Admit your most embarrasing wrenching blunders - here is mine

[gunlover05]

I have to imagine all of us make mistakes when working on our car. What are your blunders? Here is my recent blunder. I completely rebuilt my suspension over christmas - a major project to say the least...here is my thread about it.
Just finished my complete suspension rebuild – I’m impressed!

I've driven the car several times since, and amazed at how well it performs on the street...first AX is next weekend.

One thing I did notice was my car understeered a bit now when pushed hard. Didn't think a lot of it, until yesterday. I was retweaking my tie rod arms yesterday, since my steering wheel was off-center from previous toe adjustment, and I noticed my stock sway arm didn't look like it fit right in the bushing on the a-arm...after looking at some other pictures this morning - CRAP, i had installed the front swaybar completely backwards! UGGH!





So this morning, i jacked the car up in the front, dropped one of the a-arms, and had it all back together correctly in 1.5 hours.. I don't see how anyone can remove and install the front sway without dropping an arm. After fixing my blunder, i took it for a spin and i believe the understeer is pretty much gone...i think the sway bar installed upside down was "stiffer", than the correct way.

Anyhow, this is my latest "blunder" - I felt like a moron this morning.

[dtw]

Yeah, sounds like the bar may have been binding.

Got a few hours? Enjoy:
admit to your stupidity

[john walker's workshop]

dropping the a arms wasn't really necessary. moot point of course. undo the center clamps, lube bushings liberally with silicone spray, force the bar further through one outer bushing until it comes out of the other, and install the same way.

[Netspeed]

This reminds me.....We had a customer come in the dealership (Chevy) with a knocking noise in the front end of his new Suburban. We put it in the air and the front swaybar was reversed. Then we noticed the galvanized plumbing pipe from the cat back to the mufflers (I kid you not). It had the frame replaced too and then he told us it had been in an accident...after I tried to get Chevrolet to pay for the fix.

[Buckterrier]

What's a wrench?

[Buckterrier]

Actually EVERY project I do is embarrassing.

[72 four door]

Originally Posted by Buckterrier

What's a wrench?

= Mechanic

[Steve 82SC]

My wife kept me company during an oil change....brought some lunch to the garage and hung out. Upon refilling with my 3rd quart of oil, my wife said, "What's dripping?" Of course, the dripping was the absence of drain plugs. After about an hour, I had the floor cleaned to an acceptable level. This time, with drain plugs in, my elbow hit the extra large funnel that I was using to fill the oil tandk and 3/4 of a quart of clean oil now covered the top of the engine. That was clean up took about 4 hours. I was actually glad that my wife was present......I blamed the whole thing on her for somehow diverting my attention from the task at hand. She didn't go for it, but I gave it a shot.

Steve

[bwc racing]

Well the worst part of this is i am a mechanic (shop foreman).
After over filling my porsche and filling my airbox with oil,i cleaned the motor up with engine degresser.Then i reached through the window to start the car .About that time i realized they can start in gear.So to make along story short, off goes the car in reverse into the front of my lowered pickup.

lucky the truck was lowered so there was no damage to either one, other then a small nick in one bumperet.


So how's that for stupid.

[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.

[tmctguer]

this is more of a funny moment.......i posted this a few years ago after someone asked how to remove wheel bearing races:

if you heat the hubs in the oven, make sure you clean them very, very well with degreaser and/or brake cleaner. if the hubs are not very, very clean, your house will smell like a meth lab, and your next few meals may taste like porsche-meat.

trust me on this one.............

i cleaned mine like a surgical instrument, then warmed them in the oven when my ex-wife had gone to the mall. (uh......some projects just can't be explained to a woman). when she got home, all she asked was why i had used the oven. i just smiled !

[gungadin]

Old honda Goldwings are ALL about carbs and often the years have gummed them up pretty good what with rusty gas tanks and all that sitting over the winter ect.
I had acquired a rare aftermarket aluminum intake manifold for a single Holley carb conversion and couldn't wait to try it. I had the installation complete and started and ran the bike for a while but it kept running worse and worse fouling plugs and running rough. Tried hotter plugs and various carb tuning tweeks. Still nothing.
Took the top off the carb finally and uhg! SO much debris and junk in the bowls.
I had installed the old in-line fuel filter backwards.
yeah.

[dipso]

I was replacing my injectors and broke the head off of an old fuel injector trying to remove it. The rest of the injector slipped down into the combustion chamber.
I stood there for a while and then had the brilliant idea of starting the engine and trying to use the compression to blow it back out. Didn't work.
Then I use a retractable magnet. Didn't work.
Then i took took out the spark plug and tried to go at it that way and pull it out. That didn't work.
After trying these types of approaches for two days, I was just about to remove the manifold and go at it that way and figured I would give the magnet one more try.
I felt something click and slowly pulled on the magnet, the injector must of caught the magnet just perfectly and it pulled right out.
I got lucky.

Moral of the story, Jim Beam and auto mechanics don't mix.

[Danny_Ocean]

Sorta mechanical related: Building a 2nd-story loft inside my shop using 2 x 10's for the floor joists. Too lazy to move my dent-free '74 455 T/A outside. I kinda eye-balled how much room I had for the cut-off lumber to fall and determined there was plenty of room between where the wood would hit the floor and where the T/A was sitting. So, cut-off the end of the first joist, a 2' long piece of 2 x 10 starts falling toward the target area, hits the concrete floor, BOUNCES and whacks the fender of the T/A leaving a nice dent in a previously un-dented car.

[barney911rs]

I think my first blunder was many many years ago, pre P-car ownership. I was at an SCCA AX with my Pontiac Fiero (don't laugh, it was all I could afford at the time). I was getting ready to change to my AX tires, when I realized I forgot to pack my breaker bar. Being young an stupid, I decided to use a regular ratchet. The first couple of lug nuts came off with no issues, then a particularly stubborn one was my down fall. I was leaning on it with with hands on the handle and all of my weight when it broke and I went face first into the fender of the car. Thank God it was plastic and gave some when I hit it.

After sitting down for awhile waiting for the pain and cobwebs to clear, I went and borrowed some tools. Needless to say, it was not my best day of driving. Anyone have an aspirin.

[mthomas58]

Originally Posted by Buckterrier

Actually EVERY project I do is embarrassing.

Good one!

[mthomas58]

OK, I wasn't going to admit this, but we're among friends here. After installing the back-up camera on my car, I backed into the wife's SUV (was not paying attention!) Guess I need back-up sensors too! Small split in the bumperette after hitting the SUV tire/rim - no damage to either car

[GothingNC]

I just finished replacing the muffler on a 74 bug and when I was packing up my tools I spotted a bag of new exhaust gaskets that came with the muffler.

Doh !!

[Netspeed]

Ok...here's mine. I once helped my brother take his front coil springs out of his 69 Mustang Mach 1. I used the wrong type of coil spring compressor and and had it compressed too much on one side. When I pulled it out of the wheel-well, the damned thing bound upped on one side (like a Slinky going down the stairs)....my index finger got mashed by the spring on the tip. Another 1/2" down and I probably would have lost the tip of my finger. Genius huh?

Don't get me started about stuff I've done around the house.....

[aftermath]

Ive been stupid enough to forget to secure the tool box in the race trailer, twice. I love the game lets pick up the sockets and screwdrivers for a hour. The second time the tool box broke in 1/2 Im lucky I didnt damage the car.