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Unbelievable engineering

J

JayinNY

Well-known Member
My 89 Chevy 3500 rack body lost all of its break fluid, I went to drive it Monday and found I had no brakes. We could not find any broken lines anywhere so my friend thinks the master cylinder was slowly dripping. He went to break the bleeders to refill it and bleed it, I have never put rear wheel cylinders on the truck, but when I saw were the bleeders were I could not believe it, at the top of the drum about 1" away from the leaf spring stack? What chore we had getting them out, we finally made a wrench and with some heat got them out and put two new bleeders in. What a dumb location for them! Now I just have to keep an eye on the fluid until I replace the master cylinder. The truck will be sitting all winter so that job can wait. It's been a good old girl! Lol
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Those that were sold as cab & chassis had a narrower rear end than the ones with a pickup box. As you've found, puts that bleeder in there nice and tight.
 
I've heard that same thing all my life, and have said it myself on more than one occasion.....usually after a lead in of unmentionable four letter words.....

The same holds true for most parts people now days too. In years past the parts counter was where the old mechanics went when they didn't feel like working on the equipment anymore. Now they have kids selling parts that have never turned a wrench in their lives, and wouldn't know a lug nut from a 710 cap........

In both case,s the problems seem to be increasing more and more every year.
 
Since the "bleeders" are used to purge air put of the rear brakes, and air rises upward, where would you expect them to be???
 
(quoted from post at 01:21:16 12/04/15) Since the "bleeders" are used to purge air put of the rear brakes, and air rises upward, where would you expect them to be???
Click to expand...
www, come on, Bob, destroying a good rant with practical facts??? :twisted:
 
I understand that, but they could have used a little longer bleeder to make it easier to get access. Have you ever worked on one like this? Prolly not. But everyone's thinks there an expert!
 
Cab/Chassis trucks wheelbase is a few inches narrower than regular trucks. I guess the narrow wheelbase puts the backing plate and springs real close to each other?
 
Most tractors designs come in the same category, tried to change the brakes on a Farmall A, take the clutch out of a W-12 or O-12, one has to dismantle half the tractor to get at the bits you want.
 
I've seen a lot of mechanical engineers with little or no knowledge of how things work. In large companies, the engineers are sometimes told to design a part without knowing where it will go, where it will fit and what it is supposed to do - and the engineer doesn't bother to learn that information either!

One company that I worked for had a chief engineer that didn't understand physics nor the forces generated in various pieces of equipment. I had to solve problems that he had created with his weak engineering skills.
 
Which engineer are ya gonna blame? Wagner has been manufacturing wheel cylinders since the 30's with the bleeder in the high spot. Eaton/Rockwell/other axle manufacturers have been making axles incorporating juice brakes since then. Chevy et al. has been assembling vehicles since then. That only leaves the lowly spring manuf. Shame on them for building springs right in the way of the bleeder! LOL!
PS: I have dealt with a lot of them. For many, pulling the tire, hub & drum and loosening the brake line, and completely removing the cylinder & then only sometimes, if yer lucky, can one get the bleeder out. Most of the time now because you have already expended the labor anyway, the WC is totally replaced.
 
That setup is a pain, but has been that way on drum brake dually trucks since at least '73. I don't think it was engineered to be a pain, it was just something that happened. That was the days when GM kept things common. The 13 inch drum brake was avaialble in at least 3 different widths over the years, but the basic setup was the same. Only the backing plate, drums, and shoes were different between widths. All hardware was the same, and while at least two different wheel cylinder bores were available, the basic casting was the same. The interface problem came with the necessary backspacing due to the dual wheels. Just be glad they moved the springs in on duallys, if not, the spring would be up against the backing plate. Cut my mechanic teeth on this body style swapping and figuring out what fit and what didn't. There is a special wrench that makes those bleeders easy. Everything has design issues if you pick hard enough, but that basic chassis setup on your truck dates to at least '67, the favorite decade of a lot of us.
 
What about the rocket scientists that thought it was a good idea to put the fuel pump in the fuel tank?
 
I find it hard to believe you even got them out ! Also that after all these years those cylinders even move to brake shoes.
My 1981 Ford is about the same way. Very little room to work by the spring but can be done.
 
I am an engineer and one of my pet peeves is having people rip on engineers. For all you non engineers take the blank paper test. Take a blank sheet of paper and draw out what you want to fix. Not a sketch but a true scaled drawing with all dimensions and specifications. Remember to draw out everything else that needs to change because you moved something around. After about a month of this you will have a much better appreciation for the profession. You still won't be done but you will be tired of trying.

People look at problems like this in complete isolation. Putting that brake bleeder there was the best overall design when everything got considered. And there where a lot of considerations. Cost to produce, ease of assembly, use of common parts, design schedule, reliability, maintenance, the list goes on and on. Yes I said maintenance. The fact you where able to get to it at all and fix is says it was maintainable. Not every part in a truck can be in the perfect spot to maintain. Of course we only want the part we are working on at the moment to be easily accessed. We don't think about the other 10,000 parts of the truck at the time.

Not every engineer is a good one. Same as any other profession. But that old truck looks pretty good so I am thinking the overall engineering effort that went into it was pretty good.
 
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy I'm an engineer, I "resemble" that remark lol

Back in my engineering design days what I thought best from a practical and maintenance standpoint, often got over ruled by the bean counters or top executives or accountants grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr SO DONT BLAME IT ON MEEEEEEEEEE LOL

John T
 

I have an engineer friend who would look at things that were really screwy and remark sarcastically that "an engineer actually designed that mess". He hated when his profession didn't do a good job when they could have done better.

Ever had bleeders so rusted that they couldn't be bled? I had to do a quickie front pad replacement on my '05 Silverado 2500HD a month or so ago, the day before we were leaving for a show in Louisville. I had to remove the calipers (yea, don't tell me I didn't need to remove the brake line to retract the cylinders in the calipers, they wouldn't move even with a big C-clamp). After finishing up I had to bleed the air out and the bleeders were roached, so I unbolted the lower bolt on the caliper, swung it up, removed the brake line so it was at the highest point and squirted brake fluid in, tilting it back and forth to get the air out, put the line back on and bolted it back in. Had I had more time I would have removed the caliper and drilled out the old bleeder (if I couldn't twist is out cleanly), retapped it and put a new bleeder in, and had the disk turned (although it wasn't in bad shape at all).

Sometime you gotta do what you gotta do.
 
bean counters have no soul , I serve with a couple on the county council ,,what warpt heads! . .imho,accountants are the reason the Edmund fitzgerald was overloaded instead of being repaired ,and consequently sunk in a storm in 1975 , and I would bet bean counters stood in the way for the 70 series Case p/shift not getting a park pawl and a true neutral .. also bean counters stood in the way when case come out with eagle hitch ,. they did not want to pay ferguson the royalty ...
 
wouldn't the fluid push the air all the way to the end of the line regardless of the elevation of the end point ? just asking. Bill
 
Had a friend in college who wanted to become a mechanical engineer. He was great at math, liked to draw, had never operated a piece of machinery larger than a riding mower and couldn't change his own oil without being shown how. Don't know what became of him but last I was aware he was in his last year of the program.
Was curious in your career how many engineers were like this?
 
Now Now everyone. Remember GM didn't produce that truck to be worked on GM produced that truck to be sold.

I had a 64 chevy truck that lost fluid once over a period of time. Never did pin point the leak but kept it checked, never added and never had another problem.

nice looking 89 by the way.
 
I have a brother that spent his life in hi-way construction. He said that he never met an engineer that could build a bridge or a builder that could engineer one. gm
 
Some engineering is done with an eye toward service later on, some is for ease of assembly, and some is just a result of the easiest and cheapest way out of a problem. I am talking about cars mostly. Subaru and Toyota are the absolute best at designing something that can be serviced easily, Ford and anything from Europe are the absolute worst.
 
I have worked with both ends of the engineering spectrum. Highly theoretical guys with no practical knowledge and highly practical guys who didn't have a clue how to perform detailed calculations. The theory guys ends up with unpractical solutions that work on paper but are hard to build. The practical guys ends up with stuff that is easy to build but doesn't work. He eyeballs everything so he is always way over or way under designing something. The key to a good engineer is being able to turn technical information into practical solutions.
 
(quoted from post at 05:10:14 12/04/15) What about the rocket scientists that thought it was a good idea to put the fuel pump in the fuel tank?
Click to expand...
Well, in the tank, the fuel line will never vapor lock. Fuel pump at the engine has to suck fuel the length of the car. The other advantage is there is less clutter in the engine compartment and the fuel pump can be installed by the tank supplier. So they usually last the warranty period and car manufacturers are trying to sell new cars. What's your point?
 
from a fellow Engineer. A-men.

wouldn't have been much more convenient on most other vehicles either.

most things (but not all) are built the way they are for a reason. sometimes not the best reason. Drum wheel cylinders are always at the top. Must have springs to attach to the axle.

That old truck must be down south. Pretty unlikely to see that vintage not rusted out up here.
 
I'm a mechanical engineer, and have also worked with engineers across the spectrum. When I got into management I could still do calculations and it only takes a quick look to see whether the guy knew his stuff. The best engineers have a farm background: they actually know equipment has to really work and have worked it.

So the reality is, hardly anyone appreciates the other guy's skills: operators-mechanics-parts guys-suppliers-designers-engineers-lawyers-management. Each one knows if they had the other job they could do better, and sometimes they can, but until you try, you really don't know what the other guy is up against.

One example: refinery turnaround. Major Cat Cracker revamp. We're in Oklahoma, design team in New Jersey. I'm going over the drawings with the operations rep. He sees four 2" flanges being removed as part of the job. Says they sure would like to keep them because if they get a flow reversal, they run out there, break the flanges and bolt up a steam hose to fluff the catalyst and prevent an explosion, but it is not absolutely necessary. I check with NJ engineers. They say OK and produce new drawings leaving the flanges on. First day of shutdown I'm walking the job. A pipefitter I happen to know from my home town has cut two of the flanges off and is prepping them to weld caps on. He's union and I don't give him instructions, go into the field office and ask to see the drawings. They have the old drawings, I find the new ones in the corner. Next day my acquaintance is welding new flanges on. Flanges are on a 48" pipe. 3 AM the next morning I get a call from the job. Night engineer says they can't get a prefabbed stainless steam ring past the flanges. Now I know NJ was wrong to approve leaving them on, and refinery operator said they could live with them being removed, so I told him to cut them off and keep the job moving. Two days later I see the pipefitter welding caps on. I ask him how's it going. His reply "what a bunch of idiots, take them off! put them on! take them off!". I just agreed with him and walked away.
 
Andy, I am guessing that our backgrounds and what type of engineering we do aren't much different. Sounds like you are working in the petrochemical industry. I work in food processing. I am part of our engineering management team and spend a lot of time interviewing people. I am always looking to see what their hands on mechanical skills are. We hire a lot of farm boys. Having some hands on skills really helps bridge the gap between production, maintenance and construction people. It is important to know what you don't know. I don't pretend to know other peoples jobs. Sometimes that can get really frustrating because the mechanic I am working with sure thinks he knows my job. I have given people a blank sheet of paper and pencil before and say ok you draw it up. It is a really quick way to get people to see things from a different perspective.
 
The company where I retired gave way too much power to the bean counters (don't they all) and they would manage to sabotage any good engineering project. The "team effort" stopped there. Engineers are told to design the "best" and then it's sent to "bean engineers" to make it cheaper and man at top is responsible for giving them the nod. Depending on the product that move has sealed many a companies fate.
 
I have always felt a prerequisite for being an automotive engineer should be a year of working on engines and transmissions and then working on vehicles they themselves had designed.

While there are probably many noteworthy human engineered parts on cars and trucks there are two that I have noticed that I came to appreciate.

The Datsun/Nissan L20B engine and related engines have an oil pump that can be removed and replaced without pulling the oil pan. An internal oil pump on tractors is not that difficult to access on most tractors, but on a car it is not always easy to pull the pan without removing other parts or the engine has to be pulled.

The second item is the clutch on a front wheel drive Datsun 310. The clutch disc can be removed and replaced without pulling the engine.

Sure it can be a pita to remove or open frozen brake bleeders+, but it is worse with these two items.

The worse thing I am experiencing right now is trying to remove the timing chain cover on a 2005 Camry 4 cylinder.

In the past I could pull and replace the timing chain cover on most in-line mounted engines fairly quickly. but this thing is tedious with its transverse mounted engine.
 
As a retired aircraft engineer, I too have seen too many poor design for maintenance examples. Some of it is due to a lack of coordination in the design process and some of it is due to making manufacturing and assembly easier(and hence less costly) and both of them are nothing more than excuses for not thinking of the product being a system that is manufactured and assembled, put into service, and will be required to be maintained.

Our industry used to be an example poor integrated design at its worst. We started including maintenance people in the design process on the 777 and what a difference that made! We developed "fly through 3-D representation" and using ergonomics determined how to install components that could actually be removed and replaced without requiring a mechanic to have a couple of universal joints in each arm. We no longer had a mechanic required to change a light bulb in a passenger service unit and we went from a 24 hour engine change to under 4 hours on the 737NG.

We went from delivering a new airplane and having our airline customers try to figure out how to use it to delivering a usable product that could go into service almost immediately.. When you pay $500,000,000 for an airplane, you have high expectations! We weren"t perfect but we were a darn sight better than we used to be.

Automobile service is now a profit center for dealerships and at $100-150 per shop hour, there"s little incentive to make the modern car, with its much better reliability, easy to maintain. It took me two hours to change the left headlight bulb on our Forester. I had to take out the battery and loose other components for what should have been a 15 minute job.
 
I forgot to say that removing the oil pan on a Fordson Dexta diesel is no fun and the whole front axle has to be removed and the engine supported from the top or with a bolt on side mounted fixture. I know this goes along with the oil pan casting being part of the structural support of the engine, but I don't know if all diesel engines require this kind of preparation before removing the oil pan.
 
After reading the responses from actual engineers I have a second
suggestion. As a prerequisite for being a bean counter the candidate should spend three years working on car engines and transmissions before being hired.

As you all pointed that you don't have the last word.

A specific reference is Jan. 28, 1986 and engineer(s) Roger Boisjoly at Morton Thiokol and this was Rocket Science.
 
You have to be able to get the air out of the wheel cylinder, as well as the lines. Since air rises to the highest point, that's where the bleed screw is... typically high in the wheel cylinder.

And, due to the width of the frame/spring perches and "track width" of the rear wheels there simply isn't much room to get at that bleeder, but it can be done.

Sometimes it takes being creative with a "crooked wrench", or sometimes I have used a deep socket and a 1/4" ratchet or breaker bar.

Medium-duty trucks have still heavier springs and bigger brakes and wheels, the job is typically no easier on those.
 
I strongly agree with your comments. Engineers catch a lot of flak by people who zero in on one little area without taking everything into context. And, like you say, sometimes the result of careful design process is going with the lesser of evils. Case in point is a few of the hydraulic fittings on the piece of farm equipment that I am responsible for the design of. This particular machine has over 50 hydraulic hoses and tubes and I am careful to locate them so that they are as easy as possible to access for maintenance. However, the machine in production today has a few fittings that I'm sure cause mechanics to mutter bad words about the idiot who designed it. Why did I release it to production this way? Because after days (literally) of trying to improve the access to these several fittings it became obvious that there just wasn't enough space to make everything easily accessible. So, I ended up sacrificing a few of them to improve the access to a greater number of others. No engineer wants to have to make compromises but when everything is considered - development time, product cost, resources available, simplification on the assembly line, etc - the best solution may not be perfect because the costs associated with achieving perfection may simply not be worth it in the long run.
 
Good post.
Interesting that you mention replacing that light bulb.
I'm not saying Chevys are perfect but 2 weeks ago I had to replace a bulb on my 06 Chevy PU.
Open the hood, pull a pin and the whole dual headlight assembly comes out.
I put the bulb in and was back on the road in about 4 minutes. Last one I did was about 5 years ago. Otherwise I could have done it in 2.
 
I've done them, don't like them, but it's far from the worst things you'll run into if your going to do much work on cars, trucks etc.
 
Did the job go easier after you had the right tool? How long will it be before you need that tool again, if ever? Sometimes I'm just better off to take some jobs to an experienced mechanic because they have the knowledge and the tools to do things right the first time and get it done quickly. The shop rate may sound expensive, but sometimes it is well worth it.

Sometimes the best compromise is that a special tool is required to work on certain machines, and the right tool makes the job much easier. From the other responses it sounds other mechanics have made, purchased or borrowed that tool for nearly forty years now, just like you did recently, and the tool is now well known and widely available. I've done it too, but it sounds like you might be trying to blame the engineer because you did not check if a special tool was needed when you started the job or when you ordered the parts?
 
People who've never designed a product don't understand that engineering and design are all about compromises. A vehicle has to meet a number of criteria to compete in the marketplace, of which serviceability is just one. Most of the major vehicle characteristics are set in concrete before subsystems such as brakes and suspension are designed. Also, engineers are under pressure to re-use off the shelf parts rather than design custom solutions.

So, if you were the brake system engineer on this truck, how would you solve the serviceability issue? There's not enough room between the bleeder and springs, how do you fix that? Increase the wheel track by making the axle wider? Sorry, but the track was specified a long time ago and is not something you can change. How about moving the springs inward? Possible, but it means significant changes to the frame, plus it could affect the stability of the vehicle. Make the brakes narrower? The brakes are as wide as they need to be to provide adequate performance. You suggest using a longer bleeder, but bleeders are standard parts and you'll have a hard time convincing the chief vehicle engineer that a special one is required.

It's quite possible the bleeder wasn't recognized as a serviceability issue. After all, brakes have to be bled at the factory, and no manufacturing engineer wants the bleeder to be hard to access. Most likely it was assumed that the bleeder would usually be accessed with the wheels off, making it much easier to get to. Quite frankly, I don't recall working on many vehicles where the drum brake bleeder was easy to get to.
 
Hello JayinNY,

Have you ever read the instructions on a can of brake fluid? Anyhow there are places in the system that fluid will leak that you can't see readly. Now you get to go and play detective. Rear wheel cylinders would be a good place to start!

Guido.
 
That's what we had to do, weld up a crooked wrench to help us get in there. It did work.
 
No I'm in eastern NY, it hasent seen a salt covered winter road in 15 years! Lol iv had it since 1998
 
Dual rear wheel GM pickups are like that, the rear axle is narrowed so the duals don't stick out so far. The wider rear axle for a single rear wheel pickup is wider and distance from spring to backing plate is greater.
 
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