What is your stupidest recent car repair blunder

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

I'll start

Mrs. Beard has been complaining that the brakes on her car are much noisier since I replaced her pads with metallic pads, a few weeks ago. I seem to remember that the brakes sounded noisy on my 911 when I replaced them with metallic pads, and were a bit grabby at first. Sort of a scrapey sound.

So I bought a set of the CHEAPER pads and went about replacing them. I pull apart the driver-side brake and find...the inactive pad is installed backwards!?! No wonder it sounded like "metal on metal". It WAS metal on metal.

The only good out of this, the rotor was machined flat...

I wonder if I just flipped the pad, if it would have been fine...I went ahead and replaced all of the pads on the front. The pad lost all of the paint on the base, so I doubt just flipping would have been OK. Maybe if I painted it.

It does brake silently now.

Arizona_928 · 09-09-2018, 10:30 AM

It happens. Make sure to grease the slide pins if you have them.

fastfredracing · 09-09-2018, 10:38 AM

Could we have a moment of silence for Jim's wheel?

09-09-2018, 10:46 AM

After disassembling the top of my 911s engine to track down vacuum leaks and remove the injectors for cleaning, I put it all back together, replacing the plugs, wires, cap, rotor, etc. Somehow I managed to get the plug wires into the distributor in mirror image to what they were supposed to be. The car actually ran that way, albeit very unhappily. After a lot of head scratching and re-checking, I had a D'oh! moment and found the problem. Fired right up and ran perfectly.

I've heard of people getting the pad in backwards before, red-beard. Makes for interesting braking dynamics from high speed. A clever way to turn rotors, though!

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

Could we have a moment of silence for Jim's wheel?

OK, when Mrs. Beard is back, I'll re-tighten the wheel lugs, just the be sure!

1990C4S · 09-09-2018, 10:54 AM

Clutch repair on a 911. Left the ring gear off....

fastfredracing · 09-09-2018, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Clutch repair on a 911. Left the ring gear off....

zzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. no start, damnit !

john70t · 09-09-2018, 11:12 AM

btdt (same kind of level).
I bet ya got real good at pulling transmissions after that.

masraum · 09-09-2018, 11:23 AM

Did the pad material look like someone had taken a cookie cutter to it? I used to work at a retail parts place and had someone bring “defective” pads back once. They had been put in backwards. The pad material looked like they had taken a cookie cutter to it where the piston had cut clean through.

John Rogers · 09-09-2018, 11:25 AM

We put the wrong starter in the 914 race car when it still had the 2.4L engine and the stock one had died. Got it from ORW in San Diego and they sold us the VW Buss starter with different length shaft to engage the flywheel. At the autocross the next day I took off in 1st gear like a bat out of hell and just after I shifted to 2nd the starter seized and since the gear was meshed to the flywheel the engine STOPPED! We pushed the car back to the trailer, up on it and I crawled underneath and the starter looked about half again normal diameter as stock. Pulled it off and that took some work as it was jammed and took it back to ORW on Monday. The order had said starter for "914" so they gave me the correct one.

1990C4S · 09-09-2018, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

zzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. no start, damnit !

Zing, nothing, face palm, FML...

Quote:

Originally Posted by john70t

btdt (same kind of level).
I bet ya got real good at pulling transmissions after that.

I did not need more practice, but the 'repair' was done at high speed just so we didn't feel so bad about the stupidity.

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by masraum

Did the pad material look like someone had taken a cookie cutter to it? I used to work at a retail parts place and had someone bring “defective” pads back once. They had been put in backwards. The pad material looked like they had taken a cookie cutter to it where the piston had cut clean through.

Nah. This was the inactive side (single piston). Plus, these pads have a set of springs on the piston pad that plug into the piston.

pete3799 · pete3799's Garage

Chain saws count?
Just came up from the garage to do some googling.

I put a new fuel line in my Stihl MS170 saw (large PIA). Anyway i finally got the fuel line snaked in under, behind and around (no room to use your fingers) and in the process the throttle pivot rod popped out of its mount. No problem snap the rod back in re assemble everything yank the cord a few times and she's running. Yay.....flip the switch to off.....saw keeps running. Had to pop the cover off and pull the plug wire off to kill it.

Looking at it i can see the wire that's supposed to ground it out ( it's slid into a groove on top of the throttle rod) but there's nothing near it to make contact with. humm...must have lost a part. Look on the work bench, floor, everywhere. Nada. Study the saw some more. Must be supposed to hit this metal tab under the throttle rod. Start saw, touch wire to tab, motor stops. Yup must have lost a part.... damn.

Do some googling-parts diagrams are no help- find a youtube video of a guy changing a carb on an MS170 freeze the video. You dumb a$$. That metal tab needs to be held up when you snap the throttle rod down so its ON TOP where the wire can make contact with it.
Facepalm.

LakeCleElum · 09-09-2018, 12:36 PM

Used too long a bolt to put crash bars on a motorcycle. Got hard to tighten and I used more muscle........The 'pop' was a hole thru the side of the engine case. My knees getting wet was all the oil leaking out.

Leaving the next day on a 3,500 mile trip. Stayed up all night to pull the engine so it could be welded up the next morning......

Robert Coats · Robert Coats's Garage

Summer 1981, and my new-to-me 1972 Corvette roadster was up on drive-up ramps for an oil change. Went smoothly, and I skimmed my Haynes shop manual to see if anything else needed to be done. Ah. the oil level in the 4-speed trans! Unscrewed the square bolt and smelly, OEM gearbox oil poured out. Funny. Shop manuals says it shoud be at drain opening height. Guess they overfilled it at some point. Oh well. Let the 'overflow' drain out and reinstalled the inspection plug.

Two days later, and started having problems shifting in/out of first and third. Ended up at a trans shop and they told me it was toast; too little oil was the problem.

Yeah, i had the car up on ramps at an angle high enough to allow the oil to pour out. Lesson learned..only check trans oil when the car if level. Tuition for this class was no car for two weeks and $1,100 for a rebuilt/used replacement trans.

p911dad · p911dad's Garage

My stupidest repair ever involved the front wheel bearings on the 911. Long ago I decided to treat the 911 to new bearings, so.. as the repair was in the button-up stage, I thought maybe, just maybe, the right front seemed a little loose - so, I gave the nut an extra half-turn. No more looseness, and I forgot about it. Months later while having a spirited drive out through the twisties near our house, all of sudden the car pulled right. I stopped immediately. The spindle had gotten hot enough to actually shear off and the wheel was held on by the caliper and rotor! And if that wasn't dumb enough, I limped it home with no further damage. I managed to find a NOS part and fixed it I saved that spindle for years and it made a nice paperweight.

jcommin · jcommin's Garage

I rebuilt my 944 in 2006 after it was vandalized. I had to put a new windscreen in it - it wasn't cheap. I went to put the wipers on and there was some excess sealant I wanted to remove. I'm a little OCD, so as I was removing sealant with a scraper, I nicked the windscreen and cracked it. The crack propagated to the point it had to be replaced. I was so mad at myself. Sometimes you need to just walk away. I still struggle with that.

masraum · 09-09-2018, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by red-beard

Nah. This was the inactive side (single piston). Plus, these pads have a set of springs on the piston pad that plug into the piston.

Ah, gotcha! I’ve seen that type before.

rcooled · 02:29 PM

I tore apart the engine in my old '70 911T for a rebuild and specifically to cure a rattling/grinding noise coming from inside the crankcase. Bought all the parts, had all the machine work done and was closing up the case when it occurred to me that I didn't check the driven gear on the intermediate shaft for wear. Having already invested several weekends and having dropped a good deal of money on parts (as well as being being anxious to get the car back on the road) I just said "Screw it" and left the old shaft in there.
After getting the motor all back together, re-installing it in the car and hooking everything up, I hit the key and fired it up. Much to my annoyance, that friggin' noise in the crankcase was still there! You know the rest of the story...it was that worn gear on the intermediate shaft making all the noise...the one moving part that I didn't either rebuild or replace

Trying to save some time and a few bucks caused me to tear the motor completely apart for a second time to install a new shaft. All quiet after that and a valuable lesson learned.

Arizona_928 · 09-09-2018, 02:38 PM

Not my mistake but the previous owner of a buell I bought.
He spun a rod bearing, and took it to the Harley dealer for diagnosis and repair. They came back as a bad clutch. Replaced the assembly for roughly 3 grand, just to tell him it's a rod knock once the work was completed.
I bought it and rebuild the engine.