Giggling Monkeys can't design cars

Monday, 23 February 2004
Recovering.

My ordeal began when my son arrived home on Saturday afternoon, with his 1985 Caprice Classic trailing from the back of a wrecker, ass in a sling. Diagnosis: dead starter. Consensus among those who thought they knew the solution: "It's easy! Just two bolts and it drops right out!" That's good, because he must have the car Monday morning to attend classes and student teaching.

Someday I'll write this up properly, but for now, here are the choppy notes as incomplete sentences:

damned Giggling Monkeys starter -- "easy! just two bolts and it drops right out!"

• begin: saturday afternoon.
• except, the exhaust crossover pipe was in the way.
• couldn't get to the wires on the solenoid.
• 3rd bolt on front of starter nearly unreachable, also different size.
• nuts on wires are fractional inch, bolts and nut holding starter are metric, bolt holding front bracket to engine is 1/2".
• drop exhaust - twist off two studs...
• one arm up from bottom, other in from fender well over frame, pass wrench from overside hand to underside hand for 1/8 turn of 1/2" bracket bolt per move.
• same for 11mm nut on front of starter.
• 9/16" nut holding main positive cables is reachable 1 hand (can either look at it, or put hand and wrench through space, not both).
• wiggle starter free, drop about 3 inches, end of short wire,
• hold starter one-hand, manipulate box end wrench with other, remove wire...
• test starter - solenoid works, motor doesn't turn.
• sunday near dawn - sleep.
• sunday - noon: son arrives with replacement starter, exhaust studs. procrastinate until 1 pm.
• to remove exhaust manifold to drill and rethread for studs --
  • remove ac bracket, which has 5 bolts (3 sizes, inch and metric),
  • which also has alignment stud at 90 degrees to shared exhaust manifold bolts, can't just slip bracket off after unbolting.
  • finally off, reveals ...
  • power steering pump bracket bolted onto last exhaust manifold bolt.
  • 2 other p.s. bracket bolts unreachable unless a.c. compressor AND p.s. pump removed.
  • hellwithit -- sawzall the one 90 degree tab of the bracket that connects to last exhaust manifold bold (redundant with extra brace for a.c.).
• drill, tap, install new studs,
• reinstall exhaust manifold (with 2 piece heat shield for spark plugs).
• take piles of sockets, extensions, wrenches from under hood exhaust manifold + bracket battle to under car for...
• (hopefully) final starter battle.
• maneuver starter tail-first up into space, rotate,
• find front bracket bolt is longer than old starter's, loosened bracket hits some sensor before bolt can pass by,
• wiggle starter back out,
• loosen bracket more (1/4 turn a time now, more space).
• wiggle starter in,
• hang starter from front bracket.
• from fenderwell, feel small wires, arrange on stud,
• one-hand start nut, one-hand 5/16" box wrench to tighten,
• feel for and arrange 2 large cables on large stud...
• get back under car,
• tighten 9/16" nut on large cables.
• one hand wiggling starter, one hand to start 15 mm bolts,
• ratchet and extensions to initial snug.
• one hand through fenderwell over frame, one hand under frame over A-arm to 1/8 turn hand to hand tighten 11 mm front bracket nut.
• repeat for 1/2" bracket bolt.
• tighten 15 mm starter bolts.
• sunday evening -- cleanup, eat.
• attack exhaust...
• knee under catalytic converter, belly under crossover pipe to lift system,
• one hand over crossmember to align flange, one hand manipulate extension with socket to start nuts.
• partially snug,
• repeat for other side except add in extra aggravation of separate valve assembly to be aligned with same hand used for aligning flange.
• finish tightening all flange nuts,
• re-install twin bolts to catalytic converter hanger.
• sweep piles of tools from under car...
• sunday night -- 11 pm. reattach battery cables, turn key: rrrrrr tick tick tick.
• remove battery cables, attach charger, go drink coffee.
• midnight -- not charged enough.
• 1 am -- not charged enough.
• 2 am -- shit, try it. 2:10 am -- starts! let it run.
• take it off jack stands.
• rejoice the "easy! just two bolts and it drops right out!" job is DONE.

This is not my first encounter with Giggling Monkeys products. This is not the latest model year Giggling Monkeys product I've dealt with. From my experiences, I conclude that sometime in the 1970s, GM decided to fire all engineers and replace them with hordes of Giggling Monkeys. After that, their cars became simply piles of a series of afterthoughts bolted together. It is no wonder that it takes highly skilled (and paid) workers to assemble the things in the first place and then highly skilled (if not highly paid) mechanics and "GM trained technicians" to work on the tortuous things.