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So we've all been there - you've had a momentary brain lapse and done something completely dumb while working on a car. I figure we can commiserate with each other, laugh a bit, and possibly learn something. I've got a couple to start off with. - funnels are necessary when adding engine oil. trying to add oil without one ends up with half a quart all over the engine. - Even worse - drain plugs are necessary to keep said oil in the engine. It's always a good time to add 5 quarts of oil to your engine just to realize it all ended up in the drain pan... - Caliper bolts need to be tightened. Usually ships when you do a brake job and something knocks afterwards it is cause for concern. So when you lift the car back up and realize one of the bolts is finger tight...Yeah. That'll cause a knocking alright.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:24
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Assembled a strut without bump stop or dust boot. Left a socket set on the roof of the car then went for a test drive. Didn't latch the hood pins that weren't affixed to the hood yet and went for a test drive.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:41
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Slow is Fast posted:Assembled a strut without bump stop or dust boot. All four of my struts are like that right now. On used strut tops that I knew were already blown and had a sticking steering bearing in one of the fronts. My car drives poorly.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:47
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Backed up out of the garage with hatch open when installing rear speaker to work in the sun, didn't quite make it. Opps new third brake light and spoiler clips.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:53
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Left a socket inside the transmission of my old volvo 850. installed the gearbox in the car and drove it
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Apr 24, 2015 14:54
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In my exuberance after replacing the fuel regulator I jumped it backwards. Positive on negative...negative on positive. Torched a few fusable links and the alternator. Absolutely dumbest thing I've done to a car. On the upside because of that we had to dig into the harness and realized how much of a fire hazard the car was to begin with...plus was able to figure out why it didn't run very well.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:56
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Didn't put the sump plug back in my Corolla, poured two litres of oil into it while it was parked in my driveway then wondered why my toes were wet.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:15
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rex rabidorum vires posted:In my exuberance after replacing the fuel regulator I jumped it backwards. Positive on negative...negative on positive. Torched a few fusable links and the alternator. Absolutely dumbest thing I've done to a car. Guilty of this one. On the gold legacy sedan I had, I jumped it wrong because the anti corrosion poo poo I put on dries a redish tint. So the neg looked red to me with my screwy vision. After that key on did nothing. Blew the big fuse so I just went to one of the many boxes I have of subaru wiring and ganked one to plunk in. No issues after that. Silly thing but the car held up fine to my idiocy.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:26
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Replaced the thermostat on that tired old Suburban I used to have... some random wire connected to one of the bolts got twisted off. So then it wouldn't start. Got some cheap crimp thing to hook it back up and eventually the ]i]speedo[/i] of all things started jumping up and spazzing out about 15-20 over my actual speed, and it got worse and worse til the speedo was maxed out at any speed and eventually the car died again. I had to keep taping that thing back together for about six months before I'd had enough and got a sturdier attachment thing that could deal with the heat and vibration. loving electrical poo poo... Thermostat --> speedo --> won't run.  And I'd know if TBI 350's were famous for weird quirky poo poo, too. Then there was the weird rattling sound coming from the back end. It was especially bad on rough gravel roads. I spent a couple hours tapping and banging on poo poo underneath to see what was rattling, couldn't come up with anything and gave up... then I tapped the wheel cover. That was it. Just a dumb loving piece of plastic that hadn't fallen off the wheel yet. At least it could have been something important, dammit.  Git Mah Belt Son posted:- funnels are necessary when adding engine oil. trying to add oil without one ends up with half a quart all over the engine.  Smells nice, too.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:34
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Forgot to mark alignment on 2 part driveshaft when removing (reassembled and ran to resonance frequency and realigned to what was probably correct). Mixed up inch pounds and foot pounds on a valve cover bolt. Result required a new valve cover bolt. Re-assembled the sub frame and installed it into my e46 before realizing I forgot to put parking brake cables back in.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:53
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Couldn't find a jacking point so did it on something I thought was solid, it was the fuel tank.
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Apr 24, 2015 16:45
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Oh I've got an excellent one for this. Recently I was replacing the rear wheel bearings and hubs on the S2k, and to do this I bought one of those HF shop presses. First time using a shop press to press chunks of metal in and out of other pieces of metal. Things were going okay, and the new hubs and bearings were pressed in, and I went to install the knuckles on the car. This also went well, until I tried to re-install the ABS sensor. The ABS sensor fit inside a circular hole in the knuckle, which I had managed to smush with my shop press. Apparently I wasn't careful enough with the shop press, and now I needed a new steering knuckle, and a new bearing because I had already installed one and getting it off was gonna separate it. a solid $300 lesson in proper use of a press.
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Apr 24, 2015 16:48
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When replacing calipers, make sure you don't mix up the left and right side assemblies. Although almost identical, the bleed screw will now be at the bottom of the caliper and you'll wonder why the hell it's taking so long to bleed the brakes After a quick test drive down the street you'll be cursing the engineers for the stupid bleed screw placement, then you'll notice the little L cast into the caliper on the right side. 
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Apr 24, 2015 17:08
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Shotgunning parts to the fuel and ignition system during a carburetor rebuild. I rebuilt the carburetor twice, replaced plugs and wires, pulled the distributor, replaced all vacuum lines, rebuilt the fuel selector valve, and ultimately figured out I was out of gas. Likely due to the incline that I parked on. I found out the fuel selector valve, while needing the rebuild was a moot point since the second tank's pickup was completely clogged.
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Apr 24, 2015 17:28
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Bajaha posted:After a quick test drive down the street you'll be cursing the engineers for the stupid bleed screw placement, then you'll notice the little L cast into the caliper on the right side. When we initially got Slung Blade's Coronet, we took it to Canadian Tire for the out of province inspection. Canadian Tire immediately proceeded to remove the wheels to presumably inspect the brakes or something. On old Mopars the drivers' side studs are all reverse-threaded, so that if you didn't torque the nuts down and go for a hoonfest at least they won't back off quite as fast. To communicate this, it says "L" on the lug nuts and on the lug studs. Canadian Tire's grease monkeys did not know this. Out comes the air impact. They proceeded to break two studs on one wheel, then go to the other wheel on the drivers' side and break two more studs. Then wrote it up for bad studs and seized lug nuts.
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Apr 24, 2015 18:20
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Replacing a head gasket while really tired, I put the head on and started setting the bolts in, turned around and noticed the headgasket was still on the bench.
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Apr 24, 2015 18:24
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If you're feeling off enough to not want to work on customer cars, don't work on your own car instead. If you do, make sure the timing marks you're aligning are actually timing marks, not a badly placed piece of a part number or something. Was only ten or fifteen degrees off, but I definitely confirmed that the engine was in fact interference. Valves are softer than you think.
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Apr 24, 2015 18:29
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Trusted my HF motorcycle jack for too many years. 30 year old bike in good condition now in not-so-good condition due to the fall. Also installed one of the retaining clips for the pushrod adjuster incorrectly on said bike once. Went for a test ride and it started puking oil all over me after about 5-6 miles. Had to stop at some rando's farmhouse and ask for a flathead screwdriver to reinstall.
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Apr 24, 2015 19:06
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Was unloading a bike from my pickup onto a loading dock meant for trucks (read: didn't line up right, gap, etc) after fixing it. I hosed up, lost my balance, and ended up dropping the bike 4ft to the ground over the side... insurance totalled it out because the frame got crushed.  I had a friend try to put an 06 Evo MR onto 4 jackstands back in 2006 - somehow it slipped off one of the jackstands and put the jack through the floor in the passenger foot area.
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Apr 24, 2015 19:21
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Installed new steering knuckles and ball joints on the Jeep and it appeared that the drag link was now 2" too long to connect to the new knuckles. Didn't think to check that the wheel/pitman arm was centered until we were done cutting 2" of length out of the drag link and welding it back together again. We fit it in, notice that we hosed it up, welded 2" of drag link back into the drag link again and promptly went onto amazon to order another drag link that wasn't frankenstein.
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Apr 24, 2015 19:30
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I once ran over my socket set while changing tires. Also, when removing the spring+shock assembly on VWs, the whole trailing arm suspension will fall down quite suddenly if you don't support it.
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Apr 25, 2015 04:32
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rex rabidorum vires posted:In my exuberance after replacing the fuel regulator I jumped it backwards. Positive on negative...negative on positive. Torched a few fusable links and the alternator. Absolutely dumbest thing I've done to a car. I did the same thing on a '93 tempo. Smelled really nice.
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Apr 25, 2015 04:41
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StormDrain posted:Shotgunning parts to the fuel and ignition system during a carburetor rebuild. I rebuilt the carburetor twice, replaced plugs and wires, pulled the distributor, replaced all vacuum lines, rebuilt the fuel selector valve, and ultimately figured out I was out of gas. Likely due to the incline that I parked on. Been there, did that, except with a fuel-injected car that exhibited lots of stuttering and stalling at quarter-throttle. Replaced spark plugs, spark plug wires, ignition module, coils, ECU, crankshaft sensor*, throttle positioning sensor, MAF sensor and even the fuel filter. Turns out the problem was as simple as disconnecting the plug for the goddamned EGR. Just say NO to shotgunning parts, kids. *Turns out that needed replacing anyways.
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Apr 25, 2015 05:26
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I had a freshly decked and valve-jobbed Mazda BP head that was already torqued to the shortblock and was going into a car that had Auto Meter gauges. Mazda temp gauge senders have an M8x1.0 thread which looks a hell of a lot like the 1/8" NPT you find on an Autometer temp sender. Crossthreaded it in there. Realized something was wrong but it was about 3 threads too late- the brass is pretty thin on these things, so it snapped the second I tried to back it out. In goes the cheap Chinese easy-out. HAHA nope, by the time I got the thing to get any kind of grip on the brass I snapped it. It's in too far to get pliers on it, so I try a few different tricks but wind up having to gradually shatter it like a busted tap. I did eventually get it. But the remains of the sender are still in there. Thought about it for a while, and somehow what I came up with was 'use a bigger cheap spiral-type Chinese easy-out'. Got it in, actually got it to grab. put some brute force and ignorance behind it and- oh hey it's actually turning!  
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Apr 25, 2015 05:31
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Rebuilt my first carb. Eyeballed the float level. Bolted it all up, started up pretty easily. Then started chugging a bit, so I gave it some gas and KA-loving-MOTHERFUCKING-BOOM and a fireball from under the hood (hood was open) Thank gently caress I had put the air cleaner housing back on first, including the retaining screw. Once the smoke cleared I removed the air cleaner lid. The entire bottom portion of the air cleaner was full of gas.  That would have been really bad if I hadn't put the air cleaner on first.
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Apr 25, 2015 05:43
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Did the 'ol hand tighten the lug nuts and forget to torque them down bit a bunch of times. Have poured four full quarts of oil right through the motor and pan on to the ground (forgot to put plug back in). Put gear oil into an automatic transmission completely loving it up. Ordered 14" tires for 15" wheels because I was too lazy to check. Ground a hole right through a turbo manifold trying to get it to fit. Put Wesson vegetable oil in shocks because I was told it was the best shock oil (I was 19). There's more, I just have to try and remember.
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Apr 25, 2015 06:16
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Oh, a good one was when I put 4 -> 5 lug wheel adapters on my E30. They have bolts that go in to three of the stock wheel lug positions and a kidney looking thing that bolts into the fourth. I only bolted the kidney down. And drove it for 500mi before I took the wheels off again and noticed I forgot three lug bolts on one wheel. That was when I realized everyone that says wheel adapters/spacers are unsafe probably don't know what they are talking about
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Apr 25, 2015 06:27
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Did a simple brake job. On this car, the caliper and pads have little tabs at the top that a large pin slides through, holding the pads in place. A cotter pin holds the large pin in place. Well, I either forgot to insert a cotter pin or I forgot to bend it. Fast forward...oh, two or three weeks later and I'm on a 1,000 mile roadtrip. In Vinita, OK, I leave the interstate on an off-ramp that leads directly into a rest area gas station. The brake pedal sinks to the floor under the slightest pressure, but fortunately I had enough time to downshift and parking-braked to a stop at the gas pump. Obviously, the cotter pin and large pin were both missing, but miraculously both pads were still there. One of them had worked its way out far enough that a piston popped partially out of its cylinder, releasing all the fluid. But the piston was still there, the pad was still there. A long bolt and a couple of nuts locked it up tight and all was right (enough) with the world. This weekend, I was taking care of some minor issues on a Holley carb. Yes, leaks. Well, one of the screws for the forward bowl was seeping, so with the engine idling, I tried to tighten it. The screwdriver bumped up against the fuel line, which I thought was tightened...NOPE. Line pops off, fuel spurts across the running engine, all over an exhaust manifold (engine is at temp) and smoking, sprays over the alternator, all over the fender and the loving garage wall. I kill the engine, connect the fuel line correctly, wipe down the fender (all the gas on the engine was boiled off), slip in the puddle of gasoline and almost fall on my rear end. Good times.
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Apr 25, 2015 06:31
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Edit: Hmmm, not sure how that happened.
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Apr 25, 2015 06:31
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leica posted:Did the 'ol hand tighten the lug nuts and forget to torque them down bit a bunch of times. Did this, made it from Gila Bend, AZ to the border patrol checkpoint on I8 outside of San Diego before we realized poo poo was going very wrong.  Needed a new axle shaft, if I remember correctly.When we were putting the lowering springs on the back of my GMC, I spent about five minutes wondering why I couldn't get the old U-bolt off until I realized I was cranking on it the wrong way. Did front brake pads on my old Volvo 240, didn't check which bolts held the two-piece caliper together versus which bolts hold the caliper to the car. At least that was just fixed with a quick bleed.
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Apr 25, 2015 06:36
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Changed the oil on my wife's car once. It was the first time I'd done my own oil change in a about a year because I had received a company car and pretty much stopped driving my own. Put the oil in, closed the hood and proceeded to drive the car about 25 miles with the oil fill cap off. Ended up with about a half quart in the hood liner. Other oil change story - doing my own oil at my parents house while I was living in an apartment I got the bright idea to "loosen" the drain plug with an impact wrench. Drain plug proceeds to fly out of the pan and I lost about two quarts onto my parents' concrete patio (they have a gravel driveway with a concrete patio right next to it that I used to park on while working on it.) Three rolls of paper towels and about a quart of castrol super clean later I removed all the oil and my father never found out. Installed a SVT header on my brother's Focus and didn't replace the power steering return line with the SVT-specific line that routes it away from the header. Got about four miles down the road before the exhaust burned through the flexible part of the line and dumped all of his power steering fluid, fortunately it didn't catch fire in the process. Ended up having to scramble the next day to find a replacement so we could drive home from central Indiana.
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Apr 25, 2015 07:01
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Got really pissed off at an ancient PCV valve grommet that was cracked and wouldn't come out, so I started tearing at the stupid thing and dumped like half of it into the valve cover. Wasn't a huge deal because the piece was big enough to get caught in the baffles anyway, but I still spent about two hours fishing it out with a tiny hose attached to a vacuum cleaner. Snapped off a bleeder screw on a friend's car because we were working outside at 2am in single digit temperatures after wrestling with a stuck rotor screw for probably four hours. I was ready to drive that car off a loving cliff at that point. Had like half the engine bay apart on my old 540. Every nut and bolt was meticulously organized in an open tacklebox sitting on my friend's car's roof. Then we decided to take his car and go out for lunch.
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Apr 25, 2015 08:02
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Did an oil change on a friends hilux- his motors got a nice little cast in tray as part of the filter mount with a drain tube to just beside the sump plug so you just back the filter off till its sitting on the end of the thread and leave it there to dribble out into the drainpan with the sump oil. Genius! Well a few Arse About Black and Tans later (1/4 larger, 3/4 stout!) cos it was loving cold we finish dicking around and go to put the oil back in and get it ready to go. Sump plug in, 7.5L of Delo 400 diesel oil into it, go to crank it to pressurise and fill all the gallerys and see what the oil levels like... Engine starts... im thinking "Hrmm, that oil lights taking a long time to go out" and thats when we heard the waterfall of 3L of diesel oil spraying out the side of the block at 60psi and coating the ENTIRE left side of the engine bay in brand new, $6/L engine oil.... Ive also found a 12mm spanner in the front of my car trapped in a bash plate... 7000kms after the last service!
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Apr 25, 2015 08:30
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Replaced the front shocks on my ZJ 4PM in -15C, after getting some new shocks as a XMas gift. Could not keep the piston rod from spinning when tightening down the top nut / bushings. Vise-Gripped the uppermost part of the rod that would never see travel. Finish the job, only to wonder why I am down a pair of fairly new vise grips. Proceed to drive ~4500km over the next 3 months with snow, gravel, salt and brine spray splashed all up in the wheel well. When I got back home, 1200km and 20C warmer, from where I was working, I gave everything a pressure wash and found my now rusted to poo poo tool, still clamped on in the same orientation as it was left. Also, leave the filler caps off of bikes when running the engine up after an oil change.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:36
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hooked up cruise control vacuum line incorrectly and my car decided to take me on a fun adventure. I had a heart attack when i pulled the thing out of the drive way and it attempted to haul balls down the neighborhood street
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Apr 25, 2015 11:49
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Did this: Also when Lada was running badly I checked if all the cylinders were getting sparks, pulled the cables, while car was running. The jolts told me that yes, they are getting sparks. Also changed some solenoids in the carb without emptying it, at least I had a rag on hand for the gasoline that came out of the holes.
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Apr 25, 2015 12:05
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This thread is very comforting  . When trying to replace the front o2 sensor I misread the diagrams and thought the rear was the front. Cue like an hour of trying to get the loving thing out with the fiddly little tabs (it was late and I was tired) only to find that it didn't match my new sensor. I went to close up the hood and just abandon it for the night when I happened to notice a familiar looking connector sitting right there in plain view next to the shock tower...
Scrambles fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 12:55
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Paradoxish posted:
I feel your pain. I had taken my accords engine out and was getting ready to finish up for the night. I put all the bolts in an old plastic container and set it right next to my tools on the floor. Next moring my dad gets a wild hair up his rear end to clean out the garage. I walk out to find the container of bolts was thrown away. When I asked my dad WTF he said it was just a container of bolts I don't see the problem 
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Apr 25, 2015 14:52
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I drive an S10, and a common thing to do on them is to remove an air dam riveted to the throttle valve for a bit of extra horsepower. No idea if this is a good idea or not, but it was 6 or 7 years ago and I decided to give it a shot. Since the air dam is riveted on, once you cut the rivets to remove it you end up with 2 decent sized holes through the throttle valve which will give you a pretty dangerously high idle. I didn't have a rivet gun, so I came up with the idea of taking a pair of 10-32 bolts and nuts, grinding the bolt down so it would just reach through the valve and fully engage the nut, plugging the holes. After rigging this up, I had a moment of reflection where I thought "You know, I don't trust just loctite on these things, hardware getting sucked into the engine is bad." I came up with the further genius plan of using an oxy-acetylene torch to put a small spot weld between the bolt and nut. It was a fantastic plan, until I realized right as I was getting some heat on there that the throttle valve is aluminum. Too late, it was already melting pretty good. So I did what I should have just done in the first place, grabbed a chunk of the proper thickness aluminum plate and turned it down on my lathe into a disc to make a new throttle valve. I still keep the half-melted one nailed to my wall as a reminder to think things through.
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Apr 26, 2015 10:35
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 17:15 |
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Okay I had to look this particular one up: Was it like this? WTF GM!
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Apr 26, 2015 12:57
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