your worst repair mistakes!

INFORMATION G2IC Archives
1

stole the topic from ti.net

here’s mine:

auto related

drilled hole through gas tank.

wheel fell off and rolled into opposing traffic for about a quarter mile. either because the shop broke one of my studs or i failed to tighten the remaining 3 enough.

muffler fell off in street. clamps not secure enough.

jack slipped, dented the side, but not really visible.

car too low, bottomed out hard a few times, went home to readjust coilovers.

broke bleeder valve, good thing i had a spare integra waiting for the insurance to tow away.

forgot oil cap, oil spewed under hood.

bent valve- few days after my first valve adjustment. not 100% sure if that was the cause.

overtorque’d valve cover nuts.

broke hose at bottom of pcv valve while handling the intake manifold. had to route a new one.

forgot a bushing/plate or two on front shocks, rod shot up through engine bay, good thing it didnt pop through hood.

-various stripped nuts, broken bolts, cracked plastic, lost nuts, broken clips, etc.

audio related

shorted cap, giant fireball in face, friend behind me jumped back.

blew kicker L7

tore weatherstripping while trying to fit box in trunk

-various miswiring’s, shorts, blown fuses, etc.

*overall: various cuts, bruises, bloody tools/parts, sun burns, horrid tan lines, etc.

wow i never realized what a huge moron i am!

2

Masking paper stuck to freshly painted door molding :(:(. DOH!

3

:shock:

Car fell off its jack stands and ihe rotor landed about 2 inches from my leg:dead:

4

Put a metal spacer on backwards doin a T-Belt on my dads car awhile back…It ate up about a 3rd of the belt…:think:

No wonder why it smelt like burning rubber :whoa:

5

Oh man, those are some of the worst I’ve ever heard XDEep, and I thought I was a moron :smiley: j/k

-Accidentlly poured motor oil into brake fluid resivor, but luckilly realized half way through the second quart and didn’t crank the engine.

-Muffler clamp broke going 50 and lets just say there were a lot of sparks.

  • The first time I ever installed a sub. I was helping a freind mount his Audiomobile Mass 12 ($350 bad ass SQ sub) to his box and: screw driver slipped poked a hole in the surround, screwdriver slipped again and poked a hole in the cone, and overtightend mounting screws and cracked the cast lip. I never used screws to mount a sub again and had one pissed off freind

-Car fell off of jackstands, but no part of me was under it, and no damage was done accept for a pair of shorts that were ruined when I sh!t them!!!

6

hm add poked hole in sub and paper on molding to mine too

7

Note to self: Never let XDEep near my car. :slight_smile:

I can’t think of anything major I’ve done on my car… at least not when putting things TOGETHER… (taking things apart is a different story…)

But one time when my dad was dyno-ing an old 4WD tractor (JD 8430 for anyone that knows what I’m talkin about), it was getting about 220Hp instead of the normal 170… RIGHT before the engine died… Turns out that someone had cranked up the fuel pump, and the crank pulley eventually broke off the shaft. Surprisingly there wasn’t a lot of damage, and we had it running again after about 3 or 4 days work… (and a couple grand in parts)

8

–First day i bought my car put 5 quarts of oil in. (Car began smoking)
–Removed front license plate to and set it on the roof. Drove off forgetting it was up there and never saw it again
–went to gas station to fill tires with air and accidentally grabbed the water hose :baby:

9

– Was installing a new fuel filter and after I was done I cranked the car up and it wouldnt start. Kept trying and trying for a few minutes until I smelt gas.
Went out of the car to check and saw a BIG fuel leak at the banjo bolts. Turned out I didnt tighten it down well enough ! :argh: Left a permanent stain on my parking lot.

10

Originally posted by PIERCE
–First day i bought my car put 5 quarts of oil in. (Car began smoking)

i forgot i did that too. talk about a smokescreen

11

Installed first mod on my car, an intake. I bumped and cracked a hot water hose, and it wasn’t pretty after that.

12

Changed the brake calipers in the winter and after a month of driving it I started hearing a rattle in back…A month after that it was still there and louder! So I finally took the wheel off and checked. The two bolts that hold the caliper were half out. Just think of the mess it would have made if it came off.

13

tried to put a lower radiator hose on without lubricating the hose to fit over the flange on the radiator. I cursed that hose for over three hours before I called a buddy (carchitect) and asked him what I was doin wrong. He just started laughing and I sprayed some WD-40 on the inside of the hose and it went on in seconds. I felt like such a dumba$$

:bow:

14

This is a great thread. My worst:
Car slipped off jack, dented rear underside by the jacking point

Forgot thick metal washer that keeps the rod on the struts from coming back up through the top. All 4 struts popped out, dented the underside of the hood a bit. Luckily I dodnt get far and I was able to go home and fix it without major damage. One of my first DIY’s, I learned a lot from this one.

Didnt tighten a lug on the pass. front very tight. Water got into it and rusted it. The lug was very hard to get off, but rust was removed and all is well.

Bought an aftermarket distributor rotor. The retaining screw broke, and the car died on the hwy. Tried to start it (didnt know what was wrong) before the car was stopped, dunped fuel into the cat and Kaboom! The insides of the cat went out the muffler and bounced along the road behind me. This was on a road where there was no shoulder, only a grassy area separated from the road by a curb. Cost me one cat and almost my car if someone hadnt helped me push it up the curb onto the grass.

Replaced that screw, used loctite. Didnt change the rotor. 2 months later I was on my way to my graduation aards ceremony and the screw broke off! Car died on hwy again, but this time I limped it off an exit onto a side road. Someone stopped to help, he turned out to be a grad of the college where I was going. he took me to home depot where I got a tap and was able to get the screw out and retap the hole to get a larger screw in and limped the car to a gas station where my dad brought me my spare distributor. Cost: one missed awards ceremony, some po’d parents and one distributor that needs to be retapped. Never use an aftermarket rotor!!! Only OEM honda!

Broke off the head of one bolt on the underside of the FITV. Cost: one broken bolt, fitv works fine with the other 2 holding it in.

Broke 2 bolts on PS pump. Had to replace them. Still need to get a heal-a-coil for the top PS pump mount bolt.

Some serious mistakes were made, but the important thing is that i learned a lot from each one, was able to fix them without help, and they will never be made again.

15

Dang … lots or people have done slipped jacks!!! Hehe be careful guys geez.

16

When replacing the front suspension, I left off the upper bumpstops on the new shocks, so when I went over a bump for the 1st time, I got matching dents in my hood from where the shock rods slammed into it. Fortunately the shocks were not damaged and I was able to fix it.

17

I was lowering a friends car, we went for a test drive and the front left wheel came off and rolled accross a busy intersection (Palo Verde and South in Lakewood). It hit a jeep on the other side. Was scared some car going 50 was going to hit it in the middle of the intersection. It’s a real bitch trying to get a car up off the ground when you can’t fit a jack under it. It was one of those “I though you tightend the lug nuts” things.

With my first car I was installing an ampmeter with some thick ass cable, as I was putting the cable on the posts on the gauge it slipped off and fell against a piece of metal frame. Well the other end of the cable was on the battery and sparks started flying every where, it turned the piece of frame red hot and it also turned the post on the battery red hot…so yeah…that was fun

:up:

18

after my recent motor rebuild I was driving it, took it to 7000rpm to seat the rings, then the battery light came on. a right turn into a side street and 5 seconds later I hear BANG! clunk clunk…Look in my rear view and I see my crank pulley lying on the road…I was SO lucky I found the key…

changing tires on my freinds car forgot to pull the jack from under his car when he backed out…Some noise man…

19

this is great info guys ARCHIVETHIS

we can save a lot of the rookie DA members some pain if they can learn from our previous missfortunes.

:bow:

20

Used a 50/50 ratio of Oxy clean and water… now my interior looks like it was gizzed on.