Lies, Damned Lies and the Haynes Manual
Moderator: RichardW
Lies, Damned Lies and the Haynes Manual
I'm about to change a Xantia rear ABS sensor using the Haynes manual instructions. Besides a typo in the manual telling me to jack up the wrong end of the car, they otherwise make it sound so easy.
Going on experience of Haynes instructions (and the fact that my car seldom looks anything like the one they used) I'm expecing the job to be an epic. Does anyone have any hints or tips? I have bought a new sensor, I have 1 hour's access to a car lift, a can of WD40 and a bloody great wrench - oh yes, and a whole host of swear words ready to fly. Do I need anything else?
Thank you.
Ian
Going on experience of Haynes instructions (and the fact that my car seldom looks anything like the one they used) I'm expecing the job to be an epic. Does anyone have any hints or tips? I have bought a new sensor, I have 1 hour's access to a car lift, a can of WD40 and a bloody great wrench - oh yes, and a whole host of swear words ready to fly. Do I need anything else?
Thank you.
Ian
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The Haynes CX manual under "replacement of front suspension arm bearings" use to say, after removing the bearings, "thoughly clean the interior of the car"! I pointed this out to them when I visited the Motor show and I see they have now revised it to "thoughly clean the interior of the arm" Mind you, by that stage you needed a break!
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Peter.N.</i>
The Haynes CX manual under "replacement of front suspension arm bearings" use to say, after removing the bearings, "thoughly clean the interior of the car"! <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You never know.. It might have needed cleaning anyway! [:D]
The Haynes CX manual under "replacement of front suspension arm bearings" use to say, after removing the bearings, "thoughly clean the interior of the car"! <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You never know.. It might have needed cleaning anyway! [:D]
I know in the Haynes they say 'undo the bolts securing the cambelt cover and withdraw the cover'. Anyone who has ever had a go at doing this will know that merely stating you should withdraw the cover is like saying to do Quantum Physics you should buy a calculator. Ofcourse you should but you should also spend half your life at Harvard first. Similarly you will be withdrawing a cover merely a foot or so but thats going to take you about 2 hours. You'd be better off undoing the engine mounts and jacking one side up to be honest as it is so hard.
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I know the feeling. I did a clutch and a cambelt on a 309D today, and elected to remove the engine/gearbox assembly complete to do it. It was the right decision too, as it was undoubtedly faster than trying to mess about just taking the gearbox out, and then struggling to faff about with the cambelt.
I do like the statement in the 405 BOL, when it comes to removing the turbo. They say "access is poor".... I'll bloody say so! Getting the turbo off a 405TD with the engine in place is 99.9% impossible, especially as everything will be good and siezed!
I do like the statement in the 405 BOL, when it comes to removing the turbo. They say "access is poor".... I'll bloody say so! Getting the turbo off a 405TD with the engine in place is 99.9% impossible, especially as everything will be good and siezed!
Its usually the small jobs which can very quickly turn into a big job, ie shearing an important bold, dropping somthing down the back of the engine which takes you 2 hours to find.
A 15 min job of wiring an amp into the back of my old car turned into 3 hours because when putting the power back on i arcd the battery which armed the alarm that i didn't have a key to [:(]! But look at the bright side, i now know how to hotwire and disable the alarm on a nissan micra [;)]!
A 15 min job of wiring an amp into the back of my old car turned into 3 hours because when putting the power back on i arcd the battery which armed the alarm that i didn't have a key to [:(]! But look at the bright side, i now know how to hotwire and disable the alarm on a nissan micra [;)]!
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rory_perrett</i>
Rule of thumb - estimate how long a job will take, double it and then move up one unit of time.
Example - 5 mins = 10 hours, 1 day = a fortnight, although the odd job has still been know to over run.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
That's irritatingly accurate.
Rule of thumb - estimate how long a job will take, double it and then move up one unit of time.
Example - 5 mins = 10 hours, 1 day = a fortnight, although the odd job has still been know to over run.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
That's irritatingly accurate.