Whose done dumb sh!t before?

[Secret Chimp]

?

[Eye of the Tiger]

Dude, I don't even touch those flimsy little petcocks, I just go straight for the big lower hose.

[Soup DeVille]

Stopcock?

petcock.

Jesus, people: look it up!

[Byteme]

This one time, I drained an entire cooling system onto my garage floor - no, actually I did that twice. I couldn't get it into a bucket.

I don't know how many car's I've worked on where the radiator drain petcock is in a position that is either: 1) almost impossible to get to, and/or 2) located so that the stream of coolant hits some part of the car making it impossible to drain into anything.

[TheIntrepid]

Haha, my buddy ended up backing out of a parking spot straight backwards into another car today. No damage to the Durango he hit, but his bumper and taillight were gone.

This is the same guy who totaled his Neon last month and his parents bought him a "Grand Pricks Sea"

[VTEC_Inside]

Ooh, I just remembered a good one...

I was changing the radiator on my gfs old pos Cavalier. I had the old radiator out and for some reason I wanted to move the car quick so I decided to start it up.

Of course, the tranny cooler lines are just dangling there and proceed to pump out a good 3-4L of transmission fluid onto my driveway before I came to my senses...

[Byteme]

Jaguar E-type.  Want to change the clutch?  You have to pull the engine and transmission as a unit, replace the clutch and then reassemble and reinstall.  Shop time is 15-20 hours to do it right.

Jaguar used two different clutch/pressure plate/ TO bearing combinations.  The TO bearings are carbon face, not roller bearings and are different heights depending on which clutch assy you use. 

We rebuilt the ending installed the new clutch assy and TO bearing put everything back together and finished up the job.  Comes the big day when you start the cr for the first time.  Yipee, it starts    Slip it into reverse and let out the clutch, car barely moves.  Wrong TO bearing. It wont let the clutch fully engage, this won't adjust out. 

Out comes the engine/tranny replace the TO bearing, reinstall everything.  Yipee it works.

[Pancor]

^Ouch, man.

I have a similar one, installed an aftermarket clutch in my 240SX, took me a while cause it was my first time, and the car had a horrible rattle when I got it all back together.  Assumed I fucked something up, so took it all apart, verified the installation and put it back together.  Just when I was finishing up I noticed a loose heat shield on the cat...

[Champ]

You guys make me feel better :)

[Raza]

?

My roommate didn't believe that existed.  I told him about it and he said I was talking about Cracker Jacks.  I had to show him a picture and a Wikipedia article.

[TheIntrepid]

[Northlands]

I finally have something to add..since I've been pretty lucky doing very minor work on replacing the simplest of parts on vehicles. So this next story is especially retarded on my part.

My brother had been driving around for almost a week with no working regular beams in his Mazda 3. He doesn't know his way around his glovebox, never mind anything else in his car. So he went out to purchase some new bulbs at almost 20 bucks a piece  .. but has never installed bulbs on his cars before. I offered to do it for him, since I've done it on over a dozen different vehicles in the past... thought this would be no big deal.

So to be even extra careful, I still go through the manual to make sure it isn't set up weird compared to other cars, so far so good. At first it took a while to get the left side bulb out... the rubber seal in behind the bulb was pretty stiff. Then out came the bulb. At first it seemed weird to have to remove this thing from a separate plastic socket after unplugging the lights... but I got past that. Then came the next part....

Right side. Had a little more trouble pulling the damn rubber seal off... leaned a little into it.. popped off nicely... HOWEVER... in doing so.. I somehow cracked the top off of the power steering reservoir where you fill the fluid from. The plastic looked kinda thick... but I'm still surprised how easily it cracked off.

Definitely an " oh shit " moment. No worried about the lack of pressure the PS may have, I offer up get this fixed for him.. since I've done enough damage and won't attempt this myself.

So... about 1300 bucks later... thats One Three Zero Zero point Zero Zero dollars... it was fixed. Power steering reservoir replaced entirely. A number of places were called around here, and only Mazda of course could get the part and fix it. A very expensive lesson for me. I had asked what such a replacement would cost on my car ( Civic ), it wasn't even half that.

   I won't be doing anything with anyone's vehicles except my own for the next while. 

[Champ]

I finally have something to add..since I've been pretty lucky doing very minor work on replacing the simplest of parts on vehicles. So this next story is especially retarded on my part.

My brother had been driving around for almost a week with no working regular beams in his Mazda 3. He doesn't know his way around his glovebox, never mind anything else in his car. So he went out to purchase some new bulbs at almost 20 bucks a piece  .. but has never installed bulbs on his cars before. I offered to do it for him, since I've done it on over a dozen different vehicles in the past... thought this would be no big deal.

So to be even extra careful, I still go through the manual to make sure it isn't set up weird compared to other cars, so far so good. At first it took a while to get the left side bulb out... the rubber seal in behind the bulb was pretty stiff. Then out came the bulb. At first it seemed weird to have to remove this thing from a separate plastic socket after unplugging the lights... but I got past that. Then came the next part....

Right side. Had a little more trouble pulling the damn rubber seal off... leaned a little into it.. popped off nicely... HOWEVER... in doing so.. I somehow cracked the top off of the power steering reservoir where you fill the fluid from. The plastic looked kinda thick... but I'm still surprised how easily it cracked off.

Definitely an " oh shit " moment. No worried about the lack of pressure the PS may have, I offer up get this fixed for him.. since I've done enough damage and won't attempt this myself.

So... about 1300 bucks later... thats One Three Zero Zero point Zero Zero dollars... it was fixed. Power steering reservoir replaced entirely. A number of places were called around here, and only Mazda of course could get the part and fix it. A very expensive lesson for me. I had asked what such a replacement would cost on my car ( Civic ), it wasn't even half that.

   I won't be doing anything with anyone's vehicles except my own for the next while. 

Ouch! 

[JWC]

I was trying to reassemble my VW engine and managed to crimp one of the push rod tube ends into a square...it's supposed to be round.  The smart thing is to gently pull the ends to stretch the tubes out so the will seal tightly.  Trying to cut corners, I decided to use a pair of pliers to get a better grip, wrapping a paper towel around the end to protect it.  The paper towel worked, I didn't gouge the metal.  I sure bent the hell out of it though.

So, I'll have to wait for a new set to arrive this week before I can continue.

[Danish]

Ouch Northlands, thats gotta hurt!

[Northlands]

Ouch Northlands, thats gotta hurt!

Yeah, I wasn't impressed with myself over that one. Nor the garage that fixed the car. These things happen. If you think that was bad, the scene describing what had all occurred to my woman was even worse... lol

[sportyaccordy]

The last time I did any extensive mechanical work resulted in the need for a tow truck...

I think I had to replace an axle on my first Accord; I was so eager to get back onto the road I forgot to finish putting on the shock fork. I left the bolt out.

Needless to say, things didn't end well once the arm couldn't support the weight of the car on one fork. I made it about a mile before I started seeing smoke from the front right corner sinking into the ground...




Lo-ridin.

Seeing these pictures of this car make me so nostalgic

[Eye of the Tiger]

Too much camber! Not enough NOS!

[omicron]

?

I need to acquire some of those.