Admitting a Mechanical Mistake (Whats Yours)?

accidentally installed a right hand steering box in my 51 dodge.

It needed the left hand steer box on the shelf. Turning the wheel right sent the truck left.

I was tempted to try and learn through it....but thought better after about 1/2 a second

gold03

 

Years ago when restoring a 1929 four door Chev sedan engine in chassis intake manifold bolted on homemade gasket placed between manifold and rebuilt carby all bolted up connect battery and fire up no start forgot to cut hole in gasket for petrol to flow still get ribbed about it

 

There isnt enough bandwidth on this site if I started a list.

 

I got a couple: I bought a nice retractable hose reel for the garage. It came with 50 feet of a fairly stiff hose. I thought I would "improve" it by installing a nice, flexy polyurethane hose. Well the polyurethane hose was smaller in outside diameter than the the original so I figured I could put a lot more hose on there. So, I ordered 100 feet of the new stuff and proceeded to disassemble the unit, taking care not to screw up the spring motor. Well, everything went pretty well until I started to let the reel take in the new hose and for a reason that escaped me at the time, the stupid thing wouldn't take any more than 50 feet even though the new hose was slimmer. After scratching my head for a few minutes, the bulb came on: No matter what the diameter of the hose is, there are only so many turns of the spring on the reel!

The 2nd story goes back about 25 years ago. My brother, who doesn't play with cars anymore, was driving a 66 Nova for his DD. On the way home from work one day, the car overheated. He was near a relatives house so he stopped there and let the car cool down. He guessed (correctly) that the thermostat had failed, so he removed the old one, made a fresh gasket, re-assembled the car and topped it off. He starts the car and is running it to check for leaks. Everything looks go so he heads off down the road, only to have the car puke its green guts out again. So back to the house, lets it cool, tops it off and repeats the same puking episode. After about 3 re-runs of this movie, he calls me, frustrated and burned. I came by and asked him exactly what had happened and what he had done. I thought about it for a minute, drained the radiator again, then I removed the thermostat housing and gasket. "Hey", I asked. "Did you make this gasket yourself" as I held the gasket in front of my eye, implying that I couldn't see through it because the dope never cut the big hole in the gasket for the coolant to go through. "Yeah!", he proudly replied. I asked him to think about that for a minute, You should have seen the look on his face when he finally realized what he had done!

 

ooh, here's one. about 10 years ago I put a 65 Mustang on my rotissirie that I actually built for my Chevy. it all started with a blown headgasket, then I decided to detail the motor.

putting that much effort in a Mustang was the biggest mechanical mistake I ever made. Must have been high on drugs.

 

what did that cause?

 

In my rush to get the model A sedan ready for Bonneville,I bolted the fresh motor in,put the blowerand injector hat on,hooked up all the fuel lines,throttle linkage etc.
I then rolled under the sedan to bolt up the torque converter,only to find I'd left the flexplate on the bench.......dammit!!

 

all on the same all new motor all in the same couple of days.

Inital start up and cam break-in no oil pressure drop the drain plug and found a blue shop rag stuck in the suction tube to the pump. Pulled it out and restarted the cam break-in again. Broke in the cam and had no idle. would only idle at 1200 RPM. After a day of head scratching I realized The idle screws were seated. I had been thrashing on the car for so many long days and nights I was burned out and was missing stuff. VW motors are tough as nails. That engine is still in the car today and runs great...

 

silicone.

 

I forget to put the fitting on the brake line before flaring - DOH!!!

 

Some of my soldiers swapped vent and return lines from fuel pump on a Military HUMVEE. Ran good until fuel started to leak out of the air filter (and filled everything with a vent with fuel).

 

Just a young kid working on Chevys all the time I was told to assemble a 302 Ford. Found out the hard way that it kinda needs a cam plate (behind the cam gear) to keep the cam from walking out. Chevys don't need one. A very weird noise that my boss had never heard prompted him to tear the engine down to find it missing. MAN was he pissed! He relaxed a little when the supervisor (in my defense) told him the plate was never in my possession because the machine shop had it. We all learned from that one.

 

Put in 5 fresh quarts of oil without the plug back in the pan. And there are 100 more

 

Similarly, I guess... Put 5 qts fresh oil in only to find it was dripping out around the pan plug. So I tightened down on the plug a little more. Still leaking. Tightened a little more... Spinnnnnnnnnn. Tore out the threads. Then I found the plug gasket in the bottom of the oil tote, where it had dropped upon removal. I was 16, didn't really know shit about shit, and now at 38 MOST of what I know is as a result of fucking up at one time or another.

BTW, love the car man. (avatar) Just my style. SOME day I hope to own something that nice.

 

not quite mechanical...

remember those dam ramps you drive your car on to to work underneath...?

in my mid teens working in a bodyshop it was my job this day to back an XJ6 Jaguar up these ramps.. my foreman placed them behind the car and told me to back the jag up... 3-4 failed attempts later , he gave me a bit of a hurry -up ,, so i diligently stuck my foot fairly well up it... this worked great the jag whizzed up them dam ramps,
annnddd kept right on going ,, until momentum gave out leaving me and the Jag shall we say "well Balanced" ramps under the middle of the rockers gently rocking up and down ...
im sure he laughed alot .....

 

To tow my sidecar around Bonneville I have to remove the nose fairing. Its held on by four dzus fasteners at the bottom and two panhead screw on the top. They are there to simply prevent any sideways shaking during a run. When we get in line to run we fit the fairing. We headed out to make a pass on the short course. When we got there there was no line. Amazed we hustled to get ready. I didn't tighten the screws properly.

As I neared the two mile marked I noticed they were slowly unscrewing. At the 2 1/4 one fell off to the side. A few seconds later the second screw came out. Took one hop on the fairing and nailed me right between the eyes. Fortunately the SCTA require full face helmets so no damage. Joe, my crew chief, spotted the missing screws as soon as he arrived to haul me back. "You forgot to tighten them didn't you, ya bonehead". A good lesson not forgotten. Not that Joe will let me forget.

 

I was doing front brakes and a tie rod on a OT car and I was pressed for time. Finished the brake pads then installed the tie rod, checked the toe with a string and was ready to test drive it. Started it up, put it in reverse and proceeded to back it through the fence gate, down the driveway, and out into the street at what felt like 35 mph peddling the brakes all the way. Forgot to seat the pads before starting on the tie rod.

 

I played the ford mix and match game.

And lost... Couldn't get the engine I just built (first engine with a cam and valves) to even give me a pop or a fart.... Took the valve covers off and notice every rocker had fallen off onto the retainer. I used rockers for heads with guide plates on new style heads...

 

Thanks Guys for being Human like me...That's what I like about this group..Not afraid to admit to faults..Your all better than Familyto me...

 

Rebuilt a vw motor only to have over heated... I had installed a 1600 crank seal on a 40 case... But that wasn't the biggie, let's just say even after I cleaned what I though was everything out of the dog house during the rebuild a rats nest was still trapped inside and over heated the engine...

 

My first set of domed pistons i put in the engine upside down. Torqued the heads and ran into a problem while lashing the valves. That was a bummer.

 

My first "hot rod" was an OT car. It had a pretty nasty small block in it with a big cam. I had bought a used aftermarket Hurst shifter for it. This shifter had a nasty habit of backing out of Park and into Reverse while the car was idling. I caught it once or twice before it could do any damage. So I had the bright idea to start putting it in Neutral instead when I left it running. And that worked okay for a little while.

One day I was washing the car at my local car wash, and I left it running (had to listen to that badass idle, right ). While I was spraying soap all over it, the damned shifter backed into Drive. It lurched into gear and I immediately dropped the sprayer and tried to open the door but the handle was too slippery. Panicking, I grabbed an edge of the door frame like I was going to be able to stop the damned thing, but my shoes just slid all over the place on that soapy concrete. I'm sure I looked just like Herman Munster trying to stop Dragula as it drug me past the vacuums and the onlookers. It finally came to rest when it idled itself up onto a chain link fence. Boy did I feel like an ass.

 

25+ years ago I was doing a complete frame off on a V8 powered Chevy LUV truck. the stout little 331" small block sat in the corner of the shop for a few months complete with the trans still attached.
When i got the thing all back together, I fired it up. No oil pressure, So I checked the wiring to the gauge and sender, all looked good. I looked at the motor and thought about it. Oil filters's on, drain plug is in, I know we didn't drain it before pulling it apart. Hmmm, must of just drained itself fairly dry into the pan. Probably just needs to run a little longer. Fired it up again, let it idle, no pressure. Figured maybe I should rev it up a bit and build pressure. Well after trying that and letting it run for about a total of 4-5 minutes. I shut it off. Maybe I should check the oil, even though I know I didn't drain it. Sure as shit, dipstick is dry as can be. Must have evaporated a little or leaked some, cuz I KNOW I didn't drain it. Well 6 quarts later, it was full again!
Even though I sold it a year or so later, I kept track of the little truck for years, and that motor Never had a problem. Even after 4-5 minutes of revving it with NO OIL in the pan!

 

Had something similar, 'tho it wasn't my fault.
Bought a used Mercury Capri from a gal many years ago and proceeded to do an oil and filter change. Slid my usual oil pan under the car, pulled the drain plug, and walked off to do something else. Came back and there was a huge oil slick under the car. There must have been 10 quarts of oil in it! Seems the young gal I bought the car from changed the oil just by adding five more quarts! What a mess!

 

Bought Gotha rocker arms for my stock Olds 371 when i was 16....

Put a 30-30 cam in a 301 chevy that rested in a '61 ragtop... lotsa noise but not much go. I was 17....

 

I have probably done it a hundred times, flare the tube before slipping the fitting on.

The nicer the flare the greater the chance of it happening, or if it was the last scrap of tubing that was just the right lenght.

 

my story is a double whammy-when i was 16 i had an o/t 74 duster,pulled out the front bench seat and installed a set of buckets seats i had gotten for free from a diffrent make of car and the correct floor shifter and console from a junkyard. upon drillng through the floor to mount the seats drilled right through the brakeline. luckily my dad spotted the puddle on his driveway before i had the oppertunity to try to drive the car . with the repaired brakeline and the new floorshiter installed it seemed to take a little effort to get into park,but i wanted to test my new improvements out.so i head to the local minimart to gas up.keep in mind my car at that time was primer black in color- it was dark out and the only light around was from the roof over the gas pumps. i pull up to the pumps throw the car in park take the keys out and go into the store to pay for my gas. i come back out and my car is gone.wtf i'm freakin out but as i walk to where the car should be i faintly see a reflection across the road, its my taillights. when i left the car the wheel was turned to the right and when i took out the keys the steering wheel locked in that postion, also the aforementioned and apparently misadjusted shifter did not have the trans in park so the car slowly rolled itself away from the pumps across the road into someones front yard and gently came to rest against a very large tree.there was no damage to the car(big 70's bumpers) and only knocked a little bark off the tree.i quickly got the car out of there and got my gas and went home feeling like a very lucky idiot,but an idiot none the less.

 

Rushing to put my bike backtogether on a Friday afternoon,after a complet engine rebuild.I had it up on the work bench,got it started and had it running,checking for leaks and doing last minute adjustments.My buddy stops and we are standing there shoottin the shit.When we hear a load snap and the bike dies.As iturned around to see what had happened I noticed the quarts of oil sitting on the shelve that I had forgot to put in the motor.It ran for about 10 minutes on the assembly lube.

 

Brand new '34 Chevy engine in a truck Everything new, including new babbit bearings. I decided I would finish putting it together and fire that baby. Buttoned it all up and got everything just right. Decided I would put a little water in the radiator before I tried to fire it. So I started putting water in it. Man, I couldn't believe the capacity of that cooling system! I just kept putting water in it but it never got full. That's when I noticed the water running out the tailpipe.

I completely filled my new engine with water. Cylinders, crankcase, everything. It turns out I didn't check the head gasket when I installed it. Apparently it was for a different year because the cooling passages didn't line up.

 

Put a non-vented gas cap on car that needed a vented one. Found out that a little Holley red pump will suck a perfect, rust free, dent free and leak free 50's GM gas tank almost flat given about a month. Eventually the car cut out on the freeway. Got out and smelled gas so I stuck my head under the rear bumper and saw my newly flattened gas tank dripping out of tiny tears in all four corners.