What's the worst job..........

[stan_deezy]

In the middle of a cambelt change at the moment which requires the whole engine to be taken out of the car and I wondered what the worst job is people have to tackle on a boat/car/house/bike?

I had a few of the old style Mini cars that British Leyland used to produce and the clutch change had to rate highly on the list of jobs I never ever want to tackle again.

So what's the worst job you've tackled and would rather pay someone to do?

I'd bet there's a few good ones out there!

 

[tommays]

Re: What's the worst job..........

I repair mixers THAT the blades can not be removed from all the repairs must be done inside the tank

To make it more fun they have a full set of counter-rotating blades fully able to chop you up should you not follow safety procedures and just to make you nervous they have high-pressure steam to cook you and a water supply to drowned you


And then there is the venting so the argon level does not get too high and you pass out: (

Tommays

 

[rwise]

Re: What's the worst job..........

old septic lines, never again d
or how about marriage
I watched as my son and nephew spent 3 days putting a heater moter on a buick I used to have so they could drive it to school, they said it was a stupid place to put the blower moter (LOL) kept them in school so they can pay someone to work on their auto's

 

[treedancer]

Re: What's the worst job..........



Believe it or not Stan, I had an Austin, I think it was made by British Leyland not the most pleasurable of pursuits is/was trying to get the hydraulic fluid into the suspension system. You know most likely better than I it being air over hydraulic. I believe it was a 1965 model could not get it tight enough to keep it from listing to one side or another. When it was listing on the right side could not talk the wife into getting in it, the steering was on the left, and I was driving as was made for the States.

 

[KaGee]

Re: What's the worst job..........

This job looks pretty risky....

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Oh KG, imagine if it gets the Kentucky outhouse trotts.:^:^:^

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Stan, would have to say an engine swap in a Subie.
Drop it out the bottom.
Use to, we would just flip them up on their side and do it.d

 

[roscoe]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Had to change a temp sensor/switch that activates the cooling fan on an '86 Honda Apencade.
Start by removing the rear saddlebag covers, then the seat, the fairing pocket covers, liners........ drain radiator and move it to the side and inch.... removed 97 pieces in total, to change a $24 part.

It wasn't hard, but sure took a long time.

 

[stan_deezy]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Tommays, that sounds grim with a capital "G" :^

Treedancer, that Austin sounds like an 1100 or a 1300 with the hydrolastic suspension (or knicker elastic suspension as it was nick-named!). Horrendous invention and without the right equipment darned near impossible to sort out :'(

And Kagee, you are right, that looks like one job I'd pay someone else to do!

rwise, oh yes, septic lines are a no-no.............!

roscoe, sounds like the stoopid o-ring I had to replace on an aircon system..........25cents o-ring and three hours labour plus a discharge/recharge bill on the aircon gas :|

 

[technostingray]

Re: What's the worst job..........

This job looks pretty risky....

This is a metaphor for the function of an Assistant Director except that a Bushel basket must be used and if it is done well enough you then become a Director. I would really like to know "the rest of the story" on this photo.

 

[heycods]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Hauling square bales of sudan grass hay by hand, I hate it and Im alergic to it, phooie, yuck and a few hundred other terms.

 

[crunch]

Re: What's the worst job..........

I worked in a Plywood mill many years ago. Every year over the Holidays we would shut down for a week to clean the glue vats and the fire box for the steam plant.... I got nabbed for both.

The glue vats are 5000 gal. tanks and they pump one dry into the other. Then you go into them in pairs to scoop out the sludge, pairs because the stuff got you high as a kite and if one passed out, the theory was the other could tie a rope to you and the other pair up top would haul you out.

While we were doing the vats, the fire box was cooling. Picture a 20'x20'x20' box that has had a raging fire in it for 358 days, filled 12' deep... and been cooling for 3.

The box has 3 doors, 2 at the bottom and one at the top. When I got to it the pair before had opened a chanal along one wall at the top connected to a "slide slope" to one of the doors at the bottom... one guy inside the box shoveling hot coals down to the other at the bottom... he shoveling them into a wheel barrow and dumping them 30' away outside to be hauled off.

You switched every 1/2 hr... the method was spray the red hot coals down with a fire hose, shovel as long as you could stand it, stagger to the door to cool for a minute... repeat as necessary. The guy I was paired with wouldn't go back in after 15 minutes... we didn't switch after that.

Before that experience, I thought changing the heater fan on a Tornado was bad... first step, pull the engine and transaxel. 8)

 

[woodrat]

Re: What's the worst job..........

That sounds like my job when I was 18. I worked in an engine rebuilding shop and almost as soon as I started, I got the job of mucking out the jet cleaner sump. This was the giant steel "dishwasher" that we would put nasty old engine blocks in and they would get sprayed with high pressure hot caustic solution to wash the grunge off. All the grunge would settle out in the sump below. I don't think anyone had done that job in several years, since the last new guy was there, no doubt...

I also worked on the youth conservation crew mopping up forest fires. That was some of the filthiest and hardest work I ever did, and I was only 15 then.

As far as working on cars, nothing has really been that awful. Volvo heater motors are a b**ch, I guess, but you don't have to pull the engine and tranny anyway, and that torque tube Rambler driveline wasn't much fun to change the u joints on. I don't really like working behind the dashboard on any Honda either. I used to wreck out foreign cars in a couple of different salvage yards. One time we processed over 100 cars for the crusher in 5 days. We had tires stacked up to the ceiling and after the crusher got there and started working, we broke down tires for days, whenever we weren't on another job. I'm not really crazy about tire service, you get really filthy really quickly. My partner and I pulled the engine and transmission out of a Nissan 4x4 truck once that week in 20 minutes without using the torch.

Custom, you ever read "the death ship" by B. traven? Some very similar scenes to what you describe in there, stoking the coal fires on a steam powered ship in the 20's.

 

[crunch]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Never read it, but I can relate to the fire fighting thing... ever do it in poison oak? Get it in the back of your eyes and down your throat?.... Ahhh, the fun we had in our youth.

I’m from a USFS family. 8)

 

[Autotech1]

Re: What's the worst job..........

swapped a transmission in a fiero.

set the rear subrame on a pallet, disconnect the struts fom the body, and all the other subframe bolts, wires, hose, an stuff. Lift rear of car high enough with the cherrypicker to pull drive train fom under neith car.

Subarus are a breeze to work on anymore. Audis are the worst ive seen.

 

[Link]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Hmmm all but one light in my dash is burned out.
95 ford van
steering brake pedal and whole dash must be removed to replace bulbs!
Going to trade it in during daylight

72 opel gt
engine and tranny must be remove together and from under the car also.
car sits 4 inches off the ground.
Going to sell it before anything needs to be done

Oh yea!
Used to be Herding cats! Until I learn how

 

[xtraham]

Re: What's the worst job..........

trash trucks.........
dirty, greasy,nasty, always breaking something,
electric over air over hydraulic controls..........
while under them they drip oil,hydraulic fluid,maggots, and leachate that will eat a hole in concrete, some even dump human waste........*puke

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Having to find an electrical problem with Lucas items!!!

 

[CN Spots]

Re: What's the worst job..........

Replacing a heater core in a '79 Mustang/Capri. The entire dash has to come out.:devil:

spots

 

[woodrat]

Re: What's the worst job..........

I had a girlfriend once with an old triumph motor cycle, all lucas electrical of course. We used to joke about the three settings for the headlight switch being OFF, DIM and FLICKER.

No Custom, I never did fight it it Poison Oak land, otherwise I'd probably be dead. That stuff gets me in a big way. I lived in northern cal for a few years and finally got to the point where I could get a little bit of it on me and not need the cortisone shot. I was semi useless as a choker setter...

Lets see, I remember that pulling the engine from an alfa romeo was a PITA, since we didn't realize until it was too late that it was better to leave the engine and trans as a unit. The trans had long studs in it that held it to the engine and there wasn't really enough room to get the engine forward enough to clear the studs....aaargh!

I also had a job with a restaurant dishwahser company. I got to mix up 800 gallon batches of chemical products in big open vats...had holes in all my clothes back then. Also had to go on service calls when the other guys were busy. Boy some restaurants you would never eat in again if you'd ever been in their kitchens...+o(

Once I was loading a semi truck with five gallon buckets of chemical "product". Earlier that morning the boss's kid had spilled some phosphoric acid on the floor of the shop, and I didn't realize that he hadn't really cleaned it up. So here I am, standing in the back of the semi trailer that is backed up to the shop and I'm unloading buckets off of a pallet on the forklift. I end up taking one too many off of one side, the pallet tips and the buckets hit the phosphoric acid covered floor. Well, chlorine bleach, which is what was in the buckets that burst, turns to chlorine GAS when it hits acid like that. So now I've created a huge and growing cloud of CL gas that I have to go THROUGH to get out of the building. I was sick for days.. no one ever said a word to the boss's brat about his acid spill, but I sure heard about the bleach spill.

Ah yes, the fun we had in our youth.... I was so happy when my old boss at the foreign car dismantlers called me up and offered me my old job back over there. I gave my notice at the dishwashing company that afternoon.