When the simplest things go wrong!

[snowman23]

i thought this could be a fun topic as I am sure many of you have stories of trying to do something simple that blows up into something bigger.

Tonight I was trying to find out why one of my license plate bulbs was not lighting. They are new LED bulbs that I got for Christmas and have been used literally twice so I assumed it could not be burnt out. So I got the housing out and realized the bulb was loose. No problem, 10 seconds spent. The push pin things holding in the bulb housings must have been incorrectly taken out by the previous owner, because 3 of the four holes were damaged making the pins ineffective at holding the bulb housings tight. So, I decided to use nuts, washers, and small bolts to hold them in place. This worked great up until the last one.

At this point, I proceeded to drop the washer and nut into the shell of the trunk. I figured, no big deal, I got another washer and nut and dropped that washer too. I tried once again and finished...until I went to close the trunk and could hear them rattling. So now I had to try to get them out. After snaking various things into the crevices of the inside of the trunk lid, I decided to go with the good old fashioned shake it up and down method. This caused one washer and the nut to fall out. The third washer is still MIA, but since I cannot hear it, I do not care. The point is, what should have been 10 minutes tops, took over an hour. Again, the simplest thing becoming a mess.

 

[screamin gt]

this is everything I touch for me. lol

 

[trombonedemon]

this is everything I touch for me. lol

Holy hell, don't know where to begin. Ummmmm,

1. Tried to put in a simple lower intake spacer ( put the sum bish gasket on the wrong side, took me four hours to figure out that my lower intake already had a rubber gasket, talk about vacuum leak.

2. Over adjusted my throttle-body spring, almost ran my entire car off the side of a very steep hill.

3. Over tighten my temp sensor, result in cracking my intake and spewing coolant every where 6:30 in the morning.

4. Changing spark plugs, resulted dropping the throttle body bolt in the cylinder and cracking the engine head, bending the piston, so on and so forth.

5.Trying to make my tail lights all Light Emitting Diodes, not realizing that the low voltage of the LEDs was gonna screw w/my electricity, very weird effect it had. Works on the ones by the license plate, not the two outer ones for some reason.

6. Putting in an oil cooler with dual remote oil filter, ended up creating an air pocket at the end of the hose and spewing most of my oil down interstate 85, nice to see there is a reason my oil sensor for the car works.

That is some the only blunders that can thought of this time of night. So when my car's engine shot a spark plug, said to hell with fixing it myself and took the car to a professional mechanic. Still nothing beats doing the car repairs your self and it stays fixed.

 

[Dark_Horse]

Same here. My first time changing the plugs on my bullitt the last plug decided to separate from itself and the threads. Long story short the electrode came out but the outer threads were stuck in the head. A typical 1hr changeout became an intense 8hr open heart surgery

 

[Green&GoldGT]

I didn't realize the radiator petcock was plastic. Overtightened it and the top of it broke off the rest. Still have the allen wrench with it stuck on. No leaks but now I'll have to take off a rad hose to drain it.

Best thing I've learned is if it's not broke don't fix it or mess with it at all. Makes you appreciate people who build perfect cars. I can't do anything without something getting scratched.

 

[flstang65]

I HATE HATE HATE when I round off a bolt head.

Working on pretty much any daily driven car from the north. I have grown to despise rust with the same passion that a 1 legged man hates being in an ass kicking contest. It turns the simplest of tasks into major ordeals.

I installed a complete new suspension into the ex's car and forgot to tighten the 2 bolts that hold the left side of the rear sway bar on. She called me 2.5 hours later at midnight to tell me about a bad clunking noise. 1st response was are you ok, of course. 2nd, when did you start to hear it? 3rd, why the hell did you not come back to my house or pull off the road when you heard the noise instead of driving home to Gainesville from Orlando? I had to get into my car at midnight and drive up there and fix it. Part of the reason why she is an ex.

Not me, but one of my mechanics at my last shop had me test drive a car he did brakes on because he couldn't figure out why the brand new brakes were grinding. I didn't need to drive it. I could feel the heat radiating off the left rear as I was standing next to it. He installed the pads backwards. As in, the metal backing plate was to the rotor. I fixed it myself and sent him home for the day. I didn't know what else to do.

 

[SteedaGT9150]

when a rear brake pad job turns into a 2 day event and you have to tear everything down four times to finally figure out whats wrong...

 

[trombonedemon]

He installed the pads backwards. As in, the metal backing plate was to the rotor.

Darn. Do brake pads even go in backwards? I'm interested how he had got the caliper closed.

 

[tfalk]

Putting the intake manifold on the 1970 block for my Daytona coupe... went to put the intake manifold stud in the head before I lowered the intake, oops, still had the nut on the stud. Unthread the nut and dropped it... right into the open port on the head which happened to have an open valve... you guessed it, right into the combustion chamber. had to take all the rockers off and remove the head, remove said nut, retorque the head, retorque all the rockers...

 

[04GTMustang]

i thought this could be a fun topic as I am sure many of you have stories of trying to do something simple that blows up into something bigger.

Tonight I was trying to find out why one of my license plate bulbs was not lighting. They are new LED bulbs that I got for Christmas and have been used literally twice so I assumed it could not be burnt out. So I got the housing out and realized the bulb was loose. No problem, 10 seconds spent. The push pin things holding in the bulb housings must have been incorrectly taken out by the previous owner, because 3 of the four holes were damaged making the pins ineffective at holding the bulb housings tight. So, I decided to use nuts, washers, and small bolts to hold them in place. This worked great up until the last one.

At this point, I proceeded to drop the washer and nut into the shell of the trunk. I figured, no big deal, I got another washer and nut and dropped that washer too. I tried once again and finished...until I went to close the trunk and could hear them rattling. So now I had to try to get them out. After snaking various things into the crevices of the inside of the trunk lid, I decided to go with the good old fashioned shake it up and down method. This caused one washer and the nut to fall out. The third washer is still MIA, but since I cannot hear it, I do not care. The point is, what should have been 10 minutes tops, took over an hour. Again, the simplest thing becoming a mess.

lol I was just talking to a coworker about something like this. he was trying to install a lift kit on his landcruiser over the weekend and got the front done in a little over an hour and the back took him an entire day because 4 bolts snapped off and the job went down hill from there hahaha. sucks how things that can go wrong will go wrong.

 

[snowman23]

lol I was just talking to a coworker about something like this. he was trying to install a lift kit on his landcruiser over the weekend and got the front done in a little over an hour and the back took him an entire day because 4 bolts snapped off and the job went down hill from there hahaha. sucks how things that can go wrong will go wrong.

And they do to me
When I installed my H pipe, I said to my friend (who owns a service station) "This should only take about an hour". He yelled at me for saying that, then yelled some more when we broke two bolts and had to go to get new o2 sensors since they stripped on the way out of the old H pipe. 3.5 hours later...

 

[screamin gt]

Darn. Do brake pads even go in backwards? I'm interested how he had got the caliper closed.

lol no kidding, its usually hard enough when they are in the right way.

 

[joshwfl]

Just finished a GT40 head swap yesterday, started it up and a few minutes later "POP", smoke, and stall. The positive wire to the coil melted on the header and shorted out and blew the fuse. Reran the wire, changed the fuse and now it won't start. If I run directly from the battery it'll start, guess it's time to rewire that fuse or install a switch. Stupid mistake that could have easily been avoided.