admit to your stupidity

[yelcab1]

I did some work on my car lately, forgot to tighten lug nuts, test drove it on the free way (thank god it did not fall off). Finally noticed it when I exit the free way 3 miles from home. Slowly limped home and still lost 2 out of 5 lug nuts. THese blasted Ferrari lug bolts are very expensive so I had to backtrack, at night, with a flashlight, looking for them. FOUND them on the road, 1 was 1 mile back, the other was 2 miles off.

[svandamme]

just finished working on the 924
fixed the ignition and cold starting > wacked in an MSD
had to pull a new wire from the ignition / steering assembly to the MSD down in the engine bay

drove home , turns out my indicators don't work no more...
got to go over that annoying cable pulling hanging upsidedown , head where my pedals are routine all over again

thinking about getting me an orang oetang, named Clyde

at least the weekend wasn't a complete waste :
started stripping down BB for the chassis de-rust renovation
that went just fine...


i hope the reassembling goes just as smooth

[anh911]

Hey guys, I'm new to this board and thought here's a great way to introduce myself...

in a previous life I owned a Lotus Esprit, one bright Sunday morning after a weekend ski trip my buddies and I were on the way to Denny's for brunch. Some guy I never met was riding with me cuz, "I want a ride in that awsome car dude" ok, whatever.

Anyway at the final turn into Denny's this battered Pinto pulls up to me and says, "Hey man, your cars' on fire!"... yeah right, very funny - look into the rearview and sure enough, more ugly smoke than you care to see on a Sunday. So I hop out (the passenger is already about 100 yards down the road, he never looked back) run into the gas station and grab his fire extinguisher without asking and run back to the car, put out the fire and take a breath. Then 2 things happen, the fire starts again and the starter kicks in - you guessed it, i had left it in gear too... So now the car is on fire and walking down the street undriven.

Run back to the station, grab another ext. and politely ask for a pair of wore cutters. Run back to the car and kill the fire (again) and then cut the battery cable.

NExt thing I hear is applause coming from behind me - my friends! We push the car out of the intersection and go have breakfast...

The car lived btw, actually not that much damage.

Cheers~

[anh911]

thought I'd pass this along so as not to malign the Lotus more than is called for. (it was a great fun car)
The cause of the fire was a recently rebuilt alternator. And any of you who may have a series II or III NA Esprit, the alternator wiring to the battery and the fuel lines run along the same frame rail, this is a bad idea... (see previous post)

[Jens]

I once passed on a '57 Speedster. The guy had a hot VW motor in it that he wanted to keep. His price? Three hundred dollars US. Yeah, I know....

Jens

[sammyg2]

Here's a Porsche related one I did, I was pulling the engine and I jacked the rear of the car up as high as I could get it. Unfortunately I forgot the front trunk lid was open. I also forgot that it was up very close to the wooden overhead storage shelf in my garage. As I jacked up the rear of the car, the front trunk lid got closer to the shelf until.....you guessed it, the front edge of the lid got jammed against the shelf and tweaked a little. Nothing that couldn't be fixed but it sure made me feel dumb.

[Zeke]

Originally posted by Jens
I once passed on a '57 Speedster. The guy had a hot VW motor in it that he wanted to keep. His price? Three hundred dollars US. Yeah, I know....

Jens

In 1963 at age 17, I found a 1952 Ferrari Mexico coupe for sale at $1800. It had a chevy in it as the 12 had expired. There were only 3 or 4 made for the Carrera Panamerica. It is likely Ginther and Hill drove it. My dad wouldn't let me have it.

It was all red. Didn't look this good. Still had the Ferrari 5 speed non synchro trans. Plexiglass rear and rear quarter windows. Boranis. Leather straps on the hood. It was the real deal. Oh well, I wouldn't still have it or I still have some of the other great cars I have owned.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Previous to buying my 70 T this weekend, just as most car buyers do, we had all the doors, hood and trunk open, poking and prodding around. Test drove it a couple of times, made the deal, and started home. It's my first 911, so I don't really know what things should feel like, but I thought it seemed like there was a lot of cool air coming in around the edges of the dash. I of course passed it off as another 911 quirk. 2 hours into the trip, my wife and I stop for dinner, and as I'm walking away from the car I realize my front trunk lid is not latched! Hey honey, the trunk latch works. I shudder to think of what could of happened, could of been a quick end to my 911 ownership.

[Robert Coats]

Here are few of mine...

(1) '72 Corvette with front wheels up on ramps, doing an oil change. Just got a Haynes manual, and figured "what else needs fixing?" Found the filler/inspection hole on the transmission oil, and removed it...gear oil (about a quart or so) gushed out onto the floor. "What bonehead overfilled this transmission!?" I thought. It was right there in the book, "fill to edge of hole." How the hell did they get an extra quart in there? Oh well, no harm done. For about a month, then the tranny took a $1500 dump, due to "lack of oil," according to the shop. WTF? Oh crap. The car was supposed to be on a LEVEL surface when you check the gear oil level.

(2) '84 Mazda 626, and I didn't notice the old o-ring from the old oil filter was stuck to the engine, and installed new filter and five quarts of new oil. Started car and it proceeded to instantly pump all five quarts onto garage floor.

(3) '91 C4, and changing the PS fluid. All goes well, but I leave a shop towel in the engine compartment. Drive for a 10 miles, then all warning lights pop on, but engine continues to run okay. Check engine, and shop towel got caught and shredded 2 of the 3 belts.

(4) '84 Scirocco, did rear brakes, and didn't realize importance of axle grease. Wiped most of the "dirty crap" away. Drive car on solo road trip, and kept hearing squeeking. Was doing 70 mph when I glanced in the side mirror and saw rear tire sticking out *much* more than it should from the fenderwell. Gently coasted over to the shoulder, and as I was jacking up the car, wheel falls off. What is left of the bearing has welded itself to the stub axle.

Thankfully, those are the worst. And I hope it stays that way.

[Hugh R]

With all respect to "FrigginIdiot" on this board, the night before last I decided to tinker with my air conditioning to make sure its working as pitifully well as possible. Mine is some aftermarket thing with what looks like the Griffiths left rear fender well condensor (stupid place for a condensor, right next to the catalytic converter), but I digress. Anyway, I turn it on and the condensor fan and the magnetic clutch won't come on! After saying WTF, I proceed to check fuses, test the relay, disconnect the fan switch and all kinds of things. Everything checks out fine and i can't figure out why the danm thing won't work. The wifey poo comes out to the garage and I tell her my frustration. She looks at me and says "do you thinks its too cold for it to work, like maybe the car thinks its already cold enough?" As I'm standing there watching my breath (its in the low 40's) I say to my self, "Self, your a friggin idiot". Yesterday afternoon with temps in the high 60's (southern California you know), I turn on the A/C and everything works great. No other point to this post, except that sometimes I wonder if I'm having a "Senior Moment"

[MichiganMat]

I was welding my drivers side seat bracket to the tunnel in my 911 after one of the welds broke off. Well, actually my buddy was welding and I was watching, "supervising". We do a short weld on and step back to take a look and I see some smoke shooting out of the tunnel. I assume its just some grease that started boiling from the heat, it was really dirty down there. We check over the weld and begin the new one when a huge fireball explodes from the tunnel and nearly sets us both on fire. We didn't know it then, but the fuel lines run in a "guide" that puts them snug underneath where we were welding, and we had melted through the return line. I bust out the fire extinguisher and shoot it a few times and the fire goes out but now 15 gallons of premium are slowing trickling into the floor pan of my car. We use the fuel pump to pump the gas out of the tank and eventually replace the $150.00 factory hose (outrageous!) with Kragen hose and Im back on the road. The car still smells of gas but we're both alive to smell it and thats the important part.

[juanbenae]

thanks for not mentioning me by name matt.

[djmcmath]

I once forgot to check for the oil filter gasket, and discovered that the oil light in my 1.5L civic comes on with about 1qt remaining in the tank. That's good to know. "What's that gurgling noise, and why is that guy chasing me waving his arms?" Yeah, felt pretty stupid that day...

Once decided to change my spark plugs and wires. Followed the Haynes manual which says "disconnect all the spark plug wires, being careful to label them," except I didn't label them. Note: Honda Civic doesn't run too good with the wrong firing order.

When swapping the engine (once again, in the Civic), my two mechanically declined friends and I carefully labeled everything we disconnected, on both sides of the connection. Except that on about half of them, we labeled on the engine that we were pulling out, rather than the engine that we were putting in. "Does anybody know where 'Q' re-connects at? Oh, I see, 'Q' connects over there on that engine, not this one that's _in_the_car_..." Oh, and labels started out being really useful -- "Vacuum Hose Throttle Connex" or "Fuel Supply Injector X", but rapidly degraded to "Fat Brown Hose" and "Q."

Dan

[cstreit]

Holey Jeebus Milt, are you serious?

If you had one of those now... We could ALL retire.

Phil Hill drove those all over the place, PanAmerica, Carrera, etc...

[FenderGuy]

Hmmm i am drunk and here

[stefang]

Shortly after I got my 944, replacing the chassis to engine ground wire at the back of the engine. I drop one of the bolts - hmm where did it go, what's that hole on top of the bell housing??? OH NOOOO!!! Rennlist advice saved me from tearing the whole thing apart: remove starter, rock engine with wrench, bolt drops out. WOOHOO! Boy, was I happy.

Stef

[ben@benlovejoy.]

How about screwing up while doing nothing more difficult than getting something out of the boot (trunk) of a 968?

I learned a useful lesson: do not put your car keys down in the boot. If you do, don't close the boot afterwards because it is electric and without the keys you can't turn on the ignition and thus can't operate the boot release to get at your keys to switch on the ignition to open the boot to retrieve the keys to ...

If you do lock your keys in the boot, don't do so when the spares are at home 700 miles away.

Ben

[charlesbahn]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....
I owned a Jaguar XK-140 and traded it in for a Ford Galaxy 500.
Replaced the fan clutch on a Mercedes 280 SE 4.5 and forgot to torque the little bolts that hold it on- went right through the radiator.

Ahhh to be young again.

[3.2 CAB]

I have never touched it without knowing what I was supposed to be doing.. I have all the manuals, I call people, that I know very well, that do this for a living, to find out if I am missing something . But I am wondering why all these other numbers and car makes are showing up here. We are talking about PORSCHE are we not?

[djmcmath]

Ok, fine, I'll admit to a Porsche related mistake: today I was looking for some voltage, and I couldn't seem to figure out why none of my fuses had voltage. I was measuring from the high side of the fuse to the low side of the fuse, and no matter which one I measured or which switches I turned on, there was no voltage across any of the fuses! Imagine my consternation at this fantastic puzzle ... Oh, and to make it worse, once I realized that I needed to put one end on the fuse, and the other to ground, I discovered that the voltmeter wasn't even on in the first place ... Yup, that oughta just about ring the "stupid" bell.


Dan