Whose done dumb sh!t before?

[CALL_911]

Ya the worst part is I replaced the battery on my Viggen about 3 months ago just fine.  Did the motorcycle as well this summer.

Nahhh, I think the worst part is that you're an Electrical Engineer.

[Champ]

Nahhh, I think the worst part is that you're an Electrical Engineer.

Shhhhhh......


No one tell my boss!

[Tave]

Ya the worst part is I replaced the battery on my Viggen about 3 months ago just fine.  Did the motorcycle as well this summer.

Shit man! Even I can replace a battery.

I haven't done anything really stupid to my car, but I haven't given myself the chance, either. I drove away from a gas station with the fuel pump still in my tank once. Luckily it popped right out and didn't rip the handle off the hose.

[Minpin]

Shit man! Even I can replace a battery.

I haven't done anything really stupid to my car, but I haven't given myself the chance, either. I drove away from a gas station with the fuel pump still in my tank once. Luckily it popped right out and didn't rip the handle off the hose.

I bet the first words out of your mouth when you realized what you did were...Oops! 

[JWC]

From the "project Beetle" thread:



There is an old trick of finding TDC for #1 cylinder on a VW by sticking a pencil down the spark plug hole.   

Works great if you take the car out of gear first.  Leaving the car in gear and rocking the engine back and forth, evidently, leads to disaster.  The pencil was too short, the car moved and knocked the pencil from fingers and now is lost down the cylinder.


That was a while ago. The pencil was chewed up and spit out by the engine with no damage....apparent damage.  I removed the engine last weekend.  This weekend I'll be pulling the heads to reseal the pushrod tubes and I'll get to check it out for sure.  After resealing and cleaning it up, I'll install a new intake crossover, transfer the alternator from the red Bug to this engine and install it in the red Bug. 

[The Pirate]

Holy sweet Christ, $120 an hour for diag?  I need to go work for that shop...we only charge $86!

The Mazda dealer I went to (I'll never go back, but that's a different story) only charges $40 for diagnosis.

[The Pirate]

Then there is that "Oh Shit" feeling when you are tightening down that bolt in that $3,000 aluminum head and you literally feel the female threads in the head slowly give way.

Substitute cylinder head for $3500 racing or mountain bike, and I know that feeling all too well. 

[Rupert]

Oh god... I've stripped nice cranks (both pedal end and BB end), forks, lots of axles, a derailleur hanger or two, and so so many cheap allen bolts. I rode around on a Syncro stem that had a stripped bolt for years because it was too nice to get rid of!

Lots of botched flat repairs, too. "Oh, that's why the tire kept blowing out!" [Giant hole in the sidewall]...

[850CSi]

My stupidest move in a while is documented in a thread somewhere in this section that begins with "HELP!"

[Byteme]

One more:

I was working on the Jaguar.  There is a protective cup that encloses the latch mechanism for the rear hatch latch.  It's held on by 4 sheet metal screws, different lengths.  I'm reinstalling the cover, my wife is watching.  She watches as I tighten one of the screws and it comes out through the side of the body.

Sigh. 

[AutobahnSHO]

Um, I'll probably forget a few-

-SHO Clutch swap: unbolted all the little bolts holding the 2halves of tranny together instead of the 4 big tranny-to-engine bolts.. At least she got new tranny fluid..
-forgot to tighten somethign down after talking the manually tensioned belts off while replacing a crank sensor. spent 3hrs removing them all again, tightening it down, then replacing everything.

The list would be quite long if I could remember all my mistakes..   

[heelntoe]

Ya it's annoying.  They did knock down the diag to .5 since I am doing the repair.

In hindsight I should have just hooked the battery up correctly in the first place

or paid them the $50 to put the battery in the first place.

[heelntoe]

i filed a valve into a square a while back.
i also put oil in my fuel tank and while it was really easy to drain out the tank, i just drove it until it smoked itself dry.

[Madman]

Yeah, I've got a few!

Like the time I was changing the gearbox on my old '79 VW Rabbit.  Common sense said to install a new clutch while I was at it but, being a cheap bastard, I didn't.  Sure enough, after I got it all back together, the clutch blew!

Or the time I was removing the alternator on the '80 Fiat X-1/9.  There was a really stubborn bolt that wouldn't budge.  So I put a six-foot long pipe on the end of the wrench and threw all my weight on the end of it.  Well, the bolt DID come loose but I also broke off a piece of the alternator housing, too.  No core refund for me, then!

Then there was the '90 Peugeot 405 DL Sportswagon.  The heater core started leaking into the footwells so I poured a bottle of stop-leak into the radiator.  Six months go by and it starts leaking again.  So I add more stop-leak.  I do this every six months for two or three years until one day, after adding yet another bottle of stop-leak, the car overheats.  Turns out I gummed-up the radiator with this stuff and the resulting overheating caused the headgasket to blow and the cylinder head to warp!  Ouch, that one was expensive!  I've NEVER used stop-leak since.


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[Champ]

Well I feel better guys thanks!

My coworker just got his BMW back from getting a new battery...holy crap!

$209 for the battery itself, and $100 for labor to install.  Seriously?!?!?

What kind of battery do you get for $209?

[JWC]

A BMW battery?

[AutobahnSHO]

Then there was the '90 Peugeot 405 DL Sportswagon. 

Sweet car!

[Secret Chimp]

What kind of battery do you get for $209?

The Ultimate Starting Machine, motherfucker.

[850CSi]

The Ultimate Starting Machine, motherfucker.

[JYODER240]

Well I feel better guys thanks!

My coworker just got his BMW back from getting a new battery...holy crap!

$209 for the battery itself, and $100 for labor to install.  Seriously?!?!?

What kind of battery do you get for $209?

That's probably about what you'd pay at any luxury car dealership.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

Installed after market fog lights and left them on after I was done! 

[Cookie Monster]

Installed after market fog lights and left them on after I was done! 

[Champ]

The Ultimate Starting Machine, motherfucker.

[Submariner]

Well I was in the backseat and I guess the condom broke...so...

[Champ]

Well I was in the backseat and I guess the condom broke...so...

Ha!  That'd be a little more expensive than an alternator... :)

[TBR]

Nothing mechanical, but I am going to change my battery and probably the spark plug wires and spark plugs soon, hopefully I don't screw anything up.

[CALL_911]

Nothing mechanical, but I am going to change my battery and probably the spark plug wires and spark plugs soon, hopefully I don't screw anything up.

Does making a Neon kiss a light pole count?

[TBR]

Does making a Neon kiss a light pole count?

I said mechanical for a reason . I also drove into the mail box the other day (just a light scratch, thank God) and then hit a curb and blew a tire. I am on a roll lately.

[CALL_911]

I said mechanical for a reason . I also drove into the mail box the other day (just a light scratch, thank God) and then hit a curb and blew a tire. I am on a roll lately.

My sister backed up my parents' old '04 TL into a mailbox. But she sideswiped the thing, so there was a nice gash on the rear passenger side door. My dad wasn't thrilled.

[TBR]

We live out in the country, so our mailbox is on a metal pole by the side of the main road (opposite side of the road from our house actually). I normally stop at it on my way home because our house is at least 500 ft from the road. I always watch the mirror because I don't want to knock it off (not again, but the deer incident wasn't my fault), This particular time somehow the mirror was clear but the back of the front fender wasn't. The noise it made was far worse than the damage. In its current state (very dirty) you can't even see the scratch unless you look for it.