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GM Engineers...

TheBeast_88K5

TheBeast_88K5

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Why the HELL would you make a giant sheet of plastic, w/ little metal paths,
To distribute the electricity to the gauge cluster!?

What the flying ****... :confused:

New gauges are in my near future.
 
Hey, at least it's serviceable without special tools or tiny hands.:thumb:

Actually, aside from the craptastic brittle plastic the cluster housing is made of I've found it pretty pleasant to work on.:dunno:

Oh and the shift indicator needle I broke.:o
 
TheBeast_88K5 said:
Why the HELL would you make a giant sheet of plastic, w/ little metal paths,
To distribute the electricity to the gauge cluster!?

What the flying ****... :confused:

New gauges are in my near future.
Click to expand...

The purpose of that is space. You can limit the amount of space wires take up by flattening them. I have a LOT of gripes with GM engineers but that isn't one of them. Almost all cars made today use a similiar design today.

I think GM must have hired the D students out of engineering school myself. I look at a lot of stuff and just shake my head why? I'm an engineer myself, electrical not mechanical. But even I can tell when a mechanical piece is poorly designed. Like all the dang brackets required to attach the accessories to the front of the engine WTF!!!!!

Another one I love.....Who in their right might thought it would be a good idea to rivet a part that wears out like a ball joint to the car? Just fricken stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
nsxxtreme said:
The purpose of that is space. You can limit the amount of space wires take up by flattening them. I have a LOT of gripes with GM engineers but that isn't one of them. Almost all cars made today use a similiar design today.

I think GM must have hired the D students out of engineering school myself. I look at a lot of stuff and just shake my head why? I'm an engineer myself, electrical not mechanical. But even I can tell when a mechanical piece is poorly designed. Like all the dang brackets required to attach the accessories to the front of the engine WTF!!!!!

Another one I love.....Who in their right might thought it would be a good idea to rivet a part that wears out like a ball joint to the car? Just fricken stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

A lot of brackets? Sure. At least it's fairly easy to remove any one of them.

I'm sure they did rivets partly because it's stronger. They have been doing that since long before pinching pennies got out of hand. And any monkey with a torch or air hammer can remove them just as fast as rusted bolts.

Give me some more, I'll tackle those too:thumb:

I don't have many gripes with GM, but other manufacturers on the other hand...
 
Geez,listen to you guys,beating up on GM,the almighty maker of our favorite trucks of all time!...:rolleyes:.....when we ALL know the other brands are even more poorly designed in more ways than GM's are,I think I wont offend any here who owns other brands of trucks by saying there is always some things that "go" on certain vehicles..some truck eat ball joints quickly despite faithful greasing,etc--they all have their quirks and things that were shoddily built...........................................................................others like to rot the spring shackles and hangers off in no time,etc..I'd guess GM rivets ball joints in because its the cheapest,strongest and fastest way to assemble them in the plant,and they also dont want any possibly loose bolts or poor grade ones shearing off and have the threat of lawsuits ,recalls,etc...I'm not a fan of printed curcuits either,especially the ones they put in GM tail lamps--ya,that was a good idea...:doah:..lets spray salt on them and see how long they work!...:rolleyes:..they must have stolen that idea from the "better ideas" motor company...(better for profits at the parts counter!)..
 
Okay... My other big gripe:

Why did they put a steering box bolt, in an impossible to reach place,
Between the crossmember and the frame!?
 
1BEATK5 said:
Pshhttt....

work on some fords....then you will be thanking GM engineers for their brilliant ideas
Click to expand...

TRUTH!

And on the bracket comment, with the SBC, you have an engine designed in the early 50's to have only a generator on the vast majority of the cars, with a few getting AC and PS. (Which the PS pump mas mounted on the back of the generator anyways) Only later was it that people decided they needed PS AC, the feds added smog ****. The brackets do suck, but they arent that bad all things considered. The aluminum brackets they had in the 90's trucks were pretty sweet though.
 
USSkoval said:
A lot of brackets? Sure. At least it's fairly easy to remove any one of them.
Click to expand...
One of the stupidest things I've ever seen IMO. Now when they went to the vortec motor someone obviously fired the bracket guy LOL.

USSkoval said:
I'm sure they did rivets partly because it's stronger. They have been doing that since long before pinching pennies got out of hand. And any monkey with a torch or air hammer can remove them just as fast as rusted bolts.
Click to expand...
Stonger why just cause it's a rivet? I don't think so.......its going to be as strong as whatever the sheer strength of the metal is. Cheaper then a bolt sure but still one of the dumbest things GM ever did IMO.

I actually think it was done for profit reasons. I would expect that if you went to GM service center to get your ball joints replaced they wouldn't replace just the ball joint. You'd have to buy a complete upper or lower control arm which is much more profitable then replacing a ball joint. More and more companies are doing this as the repair buisness is getting less profitable.

On my Range Rover the transmission is sealed for life. It's a non servicable part. No oil changes nothing. So when your transmission goes they expect you to fork out $10k just for the transmission not including labor. That was the #1 reason I bought my blazer so I could tow my boat and not worry about the expense of the transmission going out.

I'm just waiting for the day the motor becomes a non-servicable part. Guaranteed it happens within our lifetime.

diesel4me said:
I'm not a fan of printed curcuits either,especially the ones they put in GM tail lamps--ya,that was a good idea...:doah:..lets spray salt on them and see how long they work!...:rolleyes:..they must have stolen that idea from the "better ideas" motor company...(better for profits at the parts counter!)..
Click to expand...
That's a pretty easy fix if they wanted to. Conformal coat the circuit board, problem solved.
 
1BEATK5 said:
Pshhttt....

work on some fords....then you will be thanking GM engineers for their brilliant ideas
Click to expand...

I wasnt thinking that when i was rebuilding my distributor laying on planks layed across my fenders working off of touch only because the distributor is stuffed up so hard against the firewall. :whistle:
 
nsxxtreme said:
Stonger why just cause it's a rivet? I don't think so.......its going to be as strong as whatever the sheer strength of the metal is. Cheaper then a bolt sure but still one of the dumbest things GM ever did IMO.
Click to expand...

Is that why aeronautical uses rivets? Oh, and all the steel ship hulls you'll ever see too.

They're a more reliable fastening system than a nut/bolt that can vibrate loose, cross-thread during assembly, corrode and get looser (tolerances for a rivet in good condition are near 0, a threaded fastener has to have clearance in the threads or friction will make clearance) etc. Personally, I hate them and wish they weren't there because they're a pain in the ass, but car manufacturers don't design things for those of us who do our own balljoints or modify our frames. They design things so that they won't fail and result in a recall that generates a bad media image, and then they design things that are economically effective to manufacture on an assembly line with as little human error as possible.

GM's not the only company that used/uses rivets. Find me a mass production frame without rivets and I will give you a cookie.
 
i'm gonna guess aeronautical uses rivets because it accomplishes the job with a lot less weight. One rivet weighs a lot less than a bolt, flat washer, lock washer and nut (or whatever other combo you can think of)

It's not in car manufacturer's interests to make a vehicle easily serviceable by the average car owner. They make much more on service, repair, and replacement parts sales than they do building and selling the original vehicle. Their wet dream is to have each owner bring their car to them for all the maintenance and repair over the life of the car...

With the increasingly better computers available you see more and more car parts meeting their designed service life more accurately...ie: just out of warranty. That is my biggest bitch with all car manufacturers...that and when there is a known safety issue (fuel tank location for example) instead of fixing it they do a cost benefit analysis to decide how many dead people they can pay for versus the bottom line profits. Is it worth it for us to spend $7 more per car, or just settle a few more lawsuits? That kind of 'engineering' is truly evil in my mind.

i like the GM vehicles I've owned in my life, but I do not like GM in general.
 
tRustyK5 said:
i'm gonna guess aeronautical uses rivets because it accomplishes the job with a lot less weight. One rivet weighs a lot less than a bolt, flat washer, lock washer and nut (or whatever other combo you can think of)
Click to expand...

That's a good point I haven't heard referenced before, but I'm sure it's a factor.

What I see most commonly discussed is that rivets are more effective at maintaining friction between the mating surfaces for various reasons. Under high frequency vibrations and oscillations from chassis flex, rivets cannot loosen unless they or the material are stressed beyond yield (same goes for bolts though). Also, when they are smashed in to place, they very effectively seal against the joint and fill the hole entirely, which reduces stress in the hole by using the maximum possible surface area. With the tolerance between the materials so tight, it's much more difficult for contaminants such as water to get in there and corrode things, which would make the joint loose.

The main issue I see with rivets on truck frames for us is that the rivets aren't big enough to handle the increased bending stress we put on the frame from torquing it when the suspension articulates. Auto engineers obviously haven't been designing frames for torsion (hence the horrible roll steer most truck steering systems have). The fastening flanges and locations of bolt/rivet holes on a lot of crossmembers aren't located very effectively to control the axial twist of the frame rails. That ends up being really high stress concentrations at the rivets, which in turn yields them and they start to loosen.

Also, it's not like auto manufacturers have any incentive to design a frame that will be neglected by POs for 30 years and then sold for less than its weight in scrap to some Tim Allen character that's going to throw on the biggest, heaviest tires he can find, drop in an engine that produces twice as much power as the frame was intended for, and then go intentionally drive/fly it over every huge rock, washout, and tree he can find.
 
38377k5 said:
Can you elaborate on this roll steer comment?
Click to expand...

The drag link perpendicular to the axle makes sense on a dump truck, plow truck, etc that will have the passenger/drivers suspension cycling together. It's the better system for bump steer on a leaf sprung suspension. All our medium duty trucks have the same setup too. It also reduces panning of the axle under steering because the drag link is pushing back on the knuckle instead of sideways.

As we all know too well, it has horrible roll steer when the axle articulates. But, if they had run a form of crossover on a truck that would have varying and/or heavy loads on the front leaf sprung suspension, the steering wheel would be all over the place just like all the leaf sprung Fords. Hell, we have a 90ish F350 (inverted y or t, don't remember) at work with a dump bed on it that is damn-near like driving a manual steering box if you hit a bump on the highway. That steering wheel will do 90* of rotation back and forth as the leaves move just a few inches. You could adjust the draglink to center the steering wheel and two fat guys could get in to drive it and it would move again. :doah:

I guess I meant the whole truck isn't really designed for torsion, not just the frame. There isn't a market for a work truck that you can twist up in the rocks. Customers just want to put heavy loads in the bed and not have the front of the bed crush in the back of the cab. About the only torsional loads the trucks are intended to experience is what the flat road exerts on the truck when you go around a corner.
 
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