The other day I put my stock front springs back on… I didn’t have a spring comprssor so I just positioned everything in place & then used my floor jack to carefully raise the damper assembly, which of course compressed the spring… I tightened the nut on top of the shock rod and thought everything was fine, until I lowered the jack.
I forgot to install the washer that goes below that bolt on the shock rod… when I lowered the jack the spring decompressed itself and without the washer in place the nut pulled right through the hole in the rubber bushings… to top it off, it made a loud pang noise when the damper assembly ricoched off my wheelwell & hit my driveway… I hope my neighbors didn’t see me duck and jump back…
Nothing was damaged, but those springs DO have a lot energy in them when compressed… moral of the story… never forget any washers, they’re important! :bang:
Removing g’box - couldn’t get the passenger driveshaft out only to find out (4hrs later of hamerring away) I had to unbolt the bracket mount on the passenger side. When it came to put the driveshaft back into the g’box, damn thing wouldn’t go in. Turns out the 3 ball/splines had popped out of the boot from the intermediate driveshaft, doh! After many hours of trying to get the damn thing back into the boot (at this stage I was ready to light a match and throw into the fuel tank), found out those square splines are not equal on all 4 sides - dumb ass. My face and hands were covered in grease as I was tackling it from under the car and the splines fell on me a couple of times. Best way to do it is to swing the driveshaft around to the front where there’s plenty room to work with.
Changing coolant - forgot to screw the bleeder bolt back on the head. After a quick drive around the block, reservoir was 3/4 empty. Left a nice trail of coolant around my neighbourhood, hehe.
ITR intake manifold swap - Broke the knock sensor while removing the stock IM. Drove around in ‘limp mode’ for a month till I could find a replacement knock sensor.
If any of you read the the B16a swap guide that I wrote, you’ll notice that I ended up doing a lot of junk that I really shouldn’t have done. Here are just a few that I can remember.
Yanked on the outer half of the driverside CV shaft, pulled it out of its joint and couldn’t get it back in. Had to buy a new shaft when I tored the boot trying to put it back. $30
Broke the top radiator hose outlet while trying to muscle the hose back on instead of just lubricating the dumb thing. New radiator $125
My cousin stripped the thread of two wheel studs on the driverside while trying to hammer the hub back onto the axle. Had to take the whole hub assembly off and pay Midas to press out the assembly and put new studs back on. Now I know how to do it though. $30 for labor and studs.
Broke off both bleeder valves on my front calipers when trying to bleed the brakes. Luckily, I had two new calipers lying around. Should’ve cost me about $120, but I got the calipers for free.
Put 6 quarts of oil into my brand spankin’ new B16a and thought that “Hey, I guess if they’re really empty, they need this much.” Duh…the car was still on a jackstand and was tilted to the left. Of course your dip stick will never read “Full”. Luckily, a friend caught on before I started the car up.
Had a case of the, “I thought you did it, No I thought you did it” with the transmission fluid. I kept wondering why it was so hard to put the car into first and second gear and why 5th kept popping out while just cruising. That little number cost me $300 for a new tranny and $290 to put it in because I was too busy (frustrated) to take everything out again and do it myself.
Had my little brother “carefully” put my hood away while I was working on the swap. He left it on a cement walkway and scratched the hell out of it and dented the hood when a dog walked on top of it when it fell over. Still using the same hood. No love lost though.
Had to wait 2 weeks after “finishing” to put the rear motor mount on since no one told me that you’re supposed to put the rear motor mount in first before all the other ones. I had to drive around until the motor shifted enough to where the mount settled in straight and I could put a jack underneath the engine to raise it and finally put the bolt through. Not fun.
Instead of spending the $30 for motor mount inserts BEFORE the swap, I didn’t have any dough so i drove around for about 2 months with torn motor mounts. I finally just put in the Energy Suspension ones in. The car is a completely different animal now.
Searched for a few weeks to figure out what a Code 74 was. Found out that it was a misfire in the 4 cylinder. Hell no there wasn’t a misfire in the third cylinder. My brother made a mistake (catching on to the trend yet?) and read the code wrong. It was a code 7 and 22. Well, later on a TPS code came up also so I spent $35 bucks and bought a new throttle body to fix that problem. Nope still the same problem. Idiot me. When I had taken the wires out to wire up VTEC and O2 sensor, I had accidentally pulled out the wire for the TPS. Doh!! That problem taken care of.
I think that’s about all that I can remember. I know there are a lot more but I already look like an idiot. Don’t let me near your car!! And don’t make the mistakes I did.
forgot to cut one bump stop when installing springs… this was my first big dyi project and had been working for 11 hours before i realized it and decided that I didn’t care. never heard anything out of it though…
stripped a/c tension pulley nut…
tried to do a quick interior paint job (take your time)…
that’s it so far, but I will be doing my own tranny (auto to manual) and engine swap in the next few weeks so wish me luck
lets see , I didn’t do much, stripped bolts off brake rotor, and more in that area, man that is the worst place to get rusted bolts out!:mad: and broke the metal pin thing that hold down plastic interior molding, I got pissed so my hatch interior is loose, and I lost alot of those screws haha.
Put rear x-drilled/slotted rotors on wrong side last fall. Just realized it last week. I hope they haven’t grated the new pads down too much. I wonder if it matters.
Put rear shock in facing wrong direction. Car wouldn’t settle to correct ride height.
Over torqued wheel nuts, cracked right front rotor top hat. Just found that last week too.
Busted dash panel when I pulled to replace nss in auto shifter console. Missed a screw. Only broke around screw hole. Can’t even tell. Whew!
