Those '5 minute' Jobs

[C_Fernance]

I'm sure nearly everyone has had these types of jobs before. The job that theoretically shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, but for some reason ends up taking a whole day or longer. There was a good example on Performance Forums recently where it took over a week to do an oil change on a RX7 as the oil filter wouldn't come off.

I had a great job today when i decided i might swap over the taillight on the Sigma. Should be as easy as disconnecting a couple of plugs, undoing a couple of nuts and out it comes. Not this time.

Someone in the past has decided to glue the taillight in with silicone. After much persuasion hitting the back of the light with my hand and levering the outside with screwdrivers i finally got it out minus a fair bit of paint which stuck to the silicone better than the car. Thinners to clean up what was left of the silicone also took care of what was left of the paint. By this stage i've already taken a couple of hours.

I put the good light in temporarily for the 1 hour trip to get some paint mixed up. No real dramas except for a few Sunday drivers cruising around 20kph below the limit.

Finally get home and get out all the painting gear. Sanded everything back, go to mask it up only to realise i have no masking tape. Plenty of packing tape though. Not wanting to make another long drive i just used the packing tape. Bad idea.

After getting it undercoated and painted i went to pull the tape off. The tape itself came off fine but left heaps of sticky residue which took ages to clean off. Now i just need to wait for the paint to harden up a bit so i can give it a quick colour-sand and a buff. Then i may be able to finally get the good tailight in at last.

[75wagon]

I with you, I've been there..

[Skidmark]

Dont ya hate that! I geuss thats wat that mean by" labour of love". Ive come to realise that theres almost no 5 min jobs on these cars ,every tme you touch them you open up a can of worms. I always make sure i dont need the car for a few days before I do anything.

[GC75]

my front bars taken me a month to get off.. and it still not off.. i hate threaded bolts..

also went to take out the lenses on my tail lights, cleaned a few to realise some bolts were rust and couldnt be undone

now it looks uneven.. and these sort of tasks will take me a while i dont have the best patience.

[DanTurboLancer]

Hmmm like the old saying if its not broken dont fix it...

I noticed the Main earth lead from the body to the motor was alittle loose, so i nipped it up.... Now the Indicators, Fuel and Temp gauges dont work....

[tango76hardtop]

when i was taking my front end apart just about every bolt was rusted in and snaped off when i undid them so a lot of drilling and tapping and using easy outs where i could so a simple couple hour job turned into a couple day after work job

[GC75]

i feel ur pain tango76hardtop

[dvsfin]

when i pulled my first coupe apart...the screws holding every piece of chrome trim on were all rusted and rounded easily while trying to pull them out...and most of them were in hard to reach places...a real pain in the ass took me like 2 weeks to get it all off without damaging it

[luke77]

It sounds like the customers that come into my work with one of my favourite statements "It should only take 5 minutes" If that's the case then smart arse, DO IT YOURSELF and see how long it takes...........

I'll get off my soapbox now

[Sigmaproject]

With me it is usually the 5 minute jobs that I SHOULD HAVE DONE

Like last Sunday I noticed that the bolt holding the EGR bracket to the turbo manifold was a little loose. Made a mental note to tighten it next time.

Well next time happened to be on the Sydney/Newcastle expressway at 110kph (or there abouts) when the bolt had worked it's way out to the point that the carby linkage got jammed. Not nice having a jambed throttle at 110kph.
I had to continually turn the ignition off and back on until I found a spot to pull over. Lucky I had my allen keys with me

Anyway, my next 5 minute job is the put some locktite on the bolt. Maybe tomorrow

[MATNES]

on the RX-7 front. i had to move mine so i could mow the grass that was coming out from under it.......it no start, put fuel in it, no start. notice no fuel is getting into the carbie but the acel pump is leaking, fixed the acell pump, it no start, clean out the bit where the acell pump inserts fuel into engine..........it starts BUT the clutch slave had leaked all the fluid out so it won't move. no fluid in the shed to fill it up again in a hope it would engage a gear.

all up it took over a month to mow that bit of the yard instead of the 5mins it should have taken

so thus ends this lesson don't own a RX-7

MATT

[DanTurboLancer]

HAHA, well ANOTHER RX7 story...

My best mate owns a Series 2, with Series 5 Engine/box
Microtech computer, all the fruit,
very mild tune 330HP@Wheels...


Would not start one random morning when he was headed to work!

Had took 3 days to get the Spark plugs out!

Normal sockets will not fit

[MATNES]

Had took 3 days to get the Spark plugs out!

Normal sockets will not fit

i have found this same problem with mine, the old motor was no worries but the import one has some stupid bit in the casting that stick out to far........so i grinded down an old plug socket and all is good now.

MATT

[DanTurboLancer]

haha yeah thats what we had to do too Matt.

How can the Engineers that design these things be so smart, and yet so dumb at the same time lol

[city hunter]

been there so many times. What always kills me as of late is rebuilding on my cars after they have sat for a while and I've shuffled parts around.

I spent a day looking for my 12a v band clamp, 45 minutes trying to find the missing copper crush washer on one of the turbo lines, and I ended up realizing I was missing the end of the wastegate actuator. 15 minute turbo install went to a few day fiasco.