Things NOT to do when working on a car!

[chrisfpv]

Motivated by a similar thread on another auto forum, I'd be interested to hear things you've done to your car that have gone south and have ended up costing you a bit more than you had originally planned..

By this I mean modifying and completely ruining something else in the process, to stumbling across a pain in the *** of some sort whilst fiddling around with your car.
Doesn't matter what car. I did a search with no luck, so let's here em'

Basically things you should not do to your car, because this will happen/happened to me...

[Ford_The_Win]

Not that bad really, but I was servicing my auto trans, crawled under the car for what I hoped was the second last time, had the nice shiny clean pan, the gasket, did it all up, put the hose in the filler plug and was just about to pour the new oil in..then I realised I forgot to put the magnet back in the pan. So back under I went and had to do it all over again.

[EFJay]

reused a slightly perished injector o ring.. end result no more nice v8...

[Road_Warrior]

Jacked an XY Fairmont up on a scissor jack and a dumbarse mate leant on it, pushing it off the jack. The falling car missed my head and legs by *that* much.

[XRGhia]

forget to re-connect the ground for the thermo fans...

resulted in an overheated block in sydney traffic... thankfully the engine is still going..

[GTP 290]

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthr...arage+mistakes

[HSVKILLA]

Done an oil change,drained the oil,changed the filter then went to fill it up with the NEW EXPENSIVE oil then noticed oil at my feet that had come straight through the sump plug that i forgot to do up .

[shedcoupe]

London bloke moved into a sharehouse I was running. Thirty years old - never had a car. Bought a Kombi in Sydney - died. Bought an XY wagon in Melbourne - died. Came west, I helped him look at cars (180B, HQ etc).
Found a mint little-old-lady very early Corona. Bought for peanuts.
Two days later, handbrake cable broke - he's upset. Sheesh.
So I got one from the wreckers and started to fit it.
Had to move the alternator to get at the bits, dropped alternator, wedged between rail and block, positive output terminal hard against negative frame. Grab alternator, can't pull it out, wrestle wrestle.
Insulation melting off thick output wire releasing acrid chlorine smoke from PVC, pinch-bar doesn't help, grab shifter (how sad), pull off battery lead clamp.
Inspect main wiring loom thinking it would be cactus, but fortunately the wires' insulations were able to be fixed with lashings of black tape.
And I'm a (dumb) sparky.
Never did that again, always disconnected battery.

Mate rebuilt Alfa motor when spinning out from wifey drama, test drove, no oil in sump and oil pressure gauge not working. D'oh.

[shedcoupe]

Oh yes, and another one. Me, pimply know-all apprentice did too many attempted burnouts in TA22 celica and fried clutch.
Go to supplier, get kit, see that release bearing looks different (chamfered on one face) to what is in factory manual, whinge, get told is okay.
Go home, start pulling out gearbox. Old man comes out, says I'm a dh for trying to do it. Do it anyway.
Fire up sillycar, push in pedal, horrible noise.
Drive to supplier, say 'you are swine - told ya it was wrong part'.
Go back later, all good now, release bearing was in back-to-front.
Nice men charge only for new pressure plate as fingers were stuffed, no labour charge, probably laughing too hard to work one out.
Dumb kid. Decent blokes.

Even better. A rebuilt 351W with TQ20 and balanced. Read in yankee mag that water poured into carby will de-carbon chambers.
Take off air cleaner, set revs at 3000 rpm, commence pouring very slowly.
Fumble, pour mucho water down, steam comes out of head gaskets. Hmmmm.

Can't get a 289 to fire (found out later it was a stuck valve).
Re-arrange leads same as 351W, still won't go. Different firing order.

Probably a few more of these if I really try to remember.

[chrisfpv]

Originally Posted by GTP 290

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthr...arage+mistakes

Ah my mistake, the title sounds familiar now.

[Road Games]

Originally Posted by 8-WORKN

Ah my mistake, the title sounds familiar now.

Anyway the more the merrier..

Did a trans service on BAxtER's falcon on a sat arvo at K-fart....

I used a Brand new oil drain with air operated scavenging system ....

I did a flush first then the filter then another flush and finally the top up.. It had been a looong time since it was last done so i was trying to be as effective as possible.

Well , after 10L or so had drained into this already half full drain apparatus ( i didnt know how to drain it honest) it started to leak out the fitting ...

Now being one who hates to make a mess i plugged the airline nearby on to stop the leak (let the apprentice drain it on mon)

WRONG blew 30 +L mixed motor/trans oil and a 1/2 dozen filters all over the workshop and bathed the once pristine underbelly of this BA

Took 20L degreaser and 2 mop heads / a bag of rags / plenty of swearing + 4 hrs labour to complete a 1/2 hr trans service !!

I havn't done a trans service since !!

[casabonka]

ahhh.. Changing shocks & springs in my old lancer, dropped a spring on the CV boot. "she'll be right", drive up the coast, wonder why my wheel is full of grease... broken CV joint of course!

[Streets]

Wondering "I wonder how hot this component gets at operating temperature" and finding out by putting my fingers on it.

[Captain Stubing]

A mate of mine made up a bell-housing so we could put a RangeRover 3.5 V8 engine into my 79 Hilux. It only cost 4 or 5 cartons of XXXX bitter! It was a great conversion, but at that stage I hadn't changed the diff ratio's to the diesel one's.

I blew up the gearbox, and had to pull it out and have it refurbished.

[SLO247]

Replaced the thermostat housing on an EF 5.0. Did the gasket and sealant neatly, bolted it on and torqued up nice. Then noticed the Thermostat sitting on the top of the intake manifold.

So my "thing NOT to do" is to miss parts when re-assembling the car!

Of course I got Permatex #3 all over my fingers doing it the second time.....

[shedcoupe]

Was getting a belt from static every time I got out of the car.
Made a discharge strap to attach under the body with a tekscrew.
Made a hole in the fuel tank.
No I didn't.
Got a bit more cunning in my old age, but senility must be out there somewhere ..........

[shedcoupe]

Some apprentice-age stories.

Put a set of spotties on the HR. Put in a relay.
Noticed a ratty old relay with nearly-broken old wiring that looked like an old spotty relay. Chopped it out.
Next day at the shops the battery wasn't able to crank it over.
Bought a pair of 6V dolphin torch batteries, put 'em in series, paralleled 'em with the battery, started it somehow.
I'd chopped out the regulator.

Put on a set of Hijackers (pump-up rear shockies). Pumped 'em up to the max for that funny-car look.
Stuck a trailer on the back with a heavy drawbar weight, drove a thousand kays on Qld 'roads', punched the shockies through into the boot.

TA22 - put it in first at 80 kays with clutch pedal depressed.
Tyres connected to friction plate via drivetrain. Plate accelerates to nine billion rpm and lines the bellhousing with fibre. Not go no more.

[Mickxr8]

Taking an FMX g/box out by myself and having the trolley jack slip (20+yrs ago)
Result : FMX trapping arms and having a nice little snooze till someone came home. lesson learned..

[Fev]

Happily playing with the car, looked at the battery terminal wires and figured they would fit better if i turned the battery around. What i was just too off with the fairies to realise is this would reverse the positive and negative. Fried a wire of somesort and now the alternator doesn't charge the battery. I hate electrics!

[Mesa]

Drilling holes for a mudflap, tripping on the power cord and somehow drilling the front tyre with a new hole.
Spending a week removing and recharging a battery which kept going flat when I was trying to crank over a car that refused to start. The problem? I had disconnected the coil lead......

[tweeked]

Took the bonnet and air cleaner off a rotary, then went up to buy some parts.

Did this in Melbourne, naturally we had 20mm of rain while i was in the store. The motor never ran again.

[Giant]

Replacing points with no idea what I was doing car wouldnt start with nice new points fitted. NRMA just laughed and adjusted for me.

Forgot to refit sump plug good oil flush and my shoes where well lubed.

Replacing radiator in minus 2 degrees outside in the dark cant feel hands push the bottom radiator hose over the stop lug on the water pump do up clamp seem water tight when started. Wife drives to work next day under pressure it leaks, overheats blows head gasket just what I was trying to prevent with the new radiator and water pump and hoses. Mistake cost $900 odd.

Buying and fitting a K&N air filter then spending a bunch on the cleaner kit no advantage waste time cleaning it much easier to just replace with a paper filter and the performance gain = stuff all.

Buying car jack off ebay major failure. Buying helmet off ebay ANDRA just laughed before binning it.

[burnz]

cam change on a blown UC torana, dizzy 180* tried to fire it up.
backfired the intake manifold into the cam/valley spent 2week removing deberies..

[GTP-814]

asked daughter to take the screw driver (out of my hand) & pass be a spanner whilst I was under teh car. She asked where to put it down & I said anywhere. So she placed ontop of battery, I can still see the burn ,marks on the screwdriver

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by HSVKILLA

Done an oil change,drained the oil,changed the filter then went to fill it up with the NEW EXPENSIVE oil then noticed oil at my feet that had come straight through the sump plug that i forgot to do up .

Done that too, forgot to put the sump plug in and started filling with $80 worth of Castrol oil in the GT.

Another one, had a loose seat rail in the Mini and had to remove the seat to tighten it up because it was rattling. I disconnected the battery so I did not trip the airbag warning light (has side airbags in the seat), disconnected the plug, removed the seat and fixed the problem without a hitch.

Then went to put the seat back in, forgot to connect the wiring, reconnected the battery, started the car and there was the airbag warning light. The only way to turn it off is take it to BMW.

Luckily the service manager likes me and they reset it for nothing after laughing at my mistake.

[The Yeti]

Theres been way to many to list, but a few weeks ago I was helping a freind at DOTD in Sydney he had issues with his clutch, he was under one side to bleed it I was under the other to top up the fluid and his mate was in the car to pump the peddel all pretty simple right? Wrong I looked up and saw the pushrod from the peddle to the master cylinder was way out alingment and it was gouging the bore of the cylinder, so (And I dont know why I did this) I yeald out to "Wes dont push the clutch" I then reached up to try and alight the push rod (as if my little hand realinment would fixt it) at this point wes as if in a cartoon says whats that, push the clutch, at this point a 1/4" deep buy about 3/8" wide chunk of index finger was removed as if by gilloteen as my finger got caught between the push rod and master cylinder. the funny thing was we still couldnt get it to bleed, so we pulled the cylinder off and headed down to Repco We know what it is and we know where it goes (yea right) after we explained to him that it was a clutch master cylinder and it was off a HQ (he couldnt get his head arround it) he pokes in side the bore with his pen and proceeds to pull out a chink of my finger he looked at the guys the guys looked at him then picked up the cylinder and walke out

[Curly56]

Originally Posted by Streets

Wondering "I wonder how hot this component gets at operating temperature" and finding out by putting my fingers on it.

I did the same thing, got out of the car looked at the front wheel and thought hmmmm that disc looks worn. Had a big blister to remind me of my stupidity for a few days. And that was back in the days when I knew everything.

[Pis-ton broke]

haven,t been burnt but i used to look down the barrel of the carby as the car was running and throtle up. i stopped doing that when it back fired through the carb, oh *****. Tractor related, starter motor wouldn,t go, so i spent hours and hours pulling down a very expensive starter motor to check it out, all seemed ok. put all back together, still wouldn,t go, penny final drops, hit it with a hammer, that fixed it , sticking solenoid, still starts that way to this day.

[ea90gl]

Went to change a thermostat ages ago in a VL i bought, thinking 3 bolts to undo, remove/replace thermostat add a bit of sealant and away we go. I had to start work early afternoon that day (cash work) so thought I'd quickly get it done about an hour before I started work so I could forget about it. Went to undo the first bolt and ofcourse the bolt head sheared right off. Hmm, two bolts on housing with some sealant should be right. decided to tackle the other bolts, as I'm thinking what the F@#$ has the previous owner done here the second head bolt decided to shear off as well. Ended up wasting hours drilling them out as well as losing money for not heading to work that day. Gotta love when that simple job turns to crap

[RobVee]

back in 1999 my first car datsun 200b sss coupe nice little car but one of the valves got jammed because of bad spaced tappets. so we had to remove & refurbish head then stick it back on.

now after all this painstaking work, car has been off the road for about 6 weeks at this stage... when im doing up the bolts that hold the head on the block, do i double check service manual for torque wrench settings and take my time or just go for it ... result is broken bolt stuck in engine block and many extra dollars to have extracted.. good times