Dumb things you've done working on a car?

[spokkeh]

This is an awesome thread, and I think it bears resurrecting!

Couple days ago I was charging my Statesman's battery outside the car. Carried it back over to the car ready to put it back in, shifting spanner in the other hand. I place the shifter at the front of the engine bay and *clang*. %*&#, it's fallen into the space between the radiator and the front grill. Couldn't figure out how to get it out for ages, eventually got it out using a straightened coathanger to stick through the hole at the back of it! Thankfully it had one, otherwise I'd wager it'd still be in there.

[ari666]

i punched myself in the face again the other day... not much of a story really, went to hit the end of the ratchet to loosen a bolt... missed... and punched myself in the face...

im not too selfish to share my stupidity.

[Macca86]

Bwahahaha Ari, Ou 1st year did that the other day and nearly knocked himself out! He had to go sit down for a minute. LOL

[acarmody]

I was servicing my car the other day and was changing the fuel filter but I forgot to depressurize the fuel line first (car was running just minutes earlier), end result was me receiving quite a lot of fuel directly into my eyes, man did I invent some new swear words that day.

[Philthy]

I was servicing my car the other day and was changing the fuel filter but I forgot to depressurize the fuel line first (car was running just minutes earlier), end result was me receiving quite a lot of fuel directly into my eyes, man did I invent some new swear words that day.

Doesn't that sting! When I did mine a month or so ago, I was very careful not to put my face where fuel might land on it but exactly 2 drops ran down my arms and dropped off my elbow, one landing in each eye. Followed by 5 mins of stumbling around blind, swearing and groping for the water bottle that I knew was in the car somewhere to rinse them out.

[ari666]

guys... you should try changing a toyota aristo, chaser, soarer or supra fuel filter. two threaded nuts, one in, one out and they are always way too tight to undo by hand so its a turn-spanner off-spanner on-turn kinda job. slow and tedious. aristo is the worst cos' its under the pass rear seat and even though you dry the system, gravity still feeds fuel through. so basically your stuck under the car with fuel trickling down you arm, into you armpit until you get the nuts undone.

dunno if you have ever had fuel in your arm pit for more than a few seconds but it BURNS like a MOFO.

[acarmody]

I was actually at full arms length from the filter, so probably about half a metre away. Unfortunately the system must have still been pressurized, so it kind of shot into my eyes. I always wear my swimming goggles when I change the filter for this exact reason, but the one time I forget.......

[Chilly]

Today I took apart my door trim, I was just finishing the re-assembly (putting the door lock back on) when I dropped my precision screwdriver and it happened to fall through the lock case and is now lying somewhere in the door trim. I now have to at some point this week take it all apart again to find it, put it all back together....and fix this stupid bloody lock -_- ....it's not working properly

[vn_v6]

*sigh*, was getting my go kart off the wall of my garage, shin bashed a cylinder head that was resting on a block, hurt, then it fell onto my other foot while the go kart was in my hands (heavy), then that fell on me aswell, FML

[Lance2560]

intresting read , stupid me decides to jack the car up from the back end in the middle, so both tyres come off the ground at the same time with no bricks at the front ,car ended up half way down the driveway sideways, ill never do that again

[ari666]

time for the next dumb thing of the day... installing wiper blades i like to cut the excess part (they are usually 100mm too long) with a brand new, sharp razor blade, then snap the plastic backing. it usually makes for a nice clean cut. anyway today in my usual dizzy "im not concentrating" state, i went to cut the wiper blade, not realising the blade was upside down, so i ran the back (dull side) against the wiper blade, and made a nice/deep incision in my thumb

[blacknight]

i punched myself in the face again the other day... not much of a story really, went to hit the end of the ratchet to loosen a bolt... missed... and punched myself in the face...

im not too selfish to share my stupidity.

I'm with you on that. I ever smacked a friend in the face when i was trying to twist off some rusty bolts. He knew it was accidental. The wrench flew across the garage floor. Then i realize, a shot of WD-40 leave it overnight and the next day, voila it came off

[Trayner]

The other day , thoguht one of my spark plugs lead was not on and it was dark so i used my phone as a light any ways had to look for like a screw driver or something . so i placed my phone on the bit of plastic thats up the top of your bonnet (closest to the windscreen, the sorta channel bit were the wipers are) shut the bonnet then went driving .

Anyways got to the place and went to grab my phone im like shit where is it . Got a mate to ring it as i thought it was under my seat and such. next thing i know my bonnet starts ringing :P

was o lucky that it was still like in the bonnet lol

[Huntington]

fun one for me, was welding up some plates, not even sure what for now, it was fiddly job so my left hand was quite near the weld holding the plate steady, mig wire arced, slipped off the surface put continued to feed, was very hot still, peiced straight throw the seam of my leather glove, straight through my finger and out the other side. cauterizing the wound as it went. it then arced again and broke off leaving a 1 inch peice of wire running through my finger.

because it had cauterized the wound, it wouldnt slide out either, i had to force it out as it was stuck to the skin/muscle etc. taking my glove off while it was still in there was damn painful.

[SirBedevere]

Changed the radiator on my VT V6, the trans oil soaked rag I used got left on top of the engine. The next morning on the way to work, smoke pouring out from under the bonnet. The rag had fallen onto the exhaust and caught fire. Apparently piss funny for passers by to see someone stamping out flames on the side of the road.
Bought a dirtbike, checked the oil, half full, sweet as, for a test run that should be enough. Got too enthusiastic. Overtaking a Hirux on the highway, 130km/h (Stupid), engine seized, rear wheel started jumping like an ADD kid on smack. Nearly browned my pants. Didn't know it's history, later engine internal ispections showed it had been abused for a long time. Piston melted, bits of piston on valves, cylinder sleeve and wall cracked. FML

[VKCOMMO]

Not a car, But doing a fuel drain the other day before flying, it was a bit windy and got AVGAS all down my arm, into my armpit and then it evaporated.... ouch

[VKCOMMO]

Oh, another one

On work exp the other week, skinned the #### out of my fingers on a wire wheel attached to a bench grinder, Just after i thought i would skin them

[ari666]

cool! i have another one.

on the weekend was finishing off welding the quarter panel back on the impala (check my impala thread, you know you want to). was doing the spot welds on the base, and to make sure it sealed (cos the back of the panel is closed off) was squirting bagloads of sikaflex in just above the seam of the two, so once it was clamped, sikaflex would squirt out and i would know it was sealed.

anyway, i had a rag which i was using to wipe up any excess that got inside the spot welds. decided that a dry rag wasnt doing a good enough job, so doused it in prepsol, which did a MUCH better job. "cool" i think to myself and move on to the next weld, zap zap, "where is all that light coming from in my mask?" ... take the mask off, realise the rag is completely engulfed in flames, panic for a minute or two before tipping a bucket of rubbing-back water (water used for sanding and is full of cruddy paint dust, looks like mud), putting it out effectivley, but drenching the entire work area floor where i had to lay to weld

went and had a beer after.

[Macca86]

^^^^^ *rolls around laughing* Dude, you make this thread worthwhile. I love your posts. LOL

[nemesis_adrasteia]

today i was undoing some bolts, had socket with breaker bar and couldnt move them so i decided it was a good idea to used a shifter on the end for more leverage, so im hanging off this shifter and the socket lets go the breaker but smashed me in the fore head. #### it hurt blood pissing out everywhere to hospital lucky enough it was bad enough to need stitches.

[nstone63]

I changed my harmonic balancer a couple weeks ago, so I did the old "breaker bar with the socket on the bolt head and the handle braced against the ground" trick... Turns out I put the handle on the wrong side of the balancer, so when I cranked the engine to break the bolt, the breaker bar spun around the balancer and cut through a couple hoses and even a copper one, spilling a heap of coolant/oil/juices around, making me just start hating life in general.

It was at 7 at night, in the dark and between intermittent rain (I live in a unit block so don't have a driveway/shed/undercover park)

[Adds_05]

LMAO,thats pretty funny,would of sucked though...

[acarmody]

Man that bang would have been loud.

[Sabbath']

Changing over a shocker in the back of a Commodore at work. Feeling in a lazy mood, decided i cbf walking to get the T-Bar to raise the hub so i could put the shock bolt in. Figured i'd do it the same way i did it when Ari helped me change over my springs:

Me push up on the hub,get somebody else to put the bolt in. So i call somebody over, crouch down and then heave up on it. Get it close, but not close enough, try holding it there, and almost popped a disc out in my back.

Note to self: FE2 are shorter than standard springs and you can push them up further....

[MagiTEK]

Heres one i did recently

Installing my new mace spacers. Got the manifold spacer on and was bolting the plenum back on. Got to the last bolt and i placed it into the hole and went to put the socket wrench on it. SLIP.. down the damn intake.. Was swearing like a sailor for a good hour thinking im going to have to pull the damn head off. The old man drops by to drop some gear off and assesses the situation. Goto supercheap and buy one of those bendy magnet wands and a bendy claw wand. The magnet one does the trick and we retreive the bolt. Thank god. Finished putting the engine together while scrapping the crap out of my hands. Figured enough for one day and went for a beer.

On a note unrelated to cars. I was testing a computer power supply with a multimeter and checked the voltage across the fuse.. Needless to say, i blew the psu. However it was on an UPS. So i also blew 2 battery packs, and a control module in the 12kva UPS it was plugged into. Not a fun day at all. Not when you stop production for an half hour as you reboot the servers so that production can start again.