What's a VPG? Google didn't help me for this term.


I go into every maintenance/repair assuming something else is going to break or cause issues. Then I'm super happy when everything goes smoothly, and not frustrated when it doesn't. If you get mad/frustrated working on your own cars, maybe you shouldn't, it's supposed to be fun as well as saving a lot of money.
It helps to have a spare car or two though. It's not as much fun when you've lent out one of those spare cars to a friend and then X decides it's going to need a multi-day repair during the work week...

VPG = valley pan gasket (for you V8 guys)

R/R'ing the heads wasn't an oh shit moment, but it was a learning experience. I learned that it is much easier to re-install the block drain plugs BEFORE setting the heads.

Having something go wrong during first startup after fitting the VAC heads would have been an oh shit moment. But all went very well. :thumbup:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...9A99980FD9.jpg

VPG is the Valley Pan Gasket. While I agree with what you are saying about it should be fun... you can't honestly tell me you've gone into a job and pretty much every single thing isn't going right still makes you chipper. I mean there are times I get frustrated and then need to just step back from it, expecially if I have been working at the same task for 40 minutes. I.e. the VANOS Solv seal flange. What a BIOTCH! The rubber had welded itself to the SOLV and the last ditch effort was to drill into the flange and crate a pull system with 2 self tapping screws and forced the damn thing out.

Well hey, looks like you got a straight shot to the VPG now. lol

LOL if someone gets down this far to do a VPG, they took a few too many things apart. :rofl:

First time after owning it I punched it and the upper rad hose blew off .Replaced complete cooling system after that.

Duh (headslap), can't believe I didn't figure that out. Speaking of, I'm hoping the last person to fix the VPG on our car just did a lousy job of cleanup because while I was replacing the backing plate I saw a bunch of residue down there. Haven't noticed any substantial coolant loss yet, so hopefully I'm ok until next summer. And had I 'properly' replaced the backing plate/CCV valve, I would have gone ahead and replaced the valley pan, leaking or not. But I cheated and left the intake manifold on the car. First time I've ever sat on top of an engine to work on it. :D
OK, so I can't say I have a smile on my face the whole time I'm working on everything. There's definitely times while at the moment when I'm mad at stuck parts or I try to cheat and skip a step of removing something, and figure out 10 steps later that I need to go back and actually complete the step I skipped because it is for sure blocking removal of something else. But I take those *opportunities* to step away from the car, drink some beer or have a snack, then go back to it refreshed. Everytime something refuses to go right no matter what, if I stop for the day or do something else, then come back to it, I see what I was doing wrong or a different way to do it, and that bolt I was fighting with for an hour now takes 10 seconds and practically falls out by itself.

The reasons I quit being a professional mechanic: it was taking the fun out of working on cars (why do jobs do this to fun things?), and recently having kids at the time made me think more about my future health, and all the older mechanics didn't look all that healthy...

Fueling up the bastich like forever... then I remembered to turn off the engine.

First DIY oil change on my '01 X...sometime in the first year I had it.
I had done oil/filter changes on dozens of cars ,and several m'cycles over the decades.

But, I was not prepared for that 8 qts of hot azz oil gushing out of the pan, when I cracked the oil drain plug. I had a large capacity catch pan, a few newspapers spread under/around the pan, but I had slud up and under on my back, with no jack stands, and when I cracked that drain plug it was like a hot, black Niagara Falls pouring out. :yikes:

I got better at it, devising a piece of bent cardboard to give the oil a 'trough' to run out, and using cardboard 'dams' to contain it in the catch pan. But, for a first time X oil changer, it was a surprise, never having had a car that gushed 8 qts, when one is pinned in, under there... :D