Stupid Mistakes I've made working on stuff, thread..

[Keros]

This thread made me feel alot better.

When changing my shifter bushing in my R154 I tried bolting the shifter back in using the wrong bolts, the long ones used to bolt down the shifter boot... that of course, led to me breaking off not just one, but two bolts. One would have imagined I'd have figured out that I had the wrong bolts... but no.

Eventually I just looked away while my friend drilled and retapped a new hole through the broken screw.

 

[cuel]

I left a screw driver sitting on the crank while I bolted the pan on a 5.0 truck motor on the stand today. Rolled the engine over to do the heads and heard it rattling around. Yay...

I left the upper rad. hose clamp off on a 2000 Dakota I put a radiator in. It blew apart at about 15 psi. on the pressure tester. Nice loud POP!! and blew water all over the place.

It's been a rough week....

 

[Muzy]

Just finishing up a rebulid on a sb chevy, Still on the stand, went to prime oil pump
with drill. Got niice and close cuz on a preveious engine the drill spun outa my hand
and smacked me in the wrist. Well I squezed the trigger the drill started to load up
and felt this warm somthing on my face, in my mouth, let go of the drill. Forgot to
put gauge in port. Blew my hat off to, kicked right to the celling. Brother inlaw on one
knee laughing his ass off. muzy

 

[funky_monkey58]

Used a rubber hose to hold up valves while doing valve seals with the head on. Rubber hose broke a piece off and bent two valves. On a friends car... He's on here. Got it fixed up pretty quickly though.

 

[Supra28]

A while back I did my first oil change on my single cam 1.6L civic and put WAAAYYY too much oil (I used all five bottles of oil plus the lucas). I was so pissed off because I thought the oil had to be above both "dots" (that's what I call it hahah) on the dipstick. My bro-in-law came outside and I took out the dipstick and asked "Why does it takes so much oil to be above the line?" He looked at me laughed and pointed out that it just had to be in between the "dots." Had to jack the car back up to drain some fresh oil and lucas, I was so pissed off because it took me about a good two hour to finish up everything.

Another incident had to do with another oil change. This is about a year later, I am now familiar with the whole oil change process. I was kind of in a rush because I did the oil change less than an hour prior to me having to pick up two buddies to go to an event.

Got the oil changed, let the car down. I'm all excited and feelin' good about myself hahahaha, go inside to change, come outside and start the car for about 3 mins, (Bro-in-law was outside getting ready to go out too) pull out the drive way and he's like "Ben, hold on, your car is leaking oil." I looked in front of my car and was like WTFHolyshitballsandfire! There's fresh oil all over the damn driveway. I was so stressed out because I had somewhere to be and this shit happens to me, what a fuc**** miracle! Long story short, it was the oil filter, I didn't tighten it up all the way. Tightened it up and put some more oil in and was on my way. :icon_razz

A lesson well FUC**** learned. :icon_bigg

 

[Koenigturbo]

Well, besides the minor things like lose hose clamps that I said to my self "Ill get it later"" (Which I almost never do)

I was installing a C.P.S. I used a ratchet wrench to turn the crank. Yep, you guys guessed it, I left it on after again,., said to my self "Ill get it later" I looked at it, climbed in my car, and started the Supra up, and broke my fan, and the crank bolt was half way off.

 

[billwert]

Changed cold start injector time switch once. Didn't let car cool long enough and got hot coolant sprayed in my face. Was cursing all the way to the garden hose to wash off my face.

 

[toyotanos]

Not a supra story, but...
I put a t-belt in my 93 Corolla with seals and a water pump. It's late and I figure I can skip inspection of the idlers(they never fail, right?). After, it runs and drives fine. Head home after work the next day, I get on the gas for fun, bring it to redline. 2nd gear hits and the engine loses power, smoke coming from the hood, won't re-start! Coast to a stop in the Napa parking lot, of all places. I pop the hood, the smoke's coming outta the t-belt cover. Pull the upper cover to find the belt's melted, belt cords are everywhere, cords ripped out the cam seal, I think WTF? Poke the tensioner with a screwdriver and it's locked. I walk into Napa and order a new T-belt, tensioner, and cam seal as I wait to be picked up. ARRRGH!
Moral: Just because it's 2AM and you're tired, doesn't mean you can skip steps!

 

[fonz87]

Changed cold start injector time switch once. Didn't let car cool long enough and got hot coolant sprayed in my face. Was cursing all the way to the garden hose to wash off my face.

yea i can see myself doing that.

 

[cruisnhard]

I have had many just like everyone else, but one in particular I had pulled into the driveway of my house and realized my engine was ringing. I had left the phone under the hood, and it bent it. I was in such a hurry I was not paying attention. It was great.

Another time I was helping my brother in law put his 5.0l back together and when we started it up it was leaking fluid and running hot. We were like wtf. After disassembling again we noticed the head gaskets on backwards and we forgot sealant on the arps head studs.

 

[DangoAZ]

Scared the piss out of myself about three weeks ago.

Here's the set-up: I've got the car in the garage, with the front wheels on ramps that have a little flat (maybe slight dish for the wheels) on the top. It makes it easy on the back to not have to bend over so far for everything. It's a nice sunny day, so I've got the garage open and the tunes crankin.

I had the head off with a BHG repair, and am trying to loosen the crank pulley bolt to get the lower timing cover off. So I have the big freakin breaker bar on it... and can just turn it too easy in first gear, of course. Bright idea: Put it in 5th for more torque and crank on it - It'll come off with this big breaker bar. :3d_frown: As you may know, turning the engine counter-clock-wise with the crank bolt spins the motor backwards of normal, and so the forward gears are reverse. You can probably see where this is going...

So dummy I am, the car is in gear w/o the parking brake on. And I live on a hill, with the drive-way going down hill from the garage. I came so close to launching the supra down the driveway backwards into the street (no engine braking to hope for with the head off) - So close that the sidewalls of the tires were buldging outwards on the transition from the flats to the ramps.

I think that was as close to super human strength as I have been... "TURN IT BACK!!!!!!" The parking break is now up - All the way.

 

[aye mate]

I put the throw out bearing in backwards and fried a brand new Spec 2 clutch in 8k miles. WooHoo!

 

[grimreaper]

recently sold 03 dodge ram, i left the belt off when i changed the idler pulley, chewed it up nicely and scared the shit out of me at first.
same truck: did a cam swap, and the lifters bleed down if you crank the motor by hand (not enough rpms etc..). on start up it made the most terrifying racket. Plus the oil pressure gauge on the dash read 0. Not having a mechanical gauge i simply pulled the sensor out on the block and cranked it real quick. Well the gauge wiring was shorted and there was plenty of oil psi. covered me from the chest up in about a second flat in motor oil. Young, dumb and learning...
same truck, same job^, thought i could pull both heads, swap valve springs and strip the motor to a short block in a day (no experience). I was sore for a week from the odd bending this way and that way...
that truck was an awesome learning tool. after all my blunders it would haul 6000 lbs to low 14's high 13's all day and light up 305's at anything below 40 mph on demand.

on the supra, (i know this has been said before) i had two exhaust studs pull out, helicoiled all of them with the stock size. 3 had been done by a machine shop with the previous owner. Those began to pull out next. Replaced those with the 7/16 kit from DM but left the rest oem size. Few heat cycles later same exhaust leak crap... After pulling the turbo and manifold 3 times (within a month of owning the car!!) i finally did it right (do it right, do it once) and helicoiled the rest to 7/16's. the head might be a bit soft but the studs are still holding as of right now

the WORST: old jetski that blew a piston needed rebuilt, after all the machine work and putting it back together i wanted all the old gas out of the tank.. We had a pump used for our boat motor to suck the oil out of the dipstick. it burned up in about 20 seconds and i was left pondering how to get the other 10 gallons out of the tank.... Stuck my mouth on the hose and sucked like no tomorrow.... got a lung FULL of gas/vapors and vomited my guts out for the next 20 minutes. I coughed gas fumes for 2 days after that. THE WORST damn feeling of ice cold and horrid gasoline when i burped too. Only thing worse i have ever felt is shingles, and thats BARELY.

 

[MA70AEROTOP]

one mistake ill never make again. Had takin off the carby to my escort and using carby cleaner to clean inside float bowl deciedd to blow into pipe cleaner came out of another hole right into my eyes lol had to walk blind to the tap..............

 

[toy fanatic78]

one mistake ill never make again. Had takin off the carby to my escort and using carby cleaner to clean inside float bowl deciedd to blow into pipe cleaner came out of another hole right into my eyes lol had to walk blind to the tap..............

Did that on my sand rail carb,hopefully only time ever.That shit burns worse than paint thinner!

 

[Mk3Les]

Ok let me just start by saying that if all the village idiots from all the villages around the world got together and started their own village I’d be their village idiot!
Here we go, so I blow the head gasket, big deal every 7m owner has to deal with it at some point. I gather up as much information as I can, ask advice from people who have done it before, grab a graphite head gasket and new head bolts etc…
I carefully label things as I take them off and just so I don’t loose any nuts or bolts as I remove things I carefully put the nuts, bolts and washers back where they came from. So far so good. I get the head off clean everything well check, check and the triple check the block and head to make sure everything is in spec, all looks good. I then start putting it back together being careful and double-checking everything as I go. The car goes back together no problems. I drop the oil and water fill her up with fresh oil and water, pull the efi fuse and prime the oil system and we’re good to go it fires up first time. The car runs like a dream! I let it idle for 5mins and check the oil and water all good and I’m off on the test drive. The car drives great the motor seems smoother and has a lot more pull at part throttle. Job well done I head home because it’s dark and I’ve spent the whole day on it and haven’t spent any time with the wife and kids.
The next day after work the missus suggests we go for a drive that night, dinner baby sitters blah blah blah. And we’re off. I stop to put petrol in and while I’m at it I check the water and pop the oil cap off just to have a look under it, looks good. About 20mins into the drive I notice the oil pressure gauge is just a little lower than normal but not much so I didn’t worry about it, 10mins later the car just doesn’t feel right so we head home. We pull up at home and the missus gets out to open the gates to the carport as I drive in the head lights shine on a pool of oil on the dirt strip in middle of the carport, right where the car had been worked on! I get a sick feeling in my stomach, shut the car down and pop the hood and pull the dipstick it’s dry!
Today I pulled the turbo and it seems that when I put the oil return line back on I left a washer on the block! I should have put those bolts into a container! I fixed it up and put the car back together filled it with oil and surprise surprise I got a knock in the bottom end! Words cant really express how pissed I am with myself right now for making such a dumb mistake. I’m trying to remain philosophical about it and thankfully a few things are looking up for me all going well I’ll finish my new motor early in the New Year,

 

[DonS1mpson]

I started a BHG job, got 9/10ths the way through the strip down, then realized that I had put all the nuts and bolts in the same place and don't have a clue where the hell ANY of them go...

I'm so not looking forward to putting it all back together

 

[Zumtizzle]

I started a BHG job, got 9/10ths the way through the strip down, then realized that I had put all the nuts and bolts in the same place and don't have a clue where the hell ANY of them go...

I'm so not looking forward to putting it all back together

it's pretty straight forward.

 

[rs4rush]

It was a nice summer day, I had just got my car running and I decided to go on a little cruise. I was at a stop light in downtown Spokane (Division to be exact) and these girl's pulled up and told me how nice my car was and yada yada ya. So now thinking I'm hot shit at this moment in time I decide to take off like a mad man. I stalled the car... and it wouldn't start back up... I was super embarrassed and didn't know why the car wouldn't start so I popped the hood and right there in front of me my battery terminals were disconnected... I forgot to tighten them. So I tighten them by hand and then went on home... Shortly after that I moved. :nono:


~Cory

 

[shaeff]

it's pretty straight forward.

Yep, I throw all the nuts and bolts into one bin. LOL.