What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never done?

[bob_villa]

I haven't done:

clutch, u-joint, A/C...I like doing the work if I'm not on the clock!

[rbowman]

Well yeah. It had that pancake 6 holding it down. The beetles were supposed to be good for the same reason.

[rbowman]

I doubt the other guy lives in Montana. The road report from early December to late February is usually snow packed and icy. That describes my driveway too. I don't miss the drama of getting my RWD F150 out of the driveway at all.

AWD is marketed as a feature. I honestly don't remember a salesman saying 'Buy the FWD; it's better in the snow.' I will admit I'm focused on other things when shopping for a car. I like 2 door hatchbacks and they tend to be FWD. I did have one that was RWD. I traded a '80 Camaro for a '82 Firebird when the Camaro/Firebirds went to a hatchback. It was nothing special in the snow but it was better than my '73 Mustang, which was an unmitigated disaster. When Ford went to that Mustang II POS I went GM. I haven't looked at the new offerings of either but at least they look like cars again.

[rbowman]

U-joints are easy. In theory. Like many little automotive projects the job can turn to crap.

[RS Wood]

I have to agree, I haven't done a drive shaft u-joint since the 60s when I had no tools except a hammer and screwdriver and someone gave me a Christmas gift of Craftsman open-end wrench sets.

In those days we only needed the inch sizes - none of this metric shit - but I digress.

Just like I thought the lug bolt reassembly would be hard (it was a piece of cake to put the new lug bolts in), I was surprised how *easy* the U-joint was to knock off the driveshaft.

As I recall, I removed and then wedged the driveshaft into a relatively old tree stump so it fit like a vise into the wood (I didn't have a bench vise, nor even a bench to bolt it to in those days).

Whack! Whack! Pop! ... wow. That was easy!

Wouldn't you know it. The u-joint just popped out of the shaft.

I forget all the details as this was more than 50 years ago, but I was surprised how *easy* it was. I think it went in pretty easily as I don't recall remembering anything about reassembly and you only remember the times when you're surprised.

That was my first, and my last drive shaft ujoint but it was so easy, I'm

*glad* I did it. I remember it looked like a stocky sturdy hefty heavy cross with beautifully machined round caps on each of the four ends.

Anyway, I think I've learned a lot in this thread, which was two of the three things we discussed.

1. Why most of us don't do the five or six jobs
2. Why cars last forever nowadays
3. Let's just forget the warp, fwd, drilled rotor stuff. :)

Here's my pensive summary why most of us don't do the six main jobs:

1. major engine work (we don't have the time to do it on a daily drive)
2. automatic transmission (we don't have the skill set to do it right)
3. manual transmission (we need a couple of tools that we don't have)
4. alignment (we need to think too much and it hurts our brains to do that)
5. tires (it's just too freaking easy to pay someone else to do them)
6. paint (we don't have the necessary skills to do the job well)

How does that sound as a summary as to *why* we don't do those 6 jobs.

[The Real Bev]

Remember the "How does the snowplow driver drive to his snowplow?" commercials?

My 83 Sentra (FWD of course) with real-chain chains was very good on the

20 miles of 2-3 inches of packed snow/ice on the mountain road up to the ski are. Nobody told me you weren't supposed to drive 40, which is what I was doing. After maybe 4 trips one of the chains broke.

I don't know whether it was the RWD or the soft racing tires, but driving down the mountain in my friend's S2000 was the best driving experience I've ever had even including the botched shifts!

In my defense, I hadn't driven stick for 15 years and the shifter only provided a TINY amount of physical space between the gears and I had no idea where I was most of the time.

[AMuzi]

Good point. There's also meatware.

Being also a Corvair guy, I am somewhere between incompetent and dangerous in a FWD. All my instincts are wrong for that. Younger drivers who drive those all day are good at it and ought to stay away from Corvairs, Porsches etc.

[Tekkie®]

RS Wood posted for all of us...

You know I really don't care what what you think of me. I am satisfied that I have done good deeds for my fellow citizens.