Admit your most embarrasing wrenching blunders - here is mine

[TerryH]

Reminds me of the time my little sister washed my brand new 1976 Kawasaki motorcycle and Armor-All'ed the seat. The old bench type seat not a saddle. First time I gave it gas I almost had the tail light up my tail.

[fbarrett]

Friends:

Here's one that Grady Clay can verify:

In about 1975, my 912 developed an oil leak from the engine's front seal. I bought a new seal from Grady, pulled the engine and transmission, separated them, installed the seal, then put it all back together. But when I started the engine, it leaked worse than ever!

Figuring I had a bad seal, or the crank was scored, I repeated the performance. With the same result! When I told Grady, he asked which way I had installed the seal. Of course, it was wrong way 'round!

The third time was a charm. As a bonus, I got down to about 40 minutes to pull the engine and transmission (including loosening the CV-joint bolts).

Frank

[billybek]

I was working as a controls tech for a small company, my first job after graduating from tech.
I was running pneumatic tubing around a new shopping mall, working off a 14' step ladder leaning against the wall. When I moved the ladder, I could hear something come off the top of it. Turns out to be my 32 oz ball peen hammer eight feet into a free fall. Naturally I was kind of looking up to see what it was when it hit me above and below the eye. Chipped the orbital bone and left me with a mean shiner.... But I am OK now!!! Really, I am!!!

[dbrisson]

I used to drain the torque converter from an 80 camaro454 BBC by disconnecting the cooler lines and putting those and a nifty adapter into the drain pan and starting it up.

Fast forward, 06 Escalade needs tranny fuid change and no drain plugs, old adapter fits should work. The exception is the 2 lines on the left side of the radiator cooler is oil, and the two right side lines are trans fuid, both going into 1 large mongo radiator.

Chose sides poorly, and drained the oil out of the lines and motor in seconds flat before realizing "thats awfully dark transmission fluid on a 2year old car" and having the low oil sensor shut down the truck.

[burgermeister]

I rebuilt my beetle motor in college (beetle came with useless non-running engine). Put it all together and got it in the car. It had a Weber 2bbl carb and a "Monza" muffler that I bought damaged - one of the header pipes had a grinding wheel cut in it. The car always seemed slow, and shot 2' long flames out of the exhaust every shift. Drove like that for a few thousand miles, and eventually I concluded I mis-timed the cam. So I split the case. Cam is aligned properly. Just then, I look at the heads sitting on the floor, and just like Sesame Street, one combustion chamber & spark plug is not like the others. It looks really clean. Testing reveals that this new Bosch plug simply won't fire for whatever reason. I never even checked the plugs - they're new, so they couldn't possibly be the problem. I just saved some time by disassembling the engine first ....

The "cool flames" out of the muffler were gone after this, and the VW felt much more "peppy" insofar as a Bug feels peppy. In my defense, the engine did not run rough, and it was not obvious that it was running on 3 cylinders...

There are many other blunders, most of which my mind is currently repressing...

[Larry_Ratcliff]

I have a good candidate and I did it just this last weekend. Sorry not on a porsche but I will throw it in anyway. I was swapping out a 4.0 v6 in a 01 ford ranger 4x4 (huge pain to work on) After an entire day of getting the engine to line up right, wrestling the trans with xfer case up against the engine, getting 6 of the 8 trans bolts in and bolting up the torque converter I could not get bolt number 7 to even begin to thread... hmm what the heck is going on... 2 hours of fighting it later ... it is one of the 2 bolts at the top that is a serious pain to get at anyway... I find out that I had left the bone yard tag on the back of the engine and it found a new home blocking the freakin bolt hole between the trans and engine! DOAH!!!! I tried to poke it out with a screw driver to no avail ... very cramped spot... still figuring what to do... I am not seperating the engine again ...

[FPB111]

I had the car about two years. Built it in friends shop over the winter of 1991. Engine is 3.2ltr Mahle 98mm pistons on 3ltr bottom end. That my buddy built for me. At the end of a run at Watkins glen heard whistling noise. Uh OH sounds like broken head stud bad head leak. Crawled around the car in the garage couldn't pin it down. Oh well back on the trailer drag it home. Next day off from work down to the shop engine pulled. trans pulled off. 3 hours later, engine on the stand carbs off. Pulled the valve covers and a small metal rod fell out of the right side exhaust cover. I looked into the cavity and saw a spark plug without a center electrode?? My buddy (shop owner) said "OH that is where those twin plug heads went!! I would never have pulled the engine to change spark plugs. Happy ending I mounted an Electromotive based twin plug setup.

[coolngroovy]

Where to start?
I bought an old torana years ago. Paid $50 for it. It apparently just needed the tranny put back in.
I thought i would just get it running & turn a small profit.
Wrestled with the tranny solo for 2 days & finally got it bolted up, hit the go button, nothing.
Siezed!
I was putting the tools away for the night when i noticed the engine to tranny spacer plate hiding in the boot! dAMN~
I really didn't want to pull the box again, so i pushed it out the front & stuck a forsale sign on it. Kicking myself for wasting 2 days on the piece of crap & watching my small profit fade into the distance.
1/2 hr later a kid says "How much?"
I say [head in hands] "Make me an offer!"
$500! Sold!

[901/05]

Originally Posted by oceanvue

Here's on from the factory. On a '82 928 I used to have I was having the brake master cylinder replaced and the mechanic get's deep into the back of the engine bay into an area that had never been touched by human hands since it left the Germany and pulls out a German made hammer that he swore had been wedged in there since it left the factory.

a Porsche factory screw driver from my '66 912. About 14" long with a red handle, wedged deeply north of the 1600 mill. I still have it.

Shawn.

edit to add: the screwdriver..not the car.

[burgermeister]

One came back to me this morning - may it be repressed again soon.
During my front pan replacement last fall, I sprayed Eastwood rubberized undercoating to the underside of the pan without taping something over the hole where the fuel tank goes. After I got out from underneath, I wondered what all the black goo on the front fender was. In fact, upon closer examination, there were black goo droplets all over the place - even the windshield was not spared. Took a surprisingly long time to clean up with rags full of mineral spirits....

[gungadin]

My lifelong friend Jim is who got me started wrenching. He was sort of like a mentor you know.
We had decided to do an "idiot book" rebuild on a 30hp VW engine.
While I was in school he was final assembling the case.....
with a shop rag inside we came to find out....really soon....only about a mile down the road.

[HawgRyder]

Being of not too sound a mind....my story:
I was in the Canadian Air Force based at Trenton...it's a fairly large base and my roomate and I needed something to get around on base.
We bought a Honda 50 motorcycle.
It fit the 2 of us....did about 35 MPH....great.
Rode it for about a week and a half....it stopped on the main road...would not start (kick start).
So...we had tools with us in our coveralls....we started to dis-assemble the carb....ignition...you get the picture.
We are sitting on the ground looking at each other through the frame when someone comes by and asks us if we are out of gas.
The look on my bud's face must have been the same as mine!!
It took us 5 minutes to find the gas tank (under the seat)...put the pieces back together...push the bike to the on-base gas bar.
That little beast held $0.17 of gas(gas was $0.32 a gallon back then)...and we rode the bike for another 2 weeks before we got transferred...sold the bike to other friends in barracks.
But..I still maintain that I am a great mechanic...yeah right.
Bob

[Rusty Heap]

High school days.

working on a buddies 67 mustang with a 390 v8 and holley carb. FAST FAST car

Mickeys Widemouth beer bottles work great to use as a priming container to pour gas down the carb into the engine to get it to start.

Too many primes for the engine and myself.............note to self, always make sure the bottle you're reaching for has beer in it, and isn't the one holding the gas. Yup, chugged a mouthfull of gas and not the beer..........yuck!

Plus, back fires out of a carb makes the holly foam element burn real good too........


another one, always use small 6-8" box end wrenches while installing battery cables at the terminal, a 12-14" box end reaches just perfect length to short out across the positive and negative terminals.............now THAT make a heck of a good spark and man does the wrench glow orange hot quick............

[kodioneill]

1971 i was 16 years old just bought a 1960 Triumph TR-3. pulled the head for blown head gasket put the head back on. dropped in the first push rod. it fell into the oil pan. forgot to install the lifters.

[DavErb]

I believe I can add to this. Last month my '83 had starter problems. Pulled the starter , took it to my neighbourhood rebuild shop (NRS), reinstalled tthe rebuilt unit, car started right up , no problem . Right?

About a week later the battery was completly discharged. Clever fellow that I am I analysed everything I could see and came up with the idea that my alternator had ceased to function. Replaced newish battery since it seemed damaged, Pulled alternator, back down to the NRS, who replaced the regulator and the diode packs (which I'd damaged getting the alt out of the houseing), reinserted the alt and it still would not charge.

Much checking of Pelican forums ensues.

Pulled the alt, the oil pressure guage (to get at alt light), checked everything, alt light still would not light when key turned on prior to engine start, checked light (is OK) , checked *every* miserable strand of wire leading from light to alt, took alt to NRS again to confirm I did not somehow fry it (was OK), checked ignition switch. pulled out what little remains of my hair

Reassembled alt in hopes that it had somehow cured itself (hey *sometimes* swearing at it works, who knows?), no luck

Finally the light came on (not the factory one, the one in my brain that should have come on a lot earlier) and I said "what about the starter? That was the last thing I'd worked on before I'd had this new problem"

Sure enough. Yah know that wire that goes from the starter to the alt? The one thats supposed to be connected? The one that if not connected will gaurantee that your battery will *never* charge? That one?

So I connected the wire to the terminal just like its supposed to be and all is OK once again. The battery charges and the 3000 rpm cold idle has gone (same wire supplies the WUR with power).

Wallet is $400-500 lighter and I really can't beleive I could be that thick

[DUK]

Started putting the cv joints back in the car the other night. Got a few of the bolts started and went to turn the shaft to help line up another bolt when the inside decided to come loose and drop right on my forehead. Anyone got an aspirin.

[janz]

OK got to add mine as its still fresh in my mind, it happened just last night. Rebuilt brakes on my 86 carrera, calipers and all new rotors etc. Power bled them with hand pump up bleeder bought from Pelican. Everything went well but brake pedal just didn't seem high enough for complete new brakes. Bled them a second time with power bleeder (yes I had the vent tube blocked). So last night i ask the wife to come out and give me a hand (thats right you should start to shudder about now). She says sure and I tell her we need to bleed these brakes the old fashioned way to make sure they're right. She has helped me years ago when we had to repair our own vehicles because of cost now I just work on the porsche because I really don't trust anyone else to do it right. So here we go I tell her to pump em up and hold it down. I open the furthest bleeder, barely dribbles out, WTF. Pump em up again I yell and hold em down. Open bleeder again and dribbles out. Now I start running around looking at master cylinder reservoir and al the othe calipers to see if their leaking. Everything looks fine. She yells at me saying the pedal feels like crap. OK try again, again I get the dribble. Now I need answers, I've done around 100 brake jobs and she has helped me with at least 2 dozen of them. Pump em up again I yell and now she's PO'd and slamming the pedal down and I hear a sorta squeaking sound. Ya you guessed it she was pumping the clutch pedal the whole time, boy did I make her feel dumb, heh heh thats one for us guys. BTW everything went well after that and the pedal did come up to a much more desireable height. She just started talking to me today but when I went golfing in the porsche today she put my motorcyle in the garage and locked it up before she left to go shopping because I wasn't home yet and left everything out and open. Made me a nice meal tonight also. 30 years of marriage can do that not to mention all the excuses she used for f'n up.

[old man neri]

I just put in a brake pad backwards....noticed before I put the tire on. This is why I always double check my work 15 min later. I guess the sun wore me out.

[dentist90]

There's been a few, but my favorite was working on my wife's CJ-7 at a friend's house. Was working under the hood and had my friend's wrenches and screwdrivers on the bumper (where the winch would be). Got it running so decided to take it out for a test drive. Around the first corner heard a 'ting-ga-ling-a-ling' but thought I had just run over something metal on the road. At the next stop sign heard it again. Got out to have a look and... you guessed it. Wrenches on the ground in front of the Jeep. My wife was about to come out looking for me by the time I got back, after crawling along with my head hung out the window picking up all the tools I had spread on the shoulder. Impatience costs!

BTW: did you guys already know that the 911 motor and tranny will not come out until you have disconnected the hard oil line? I had to prove it for myself.

[SP2]

Quicksilver, this was too funny!

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

Reposted from this thread...
admit to your stupidity


I’m 17 and I are a self edgimacated auto mickey-nick.
I'm working on the finishing touches of the new engine in my car and when I try to start it, it burbles and never quite catches.

I realize that the engine is flooded. I fail to think about why it would flood. (Turns out that you need to put the distributor in the car correctly to burn the fuel that goes in.) The short term problem is that the engine is obviously flooded. So how do you dry out the intake?

I know!!! It's gasoline! Lets burn it out! (Surprisingly this in itself works well and doesn't cause a problem!)



A brief application of the propane torch and the carburetor is burning nicely. After a minute I try to start the engine and it seems like it nearly was going to start. Re-light the carburetor so I can give it another try. After doing this a few times I realize it isn't drying out the intake fast enough for me. There isn't any fresh air getting down into the intake to burn off the gas down there! I can fix that!

I hold the throttle of the 4-barrel wide open and blow down into one of the venturis and sure enough it mixes really well with the gas and burns it off...

... as the blow torch like flame proves when it blows up out of the opposite venturi and removes part of one eyebrow and just a little bit of the hair on the side of my head.

It is funny but it was at this point that I asked a couple people for some guidance.