Dumb things you've done working on a car?

[Scooter79]

Last night I did an oil change as I do every 5,000k's. Nothing out of the ordinary. Drain sump, change filter and refill. Then I started the car and hear a sudden gush of something. I see oil all over the garage floor. I soon realised that the older rubber gasket from the old oil filter was still on the car and the new filter didn't seal properly. IDIOT! I spent the next hour trying to clean up nearly 5 litres of brand new synthetic off the garage floor. That oil had some serious pressure. It sprayed five metres out from under the car. So I'm wondering has anyone else done something really stupid when working on their own or someone elses car?

[Billo55]

Mmm, touched the extractors for to long by accident =)

[Morton]

hahaha, that's a darn good effort ^^ I've never had that happen to me before, scooter

After draining my oil, and refitting the sump plug + new filter, I empty my old oil into an empty oil bottle that I'll have lying around. I've then proceeded to pick up my bottle of old sump oil and begin pouring it down the filler cap again! Took me nearly two litres to realise what I was doing! Had to drain it all out and try again with the (still) unopened bottle of fresh oil

[Low_VX_Taxi]

ive done the same as you scooter79, the first time i ever serviced my car, it didnt "spray" luckily and i still had the oil tray underneath it, but the engine wasnt happy having pretty much all the oil drained outta it.....

I remember one really stupid thing I did, i was servicing my WB (for the first time), and I was changing a spark plug, it was abit stuck so I pushed fairly hard it decided to become unstuck rather quickly launching my hand towards a nice bit of metal mounted to the headers, it sliced my thumb down the middle and blood was pouring out.... even split the nail... nothing a few bandaids and sum surgical tape couldnt fix

Lesson learned: dont force anything too much, if its stuck get sumone else to do it

[maginoodle]

put a stereo in a mates ed. when finished he trried to start it and couldnt. so i checked for spark had none. so i checked the fuses all seemed to be good so i thought it was the dizzy module so we wet and got another one. still no spark. so got test light out. no power to module so went back to fuse box and tested every fuse. found one blown marked something stupid like security or something blown. changed it and it then kicked over.

[Scooter79]

I think I'm still in front simply based on the mess I caused. But makes me feel better to know that others do dumb things too.

[Cheap6]

These should make you feel even better then.

I've done the old oil filter gasket left behind trick too. So did a mate, just before a schoolies road trip, but he assed it and it didn't fail until we were on the freeway into the trip. Stopped and got an NRMA tow back to the nearest place of civilisation but too late (at night) for it to be fixed and too late to find any accommodation (and no spare money anyway) so we (4 of us) spent the night on a railway station. It actually turned out to be a bit of an adventure and we still talk about it, so all good.

I've also left the sump plug out before starting to pour the fresh oil in. Fortunately the drain tray was still underneath and I realised before wasting the whole lot.

One I had a peripheral role in (and it's a bit of a saga): a mate decided to add a spacer plate beneath his carb. before we went cruising one night; remove the carb., carefully place a rag in the manifold to prevent anything falling in and go look for longer bolts or studs to suit the spacer. Have a bit of a chat as the carb. goes back on and then start the car. There's a Crack!, and the engine stalls. Oh ****! Yep, left the rag in the manifold. OK, carb. back off to dig the rag out. No go, it's sucked into the cylinder head, so the manifold (V8) and head needs to come off. No problem except that we need the gaskets.

My mate has spares but they are located at his cousin's place. Jump into my ****box and head off. Part way there the head gasket lets go and the car stops. We get out to have a look and I see another car go past and stop up the road a bit. Turns out to be my mate's sister so we get a lift to pick up the gaskets.

Get back to mate's car, manifold off, head off and find the rag sucked into the inlet valve and out the exhaust; no way that was coming out without disassembly. Blue the valve seats to check if a valve is bent and back together again. Then we had to collect the dead car with the blown head gasket, which we got started again after it had sat for a while. And we still went cruising.

Another one which I was reminded of recently was another mate and I were running Top End Cleaner through an engine. For those who haven't done this, it involves drawing the cleaning fluid into the engine using a vacuum source from the engine, with one person raising the engine revs, the other controlling the rate at which the fluid is drawn in by moving the vacuum hose in and out of the fluid. A misunderstanding between my mate and I resulted in sufficient fluid being drawn in to cause the motor to hydraulic lock and bend a rod.

[Emackulation]

The very first night I drive the VP GTS I stuck my hand into the metal engine fan, luckily I kept most of my fingers, I had 2 larghish gashes and it hurt. So beware any new 5.0L owners, the fan sticks out past the shroud on the 5.0L unlike the ****y small plastic V6 one which I was used to.

[Boonz]

ive had a 10 inch long flatblade screwdriver go thru my palm while trying to sit a brake shoe back on the slave cylinder with all the springs still atattched to the shoes... fair to say that made a mess when i took the screwdriver out!! i dont like drum brakes anymore

[metalfossil]

Few years ago, after me and my girlfriend had busted up, my HQ Monaro was stuck at the place where we lived with a busted gearbox. My best mate was under the car with me undoing the last of the bolts; bit of a rush job. I was holding the box. I spied my ex coming up the driveway. Without thinking I just let go of the box and slid out from under the car, Yep, you guessed it, the box dropped onto my mates hand. he wasn't a happy chappy

[Grennan]

A few years back when i was just learning how to do services and stuff. My cousin had just brought a VN i think it was, looked really good. Had all the bells and whistles. This was my first try at ever changing the plugs. My cousin had told me just take the leads off, and youll see little metal plug things underneath the lead ends when you take it off (or something to that effect) He went inside to get some lunch and i was sitting there for about 35 mins wondering how on earth i get the spark plugs out. He came back and asked if i was done and i said How on earth do i get the plugs out. He said well... thats the coil pack and gave me my lunch. Very dumb.

[azkwazere]

Was changing the oil in my car (funny how they all seem to be about oil chnaging) and i dropped the sump pluginto the pan cos it was hot.... anyway, usually i remember to get it back out again... i forgot.

I throw all my oil over my dads fence onto a infestation of blackberrys growing on the other side and felt the sump plug go with it.

Spent the entire night searching for the sump plug, in the dark in blackberys.... i never found it

Went to get a new sump plug, turns out that my car runs a larger sump plug than normal, had to walk back and forth from that darn auto shop 4 times to get it right.

aZk.

[azkwazere]

A few years back when i was just learning how to do services and stuff. My cousin had just brought a VN i think it was, looked really good. Had all the bells and whistles. This was my first try at ever changing the plugs. My cousin had told me just take the leads off, and youll see little metal plug things underneath the lead ends when you take it off (or something to that effect) He went inside to get some lunch and i was sitting there for about 35 mins wondering how on earth i get the spark plugs out. He came back and asked if i was done and i said How on earth do i get the plugs out. He said well... thats the coil pack and gave me my lunch. Very dumb.

But VERY VERY funny... hahahahahaha

Didnt you relise that the spark plugs actually fired into the cylnder and thats where they would be?

aZk.

[muttley383]

Back in the mid 80's I swapped the carby on a gemini with a webber. I start it up to find the car wont idle but would run if the throttle was left cracked open.
Problem turned out being I connected the fuel return line to a vacuum port on the webber and in turn sucked a 1/4 tank of fuel into the sump. Cleaned out the engine real good. ...

[cxcxcxvcvcvc]

on the charger project im doing (see project section) i was too budget to go out and buy a $50 ozzito drill, instead i thought it would be clever to fix my old broken drill, big mistake! oh i got the broken drill to work for a few mins before i got booted hard from the damn thing and tripped the power out in the house (thank god for safety switches) dumbest thing ive done for sure
verdict: i bought a new drill

[Full Spectrum]

Stuck directional tyres on the wrong way.

[f1tzy]

lol. what happens when you put em on the wrong way

[Troy711]

i have often pondered that question myself..

[GMHG3N]

fitting the cold air on my car when i first got it, thought it would be a 20min job, 4hours later messing round with plastic fcuken clips i snaped, through the screwdriver at the ls1 engine and managed to punch a hole in my air con condencer and through to the radator, whata mess!!!

[andyman]

fitting the cold air on my car when i first got it, thought it would be a 20min job, 4hours later messing round with plastic fcuken clips i snaped, through the screwdriver at the ls1 engine and managed to punch a hole in my air con condencer and through to the radator, whata mess!!!

classic

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

lol. what happens when you put em on the wrong way

The car goes backwards...


Back when I first started as an exhaust fitter, I was doing extractors on a diesel Landcruiser. One of the nuts was rusted to the thread on a stud, so instead of snapping the stud, I thought I would blow the nut off with the oxy and pull the stud out once the manifold was off. Cutting away, no dramas, then I hear all this shouting. Turns out a bit of molten metal rolls down the chassis rail and onto a bit of plastic hose that someone has repaired the fuel line with. Flames were coming out under the car and caught my overalls on fire. I was outside in the sun so I was hot anyway, didn't realise I was on fire. Luckily we saved the car, repaired the fuel line and the owner was none the wiser. From that day the other guys called me Bruce. Bruce Springstein for the song "I'm on fire".

[Haydz]

was installing my new sound system into my first car today and was drilling through the grommet on the drivers side when whoops i saw bits of wire coatings damn this aint going to be an easy one to fix i think i gotta take the whole dash out damm wish i drilled a second hole.....

[HoldenMan7]

When i first serviced my VY, (first time ever for me) i drained it all out, and forgot to put the sump bolt back on, and the new oil went all over the floor, and i ended up using alot of oil, cause i was checking the dip stick and it still wasnt full, until my dad comes into the shed and started screaming haha used to containers full lol

[Low_VX_Taxi]

The above reminded me of another one:

I did an install on a friends ****ty magna (1980 sumfin), we wired up the amp in the boot installed all the rest of the gear and thought sweet give it a try everything was going good (system was worth more than the car) until we could smell burning plastic....the cabin filled up with smoke so we turned the car off and jumped outta the car, there was plumes of smoke coming from outta the boot, we pulled the positive off the battery and investigated the boot, we found all the carpet scorched and a melted earth wire, I asked my mate what he used and he said "some of the speaker wire we had left over" Car smelt of burned plastic till the day he sold it..........

Lesson learned: use proper guage wiring

[evil_monkey]

yeah i did the old forgot the sump plug mistake you know the rest

ah **** and how could i forget the dumbest thing ive done...........

i was working on an s13 nissan silvia needed to get the door trims off, i got the passenger one off no troubles, went to replicate what i did on the passenger side to the drivers side, turns out there was a hidden screw that was missing on the passenger side and still in place on the drivers side, well after a lot of pushing of a large thick flat blade screw driver it sliped flung back and ended in my eye. incredibly painfull thing to happen.

my eye started ****ing out with blood and i felt so sick really dizzy and nautious, went to the emergency room and luckily i just scratched the centre of my eye i punctured the white part. then the next day because it was so busy i had to go into work despite it feeling worse than what it did when id actually injured it talk about brownie points for going in even after nearly loosing an eye