots.

See, now, there’s your problem right there…

[enipla]

@Doctor_Jackson

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.

Oh oh oh oh this. The Mark II. Holy fuck. Easy enough to break down. But to get it back together, good luck. I knew I could do it. And it sat on my coffee table for two weeks as I finally got gravity and the angle of the pistol jussssttttt right for things to fall into place.

[dougie_monty]

@SuperAbe

See, now, there’s your problem right there…

Yeah. He’s kinky.

[Urbanredneck]

@epbrown01

Rolls-Royce is hilarious about this. The assumption is the owner will never repair anything himself or care about the cost required to fix anything so hey, engineers, do what you want. The Silver Cloud started with a straight six engine and switched to a V8 towards the end of the run. This meant that to reach 4 spark plugs on the V8 you have to put the car on a lift, remove the driver side tire, remove a panel in the wheel well, then you can get at the plugs. And this wasn’t in the days when plugs lasted 100k miles.

On top of all that it’s a British car and those require special tools not standard or metric.

[gigi]

@The_Angry_Badger

QFT.

I own three of the damn things, I’m not sure what that says about me.

It says you’re one angry badger.

[dougie_monty]

@gotpasswords

I had a '93 Taurus. Only time the plugs got changed was when the engine was torn down for a head gasket replacement.

The sixteen plugs for my '06 Ram with 5.7 Hemi are well hidden under individual coil packs, but half of them on the left side are under the firewall and brake booster. It’s theoretically possible to change them without pulling the body off the frame, but I don’t know the magic combination of extensions, flex joints, etc. needed to do it. Making it all worse is that these engines run badly with 100,000 mile platinum plugs - it’s best to stick with the OE copper Champion plugs, but they have a woefully short 30,000 mile lifespan.

As I see it, 30,000 good miles is better than 100,000 bad miles. (And copper conducts electricity far better than platinum.)

[4d3fect]

@Gatopescado

I’m pretty good a fixing things, but getting a replacement sliding screen door to operate smoothly for any length of time has so far eluded me. Part of the problem is those crappy plastic wheels. I shit-can them right off and go with the better, solid ones. Also, every door in every Lowe’s and Home Depot is twisted to start with because of the tension of the screen.

Anyway, after spending hours to get it near perfect, within a day or two, my kid opens it about 7 inches and tries to bust through the not-nearly-big-enough gap, knocking the bottom off the tracks.

Oh, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

I had this problem and would like to share my solution with you: Brand new installed sliding patio door. Including screen.

[dougie_monty]

Have you considered replacing your kid?

[TruCelt]

I recently had to take apart my HP laptop to replace the dried-out thermal gel. What a nightmare!

The number of screws, and the depths at which they are hidden, it’ll blow your mind! What should be a simple repair is complicated by the necessity of removing everything from the hard drive to the battery to the RAM in order to remove the screws that are hidden beneath them. It took me nearly a day to realize that the final problem preventing the repair was the need to pop the keyboard out of the upper deck to remove the last screw that was hidden beneath it.

I want to be very clear here: that one screw was holding the entire thing together perfectly. The only other screws I really needed were the ones that clamped the hinges down. So three total screws were actually necessary.

For reasons I can’t explain (largely superstition I guess) I replaced them all (seriously, more than 35! I’d done quite a few before I started counting) when I put it back together. I’ll regret that next time I have to open it up.

[Gatopescado]

@dougie_monty

Have you considered replacing your kid?

Not so much “replace”…

[Boyo_Jim]

Damn hard to replace the battery in an old iPod.

[Voyager]

@Chefguy

Toasters. Fuck toasters. Fuck them right in their gaping slots.

You’ll get coil marks on your you know what. :eek:

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

I’ve seriously thought about hacksawing through that portion of the shelf and putting in a piano hinge or something. I probably would except that even if I could peer down into the tank I’m not plumbing-proficient so there’s only a ~ 25% likelihood that I’d learn anything about the leak.

Naah, it’s a modern cutesy curvy water-efficient 1.0 GPF and about as short as you can make a tank toilet, aside from which it is a specific and unusual color of coral that matches the bathroom decor and any replacement would have to do likewise.

I’m surprised the people that we bought our house from didn’t pull this trick. As for fixing the leak, replacing the parts (cheap and relatively easy) does it - but in your case it would be a pain.
For me it is fixing a shower. Since the part are located in the hole, it seems you need special tools to get to them. And I’d probably drop parts down behind the wall. That is the one plumbing job I’ve faced that I refuse to do.