Now here's an idea for Caterpillar....

[Resonator]

Home made open end flare nut wrench.

[customsawyer]

I think Scott singled me out, because I have the same backhoe. I love the ones that won't let you get a wrench to them even after you take the other hoses off. You get to stand there winding your head and scratching your watch, trying to come up with a solution.

[Cedarman]

Design engineers.  Probably same that put gas tanks on opposite sides of cars and trucks and filling stations with short hoses.
If I was a total dictator there would be prisons for certain engineers.
Yup, we have several designer open end wrenches.

[Ianab]

Can I vote for it to apply to computers as well? 

Usual gripe is that when assembling a laptop, they START with the cooling fan, then assemble everything else around it. What's the most likely thing to fail or become clogged with dust? Yup, the cooling fan.  So what should be a 5 min job to blow dust out of the cooling system is now an hour of watching youtube (to work out how the thing actually comes apart), then 27 different size screws and fiddly connectors to remove and put back. Just to get a dust bunny out of the fan. 

It's not like they couldn't just put access covers that allow access to the storage drive, RAM and cooling fan (some do). Or even make the whole lower case easy to remove. Some models are like that, and easy to work on. Others, not so much. 

And don't get me started on glued in batteries. 

[doc henderson]

My wife's brother has a little one-man car shop.  I asked him how to change the headlight in my wife's Acadia.  he said it is a 3-hour procedure, take it to the dealer.  So, they sell the car and plan to make up more in the repairs that normal folks cannot do quickly.

[Resonator]

A friend years ago was a car salesman. He said when they build a dealership, the service department area is 4 times (or more) bigger than the new car showroom. This is not by accident, they know where they make the money.
---------------

Probably same that put gas tanks on opposite sides of cars and trucks and filling stations with short hoses.

When in doubt what side the gas filler is on a vehicle, check the gas gauge. Usually there will be a little triangle-arrow pointing left or right.

[Magicman]

True that but all of the fill up traffic is going the other way...

[Dave Shepard]

German/Japanese cars are on the wrong side. Should not have been allowed in the country. Of course I don't have to go to the pump very often with my Golf...

[Resonator]

We had an old Pontiac sedan back when I was learning to drive. Didn't matter which side you pulled in by the pump. Gas filler was neither on the right or left side, it was behind the rear license plate. 

[thecfarm]

Old is right!!!
father had a Dodge like that, Cordoba, maybe 75?

[GRANITEstateMP]

Racing engineers are just as bad! I agree all should gave HANDS ON field time.  I had a buddy on another team when I worked in racing, they were building a better & safer seat.  Ot was a carbon fiber deal, can't remember if it had an insert or if it was 1 or two piece.  Anyways, they tested it in "labs" and all that, got the driver fitted just right, made a couple extras so they could mount them in multiple cars.  Only 1 problem...IT DIDN'T FIT! You couldn't get it into the dang racecar once the car was built!  There was a rollcage, interior tinwork, a body... The seat "fit" in the car, if you built the car around it!  I can't remember what the final outcome was, but I was really glab our driver had a aluminum containment seat that was a main body that you bolted braces onto.  I was even happier that I wasn't the interior guy and seats weren't usually my problem!

[okmulch]

As many of you know I have many CAT skidsteers and I have cussed them for years on poor designs to change hoses.  Especially the hose that come out the side of the machines and go to the final drives on the tracks.  Wrench won't fit to change hose and you have to slide the whole track out almost off its axles to change hoses. Well apparently Cat finally listened. the new D3 models and the new 265, skidsteers hydraulic hoses have like a quick atttach on the ends now and then use a clip to hold them in place. They are similar to air hose Attatchments. 
 To remove you take the backing clip off and then push and pull real quick and the hose releases. 
Has only taken them 20 some years to figure it out. 

[Resonator]

Some machines have the hoses/engine compartment better laid out than others, one of the first things to check when buying one. Some of the worst hose routing I've seen is in mini excavators, especially zero tail swing/tight radius machines.
Guys that work on them recommend tieing a long rope to the old hose when you pull it out, and then pull the new hose through with the rope to follow the routing.

[scsmith42]

I've done that many times when replacing hoses on the P&H crane.

[dgdrls]

Dandy custom job

[okmulch]

Low and behold I talk about the new hose styles and I catch a big chunk of wood and break 2 hoses off on the Cat 299d3 yesterday So I took a couple pics of what they look like not having to use wrenches.