Jeff_Ciesielski

iTrader: (10)

First DSM I ever owned, the timing tensioner went bad and ruined all 16 valves. Got the head back from the shop, put everything back together, went to put the valve cover back on, dropped one of the bolts down a spark plug hole...with no plugs in. Took me 4 hours of fishing with a magnet to get that bastard out.


Yea...I did that too.

mazdadude

iTrader: (1)

I hate it when i drop bolt and nuts and they get caught in crazy places. The other day I dropped one and tried looking for it for 20 minutes. I finally found it resting between the alt belt and crank pulley. I'm happy I didn't start the car!

ard

broken 2 bmw rear subframe bolts. When removing. I was turning them clockwise.
Don't repair a car if You drunk too much last night

Torkel

Sometimes, the simplest thing is what catches you. I had juuust bought a set of those cool wrenches with a bearing in the closed wrench part and was eager to try them. The type did not have the little switch that some models have, so to change directly you have to turn the wrench over. I used it to remove the seat belt bolt between the seat and the transmission tunnel. The bolt backed out until the wrench hit the seat and then the wrench was (of course) stuck. And due to the bearing, I couldn't turn the bolt back in again…

soldsco

So my first post here and its about dumb *** things I have done.

First car was a 69 Mustang that was a piece of crap to start with (but ended up nice):

1) Dumb *** move 1: Somehow letting small screw get in bore of carb after rebuild (look ma extra parts) that went down intake to piston and screwed up motor.

2) Dumb *** move 2: While tearing down motor as a result of dumb *** move 1, decided to turn motor over on engine stand to remove oil pan. Hadn't drained oil yet but who cares? 5 quarts of crap on the ground.

3) Dumb *** move 3: Once rebuilt motor resulting from dumb *** move 1 was in put in thermostat backwards leading to rapid heating of new motor. (Age 16 for dumb *** moves 1-3)

4) Dumb *** move 4: Next car: 82 Mustang GT. Yet another carb overhaul (is there a trend here?) Overtightened fuel filter that screwed into carb thus stripping it out and in true form JB Welded to carb. Never did leak. (Age 20)

5) Dumb *** move 5: 82 Mustang GT again: Over tightened bolt on new fuel pump thus cracking new fuel pump which resulted in yet another new fuel pump (age 20 at time)

Fast forward 22 years and I still have my dumb *** moves (such as prematurely conditioning my wideband O2) just not as severe although I will be cursing the liberal loc-tite I used on the Armada brakes when the next brake job comes up.

Scott

msydnor

iTrader: (3)

Don't know if its the dumbest but definetly the worse. I was installing a FPR on my mustang. I just had done the heads, came and intake and installed a turbo kit, litterally just finished. I had extra allen head screws because I was removing the old FPR and installing a new one. I dropped one and didn't think much of it because I had spares. When I went to start the engine I figured out where it went. It fell done in a hole in the intake and landed on top of one of my pistions. It ruined the piston and put a really bad gash in my brand new aluminium heads. I ended up pulling the motor.

Turbo_4

iTrader: (6)

Not my mistake, BUT my rotary inclined friend was pulling the plugs on my old 95 gst and broke one off inside the head. Took all day and many ghetto rigged things to get it out without having to pull the head.

I guess the dumbest thing I've ever done was when I just got my srt-4 I was changing out the fuel pump and when I removed the jack I bumped it against the car and left a 2" scratch down the side.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

My car sputtered and backfired for a while after chasing the rad fan problem. Everything looked fine, so I put the charcoal can back on because that was the only thing I changed...then retraced the steps to pulling out the MAP vacuum hose. lol

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

1) I bought an 86' Isuzu Trooper.

2) I bought a flooded 94' T-bird to do a V8 swap in when I was 14.

3) I bought a 87' Ford Econoline for $200 bucks to get the 302 out of for said V8 swap. Van didn't run cause the guy ran the battery dead and jumped it with a 24V truck. So I spent ~$150 on electrical **** and a FPR (apparently 24V to the fuel pump blew the diaphragm to the regulator) and finally get it running, but it's still not right. It runs, but only on 5 or 6 cylinders. I finally figured out that it may have a few bad injectors. So I pull the fuel rail, lay it in the van, stick the injectors in, and turn the key on. Fuel injectors pop out and fuel goes everywhere. Turns out there's a reason fuel rails are bolted down. So what do I do? I zip tie the injectors into the rail. Cool seeing 6 injectors spray fuel in a pulse. Wonder I didn't blow myself up.

4) I use the V8 and auto from the van for my T-bird. Well, the motor was built to ~350hp, so I decided to put a shift kit in the transmission. I get the thing running and it just doesn't sound right. Like it's under a hell of a load all the time. Mind you I have the engine idle set to ~2500 because it's breaking in, but I can't figure out why it sounds like it's under such a load. I get in the car, take it out of park, and BAMM! Trans brake launch heading toward the garage and I can't take it out of gear, can't put it back in park, and the motor was stuck at 2500 RPMs and climbing. And brakes don't work too well when a car hasn't been driven in 3 years. Garage 1, front bumper 0. Forgot to hook up a valve in the valve body to the shifter.

5) Just turbo'd my car but I got a fuel leak. I pull the upper intake manifold off my car so I can remove my leaky fuel injectors for the 14th. time. I ALWAYS cover the intake with a big rag to catch any fuel and to keep anything from falling down in the motor.... 'cept this time. You know those little metal clips that go around the fuel injector plug? I dropped one. I search everywhere looking for it. I think it hit the ground, but I can't find it. I mean I SEARCHED looking for it and can't find it. Autozone sells a $7 24" flexible magnetic wand. It found that clip in the motor. Thank god, cause I did NOT wanna have to pull the head.

6) I pulled the transmission/integrated 4x4 reduction box off of mistake #1 to change the clutch. Damn trans weighed over 150 pounds, and I couldn't for the life of me get that bitch back in the truck. So I put it in the back and towed it to a shop to have it done where they would have the proper tools to do it. Mistake. Came back missing 1/2 the bolts, and they put 12 quarts of fluid in the transmission. Filled it till it poured out the shifter! From now on if I don't have the specialty tool (transmission jack) to do the job, I buy it. Ended up costing me more to fix the **** ups then it did to pay the shop to install that transmission.

wayne_curr

iTrader: (8)

I'm glad this got revived. Just learned another of my wrenching mistakes...

Just got done pulling my valve cover to fix a suspecting leaky CAS cap only to find that all of the cam caps are on backwards O_O.

This is why I shouldn't be building engines, messing with megasquirts, or any of that mess lol.

Oh well, i'll fix it someday I suppose.

thesnowboarder

iTrader: (15)

First time ever really working on a car, i was 16. Decided to lower my subaru legacy gt in a friends garage while both our parents were out of town. 4 days later i start it up to drive home. (yes it took us 4 days) I step on the brakes while pulling out and hear this horrible scraping noise. We didn't think anything of it, i drove it to school the next day. Went to auto shop and got the car in the air. Yanked the wheel, and we had forgotten the rear brake pad.

Piston in the caliper wore against the disc :(

Second epic fail, left a 14mm wrench on my alternator. Was doing a full boost pull onto the hwy to a datalog and herd a crazy sound looked in the rear view and saw my wrench flying in the air. Luckily no one was behind me.

adamhershner

Once I accidentally dropped a 3/4 inch wrench on the battery of a dodge 1500 pickup... welded itself to the terminals and the battery nearly caught on fire... I had to hammer the wrench off real fast because everything was getting really hot really fast..

Also left a can of brake cleaner behind the car, backed over it causing it to pop right into the exhaust... neat little fireball...

Qckslvr

iTrader: (6)

I have had a few issues.

Just out of HS I had a 1963 23 window ragtop micro bus. Well I was going to go to a Good Guys event at Sears Point, and I spun a main bearing. I got out of school early yanked the engine, and was getting ready to stab my spare engine. So I stab the engine, and it wouldn't go in. I put it in gear rotated the wheels thinking it was the clutch. I must have pulled the engine out 5 times until I realized, oops the flywheel lock was still on it. Removed the flywheel lock and the engine slid right in.


First Miata engine I resealed, and I pulled it from the car. Pulled the pan, rear main, front cover etc. I installed all new seals, siliconed the pan on, and got the engine back in the car. I walked by the solvent tank for something and when I looked inside I noticed the oil pick up tube was sitting there. So the engine came back out with some choice words.

Turbo_4

iTrader: (6)

Okay I guess I have another. It's obviously another dsm related problem. One night, back in highskool, after work(2am). I filled her up at the gas station but when I tried to leave everything went dead. I assumed it was a loose battery cable since that's the only thing I had messed with all day so, in the dark, I tried to adjust the positive cable with my 1/4" wrench. Since it was dark(or so I say), I accidently let the handle touch the negative cable. lol It blew that bitch all the way out of my hand. I still have the bit I used. It cracked that 10mm all the way in half! Now I have a 1" scare on my hand too from the sparks and what not.


All in all though, somehow the car started afterwards, so whatever works!

BarrigaNA

iTrader: (1)

Done the lugs thing, though lost 3 in the process.

Accidentally left a bolt in the piston chamber while reassembling the whole thing. Realized my mistake and had to tear into the engine again. Had to buy all new gaskets.

therieldeal

iTrader: (2)

all this happened on my old winter beater escort gt:

- i forgot the oil cap off during a road trip. it was damn near empty by the time i realized it... the thing burned oil anyway so it took a lot of stink for me to realize anything was wrong. luckily it did burn a lot of oil, otherwise i wouldnt have had a gallon jug in the trunk and i would have been stranded lol. the cap was chillin right in the middle of the valvecover on top of the plug wires (whoops)

- i forgot to tighten the bottom bolt on the alternator after i swapped out the motor and tranny. the tranny blew up in the dead of winter (roughly 10*F that weekend)... so i was pissed off, half numb, and fairly drunk during the whole swap... worse things could have certainly happened. anyway the bolt was rattling for weeks! i couldnt seem to find the problem. one day the bolt fell out entirely and my alternator/water pump belt flew off. luckily i was only a half mile from home (and it was still fkn cold out) so i made it home with no issues.

this happened on the turbo escort:

managed to put both cam gears on wrong ... lined the exhaust cam up on I and the intake cam up on E. no idea how i managed that one. between this and a missing rpm input pullup resistor on the MS2 that i paid to have built (still annoyed about that), i burned out a starter trying to get it to run. no ignition signal at first of course, then backfiring out the intake like a s.o.b. till i fixed the cam timing. thank god these motors are non-interference.....

Jeff25rs

I haven't done anything massively dumb besides break tools.

1. broke a really heavy duty socket trying to losen an exhaust bolt the wrong way.

2. Managed to wedge and destroy a socket wrench while losening something on the PS pump during a turbo install. It wedged such that I couldn't turn the thing on the back to get it to go back to clockwise so I could get it off. It was really hard to get out without breaking anything.

3. Left a screw driver in the faring of my old 600 gsx-r and the plastic handle melted to the exhaust manifold.

zzyx7

iTrader: (4)

I think I've gotten "lucky" so far, as my car/garage didn't blow up with these mistakes:

1) Intake cam timing was retarded by 1 tooth (this wasn't my fault). I fixed it, but completely forgot to reset my base timing. I ran with ~30deg advance @ 12psi for about a week before I remembered.

2) Had a nasty oil leak, but decided to be a lazy moron and "fix it later". Got oil pressure issues suddenly with no idea what the cause was. Turns out I only had ~2.5 qts of oil.

3) MIG welding DP-back exhaust, I was using a rag with denatured alcohol to clean/prep. I left it near the welding area. Finished a pass and got massive flames from the rag. Mm... Toasty.

Cinemaniac

I once offered to change the oil on my friend's X-terra. He didn't have his owner's manual with him, so I winged it. Drained his Automatic Tranny Fluid instead and filled up the block with yet more oil.

It ran funny of course, so he parked it so I could do some research. Found out what I did and fixed it the next day.

10AEHooked

Decided to do a timing belt instead of paying a mechanic to do it.

Had a friend on another forum do it since he's done a few miata's I go to tighten the water pump screws and somehow I cross threaded it ( i remember turning by hand then wrenching, somehow I still crossthreaded it) after we spend the whole day on it, go to start it and coolant is leaking bad outta the water pump........................

Long story short I didn't want to take any more chances, took it to a dealer and got rapped and they did a worse job than we did, had to take it back 3 times to fix random F*kups o n their part.

What a nightmare, never go to a dealer ever!