Mechanical mishaps Options

[natedogg]

I'm sure we've all done some stupid things when working on our cars so I thought I'd start a thread to share some of this stuff for a little comic relief. Feel free to share. If not, just fee free to laugh at others stupidity and misfortunes. Or if no one else decides to share feel free to laugh at my stupidity.

I'll start. Lets see we already established in another thread that I've
-Forgot to plug in MAF
-Forgot to torque down lugnuts.

Also I've
-Almost killed Akamiami back in the day by using a spare tire jack to hold my old FWD up while we attempted to change the fuel pump. The jack sheared, rear of the car fell, and fortunately didn't crush anything or anybody.
-Poured a quarter tank of gasoline on the floor of my parents garage on the same night.
-Started old GST with no oil in the transmission. Didn't actually drive anywhere. Just sat in neutral and revved it a few times until I started to notice the water and grime on top of the xmsn was smoking.

I'm sure I'll think of more as it comes back to me.

[SCCA Stang]

ok guys.... they doosie to end all doosies....

I came home from work (driving cavalier), about to head to school... went out to start the GSX.... hit the key, nothing.... damn it battery is dead....

I grab my jumper box and toss it on my battery... click, click... damn it, must not be enough power

I then grab my plug in charger.... hook up to the battery, power set to 50 amp booster.... click, click... WTF!!!!! that should be plenty.... F***K it, I switched charger to 2 amp trickle charge and left it to charge. (didn't unhook battery from charger at all, that comes in important later)

after school, I come home to check on my battery... it's nearly half full.... lets test this damn thing...... click, click.... damn it, WTF is wrong with my car......(I walk around to the charger...... oh shit!!!!) I have hooked up the charger backwards.

ok, calm down ben... it's just an Optima battery!!!!!

I quickly disconnect the battery charger from the battery, then hesitate while thinking of all the connections in the car I have just fried.... thinkiing of all of the backwards polarity power I tried to force the starter to start the car with..... thinking WTF do I do now. the positive side accually read neg on my DMM, with the neg side reading pos.

after thinking about it for a few seconds... I turn on the headlights for the car.... that ran the battery dry about as quick as anything could.... the next step was to charge the battery straightup again... so on the charger it went... this time in the right polarity.

after all day of charging on correct poliarity.... I hook the battery back up to the car and test the battery, 12.98v ..... very nice!!!!

hit the starter.... cranks over as if nothing had ever happened... unfortuntely kris and I found out the very hard way that I had accually damaged the main alt fuse during this incident... damn it.... the optima could only go so far with out recharge from the alt.

got a new fuse from advance auto and a jump start from a friend and off we were again...

Optima batteries.... what a reliable battery... no battery should be able to take that kind of abuse and keep on giving....