Wrenching Confessions: What self inflicted idiocy have you achieved?

When I started wrenching on my first car at 17, I set my pant leg on fire when using an acetylene torch to loosen parts that rusted togther. I didn't get any burns during my "I'm on fire" dance because it was a cold day in Michigan. I was wearing cotton long underwear and thermal knit wool socks. They keep body heat in and Fire heat out.

More recently I was helping a friend change his oil on his Civic. He took the old filter and screwed the new one in. Filled up the crankcase with fresh oil and started it up. A nice stream of oil started coming out of the bottom of the car immediately. He shut it right off. When he pulled the old oil filter the rubber gasket had from the old filter had stuck to the block. Neither of us had noticed. The gasket for the new filter wedged against the old gasket when he tightened it down and left a space for oil to escape. Once we got that fixed, we spent another 30 minutes cleaning the car and the garage floor.

We were doing maintenance on our cars.

This did not happen to me but I was party to it. A friend and i were changing plugs on if I remember correctly a SBF in his mustang. Friend has the wires off the plugs and has them draped over / on to the fender.

He wants to do a compression test with some oil in the cylinders to see if there is any improvement from the last time he did a compression test. Friend leans over the fender and then asked me to crank the motor.

Friend got zapped in the privet parts and then bangs his head on the underside of the hood. He was hopping around the garadge holding his head and his nuts. I nearly pissed my self laughing.

dean1484 wrote: This did not happen to me but I was party to it. A friend and i were changing plugs on if I remember correctly a SBF in his mustang. Friend has the wires off the plugs and has them draped over / on to the fender. He wants to do a compression test with some oil in the cylinders to see if there is any improvement from the last time he did a compression test. Friend leans over the fender and then asked me to crank the motor. Friend got zapped in the privet parts and then bangs his head on the underside of the hood. He was hopping around the garadge holding his head and his nuts. I nearly pissed my self laughing.

I literally LOL'd

Another oil change idiocy on my part - changed the oil on my Saab 99 (back in the dim and distant past when I was a student) in a hurry as I had to get back to university from my parents place. Everything was fine until I had to turn off the Autobahn and pulled up at a light. Suddenly found myself engulfed in a cloud of oily black smoke.

No fire extinguisher in the car, but being young and stupid I pulled over and popped the hood. Fortunately the engine hadn't caught fire yet from all the oil dripping on the exhaust, but I was pretty impressed that the oil filler cap was still sitting on the intake manifold where I had left it...

One hell of a quick way to got through almost a quart of oil.

I installed Dellortos on my Jensen and used brake cleaner to get all the residue and nasty off the block. For those of you not familiar with 9xx Lotus engines, the distributor points toward the rear of the motor and sith in a 'valley', just below the carbs.

I finished spraying, then leaned inside and tuned the key, as soon as the engine turned over I heard a soft 'whoomp'. Whoomp? I leaned down and looked under the rear of the hood OMFGWTF FIRE!!!!! RIGHT BELOW THE FUEL FILLED CARBURETORS!!!!! I have never run so fast to a fire extinguisher in my life, I had had the foresight to hang one in the garage when we moved in. Moral of the story: wait till the brake cleaner smell is gone before doing anything sparky or flammable.

I also put a Spitfire distributor in 180 degrees out. SU's make weird popping noises and fire shoots out of the strangest places when the engine backfires. It blew a big vacuum cap completely off of the intake, I heard it hit the ceiling and ricochet off never to be seen again.

I had some fun recently; replaced a 22RE in a buddy's Toyota pickup. The reman long block had these cardboard plugs tightly wedged into the spark plug holes, I waited till he was in the right spot then turned the crank with a breaker bar. One of the plugs bounced off his chest. But the worst part is I got him twice more with the same thing, last time when he was leaning over the fender. Yes I am a bad person.

Way too many "why won't it start" stemming from loose battery terminal.

A crank no start issue from not plugging in the coil pack.

Once I set fire to some light, cheap jumper cables by hooking it up backwards on the donor vehicle.

Way too many sheered lugs, "WTF wheel shudder" from loose lug nuts.

I was partly involved with the explosion of a propane torch after it got left out side after a brake job and chewed up by the snow blower the next morning.

"Marriage tackle"... excellent, and added to mental list, alongside Top Gear's reference to "Gentlemen Sausage."

Pulled out a passenger window regulator once, only to find out that my kid had engaged the window lock button.

Started my truck to get it nice and toasty when it was 20 degrees out. Last one out of the house. Start garage door, jump the beam, grab my hat Indiana Jones style. Keys, phone locked in running truck.

Curmudgeon wrote: I also put a Spitfire distributor in 180 degrees out. SU's make weird popping noises and fire shoots out of the strangest places when the engine backfires.

I did this when I rebuilt the engine in my 1961 Bonneville, and blew up an expensive new old stock muffler when it backfired.

Replaced plug wires on a 5.0 SBF to the cylinder numbering of a SBC... wondered why it didn't run right

Forgot one. Checking for the usual suspects when the Lemons car wasn't running right one of the many times that it wasn't running right. I pulled off the fuel line to the carb to check for pressure. Teamate was crouching across the car from me waiting for me to get the line off so he could crank the car to check for fuel flow. He got a geyser of gasoline right in the eye. I have awesome aim, apparently.

In reply to neon4891:

Another snowblower story... I've been told that a pail of ATF stuck in a snow bank turns the stuff coming out the chute of the airport snowblower blood red.

Apparently took. A while to talk the operator down.

I'd have maybe added a pair of old sneakers for added effect

Each year for our BABE rally chariots we run a large gauge wire from the battery to an a little 8 port aux fuse panel and use that for all our accessories on the car. Electrical work is usually left to Sonic as I'm known to be a bit ham fisted with these things but as I recall in 08 he was out of town and wouldn't arrive until the night before we had to leave so I ran a nice 4 ga cable through a grommet in the firewall and mounted the little aux panel right on the dash to give him a head start in wiring up everything else.

Well I guess it was night 3 of the rally, just as we pull into the hotel for the night I depress the clutch and theres a large but brief lightshow under the dash and suddenly no more clutch.

Seems the 4ga cable had been riding on the clutch pedal and finally wore through, fused the cable to its outer sheath so nothing would move. Thankfully its pretty easy to get a foxbody mustang clutch cable in the south so the repair wasn't terrible, just embarrassing.

Didn't happen to me, but when I was 17 or so the mechanic in the garage I worked in had an oops moment.

He had just finished head gaskets on an early 80's Chev full size van. This appeared to be suckish job in the first place, motor where it is and all.

Just as he leans over the carb to finish buttoning everything up, about a $1 in loose change slides out of his top overall pocket...straight down the carb and down the intake manifold.

Profanity ensues....:)

onto the oil stories.

Years ago, when I was commuting back and forth from AC to Reading Pa.. I changed the oil in my Tiburon at my mom's. All went well. no messes, no crossthreaded filters.. got everything packed up, old oil recycled and onto the Garden State parkway.

Just before the atlantic city expressway.. I hear a "ting" under the car. I looked into the Rearview to see what I hit and was greeted with a smoke screen behind the car.

guess who forgot to torque the oil drain?

As I was near an exit, I shut down, coasted to the side and walked to the nearest grocery store for a couple quarts of oil and some aluminum foil to make a temporary oil plug.

As it was after 7 on a saturday.. I had to call out of work on monday so I could visit the dealer and get the correct plug

Not as spectacular as some of the other stories...

Had a '91 Cutlass in high school. Didn't know much about cars back then and I wondered why the brakes would screech terribly even when I wasn't braking. Instead of looking into it I just ignored it and soon enough it went away. Fast forward a few months, I took the car in to have new tires put on (fronts were completely bald as I wasn't aware that they needed to be rotated), and the tech called me over to the lift. He very kindly and patiently showed me where the brake pads on both front calipers had almost completely disintegrated, leaving the exposed bolts to chew 1/4" grooves all the way around the rotors. He told me he had no idea how the car even stopped itself...

i was 14, helping my 16 year old cousin put a 350 in his 78 or 79 Cutlass.. we got it in, lined up the timing mark, and dropped the distributor in pointing at where #1 terminal on the cap was.. huge fireball when we cranked it... a few more fireballs and we determined that the motor was junk... threw in another one that was laying around- same thing.. then another.. then another.. finally decided to take the distributor out to look at it and for some reason he cranked the engine over without the distributor in it.. we lined the mark on the balancer up, dropped the distributor in, and it fired right up..

yeah, they run better when the timing isn't 180 degrees out.. it only took us 4 engines to figure it out..

another fun lesson-about a year later. 1970 Monte Carlo. wanted to see if the engine would run, but didn't have a carb or exhaust manifolds to put on it.. he dumped a bunch of gas into the intake and hit the key.. it sounded like it hit 10,000 rpm instantly, then died after a few seconds. i don't think it even had oil in it.. we decided that it was pretty damn cool, but also decided not to do it again.. that car got junked before it ever ran again..

fast forward a dozen or so years.. my 71 Nova.. i had just gone thru the motor about a month before, adding thinner head gaskets for more compression and painting the engine the proper shade of orange. driving home from work at 3am, engine starts to clatter a little bit.. then gets worse.. pull over, clattering stops, still runs good.. continue home.. get it in the shop, and notice that the #1 header tube is cold.. run compression check, 0 on that cylinder.. pull valve cover, both pushrods gone.. pull intake, see this:

. left a lock nut loose on the #1 intake rocker arm, pushrod jumped out and beat up rocker and took out exhaust pushrod, which also beat up it's rocker.... cost me about $120 at the local Chev dealer for 2 new pushrods and 2 rocker arms.

Back maybe 35 years ago, was trying to figure out which cylinder on my Vega GT wasn't firing. Decided the best thing to do was to let the engine run and then one at a time, unplug the spark plug wires until I found the one where nothing changed. Learned my lesson on the first one. Reach in with my left hand and pulled the wire. Found myself seconds later across the driveway with my right arm spasming and seeing stars.

dbgrubbs wrote: Back maybe 35 years ago, was trying to figure out which cylinder on my Vega GT wasn't firing. Decided the best thing to do was to let the engine run and then one at a time, unplug the spark plug wires until I found the one where nothing changed. Learned my lesson on the first one. Reach in with my left hand and pulled the wire. Found myself seconds later across the driveway with my right arm spasming and seeing stars.

Weird, I -still- do that. It never seemed to damage me to that degree.

Had a water leak in the thermostat housing on my '90 Lincoln Mark VII. No problem, get a new thermostat and gasket. Everything goes smoothly until I go to hook up the hoses. Turns out if you don't hook up the bypass hose BEFORE putting the housing in place there is no possible way to attach it afterwards. So off the housing comes. I'm working fast trying to get back on the road. Me being the 90-lb weakling I was didn't think much about laying the torque on the thermostat housing bolts. Broke the mounting ear off the thermostat housing. Crap. Off comes the housing AGAIN, borrow Dad's car and run to the parts store. I was a bit more gentle with that one. Stupid stupid stupid.

Did the brakes on my '83 Camaro. So proud of myself, jumped in the car to back it out of the driveway. Go to stop and the pedal hits the floor! I stomped the pedal like I was putting out a fire until the car stopped. My Dad later asked if I forgot to pump up the brakes BEFORE trying to move it so it would take up the slack between the pads and the disc. Ummm.....no I did not.

Bought an RV. Enough said.

Chaged the coolant, hoses and belts on the mercedes and flushed the coolant system. Go to fire the car up and boom, I guess I missed a rag which immediately killed one new belt and maimed the other. After new belts the car started running hot, guess all the flushing plugged up the radiator.

One time riding the punky buellster on the freeway the bike starts making a terrible clang from the top end. The bike burned oil something fierce but I was sure I'd checked it so the sound must be from the new exhaust. I pull back onto the freeway and take the bike to 80-85mph and the sound stops, stupid exhaust! I pull to a stop off the freeway and the engine oil light starts to flicker, ut oh. Threw a quart of oil in the bike and it lives to this day.

there are so many, but this is a good one.

I was pulling the driveshaft on one of the suburbans to change the u-joints....it was on an incline facing the garage door. It was a bitch to get out so I had to grab a prybar all along thinking to myself "good thing I'm changing this pos out". Finally it pops and here comes the suburban rolling towards me while I'm half under it....I have never moved so fast......it keeps rolling and slams into the door. I had to put it in 4wd to back it up, go in the shop and kick the door back into shape, then go and chock the damn tires on that thing. That garage door has never been the same.

I wouldn't know where to start. GRM probably wouldn't appreciate me filling up their server with some of the stupid crap I've done in the last 30+ years.

You name it, I've probably done it, broke it, caught it on fire, blown it up, or put it together backwards. If it's a tool, I've bent it, snapped it, or thrown it across the shop. I've bled on just about every car I've ever turned a wrench on.

I was breaking head bolts loose on my friends SBC in his old Chevy truck. I was using a 3/8" ratchet and they were coming off pretty easily. They took off to the parts store to get a gasket set and new intake. I said I'd stay behind and finish getting them off. They took off and I started having trouble. Bolts became harder and harder to get off. That little ratchet didn't give me enough torque to get the bolts off. I tried and tried. Went to go into the house to see if he had a breaker bar, oops, door locked. Son of a b*&%h! Kept trying because I'm not an up giver. Went on to the other head and got all but 2 bolts out and tried and tried and tried to no avail. Finally gave up and sat down on the tailgate and they come rolling up. I told them I got all the bolts out but 4 and they lean the seat up on the truck I was working on and pulled out a 1/2" ratchet and breaker bar. Popped them all out in like 2 seconds. I looked at my hands and there was chrome in my palms from flexing the little ratchet to death trying to get those bolts out. I told them to berkeley off and grabbed a beer and proceeded to watch them put it all back together that night. While I randomly hid tools...

I'm with toyman on this, my cars just aren't happy without a blood sacrifice, but three stick in my craw. The most recent one and dumbest was putting the gt4 gearbox in my mazda rallycar, in the name of reliability. 2 years later and we're just now fixing the last of the bugs from this great idea...

Last year sometime, my street car stopped running right, and it seemed like a spark issue. Pull plugs, lay em on the valve cover, check for sparks. Start trying to diagnose, trace a problem all the way to the motherboard on the ECU. It's an old Link. Anyway, I've had to touch up solder joints for the injector drivers before, so break out the magnifying lens and start lookin. Touch up here, touch up there, power up the ecu, and fail to notice that one way or another, the injectors are live and stuck open and dumping fuel into the cylinders at 550cc/min. I cranked the engine over, saw great fat bright sparks from all 4 plugs, joy, but at the same time saw great geysers of fuel going all the way up to the garage rafters! My oh my how exciting. This was most definitely a case of better to be lucky than good. I still have a car and a house.

Then, back in the day when I had a hotrod Datsun 510, it was time for valve adjust, which I prolly did waaayyyy more often than needed. As I'm doing this I notice a lil piece of cam journal about to fall off the front bearing surface. This was alarming. Now I gotta replace a camshaft. So off come the towers, but when I loosened one of the bolts, whose tq figure is measured in inchlbs, pop it broke off. And the rest of that bolt would NOT come out. Unreal.. So my valve adjust job turned itself, after much time and hair pulling, into a new cam and cylinder head...