screw ups while fixing your car

[fredje8v]

Sure everyone has had his share of screw ups.
I know i have ;D

Like for example lowering your car, letting the jack down, and get it stuck underneath the car

starting the engine with a spanner on the crankshaft pulley, and make it fly ;D ;D

driving off a ramp after changing the brakes and find out you haven't pumped up the pressure.
then almost crashing the car on the toolbox or workbench.

Accidentally pushing a car off the ramp in neutral, and the car goes for it, and you have to run like hell, to jump trough the open drivers side window and pull the handbrake ;D ;D ;D

Eager to hear what you have experienced while fixing your car

[dave21478]

Whilst changing the valve stem oil seals on a CVH engine with the head still in place, I was using tweezers to lift off the valve collets. They slipped out my hand and vanished down an oil-way. Dunno where they ended up, but no amunt of poking with a magnet on a stick would get them out, so I just left them. The car ran fine.

Whilst working in a garage I witnessed quite an impressive accident involving a driverless BMW in reverse gear, making its own way at high speed out the still-closed bay door (folding the open drivers door right back against the wing on the garage door post) and across the carpark, being brought to a sudden halt against a brand new car.

[tycho]

I angle grinded through the loom that goes to the rear lights. If itt had been where Renault put it then it would have been fine but I had cleverly rerouted it in a "better" way.

I also cut through a mini-itx pc that I had trial fitted to the rear quarter at the same time.

I'm not gonna count the series of small welding fires i had cos they just go with the territory & are what the garden sprayer is for.

[bazboy]

The latest mistake i made(and a bit of a school boy one) was to remove a colant pipe whilst the coolant system was under pressure, was a pretty sight a pink fountain spraying into the air, untill i realised the air filter was off the carb and the next stop for the coolant was down the manifold into the block, so i dived over the engine and had hot coolant poured all over me ;D

Another time i had the car half up on a curb so i could just squeeze under asked my mum to press the clutch down on the car so i could spin the prop and she jumped in and the car smacked me nose hurt like crazy.

When i replaced my rocker cover gasket i left the old oily one on the window wiper and when i set of down the road later that day in the dark i switched my wipers on only to have the windscreen covered in oil.

Thats all the latest ones there has probably been a load more but i cant remember them atm.

Dan

[fredje8v]

The latest mistake I made(and a bit of a school boy one) was to remove a colant pipe whilst the coolant system was under pressure, was a pretty sight a pink fountain spraying into the air, untill I realised the air filter was off the carb and the next stop for the coolant was down the manifold into the block, so I dived over the engine and had hot coolant poured all over me ;D

Something similar happened to me a while back, only the car was overheated and the hose came off on it's own.
a week in the burn centre was the result, 8 percent of my body covered with second degree burns. Not that nice but it healed quite nicely and I don't really have any inconvenience off it anymore.


But on with the srew ups:

We had a student mechanic at work that just did an oil change.
He asked: how much oil goes in this engine, so we said, just fill it to the line (on the dipstick we ment)
But there was a line just under the fillercap, so guess what, approx 10 litres of oil went in ;D ;D
Glad we checked before starting

[bazboy]

May 2, 2009 22:22:37 GMT fredje8v said:

The latest mistake I made(and a bit of a school boy one) was to remove a colant pipe whilst the coolant system was under pressure, was a pretty sight a pink fountain spraying into the air, untill I realised the air filter was off the carb and the next stop for the coolant was down the manifold into the block, so I dived over the engine and had hot coolant poured all over me ;D

Something similar happened to me a while back, only the car was overheated and the hose came off on it's own.
a week in the burn centre was the result, 8 percent of my body covered with second degree burns. Not that nice but it healed quite nicely and I don't really have any inconvenience off it anymore.


But on with the srew ups:

We had a student mechanic at work that just did an oil change.
He asked: how much oil goes in this engine, so we said, just fill it to the line (on the dipstick we ment)
But there was a line just under the fillercap, so guess what, approx 10 litres of oil went in ;D ;D
Glad we checked before starting

Sorry to hear about the burns, sounds horrible.

I once over filled my mums car with oil and had to construct a syringe out of a pepsi bottle and some tubing and a load of Vaseline lol. Funny times, worked a treat tho.

Dan

[BenzBoy]

May 2, 2009 22:22:37 GMT fredje8v said:

We had a student mechanic at work that just did an oil change.
He asked: how much oil goes in this engine, so we said, just fill it to the line (on the dipstick we ment)
But there was a line just under the fillercap, so guess what, approx 10 litres of oil went in ;D ;D
Glad we checked before starting

I did a similar thing when I was working as a trainee mechanic years ago - a nice old lady brought her lovely Mk1 Capri in and wanted the oil topping up. I was the only one around and thought I'd be a helpful sort, and tipped five litres of GTX in. God knows what I was thinking. Worse still, she left me a tip and drove off before the guys found out what had happened.
To top it all off one of the mechanics thought it would be funny to pretend to be the lady's irate husband on the phone, demanding to know why his wife was stranded on the motorway with a knackered engine! ;D

[bazboy]

May 2, 2009 22:32:34 GMT BenzBoy said:

May 2, 2009 22:22:37 GMT fredje8v said:

We had a student mechanic at work that just did an oil change.
He asked: how much oil goes in this engine, so we said, just fill it to the line (on the dipstick we ment)
But there was a line just under the fillercap, so guess what, approx 10 litres of oil went in ;D ;D
Glad we checked before starting

I did a similar thing when I was working as a trainee mechanic years ago - a nice old lady brought her lovely Mk1 Capri in and wanted the oil topping up. I was the only one around and thought I'd be a helpful sort, and tipped five litres of GTX in. God knows what I was thinking. Worse still, she left me a tip and drove off before the guys found out what had happened.
To top it all off one of the mechanics thought it would be funny to pretend to be the lady's irate husband on the phone, demanding to know why his wife was stranded on the motorway with a knackered engine! ;D

That made me laugh alot and reminded me of when I did my work experience at a garage, and they got me with the old "go ask bob for a long wait will ya" I was waiting for ages must of looked like a right plonker.

Dan

[cobblers]

I decided a few months ago that I'd quickly change my wheels before going to work, so jacked the car up using the VW "deathjack" which fits under the car. My trolley jack is about 2 inches too high. A point worth noting is that I was jacking the car up on compacted snow. Ice basically.

So I jacks her up, takes the front wheel off and goes to fit the new wheel - I put it up against the hub and realised I'd have to push the car up a notch.

Still holding the wheel against the hub with my right hand, I lean over and wind the jack up just a touch. The jack slips on the ice and fires out from under the car, while pivoting round and poking a 2 inch hole in the drivers door, the front end of the car lands, wedging the wheel in the arch and missing taking my finger off by millimeters.

Then I realise I have to be at work in 10 minutes, and the car is stuck approx 2 inches off the floor. To get up I wander over to the building site across the road and borrow a scaffold board and 2 breeze blocks. I use the scaffold board as a lever to lift the car a bit, then kick one of the breeze blocks under the sill.
Now with a bit more room I can lean the second block against the sill, so when I lift the car again it falls in on its own and holds the car up a bit more, enough for me to extract the jack from the door, slot it under what is left of the sill and finish off the wheel change, then arrive at work exactly on time.


Another good one is when I was wiring my 106 engine up, and was splicing the engine loom on to the old plug. As I went to solder the starter solenoid wire, I pulled the solder off the reel that was sat in the scuttle, past the battery and down to the join. Unfortunately the solder went across the positive terminal, so when I touched it on the starter wire it turned the engine over, shoving the car forward and wedging me against the garage door. In the panic the (butane) soldering iron slipped out of my grip, and I caught it with my other hand. By the hot end.

[SauceDoctor]

Once dropped an 18 inch screwdriver down detween the rad and engine block while working in a Talbot Samba, which was in gear and I was standing in front of it. The screwdriver shorted out the starter and the car kangarooed forward, squishing me against the back garage wall.

Had the same car fall on me too.

I once drove a Scorpio over the end of a set of ramps.



A mate of mine was changing the oil on his MGZR lately - "How much oil does one of these take mate?" says he.

"4.5 litres mate" says I

"Jaysus, I've about 8 in her and it's not even hitting the dipstick" he replies, followed by "oh, hang on...."

[spiny]

I bought some rs alloys for my old mk5 cortina, and as I didn't want my parents to know (was still living at home, trying to save for a place to rent) I drove to the local supermarket to fit them - I had no idea you needed special nuts, I just used the stock ones - I managed to get about half a mile before people were beeping and pointing at my car, so I pulled over and the rear wheels fell off, wedging themselves in the arches.

about an hour of swaering managed to get them off, another hour and I had the fronts off - they had moved outwards 'sucking' the nuts into the wheel where I couldn't get a socket on them.

I now have the right nuts, still have the wheels, but the 'tina is long gone

I have also tried to turn the engine over buy using the spanner on the crank trick and had it creep off the axle stands as it was in gear ...

[sparko]

May 2, 2009 22:03:14 GMT fredje8v said:

driving off a ramp after changing the brakes and find out you haven't pumped up the pressure.
then almost crashing the car on the toolbox or workbench.

my mate did that and rolled out of his drive and into a bus and wrote his car off ha ha ;D

[tri]

May 2, 2009 22:52:53 GMT SauceDoctor said:

A mate of mine was changing the oil on his MGZR lately - "How much oil does one of these take mate?" says he.

"4.5 litres mate" says I

"Jaysus, I've about 8 in her and it's not even hitting the dipstick" he replies, followed by "oh, hang on...."

Lol. I've got a mate who's done that too. Doh!

[Prud]

My latest was only a couple of weeks ago.

Got everything on the Commodore buttoned down and wired up. All excited, I turn the key, the boys pile in and I take it for a run (just a little one ). Everything was good for the first 30 minutes or so.

Then all of a sudden, the previously firm brake pedal went straight to the floor. Pumping a lot brought it back a little, but not all that well. And by this time I stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and about 15 kays from home.

Manage to pull over, notice the burning brake smell and all sorts of wonderful (read expensive) theories came forth as to why the Commodore suddenly decided to lock it's brakes and boil the fluid.

Get it home, crawl underneath and notice there was a distinct lack of adjustment in the hand brake cable. Jack the rear end up and there was no way in hell of my turning the tyres by hand. With the hand brake off and the gearbox in neutral.

Turns out that I'd forgotten that you really should watch the less mechanically inclined mate when he's picked up a rattle gun. He's keen but very green, so he tends to get the easier jobs. And since he's trying to impress/do an excellent job, he tends to over-do everything.

Nearly rear-ended a police car in that first "oh $#^&! Where's the brakes!" moment

[quantum stop]

just yesterday whilest cheaking the oil on the wifes freelander gets the rag thats kept at the side of the battery dips wipes fine puts said rag down then does usual cheaks everthing a ok then gets side tracked as was heading off to pick up grand kids gets around 2/3 miles down the motorway goes down on power wont rev past 3k lots of smoke "oh" $hit" ive blown it pull up to the side of the road bonnet up scratching my head check everything fine no problems ! THEN FIND THE RAG I USED TO DIP THE OIL EARLIER sucked in the airbox "doh"

[Deleted]

Some of these are epic!

When i did my brakes the other day i drove out the gates forgetting there would be no preasure at first, No real issues other than heart in mouth moment!

I once did the ol' redex in the bores via the spark plug holes thing. Let it soak, Pumped it out by turning over the engine and catching with some rags. All good, Drove off up the road..... lots and lots and lots of smoke! Pulled onto a petrol garage. Yeah i know, lucky it was only redex burning off and no fire!

I couldnt get a spark from my 2000E once, but i only had a strimmer plug to hand so figured it might have been that. So i took a plug out of the engine to check for a spark with the right plug because it wouldnt start! I got the spark! It was that split second i needed to DUCK because the engine fired up on the other 3 cyls with no plug in the 4cyl! What a row that was! Turns out the reason it wasnt sparking is because the CPS was knackered, and without the compression in one of the pots it was able to spin up enough speed to send a signal to the ECU and bang! lol

[generally01]

I laugh about this now but curse word myself at the time.

Welded a small plate on the floorpan of my Beetle just under the pedals.

I welded it on from underneath to save taking the pedal assembly appart, all went well so I packed up all the tools to go for dinner.

I did the work on my parents drive so got in the car to drive home, pulled out the drive and headed down the hill to the main road.

Went to hit the brakes for the junction only to find that while welding, a blob of weld had built up under the pedal mount and jammed the pedal.

Combination of kicking, the handbrake and my shoddy welding broke the blob off the floor and stopped the car before I hit anything.

Dave.

[purplevanman]

Was doing the rear ball joint and A frame on my Landy, used the 4' farm jack to get it in the air. It was a pig of a job so I was all knarky when i finished and started letting down the jack. My hand let go of the jack handle and it sprang up with enough force to move the foot of the jack out a little, it then shot down and then back up again moving the foot outwards a bit more so the handle went straight through the back window!!

Doing a petrol pipe on my triumph 2000 I had petrol running up my arm and was then lying in a puddle, when I got out from under the car my m8 looked shocked?
I then realised I had a rollie still in my mouth, not lit but must have looked good

[Deleted]

the other week i also jacked the car up to removed the axel stand, pulled it out from the car, Lowered the jack not realising i hadnt pulled the axel stand out far enough and it was still under the floor of the car, Lucky i quickly twisted the lock on the jack before it did too much damage. Just a small dent!

[pbottomley]

In my first job in 1981 working at a VW dealers we had two epic fails (other than me at 16 spotty and useless)

First was a guy called Lui who drained the oil out a beetle then forgot to remove the 40 gallon oil drum form under the car, he was a little forgetful, and lowered the car off the ramp, he walked off to get a coffee and the car roll off the oil drum on its side and flatened the very spot he was just standing in! One dead beetle!

Second was a bloke called bob, who reverse a type 3 saloon off a four post ramp and to help guide himself he opened the drivers door and looked out backwards, needless to say the door folded backwards again the front wing. he was using the ramp as his two post was out of order.... OOPS one dead Type 3