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.

drove to work on loose lug nuts(luckily its only a mile)

forgot to plug the TPS in, that gave me a nice DSM like 1200-4k idle surge

back in highschool i took a small engines class. i was rebuilding like a 3hp briggs. i had just assembled the motor... i go to test start it and i'm like "damn this pulls easy as hell!" one of my friends is pulling on the cord prly 20 or 30 times, dumping gas down in the carb.. i look over on the counter, and there sit my tappets.. somehow i managed to miss them. the teacher rolled his eyes and mumbled something and i then tore my engine back apart.
i never did get it running though cuz once i had it assembled again, i was trying to start it, and some dumbass decided form-a-gasket is a much better starting aid than ether. he shot a ton of it down in my carb... i just said to hell with it. but man was the teacher pissed... he ripped that kid a new asshole

another time i was doing the frame work on my truck. i was cutting out the spare tire carrier to replace it with a new crossmember. a friend was watching a little too close... i was cutting with the torch and apparently the bottom of the legs of his jeans were frayed.. needless to say, his leg caught fire.. it was quite humorous cuz he kinda didnt notice for a sec... and then he started dancing around tryin to put it out

one other time i was working on a crx. taking the nut off the axle at the hub. i had a 1/2 rachet on it(couldnt find the breaker bar) and a 3 foot long pipe. i am on my knees facing the fender.. pulling with my right arm. the rachet snaps and the pipe hits me right in the temple... it hurt like hell... i fell to the floor... tears came to the eyes and i had a bad headache for a day or so... learned the lesson there

As stated earlier, I have also forgotten to tighten lugnuts and drove around town all silly like.

Also squeezed out a power steering o-ring and caused an engine fire that took about a month to repair.

Just yesterday I decide to take my strut tower bar off. So, I start undoing the bolts on top, and BAM!!! Once again Joe craps his pants. Logic didn't tell me that having the car up on stands with no wheels on would probably make those struts fall straight to the floor.

My brother was cutting some metal on my Meat Saw-turned bandsaw with an angle grinder. The sparks are streaming into his shirt, but he just keeps a cuttin'. To say the least, he still wears a shirt with a bowl-sized hole in it every now and then.

Can't remember doing anything super crazy in the garage, that may be because of the brakecleen fumes though.

Most of my interesting experiences have been loading cars onto trailers, lord knows I've done that a few times.

I remember one particular instance where I was having problems pulling a car up on the trailer with a hand winch, so Spy and I decided to hitch the spyrocket to a towstrap and try to pull it up. Started pulling the truck and trailer down the street with the car half on while Spy was smoking all 4... turns out the exhaust was loose and catching on the trailer... opps

Loading cars with no suspension can be fun too.... although if you strip them down far enough, about 3 guys can pick the unibody up pretty easy.

i bought a stealth

Yeah you did!!


I helped Turbo Tension work on his stelth.

I'm pleading the 5th on this one.

While installing the Forced Performance flywheel bolt kit in my car, I put the pressure plate studs in backwards. They snapped off under the pressure in my brand new Fidanza flywheel and I ended up having to drill one out and re-tap it. I ended up going to the hardware store and buying a set of grade 8 cap bolts that were the proper length and using them. Massive amounts of yelling and alcohol were involved after that one.

i have my brother work on all my cars so i dont really have any stories

I've been thinking about this thread and I may have to follow suit with Kris here. I've been doing this alot longer than most of you guys and I have a pile of stupidity I could relay. Lucky I've learned from most of it.

Ahh, don't leave me hangin breh! You both oughtta share at least a couple of the brighter ones with us.

yea, you have to give us youngens some edurcatin....

Like put the drain plug in BEFORE you fill the car with oil. All 4 and half quarts. Fully Synthetic, too.

I'll share that one with you, big guy.

When I replaced my front driver wheel bearing and front half shafts on my Talon, I tightened the axle nut on and didn't know how bad the threads were stripped. I then proceeded to drive it for the weekend with no real problems. I thought I had something wrong with the breaks when the pedal sometimes felt really soft. I even autocrossed it at the Porsche Club meet.

I then went to ICC to petition for graduation and I felt my car REALLY pivot when I made the turn into the lot. Low and behold, after towing it back to the shop, I find that the axle nut finally relinqueshed the clamp on the axle. Only the $0.30 cotter pin was holding the whole wheel assembly together. The nut only had three full threads on it!!

ROCK ON!!!!

Check those threads before re-using the nuts and bolts

Hahaha... Yeah I paid for that product twice! You just kept pouring away until the puddle was bigger than the car.

after i got my trans rebuilt and put it back on the car, filled it with RP, and tightened the fill plug on the trans. the next day i was driving from B/N back up to CHI when i got a call from my roomate telling me that there was a purple puddle where my car had been parked. when i got home i got under the car and relized that i tightened the fill plug on the trans after i filled it but the DRAIN plug was hand tight from when i pulled the trans before it was rebuilt.

when i got home i was about a half quart low on gear oil... thank god i didn't fry by new trans, i would have been pissed.

when my cousin and i replaced the trans in my crx, we looked in the haynes manual for the place to fill it... well the pic was very shitty, so we just looked for a place up top... turns out the fill is on the side just above the drain... we poured in the top opening... about 5 quarts worth.. it only supposed to take 3 quarts. we stepped back and thought about it for a sec and realized it was way to much... so i crawled under and then saw where we were supposed to fill it. i opened it up and let the extra 2 quarts drain out through the fill...

I've been working on cars for quite a few years.... I have a butt load of stories to tell but I figure that I will keep it short and sweet and share just a couple of them....

first story: I was doing brakes on my old sunbird and forgot to put in a caliper bolt on the pass side.... I didn't realize it until I was was on the test drive... the caliper flipped up and started smacking on the rim, good thing was that it didn;t flip up until I was down to about 10 miles per hour and it was easy to use the handbrake to get the car stopped.... the shitty part was walking 3 miles back to my apt to get the caliper pin and the tools to put it in the car.

story two: everyone knows that oil filter gaskets can stick to the block on a car, but it rarely happens..... I check it every time, and the one time I forgot, I was working on a girlfriend's car (now ex)..... that particular time it did stick to the block and I double gasketed the filter.... she got about halfway home and the gaskets blew out causing oil to go everywhere but in the engine.... once again, side of the road repairs suck, but at least she realized that low oil press and smoke under the hood means that there is something wrong and she stut it down before any damage was done.

My brother fell victim to the exact same thing. 5 quarts of full synth in a 10+ foot strip down the drive way.

I have forgotten the MAF harness a time or two in the past.

The best was a transmission swap on an 85 auto TA. Put the rebuilt transmission in and my Dad, an experienced mechanic, hooked up the gear selector cable. The selector in the car was in park but on the tranny it was in reverse. He was in front of the car shootin the breeze with someone else as I was also in front adding tranny fluid. Of course the car was idling. I was standing there with a funnel in one hand and the quart of fluid in the other and the car took off backwards out of the garage. On the way out of the garage the passenger mirror caught and actually broke the stud in the door jamb knocking the garage door off the track on that side. The car kept going, down the sloped driveway, with me in hot pursuit. About 35 feet from where it took off I caught up with it and dove in the window (luckily it was down) and hit the break with my hand while at the same time turning the key off. Got it stopped, hit the ebrake, and made the fine adjustments to the selector cable. The next weekend was spent taking the dent out of the passenger door and adding some bondo where the mirror was mounted.

^^^ wow, probably the best one I have heard in a while

ok, got another one that came to mind just now....

at school, there was a kid who did a lift kit on his jeep cherokee..... decided that he didn't want to spend the $$$ on getting the drive shaft extended.... when he brought the jeep down from the lift, everything seemed ok... he backed it out of the bay then nailed the gas in reverse.... that didn;t last long cause when the rear axle housing flexed, the drive shaft fell straight out of the trans yoke....

that kid did that like 9 weeks ago and still gets shit for it... I don't think he will ever live that down...

BTW..... he decided that the longer drive shaft was a good idea afterall and finally got that problem fixed

Just wrote another chapter in the mechanical mishaps book...

Back in November I suffered a spun bearing on #2. After a long process of getting things back together I went for a test drive tonight. I am now sporting a 90 oil filter housing with provisions for an external cooler. Here is the thing. Being too lazy to install the external cooler before a test drive I put a piece of hose (coolant hose - I know...) on both cooler lines. Worked fine during idle and a tug made it seem secure.

One trip around the block, no problem. Took off for another with a little higher RPM and split the damn hose out! Unfortunately it was dark out so I did not notice the oil trail I was leaving behind. Luckily I was only on the accelerator to about 3500 and then slightly over idle until I stopped three blocks away for a check up. I found the split and replaced it with the braided line that I had in the car and headed to Wal-mart for some more Mobil 1. By the time that I filled it back up I had put in about 4 quarts. Good thing I didn't head for the interstate on the first run.

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....

Once when I was doing a timing belt on the old white devil, I had just got the belt on, everything snugged down, so I decide I'll start it for a minute and make sure everything is alright. I hear this insane buzzing coming from the timing cover area, so I have a look and lo and behold, there is a 1/2" drive ratchet still in the end of the crank, freewheeling to beat hell. I watched it for a minute and giggled, then shut off the car. I'm still surprised that it just stayed in there spinning.