What is the longest job you have taken on?

*Fr33way™* · 12-12-2007, 02:27 PM

Whether it be by difficulty or frustration, what's the longest you have worked on a car?

For me it has probably been a few different suspension installs. Besides prepping and installing Ground Control coilovers on my car (around 4-5 hours including letting permatex set and doing strut bearings and bushings in the rear) I swapped two full suspensions with handtools in about 4 hours which was moving pretty quickly. I also spent 5-6 hours over two days when I pulled my manifold to clean and paint. I also move have a habit of cleaning everything so I'm sure I could be a good bit faster but it's also a hobby. I tend to break work up into multiple days also so my SINGLE longest session hasn't been much longer than 6 hours.

MorpheusZero · 12-12-2007, 02:39 PM

Rear strut bearings you say?

I have had my car on stands on the side of the road for over 10 hours thanks to the Konis, but only 8 or so of those hours were we working.

*Fr33way™* · 12-12-2007, 02:44 PM

I didn't think I needed to clarify in this forum...

MorpheusZero · 12-12-2007, 02:47 PM

Forgive me--I've only taken apart my rear suspension two or three times, whereas the fronts I know by heart.

If the rears did anything interesting I would probably be more interested in them.

*Delvin* · 12-12-2007, 02:56 PM

Did knock sensor, water pump, and heater core in one day on my old VE. Well over 12 hrs. Is it just me or does time go by twice as fast when working on a car??? I was a tech once and remember that a busy 12+ hr saturday went by twice as fast as a slow 8hr tuesday.

MorpheusZero · 12-12-2007, 03:44 PM

It's not just you.

*bigjoe87865* · 12-12-2007, 05:42 PM

my oil changes take over an hour....

too busy sniffing oil or something...

*NmexMAX* · 12-12-2007, 06:46 PM

When I cut my TCM harness,

Severed 12 wires IIRC, it was a bad time. But with the patience and help from an OBDII logger, I came out victorious. Took about a day and a half working on/off until I figured out what was going on. Electrical gremlins. TBW FT/LW in this case. Limp mode FT scary.

XAugusta MoonX · 12-12-2007, 07:06 PM

How'd you use the OBD logger to determine what was wrong? I severed my dash illumination wire and have yet to fix it. Everything is back together the way it was, but it still doesn't work. The weirdest thing is that the lights on the window switches in the rear work but none of the gauges, console lights, or window switches work in the front.

Sorry to hack. It took me 10 hours to do all of my suspension using hand tools and the first time ever changing springs. The 00VI took me two weeks but that's only because I wasn't sent all of the parts I needed. Actual labor time was probably 20 hours.

*speed racer* · 12-12-2007, 07:22 PM

Longest time working was a DE-K swap on my friends car and when I did my 00VI. My arms were cramping up hard.

*doc2278* · 12-12-2007, 07:39 PM

Installing my turbo kit

MorpheusZero · 12-12-2007, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NmexMAX

When I cut my TCM harness,

Severed 12 wires IIRC, it was a bad time. But with the patience and help from an OBDII logger, I came out victorious. Took about a day and a half working on/off until I figured out what was going on. Electrical gremlins. TBW FT/LW in this case. Limp mode FT scary.

Nice. That sounds like some fun times.

Honestly every time I've rigged up something electrical without outside help I've felt invincible. That's a bit more than I've done so far.

Guess that's why I finally decided on Electrical Engineering.

*NmexMAX* · 12-12-2007, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XAugusta MoonX

How'd you use the OBD logger to determine what was wrong? .

I monitored all four throttle sensors and then saw which one was giving erratic voltages, pinpointed the problem (instead of chasing down all 4 sensors) and was able to fix the problem.

DasYears · 12-12-2007, 08:46 PM

both side axles for sure. reinstalling the drivers side was the biggest pain EVAR!!

antilley · 12-12-2007, 09:40 PM

Passanger side axle on a 4th gen. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was a beating. But, the 2nd time took less than an hour

*DizzyEdge* · 12-12-2007, 10:03 PM

both axles on a 3rd gen, first one took forever.. but after finally getting it done the second one took about 1/3 of the time.

MorpheusZero · 12-12-2007, 10:11 PM

Pass axle only took me like 2 hours the first time?

MrDicks95SE · 12-12-2007, 10:27 PM

2 whole days installing my headers. i'm never doing that again. I couldve finished them in a day but laziness, frustration, soreness, set in pretty quick.

gen4maxima536 · 12-13-2007, 12:42 AM

mines been on jack stands for 3 weeks now or so. i've only been able to work on it for a few hours after work on weekends, well fri/sat. all for a new drivers axle, poly control arm bushings, wheel bearings, tie rods. should be done this weekend though

*SilverGLE* · 12-14-2007, 01:16 AM

Suspension install took the longest for me... Sunup to sundown Saturday for the fronts, then after work Monday and Tuesday for each side of the rear. Used only handtools, FTL.

*SoonerFan* · 12-14-2007, 01:28 AM

about six hours my first y-pipe install. didnt help that i tried to do it when it was cold so i had to keep going in to warm up.

*NmexMAX* · 12-14-2007, 01:50 AM

Wait 'til you install headers, or mess up electronics, like I did.

:

gen4maxima536 · 12-14-2007, 02:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soonerfan

about six hours my first y-pipe install. didnt help that i tried to do it when it was cold so i had to keep going in to warm up.

same here it was snowing while i was doing mine for the first time. then had to put half of it back together to go borrow a friends impact wrench

**Matt93SE** · 12-14-2007, 07:31 AM

longest lasting job was building my VE from 3 cores and then swapping it into the car. took almost 2 years from when I blew the engine in the car until it was running again.

longest job I worked on STRAIGHT? hmmm.
1. prepping the car for IASCA World finals in 2000. worked for about 4 days straight on it with only 1-2 hours of sleep per night until the event was over.

2. swapping engines on a customer car. 2 1/2 days straight.
drove 3 hrs to Austin after getting off work on a friday night to diagnose a "starting problem" on his VG.. wound up being a broken timing belt. I told him the engine was toast, but he wanted me to put a belt on it and see if it would run anyway. all 12 valves were bent on it- engine gone.

So we went to a junkyard and got another engine, then pulled the dead one out, swapped the new belt and water pump off the dead engine, pull the heads and installed new HGs and cleaned all the varnish out of the engine, then reassembled..

installed engine and the fcuker wouldn't run right. fuel injectors went bad sitting at the junk yard. so I had to pull the intake manifold off AGAIN and swap all 6 injectors with the ones from his old engine. finally got it running about 10pm on sunday, then had to drive 8 hours north to see family for the weekend.

*merlin2375* · 12-14-2007, 07:34 AM

definitely had some 10+ hour working sessions. One included changing a knock sensor on a 3rd gen with a buddy. That was FTL.