Admit your Garage Mistakes - Page 8

tankclare · 21-01-2007, 10:54 PM

play the bush mechanics game haha http://www.bushmechanics.com/pages/game/body_game.htm

jimmy_c · 21-01-2007, 11:36 PM

was washing my EB when i had. Grabbed the wrong bottle of detergent ended up using Wheel cleaner.

Looked fine till i drove it. Big etch marks in the front windscreen 200 dollars later i could see out it again. !!!!!!!!!!!!

KaptnKaos · 21-01-2007, 11:40 PM

I spent hours fiddle-farting around pulling the manifold & fuel injection off so I could change the welsh plugs, only to find they were under the OUTLET manifold!

OOPS! Too simple ..... he missed!

:

:yeees:

actrob · 22-01-2007, 12:34 AM

A family member rang me to tell me that he just burnt to the ground his pride and joy an old Holden 1 Tonner. Seems it as leaking fuel from the carbi gasket, so he repaired it by taking off the carbi, wrapping the torn gasket with electrical tape, reinstalling and driving off into the distance. To his suprise the fuel leak got a lot worse and so did everything else when it leaked on to the hot exhaust.

One from my past when I was 17, was trying to explain to my old man why my old HR ute spat out the tailshaft on a straight length of road 2 kms from our farm. Problems arose when he sighted the black marks up the road, empty oil container in tray, and oil and rubber up the rear quarters. Had to walk home while the old man towed it home with the HZ while the younger brother got to steer.

Those shafts make some noise when they go at full noise, even punched holes thru the floorpan (Which I managed to "fix" with some rough welding and about 2 kg of bog). Can still remember falling asleep on the caport floor with that ute, whilst undertaking some fanastic mod or fixing the damaged caused by the fantastic mod.

At one stage when the "raked look" was in (late 80's) it was running 13' fronts, 14 inch rears, also had drums all round and rear air shocks. Had to run the shocks at full pressure to keep the rear tyres from rubbing the guards. (Which I rolled with a claw hammer, and a tin of white spray paint). Coming down any hill and going for the brakes meant a sturdy grip on the wheel, a sweat on the brow and a pray as the front end decided which way to dive, the front drums decided if to work, the hard as a rock rear end bounced and twitched, and the "cool" raked look making it worse by putting all the weight to the front. Aw loved that car never should have sold it...............

feebs · 22-01-2007, 12:43 AM

Got a hole in the fuel tank of my CB550 honda

Run some exhaust fumes throught it to defume, oxy welded it up.. fine.

Put fuel back in and there was still a slight leak.

Drained fuel, FORGOT to defume.

BANG.... to say the least.

This is not the stupidest thing I have even done either!

Miller · 22-01-2007, 01:26 AM

Was tightening the spoiler on my nissan exa, and the socket fell inside the hatch, spent the next 2 hours fishing it out

Yellow_Festiva · 22-01-2007, 04:20 AM

Haaaa ok where do i start......

1) Rolling a car off a trailer, im sitting in the car while my mate is directing me... i almost run him over when the car rolls down the ramps caus i was mashing down on the clutch.....

2) Mechanic changed the oil, go home to check it and didnt see any oil in the stick! look under the car, yup plug is there... call mechanic to ask if they actually put oil in.. they advised me that new oil is almost clear, where as i was assuming it would have been black... doh!

3) My tank in my old car easily flexed when under pressure, even when the pump was priming the carby when starting... so i test the weakness of the tank by seeing how much pressure was needed to re-produce that flexing effect... i did this by putting my mouth over the tank filler.... (and was about to do a sucking and blowing motion...)

4) Spent an hr and got covered in petrol when changing a fuel filter only to be told the next day it was the wrong one....

5) Taking my car back to ford describing the problem with the interior fan "sounds like a plastic bag is stuck in the pipe" so the guy opens the glove box and removes the plastic bag from over the air intake......

6) locking the keys in the car, get a coat hanger then get that stuck between the door and the glass.....

7) the exhaust dropped... used nylon rope to tie it up again... hot pipes and nylon rope dont mix well, and smell even worse.....

8) Dads XF started to use heaps more fuel comapred to usual... got her tuned, changed this, adjusted that.. should have first checked if the pump was leaking...

There are plenty more..... but ive said my share.....

feebs · 22-01-2007, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

3) My tank in my old car easily flexed when under pressure, even when the pump was priming the carby when starting... so i test the weakness of the tank by seeing how much pressure was needed to re-produce that flexing effect... i did this by putting my mouth over the tank filler.... (and was about to do a sucking and blowing motion...)
...

Dont suppose we can have a photo demonstration of this one ??

Yellow_Festiva · 22-01-2007, 11:09 AM

nup.....

didn't "make contact"... the fumes almost knocked me out and burnt my eyes... ........

coupdy do · 31-01-2007, 05:59 PM

Ah what a great thread i haven't done any of these yet give me time

My story is my mates: he had a Nissan skyline silhouette which he was very proud of... i was staying at his place before his wedding he invited me out to his garage to show me how wonderfull the Nissan 3.0l engine is... to show that it is nicely balanced he put a 50 cent piece on the rocker cover and then reached into bonnet (while standing in front of it) and gave the accelerator cable a pull - well the car leapped forward and slootted him into some shelving he had at the end of the garage...luckly i wasn't in front of the car he was screaming 'get it of my f......g legs' after checking he was ok i told him i thought it was a hard way of getting out of the marrage

Work Horse · 31-01-2007, 06:05 PM

Nice when it's something easy!!

Firing up my rebuilt V8 after spending all weekend fitting it. Checked and rechecked everything.

Hit the key nothing happened?

Go over all wiring with mate helping, nothing? Swap wires on starter anyway nothing?

I know it must be wiring so check all connections again, nothing?

Really keen to start new motor but realise I must walk away and clear my mind. I have spent the best part of one hour checking changing wires etc.

Come back after a coffee, move auto selector from drive to park and car starts first turn of the key.

xalent · 31-01-2007, 06:23 PM

Not my biggest mistake, but probably my most painful. Was sanding back some BOG in a coop I had years ago in the top corner of the boot recess in the body. I had the boot off, didn't want to undo the torsion bars so I just pushed the boot hinges down and stuck a broom handle across the inside of the boot to hold them down and started sanding.

When I came to with blood gushing from my chin, it only took s plit second to work out what happened! Bumped broom stick, hinge sprung up, my chin in the way. If you check out the XA/B/C hinges you'll find they've got a lovely bit of bent metal right at the end. Its worth six stitches and scar that gets cut everytime you shave.

Once after a night of racing at the drags, we had the coop loaded on the trailer and of we went. Couldn't turn right from our position so I had to do a loop in the pit road. The F250 has got a BIG turning circle. As i was part way into my turn some people walked up to the outside of my arc making me turn sharper tahn I would have liked. Int he instant that my brother yelled 'Look Out' I heard the bang. I had run into what amounted to the only tap in the pits. It was secured in the ground with a railway sleper. I caught it on the front wheel of the car trailer. It snapped the axle clean off leaving the whole wheel and stub axle sitting on the ground. It also sheared the tap of causing a nice fountain to rain down on the area.
Obviously a big cheer went up and people gathered, photos were taken, tempers got frayed etc and the trailer had bottomed out on the remaining wheel. It was only thanks to a good mate whom I am still in debt to today who came out with another trailer and took ours back to his work. Not bad at 1am hey!

The best thing about making mistakes is learning from them.

There are some crackers here!!

4Vman · 31-01-2007, 06:38 PM

1) Trying to start a 302 windsor (un be-knowens that the dissy was put back in 180 deg out of sync), my mate was cranking it over while i was looking down the carb to see if it had fuel them POOOF! it backfired through the carb and i lost my eyebrows and fringe!
2) trying to get a truamatic 3 speed to push up flat onto the engine flange of a 308 and using the mounting bolts to "pull" it up, after a fair amount of tension on the bolts (more torque is better right?) i heard a loud "crack" after realling away if fright i noticed id snapped the bell housing in half (torque convertor wasnt lined up into the end of the crank properly).

ZA-289 · 12-05-2007, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4Vman

1) Trying to start a 302 windsor (un be-knowens that the dissy was put back in 180 deg out of sync), my mate was cranking it over while i was looking down the carb to see if it had fuel them POOOF! it backfired through the carb and i lost my eyebrows and fringe!
2) trying to get a truamatic 3 speed to push up flat onto the engine flange of a 308 and using the mounting bolts to "pull" it up, after a fair amount of tension on the bolts (more torque is better right?) i heard a loud "crack" after realling away if fright i noticed id snapped the bell housing in half (torque convertor wasnt lined up into the end of the crank properly).

my mate did that!, whoops! the bell housing is integral to the trans on one of those! not seperate like some! throw the trans in the bin!!!

My best effort was changing the valley cover gaskets on my 351W ZA, pulled the valley off and stuck some rags down the ports to stop little bits of gasket falling in, painted the valley cover, some new gaskets and Put it back together, the car was off the road at the time. I then spent the next 6 months trying to start it!, towed it to about 4 mechanics, asked 6,000 different people their opinions of why it wouldn't start. We decided that the valve seats had gone rusty from sitting around and it needed a valve lap. So i bit the bullet one weekend and decided to pull the heads of and lap the valves. Only got as far as pulling the valley of again, WHEN I SAW THE RAGS STILL DOWN TO PORTS.

I copped some serious **** over that one!

Work Horse · 31-01-2007, 07:12 PM

Towing a tralier with the van, parked with passengers side wheels on naturestrip. Start shovelling a load of rubbish into tralier from naturestrip. I need to move trailer back to get closer to the rest of the rubbish.

Because "I'm in a hurry",only need to move the van 1 meter and the van is on a funny angel, I don't get in.
I open the door, start the engine, move the auto to reverse and with one foot on the road place my other foot on the accelerator. I press down lightly with my left foot expecting to hop with the van as it moves back. Van moves back much quicker than I expect. Within a split second I am standing half on the road, half in the van with my foot flat to the floor.
My fairly heathly 351 cleveland reved to about 6000rpm suprisingly quickly. Fortunately I had not yet fitted an LSD so the wheel on the naturestrip started spinning.
It was all over very quickly but could have been a little hard to explain to the insurance company, had I kept moving and reached the BMW parked a little way behind me.

sexc351 · 31-01-2007, 07:41 PM

ok heres a few of mine

1)i asked the new young bloke from work around for a few beers and to help work on the car(bad move).i asked him if he knew how to jack up a car.he said no worries so i left him to it and went down the pub to get some beers.when i got back he was almost done.i looked at the jack____that looks a little bit far under the car.looked under the car the boof head had jacked my floor pan up about 5 inches on the passanger side and 2 inches on the drivers(when i caught him).

2)i was driving along when my car just lost serious oil pressure?got home and checked it out.there was a ticking noise coming from the pasanger side rocker cover,so pulled it of and nothing was wrong.got me father inlaw to have a look and he said it was probably the oil pump.so pulled the sump off and replaced the oil pump,still ticking,we were dumbfounded.till i said what about taking the other rocker cover off,there it was a bent and broken pushrod. doh!

3)one of my best mates is a motor mechanic.i went down to his workshop to see him.he was working on a car and had just finished.next thing you know theres smoke comming from the engine bay.i said is it supposed to be smoking he said it probably just oil on the exhaust so he gave it a couple of revs,still smoke coming out about 2 mins later.i turned to him and asked did you put oil in the thing he said im sure i did.nope bone dry and him reving the pis out of the thing.i just rolled around on the ground ****ing myself and said you call yourself a mechanic.

TURBO_GHIA · 31-01-2007, 08:09 PM

im still angry at my self for this

i was driving down the shops to do what ever

when all of a sudden the car just stopped ,i just finished installing turbo on it ,so still trying to sort out all the little things and wasnt use to all the new noises and what not ,so i pull over check under bonnet cant find anything wrong ,crank and crank and crank for a while ,get the shits with it and leave it for for a week ,come and try and turn it around to move it ,trying to push steer and brake by yourself DOESN'T work for a second result ,one dead written off door and one very dented number plate ,what was wrong with the car after i spent $70 towing it 400m down the road ,a coil which i had 2 spare at home ,

Ralliart · 31-01-2007, 08:41 PM

reversed the wrong way lose paint from left side of bumber bar

: ,

Hunter · 31-01-2007, 11:41 PM

Another from me (well sort of) - old man decided he'd had enough of the knobheads at the Holden dealer (after they had charged him to replace cooling hoses that they hadn't - a fact he only found out when one let go and the car overheated) and decided to take my advice and do his own servicing. Now this isn't really either our fault - its the fault of the idiots at the dealership who let their idiot apprentice do up the sump plug with a what would have either been a rattle gun or a socket wrench with a very long piece of pipe on it. I get under the, try loosening the plug but no movement. Me knowing better decide to err on the side of caution and not push my luck and find something to help. Dad decides he is stronger than me and can undo it no worries. Ends up stripping one side of the frigging plug head off. We then drive over to see my uncle (who was a mechanic many moons ago). Three hours later we manage to get undo the bolt and pretty much left with something that resembles a 20 cent piece. My uncle (who is fairly strong and used to undoing ****off tight bolts) said it was the tightest nut he had ever had to undo. The guy at the auto store gave us a funny look when we brought the plug in to match the thread to the new one.

Moral: Don't let idiots do up bolts much tighter than necessary and/or using the wrong tool for the job.

oneredED · 31-01-2007, 11:47 PM

I refused to replace the stuffed bonnet strut on my ED, even though I had had it fall on my head several times. Then one day it fell shut as I had my hand near the coolant overflow. It slammed shut on my fingers. Without re-opening the bonnet, I instantly removed my hand from the jam by pulling it out quickly (more blood), and then punched the front quarter panel in anger (with the buggered hand). It put a sizeable dent in the front quarter and left a nice bloodied mark to clean off as well, and not to mention it hurt like hell!

gozza · 31-01-2007, 11:52 PM

I don't do too many mechanical things to cars just general fluids and such

The main stupid thing i can remember was needing to do a 1lt oil top up on my GF 13B...Had a moment of non clarity and filled it up with a full 5 lt's of oil....Next day when i started it it blue so much smoke it filled the entire street....had to drain it and do it again

feebs · 01-02-2007, 12:03 AM

I nearly forgot....

Ex ran out of petrol, took a tin of fuel along to refill.

said.. here, hold the funnel

I was half way thru pouring when we realised she had a LIT ciggy in the hand that was holding the funnel.

I still do not know why I did not die that day!

snortycorty · 01-02-2007, 12:15 AM

Ok this one isn't exactly to do with cars, but still happened in the shed.

Uncle went away for a few weeks and I was in charge of feeding animals, watering/mowing the garden etc.
Anyways I go to mow the lawn and I run out of petrol. So i grab the red jerry can that I was told had lawnmower fuel in it, fill the mower up and continue mowing the lawns.
It gets really smoky, and I mean REALLY smokey and it keeps stalling. Ask the partner if its still alright and he gives the ok.
Finish mowing the lawns and all is good.
Until I see Uncle a week or so later, and he asks how I went mowing the lawns... Ok I say... He asks if it was a bit smokey and I reply yes... He cracks up laughing and tells me I'd put DIESEL in the mower!!! Whoops lol
i dont know how I didnt smell it, but then again I have a really bad sense of smell, didn't realise just how bad it really is!

**Charliewool** · 01-02-2007, 10:16 AM

Years ago, a good mate of mine was a mechanic at the corner servo in Maribyrnong. He, by the way, is an amputee and wears a prosthetic (wooden) left leg. An apprentice had just started employment at the place. This particular day, said mate had a car on the hoist (the old hydraulic centre ram type)
Car was only a foot or so off the ground, with a jack also supporting the diff, mate sitting on his bum with legs under car struggling to line up leaf spring shackle bolt.
Anyhow, he says to apprentice to let car down just slightly (lever on wall for hoist) Apprentice turns lever fully to left and hoist drops all the way. Car is still supported by the jack, but mates leg and knee is completely crushed (I mean FLAT!) by the hoist "H" frame!
He screams to the apprentice to take the hoist back up, the apprentice looks under car and sees mates flattened leg pined by the H frame and just about faints, but does manage to raise the hoist up off mates leg.
Mate pulls himself out from under car and gives the white faced apprentice the greatest spray of all time. The poor kid had no idea that my mate had a "wooden" leg.

That apprentice, by the way, now owns & operates his own prestige car business servicing BMW, Porsche & Mercedes Benz, is Australian agent for Brabus, and provides workshop support to the F1 teams for the Aust Grand Prix Corporation at AGP time, so he DID turn out ok!

GXL078 · 01-02-2007, 10:32 AM

Simmons wheel LEAKED air through seals while sitting in garage for weeks. Managed to drive a few blocks on flat 45 series tyre before it peeled itself off the rim. Due to frigin tolerances between Simmons and Moser billet axle I had to use a ruber mallet to get the wheel off the axle!! (New wheels go on and off old axles fine and old wheels go on and off new axles fine by the way) Anyway I am am hitting away under the car with this mallet and I manage to dislocate my crook shoulder. I have to call up the NRMA. A week before I switched it over to my wifes car. The NRMA guy turns up within 20 minutes and says he can't touch my car because its not the nominated vehicle. I show him my membership renewal papers that still have the GXL listed and arent due for another month. My wife is standing there 7 months pregnant in the heat and I have a bag of frozen peas on my shoulder. He says Ok I will help you out but only because I am a Ford man. He then goes on about the XD he "used to have" with 400 odd HP at the wheels blah blah blah. This was how I spent my Australia day, last Friday. I was only going to drive a few blocks to test out the new MSD 6AL I had just installed. I was so proud that it fired up first go and all. This whole crappy episode would not have happended if the dodgey (bought new 3 years ago) Simmons wheel didnt LEAK! My shoulder still hurts. But at least my wife came to rescue me. It was the first time she had driven a car by herself in nearly 25 years , so I was proud of her.

TZENU · 01-02-2007, 11:24 AM

After wearing in my motor for 1000k it was time for the good 'ol "straight forward" task of replacing the engine oil and filter... So i drainned my oil and pulled out my filter... Replaced both this items... Put 1lt in engine start it up to get it circulating.. Everything at this stage is fine...
Put the remaining oil in the motor wait 10 minutes and start up...
Sweet cant wait to cruise tonight...
Put the car in reverse and all of a sudden i have oil **** ing everywhere. ARGH all over my freshly painted bay AND all over our freshly paved backyard!!!!!
The old oil filter seal had remained on the block and i had thrown on the new one without realising that the old seal was still there.... Nedless to say that every oil change from then on i check to make sure the old seal comes out with the filter!!

bonspeed · 01-02-2007, 11:35 AM

My younger brother had a mazda 323 sedan, he brought some flash wheels for it. (momo gts). brought some new springs for it (super low kings) removed the front and rear struts come around to my place to borrow my spring compressors. about three hours later he comes back around and askes to borrow my angle grinder. (seems his new springs arn't low enough) He trundles off, rings me up come round have a look at my car, drive round have a look looks really good, go for a drive scrapes everywhere but is fine, pull in to get fuel, about 10 minuites later we are still trying to get petrol into it, ask whats going on? it seems that when he cut his new coils in half the wheels would foul on the fuel filler pipe, which ran inside the rear wheel arch. solution? bash the siht out of it with a hammer! result, the filler had closed up to be about 5mm wide and would take about 20 minuites to fill!

benoxr · 01-02-2007, 12:15 PM

Many years ago a new guy started at work. He was given his car to drive and was told to make sure it had oil and water. About 20mins late he comes back inside and asks if we had more oil. We asked why he wanted more oil as there was about 12 one litre bottles in the rack. He said he had used all of them and it still wasnt full! We went to check and found he was checking the level of oil by looking in the filler cap and as the oil hadnt come to the top, he wanted more! You can guess what his next task was....

bjr22n_ · 01-02-2007, 12:04 PM

I busted a head bolt on a mates XR8.
I had the head of the bolt in my hand, and the thread was stuck in the block...

we had to drill it out. the Easy out's we used were useless, and we broke a drill bit... it didn't want to come out, but we got it out in the end with blood, sweat and tears.

it must of been the 7 Weet-bix i ate for breakie ;)

xrfalcon · 01-02-2007, 07:43 PM

Trying to start my old TE cortina, me old man come over with a jar of petrol slowy pouring it in the carbi,car started back fired dad dropped the fuel and caught fire lucky car and no one was hurt. Thats the worst i've had.