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Reading a thread here reminded me of my 1980 or 81 Pontiac Sunbird where you had to lift the engine off the mounts to change the spark plugs.
The tail light was mounted in a plastic housing so that when I went down a mountain, it melted the housing and caused the light to drop into the trunk which was full of my laundry. When I smelled smoke and opened the trunk, my smoldering towels burst into flames.
I also had a car (may have been the Sunbird) where every other bolt for the valve covers was metric, then SAE, then metric . . . all the way around. It was when the car manufacturers were requried to have a certain percentage of their fasteners metric by a certain date.
Anyone else encounter really stupid design issues? Or was the Sunbird the worst design ever?
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It probably gets chalked up to being a "high strung thoroughbred" rather than stupid design but I'm pretty sure I've read in the past that a timing belt change on a Ferrari 308 requires engine removal.
I had a Norton motorcycle years ago the design of which ran an oil breather hose into the paper element air cleaner, not the most sensible thing to do.
Another entry: Audi A2 (I don't know if it was on sale in the US)
You were not supposed to do anything yourself on the engine, therefore the hood did not open as usual... you had to unscrew it and take it off as a whole. There was a small hatch however that replaced the usual grille... from there you could refill oil and water at least.
Guess with decreasing margins on the new car sale they tried to tie the people to the Audi garage for later service.
I owned a 1969 Buick Wildcat that required bumper removal to change tail light or brake light bulb. I have a drawer full of special wrenches that were either bought or heated and bent for some poorly designed nut. By some poor designer nut. The one that comes to mind is a 15mm distributor wrench, as crooked as a dog's hind leg. It fits the hold down nut on a transverse mounted 4 cyl with the distributor on the back side of the engine. I'm sure it was a GM but don't remember sex or hair color.
Reading a thread here reminded me of my 1980 or 81 Pontiac Sunbird where you had to lift the engine off the mounts to change the spark plugs.
The tail light was mounted in a plastic housing so that when I went down a mountain, it melted the housing and caused the light to drop into the trunk which was full of my laundry. When I smelled smoke and opened the trunk, my smoldering towels burst into flames.
I also had a car (may have been the Sunbird) where every other bolt for the valve covers was metric, then SAE, then metric . . . all the way around. It was when the car manufacturers were requried to have a certain percentage of their fasteners metric by a certain date.
Anyone else encounter really stupid design issues? Or was the Sunbird the worst design ever?
Oh, god! I had an '85 Sunbird and that thing was posessed! What a total piece of crap. I've never bought a GM since.
Reading a thread here reminded me of my 1980 or 81 Pontiac Sunbird where you had to lift the engine off the mounts to change the spark plugs.
They didn't make Sunbirds in 1981, they were RWD up to 1980 and then FWD starting in 1982. I'm going to guess your car was the RWD model? If so was it the V6 or V8 model?
How about the 1969 Ford Mustang with the 428 Cobra-Jet....that engine sat so close to the shock towers you had to pull the engine to do a spark plug change.
They didn't make Sunbirds in 1981, they were RWD up to 1980 and then FWD starting in 1982. I'm going to guess your car was the RWD model? If so was it the V6 or V8 model?
How about the 1969 Ford Mustang with the 428 Cobra-Jet....that engine sat so close to the shock towers you had to pull the engine to do a spark plug change.
My Sunbird was a 4. I dont think that they made V-8s. I think that it was RWD as best as I can remember. Could I be off on the year? If so not by much. I bought it used but not very old and I had it in 1986 and 1987. It had no rust so it could not have been much more than five or six years old. Back then cars rusted out in five years or less from the salt on the roads.
Ultimatley the engine burst into flames at a gas station. The flames did a lot of damage, but the fire extinquisher stuff that they sprayed into the still running engine did additional damage, perhaps more. The insurance company totalled it and I bought a mazda RX7, one of my favorie cars ever except the dash board was made of a material that breaks down in sunlight. Pretty dumb for a car with a large windshield and a giant sunroof.
My Sunbird was a 4. I dont think that they made V-8s. I think that it was RWD as best as I can remember. Could I be off on the year?
This is a 1978 Sunbird but 1975-1980 looked similar to this:
And this is a mid 80's model:
Quick history on the Sunbird, and yes a V8 was optional one year:
Quote:
The first generation Pontiac Sunbird was a rear-wheel drive subcompact car, developed as a badge-engineered version of the Chevrolet Monza, itself a sportier version of the Chevrolet Vega. Its intended competitors were other small sporty two-door vehicles of the time, such as the Toyota Celica, Ford Capri, and the Ford Mustang II
The Sunbird was introduced in the fall of 1975 as a 1976 model sharing the notchback coupe body of the Monza Towne Coupe. The standard engine was the same all-aluminum 2.3 L (140 cid) inline four-cylinder engine used in the Vega, Monza and Astre. Equipped with a single barrel carburetor, it generated a peak power output of 78 horsepower (58 kW) @ 4200 rpm. Also standard was a 4-speed manual transmission, with a 5-speed manual or a 3-speed automatic transmission available as options.
This engine was also available optionally with a 2-barrel carburetor that increased peak power to 87 horsepower (65 kW) @ 4400 rpm, as well as Buick's 3.8 L (231 cid) V6 engine rated at 110 horsepower (82 kW) @ 4000 rpm.
For the 1977 model year the Sunbird added the same hatchback coupe bodystyle as the Monza, as well as a new standard engine: Pontiac's then-new 2.5 L (151 cid) “Iron Duke” inline four-cylinder engine using a 2-barrel Holley carburetor and generating 90 horsepower (67 kW) @ 4400 rpm. The previous 2.3 L engine was still available as an option (with either a one- or two-barrel carburetor), as was the Buick powerful V6.
In the 1978 model year the hatchback coupe and two-door station wagon (Kammback) bodies used by the Astre were added to the Sunbird lines. They continued to use the same front fascias as the old Astre models with Sunbird badging. The 2.3 L engine was simultaneously dropped from the list of options. For the 1979 model year, the Chevrolet's 5.0 L (305 cid) V8 engine was available as an option in the notchback coupe and Monza-based hatchback, while the Astre-based hatchback coupe was discontinued.
1980 was the final production year of the H-bodied Sunbird. By this time the station wagon body-style and the optional V8 engine were dropped. This year featured an unusually long production run in order to provide sufficient inventory to carry dealers into the 1981 model year, in anticipation of the Sunbird's replacement.
A friend of mine had a 79 model with the Buick 231 V6, his was a coupe and I swear the back seat only had the leg room for little kids; any good sized adult would be scrunched up in the rear! Plus I don't know if those cars had weak glass but when he went to shut the door one day the passenger side window shattered.
Also I looked up the Monza (the bigger brother to the Sunbird), as I found it could be had with a V8 starting in 1976, and it did have this to say about the challenging spark plug swap:
Quote:
The V-8 engine resulted in a very crowded engine bay. One of the spark plugs could only be accessed through the driver's side wheel well by jacking up the engine. Frequently the spark plug was not accessed at all. The comparatively heavy V-8 engine in the small Chevrolet Monza led to severe driveline vibrations due to a sagging front frame and suspension.
Last edited by Deez Nuttz; 04-08-2008 at 05:22 PM..
This is a 1978 Sunbird but 1975-1980 looked similar to this:
Quick history on the Sunbird, and yes a V8 was optional in some years:
A friend of mine had a 79 model with the Buick 231 V6, his was a coupe and I swear the back seat only had the leg room for little kids; any good sized adult would be scrunched up in the rear! Plus I don't know if those cars had weak glass but when he went to shut the door one day the passenger side window shattered.
Yup as I remember, it looked like that only blue and with flames coming out from the trunk or under the hood.
Were the later versions very different looking?
It was a vega? No wonder it was a POS. THe Vega was designed to use up left over parts from other cars. GM had made too many parts for certain cars so they came up with the Vega as a sort of frankenstein car ot use up the parts. At least that is what I was once told.
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