Nuts and Bolts

It’s been a while since I talked about Car Mechanic Simulator 2021 and a while since I played. So long, in fact that I couldn’t recall where I had got to with my existing job! Having uploaded the game to my new pc while I was feeling unwell last week, I started a new game save and set off on the journey once again. When you’re not well and need something relaxing to do, this game is a good choice because it keeps the brain active without imparting any ‘speed’ stress on the player. You do need to have your wits about you but there is no rush so you can think things through to find a solution to whatever the current car’s ailments are. I did 2 ‘Nuts and Bolts’ posts on gameplay back in September last year and if you were considering playing the game, then I’d recommend giving them a read. In this post I’m going to take a look at a mid-level repair job.

The vehicle involved is a Ford Focus 4×4 – one of the RS series. In game, this is called a Salem GW500. Here it is…

…And here is the work chit…

…There are a lot of things that need doing – replace all filters speaks for itself and the customer has listed some items for replacement in the timing section. But, in all the other sections you’re on a voyage of discovery. I’ve deliberately highlighted the ‘Tapping Sounds’ section so you can see that we only know one item at this stage and that’s purely because it also shows up in the timing section. Any ‘Sounds’ or ‘Noises’ sections on a work chit invariably mean a diligent search for the cause – sometimes a very long search as some of the possible culprits may not be immediately apparent!

Lets get started and use the OBD reader to see what that tells us…

…This can be very informative and immediately gives us one probable answer for not being able to start the car…

…The Engine Control Unit has died. That ignition coil is also bad enough to prevent starting! Moving on and continuing the pre-work investigation with the good old multi-meter…

…Still an excellent tool – used one lots at work and while doing Ham Radio😎 Here’s what it found…

…Another 2 showstoppers when trying to start the car 🙄

At this point I could have replaced those 4 items and then run a compression test to check the pistons, etc. But the reported lack of engine power and the ‘noises’ already have me suspicious that I’m going to find issues inside the crankcase after I drain the oil to change the filter. So instead, I moved the car to the lifter and began the physical work. Here’s the view after I’d drained the oil and removed the oil pan…

…On the upper left, the alternator is unwell and top centre, the Oil Filter needs changing – both as expected from the work chit and testing. Inside the crankcase we can see that the Crankshaft is not in a good condition and it will need changing. If you look closely, you’ll see one of the Crankshaft Bearing Cap’s (below and to the right of the blue oil filter) is also in bad condition – that is our first culprit for tapping noises in the engine bay! We’ll undo all of the bearing caps and the rod caps that hold the pistons in place then lower the car because we need to continue our work from above – we can’t remove the crankshaft until we’ve removed the pistons and that means removing the cylinder head. Fortunately, the work we have to do to remove the timing items ready for replacement will go much of the way to reaching that goal. Here’s the situation after removing the covers above the camshafts…

…I have already removed the camshaft caps from the left camshaft – two of them were worn, one affecting performance and the other ‘tapping’. The camshaft itself is worn and needs to be changed. The right hand camshaft is fine but the closest camshaft cap is worn and in this case, is another of our general engine repair culprits along with the left hand camshaft. There are other things to note in this image – The timing gears and chain connecting the two camshafts are all worn and joined the queue of items to be changed. On the right, just visible beside the engine, is the faulty turbocharger – a culprit for lack of engine power. Then, in the foreground, we have the air filter box. The cover is fine but we already know that we need to change the filter inside. The key thing to notice here is the mottling on the plastic to the left – that is part of the air filter housing base and it’s a reason for the lack of power too as the filtered air flows through that to get into the engine! On the centre left side of the engine is the intake manifold – nothing wrong with that but hiding below are the fuel injectors and two of those were faulty as well. Some boy-racer has been thrashing this car! After all that work, here’s some of my collection of parts lying on the workbench…

…The coloured bars indicate their relative health. Now we can pull the pistons and, no surprise, one of them has worn rings! The pile of parts gets ever bigger…

…On the bottom right is the Water Pump that we knew was faulty all along but was one of the later items to get removed and in the middle line are the fuel injectors. Now it’s time to go back down below and remove the gearbox, clutch and flywheel so that we can finally pull the crankshaft. I found that the clutch release and pressure plate were both worn too although the owner hadn’t complained of gear-shifting issues.

Time to get the replacement parts – Here’s the shopping list…

As you can imagine, all those items cost a lot of money – you need to make sure you have plenty of cash in your account. Reassembling the engine is a calm and steady process although making sure you put the new items in the correct location to replace the removed faulty items is important. For example, if I put the new crankshaft bearing cap at the fan belt end rather than the flywheel end of the block, the game will not see it as fixed! I suggest creating a form of notation you can use as a reminder on a notepad. Once I had completed the rebuild it was time to review the work chit to make sure I hadn’t missed anything…

…All the areas are greyed out and, with the ‘tapping’ section selected you can see the green ticks on all the parts that were guilty of contributing to the noise the customer was experiencing. Other things to note are the credits on the top right – 15540. That means I spent Cr2808 on parts for this job. Then on the centre-left note that I will be getting a 25% bonus to my payment because of the complexity of this job. Time to finish off by restoring the oil to the engine and refilling the cooling system…