Supposedly, men are terrible at reading instructions. It’s as if you read instructions, your basically admitting you have a tiny manhood.


I build a lot of transmissions. I built one for a friend of a friend last winter. It was a basket case Powerglide that came out of a Ford Mustang bracket car. The bellhousing had been cut for a small block ford ultra bell.

The guy dropped off the trans last winter, right before Christmas. Since my wash machine sits in a unheated shed, I have to drain the machine once the cold weather sets in. I told the guy about this, he said no problem. He wasn’t in a hurry.

The guy then calls weekly asking for a update. I told him I hadn’t done anything with it yet due to the cold. After a few weeks of this, I finally decide just to tear the damn thing apart to see what he had, which was completely wrong for his application.


The guy wanted to use this trans in a Buick Regal with a turbo LS making about 1200hp. I’m guessing the small block ford made maybe 500, there is NO WAY the stock 1.82 gearset would live with that much power. It had the small drum, aluminum clutch hub, a TCI pro tree transbrake (important point to this story) and completely worn out.

I tell the guy what he had, and what he needed to get to make it work. He then tells me he doesn’t have money to buy the stuff, he needs to wait on his tax check. 🙄. Great, then why hassle me WEEKLY if you don’t have 2 dimes to rub together?! I didn’t really want a bunch of parts sitting around my garage, I really like to get them in, torn apart, and back together fairly quick. Having a transmission sitting in pieces just makes it more likely to lose of damage parts.

Two month pass, he finally buys the parts. It then takes 3 more weeks once it’s done for him to finally pick it up.

He called me 3 weeks ago, said the trans has no reverse and no first gear. He is pretty pissed about it. Wants to know how soon I can look at it, he needs it asap. I told him let me know when he wants me to come to his house to look it over, he told me he already had it out of the car. I told him bring it to me, I’ll look at it. He dropped it off Sunday afternoon. 🙄

I do my autopsy, it looks great inside. Only thing I noticed is both wires to the transbrake solenoid are cut and missing. Other than that, it’s flawless.

Remember, this has a forward pattern PRO TREE valve body. To get the car to back up, you have to push the trans brake button. No solenoid, no reverse. That mystery is solved.

The no first gear took a little more investigation. I finally determined his car has a shifter with a reverse shift gate, this valvebody is a forward pattern. What he thought was 1st gear was really high. Mystery number 2 solved.

What infuriates me is I downloaded a copy of the transbrake valve body instructions and gave them to him. The instructions in big bold print say YOU MUST ACTIVATE THE TRANSBRAKE TO BACK UP! It also says this is a forward pattern valvebody.

He never looked at the instructions. Never even took them out of the zip lock bag I put them in. He did he got the trans brake solenoid wires caught in the wheels of his floor Jack and tore them off. He said he didn’t care about the brake, so he never planned to use the solenoid.

My point to all this: do those of you in readerland ignore instructions?! I always read instructions, and my wife is pretty satisfied 🥁 ( refer to my first paragraph! 😁

 

The guy sounds like a real tool!

 

I always read the instructions even on everyday stuff, sometimes you come across some useful tidbit of info or helpful hint that you didnt know.

i try to get my kid to make that the first priority but you know kids they know everything

 

An entertaining story for us, not so much for you.

Skipping instructions doesn't necessarily lead to breaking things. If you have reasonable skills, many times it works out OK. You just have to eventually read the instructions if problems come up.

So there may be another clue to the drama...

"(He doesn't have) 2 dimes to rub together." Some people seem to have an unconscious program running in their brain that results in their throwing away their money. No matter what their income, money is always critically short. My sweetie is related to people like that; she calls it poverty consciousness. Being careless with expensive things is an easy way to blow through money. Lack of reading instructions can play into that as well.

Edit: As for me, I'm a typical engineer. And engineers learn through reading or else they wouldn't have graduated. The 15% of mankind with that mentality typically can't believe that some can't read instructions and do the job perfectly. If you're not one of the 15%, you may not benefit much from reading instructions. Hands-on instructions are aimed at the 85%.

 

Any installation issue is NOT your problem. Him reading or not reading the instructions and what not is NOT your problem.

Was there an understanding that he had a transbrake and more importantly, would actually use it? Or were these assumptions? All these things need to be discussed upfront because you cannot trust the person will have cognitive skills enough to know or understand what he needs or wants. He obviously shouldn't turn a wrench if he doesn't even have his car set up for the transmission he's using.

Next time that guy asks for anything, you're too busy with other stuff to give him the time of day. Or charge him double. Simple as that. If he doesn't even know what he's working with, he needs to stay the fudge away from mechanical pieces/parts and let the men drive.

 

I agree. I often like to figure things out as I go, sort of like a self-challenge. Many times stuff is just so obvious, all that's needed is a bit of studying to see how things either go together or come apart. But I am smart enough to know when I'm in over my head, and need to to stop and go read before things get damaged.

 

The answer is no. Nobody reads anymore. Hell people don't even try to spell anymore. KWIM? It's a crazy world.

Thing that sucks is all of the time you had to spend just for him being clueless. Good for you trusting and knowing Your work. 👍🍻

 

Unfortunately those 85% seem to be the ones writing most of those instructions as well.

 

Too true! A close friend, an engineer, works as a technical writer. A boss once told him, "I can always answer your questions--they are about our writing software. I can't answer the other writer's questions--they don't understand how the equipment they are writing about works."

 

Damn I bet you live way too far to work on my powerglide 😩

 

I enjoy reading tech documents; I've even written a few myself. I particularly enjoy 1960s and 70s American instructions. "Since you've bought our brand, you must have good taste and know audio equipment, but, we recommend reading this section due to the presence of some special features we added that we're sure you'll fully appreciate." I also like Japanese instructions translated into English: "Although the Orb is designed to safely press the record, we please recommend the low setting for the rare or valuable record for in case it could be damaged."

 

I love reading Japanese instructions translated into English!!!!

Remember the jive talking scene in the movie “Airplane!”? Imagine Mr. Myagyi in that situation.

 

I enjoy the performance transmission stuff. It’s a bit of a ego trip watching The Quick 32 of drag week, or some of the cars in Sick Week knowing my transmissions are in some of those cars.

The frustrating part of this entire story is he had a 400 that I built in the car. That 400 had a brake, so I assumed he would use the brake on the glide. Maybe he did plan to, and when he tore the wires to the solenoid he decided not to. Solenoids aren’t that expensive, but I’m guessing this goes back to not having 2 dimes to rub together. He took it out to install the glide, then was pissed that he needed to buy a aftermarket gearset, direct drum, clutch hub, and all the parts to make it work. He could have built 2 400s with the money he spent. He wanted to go with the glide because he does a lot of the no prep racing, the higher 1st gear is easier to launch with a small tire car. I tried to talk him into just swapping valve bodies to a 2nd gear leave style, or just putting different planetary gearset in the 400. Nope, he got a good deal on the glide. Sure, he saved a bunch of money once he bought a $1000 gearset, ultra bell to fit the LS, different converter, etc.

The racing community (much like the Olds community) is pretty small. I try really hard to keep people happy.

I just needed to vent.

 

Maybe. But the stupidity level only can go so far. Then you have to cut them off for their own sake and safety.

 

That hits home. I'm an Engineer as well but have never been a very patient reader. YouTube has opened a new world of available research material. I spent two hours watching YouTube videos on rebuilding a T5 one Sunday afternoon when the weather was too crappy to do anything else. I also saved them for reference for when I rebuild mine.

 

I usually have ta dig the box out of the trash 4 or 5 times to read the instructions I've throw away

 

I gave up on utube. Too many mo-rons who rattle on forever instead of saying what needs to be said in a succinct manner. And minutes worth of video of a part sitting on a table? Get to it already! And then after spending time watching said mo-ron, it ends up he did it incorrectly and says "Don't do what I did". Why the F did you post the video if you know you did it incorrectly?!?!?

 

When all else fails --- Read the instructions

 

I thought that was the way you were supposed to do it.

 

I usually have my wife read the instructions, so if anything gets screwed up she’s the first to blame.

 

EXACTLY. Those videos drive me nuts (ARRRRRR!). These are not only wasted time, but then I have to log into my YouTube account, thumbs-down the video, and leave a comment and hope people read the comments before watching that jerk's video.