Tell us your "stupid move" story!

[fogcity]

Okay, I'll play.
After doing something under the hood of my first car, a Mustang 5.0, I put everything together and took it for a spin. A TERRIBLE racket was coming from the engine, so I drove straight to the mechanic so he could find what I screwed up. What he found? My rachet set sprawled out all over the aircleaner cover.

Another time, replacing a fuel gauge sending unit on a '65 Falcon, I had to drop the gas tank. I failed to drain the 5+ gallons of gas before hand and had a nice wave of petrol cover me while lying under the car trying to ballance the tank. My wife didn't find it amuzing as I was gingerly walking through the house, trying not to create any static from the carpet, yellling "Don't light anything", as I headed for the shower.

[surflvr911sc]

I think my worst was after I rebuilt my brakes. I was flushing the system w/ brand new ATE Super Blue and my power bleeder. I had a whole liter of fluid in the power bleeder so that I would be sure to flush all the old fluid out of the system.

I pumped the pressure up and then went to bleed the calipers. I thought it was odd that I had to pump the pressure back up twice per caliper. I really thought it sucked when the power bleeder was out of fluid after only doing the rears. Hmmm…

Off I go to grab another Liter of fluid out the cabinet so I can top the power bleeder back up for the front. From across the garage I see the blue lake that has formed under my car w/ a river heading towards the garage door, a whole liter of fluid in the cr@pper.

That wasn’t even the worse part. This all happen because I didn’t think to clamp off the vent tube. That vent tube wasn’t routed out of the car, it went to the front of the luggage compartment and stopped. A whole liter of fluid in the luggage compartment and then on the floor, nice. After about 10 gallons of water to flush out the trunk I called it good.

I’ll kick my own @ss if I ever do that again.

[BennyBroadcast]

From the world of usenet.
17 year old kid with newly aquired drivers license decides to "helpfully" change oil in parents auto Landcruiser. Parents are absent, on holidays, "won't they be impressed" thinks Kid. Kid drains oil, kid re-fills oil but appears to add too much according to dipstick. Kid takes 'Cruiser out for a test drive. He gets woried because the transmission seems to be sticking in gear and "making noises". Each stage of this process continues as a thread on usenet with others offering advice as the Kid tries to figure things out. Eventually someone works it out. He's drained the transmission fluid and then added oil to the engine!! Then he's taken the poor thing out for a lash around the block with no ATF and DESTROYED the transmission. Oil is slopping out of the overfilled engine (via the crankcase breather) which is also smoking . Many condolences were posted after this all became apparent. Also a good many ROTFL's were posted too !! :-)

[Martin3.2]

This one was at work.
Security called me to say my car was leaking oil. Ofcourse I was in shock and rushed outside. When I came outside I noticed a huge puddle of oil in FRONT of my car ! There I was thinkin' : how could that be ? there's nothing that COULD leak in front of the car. So I opened the trunk and found a oil cannister that wasn't fully closed. During some serious driving the cannister rolled in front of the spare tire and started to drop 5 quarts of oil into my trunk. My trunk is absolutely rust free

Originally posted by Adam Chaplin
I'd driven the car all around the neighborhood to warm up the oil before an oil-change. Put it straight on the hoist, and started draining the oil, only to drop the sump plug into the container.

It's a natural, instictive reaction to just reach into that nice, hot oil (wrist deep) and grab it.

Ouch!

Me too (on a Volvo, but still)

[M. Hendrix]

I let my drummer drive my Weissach backwards over a 12' ditch, and then swap ends, and park it up a pole.

Yeah.


M

[FRED/LI]

Replaced the clutch on my old SC (or was it the '84?), reinstalled everything and tried to start it.....Whirrrrrrrrrr!
Seems the starter can't engage when you don't have a ring gear to mesh with. I didn't know that on this model it gets removed. Worst part is that I had already disposed of the old one.

First time oil change on my first 911.....had no idea that the tank held that much oil.....Overflow on garage floor.

Installed the engine with the keeper washers on the wrong side of the rear mounts......engine dropped down like a loaded diaper. It happened just outside of my office. Funniest part is looking out the window to see a new 911 pull up and inspect the damage. I got the feeling that he sped off to the dealer to return the car seeing that the engines fall out.
There's more, I think I just blocked them all out. It's been a 20 year adventure.

[JackT]

Went to install factory short shifter into my SC. Everything went great when I took it apart. Putting back together, I could not get this fork thing to slide in like I remebered the old one slid out. No problem, got my grinder out and grinded the sides, still would not fit, but just by a little. No problem, got the hammer out to tap it in. Problem, I was putting it in backwards, it split the aluminum casing of the shifter housing. Not repairable and a $400.00 mistake according to the local Porsche dealer. Fortunatly, our host had the same part for 50% of the dealer price.
Wasn't planning on telling anyone this, please do not repeat.

[cmonref]

Reinstalled fresh rebuild of engine -- did it myself, and I was so impressed!! Started OK, ran fine, oil pressure OK -- for about 2 minutes or so. Engine began to labor. Shut down. No oil in tank (yes, I had filled it up before starting!). Hmmmm. No oil on floor. Yep, it was all in the case -- seemingly drained forever. Turns out I had not reinstalled one of the scavenge pump gears when I put the oil pump together. Grrrrhhh!!

[Cornpanzer]

OUCH! Hard to top yours Brian. Last year I put my engine back in my VW (much more complex that usual VWs due to the Weber IDA's, header and ignition system). Just as I was finishing the job up I turned around and saw a clutch disc and pressure plate laying on the workbench. DOH!
One time I decided to roll my old 63 Buick Riviera forward in my garage so that I could sweep the floor. Its amazing how fast 4200lbs will accelerate when the front wheels drop out of the garage and onto the sloping apron. Car got away from me and knocked down the fieldstone retaining wall behind my house. If it handt got hung up on the frame, it would have dropped 3 feet and probably not stopped til it reached the creek. That was a $3500 homeowners claim =(

[targa911S]

Originally posted by M. Hendrix
I let my drummer drive my Weissach backwards over a 12' ditch, and then swap ends, and park it up a pole.

Yeah.


M

Man don't you know by now....he's a drummer! Those guys can't do any thing right but count! And even that is only to four!

Now bass players...we got it ALL going on!

[72 four door]

ok here goes I rebuilt my 66 shelby motor [hipo 289] The car ran well but always had a tapping noise couldnt figure out for the life of me what it was. I replaced the rockers w/rollers and still that f... tapping. About 2 years later i changed intake manifold and low and behold my cheater bar[10"pipe] was laying in the valley amongst the pushrods and lifters. I think that wins the bone head award.

[IROC]

OK, I'll add one. I was repacking front wheel bearings once and when it came time to install the grease seal, I paid extra attention to make sure I tapped it in perfectly straight and level. Then I looked over and saw the inner wheel bearing still laying on the bench! I forgot install it! Doh!

I called up my local Porsche parts guy (who also ran a shop at the time) to see if he had another grease seal (since I destroyed the new one I had just installed when removing it). When I explained why I needed another one, he said "Don't feel bad. I worked at a shop once where a guy did that and actually re-installed the hubs on the car before he figured it out..."

Mike

[GB83SC]

Brand new VW (senior year high school )-- I just washed the car to out on a friday night, pushed the driver seat all the way back for a quick vacuum (I had left the car in reverse). Jumped in to move the car, hit the key and could not reach the clutch (no safety switch back then) the car took of like a lighting bolt and with the drivers door open, hit the side of my parents house!! . The car was instantly corverted to having a suicide door. Needless to say Little George did not go out that night.

[BGCarrera32]

This is truly ridiculous...

Had an old 84 Dodge Colt import thing that I sold to a friend. Pretty rusty mess even after some "sprucing up". Said friend goes to army surplus store, buys old army parachute. Fastens parachute to climbing harness, gets in harness, fastens a rope to rear bumper of Dodge Colt and back to the harness. You guessed it, friend is now parasailing behind Dodge Colt driven by a friend down a dirt road, about 30' off the ground. And here come the power lines across the road. Driver in Colt locks up brakes, parasailing friend continues forward over the front of the car, somehow lands unscathed because rear bumper of Colt gets ripped out of the back of the car and breaks free.

Friend calls for help remounting the bumper. Nothing left of rusted frame to remount to, so we head to hardware store. Buy a hunk of 6" chimney duct for the aluminum, unfold it and proceed to rivet it to the back end of the car like a diaper to cover up gaping bumper holes. Proceed to drill holes for rivets under the car, and drill through rear pan right into spare tire. Hiss....

-BG

[sammyg2]

Man, I felt real dumb the time I drove off with the torque wrench still attached to a front wheel lug nut, but after hearing all these stories it doesn't sound all that bad

Here's another:
When I first got my V8 914 running I took it for a "spirited" drive.
A few times I accidentally lost traction and several times I got real close to the posted speed limit (wink wink). None of this was done anywhere near residential areas or on busy streets BTW.
After 10 minutes the I heard a whine from the transaxle and headed home.
Yup, the transaxle had no oil in it at all.
The PO evidently had drained all the oil out of the "so called freshly rebuilt" transaxle so it wouldn't drip on his garage floor.

Luckily I had another transaxle I picked up earlier (manditory for a V8 914) and tossed it in, two hours later I was back on the road, this time with oil in the tranny

[rcwaldo]

reassembling one of many small block Chevy's. Set the heads on their respective decks and torqued down both heads. Later, before valve train installation, went to turn the engine over by hand. It would turn about 340 degrees and bind, turn it backwards about 340 degrees and bind. HHHMMM. Shine a flashlight into all spark plug holes and what do I see? I beautiful, fresh, red shop rag! Got it out little by little with needle-nose pliers. Burn out the parts we couldn't get out with pliers.

Helping out a buddy install a auto-tranny (Powerglide) into his Vega drag-car. We wrestle it into place, get a few bellhousing bolts started and snugged up. We then look over and see a new torque converter sitting there looking us in the face. SHHHOOOOT!

[sammyg2]

One more:
Many years ago I was working as a mechanic. One day the shop foreman told me to "get my butt over there and take that truck apart". I asked him what he wanted me to do to it, he said in an angry voice, "I said take that damn truck apart, are you deaf?"

I didn't have a clue what was the problem with the truck, but I followed his direction and started taking the truck apart.
After 8 hours I had removed the engine, transmission, radiator, both doors and bumpers, the service bed, interior, and was working to get the cab unbolted from the frame.
Turns out all it needed was a carburetor
He tried to fire me but after a couple of meetings with the human resources folks he got a letter of reprimand in his file and was forced to attend a leadership training seminar where he was taught to give better direction
I worked all weekend putting the truck back together at doubletime pay rate.

[pbs911]

Driving down the freeway with my 1 month old 3.6 conversion. Motor just stops running and I coast across 4 lanes of morning traffic. I do a quick check - no fuel, no spark. Have the car towed back home. Conclude that no fuel and no spark due to a bad DME relay. Order a replacement and wait a day a day to get the part. Install new part and turn key. No start, no fuel, no spark. I look under the truck carpeting at the battery for some unknown reason and find the power wire to run the DME had come loose from the battery. Duuhh. Well at least I have a spare DME.

I refuse to discuss the first and second oil changes with my self contained funnel/oil pan and my purchase of lots of kitty litter.

And then there was the morning after I brought my P-car home. The guage and dip stick didn't show any oil so I added oil until it was at the proper level on the dipstick. Proceed to start car, and as the motor warms up, I watch the oil level guage pegs at the top. Well, trying to drain only 2 qts of hot oil from the oil tank is not easy.

And then there was the first time I turned off my P-car. I didn't know which way to turn the key to turn the motor off since the ingintion was on the left. Proceeded to grind starter with the motor running trying to get the car to turn off.

[JK-81SC]

An oil change on my wife's Lexus RX-300. I was trying to be clever and avoid removing the tray which covers the bottom part of the engine. I didn't want oil draining down the engine block when I removing the filter, so I put some rags under the filter. Finished the oil change in record time with my shortcut.

Next morning she calls me from work telling me the front of the car is smoking bad, and people are telling her it smells like burning trash. I hurry over and find one rag was left behind. The engine has a catalytic converter attached to the exhaust manifold, which gets frickin hot. I burned a finger yanking out chunks ashes that were still glowing red.

I was lucky. It melted part of an engine mount, but missed torching some engine wiring by a few inches. Next time, no short cuts.