I can’t say for sure if there is some supernatural entity that watches over humans attempts to wrench on their cars, but if there is I feel like they must be some manner of miserable, cruel being, gorged on stolen 10mm sockets and deriving joy from our pain. I say this because this weekend instead of doing the things I wanted to do on my Citroën 2CV, I attempted to make some repairs to my ’89 Ford F-150 that ended up in mild disaster. Oy.
I still have a healthy list of things I need to do on the 2CV – install a new voltage regulator (it’s on order), assemble the headlight angle doohickey the proper way, change the gear oil, replace the CV boots, and so on. But I have other vehicles that need attention, like my purple-ish pickup truck that I need to do pickup truck things.
I replaced the water pump on the truck a number of months ago, and after a short period of trouble-free operation, it started creating a mobile sauna everywhere I went, and it looked like the cause was coolant escaping from the thermostat housing. It seemed like a bad gasket.
Also, somehow the serpentine belt has become strangely ragged, and while I’m not sure why this happened, it happened, so I decided to replace this raggedy belt:
The belt replacement went fine, so that was good at least. I removed the thermostat housing and removed the old gasket, which, as you can see, wasn’t in great shape:
That’s non-ideal, and if I were steam, I’d escape from there, too. The new gasket looked downright luxurious:
I got a new thermostat as well, and as I was installing it in the housing and getting it all back together, I remember thinking those bolts weren’t quite as tight as they probably should have been, which may have contributed to the escaping coolant. So I decided to use a breaker bar and get them nice and snug.
This was a mistake.
As I was tightening the lower bolt, I decided to give it one more good twist, and that’s when I heard the snick sound that make my heart drop. Did I crack the housing?
I cracked the housing.
I’m an idiot. It’s a cast part, and I should have known better. In an act of wild, unhinged optimism, I started the truck and drove it around the block, just to see if the crack would actually allow coolant to escape.
It did. Crap. I guess I need to get a new thermostat housing.
So, that’s frustrating. I was running out of daylight and free time, but I wanted to do some stuff on the 2CV, so I did some little things I’ve been meaning to do. Small things, but fun things. One was an excuse to 3D print a part.
The rear interior door handles for the 2CV are sort of strange. They’re these little levers on the underside of the latching mechanism (the upper lever is to lock/unlock) and they have a little black plastic knob/lever thing on their ends.
I was missing the one on the driver’s side rear door; with the plastic part gone, it’s just a little metal tab that’s hard to see and get your finger around. They’re kind of difficult to notice anyway for 2CV-unfamiliar rear seat passengers, which are the vast majority of people around here. So, to make them more obvious, I printed new plastic levers in red.
They seem to work pretty well!
Classy, right?
I also decided to set up my sound system/in-car navigation/center stack screen setup. That’s just an aggrandized way of saying some place to hold/charge my phone and a Bluetooth speaker:
I still need to find neater ways to tuck those wires out of the way, but I found the wiper motor cover makes a great mounting place for a magnetic phone charger, and I shoved a cheap BT speaker in the oddments tray. The setup seems to work pretty well!
The phone’s position is good, providing an easy view of a map if needed, and the speaker makes music or podcasts audible over the not-really-whisper-quiet air-cooled flat-twin. I plan on daily driving this thing, so this sort of thing is important.
Oh, and for reasons I don’t understand and don’t really want to question, the interior light and hazard lights decided to start to work again after months and months of dormancy. I did nothing special to make this happen, but I’m not complaining!
I need to fix the truck before next weekend. Hopefully the new thermostat housing will do it!
I won’t call out what everyone else already has, but I’m surprised you had no issue keeping the thermostat in place in the housing. It looks like the 300 has the thermostat oriented vertically just like the 302/351, and it’s finicky to keep the t-stat in place as you install the housing onto the engine. The trick there is to use a rubber band to hold the t-stat in place, and once you’ve got the housing in place you can cut the rubber band before finally tightening the housing bolts.
I think this may have been a previous article: what were our dumbest repair moves?
I’ll start: first car was 1977 Accord three door. Installing new battery, but the post on the new battery was just a smidge too large to allow the terminal to be fully seated, no matter how I tried to open it up. Light bulb lit up over mu head; just take a block of wood, put on top of the terminal and tap it down with a hammer, until the soft lead was fully seated on the battery. Turns out soft lead is still stronger than battery case plastic. This was in the 1980’s, I was so ashamed of my stupidity that I told no one and bought a new battery at a different store as well. With a new set of replacement battery terminals.
Feels good to fess up. Maybe The Autopian can create either struggle sessions or a multi step program for those of us with dubious wrenching skills.
Not my dumbest, but I definitely set myself back just this weekend!
I removed underbody trays to repair a few cracks, etc. Just a little fiber mesh, some JBWeld, nicely applied, some black paint, they’ll look great. I’m anal retentive this way. Well they weren’t cured yet, so I left them off today.
On my way to work today, the extra wind got up into the engine, and came down on the remaining panel, and tore the front of it off. I hear grinding while driving. Sure enough that panel is torn and hanging down. So now, I have to decide if I tear it off before driving home, or just let it self-clearance on my way home.
Either way I’ve turned a minor anal-retentive repair, into a major panel-repair / replacement.
Ugh.
In college, changed the oil in my ’85 Jetta 2dr, didn’t notice the old oil filter seal stayed stuck to the filter mount. So of course, once started, it dumped four quarts of very expensive for a broke college student Mobil 1 onto the Old Man’s pristine driveway. Ooops. Neither of us was very happy, but he did float me the cash for four more quarts of oil. At his usual stiff interest rate, of course. Thank Dog for the First Bank of the Old Man.
I once did an oil change through the transmission fluid hose.
As soon as I read “so I got out the breaker bar to get the bolts tight” I winced. Here’s a pro-tip: you can look up generic bolt tightening specs by size, thread pitch, and bolt grade. Here’s one source for inch size bolts: https://www.portlandbolt.com/technical/bolt-torque-chart/
If you go down to grade 8, you’ll see the 5/16-18 bolt that I suspect is what is used for the tstat housing in the F150 has a max tightening torque of 25 foot pounds. That’d be a pinky’s worth on a breaker bar. Even if the housing hadn’t cracked, the bolt would have stretched and likely snapped the next time you tried to take it out.
Also note that even that 25 foot pounds will create over 4000 pounds of clamp load. That’s way more than enough to keep the steam in, I promise.
I say all this with love and affection, as a serial over-tightener myself in the past, who is trying to reform. Have some faith in those little friendly inclined planes wound up in a spiral! They’re mightier than you think.
I have to hand it to Torch – not many people would have admitted the breaker bar thing.It’s not quite spaghetti in the shower disgraceful, but its right up there….
He told us about chainsawing those lead acid batteries. This is small potatoes by comparison.
Well, breaker bars come in various sizes. I just hope this was not a 3/4″ bar with a 6′ pipe as a sleeve.
My tool box has a 2′ chunk of electrical conduit that acts as perfect cheater on my 1/2″ breaker bar.
I have a 3′ piece of pipe from a chainlink fence. It also works really well.
One end has a 30-45deg bend in the last foot (from the tree falling on the fence), and the bend works surprisingly well when it’s hard to get a straight angle at the breaker bar handle.
Those thermostat bolts won’t know what hit-em!
Yes I have a dainty little 1/4″ drive breaker bar in my tool box I found at an estate sale. It looks funny next to a 1/2″ drive one
I looks like a thermostat housing will do as long as you hide the breaker bar before you attempt the install.
My wife’s grandpa has a sign in his shop from his grandpa that reads “Tight is tight. Too tight is broke.”
My wife likes to quote it at me when I get bolts too tight…
More failures occur due to overtightening than undertightening. Soon as one of my cars gets out of the shop, I’m in the driveway with a breaker bar and torque wrench loosening and hand retorqueing every single wheel lug. I think I own 5 torque wrenches.
Tighten the German way: Gudentight
I only own 3 🙁
But they cover 20 in-lb (2.2Nm) up to 150 ft-lb (203Nm)
But I also re-torque lugs if I had to go to a shop!
I just bought a NICE pair of fancy electronic torque wrenches (1/2 and 3/8) on sale that can automatically do angle torquing. Absolute game changer, that. Now I want a matching 1/4 in one for those inch-lb specs.
I haven’t let a shop touch my lug nuts in over a decade. If I get a puncture that needs repair I will bring the wheel/tire in loose for them to repair.
Now I use a Mobile Tire Service when I get new tires and/or wheels. I will have whatever they need to work on off the car and ready for them to do their magic and I will re-mount them when complete.
It helps that I have a dedicated set of Winter/Summer tires for both our cars… I wish I had a lift, but I don’t.
In the unlikely event I needed a shop to work directly on the car (such as an issue on a road trip), I would be right there with you loosening and re-torquing ASAFP.
PA state inspection requires the shop to pull one front and one rear wheel for brake pad/drum/rotor thickness check.
I’ll add PA to my ‘never live there’ list. Sadly over half the States are on the list for a myriad of reasons.
I’m to the point where I am so disgusted with tire monkeys that I just take the wheel/wheels off the car, take them to the shop, and put them back on myself. Helps to have multiple cars.
I used to know someone who was nicknamed Lefty Lucy and her girlfriend was known as Mighty Tighty. But that’s a whole different story…
Since the MagSafe/Qi2 charger seems to be adhesive, I’ll take it that you don’t mind adhesive things on your dash. Some small wire management things used in electronics:
Either small mounts plus small zip ties (McMaster part numbers, you can get them from electrical supplies also): 7582K11, 80005K85
or small clips: search McMaster on “cable holders.” You’ll see a dozen types of small clips (and some big ones) for wire management, most or all of which will let you add and remove wires.
That phone wallpaper is sick as hell.
I can’t be the only one who thought it was from something before realizing who that is and how obvious it should have been.
As if using a breaker bar to tighten a bolt wasn’t enough proof Jason’s training is in the arts.
I mean the word break is in breaker. What did he expect?!
Why wasn’t I warned this could happen!! How was I to know?!
Don’t beat yourself up. Some days I’m a rock star in the garage. Other days, well…
BTW – if your serpentine belt continues to get chewed up check the harmonic balancer. The one on my 300-6 became delaminated. It still drove all the accessories fine but moved in and out periodically, chewing up belts and even carved a hole in the timing cover before I figure out what was going on.
Good tip, DT had the same issue with the Tracker.
Since he also just replaced the water pump, he might first check if there is an issue with the pump pulley bearing or the pump pulley alignment?
But yeah, all the pulley’s should be checked.
Agreed. Always check what you replaced or messed with first. In my case nothing was messed with. It just started shredding belts.
electric door handles would be so much easier
Don’t forget the supercapacitor powered electric backup emergency latch.
No need for a red-tipped visible handle on this baby!
We’ve all been there. I recently broke one of my 356’s clutch bolts WITH a torque wrench! I guess it was just old, and this was it’s time…
Earned me an hour extra in the garage, of fiddling the stump out and making a new one same size/weight as the other ones to not upset the balance.
I like the 2CV updates. Remembering how rough and simple the car is. Had forgotten about those rear door latches, as I was usually in the front row on mine.
Was replacing leaking valve covers on a friends Murano. Snapped a valve cover bolt with a 4″ long stubby 1/4″ ratchet. Really?!?! Those bolts were made of taffy.
Ever hear of and use a torque wrench? Why on Earth would you use a beaker bar for this?
I cringed as soon as I read those words. Why would you use a breaker in there? Oh boy. I know Torch knows better, but dang, man.
I’m asking myself the same thing
We get tired, frustrated and sloppy.
Breaker bar – Only for loosening.
Torque wrench – Only for tightening.
The More You Know…
At least he didn’t use a chainsaw…
yet
Jason, if you’re going to work on the 2CV (especially with a chainsaw), at least be ready with some manufacturer-appropriate things to say when things go well:
“Bof!”
…and when they don’t:
”Zut alors! Merde! Mon pauvre escargot…”
Profanity in your car’s native language is more effective. With my Mexican built Fiat I curse in Spanish as well as Italian.
Well, how ELSE are you supposed to get the old gasket off?
What you’ve never heard the whispering voice of your breaker bar in your ear toward the end of a long day? Go on, just use it… a quarter turn ought to do it….
My dad said a breaker bar is for breaking bolts loose and breaking bolts tight. Sounds the same, but they are not.
Maybe he had PTSD from coolant leakage and didn’t want to clean up or buy or smell any more coolant for a while. Whoops.
Status of the 2CV- Très bien!
Status of the F150- Merde!
Sacre Dieu! Mon F-Cent Cinquante est une putain de merde!
Tabarnak!
Hopefully, it’s relatively pain free to source a new thermostat housing for the Marshall, I also wonder how well JB weld would hold up for a temporary solution, it’s probably not worth trying if you don’t have to, but wouldn’t it be great if that sealed it up!
I had to JB a cracked thermostat housing on my old Jeep XJ. It held up just fine. Also used JB on a hairline fracture on the oil pan of my old Chrysler 300M with success.
Last summer I used JB Weld to fix several cracks in my XJ engine block where coolant was leaking. Still working!
You Sir, are a braver man than I. I did grind out the cracks in both cases with a Dremel die grinder and liberally degrease with brake clean.
The die cast aluminum oil pan on the 300M was a stressed member requiring dropping the entire front subframe to replace. That was hard no from me.
Reassembling the Brat engine this weekend and over torqued one of the oil pan bolts. I guess it was a good thing because when I pulled the oil pan back off I realized I forgot the oil pickup tube/strainer.
After a reverse drill bit and an easy out didn’t work I just ran down to Auto Zone for a thread repair kit. $34! I guess they know how to price the stuff you need today.
Last night I was admiring the engine finally in the car almost ready to go with one shiny oil pan bolt and realized the exhaust wont connect because I put one of the manifolds on the wrong way. Looking forward to another day of bone headedness in the garage!
One ugga dugga to many.
Looking at that belt, check your other pulleys and power steering pump for binding or a burr.
Or if the pully(s) are not in alignment with each other (i.e. not in the same plane), causing your belt to much itself to death & any new belt you replace will follow…
Yes! Check the fan clutch too. Suspect a load or alignment issue.
At the Torch School of Automotive Repair chainsaws are for opening lead-acid batteries, breaker bars are for bolts you want to tighten, and everyone’s grades are kept on salami.
Hail, Hail Jasonia! (sung to the tune of that Freedonia song from Duck Soup.)
COTD!
This comment is the bent.
and the dog always eats my homework.
Back in the early 1990s I had a similar experience with a thermostat housing on the 250 straight-six in my old 1967 C-10 pickup. When I tried to remove the old thermostat housing to replace my thermostat, one of the bolts just snapped right off.
Luckily for me, on those motors, there’s both an upper thermostat housing and a lower thermostat housing.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/6OgAAOSwC9hb7O79/s-l1600.webp
I did not own a tap/die set back then, but I was able to get that lower housing off without breaking any bolts. It was early on a Saturday, and the salvage yard was open Saturday mornings, but it was almost an hour from where I lived. When I called them, they said that yes, they did have a few 250s in the yard and that I would have to pull one myself, so bring my tools. They also said that due to an off-road race, they would be closing early in about 30 minutes so if I wanted one, I needed to get there right away.
When I explained that I was about an hour away, the owner asked me, “Are you that guy with that blue ’67?” (I had been getting parts from him for a while now) I replied that I was. He said, “You’re good. Just get here when you get here, jump the fence, take what you need, and just pay me the next time you’re in the area.”
So I borrowed my mom’s car, drove down there, got my parts, (luckily the dogs were friendly and no cops drove by while I was jumping the fence) made it back home, swapped out the housings, (had to use RTV for the lower gasket) fired it up – and it worked! No leaks!
About two weeks later I was near that junkyard so I stopped in to pay the owner. I had to remind him as he had forgotten all about it. When I asked how much he wanted for both housings, he said, “5 bucks.”
I miss junkyards like that.
Oh, those were the days. Great story, too.
My aunt, a car collector herself, told me about a junk yard in the boonies of western Virginia, and I went to their office to inquire about it. They gave me directions to the remote yard, and I found all sorts of chrome and trim pieces to fit my ’63 Galaxie XL convertible. When I went back to the office and showed them my haul and asked what I owed, they asked ME what I thought I should pay. I said $10 and they agreed! Boy how I also miss those days.
I miss the Saturdays I would drive the little 4wd wagon up the side of the mountain, pull stuff/walk around admiring old iron, then eat lunch with the company of a fence lizard before creaking back down to the office. I always showed them the bolts/little trim connectors, too.
They soon would wave that stuff off and my prices dropped, too.
Spend an hour in Red’s garage checking out the latest Mopar madness he had going on: good times
There used to be two junkyards across the street from each other near me, and I started my junkyard exploits by going to the one that mainly dealt in wrecks, but one day this yard didn’t have what I was looking for, so I went across the street – where I found several of my make, model, and year automobile that were driven-in / towed-in to this junkyard. It kinda made me depressed.
I had a friend I was helping out with some interior work, and I would stop at the junker junkyard and the first few times I would show them the screws I had grabbed and they just waved me away. Eventually they added a $5 or $10 fee to go scrounge in the yard to take care of these minor items.
I miss the junkyard that was less than a mile from my place run by 3 brothers. U pull it, would never accept any money from me since they all knew my Uncle well.
The cost was having to visit with them in their junky office trailer for at least an hour and listen to them argue and complain about everything. When it was time to junk a vehicle, I would bring it there and tell them they can have all their parts back now 🙂
I used to do business with a company that sold climbing and caving supplies that was like that. Great products, service, and prices but you always knew you were going to be talking to the owner for 45 minutes when making an order. He was super cool so it was perfectly fine with me.
Torque wrenches are inexpensive and plentiful.
Cheap, sketchy torque wrenches are more inexpensive and plentifuller on Amazon.
Cheap, sketchy torque wrenches are more inexpensive and plentifuller on Amazon.
And at Harbor Freight! Plus there’s no wait for delivery.
Idk if they still do it, but for a while when I was young and poor they would exchange any broken tools under warranty at pretty much any age.
Eventually I gave up on having them replace busted torque wrenches and just spent the money on a good one.
Harbor Freight now has (some) good torque wrenches.
In addition to these, I bought a cheap electronic torque gauge that works surprisingly well – it beeps when you hit the torque – it is a bit clunky to set the setpoint though.
Can I get a Fuel Shark on there? Those are awesome, right? I can’t wait to see how much gas I’ll save!
I thought I was a clumsy wrench but even I know you never use a breaker bar to tighten things. At least it was something on the F150 that AutoZone is likely to have, not something on the 2CV that would have to come from France.
We’ve all been three, most recently for me was a brake caliper bolt on the girlfriend’s Pacifica. They just kept tightening, and never seemed to bottom out, so in a boneheaded act of complete idiocy I gave the front driver’s side bolt one last tug, just to be sure; and it snapped right off. Proceed to 45 minutes of Uber rides to and from Autozones to get a replacement and the job was sorted. Fortunately the rent a lift shop humored us and didn’t charge us extra for the near hour we were gone fetching parts. I mean an extra $7 wasn’t gonna kill us, but they were as surprised as I was when I explained what had happened.
So I also have a JBL Charge for my 2CV, although since I normally run with the top down, the mixture of wind noise and French steel duet make music hard to hear.
Indeed, every new person in my 2CV gets the “safety demonstration” because nobody can find the front or rear door handles. And nobody can find the rear seatbelts, which is fair as there aren’t any.
I’ve joked about making a laminated “safety card” for the car. If I were The Bishop instead of his Brother, I’d have the skilz to pull it off
Q: Where are the rear seat belts?!?
A: Je vous salue, Marie
Pleine de grâce ;
Le Seigneur est avec vous.
Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes,
Et Jésus, le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni.
Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu,
Priez pour nous pauvres pécheurs,
Maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.
Amen.
That’s actually the entire safety card, if we’re honest. Careful driving and lots of prayers
“I normally run with the top down…” as the actress said to your brother.
No torque wrenches!?
Let me introduce you to my good friend: the torque wrench.
That’s what you want to use if you need to snug up some bolts. Breaker bars are for breaking things – it’s right there in the name!
Glad you’re getting that gorgeous little C2V up and running! That’s one of the cars that alway brings a smile to my face when I see them on the road, which so far is “never”. The other is the FIAT 500, which I see a lot of around where I live in Colorado.
What about any Torch wrenching content has you thinking he has a torque wrench to hand or in mind? I love the man, but that’s not his vibe.
I could say that there’s a Torque Wrench, and there’s a Torch Wrench and they are different things
Lol. I’ve used a Torch Wrench, but only for loosening stuck fasteners.
That’s why I was offering to introduce them!