Come home after yet another way-too-long day at work. Walk into the garage, turn on the lights, sit in driver's seat of "the project" for a few minutes, decide once again that I'm too tired to work on the car with any certainty, turn off the lights, sit at the computer. Been almost 30 days without any real progress. Dammit!

My best one ever:

On my way to my first day at a new job I hit debris in the road resulting in a broken off exhaust.

Pull up to the nearest repair shop and phone my new boss with explanation for why I'll be late. No time to do more that weld the exhaust, and while they are doing this (with oxy equipment) the mechanic manages to somehow not only set the under-body coating alight, but also to rupture a fuel line, leading to quite a fireball erupting from a growing pool of fuel under the car.

Everybody scrambles for the nearest extinguisher leading to a bit of a tussle. While this happens the rocket scientist busy mopping the floor decides to put out the (petrol) fire with his bucket of water, spreading the burning pool under several other cars in the shop.

Pandemonium is the only word to describe what followed, and the mere fact that the entire workshop (and my car) didn't go up in flames is a complete miracle. My new boss had to be shown evidence before he was prepared to believe my second excuse on the day for being really, really late.

Priceless.

Tried replacing po's aluminum interior lock pin with the factory plastic one,
only to have it pull out of the rotary housing!!! Couldn't get the interior aluminum knob to come off and ended up breaking it!!...

Made a call to Partsheaven and ended up replacing the whole metal rotary knob unit. Man, sometimes it is not so easy..

Replacing head gasket on Saab 9000. Machine shop said head was warped, but fixable. Get rebuilt head back. Intake and exhaust cams are installed backwards. Fix problem. Cams spin easily by hand. Install head and find the motor won't turn over. Check timing 10 times. Turns out cams are binding up. Lose all faith in machine shop and locate used head. Install, button everything up and engine fires right up for 10 seconds. Hear a sharp metallic bang. Turns out a dropped 10mm bolt that I never found during rebuild had fallen into clutch inspection hole. The bang I heard was the ring gear shooting the bolt through the side on my transmission case. Now I need a new transmission. To make matters worse, I find a note to myself to locate "lost" bolt before starting engine in the box with the warped head! Damn was just a preface to what came out of my mouth for the next few days.

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Ironically I was doing a safety inspection of brake pads when the phone rang... Turns out I didn't tighten the lugnuts. I was only going 30 mph when the wheel fell off. No damage other than my ego and the fender.

Actually this worked out great. I didn't crash at triple digit speeds with my little niece on board!

Mark at CR Cars fixed it and I was able to do the grunt work to allow him to concentrate on the metal work. Mark is magic! It helps to have a sailing buddy who restores Duesenbergs.

Even so I couldn't get the S in until October and missed an entire summer...

oh, that's bad.
it's just too critical getting disturbed while working on the car.
this is why I use small yellow magnets from my kids, stuck to the fender above the wheel that I remove only AFTER having securely retightened the lugnuts.
same when I change the break fluid or anything similar where you have to work araound back and forth.

after replacing the door panels I noticed I couldn't lock the drivers door anymore from the inside when it was open.
so I took everything back apart only to remember it's supposed to work like that

:rolleyes:

First drive and big puddle of oil under the car before getting out of the driveway. @*&%#!!!!

Get my new cat bypass and rush around Friday night of a long weekend to get new M8 by 40mm bolts. eventually get a friend to get some from a machine shop for me but now its dark .. turns out the cat by pass bends right after the flange and the 40mm bolts specked in the manual are too long and hit the pipe .. had to use 35mm bolts of which I had 8 brand new stainless in my tool kit

Dammit ..

Dammit!!! I got nothing...

I am desperately trying to conjure up something to contribute other than "Yeah, me too" or "That looks cool...". In the last two weeks, this site (you guys) has provided the exact answers in minutes to two issues I had with my 80 SC. 1) Hot Start issue...Fuel Accumulator/Check Valve replacement and 2) Grinding from 5th to 4th...Linkage adjust and Reverse Lockout Pawl adjust.

Lots of generous talent here...and dammit that's cool.

Bought an SC without a radio but with an electric antenna. Buy a radio, do the install and Jerry rig the power antenna and by dog it works perfectly. Since the wires to the antenna were Jerry- rigged I decided to tidy them up so it looks factory. Disconnect the hot lead and feed it in front of the firewall next to the brain for the motor. Well I'll be damned if the hot lead touched the ground coming out of the brain and fried the dam thing. Now it won't go down. damn it. Then try starting the car and it will barely run and giving it any gas causes it to stall. Double damn it! Found out that the fuse I connected the hot lead to was to the oxygen sensor and it blew the fuse. Fuse replaced and all is good. Had to buy a complete new antenna and reinstall all because I was lazy and didn't disconnect the battery or cover the hot lead. Damn it!

FINALLY !!!! got engine in and running :-)
go for test drive :-]
hauling ass, and suddenly see LOTS of smoke and smell OIL !!! :-0

had forgotten to tighten the clamp on the breather hose from the CIS air box (74-77 style) to the Oil tank neck and OIL EVErYWHErE ON MY NICE, REBUILT, CLEAN, PAINTED 2.7 MOTOR.....:mad:

Least nuttin' broke, 'sept my heart.:rolleyes:

end of day at work. finishing up service on the last car (infiniti QX56)
brake service -DONE!
replace air filters -DONE!
tranny fluid change -DONE!
oil changed -DONE!

some how forgot to install the new oil filter and have all 6.2 liters of oil dump out once started -DAMMIT!!!!

having one of the owners of the dealership walk in a moment later to ask why im the last one in the shop and still "cleaning" my bay .. DAMMIT....TWICE!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1375857200.jpg

Putting in rear quarter windows after repaint. Got both sides done with some help from my wife and only a little tearing of the new seals... only to realize that I forgot to place the black window sill trim in first.:mad:
Wrestled them back out, placed the trim pieces but my wife couldn't push hard enough on the glass to help get the rubber into the now 1/4" smaller opening. My 240lb neighbor was the solution. I've had to do several things twice n this rebuild. DOH! I mean Dammit! All good now however

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1375857749.jpg

SOS Bro
 

Cam Bearings & alignment are a huge PITA. You are not alone!!! I bought a $3000 915 and waited a long time to install and despite all of my & my journeyman mechanic friend's(he worked on a $250K 74 MFI restoration) efforts the F***ing clutch chatters like an annoying MF(sorry mom) even after a new Sach's clutch kit & new clutch cable. Maybe not a 60K gear box after all(Guide Tube & more? Thanks Joe!!!!). As my old oil field boss used to say "it is not how many problems you have but how you finish the job." Hang in there and "Weather the storm" of nagging BS crap and come out on top!!! Best of Luck :)

Everything was fine and the car was running great. I backed out of the garage to take a spin and got out of the car to close the garage door.

What's that fluid on the floor? Gasoline! Pouring out! Yikes. A hose had come loose . . . Lucky I just changed the spark plug wires, because I was getting a light show with the old ones. No explosion. I fixed it.

Too many to list......

The latest: Got in the '87 911 yesterday, after having driven it for awhile the day before, and the battery voltage is too low to crank the car.

Oh damn it, where's the short now...or is it a bad alternator again...or.......

A digital volt meter is your friend. Charge the battery and check voltages at rest, idle and at 2500 rpms.

Should be 12.5+, 13.0+ and a max of 14.2ish