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What's your least favorite repair around the farm?

J

JBMac

Member
After spending 4hours replacing the belt, alternator and 3 Idler pulleys on my 2007 Chevy 2500, I'm convinced of a few things:
1.they put the sharpest things in the way that they can engineer to hurt you.
2. The fan cage was designed to make someone lose their mind.
3. If I ever find the GM engineer that designed it, I'm going to strangle him with a serpentine belt!

What are some other simple repairs you guys have done that are really a pain in the arse?
 
Changing the water pump on a F150 with a six in it.Pump was 29.00. Tool to get fan clutch off was 35.00.

When I was a kid it was changing the belt on the manure spreader.
 
Fixing the float valve in a cattle/hog waterer when it is zero out side. That makes mechanical repairs look easy anymore. LOL Just makes my hands hurt thinking about it.
 
Roofing repair/replacement when its over 100F outside. The older i get the more i hate heat.
 
Late this fall, repairing the septic system. I spent 12 painful days digging out rock filled drain lines, finding and replacing root filled 4" drain lines, rebuilding the partially collapsed distribution box, and rerouting one line that would leak stinky water into my barn shop when the ground froze and cracked sufficiently. This past summer, the big sewer line was dug down into the road in front of our place, but the houses on our side of the road are prohibited from hooking up to it... GRRRR! Of course they will soon require us to connect, but that is probably 1 to 2 years away. They will then have to dig up the newly paved road to bring the stub out to the curb.

Paul in MN

P.S. I'd gladly do almost any mechanical repair compared to laying on my belly working on that septic system.
 
If your truck is a D-Max, just wait until you have to replace the water pump! Not a hard job, but some genius engineer made it so that you have to remove the harmonic balancer to remove the water pump, because it covers ONE of the bolts that mounts the water pump.
 
Fixing a broken web on a manure spreader in the winter time in N.E. Iowa when I was a kid . We had dairy cows so we cleaned barn every day-if the web broke it was when the spreader was full and it was 10 below zero!!!!!!!!!
 
I replaced the water pump of Ford F250 PU. Took 10 hours over 3 days. A nightmare. But my hateful repair is plumbing. Because whatever gets touched breaks too. And, you need 2 trips to the hardware store, minimum.
 
Radiator on an S-10 Blazer, water pump on GMC 1500 PU with 6.2 diesel. Fuel tanks/fuel pumps on anything! Especially in the cold!
 
I"ve always thought that also. As long as you get a jury of 12 other mechanics, there"s not a court in the country that will ever convict you.
 
I'll start with something I firmly believe. I think ALL engineers who design things should do so for say 2 years then have to repair them for a year. That way things would maybe be built so you could work on them. LOL
As for my least favorite repair it is the one that stops you in the middle of doing something or going some where so you have to fix it right then and there or loose the hay crop or other such thing
 
I'd like to have a discussion with the guy in charge of sharpening the internal components of a clothes dryer. Not really farm related but bleeding hands make it tough to do the farm work.
 
My least favorite and its not just around the farm. I hate having to redo a repair made by any moron who didn't know what he was doing in the first place and got paid for it.
 
I have had this discussion with my dad many times. He is a retired farmer and I am an engineer. If every possible repair on a vehicle was made so it could easily be done you would never buy the vehicle. It would be ridiculously expensive and huge. Vehicles are made to be sold not repaired. To sell a vehicle it needs to be a right combination of quality, price, features, reliability, fuel economy, etc. Most people who buy new vehicles don't keep them long enough to make repair costs a big concern. The engineer is just trying to design a car that sells so he can keep his job. If the repair you are making right now was made easy another repair would be burred below it. Not all repairs can be right on top of the engine.
 
Well pump work- which I just did Sunday. Something about being without water just puts me in a frenzy. I want to fix it immediately and get all hyped. Being a bit claustrophobic, climbing down in the well aint too appealing either Saturday night pump stopped working, pull top off well had plenty of water no hydrants left on. Checked breakers ok, got out meter had power to both sides of pressure switch . About 630 am Sunday I"m in the well (3 foot casing well, about 80 ft deep w/ water and power going in about 12 feet below surface) hanging off a ladder suspended by digging pole across the mouth. Disconnected plumbing and power and hauled the mess out Wire had abraided in many places the whole length from rubbing against the casing. I replaced the individual strand well wire wire w/ 10-3 underground feed thinking the extra protection might help. While I was at it, I swapped out the pump ( seemed ok, but I went from a 1/2 to 3/4) and dropped the whole deal back in. I probably should have replaced the pipe too, but it looked ok- way better than that wire! Got done by about noon. No water, cramped area, underground yet kinda up in the air...no sir, I don"t like it!
 
any repair to a modern car where the engineers forgot which way the engine is supposed to face in the chassis!, oil changes to newer vehicles where no thought or allowances were made to preform this task without rolling to car onto its side for access
 
I can't think of any "favorite" repair.[/b]A piece of equipment has never broke down on me at a convienient time and place either.
One of the worst repairs i ever had to do was replacing the hydr pump on a backhoe out in nowere with the bucket burried in the dirt and the whole contraption sitting in a wet mud hole and the only access to that friggin pump was from underneath after digging a deeper hole that promptly filled with water and oil from the busted pump
The temps were just above freezing as well.
I did that job barenaked,..i start shivering again just thinking about it.
 
Sorry can not agree with you because I have been under the hood of thousands of cars and trucks and when I started working on them most where easy to work on and many got pretty good MPG. One as an example was the old Ford Falcon with the small l6 cylinder and 3 speed transmission and it got around 30 or so MPG and easy to work on. And there are many many more I could say
 
(quoted from post at 12:13:19 01/01/13) Sorry can not agree with you because I have been under the hood of thousands of cars and trucks and when I started working on them most where easy to work on and many got pretty good MPG. One as an example was the old Ford Falcon with the small l6 cylinder and 3 speed transmission and it got around 30 or so MPG and easy to work on. And there are many many more I could say
Click to expand...
ry a ford truck with a 6 ltr diesel,..you're sure to change your mind :wink:
 
Almost sounds like you where working on an old Case 580 back hoe where you have to remove most of the front end just to get to it. I remember a couple years ago helping a friend replace the fan belt on a Case 580B. Well maybe I should say I replaced the belt he handed me the wrenches to do the work as I layed under it and pulled to man parts off just to put on a fan belt
 
Well I have a 1965 Ford 1ton that I wish I could find to parts for at times. Easy as heck to work on 300 straight 6 and it got 18 or so MPG. I am not much of a ford guy so have never seen the one your talking about
 
The old Ford Falcon would never pass new safety and emissions standards. It also is no where near as reliable as newer car. Cars today last 200,000 miles easy. Double what they did 30 years ago. Cars also get 30mpg traveling 75mph today. What you remember getting 30mpg was probably at 55mph. That is a huge difference in fuel economy. I like my old trucks and cars but when it comes to daily driving give me a newer car any day. For weekend cruising around give me just about anything old and I will have a blast.
 
You evidentally haven't worked on much old machinery or vehicles then. They were easy to work on and you didn't have to disassemble half the machine to work on something. Whoever heard of having to remove the whole cab on a pickup just to replace the sparkplugs.
 
(quoted from post at 12:20:36 01/01/13) Almost sounds like you where working on an old Case 580 back hoe where you have to remove most of the front end just to get to it. I remember a couple years ago helping a friend replace the fan belt on a Case 580B. Well maybe I should say I replaced the belt he handed me the wrenches to do the work as I layed under it and pulled to man parts off just to put on a fan belt
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his was a Ford super mayor with a atlas backhoe unit bolted to the rear,the double pump was bolted to the hydr tank of the backhoe and driven with a coupler from the tractors PTO.
It was a nightmare to work on,normally only a foot or so clearance between frame and ground.
 
It would have to be getting clearance/marker lights to work on the stock trailer or grain truck. Everything you touch dumps sand,dirt, or manure in your eyes and ears. I always have stuff on hand to replace the whole light but that doesn't mean there is any hope of getting the old rusty one off.

The most foul words I have used in one day was caused by the removal of a fender top turn signal on the grain truck. I drove that thing for 6 months with one new and one old because I couldn't bring myself to do the other one. When I did the second one I skipped all the formalities and started with the reciprocating saw.
 
Shoot where you been. Speed limits back in the 60s where 70-75 and yes the falcon could get that 30mpg at that speed. Plus there where many many others that did better back in the late 50s early 60s. As for the emissions stuff most of that is gov have to have which is a lot of the problems of stuff now days. As for how long they ran well what the heck do we talk about here old stuff that just keeps on keeping on
 
My least favorite is just about anything that involves working in the cold, and having no other option but to do it. I also hate when a simple job goes to heck and turns into a nightmare.

My most current job is fixing the cv joints (replacing the complete shaft on both sides) on my '02 VW Passat. I found on the second side that the wheel bearing was out. In attempting to get that apart to press it out, I ended up damaging 3 of 4 control arms on that side, and the tie rod end. To top it off, when I got it all apart and brought it to a shop just to have them press it, the autoparts store gave me the wrong bearing. I got it just down the street from work, and the shop where I was is near home so I had to go to a different store to get the right one. The wrong one was around $60. The proper one was $135, with the shops discount....

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
The first time I did axle shafts on my 2004 passat, I was in the same boat. 7 day job. When the axle shafts under warranty started throwing grease, it was a 3 hour job. (2 years later). I haven't had to do any bearings on it though. 276,000 and still kicking! I do love my VW's. My 2012 Passat just rolled over 30k yesterday.

On edit: When you put that bolt back in that was tightened to like 300lb/ft, I used an 8 ft cheater on the ratchet and gave it about 1/2 of my 215lbs.. I don't have a torque wrench that goes to that level.
 
I used a co-workers snap-on impact and it came right out. In reassembly I used it again and just laid on it a bit. We do have a torque multiplier in the shop if I need it though.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
Agreed, the designers and engineers should have to work on what they design/build. If this would've been done with the F-16, there would be a lot fewer curse words said and a lot more maintenance being done.
 
Repairing frozen hog waterers in below zero F temperatures. Small parts, cold hands, wet gloves, cold tools, iced up waterer, kneeling on icy concrete, thirsty panicked hogs chewing on me from behind and draging off any tools and parts they can reach. Normally I like hogs.

Thirty five years ago I discovered that other people are better equiped to do the more complicated car and truck repairs that only need to be done once in the lifetime of a vehicle. Once I include my time to figure out how to do something for the first and last time, I'm ahead to just pay someone who has the tools, shop, and experience to do the repair correctly in one quarter the time or less than it takes me to do it.

I still get the service manuals for my older vehicles and lookup what it takes to make needed repairs. Then I decide if I want to do it myself or bring it to someone else. I like to choose my battles.
 
Sad thing is it isn't just cars and trucks but pretty much every thing built now days. Go back to the 60s when the AR-15 and its varied model went to Vietnam many of our troops ended up dead due to the fact the gun would not fire it it got a little dirt in it
 
I hate doing most any repair to the house. It always takes 10x longer, is 5x more expensive than you thought it would be and never ends up working like you thought it would.
 
(quoted from post at 12:32:50 01/01/13) After spending 4hours replacing the belt, alternator and 3 Idler pulleys on my 2007 Chevy 2500, I'm convinced of a few things:
1.they put the sharpest things in the way that they can engineer to hurt you.
2. The fan cage was designed to make someone lose their mind.
3. If I ever find the GM engineer that designed it, I'm going to strangle him with a serpentine belt!

What are some other simple repairs you guys have done that are really a pain in the arse?
Click to expand...
epairing cattle fencing!
 
Working on a sickle bar so I got rid of all of them and promised myself that I would never again backslide on the promise.....as I had done in the past.

Mark
 
(quoted from post at 18:03:12 01/01/13) Fixing a broken web on a manure spreader in the winter time in N.E. Iowa when I was a kid . We had dairy cows so we cleaned barn every day-if the web broke it was when the spreader was full and it was 10 below zero!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

My favorite too! We clean our barn every day, only had it break once, when it was full and about 20 degrees outside. Fun. Had it back to the dealer last summer to replace a gear that I just could not get off and he said he noted the links were getting thin.. thinking back to the time it broke I told him to replace it and fix anything else that he saw wrong with it. $1,200 later it's like a new one, cheap considering they are over $6,000 new and we have to have it work every day. I consider it our one critical piece of equipment.
 
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