I spend a lot of my spare time working on cars for my own enjoyment, and also because I could never own a large fleet of cars if I didn’t do most of the repairs myself. With that being said, I am not a professional mechanic, even when I help out family, friends, and neighbors; and aside from being one teenage decision away from it, I am not an engineer. Therefore, I understand that I don’t understand why engineers (and accountants) often do things the way they do. The 1974 Firebird filler panel shown missing above is one of the engineering decisions I don’t understand.
This is the filler panel of which I speak. It is solely found on 1974 and 1975 Firebirds, and is often cracked, missing, or unpainted. Mine cracked while in winter storage, so one of my tasks this summer was to replace it.
It’s not a terribly difficult job to remove the header panel, which is good, because otherwise you’d have to remove the bumper and valance panel to access the myriad bolts that hold the filler piece in place.
Once it’s removed, you can get to work. Luckily, someone replaced mine (but didn’t paint it) before I bought the car, so all the nuts and bolts had already been awakened from their decades-long indolence ahead of time.
I’m happy that this part is reproduced, but not so happy that like so many other reproduction parts, it requires some modifications to fit. Luckily, I was alerted to this by another ’74 Firebird owner on a Pontiac forum. If I would have painted this piece beforehand, this would have been exponentially more frustrating.
After a little slicing, dicing, and drilling, the piece fit well enough. It’s clear that my Firebird is a driver-level 10 footer, so I’m satisfied with a fairly good fit.
A coat of “close enough” Buccaneer Red finished the job, but that raises my question of the day.
As I worked on installing this new piece, which is held in by 11 bolts, two push pins, and a metal brace, I wondered why the engineers used it at all? Couldn’t they have just extended the header panel down a couple inches? With that being said, there is no way that accounting would have signed off on all this hardware if there wasn’t a really good reason. Five-mile-per-hour bumpers were in their infancy, and few made them work like Pontiac did, so there has to be some rational explanation that I am not privy to.
Is there an engineering decision you’ve seen and questioned, knowing that there had to be some rational explanation?
Questionable engineering decisions? Yes, often. And this come from an engineer.
One that stands out is Ford and how to drain crankcase oil. My ’96 Thunderbird had an oil filter in which another joint was needed between elbow and wrist and oil still drained down one’s arm. Or my parent’s and in-laws ’85 and ’87 Crown Victorias having two drain plugs for engine oil. Or my uncle’s old ’68 F-250 in which the oil drained onto a crossmember, spraying oil all over.
Whoever designed the aftermarket seats for my old Econoline had suffered some type of neurological trauma given how they were designed (or maybe “design” is too charitable) for removal. Doing so requires removal of a pin in which there is zero clearance, thus requiring a punch and much swearing.
GM deserves credit also. Replacing an oil filter on a ’93 Century with a 3.3 V6 requires a sharp turn, or removal, of the right front wheel.
Chrysler for the undersized wiring in my current old Dodge pickup.
Although, to play Devil’s Advocate, if your header panel was easy to remove, thank an engineer. While pure speculation, the piece you replaced may have been created to help facilitate easier removal of the panel.
Grouping engineers with accountants was one of the most gaggifying and offensive things I’ve seen in quite a while! Those are fighting words. 🙂
Questionable engineering decisions? I’ve got a good one. We’ve all done oil changes where when the filter screws into the block side ways, the oil drips down the side of the block and all over whatever else is under it and most of it goes into the waste pan on the floor. The current Mitsubishi Mirage (the cheap little 3 cyl that that press loves to bash) has a spout under the oil filter. The oil drips down the spout clear of the block and into the waste pan. The questionable part is why every car doesn’t have this setup?
Dripping oil down the undercarriage at every oil change is part of the rust-protection strategy.
My Toyota Highlander has that little “spout” thing too. It’s dandy and I’ve never encountered anything similar on any other car that I’ve owned.
Now, if the Highlander didn’t require the removal of about 15 self-tapping fasteners in way too many pieces of plastic trim in order to access the oil filter, that would be something. 🙂
What year is your Highlander? I have a 2005 3.3 V6 and I can access the filter from above so I don’t have to mess with the splash guards. It also has the drain funnel to mostly collect the oil and route it down a central plunge.
2006. With I think the same engine as yours…but mine is also a hybrid. There’s no way I can access the filter from above. But one way or another, all of the plastic trim has been lost from mine, so getting at it from the bottom has actually been rather easy for the past 5 or 6 years.
Ha ha…I didn’t mean to lump together engineering and accounting, just to imply that the two are forced to work together, and the rationale for certain decisions rests somewhere between the two departments.
If you are good with aluminum foil you could use it to direct both the oil from the drain plug and the filter down and into a container with no mess. Now there is the Fumoto drain plug where I can place a clear hose line onto and drain my 65 which has the same issue. With that let’s go out and change some oil. This car is easy.
The solution I came up with on my 94 Cougar was by accident, I bought a new engine to swap in from a Lincoln Aviator and lo and behold discovered the truck line of 4.6s had the power steering mounted higher up and the oil filter was mounted at an angle accessible from the front. Dropped that engine into my car as is and oil changes are now a breeze. It’s Ike the engineers mixed up what timing chain cover/oil filter adapter goes to what vehicle line.
Anything requiring assembly is designed for ease of assembly, not reassembly. After all, time is money
Maybe the filler panel was used as some kind of damage control. If the 5mph bumper compressed, it would damage a relatively inexpensive panel instead of damaging the entire header panel if it were extended down a couple inches, as you suggested. Maybe I’m being optimistic, and the engineers actually thought this through.
I kind of thought the same thing. Wasn’t the whole point of the 5MPH bumpers to limit body damage and damage to lights and their alignment? Perhaps we’re giving too much credit, but I also thought that maybe that piece was sort of a “sacrificial” part. (Although the number of bolts and fasteners to hold something meant to be somewhat disposable seems like overkill.)
My thoughts too. GM probably did their own internal 5 mph crash testing and found out that the header would be partly damaged in a 5 mph impact if the header went all the way to the bumper.
This filler is a less expensive “sacrifice” part put in in the interest of repairability and reducing repair costs.
This is certainly possible. The bumper itself on the ’76 continues up to the header panel, so maybe they determined that it wasn’t a problem with the integrated bumper.
Or was it to a enable an easy model year change to the front clip?
Nice looking ride! I always wondered why the ‘74-‘75 Firebird front ends were so busy like that. The ‘76 was better integrated. As for design flaws, I recall with max annoyance what a pain it was to change headlights on my ‘88 Monte Carlo SS. The trade off for that handsome one piece facia was you had to pry it away with one hand to get at the 4 screws for the headlight frame, hope the screw stays on the end of the magnetic screwdriver, and try not to scratch the facia pulling the frame out. Putting it back in was worse. When one burned out, and they didn’t last as long back then as we all recall, I’d replace them both to get the hassle over with for a while.
Let’s go back in time.
Type 1 VWs once powered the windshield washer from the spare tire. Pretty logical; the tire was right there next to the washer container. What could possibly go wrong?
The ’64 Beetle I got in ’69 had “upgraded” the washer air source by allowing the water container itself to be pressurized with an air hose. But when I tried to put air into it I noticed that it had already been overfilled by a prior owner, was cracked, and could no longer hold air pressure.
So, my father and I simply kept a water pistol or two in the Bug. The windshield was so close to our heads we could easily crank down a window, reach around, and fire a squirt or two at the windshield’s schmutz.
Ok, holding the water gun and winding down the driver’s window during a snow storm while steering and shifting the Beetle and turning on the wipers required some minor muti-tasking.
Nobody’s perfect.
I had a new ’71 Super Beetle with the washer tank pressurized from the spare tire. It never, ever worked, no matter how many times I went back for a warranty claim. Usually resulted in a flat spare. So I went to the wrecking yard, got an extra reservoir cap and a schrader valve off a tank from a ’65 Beetle, mounted the valve in the cap (I hate modifying original parts), and never had a problem again.
My ’73 VW Transporter (Bay Window) had an air pressure washer reservoir, probably a Beetle part. it was under the dash in front of the passenger, but the spare was out back over the engine. One meagre squirt and the pressure was gone. I tried carrying a bicycle tyre pump around with me for a while.
The famous VW quality?
I agree with the sacrificial part theory, but when you use 11 bolts you really don’t want it to move.
As an engineer, I remain frustrated by critical comments from non-engineers who don’t have a clue. First, at GM and nearly all automakers, production costs trump good engineering decisions, period. Second, nearly every engineering decision is a compromise. As for the part in question, there are two possible explanations. The sacrificial part is one, as the five MPH bumpers were a band-aid response to gov’t regulations that imposed repair cost limits in addition to survivability. Second, it’s also possible that molding that large header panel made it difficult to form that lip above the bumper without an unacceptably high rejection rate. The separate part made that a lot easier. The large number of fasteners was required to avoid gapping in these flexible parts, because otherwise people would have bitched about THAT.
Non-engineer here, and I’d have to agree with what you say, especially on the point regarding compromise, and probably particularly so in cars. Always hugely squeezed on costs – most carmakers make about a 5-6% return – the car doesn’t have to fly, or float, so presumably the leeway regarding cost/failure calculation (from the accountants) in lesser parts is higher. And that’d be just one example of compromise: weight, ease of assembly, etc ad infinitum.
That said, there IS the odd outright snafu, occasionally major, but more relevantly, the person complaining is usually someone like me: not qualified, stuck in a home garage swearing at engineers because I don’t have the exact tools envisaged by the engineers (who does, for every make?), and am only faced with the immediate difficulty of a given task which APPEARS over-or-under done by “some damn engineer”!
And also note that cars are designed to minimize factory Assembly cost, not the cost/ease of disassembly/reassembly/repair.
And as an engineer, DO NOT EVER lump us in with the accountants!!!
Many mfrs. actually do factor in the cost/ease of maintenance, as they recognize that can also become a cost in terms of dealer service-bay time, at least during the warranty period.
One of the many common complaints I’ve seen about the Maserati Biturbo family is that they clearly gave ZERO thought to maintainability/serviceability, the way doing nearly anything in the engine bay requires taking apart so much just to get at any component you need to work on, then you’ve gotta puzzle it all back together again in exactly the right way and the right order.
I’ve encountered something similar with my Lancia Beta Zagato spider, the way everything seems Tetris’d in there underhood, but at least they have the excuse that the entire powertrain was designed to drop out as a unit on its subframe — simple enough for a dealer with lifts and a factory-supplied dolly to receive and roll away that subframe, not so much for home DIY’ers.
That’s what the basis of my curiosity was, Joe, not to be critical, but because I knew there was an explanation I couldn’t possibly understand. It’s a complex piece, and they wouldn’t have used it without some kind of good reason.
And Steve, as I mentioned above, the engineering/accounting comment was an understanding that few decisions must be made without input from both parties.
Word of caution about the engineering trade. In 2007 or so, the 2005 Ford GT chief engineer (it might have been the Program Manager) toured the company giving other program teams a talk about how they had operated lean and fast, with the hope that the mainstream programs would glean a few insights. One thing that really stuck out was a comment he made about the difficultly in dealing with engineers, particularly those on the super amped GT program where they had earned their place on the team. He said “they don’t just think they are right; they KNOW they are right.” And of course, often times they were. But sometimes they weren’t, often because they couldn’t see or were not aware of a bigger picture.
As for production costs trumping good engineering decisions, that may have been more the case back when this gen Firebird was designed, though unless one worked there at the time, one can’t know for sure. What I can say is that it is definitely not true today. There is a balancing that occurs with every content and design decision. For example, the ’19 Blazer used Camaro’s more expensive HVAC faceplate rather than borrowing Equinox’s or Traverse’s, because the intent of the vehicle was not to slot between them, but to be grouped with Camaro/Corvette in the consumer’s eye. Camaro’s round center vents came with the package and supported the interior theme, but the program had no problem reusing and dressing up the Sonic’s outboard round vents to match them, because cost was still an issue. Balancing cost and content, and selectively choosing wins… that’s what it’s about today.
As for Aaron’s plastic piece, it may well have been the case that the integrated long, slender Class A surface was difficult to form with quality, as part of a much larger injection molded piece. On the other hand, the design that they chose looked pretty bad, and it’s hard to imagine Studio signing off on it. And there was still a Class A slender piece above the extra piece in question, which presumably would have carried the same quality risk.
Maybe the ’76 theme was what Studio had wanted all along, and a late change to reduce cost nixed it, but the fascia surface had already been released. This probably was not the case given that the rear bumper theme was always similar to the front for each of the three model years in question.
Was it driven by the bumper assembly process at the plant? Nothing jumps out in the pics to indicate this, but who knows.
My bet is mostly on the sacrificial part to comply with minimal-cost-to-repair bumper regs, assuming as has been suggested, that crash testing indicated the lower leading edge of the fascia to be susceptible to cracking upon impacts somewhat above 5 MPH. The late change theory gets a small bet too, as does the true explanation that we may not have identified yet!
Thank you for this thoughtful reply!
Interesting thoughts here .
My 1961 Corvair had at _least_ two times as many heater box screws as it needed…..
-Nate
And you know that how? You ran the gapping calculations? News flash: GM NEVER installed a part that wasn’t required. Those pennies add up over the model run.
My thoughts on the “more fasteners than needed” phenomenon with something like that go to rattles and other NVH issues. What’s not OK on a new-car test drive and/or during the warranty period and what people are willing to put up with once a car gets to the point of owners DIYing the heater box are two different things.
The “unnecessary” screws probably were added to quiet something deemed unacceptable during prototype testing.
Engineering talent varies from engineer to engineer. Some are very cerebral, but couldn’t tell how a nut and bolt go together. Others are able to think through to the end, contemplating how it will be built and serviced. As an engineer, I have seen the whole spectrum over my career.
As to why things are designed the way they are, it usually boils down to the project managers mantra. Cost, schedule, or performance – pick two. Eleven fasteners on the filler panel? Obviously met the schedule and performance parameters, but not the cost.
My favorite frustrating automotive design are headlights. Having experience with a Buick Lucerne and a Honda Civic, where you have to remove the front bumper to replace the headlight bulb. Odds are that you’ll never have to change one, but when you do, it won’t be quick or easy.
I’ve done the bumper removal headlight thing too. While the bumper is off, replace every single bulb that is in there even if they aren’t burnt out. Murphy’s Law dictates that if you don’t, next week a one dollar marker bulb will blow and you’ll be taking the bumper off again to fix it. Preventative maintainence.
That assumes the new bulbs are as good as factory ones, not always a given.
I’ve had factory bulbs blow after 2 years. I’ll take my chances.
Nope, and that’s because the headlights etc are designed to be assembled to the bumper assembly before it is installed on the car, to minimize factory assembly costs.
What you say is true in so much of life – cheap, fast, good – pick any two
Another engineer here. My most recent head scratcher is on my Aztek. The rear tailgate drops down to seat two in matching butt holders. Great idea. How about making them remotely comfy? There’s plenty of room to recess the whole thing and add space in the cargo area to boot! A Magic Tailgate would have been nice too.
LOL, were you around when the Aztek was developed? It was a rushed job, when GM was at it’s “height” of make it as cheap as possible mode.
There were hundreds of stupid things with the Aztek, starting with obviously never looking at a full size mock up as that ugly thing never should have made it past that stage. (and this said as a Pontiac fan who was thinking about buying one until I saw the released version).
An image search shows the seating idea, without your two cupholders, was on the concept Aztek, but its tailgate was thin and can’t be strong enough to stomp on. Have you pulled off the plastic to see how much structure is underneath?
Teeny tiny 4-cylinders turbo boosted within an inch of their lives? Think the late, unlamented Chevrolet Cruze.
I love my Cruze. Disable the stop/start. use full synthetic oil, and keep the cooling system healthy and everything will be good. I’m seriously considering buying an ECM reflash, that will pump the horsepower from 153 to over 200. It will be the ultimate “sleeper”.
Google “Chevrolet Cruze turbo failure and then get back to me. It’s yet another example of GM cutting corners in the exact wrong place. I shouldn’t have to rev to 6500 to get it up an on-ramp.
Good job on replacement of that trim piece. Looks really nice on the car.
Thanks!
We have a 2015 Mazda3 hatch, and a 2003 Toyota Matrix. The rear window wiper on the Toyota will lift off the rear window and stand erect so you can clean the window, the wiper on the Mazda does not. Yet, the wiper arms appear identical, as well as the cap that covers the mounting bolt and wiper arm hinge. As an experiment, I swapped the caps between the cars, and found that now the Mazda wiper are would stand erect, and the Toyota would not. The cap on the Mazda has a tab molded in that prevents the arm standing erect. The 2 parts are externally identical. I can’t understand why Mazda would do this, it’s not like the part costs any more to make than the one that came on the Toyota. Maybe someone here can explain why to me.
Now that you’ve mentioned this, it makes me wonder if a RAV-4’s will fit my CX-5.
I have found the same frustration. When I got the Mazda back in February, it immediately needed a new wiper blade, but at first, I couldn’t figure out what the heck they did there with that design…
…and yes, another engineer here!
If needed, you could just pry the cap off next time you change the blade. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d source another Toyota cap, or grind the tab off the Mazda one.
They gave us a CX5 once while doing warranty work, we seriously liked it!
Yeah, we really like ours too. I bought it primarily for my wife to drive as CUV(s) aren’t really my thing being a coupe guy. But she wanted the utility, as well as better visibility and seating position like she had in her Mitsubishi Lancer.
I’ll admit I drank the Kool-Aid with this one. While I carefully researched which CUV(s) drove like a nice handling car, and I typically am all about the aesthetics of a vehicle, the CX-5 checked those boxes for me more than any other in my price range. While it may not be the best CUV from a space efficiency perspective, it’s got the zoom-zoom I required, and most importantly, my wife really likes it. I think we chose wisely. It’s big enough for our needs and gets pretty decent mileage.
Thanks for the tip on filing off that tab. I may give it a try.
I believe one of the bumper law provisions was a minimal cost of repairs, only up to $xxx in a 5 mph front end collision. My thinking is not cost reduction or ease of installation, but perhaps instead attempted adherence to the letter of the new bumper laws drove the decision for Pontiac to do things the way they did.
Keep in mind that in the first few years of bumper law implementation, no one knew how rigid the authorities would be on enforcement or on real-world expectations. The engineers and designers were working a bit in the dark.
I’ll give it a whirl. In addition to the suggestions already posted, something GM was very good at was crunching numbers on the cost of production.
Simply put, maybe the separate header panel trim had something to do with how Firebirds were put together on the assembly line, and having that odd separate piece was something they did to facilitate that.
OTOH, it’s worth noting that this was only done on the 1974-75 cars. Evidently, 1976 and newer cars had the grille/headlight assembly as one piece?
Maybe it has something to do with the way the original front end of the 1974 Firebird was conceived, not knowing the exact regulations on how the 5mph bumper would be implemented two year later, and it’s a last minute fix to accomodate it.
The 5mph parameters were established by the time of the 1976 refresh. So, no filler panel.
This is how the ’76 looks. The header panel looks the same to me, but the bumper comes up to meet it. It’s certainly more well-integrated. From what I’ve read, Pontiac could have done this in ’74, but they felt a more incremental approach to “getting rid of the bumper” would be better. I think I read that in Michael Lamm’s book on Firebirds.
That’s an interesting tidbit but it actually makes it an even more questionable engineering execution, the 70-73 didn’t have a protruding lower bumper at all like the 74-75s, the “header panel” was the endura bumper. So having the more prominent bumper in 74-75 seemed like they added a bumper to get rid of. The 76 nose would have been a nearly seamless transition from the 73s
A few thoughts after reading these excellent comments. And yes, I do that engineering thing too….
I understand the arguments above regarding ease of factory assembly and costs and such. We have to deal with this every day in my line of work… HOWEVER, serviceability is also a factor, in case anything comes back for warranty work or service in general.
With that said, could auto designers simply put a damned access panel in the firewall for the heater core? How freakin’ difficult could that be? Instead, nearly EVERY CAR THAT EVER EXISTED makes you take the dash out of the car to make what should be a simple repair extremely difficult. Ridiculous.
Oh, and I too recently did the bumper cover removal thing on the Mustang, just to replace the headlights, and me being a newbie to more complicated repairs (I know my limits, and they aren’t very high), I broke off a few bolts that hold the bumper cover up tight to the fender. Now I have a panel gap that only I notice, but still…
Fortunately, all of the light bulbs are replaceable without going through all of this. My only reason for doing this was aesthetics. My headlight assemblies were getting cloudy after all these years. They were fairly easy to replace with a YouTube video, but they made the four nuts looks so easy to remove from the integrated studs. Yeah, not so much.
When and if I need a new radiator, I’ll have my mechanic (again, he knows his limitations) replace those studs when he has the bumper cover off again. 😉
Oh, and don’t get me started on the Mustang’s Rube Goldberg device that is the thermostat housing. That isn’t fun either.
Check out the engine bay of the Studebaker Lark. Follow the heater hoses and you will find a perfectly serviceable heater core.
RE : heater cores ~
Firstly they could simply stop making them so poorly/cheaply that they’d last instead of needing some “silver seal” when they vehicle is initially assembled (looking at _YOU_ FoMoCo) .
Oddly enough the super cheap 1982 Ford Escort had a trap door right on the heater plenum so I was able to replace it in 15 minutes .
My 2001 Ranger OTOH, I have to take the entire HVAC plenums off from the firewall side and replacing all the burned out dash bulbs was an exercise in misery and cuts all over my hands from all the sharp stamped steel edges not to mention 35 or so different length sheet metal screws to remove and keep track of .
Hondas from the 1980’s & 1990’s are modular in design, this made the easy and cheaper to assemble and so simply to open up for clutch, drive axle and tranny repairs…
VW put the fan on the end of the crankshaft in the 1961 Typ II, a good design .
-Nate
The original Rangers were a lot like the Escort/Tempo, too bad they didn’t stay that way.
As Nate noted below whoever was doing the HVAC boxes at Ford in the late 70’s and early 80’s did give a lot of thought to the heater core replacement. The best of the bunch were the early foxes. Disconnect the hoses under the hood, open the glove box and release the stops so the box opens all the way. Remove 6 screws, if I remember correctly, to remove a cover. Then slide the heater core out like an “8 track tape” as I used to say. The first Rangers and Tempos had an large section of the HVAC box that also made the draining, filling and burping the most time consuming part of the job.
Yep ;
I see you’re familiar with working on them as well .
Some may recall my ex G.F. had a red 1982 Escort XL, it was a stripper and had a hard life before her previous boyfriend gave it to her .
Everyone hated Escorts but this thing was dead simple and ever so easy to fix & maintain .
Clever engineering throughout, some really bad bean counter boo-boos as well (the carby in particular) but overall it ran fine got good mileage ans we ran the living snot out of it over several years until the cam belt snapped at sundown on a Friday in you don’t want to be afoot here East L.A. .
I still see scads of Rangers, early and late hard at work here but they -do- rust and there’s no excuse for that, not ever .
-Nate
I have some choice words for the engineer who specified the rear subframe mounting bolts on the 89-97 Tbird and cougars; a 7” long M12 fastener with a 15mm head with a specified torque at 100ft/lbs in a highly corrosive environment. Basically every one of those cars that ever needed new subframe bushings or hardware that doesn’t reside in Southern California was destined to round out the tiny 15mm head or snap the thin bolt trying to get them out.
I’ve never worked for a large automotive company but the perception that “accountants” are involved in these decisions does not match my experience at a smaller (but still $1B plus) motor vehicle manufacturer not in the computer industry. Cost targets are set by Finance and Product Management for the entire product. In recent years, so-called “Value Engineering” is used to reduce cost of individual parts and/or assemblies. In this case, the tooling and/or press size needed to make the header panel and filler as one part may have been much more expensive due to complexity, than to use two parts plus fasteners. Or maybe it was just some bad choices or miscommunication between individuals or departments. But although I was a design engineer, we never blamed accountants for our mistakes 😀
Ha ha… 🙂 Thank you for sharing your experience in the field. As I said, I’m just an outsider who works on these things for fun.
As an engineer turned patent attorney I understand your frustrations, particularly on reproduction parts. I don’t understand why they can’t completely and accurately copy a part! I recall how Russia copied our B-29s down to the battle damage but try to find a dimensionally accurate repro part is like winning the lotto.
Always good to test fit before painting or even installing any repro part these days.
I know! It must have cost quite a bit to develop this part for what must be a limited cross-section of cars. What went wrong? Reproduction sheetmetal isn’t any better, in my experience, but it’s better than nothing!
Not sure about fenders but in the case of the filler panel I’m betting it is because they don’t have a highly experienced molding engineer who could accurately predict shrinkage during cooling and they certainly didn’t have the money to do multiple versions of the tool until they got it exactly right.
The Austin/BMC A series engine had a water pump rubber bypass hose, IIRC about 2 inches long and 3/4 inch diameter. Situated at the front of the engine behind the fan and almost impossible to change when it split. They made about 10 million of those engines.
VW made at least twice that number of air cooled boxer engines with a belt driven fan, which would overheat if the belt snapped, before they worked out how to drive the fan from the end of the crankshaft with the type 4 engine.
Citroen had worked this out with their air cooled boxer 20 years earlier.
The twin cylinder Citroen engine had it’s own engineering foible. They dispensed with a distributor, both cylinders sparked at the same time. There was still a set of points though, hidden and inaccessible at the end of the camshaft behind the fan.
Strange indeed, but for all the complexity the 74 Firebird is the first of the breed that looked coherent to me. Unlike pre-74’s (endura front with chrome bumper in back), it actually looks the front end design belongs on the same car as the rear treatment. Enjoy it…looks great!
Thanks…I agree, it’s the best looking car of ’74 in my opinion.
I’ll have to give credit to the Buick division for some thoughtful touches present on my ’97 Riv.
First, there is an access panel in the trunk, directly over the fuel tank to make removal of the fuel pump easy. The door panel is held on by only a few screws at the top, then just lifts free. Numerous hooks are molded onto the inner door panel which hook onto holes in the door metal. There are none of those plastic Christmas tree fasteners on the panel. Of course, all these hooks are extremely fragile at this age. The power window motor is easily reached for replacement, which I did on the passenger side. The window regulator is a heavy steel piece, similar to the type in my ’66. I was afraid that it was one of those cable and pulley set ups.
The blower fan is accessible from under the glove box. The license plate drops into a slot in the tail light panel. This prevents the use of a license plate frame, so Rivieras were spared the horror of advertising that “Happiness is being a Grand Parent.”
That cheap looking dash fascia is easy to remove, (careful, brittle plastic tabs!) exposing all the gauges and controls that are removable from the I.P.
On the negative side, the seat mounting bolts are only removable if the seats are all the way forward, and one bolt is still partially blocked when in that position. Thankfully the seat mounting bolts are easily accessible and the seat can then be shifted forward for clearance.
Also I guess that Buick was really worried about electrical connectors working loose. Almost every connector has a double lock; a pin, blade, or cover snapped onto/into the connector which can make them a bear to disconnect.
I’ve been working my way through my recently purchased Riviera. After several wrecking yard runs, I acquired most of the parts I needed to get the car squared away. I’ve spent most of the week working on the car. I’ve got a replacement HVAC control panel, in better shape w/o the scratches, and maybe that will fix the problems. The good news is that these parts came from a lower mileage, very clean ’98, which suffered some serious quarter panel damage. So it appears that the car was a runner until then. I’ll see if I can have the original stereo fixed. It won’t read a cd and a cassette got stuck in the player.
I bought the car with only a single ignition key and a key fob, I didn’t have a door/trunk key. The local Buick dealer’s parts dept supplied me with the key codes and a good local locksmith cut them from code for me.
The car has been a real surprise to me, since I never had a “modern” Buick. It still feels extremely solid. My first supercharged Buick 3800 V6 combined with a very smooth four speed auto. It drives so well, is very quiet, and rides so smooth. Obviously, some good engineering decisions went into it’s design.
It would be fun to see a writeup of your experiences with the new Riviera!
RE : CD’s & cassettes stuck in the player ~ I had this problem with the 6 DC changer on my Ranger, went to you tube and there was a very detailed how to of what to do and how to fix it, I only wanted my CD’s back, then I scrapped the 6 changer for a single disc player and have been very happy since .
Be sure to lay light colored cloth out before you set to work as there’s a metric ton of tiny fasteners, bits and bobs you’ll need to keep track of .
-Nate
I’m thinking it was some plastic molding issue, maybe they couldn’t have got the lip to stay straight in urethane (or whatever the header is made of) and added a lip in a more rigid plastic (which is also more prone to cracking!!)
I recently ran across this in the filler panel on the rear hatch of our 2013 Focus, it was getting loose and on removal all the mount points were cracked. The way they were molded into the piece they only joined at the top and bottom, to avoid cooling distortion on the “nice” surface of the part. Add 10 years of embrittlement and my son living in a city that has -30C temperature winters, and you’ve got a cracked part!
This seems like the best theory, i.e., the panel is there to simply reinforce the more flexible plastic of the grille so it doesn’t deform over time. The harder, more brittle plastic of the filler panel, along with the multiple fasteners, would seem to confirm this.
As stated, the downside is the harder plastic of the filler panel would lend itself more to breakage over time, too. But, then, I suppose it would be better than having to replace an entire, deformed, urethane grille.
So, in the grand scheme of things, maybe not such an odd thing, after all.
On my 64 Mercury Comet:
– under-dash inaccessibility because of the shape of the damned thing and it being welded to the body;
– same for the engine bay in general because the car was designed to have only a 6 cylinder originally (mine is a V8);
– a steering box which is a part of the column, making a replacement a nightmare; and
– front brake bleed nipples pointing directly at the kingpin with about an inch gap to access.
Ford Australia’s insane decision to fit the crankshaft oil seal inside the timing cover of the some of their six cylinder engines. Why oh why? When the civilised world puts seals on the outside.
Fiat’s interference twin cam engines. Would it have killed them to notch the pistons? They did. Eventually.
Anyone who put the distributor at the rear of a V8. Even Ford managed to put it at the front.
Those damn spring towers on too many Ford products of the 60s through to the 80s.
Mk 1 & 2 Escorts. Instead of contouring the inner fenders around the top of the strut mounts, lets not. That way, we can fit the brake booster & m/cyl halfway down the engine bay, and hang the battery, windscreen washer bottle in the way, Oh, and then fit the coil under the battery. Australian built Mk 2 with the 2 litre engine.
Not car related, but Thetford RV fridges. Torx, Philips and hex head fastners within 100 mm of each other.
And then they randomly use 1/4 or 9/64th for the hex heads.
And then they put the gas burner behind the flue & pump tube. Unlike the entire rest of the industry.
That last ****up has been fixed at least.
QOTD: Is There An Engineering Decision You Don’t Understand?
Many – I grew up around BMC, British Leyland and Chrysler Europe cars…….
@ Roger ;
Just so but never forget that BMC and others weren’t really designing cars for the North American market most of the time .
I personally like BMC products because like GM they used so many parts across so many brands .
-Nate
I’ve seen this on several cars – an inability to change a headlight without removing the bumper valence. The reason is presumably to keep repairs in the manufacturers’ orbit but owners aren’t impressed.
On the Mk 2 Ford Focus, you could remove the headlight for replacement (or bulb swap) with a large coin in the BIG slot for screwdriver. Did that in the carpark at lunchtime in about 5 mins.
I have never had a car where it was difficult to change a headlight but a friend had a Datsun 260Z that had the lights inset in the front fenders. It looked wonderful, but to change the bulb you had to remove an access panel in the front wheel well. I don’t know if there was enough clearance to do it without removing the wheel, but in any case very awkward.
One thing I didn’t see mentioned is decisions which were a byproduct of which engineer(s) got there first and which engineer was stuck between those engineers that got their first. And yes the bean counters do play a role too.
A perfect example was mentioned in the first comment, the oil pan engineers at Ford that did the Fox and Panther 302 unit and at IH who did the Scout II’s 304/345 unit. In both cases the engines were designed well before the platforms were conceived and the engine engineers placed the distributor and thus the distributor driven oil pump were placed in the front of the engine.
The oil pan engineer had to figure out how to make pan that would fit that engine’s sump into the location defined by the constraints of suspension and engine location.
In both cases they came up with a double sump style pan to give clearance for the oil pump and cross-member/axle while placing the (main) sump in the available location. In both cases unfortunately that meant a space where some oil would sit. To ensure that the full amount of oil could be drained a second drain plug was required.
At IH, someone eventually questioned the need to punch a 2nd hole, filling it with a threaded insert, gasket and plug. So in the later versions that 2nd plug went away though the flat space for it remained because it would have cost money to change the stamping die.
Just a few observations about some of our cars.
1986 Chevy Cavalier 2.0L: coil was riveted to the underside of the intake. (It wasn’t a great car, but did it’s job well enough for me to put 125,000 miles on it, 60,000 of those -after- a roll over.)
1995 Olds Aurora: the tail lights were held on by 5 screws of three different types. It had so many fuses, there were two more fuse boxes under the back seat, with the battery (nose was too narrow for the battery to fit).
2007 Chevy Impala: It took longer to change the headlight than do an oil change because reasons?
2015 Chevy Equinox: I know the water pump is run off the back side of the engine via the timing chain, which requires a one engine only tool (I believe) to keep the engine from going out of time while the pump is being replaced, after removing half the exhaust. The battery is mounted under the ECU.
200 Dodge Grand Caravan: while it was running, it seems to have had few if any weirdness. Other than being a Caravan. 🙂 The headlights were easy to change. Coils were right out where they could be seen. Even the battery was a breeze.