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Fusion Frustration

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AngliaGT

AngliaGT

Great Pumpkin
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When we were living in an apartment,my Wife had her oil changed
by a local shop.That was last December,& a notice came up in the dash,
advising that it needed to be changed again,so I finally got to it,or so I thought.
It went something like this:

- Get oil & filter out

- Jack up car & support the subframe

- Remove plastic cover for drain plug

- Crawl under car with ratchet & sockets

- Put on 1/2" socket - doesn't fit (or loosen plug)

- Crawl back out from under car,get a 13mm socket

- Socket won't budge drain plug - even with a breaker bar

- Socket slips,rounding off the head of the plug

- Frustrated,I get a pair of Vise Grips (I know I know-
- you should never do that),Vise Grips keep slipping

- At this point,I admit defeat (it's also 95 degrees in the garage)

- Decide to was Wife's car & the F150 - all goes well

- a few hours later,we have a torrential down pour of rain



The thing that really got me,is my Wife called the shop,& asked if they'd
get the drain plug loose for me.Their reply - "We can get to it in three weeks".
Needless to say,we won't be dealing with that shop again.
 
which is why I don't work on my drivers. My mechanic can do this all.
 
I can't afford it anymore.
And now I find out that I need to replace the fuel pump assembly
in the rear tank of the F150.
 
Are the drain plug and oil pan both metal? If so, I routinely have to resort to a hammer and chisel to get drain plugs out of oil pans. You'd be shocked at how tight some techs at jiffy lube type places will put on a drain plug. I'm convinced they use an impact gun for speed whenever they can.
Another biggie for us is tire shops that use the Torque Monster 9000 to put lug bolts on these cars. Literally have to bounce on a breaker bar with long extender pipe to break some of them loose.

Torque wrenches are our friends.
 
Alfred E. said:
Torque wrenches are our friends.
Click to expand...


Amen! And the "Quick lube in rear" outfits are the enemy! Once had a client bring his 308 in due to an odd noise coming from the trans... he'd taken it to a quickie lube for an oil change. Whoever did the work didn't translate the "OLIO MOTORE" well and drained the transmissione instead. Then proceeded putting an excess 10 litres of oil into the crankcase. Gearbox was TRASH by the time we saw it.
 
Here's a tool that has got me out of a situation like yours a couple times. Not the greatest invention in tools, but if it works, it works. I've used a stud grabber on rounded off square head plugs also. PJView attachment 54540
 
SUCCESS!! - Bought the IRWIN kit (Made in the USA!),
& finally got it off.
 
Oil change, reminds me of this guy I knew who was a grad student when I was an undergrad many years ago. Took his car to a dealer to get the oil changed, got a call from them that there had been a slight accident. Seems the guy doing the work hadn't gotten it properly positioned on the lift and the tugging on the drain up from had caused it to fall off the lift and well, the car was upside down on the floor. Ended up getting a somewhat newer car with the dealer kicking in a few hundred bucks.
 
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