No such thing as an easy repair

[SpiffWilkie]

I have whatever the opposite of the Midas touch is when it comes to car repair.
Tonight I decided to clean the throttle body and troubleshoot some idle issues I've been having. I went to take off the IAC and one of the screws snapped off flush with the throttle body. I tried a special bit to remove broken screws, but it seems to be put on with some loctite and the screw is very soft and doesn't want to budge.

Ughhhhhhhhhh

[NYChevoo]

Seems I have the same luck you do sometimes. can you use some rust penetrator and let it sit for a day or two? It will eventually have to break free.

[SpiffWilkie]

Unfortunately, I didn't have a day or two to let it sit. Had to resort to drilling it out and tapping.

[Carlcampbelljr]

I have days like that. I call it the fecal touch, because what i touch just turns to sh!t.

[avguy]

I would reword this slightly to never assume a repair is going to be easy, and to always consider the possibility of something bad (maybe even really bad) happening. It happens to all of us DIYers,and to the pros as well. The only difference is that the pros are ready for it, and are likely just as fast with the remediation as they are with the job itself. I usually go through one round of "HOLY $HITs", and then start figuring out how to get the broken bolt out, or fix whatever else went wrong.
But I've also have had some jobs go better than expected, and maybe once or twice much better. Those I put up on the shelf to admire

[petrified.rabbit]

A lot of my friends and I have found this to be true when working on your own car. We are all professional mechanics, body men, fabricators by trade and only time any of use seem to have any trouble is when we work on our own cars. It has been so predictable, that some of us who need a "fast" repair will schedule a day and work on each others cars versus our own.

[avguy]

A lot of my friends and I have found this to be true when working on your own car. We are all professional mechanics, body men, fabricators by trade and only time any of use seem to have any trouble is when we work on our own cars. It has been so predictable, that some of us who need a "fast" repair will schedule a day and work on each others cars versus our own.

Now that one gets a chuckle, a grin, and maybe even an LOL

[SpiffWilkie]

A lot of my friends and I have found this to be true when working on your own car. We are all professional mechanics, body men, fabricators by trade and only time any of use seem to have any trouble is when we work on our own cars. It has been so predictable, that some of us who need a "fast" repair will schedule a day and work on each others cars versus our own.

Well, a lot of my issues stem from the fact that I am not a mechanic, and never really did any car repair growing up. I just sort of jump into things and then panic after I run into an issue.
Last year I kept reminding myself to change the timing belt, but always put it off because I didn't feel like spending $150 on the parts. Well, I learned my lesson the hard way. Unfortunately, between school and work it took me many weekends and $$$ to actually replace the head and get it running again. To put some perspective on my ability, I think that changing the alternator or perhaps pulling a steering wheel to replace a defective switch were the biggest jobs I had ever done on a car. For me to replace the head with no outside assistance (well, besides here and youtube ) was a huge deal for me.
So, working on the car is always an adventure for me. This was a relatively minor episode, though.