Great Failures in Car Repair & Mechanical Mishaps

A Long Time Ago!

Back in the 70's, I was moving from Perth to Sydney. After seeing the household goods off, we headed off in our Triumph 2500 PI.

Anyhow, stopped for the night at a place called Mundrabilla, just still in WA.

Next morning, packed the wife, the kids and the kitchen sink in the car and tried to start it. Lots of activity, but no combustion.

Got out, lifted the bonnet to have a look. At that point, the mechanic from the service station sauntered over, obviously thinking there was some money to be made here. He took one look under the bonnet, and quietly disappeared into the sunset (actually it was sunrise, but who cares). :whistling

The old Lucas petrol injection system back then was a challenge.

Anyhow, did the fault finding and found no fuel. Followed through the system and found the engineer's delight, an absolutely quiet electric pump.

Unpacked the boot so that I could get to the pump. Did the standard back o' Bourke type of repair to get it going and reassmbled everything.

We had an advance booking for the coming night in Ceduna and lots of dirt road to traverse, so i was getting worried about the time and did not start the car. Repacked the boot, the wife and the kids and jumped in. Plenty of action again, but no combustion. :ranting:

Unpacked everything again, and fault found still no fuel though the pump was whirring. Then it dawned on me to check what it was doing. It was blowing into the tank rather than drawing out. I had put the case (magnets) on 180 out, and it was working in reverse. :b:

Finally on the road about 2 pm, instead of the 7:30am target.

The day was not over. Pulled up at Eucla (the WA/SA border) to refuel. I could hear a hissing noise while filling. As the fuel went in, the back left tyre went down. :cry:

One punture repair later (still in the days of tubes back then), we got on the way just before dark.

Now the good old Lucas tacho had failed on the first day. No sonner did we hit the dirt than the speedo decided to go on strike.

So off we headed into the dark on the old dirt highway with no idea of speed. It was raining an hour or so later and the car was sliding all over the place. The wife persisted in pushing me to stop and check that nothing was wrong. I just assumed that it was the dust turning to mud.

Anyhow, got out and found that the back left tyre (the one just repaired) was no longer there. The only thing left was the rim. :b:

So unpack the boot again (in the dark), and change the tyre.

Off we went again, and I was wondering if we would ever get to Ceduna.

Now there was about 450 Km of dirt left in those days. Anyhow, suddenly we were on sealed road, and my first assumption was that they had obviously sealed some more road. Wrong, Ceduna turned up soon after.

Got into the motel, and I did some figures. We reached Ceduna in about 3 hours 45 minutes from Eucla, which worked out to an average speed of 85 MPH. And that time included a tyre change as well, and mostly on rough dirt road. :whistling

 

Great Story M8!!!

 

wow... and it just kept going, sounds like my mate with his EH holden and the trip we did about a month ago... speedo died wipers died vaccum pump died... but we arrived in one piece, the car was more or less in one piece.

 

**** it must have been rough not to notice you were minus a whole tyre!!?!

ive just had the usual crap, couple of leads on the wrong spots in a hurry etc.

once put new suspension in my camry which requires one to remove the back brakes, in a hurry and hating having to do the job (for rwc) i threw it back together. drove out the shed and up the hill (thank fk i went up and not down), got to teh intersection at the top and stomped the brakes as per usual - straight to the floor with a thud. put it together in a hurry and didnt bleed the lines let alone top up the fluid.
verrrryyyyy careful trip back to the shed with a red face to do the job properly!!!

thats all ill own up to.

 

Another Story from Long Ago!

Actually this one is against a car manufacturer.

Back in the 70's, a bloke had a car that was nearing the end of its 12 months warranty. Thinking himself a bit of a technical type, he decided to do a bit of a check of the car for problems himself.

Anyhow, he jacked up one side of the car and removed that front wheel, and had a good look around. All seemed in order.

He put the wheel back on, lowered the jack, and repeated the process on the otherside. All seemed in order, but something was niggling him, something seemed different to the other front wheel area.

So he made more concentrated notes of what he saw, put that wheel back on, lowered the car and went back to the first side.

Up on the jack, wheel off and a good look. It finally struck him.

One side had a disc brake, and the other side was fitted with A DRUM brake. :b:

Now that's quality control for you.

It was not a Holden or a Ford, but was Australian made. However, I did buy a Ford in the 80's, and got a phone call from Ford asking me to go and have a look at the rear brakes and make sure they were the same both sides. They were, but my confidence in the car was shattered.

 

oh thats gold mate. someones parts box ran out before the guy on the other side of the assembly line. i bet there was another car with odd brakes as well.

 

Oh god....how could you possibly stuff up THAT much???? :b: :hit:

 

OK I confess....

When I was 16 and on my L's

I was doing the clutch in my LX Torana Coupe without a trolley jack for support manhanding the aussie gearbox and it fell on my head.....so I let a friend of mine replace the clutch plate ... :whistling just kidding 'bout the head bit.

Anyhow my mate asked me which way the plate went in....and I said I dont know the pictures in the manual aren't so clear....so he bolted the pressure plate on with the clutch plate in back to front.... bloody idiot...cause he took the clutch apart... :ranting:

After starting up and going nowhere fast...I had the car towed to a clutch and brake specialist who pissed themselves laughing I'm sure at our dodgy dodgy clutch swap... :yeah:

sixshooter

 

Heard a story of a assembly line stuffup of a lj Torana that had a 2 door setup on one side and a 4 door on the other...the basic floorpans were exactly the same so you could do that in those days ...the blokes on the assembly line obviously didnt look to see what each other was doing......the car didnt see the road like that but got sent around on the assembly line to be fitted with the same number of doors on both sides.

 

put a new carby on a little chrysler lancer i had many years ago. all was gong great for about a week until i was checking my oil and all that when i saw the air filter sitting on the shelf next to the oil and coolant. Cars run great with no air filter in them

also in an amphetamine fueled weekend me and a mate got a li gemmie, put a new head on it, new heater core, plugs n points, tinted windows, cut n polish, the works. ****en floorpan was rusted through! at least we developed a new mod for a gemini, flinstone breaks.

 

Where do you want me to start.

The one that I still laugh over was a long while ago. 4 of us were rebuilding a 2.4lt datsun rally motor one night. At this stage a few beers had been drunk. After putting most of the engine together we were just about to put the rocker cover back on. The friend who was bolting it back together at that stage grabbed a bolt out of my hand only to drop it down the front of the motor in timing chain area. We all listened to it bouncing down thru the chain. Silence. We tried everything to retrieve the bolt. You could see it but not get to it. Magnet on string, screwdriver, remove sump. Nothing. Until one bright spark decided that if we turned the engine over we could shake it. So there we were, 4 of us shaking this bloody motor. It worked. Finished the rebuild about midnight. Wouldn't start as compression was a bit high. Started on the end of a tow rope at about 70kph. Big black marks before it kicked though.

Another friend I navigated for had a 180b and his neighour helped put the rear end in one day. First stage over the first jump it fell off. He had put the bolts and washers in the wrong way round. Fixed it in stage and actually completed the rally.

Had a new Escort, Ford dealer had to replace the passenger seat belt and a few other serving issues. When I got back in it, the plastic cap on Drivers belt mount missing. Wrong one replaced. Went inside told them car coming back tomorrow to fix. Got back in car. Tried to put car in gear and the gear stick was jammed in neutral. Rock solid. Went back inside a touch angry, broke their glass front door by slamming it. Car fixed within 10 minutes. Never have gone back to a Ford dealer after that car. Car was OK but servicing was Sh*t.

 

Mechanical Mishaps

Was reading a thread on CT, would just like to extend it over here and see what kind of mishaps people have done while working away on their cars.
I mean, I've done the old- replacing the oil and forgot to put the sump bolt back in, 4litres of new oil pouring out the bottom into the bucket/ concrete floor, that was fun.
Then we can extend even further, into getting off a bolt, couldn't get it, passed it onto my mate to have a crack at, finally, snap, the seal cracked and the bolt came free, his arm jerked upwards with force, his knuckles collected most of the sharp objects on the way. The jolt knocked the bonnet off its stand, and as he stood up to complain about his fist, the bonnet collected him in the head. But hey, we got the bolt.

 

i replaced the water pump on my vs. kinda neglected to check that i'd actually tightened up the bolts holding the pulley on. drove around for a day. the next morning there was a horrible metalic clanging sound.

popped the bonnet and noticed a bolt hanging out of the pulley. then noticed another about to fall out. the other one was there still. that made three bolts, no idea where the fourth one went.

holden don't stock them, so i had to go to some bolt shop to get new ones.

now i always triple check fasteners.

 

I forgot to put the oil filter on once - it's amazing how much oil those things pump out in the 2-3 seconds it took to realise what happened!

Reaper

 

i was undoing a bolt on the side of a block sitting on the floor. it was tight as then suddenly came loose. the top of the deck where the head sits got me on the middle finger. it cut straight through leather work gloves and almost severed my middle finger.

another time leaning over a running engine (from the side) and my ugg boots slipped on some dirt on the concrete and i fell onto the engine while it was running and almost put my hand into the fan.

a guy where i worked got a bracelet caught in a fan belt and it pulled his fingers through the pulley.

another guy got a necklace caught in a fan belt and pulled his face onto the moving belt.

another guy got hot exhaust manifold on the side of the neck while listening to tappets on a horizontal motor.

another guy decided to superglue the head of a bolt off a pulley back on cos he snapped it and wanted the job to look good. as soon as the engine started the bolt head took off like a bullet around the workshop.

tyrefitter overinflated a bus tyre and literally blew it up. he went deaf for a week and me nearby had ringing in my ears for several days.

the foreman sent a bus out that still had no diff oil in it and the diff blew up 10m out the yard and had to be towed back in hahahahahaha.

plenty more but i'll give someone else a go.

 

Only one I have is the old dropping the sump bolt into the tray the oil's being drained into mishap, got my hands oily

 

Juzza, you wanna combine threads?

 

That's a part of the oil change IMO.. Has happened to me a bit..

 

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