Mike02Z

iTrader: (13)

Well, since someone asked what the stupidest question you have ever asked I thought I'd start a thread to give people a chance to say what the stupidest thing you have ever done while working on a car?

I'll start it off with a good one....When I was 17 (some 23 years ago) I lost my license for excessive points. I had lost it once before for 60 days but this time it was 6 months. I decided I would take that time to rebuild the top half my engine (1977 Buick Electra 225, White with a red top, don't laugh my grandfather left it to me when he died). I pulled the intake, heads, cam etc. Spent all my money having the heads ported got a real agressive cam, swaped the intake with a 4 barrel Quad intake, rebuilt the Q-jet and put it all back together. I then decided it was time to start the car. It was about 9pm at night and totally dark. I started the car and got out to rev it up and I was so proud of myself. All of a sudden it just stopped. Tried restarting it but the starter would not even move. Then I saw the oil running down the driveway. Next morning I realized what happened....I had neglected to put the ground back on the engine and it arc'd on the oil filter and burned a hole right through it draining all the oil...

After a replaced the filter and ground and took a breaker bar to the crank bolt I broke it free but it had a far away knocking sound. The first time I rev'd it up BOOM! Engine parts all over the driveway. Had ti towed to an engine rebuilder and cost me 1200 for a new engine. That was a totally dumb thing I did.....

Let's hear more bone headed things you have done when working on your Fbody or other cars.

y2k_ta

iTrader: (80)

I touched the starter on my first car with a screwdriver without first disconnecting the battery. That was a very painful experience.

RPM WS6

iTrader: (3)

10 years ago I had a '71 Cutlass with a 10.25:1 350ci olds motor. Had a TH400 with an open rear ( ).

I put a new Edelbrock carb on it. Right afterwards I noticed the car was majorly down on power. Misfires, poor starting, really bad MPG. Naturally I figured something was wrong with the new carb. I spent about two weeks pulling everything apart and putting it back together about 10 times with different parts, etc. Still the car ran like crap, even with the previous carb back on it. Then one night, I was with a friend and we were just staring at the engine bay trying to get some idea of what to try next, when suddenly we noticed that the #7 plug wire had been knocked off the distributor.....

I felt like the biggest dumbass that had ever owned a wrench. I still kick myself about that 10 years later.

Asmodeus

Dude, that's how I jumpered my starter on my very first car (1984 nissan maxima) when the solenoids went bad.



Dumbest thing I ever did on a car...

I used an open ended wrench instead of a box end while loosening the torque convertor bolts on my GN. My hand slipped under full strength, open end came off the bolt head, and I introduced the knucle on my middle finger to the flywheel teeth... hard! It went right down to the bone (I could see bone white inside the gash). I poured some rubbing alcohol on it, wrapped it up with clean shop towels, got the toque convertor off, and went STRAIGHT to the hospital.

LS1Silverado05

iTrader: (41)

In my senior year of highschool (1999) I was trying to swap a cam out of my 79Z28 and I was fighting with the cam for a couple hours, I could only get it to slide part way out and it would bind up. (I was thinking, wonderful, I've tweaked a cam bearing and now I'll never get it out. After another hour or so of anger and rage...my dad walks by..."Did you pull the fuel pump?".... Total combination of anger and relief rolled into one. Popped out the fuel pump, and out came the cam. Priceless. Always pays to take a break, and take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I cant even count how many times a "passer by" or a buddy will go..."Hey what about that?" .

sidewayz28

iTrader: (24)

while doing my head/intake swap, i wanted to move my car a little so i could get this tarp out from under the front tires, so i pulled the ebrake and took the car out of gear so it was in nuetral... dont remember why but i totally forgot about it, lifted the car, continued to climb under the car and screw around with the tarp... i have no idea how the car didnt just fall on me and crush me.. pretty STUPID if you ask me!

slw ls1

iTrader: (6)

The worst I've personally done was on my AWD talon, I was putting a new clutch in and I was torquing the pressure plate down. I had asked my shop teacher and he'd told me the torque was probably around 60 ft/lbs. So I got all the bolts torqued in sequence to about 30ft/lbs then started torqing down the first one to 60, then SNAP, the head came right off. Come to find out the torque was only 30ft/lbs, and my teacher had absoluty no clue what he was talking about. This was after 7pm and lucky for me the machine shop down the road from my house had one guy working late and he was able to get that bolt out in about 2 seconds.

The worst thing I've seen was at the tech school I was attending in Indy. There was a guy in the stall behind the one me and my buddies was working in. He was doing a compression test on an 80s model ranger with a carb on it. He had the plug wire off, and the business end sitting right on top of the uncoverd carb. He went to crank it over and there was a huge fireball that cought the oil soaked hood liner on fire. The evacuated the whole school and had about 6 fire truck and police cars on scene. That was pretty damn funny afterwards.

01formula6

iTrader: (7)

I've definitely had my share of stupid moments while wrenching. One of my least favorite is when I put the car in neutral and pulled the e-brake so I could roll it down the driveway a little bit. It was hot out so I left the door open a little bit and the car rolled about 5 feet and then abrupty came to a stop. I guess I forgot about the basketball pole on the side of the driveway. The open door directly hit the pole and was left with a nice dent.

MiketurboLS1

iTrader: (15)

Haha this is a good thread.

When i was 16 i was working on my 85 firebird which had a lift off hood, i had to run inside for a little while so i just threw the hood on to the car. I got busy and came out a few hours later to go to a friends house, jumped in the car, got up to about 35 miles an hour and all of a sudden woooshh, hood flew right off the car on to one of my neighbors lawns.

2002/Black/SS

iTrader: (3)

my torque Wrehch slipped off my head boLt and crushed my a/c box and now the peice iS inSide rattLes all the time

Blk97WS6

iTrader: (19)

ive only owned my ls1 for a year, and im only 19, so i havnt had to many stupid mishaps. But the dumbest one so far was a couple of weeks ago when i was finishing up my cam swap.
I had just got done sticking ALL the rockers and pushrods back in. Went to pick up the valve covers, and what do i see sitting next to them? The rocker pedestools!(spelling?)
Luckily i hadnt torqued the rockers down all the way and didnt hurt any of the threads, i just wasted another hour & 1/2 taking them off, and sticking them on back on.
Pissed me off real bad, because i would have had time to finish everything up that day before i went to work. but instead i had to wait.

Sneaky

Been lucky enough to not cause any damage to my cars with mistakes, but i can't say the same for my home appliances.

Had just finished the install of headers on my LT1 Camaro about 4-5 years ago. I made sure all bolts were tight, all tools were put up and no wires were sitting on the headers. Cranked the car, no leaks and sounds awesome.

So.... I go inside, wash up and grab a jacket for a quick cruise. I throw my jacket in the back seat and run around to the front of the car to shut the hood. BOOM.... hood doesn't shut all the way. No prob. right? Try again.... BOOM, BOOM, hmmmmm... hood still won't shut. So by now i'm thinking WTF..... I checked this thing over three times for tools, wtf is happening here?

About that time i noticed a small black plastic item next to my fuse box, "MY PHONE". After removing the phone from the affected area, hood shuts no problem. Luckily enough, the phone still worked except for looking like it went 10 rounds with a blender.

I guess i didn't learn my lesson though, because about 4 months later the same phone got to go on a 10 mile round trip on the back bumper of my truck. It made it home safely, "i have no idea how" and was later retired due to it's old age and, "whooped exterior".

jewbacca

iTrader: (5)

Well the dumbest thing i have done involving a car doesn't have to do with working on a car, but where I worked on a car. When I had my 1981 Camaro I got a few hundred dollars for graduation. Well I figured the best place to start really modding would be the carb. So I purchased one of the Pro-form carb main bodies, the choke-less ones that bumped a Holly 650 cfm to like 800. What a great idea, no choke on a DD. But the worst thing was where I decided to rebuild my carb. We didn't really have a nice bench in our garage for me to work on, so I figured I'd use the table in my room. I forgot to empty the bowls, so gas leaked everywhere. On the carpet, all over me. The room was so saturated with the smell of gas, I had to sleep on the couch for a week. So lesson is, not the best idea to work on your car where you sleep.

intense3123

While working on my 87 Blazer I had in high school, i was trying to search down an exhaust leak by the headers. Guess I had a bad spark plug wire, and got the **** zapped out of me. The reaction caused me to throw my arm straight up in the air. Problem was there was a hood in the way. Slashed my arm up from halfway down my upper arm to my elbow. Probably needed stiches but I oh well, still had work left to do

Xtnct00WS6

iTrader: (8)

I like how you were specific about how it involved a car I've done some pretty stupid things that didn't involve a car!!

Dummest thing I've done in a car was driving by a cop about 23 over the speed limit. Dummest thing I've done working on a car was forgetting to tighten the lugnuts down all the way on one wheel.

BLKWS.6

changed plugs on the ol' 5.0 without gapping them...had to pull em all and re-gap, took another 30 minutes.

sectari

iTrader: (2)

well, my first car (82 mustang 5.0) saw a couple stupidities which fortunately for me didn't damage anything.
1. Did a brake job. put the wheels back on, forgot to torque up one of them after I got the car back on the ground. fortunately, I felt a disconcerting wobbling about two blocks away going around a corner which tipped me off.
2. drained the coolant system (water pump replacement) and forgot to refill the radiator. got a couple miles down the highway and the engine started to overheat a bit. pulled into the next gas station, let 'er cool down, filled up, no prob.
I shoulda been in serious doodoo for at least one of those, but no harm was done.

-sectari

sidewayz28

iTrader: (24)

haha some of these stories are kinda funny!!!! i like em! there should be so many pages of these eventually

SpaZMaN

iTrader: (5)

i was doing my 1st brake job on my old 96 ranger, and i got everything on no problem. i went to tighten my caliper bolts, and decided to used a torque gun to give them a lil' extra bump. uhhh...needless to say, i had to take a visit to the dealer to get a new bolt....

Mike02Z

iTrader: (13)

I have another one that happened to my brother when has was a kid....He is a nut for 2nd gen Fbody's. He had just purchased a silver TA and was putting new aftermarket seats in but the bolt pattern was off so he drilled some new holes mounted his seats and pulled out of the driveway. As he got to the corner he realized he had no brakes. Here, while drilling the holes he went right through a brake line.