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Special tools- but why?

Mitch on Sun November 23, 2003 11:34 PM User is offline

Power steering pump shaft seals seem to last forever unlike AC compressor shaft seals. MY 1969 Impala with nearly 400K miles still has its original PS pump shaft seal. The last one I replaced was my 1965 Olds Cutlass and all I had to do was remove the pulley nut, slide off the pulley, replace the seal and reinstall the pulley.

Today, I needed to replace the reservoir seal on a 1983 Suburban PS pump so we decided that we may as well replace the shaft seal as long as the pump was off the vehicle even though it is not leaking.

For reasons unknown, GM eliminated the simple nut that holds the pulley on and replaced it with a press fit that requires a "special tool". A simple do it yourself job thus turns into major production if one does not have the "tool".

Here's the special tool.
Looks like an AC compressor tool. There must be a plan somewhere to keep the average person from fixing his or her own vehicle.

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 12:00 AM User is offline

Quote
Originally posted by: Mitch
There must be a plan somewhere to keep the average person from fixing his or her own vehicle.

Is there any doubt in your mind at all that the "plan" extends to independent garages as well?!

I suspect that the vintage of the pump accounts for the tool's very existence. In today's disposable society the more logical approach would be to design for minimum manufacturing costs and then require replacement of the entire assembly when it fails.

NickD on Mon November 24, 2003 12:03 AM User is offline

I have that tool, does that mean, I am not average? I had to use that on the Bravada to set the pump aside to remove the valve cover yet another press or an interference fit. I wasn't concern about the pulley falling off, was more concerned about my arm falling off, that pulley went back on extremely tight.

Also on the Continental to remove that pump so I could touch the AC compressor. If you don't like pullers, get a Honda, LOL.

Besides that awfully big nut on the damper pulley, most domestics are a press fit, I already broken some large pulleys trying to get a Ford damper pulley off, no reason to be that tight, besides that huge 150+ foot pound of torque nut, it had a keyway, and an interference fit on top of that. Ford is the worse cars to work on, they claim from start to finish only takes two minutes to get a car off the production line. My gosh, the car is still red hot! When you get it, it's cool and those pulleys, brake drums, etc. shrink on tight, guess that is why someone invented cussing. Chrysler alternator pulleys can make a guy cuss, we couldn't break one free with a 30 ton press, had to pitch the alternator anyway as the pulley bent beyond repair, but still wouldn't slide off that press fit shaft.

It was a good alternator with a dried out front bearing with no way of adding grease to it, Mitch, haven't you learned yet, you are suppose to trade off your car for a new one every 2-3 years? I guess I haven't learned that either, but sure have learned how to cuss.

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 1:06 AM User is offline

What am I missing here? Why should any company making a seal that works for 20 years worry about making it easily replaceable?

NickD on Mon November 24, 2003 7:24 AM User is offline

The PS pump interference fit doesn't brother me as nearly as much what they are doing with limited lubricated sealed ball bearings and they can go at any time. It wouldn't be so bad if these bearing were even pressed in, but they have either roll, peen, or emboss them in so if that bearing goes, you have to buy the whole new front end of the vehicle, not just a stupid two buck bearing. Well that is before all the unreasonable markups.

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 1:47 PM User is offline

Good point! Now which do you suppose is more profitable to the company, a $10 bearing or a $500 front end assembly? And which do the stockholders prefer, your approval or your money?

NickD on Mon November 24, 2003 5:23 PM User is offline

LOL, they are not getting 500 bucks from me as long as I can remachine the parts to slap in a new bearing. I am defeated in repairing my own blower motors though, I have learned how to disassemble that tinny case without distorting it, but stumped as to how to remove that hot pressed on plastic blower motor wheel. Ha, and I use to complain about Pal nuts that are easy to push on, but a dog to get off. All this for a couple of cheap brushes and a dried up very tiny oil wick.

I have a special chuck for my lath and can turn and undercut the armature commutators plus have a growler to test it out. Starters are getting very difficult to rebuild since they went to that thin sheet metal jacket, the last one I pulled had a big rust hole in it and NAPA wanted more for that crimped on solenoid than what I could get a new starter for. But I didn't look far enough, I found that solenoid for under five bucks, but forget about rebuilding a fuel pump.

The only problem I have found with injectors so far was dirt, applying a low voltage and blasting them out with carb can choke cleaner, running a spray test, and hitting the solenoid with a pulse generator assures me they will be good for sometime. But that plastic CMFI unit in the Bravada was too much for me, but did find one off the web for $230.00 that was much cheaper than what either NAPA and especially the dealer wanted. Electronic dash problems so far have been mostly poor solder joints, dirty connectors, and over driven transistors. The same with ECM's and ABS computers not to mention ATC climate control panels. I have yet to buy any switches including the ignition, same old dirty contacts and poor spring tension.

I do not fool with compressors, way too much as was the Ford AXOD AT, just too many special tools required, just dumped the car and said the heck with it.

So who is causing the recycling problem that is suppose to be a major crisis today? Sometimes, a guy just has to buy a larger trash can.

This new encoded software is another thing that is just too much, if everyone refused to buy new cars, this would change quickly.

Henry Ford got on his engineers for a carb with only one bolt to make it easy for the carb to be cleaned, we need more like him.

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 7:11 PM User is offline

The CBS 6:30 news just told me the top 3 consumer complaint areas are:
1. New car sales
2. Home repairs
3. Car repairs

So hang in there, you're not alone!

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 7:40 PM User is offline

You know I can't help wondering if this whole discussion is just because of cost reduction and parts sourcing. Eliminating a nut is an obvious cost reduction, but the peened bearings may have more to do with sourcing.

When you go offshore for parts to get $1 a day labor rates you also are likely to run into shops using machine tools that used to make Edsels or Corvairs. To keep reject rates under control you look for ways to ease the part specs. The spec for a bearing and machined casting with "slight interference" fit is a lot tougher to hold than a slip fit. So to save money and reduce the reject rate you go for a slip fit and then peen the casting to keep the bearing outer race from spinning. Make sense?

NickD on Mon November 24, 2003 8:17 PM User is offline

Not as much sense as a bowed retainer ring for the pulley bearing and no sense at all on the interference fit of the clutch hub unto the compressor shaft.

They do have a point about any screw working loose, in my field of alternators, we had to eliminate all spade lug connectors, and even soldering due to weakened joints and warranty returns, so are using electro and ultrasonic welding now. You can still break the joint and resolder for the repair, but there was a good reason for that move.

I removed the entire air cleaner assembly from my Cavalier with only one 6mm bolt, all the rest of it snapped in place with with tabs or plastic snap fasteners. Ha, I was wondering why that one screw wasn't a plastic snap fastener too. Must be one old engineer working there yet. LOL.

Bigchris on Mon November 24, 2003 11:24 PM User is offline

If you've seen as many brittle broken and warped plastic snap tabs as I have you know how proud that old engineer will be when that one screw is still holding it all together.

NickD on Tue November 25, 2003 12:20 PM User is offline

Working in sub zero weather on a vehicle is absolutely impossible with all that plastic, on dash boards they love using a one inch wide tab on a 1/32" diameter shrank, so breakage is inevitable. I use a heat gun to warm them up and very carefully try to pry them out and cuss in the process, but they snap together so nice. On the nail type fastens that are removed frequently, a tad of silicon grease on the nail helps to get them out without breaking the nail head off, those things are expensive.

In the last couple of months, Dok has manage to knock off a plastic door lock cover and a cover for my turn signals, I checked carefully for any breaks, snapped them back on, and couldn't really snap them off again. Dok must know something that I don't. I wonder if he could remove a dash?

Bigchris on Tue November 25, 2003 12:30 PM User is offline

Maybe you ought to get Dok a Jeep Grand Cherokee for a play toy. If you do, be sure and keep a digital camera handy!

NickD on Tue December 02, 2003 8:06 AM User is offline

One of the symptoms with my brake pedal free play problems was an improperly adjusted push rod on the DeVille, that was in the general brake section of the manual. So how do you adjust the push rod? After plowing through the front, rear, master cylinder, and ABS chapters in the manual, I found what I was looking for in the power booster section.

First off, it wasn't adjustable, but they have a selection of short rods of different lengths that slide in between the booster and the master cylinder. They did however make the master cylinder so it could be removed from the booster without bleeding the system. Next question, is how do you determine which length rod to put in. Now from the drawings, they could have said, that the rod should protrude the booster by so many inches with 25"/HG vacuum in the booster as any standard depth gauge would work.

But no, instead you have to buy a piece of sheet metal with two notches stamped in each side, one side for the minimum depth, the other side for the maximum depth. They have hundreds of these gauges for each and every measurement like a person is too stupid to make a very basic measurement and compare that with the dimensional tolerances. I find this most irritating.

If the rod was too short, and since it drops into a closed cavity, a guy could drop in a shim, if too long, grind the bastard down a tad, but no, go to the parts department, and hope they have the right size rod in stock. No reason why they couldn't have used a threaded rod with a lock nut on it, but I guess it's cheaper to inventory a dozen or so different length rods.

Bigchris on Tue December 02, 2003 10:55 AM User is offline

Sounds just like the old Volkswagen system except they left out the pink, blue, yellow and white paint dots to help you tell which length was which.

NickD on Tue December 02, 2003 12:42 PM User is offline

GM Rear Brake Spring Tool

Is the tool the manual recommended for lifting and prying that huge C spring that holds the shoes in place. There procedure was to snap both shoes in place first then use the shorter jaws of that tool to spread the top of the shoes so you could drop in the adjuster. This seemed contradictory as the manual said not to expand the spring anymore than necessary as you can deform it, and you really had to spread that spring to drop in that adjuster.

I was able to pry the spring outward with my fingers, just enough to slide the front shoe under it, but the rear shoe was a problem as now the spring was under tension. So I tied a wire around the spring clamped to a pair of vice grips and had my son pull that spring outward so I could guide both the rear shoe and adjuster into the front shoe, than guide the end of the spring into the brake shoe hole. That minimized the stretching of that spring and saved me 28 bucks for buying a tool I would probably never use again.

Shoe width gauge.

Is another required tool to measure the inside of the drum then just adjust the shoes to about 0.050" less, the heck with that noise, I just held up the drum to the shoes and could feel that gap with my fingers. The final adjustment is made by pumping the brake pedal, 30 times with a one second rest between pumps. I didn't care if I had to pump it 40 times so that saved me another $35.00.

But this tool is a bit more technical.


Push rod length gauge.

But I knew with the pedal full up, fluild as to pass from the calipers into the reservoir and stop maybe with a half inch of brake depression. So in the bleeding process, I just applied about 10 psi of air pressure to a convenient bleeder and saw air bubbles in the reservoir, then had my son push on the brake pedal until the air bubbles stopped, it was about 1/2" of pedal movement, so at least I knew the master cylinder was working properly. I can't find this tool on the web.

Working around "special purpose" tools is always a challenge. The last special purpose tool was an offset bleeder wrench, a 1/4" breaker bar with a socket worked just fine. But the rear was 5/16" and the front was 10mm, same old crap with GM, have to keep both English and metric sockets and wrenches handy.

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