...they look innocent enough until you start, and then you keep getting deeper and deeper.
This weekend was the first time I had available to repair two vehicle issues: The head-up display on my car wasn't working (broken mirror-angle spring bracket), and my truck was throwing a code that indicated that
either the camshaft position sensor
or the crankshaft position sensor was broken. Or possibly both.
The Haynes manual for the car doesn't even dance around the issue of the HUD: "Go to your dealer. Here there be dragons." But the dealer wants $600-$800 to replace the broken bracket. Nope. A little google-fu later, and I have instructions for how to repair the hud. It's a lunchbox-sized unit that lives under the dash behind the instrument panel. Through the windshield, I can see the broken bracket, not six inches from my nose. All I have to do is open up the HUD, and drill a new hole in the bracket, and reattach the spring. Simple.
But to
get to it, I have to take the top of the dash off. And to undo the third screw that holds the HUD in place, I have to remove the instrument cluster. Which means pulling the front of the dash (top and bottom), which requires pulling the center-console cover
and the OBD-II connector, and the bezel around the ignition keyhole...and...and...and. The whole
actual repair part took 5 minutes: open HUD, remove mirror and motor, remove bracket, marvel at the idiocy of whoever thought that 1/32" of plastic was enough to support a spring under tension, drill new hole in sturdier part of bracket, wipe everything down, reassemble. But the taking-apart-the-whole-dash-and-then-putting-it-all-back-together part...that took the balance of two hours. On the upside: $0 repair, and the HUD works like new.
Then...
then I decide to have a go at the truck. OK, it's either the crank sensor or the cam sensor. Or both. Crank sensor costs $90, and I can get it at the parts shop up the street. Cam sensor costs $75, and there's apparently only one of them in the entire state of Northern Virginia, and that's at a dealership way the heck out in inconvenientville. Parts department at the dealership is already closed at 5PM on Saturday, and doesn't open back up until Monday.
I don't know which one I need to replace. Hmm. What does Haynes say I would need to do to test them? Oh. It'll take tools I don't have (that would cost me more than the price of the sensor), and time I don't want to spend. Ok, well, so let's replace one, and see if that fixes the problem. Using the scientific selection algorithm of "I can get the crank sensor today", I decided to replace that one first.
Where is it? On the engine block, behind the right exhaust manifold. Haynes recommends putting the truck up on jackstands, pulling the the right front tire, and removing the fender splash panel. Which requires that I (Haynes says) "pry out the plastic retaining pins". Except, oh, oops, they're not pry-out-able; they're the plastic equivalent of pop rivets, and the only way to get them out is to destroy them.
Once that's all done, I can finally see the bloody sensor. Two bolts, which (fortunately) have Allen sockets in them, because there's no 1/2" crescent or socket wrench going to fit in that space. Bolts come out easily, old sensor comes out, new sensor goes in, bolts go back in...Haynes says to tighten them to 70 inch-pounds. Yeah. Right. With the torque wrench that's even
longer than the socket and crescent wrenches that already don't fit in there. Ok, so we'll use the Allan wrench to tighten them to...
there. We'll call that 70 in-lbs.
On the up side, it
was the crank sensor that was the problem, so the truck's back all happy, with no trip to the dealer in inconvenientville.
It's a heck of a lot cheaper to do this stuff for myself, but sometimes I wonder whether it's worth it.