Saw a kid at a local cruise in go down the side of a classic car with her metal scooter handle bar handle. Dammit!

I may have posted this before. If so let's just consider it penance.

Pulled the rear driver side wheel off (polished Fuchs with black paint between the petals) to replace the O2 sensor. After I get the wheel off I decide it's a good time to clean the inside. I keep spray cans and bottles in different crates on a shelf -- wash/wax stuff in one, cleaners in another, lubricants in another, yada yada yada...

So I grab a crate with degreaser and spray it all over the back side of the wheel and let it sit while I work on O2 sensor.

Later I get back to the wheel and wipe it with a rag and all the paint comes off the inside of the rim. Horrified I flip it over and all of the black paint on the front of the rim has run down everywhere. It looked like Tammy Faye Baker had been crying all over the rim.

It wasn't degreaser, it was carb cleaner!

Doh!

Saw a guy at a car show spin out his twin turbo Lambo and crash into the curb after doing a 180°. Broke both axles. It was posted on YouTube. Heard insurance refused to cover it.

Haven't had any of these issues with the Porsche, but...

Replacing valve cover gaskets on my Lexus SC400. Decide "while I'm in there" to go ahead and repaint the upper manifold a stock silver with engine paint. Taped off the intake ports for safety. Ready to put the plenum back on, I removed the tape. Gathers all of the nuts needed to reassemble and wouldn't you know it, one falls right in. `DAMMIT. Luckily, a local Porsche buddy had a really nice boroscope and I had a magnet attached to a wire coat hanger. The valves were closed so it rested safely on top of one.

Several weeks later the engine-application clear coat has yellowed, giving my intake plenum a lovely, ghetto gold color. DAMMIT again. Too much of a pain to bother removing the plenum again. I'll deal with it when I have no other cares in the world. Until then, I'm just going to pretend it's a lovely patina.

Put a new head gasket on a buddy's old VW jetta back in college. Button it all back up and it wont start. Try to chase problem down for a week or two. Suck it up and take it all a part again......oh, there is that missing shop rag. Damn it.


Why is it anytime you offer to help a friend out something always goes wrong? No good deed goes unpunished.

1970 - Am a poor college kid that buys a '59 Healey 100-6. PO sez he just rebuilt engine. I pay for a nice paint job.......Engine smokes. Smart money sez rings didn't seat. Someone tells me to put "Comet" kitchen cleaner down thru the plug holes to scuff up the cylinder walls.

If a little is good, a lot is better, right? Long story, engine won't turn over......Get a tow chain and have my buddy tow me while I pop the clutch....Still locked up, chain rips off the front bumper and big hole in the sheet metal.

Take off hood and pull the head while kneeling on the front fender. Weight causes my knees to put huge dents in the top of the fenders.....

Fixed it all but the "Knee Dents"..........My buddies teased me about the Knee dents forever........Damn, should have kept the '67 Midget I traded to get the AH......


T

Some arse was tailgating the crap out of me while driving my Jetta Sportwagen above the speed limit on a 2 lane state highway. So I figure, let the guy go by to tail gate the next person. Ahead is a parking area with a divider between it and the highway long enough for me to use my rusty AX skills. My ingenious plan was to quickly pull off through the empty parking area (no people since it's 6 AM at a ball field) slow down just enough to let the guy pass and then swing back on the highway - easy peasey. So I swing off, the guy passes as planed and I see the entry back on the road is a much tighter jog to the left. Turning quickly back to the roadway at about 50 MPH I feel a bam bam on the wheels on the right side. There just happened to be a massive pot hole on the side of the entry which I soundly smacked. Immediately I felt the car wobbling. Pull over and no obvious cracks and the tires are holding air. Drive to work and back with no bad events other than the sickening wobble.

Take both wheels/tires to a reputable repair shop. The verdict - One rim can be straightened but the other is beyond repair. One tire has a side wall cut and the other has bad cracking. Total bill was $950 with a remanufactured replacement wheel - one straightened, and two new tires. Quadruple damnit!

Road racing Yamaha RD350 and RD400's.....Supposed to be "Production" class, (stock) but everyone is cheating.

Decide to "port" the cylinders with my dremel......Got radical and raised the exhaust ports quite a bit.....

Next race: went slower and ran out of fuel.

Why" When you raise your exhaust port, you are lowering your compression Ratio...

Finally got that sorted by milling the heads, same machine guy suggests to "bore" my carbs......We were back in the HUNT....

I just found this thread. Good timing!

I checked the forecast, sunny week coming. Crammed in some last minute jobs to make sure the car was ready for daily driving. I got them done with lots of time to spare.

Having the driveway resealed today. Moved all the cars off the driveway and onto the street.

They were half way finished the job before I realized that the 911 was still locked inside the garage and won't be able to come out again until the driveway dries in two days.

D'oh!:confused:

Was coming off the freeway and an SS Camaro was dogging me, he swung around to the left and we both punched it...POW! The passenger CV lets go. Damn, get it home on a flat bed and find the bolts had backed out and two were snapped off flush at the flange.

Looks like a new axle is to be ordered on Monday.....

Things that make you go "DAMN IT"....
 

Non-Porsche,

The youngest is going to school and working full time. His 89 Nissan Maxima is beginning to show signs of a tired battery. Since we were going into cold weather(last winter), I place the battery tender on his car overnight and then wrap the extension cord one time around his drivers side mirror to be a visual clue along with his hood popped.............. (Disclaimer)We are lucky that this kid knows which end of the shinny thing goes into the round thingy that make all the magic and pixy dust come to life and the magic flapper valve under his right foot makes things go.

I get a phone call at work from him saying he didn't see it, the battery tender is now destroyed and the remains of the cord is now entangles in the engines fan and pulleys. Hence his car is dead in the water, my tender is gone and the extension cord is truly extended in strands.

DAMN!!!!!!!!!

Opening my convertible top roof on a very chilly March day and forgetting to unzip the rear plastic window first..and hearing a loud "POP"...new top and 5 years of deep Freudian analysis to pull me out of that emotional tailspin...the horror,,, the horror..

GF drives car (old E class PCA 911 race car) off track, rips apart the BOTTOM of one-piece front fiberglass spoiler/bumper. Mechanics go to work fabricating fix with aluminum and lots rivets and some duct tape. Fixed in record time. GF getting ready to get in car, so I reach in to start car... and it leaps forward smashing into the CUP car in front of it, smashes TOP of front fiberglass spoiler/bumper.

Dammit.

I just had to put my motor on my engine stand and it is a 3 legger. I definitely said DAMMIT about 20 times before I created a crazy come along setup from my ceiling. I used a ridiculously large breaker bar as the support bar and vice gripped the hook on each side so it didn't sway. Pretty ridiculous, but it worked great!

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...9-30160815.jpg