Your dumbest 911 moment?

[Jack Olsen]

I've been changing the oil in my 911 for 25 years. I put up a post maybe an hour ago (now deleted) asking if anyone had ever had an experience like mine today, where I drained the oil, changed both filters (993 motor) and then -- when it was time to refill -- saw that only 4 quarts of oil had come out of the engine.



Even though I knew I didn't have a leak, and couldn't have burned through 6 quarts of oil since my last change, I put the same amount back in, warmed the car up and checked it. Full and happy.

I just couldn't figure out where the other 5-6 quarts had disappeared to.

While I was warming it up enough to confirm that the thermostat for the front coolers was working (impossible idea that a stuck thermostat could hide that much oil), I went through the steps in my head, and finally saw the obvious. I'd drained the tank, gone under to get the small filter, let the oil drain more from that, and then went to the top filter...

...completely skipping the most obvious step in the job: draining the oil from the sump.

So dumb, it was kind of funny to me. Never mind that I now had thrown away four expensive quarts of Penn Grade 20/50.

So be it.

I just drained it again -- from both sources -- and refilled it. Everything's fine.

But it made me wonder if I'm the only one to make a completely obvious error while working on the car. Does anyone want to volunteer a moment of shame?

[PeteKz]

At least you didn't end up with multiple quarts of fresh oil on the garage floor, from getting interrupted by a phone call, and then forgetting to put the drain plug back in!

[hastighet]

And I thought it was just me. I managed a combination of both. I drained the tank, changed the filter and proceeded to fill the tank with a fresh gallon of VR1 while on the phone all the while feeling like something was off, but in too much of a hurry to think. On the plus side, I did create an excuse to clean the engine bay really well.

It's not like it was my first, or second or even tenth oil change on the car, but stupid seems to find a way.

[boyt911sc]

Jack,

Don’t worry. We all get to experience some episodes in life like this one. Wait till you get much older and start misplacing your car keys, tools, eye glasses, etc. Sometimes the missing items are in plain view and still could not locate them until my wife would say “here”.

Welcome to the club!

Tony

[shoooo32]

Awhile back I adjusted the valves on my SC but noticed one of the shafts was shifted slightly in the cam tower. I slid the shaft over but did not re-adjust the lash. I buttoned it up and when I fired it - that cylinder had no compression because the valve wasn't fully closing. Oops! I won't make that mistake again.

[Quasimoto]

During the sale process of my 911, I allowed a prospective buyer to test drive the car…he then proceeded to grind the box by trying to stuff it into reverse instead of 5th…

[wswilburn]

Way to many to count in 20 years of owning 911s! Welcome to the club.

[Noah930]

I forget to latch the frunk. I remembered when I turned onto the street and got beyond 5 mph, though. Drove looking through the little gap between the bottom edge of the hood and the front cowl until I turned at the next corner and could stop.

[kevbo]

I was removing my rear shock so I could replace an axle which I damaged lowering the vehicle w/o paying attention. While removing the bolt it just wasn't budging so I got out my extender and snapped the bolt in the trailing arm. :/ It's not righty loosey...... ugh

[Funracer]

Chasing a pesky idle issue a couple of years ago. Did a smoke test. Removed the Popes Hat cleaned it inside and out left it on the work bench while I did the test. Reassembled everything and for 2 days after that the car would barely start and would die without lots of throttle. Could not see anything out of place. Finally removed the Popes Hat again and found a huge terry cloth rag stuffed inside the tunnel between the two lobes of the “hat”. While cleaning the inside I had been distracted and left it in there. What a dumas.

[winders]

Back in 1978 (I was 16) when my Mom got her first Porsche...a 911SC Targa...she asked me to check the oil. Well, I was used to American V8 cars with wet sumps so I opened the rear hood and checked the oil. It was low...so I added a liter of oil. It was still low. I added another liter. It was still low. I did this for 4 or 5 liters. We started the car up and there was blue smoke everywhere. My Mom and I drove it around the Rose Bowl (we lived a few blocks away) and there was blue smoke EVERYWHERE. There was so much smoke all my Mom and I could do was laugh....

We got back home and called a friend in P.O.C. and got educated. I drained oil from the crankcase until the car was a little low and filled her up and checked oil level with the engine running. Then Mom had the dealer change the spark plugs and all was good.

[dwa917]

Selling the 11 911s I had at the same time back in the 90s in LA... Who knew?

[H-viken]

Removing the oil filter BEFORE blowing out the oil in front loop using ER’s nipple on the oil lines

[Queefchief]

I took a drive down my road after removing glass to paint... Left the back glass sitting on the car in place and WOOSH it blew off down the road!

I'm sure the neighbors got a good laugh, but I wasn't at the time

[mb911]

Dumbest thing for me is selling my 77 turbo car and my 964 when both were very affordable and now they are not

[wazzz]

Getting caught speeding at 120mph and seeing my 911 towed away and kept during one week by authorities, with my drivers license immediately withdrawn for six months. Then call the wife and ask her to come pick me up.

[proporsche]

here my 1st....
yup.......i have done plenty;-) in the early days....my 1st oil change the the 1st day (i was told to do) when i got hired(1985).Got new uniform got the car on the hoist and start to remove the oil from the tank.On corner of my eye i saw all the mechanics in the shop hurdle and talk ...so i have loosen the oil plug put the drain under it and guess what all the oil (gravity) was all over me and the floor.
Ok, i went to change the outfit and went to drain the engine..same thing oil all over me and the floor.The guys in the shop had a blast.

Ok job done..until about 1/2 hour later there was a phone call from the person i did the oil change .Who the f...k did the job he was asking?
Basically the drain plug was not tight and all the oil tank oil was at the gas station on the floor..the only luck there was is..that it was walking distance from the shop.So with my tail between my legs i went there and clean the floor there too.
From that day i know the plugs have to be tight.
The outcome from all of this is .For the client i became his favorite mechanic for many years-we often laughed about it.About 22 years later somehow he found me and said..Ivan i cannot drive the 911 any longer i want you to have it.... (he did not say the engine was kaput).Oh well i did rebuild the engine)

[mike sampsel]

Last year, I was taking out my fuel injectors to perform various tests to determine if and how far my FD plunger went up overtime. AS I was doing multiple tests with the injectors out, I decided to plug off my intake (where the injectors go) with rubber cork to prevent foreign stuff! Well first hole no problem, second hole oops (foreign stuff!), cork too darn small down into the intake it went.

As such I decided to drop the engine and remove the intake (CIS) to extract said cork. Was NOT ALL bad as I managed to replace my rear seal, did new CV's too (early though) and with the generous help from proporsche, the rear seal no longer leaks! . Interesting that the "rear" main seal is towards the front of the car, I guess it's rear of the engine.

Still have an intermittent rising plunger in the FD though.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

I used clothes drier 4" flexduct hose for routing air to my brake rotors on my 911 track car.
During my second ever W2W race @ Big Willow the duct hose expanded and ended up trailing underneath and behind my car with a 8' shiny tail.
I was in 5th place and got meatballed into the hot pit. The video of me in the car is hilarious but will remain private. Got car severely scrutineered after that and side eyed at every event tech inspect for a long time.

[David Inc.]

Originally Posted by H-viken

Removing the oil filter BEFORE blowing out the oil in front loop using ER’s nipple on the oil lines

Oh man. Oh man oh man that does not sound good.