Self Inflicted Dumb*** Shadetree Mechanic Moment

[pantheroc]

Have some of you done some dumb*** or cheap things with cars, let's hear them.

1. Old Datsun B210, rusting away, used aluminum siding for floorboards and fender repair.

2. This inspired this thread...Poured about 2oz. of some used motor oil into my beater Crown Vic tranny. I put used motor oil into an empty ATF container that was in the trunk with new fluids. Topped it off with good ATF and tranny is running great still after a thousand miles.

Luckily I DO pay careful attention on the non-beater cars.

[Local Boy]

A friend of mine ask me to look at his power steering unit on his car...After a few questions, I realized that he put brake fluid in the power steering reservoir. Pump went kaput...ALOHA

[magindat]

Had a 77 Marquis 2d Brogham. Put 33" RVT's on it and ran it thru the woods ALOT. Eventually, tore off rear bumper. Replaced with railroad tie. Drilled fiberglass header panel and mounted 2 'bug eye' off road lights.

Pulled many a 4wd out with that 5500 lb 400cube monster!!! Only got stuck once. Dropped a front wheel off an embankment and laid it on the frame. Got pulled out by a Caprice wagon!!!!

Got hit by a Silverado in the rear quarter. He was going 45. I was parked. totalled the truck. I got a 2" deep 18" round DENT and drove away.

That was one tough azz car.

Crazy enough?

[ckadiddle]

Had a 77 Marquis 2d Brogham. Put 33" RVT's on it and ran it thru the woods ALOT. Eventually, tore off rear bumper. Replaced with railroad tie. Drilled fiberglass header panel and mounted 2 'bug eye' off road lights.

Pulled many a 4wd out with that 5500 lb 400cube monster!!! Only got stuck once. Dropped a front wheel off an embankment and laid it on the frame. Got pulled out by a Caprice wagon!!!!

Got hit by a Silverado in the rear quarter. He was going 45. I was parked. totalled the truck. I got a 2" deep 18" round DENT and drove away.

That was one tough azz car.

Crazy enough?
Definitely.
Please, no off-roading this weekend when you are driving us, OK? :D

[Mad4Macs]

Left the lights on in my '68 Cougar, drained the battery.
It wouldn't have been embarrassing, except that I got jump started by a Toyota with an engine smaller than my Moroso air cleaner

(for those who don't know... the Cougar had pneumatically controlled headlamp covers. Anyone that could walk away from that car, lamp covers up and 4 lights blazing away, deserves humiliation)
:o

[cyclopsram]

Must have been the Budweiser aura...

[Mad4Macs]

Must have been the Budweiser aura...

Nah... at that time in my life, I was into Chimay Red or Latrappe Quadruples ;)

[Green96]

I came home one day to find my neighbor pacing ahound waiting on me. He had pit plugs and plug wires on his late 80's Sonoma 4-cly 4 hours ago, and it hadn't run since (he is a hand guy by the way). He is wanting me to cake a look to help figure out what he broke in the process.
Long story short... after some head scratching he is showing me how the 1-2-3-4 plug wires go to the corresponding cylinders. Unfortunately, that is not the firing order for a 2.5L GM 4 cly. :)

[MENINBLK]

I was changing a belt on a 1979 Cadillac Seville.
While I was trying to pry the new belt over the pulleys,
I smelled something burning.

I looked at the owner of the car and asked, "Do you smell that ?"
He said, "Smell what ?"
"Smells like something is burning."

He walked around to the otherside of the car, and pointed to the battery.
"Look...Smoke !"
I turned and looked and immediately felt the sensation of pain on my left wrist.
I pulled out my arm and my wrist watch was glowing RED.
It had gotten caught between the positive terminal and the engine
accessory bracket and grounded the battery.

I ran inside the house and immediately put my whole arm in the sink
and starting running the cold water.
He went to the fridge and got his ice cube tray and dumped it
into the sink as well.

About 10 minutes later, when I couldn't take the cold any longer,
I asked him, "Do you think the watch is still working ???"

[MACFORD88]

One Time When I Was 14 Or 13 Dad Was Not Home And I Wanted To Turn On My Dads 66 Mustang Gt But It Would Not Start So I Pop The Hood And Found The Problem.battery Was Disconected So I Conected The Battery The Wrong Way.the + To The Neg And The Neg To The +.well The Rest Is History Also The Whole Wireing Was History.i Never Did That Againe.

[rayjay]

Not sure this qualifies, but I was changing the oil on my 73 Merc Capri Sport Coupe and failed to notice the ground hornet nest I was laying on. Needless to say they stung the living **** out me before I could get out from under there...

[Vortex]

Decided it would be better to do a full frame off restoration on my 67 GTO than just repainting my mint condition, low milage 66 LeMans. Then I sold the LeMans for $4,000.

[Breadfan]

My first car was a 1980 Jaguar XJ6, cool car but troublesome car. Had a Chevy V8 conversion though, and it was a big black 4 door. :)

It had some electrical bugs, go figure...one was the horn. The ground ring in the steering column went bad once. Unfortunately they fail in the "on" position, so out of the blue I was driving and my horn came on and would not stop. I had to pull over and yank the fuse.

I ended up bypassing the column ring because it was and expensive part and was difficult to replace and may have required special tools.

So I just wired around it...the problem was of course this was right before my inspection was due. To pass inspection I found a momentary switch and mounted it on the dash.

It was from an old garage door opener and even said "GARAGE DOOR CONTROL" on it. It looked so nice next to that burl walnut dash.

I passed inspection though. :)

I can't remember if I ever fixed the horn or just used a switch after that...I think I used something less gawdy than a garage door opener button though. :)

[Logan]

I once had a 1980 Chev Citation, Bedrock Special winter beater... Had a leak in the radiator and I wasn't about to buy a radiator more expensive than what I paid for the car, so I dropped some radiator sealant junk into the rad... It was a good leak, so I dropped 3 or 4 doses...

Sure enough, the leak stopped, but later, I went to go add fluid and popped the rad cap off and was treated to a solid gob of rock hard goo that completely blocked the top of the rad...

Ooops. No fluid for you. I ended up driving it until it completely died a few months later. I left it where it died and never saw it again... Curiously, no one ever called either, so heck, it might still be sitting there, 20 yrs later... :)

[wchain]

Heres a Story I read on the Mercedes Board this morning http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=193742

What has been your worst injury as a Dieselhead from working on cars? I am out of surgery and back to full health after an extremely harrowing brush.

Miy situation was pretty embarssing but I might as well tell everyone the truth. Two years ago I was working on my car in a tight space and I had it on 4 jack stands to be super safe. So to get to the engine was like crawling in a pipe. I was close up to the engine taking off the computer on the intake when one of the electrically neutral 8 mm carbon graphite bolts literally fell into my mouth and it happened so quickly I reflexively swallowed it. Those bolts are really expensive and hard to come by!

I went to the emergency room and told them I had swallowed a bolt and when the Doctors finished laughing they said "Don’t worry, a foreign object that size will pass through your intestines."

Except carbon graphite has a peculiar quality--the body confuses it with biological tissue and accepts it and it actually grew a cyst and sat in my intestinal wall.

The last few months I was getting very physically tired and winded easily. I thought it was over stress or over work or sleep cheating or old age.I felt like I was 80 and went form 222 pounds to 198. I didnt realize that sometime last year the bolt had become infected and I was very, very sick.

Well Sheehan Medical center removed the bolt through a 1" incison yesterday. They even handed it back to me.

Boy I feel better now! They said I could start running tomorrow. I feel like 25 again!
And that bolt? I never did order a replacement since each one of them was $72.90. So last night after surgery I couldnt wait to get home to jack up my car and put it back on.

[Wags]

I've had many, but one that comes to mind is, about 10 yrs ago, I rebuilt the M21 on the Chevelle, and when putting it back in, I was laying under the car, struggling to get the stupid thing lined up, finally get it in, put the 4 bolts in, tighten them up, and then look next to me, and there is the new throwout bearing, sitting on the ground, just laughing at me.:mad: Had to pull the tranny, and start over again. And another time....,(I could go on and on...)

Wags

[pantheroc]

Lucky he didn't swallow a pair of nuts and have to tell the story. :D


Heres a Story I read on the Mercedes Board this morning http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=193742

[MyTMerc]

When I was 16 working on my car in the backyard. My neighbor was also doing a tune up on his ~ 1975 Audi. When he took off the air cleaner, he dropped the wing nut down the throat of the carb. I know this because after he tried to start it to "blown it out the exhaust" he came over and asked me how to get the wing nut out. The load clanking noise the engine made a few minutes before also tipped me off he had done something very expensive.:eek:

The post mortem reveiled the nut took a few bangs but the cylinder wall was toast. I asked him why he didn't ask me before he attempted to blow it out? He said he didn't want to ask me a dumb question because he didn't want me to thing he didn't know anything about cars. How did that work out for ya?:shake:

[Leadfoot281]

I was helping a friend with his mid '80's Chevy truck. I was sitting on the battery, leaning over the motor and bolting down the valve covers after lashing the valves. The battery was being charged so I was carefull to not accidentally knock the cables off it.

Leaving a pair of pliers in my back pocket while doing this wasn't very carefull though.

When they fell out, they contacted the battery, arced and blew the top off the battery....with me sitting on it. :eek:

Battery acid does bad things to jeans. Had to drive home in my underwear.

[Hack Goby]

Back in the summer of 69 (True) I had my first car a 1965 Comet 202 with a 289 and a C4 tyranny I beleve.The car was really fast because it was light.What I didn`t have back then was money and air shocks and jacking the back end of your car up was the rage.I had a buddy who worked at a gas station on Woodward where I used to hang out.Well we got the idea to put the car on the hoist and stick wood 4 by 4`s between the rear end and the frame to jack it up.This worked great and my Comet looked bad a$$ only problem was (And it was a big one) cruising down Woodward everytime I hit a bump or crack the rear wheels would leave the ground at any speed.I got a few laps in then one of the 4 by 4`s spilt and the the one side came down then the other went.There was no harm to the car and we got a good laugh out of it.I got a few more good storeys about this car but this one was the best.

[sweetair]

Years ago, I was helping my friend do the brakes on his Mazda not sure of the model. In doing the rear drums, with all those fun springs, I did not have a spring tool. I was using a pair of pliers to re-attach one of the springs. Needing two hands to get the spring attached, the plier slipped off splitting my thumb open as it flew into the edge of the rear wheel well. That really hurt. Blood everywhere. WAIT, it gets better. I wash off, put a bandaid to stop the bleeding, and wait for the throb to subside a little. I go back to get the spring attached. Use the pliers again, and whammo, they slip again, cracking my thumb in the same place on the wheel well edge, splitting the bandaid in two and opening the thumb all over again. Still to this day thru the scar there is a dark area. Perhaps grease/dirt/or rust. Who knows.

[magindat]

OK, OK, now I get it....

Hydros (adjustable suspensions) use batteries in series to increase voltage. To handle the load, solenoids are cascaded as well.

While working on a 6 battery (72 V 7200CCA) setup in the dark before a show, I was tightening the last nut on the last solenoid before the batteries. I was using my leatherman for lack of other available tools. I accidentally arced the solenoid through the needle-nose to ground. The needle nose MELTED and the metal DRIPPED. The leatherman fused to my hand and I shook the tool off when I jumped. It made a hiss as it hit the dewey grass.

It was a Sears Craftman brand leatherman, so a friend picked it up from the grass and exchanged it for a new one for me.

[96DiamondVIII]

When I was in college, decided I ought to finally start doing my own work since I professed to be a "car guy". So when it came time to change the oil on my car at the time ('82 Malibu with the 3.8 V6) I bought a pair or ramps along with the other supplies to do it myself.

After carefully lining up the ramps, I crept slowly up them, and then felt I needed to give it a little gas to get over the lip of the depression for the wheels.

I drove the car completely over and off the ramps, catching them both squarely under the frame rails with the tires off the ground. I had to use the spare-tire jack to jack the car up one side at a time to get them out from under there. :o My roommates, who had come outside to see what that loud noise was, got quite a good laugh out of it.

To add insult to injury, once I had freed the ramps and actually gotten the car up there successfully on the second try, I couldn't get the drain plug off the oil pan no matter what I tried. Turns out the last idiot to change the oil at whatever shop I had taken it to had put it back on with an impact wrench, and crossthreaded it to boot. Sigh.

[hot-rauder]

my older, and definately non mechanical, step sister comes to mind...

she had lost her 2003 vw jetta, typical female car, and had to buy a 93 mercury tracer "trio edition". at least its a mercury. well she was having some cooling issues with it and went to autozone to buy coolant. when she asked the dumb@$$ behind the counter, HE TOLD HER TO PUT THE COOLANT IN THE TRANNY!:stupid: she didnt know any better and put a gallon of antifreeze in the tranny. i was shocked when she told me that the car was still overheating.:shake:

she waited 2 months but had the tranny flushed and it somehow held up still.

[PSG]

we were trying to get my buddies 70 cuda to start, it didnt seem to be getting any gas, so i was pouring gas (from a 5 gallon can )down the carb when it back fired up the intake, guess what ? gas is flamible !, so the nossle of the gas can starts spewing fire. what to do? i throw it as hard as i can and as it flies through the air fire shoots everywhere, and the can goes right under the front of my 63 galaxie. luckilly the hose was right there and my other buddy was able to get the ebrake off in the galaxie after what seemed like forever (the release on those cars pushes down not pull out) and we got it under control, luckily no real injuries except for my eyebrows and alittle discolor on the bumper and it melted a cheasy front plate