Recount your stupid, idiotic, "Oh shit" moments while working on a vehicle.

[JRZEE2000TR4LTD]

Answered a question for another poster and it gave me an idea for a thread. Maybe it's been done but I've haven't seen one.
Anyways, as the title states, recount a dumb, stupid, "Uh, Oh... moments you've done while working on a vehicle. I certainly have had my moments so I'll start it off.

I had a 70.5 Camaro when I was 20 years old. It blew a HG so I got to work on it. I was still green so I had my buddy and his dad who was a master mechanic help me. Everything went smooth on the 400 small block. Checked the head plane and got it milled just a little. Checked the cylinder walls because they were know to crack because the walls were thin between cylinders. All was good. Put it all back together. Filled with coolant and changed the oil. Started right up. It always ran really well. No white smoke anymore. Happiness filled my heart. Let it warm up took a quick spin around the block. It ran so much better than I remembered.
Came home and let it cool for an hour and topped up the coolant. Put some coolant and water in the trunk because I had to work the next morning.
Next morning, I'm on my way to work, doin' about 80 up 295 and all the sudden I smelled coolant and noticed my temp gauge was really high. Immediately, pulled over and popped the hood. Coolant leaked out of the cap. I forgot to push the little red arm down on the cap and it let the coolant leak out. Man did I feel STUPID. But, wasn't I smart to bring some extra coolant and water with me. I opened the cap more while steaming hot (stupid) and proceeded to pour in the water into the hot block. Well, all you all know what happened next. I heard a "crack" sound and sure enough I cracked my block. I sat there on the side of the road and cried. I loved that freaking car.

So tell us your story. Don't be shy. Don't be proud. And don't be judgmental because we ALL have done stupid things. Maybe not as stupid as my gaff. I also, in the same car, put the battery in backwards and fried a good portion of the wiring harness. Never forget popping the hood and watching the wiring look like a giant bomb fuse. Man, that poor car. I put it through hell and eventually put it in the junkyard.

 

[FunBobby]

Honestly, I can remember a small one I did the other week. I usually really slow and methodical when working on my vehicles but the other week it was getting dark and I was putting the muffler back on my G37S so I could trade it in (I straight piped it because my neighbor said it was too loud); anyway, it was getting dark and I was rushing when I had nut that didn't want to tighten. No problem, I hit it with the cordless impact until it snapped off and sent the hot nut down my shirt sleeve.

 

[Mudeprived]

Said "oh shit......oh shit.......oh shit" about 15 times after realizing i escaped death when my jeep fell off the jack stands and I rolled out from under just in the nick of time.

 

[St Runner]

One of the stupidest thing I have done(and there has been lots!) was trying to figure out why my 86 toyota pick up would bump start right away but not crank start. While driving down a hill on our narrow roads ( only two lanes and no shoulders) I turned off the ignition to bump start it but turned it that extra click so the steering wheel locked. Of course thats when a car came around the next corner and I am drifting into the next lane with the steering wheel locked and barely any brakes. Just missed the car and then stopped but my heart did not slow down for a long time

 

[Joelzy]

oh where do i begin...
My build thread is full of them in hopes of keeping people from making my mistakes but just to name a few:

• attempted installing these headbolts eventhough they didnt look right and had to extract when the socket kept jumping during the torque sequence

• followed the machine shop's lead and installed my cams upside down

• Routed the knock sensor harness to the wrong side of the motor(IF i had been the one to disconnect the harness i would have known better)

• welding a nut into the floorpan for the seat without pulling the carpet back or out... :gun4:

• the worst was when i was trying to install a subaru EJ motor into my 69 vw bug without a hoist. i had managed to get the motor under the apron and just needed to jack it up to the mounts but it slipped off the jack and my dumbass tried to catch it.

finger looked like a hotdog in a microwave

 

[St Runner]

I really did not need to see that last pic I now have phantom pain

 

[skiadero]

Working all day and not wanting to wait to do mods for the weekend leaves me doing them at night.... no garage... and when I get too excited, like when I was reversing my 06 Sport to a driveway light and I got a little too quick and sideswiped my whole ass mailbox, took it out, really roughed up the side of the 4R and broke off the mirror (probably shouldn't have gone that fast..) This was some years ago now and I am wiser lol

 

[Hopeless Diamond]

Had an '03 SVT Cobra with the Supercharged 4.6 (what a hoot that car was). Decided to change out to some high fallooting whiz bang spark plugs. Well between the manufacturing tolerances on the threads of these things, and the crappy head design for the plug threads, the hole stripped out. This happened after I put the coil pack cover back on and the plug/coil pack was bouncing around in there, destroying the plug and filling the cylinder with porcelain shards. Ended up renting an endoscope (back in the day they didn't have nice cheap ones like today, so it was ~$300 for 2 days). Used it to fish out all the crap and then had to rework the spark plug threads in the head. What a crappy design, while the boss was deep enough, they only had 4 threads to hold the plugs. The V10s were renown for having this same problem. They eventually changed the design and threaded 8 threads. Who would have thought you needed to strengthen things for a high horsepower supercharged engine.

 

[JohnMc]

Two stories, both involving Volvos. I like old Volvos, BTW.

First was when I was a teenager (mid 80's). I had an old 1963 Volvo 122 that I'd bought for $450. It had a lot of miles. I put a bunch more on it, at some point the engine got a bit tired. It was summer, I didn't have much else to do (lived in the country) so I took it out and rebuilt it. Did a really good job. Had the block bored, got new oversized pistons. Rebuilt the head. Crank sized/turned/polished, new rods&mains. New oil pump. New gaskets. GOOD AS NEW!!! I reinstalled the engine, added fluids, and cranked it up. It started up and ran perfectly on the first try. I let it warm up, no leaks, no problems. Turned it off, went to restart it and noticed that the oil pressure warning light didn't come on. Hmmm... I looked and no big deal, the wire had fallen off. The sensor is tucked in behind the exhaust manifold, which was scorching hot. I tried to push the connector back on and burned my hand. And I noticed the connector was a little 'sprung' and not holding as tightly as it should. Anyhow, to make a rambling sotry a bit shorter, I got antsy to take it on a test drive, I didn't fix the oil warning light wire any better, and took off on a drive. And about 10 miles later it started to lose power, make a bit of noise. I pulled over and turned it off. Tried to restart it, starter clunked but the motor wouldn't budge. Opened the hood and heat was BAKING off the block, more than normal. And the oil warning light wire was unhooked. I checked the dipstick..... BONE DRY. And I looked underneath and saw that the oil drain plug was missing. Apparently somewhere along the long rebuild process I'd replaced it finger tight, and when I reassembled it I never tightened it. And it wiggled out, and in conjunction with the loose oil warning light wire.... Yeah, pretty much had to start over from scratch, totally different motor sourced from a junkyard.

The second story of woe: I now have a 1993 Volvo 245 wagon. That I keep making faster. And faster. Until reliability is a bit of an 'issue' (I'm about 97% through a turbo LS swap on it right now). Anyhow, this was when it still had the 2.3L 4 cylinder, with a 4 valve DOHC swapped on it, and a big turbo. It made about 300-ish hp at the rear wheels. In an exciting light-switch manner that small engines with big turbos have. Anyhow, one of the side effects of running a lot of boost was that headgasket life was getting iffy. I use Cometic MLS gaskets, but they still only seemed to last 5 - 10K miles at a time. So I had what I thought was a bad HG, it was starting to push coolant at full boost (24 psi), gradually getting worse, until one day it started to fog out the tailpipe pretty bad so I pulled it apart. And found that it was a bit worse than just a HG, the forged pistons were looking a bit ragged on their tops (detonation). So I pulled the bottom end out and took it apart, discovering ent top ring lands and broken top piston rings. So the rebuild project got bigger - I got new pistons, balanced them, gapped the rings, put it all back together again with a new HG. And on the first start up? Fogging the area again. Massive amount of coolant coming out of the tailpipe. Plugs indicated a major issue with #4. WTF??? I tried eliminating things that were easy. It had good compression, no coolant in the intake, nothing. Stumped, I took it apart again, and discovered it hadn't been a HG the first time around - it was a split way down low in the cylinder bore. that I'd never noticed while the engine was completely apart. I had to start over from scratch on that as well, another junkyard motor stripped down completely, taken to the machine shop for work, built up from a bare block. So yeah, done twice.

 

[Team_Jake]

About a year ago on my 4Runner during an oil change, I forgot to put the drain plug back in after draining the old oil. I didn't realize it until after I had dumped over 5 quarts of new oil through my engine block all over the garage floor :doh:
...I'll never make that mistake again

 

[NegroTundra]

Had just buttoned up everything after valve cover gasket job, only to start washing my hands and see a half moon sitting on the bench!

 

[apohl17]

About a year ago on my 4Runner during an oil change, I forgot to put the drain plug back in after draining the old oil. I didn't realize it until after I had dumped over 5 quarts of new oil through my engine all over the garage floor :doh:
...I'll never make mistake again

^^^ Been there, done that.... Talk about flushing ALL the spent oil out of the system... :doh:

I may have involuntarily subjected myself to an ATF drain and fill by not paying attention to what plug I was loosening up when it was time for an oil change on my previous sunfire 3rd gen. That was a good time!

This thread is prime. :rockon:

 

[dcshipwreck]

i have a 97 subaru impreza wagon i swapped, built, and boosted to the moon and one night after throwing the new exhaust, intake, and wheels on my buddy and i jumped on the highway and hit excessive speeds..... then realized i never torqued down my lugs after only putting them on with a makita 1/4" impact :shocked:

we immediately pulled over and snugged them up lol

EDIT:
Story #2!

Just remembered a good one haha
I had a 88 samurai that i did a tube front end on with just a hood. As soon as i got it finished I took it for a spin around the block and about 200ft out of the driveway I see the hood flutter a bit and at that moment I remember there is no hood latch! slamming on the brakes as the hood slams into the upper bars of the exo I just got done building and blocking my view on a busy road going 30+ we pulled into the center turn lane and then bungee'd the hood down and all was well.

all were good learning experience and I've now learned to slow down and not get too excited when I'm wrapping up a project. We'll see if I can remember that when I install my lift on the runner this weekend!

 

[Joelzy]

my Jiggle valve is still upside down

 

[2TH4IST]

While replacing a center support bearing on a audi A4 quattro I got the drive shaft halves apart but couldnt get the cv joint off, so I used my press to press off the CV, nothing.....nothing......more pressure....nothing.....nothing... max out my 12t press then BANG the cv came out. Also sheared the snap ring groove from the drive shaft spline. had to buy a reman driveshaft @$700 bucks.......

Pulling my used knuckles for the 4runner and forgot to leave the lbj attached, popped the upper ball joint and the whole knuckle w/caliper and rotor assembly landed on my left big toe.

Back in the day when I worked for VW I forgot to put oil in the engine once......

 

[weekendclimber]

Had a '70 Superbug that the engine blew up on. Swapped in a '69 carbureted engine into it and went for a drive afterwards. A few miles down the highway, I see the front hood wiggling and dancing. Just as I was about to pull over it flys up and smashes the windshield. All the contents inside of front then immediately spray all over the highway. Not sure if that was the dumbest thing I did all day, or if running around picking up the junk from under the hood on a highway with traffic whizzing by was.

 

[gamefreakgc]

op2:

 

[thezentree]

I think my finest moment came earlier this summer when I just finished working all day on my 4Runner, tossed all my tools in the back, and went for a test drive around the neighborhood. Apparently the back hatch came open at some point and I left a trail of tools in the street for about a block.

Either that or when I was in high school and decided I was going to do a poser shot with my $500 XJ flexed out on the landscaping at the entrance to our neighborhood and broke a driveshaft U-joint with my bald MT/R perched in some fresh mulch.

:bravo:

 

[DAW89446]

A couple come to mind.

About 1973, my Dad and I doing a tune up on my 1964 Pontiac Catalina. Dad played a trick on me, asking me to hold the sparkplug, in its boot, while he cranked over the engine. The only way I can describe the feeling of all that amperage traveling up my arm is what happens to Popeye’s forearm after he slams down a can of spinach.

About 1999, in my garage. A 1996 Cadillac deVille Concours. I forget what I was doing under the hood, but it was something quick and near the battery. I knew I shouldn’t have been wearing my wedding band, but my thinking was “I know this is wrong but it won’t happen to me this time.” Yes, I arced my wedding band between the positive terminal (sidepost battery) and a strut brace. I had a Murphy cabinet in the garage but it was on the other side of the car and the nose of the car too close to the wall, so had to run around the car, the Black Hills gold band glowing bright red. I got my hand and ring under cold tap water in the sink for about two minutes, then it took a while to get the badly melted ring off. Took about five months to heal.

 

[gamefreakgc]

A couple come to mind.

About 1973, my Dad and I doing a tune up on my 1964 Pontiac Catalina. Dad played a trick on me, asking me to hold the sparkplug, in its boot, while he cranked over the engine. The only way I can describe the feeling of all that amperage traveling up my arm is what happens to Popeye’s forearm after he slams down a can of spinach.

About 1999, in my garage. A 1996 Cadillac deVille Concours. I forget what I was doing under the hood, but it was something quick and near the battery. I knew I shouldn’t have been wearing my wedding band, but my thinking was “I know this is wrong but it won’t happen to me this time.” Yes, I arced my wedding band between the positive terminal (sidepost battery) and a strut brace. I had a Murphy cabinet in the garage but it was on the other side of the car and the nose of the car too close to the wall, so had to run around the car, the Black Hills gold band glowing bright red. I got my hand and ring under cold tap water in the sink for about two minutes, then it took a while to get the badly melted ring off. Took about five months to heal.

My dad just did that in the past year with a deep-cycle marine battery. He almost lost his finger entirely.