What automotive mistakes you have made and are willing to admit to

alloy

alloy

Dan, Retired old fart
H-M Supporter Gold Member
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My wife came home from work yesterday and told me about Drew a guy she works with. Drew's life is a open book (an audio book that is playing constantly I'm told)

Anyway he and someone else were putting a clutch in something and forget to put the throwout bearing in. He asked my wife if your husband has ever done anything like that.

Yes I have. About 20 years ago I had rebuilt the BBC in my pickup and didn't have an engine crane to put it back in. A friend had one and said he would stop by on a certain day. Ok great. Then he showed up 2 days early.

He had limited time and we grabbed the engine and stuffed it in.

Great. Next day I went under to hook up stuff and put the torque converter bolts in and discovered I'd not put the flex plate on the engine.

That same day I bought an engine crane, and still have the same one.

So fast forward to today. Some of you have been following my nova build thread. Yesterday I got the trans back in and exhaust hooked up, driveshaft in. This morning I bleed the clutch and have great pedal. This LS3 clutch requires a lot more force to push the pedal down. Not excessive, but a noticeable difference.

So same as before, can't get it into gear. Tried putting it into gear and then starting it, but engine won't turn over and some magic smoke came out of my proform starter.

So I'm about ready to pull the manual and put an auto in it. I just don't know what's wrong. The only possible thing I can think of is I put an extended pilot bushing in and it could be the input shaft is bottoming on the pilot bushing. From looking at the wear pattern on on the snout shaft snout it looked like I had plenty of room for the extended bushing, but I didn't check it. I should have put some modeling clay in the back of the crank and put the trans in and checked it, but I didn't. I'm paying for that now.

So walking away from it for now. Just not sure what my next step is.
 
I installed my fist clutch without seating the throw out bearing in the fingers. Then didn’t lube the area, so third time was the charm. I got good at that job.

My all-time great was lubricating the sticking throttle cable in my first car. With threadlocker.
 
I rebuilt the motor in my 71 VW Westphalia. Put the whole thing back together and back in, filled with oil and fired up which lead to the rapid discovery that I forgot the pushrod tube seals on the engine case end.
 
Had to replace the ring and pinion on a rearend at work on a specialized piece of equipment. Pulled the center section out like on a 9” rearend. Ordered parts so a week or so went by. Setup pinion depth checked pattern on gears was perfect. Install in machine. Start it up go in forward machine goes in reverse. Go in reverse machine goes forward. Now to clarify the forward reverse the rearend is driven by a hydraulic motor.
What I found out after having to pull the center section again was I put the ring and carrier facing to wrong way. I didn’t think the carrier was able to go either facing left or right. It would have a offset. I was Wrong!
Amazingly I didn’t have to adjust the shim packs. I flipped everything rechecked mesh pattern and it was exactly what the other side was. So instead of a two hour job it took four and some extra gear lub. Live and learn:bawling:
 
put a powersteering pump pulley on the wrong way round once. Unfortunately, the bit the pulley puller attaches to is on the correct side, which was now on the wrong side. That one took me 7 or 8 hours to jury rig a puller to get it off.
 
Hang in there Alloy. You'll figure it out. The clay probably won't work because excess won't extrude out of the slight bearing/shaft clearance. Instead, depth mic from the tip of the input shaft to the trans flange and compare to the dimension from the BH to the bottom of the crank bore.

The oldest "automotive fix-it F-up" I remember had to do with a valve job on an Alfa-Romeo (DOHC, IL4). The activity took place in 1965-66 when I was a senior in HS. My family lived in a large apartment complex in Torrance, CA. The parking was virtually subterranean. The owner of the Alfa (a 30ish year old husband/father resident in the complex) was down there working on it. I was always a gearhead and in no time, I became the chief (and only) mechanic on the valve job. The owner provided a service manual. The VJ was significant to complete with outside machining, parts procurement and the tedious valve timing and lash adjustment procedures. You know how hard it is for teenagers to stay focused, LOL. Eventually, the engine was buttoned up and was ready to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but wouldn't

The plot thickens: The cam timing was set to a mark on the flywheel, visible through a port from the engine side. The timing was "perfect".
EXCEPT, before my involvement and unknown to me, someone had removed the flywheel and replaced it 90° out. The flywheel mounted to the crank with four bolts (no pin or other indexing feature).

We towed the car (you know, with a rope, on the street, in Torrance, only ~3 miles) to a buddy's house because it would be a better place to R&R the flywheel. I don't have specific memory of this, but my buddy (a lifelong friend) swears that, during the procedure, the car fell off of whatever precarious supports those stupid kids were using. No persons or Alfa-Romeos were damaged.

The bent valves were replaced, etc., etc., and the job got completed.
 
Last edited:
alloy said:
My wife came home from work yesterday and told me about Drew a guy she works with. Drew's life is a open book (an audio book that is playing constantly I'm told)

Anyway he and someone else were putting a clutch in something and forget to put the throwout bearing in. He asked my wife if your husband has ever done anything like that.

Yes I have. About 20 years ago I had rebuilt the BBC in my pickup and didn't have an engine crane to put it back in. A friend had one and said he would stop by on a certain day. Ok great. Then he showed up 2 days early.

He had limited time and we grabbed the engine and stuffed it in.

Great. Next day I went under to hook up stuff and put the torque converter bolts in and discovered I'd not put the flex plate on the engine.

That same day I bought an engine crane, and still have the same one.

So fast forward to today. Some of you have been following my nova build thread. Yesterday I got the trans back in and exhaust hooked up, driveshaft in. This morning I bleed the clutch and have great pedal. This LS3 clutch requires a lot more force to push the pedal down. Not excessive, but a noticeable difference.

So same as before, can't get it into gear. Tried putting it into gear and then starting it, but engine won't turn over and some magic smoke came out of my proform starter.

So I'm about ready to pull the manual and put an auto in it. I just don't know what's wrong. The only possible thing I can think of is I put an extended pilot bushing in and it could be the input shaft is bottoming on the pilot bushing. From looking at the wear pattern on on the snout shaft snout it looked like I had plenty of room for the extended bushing, but I didn't check it. I should have put some modeling clay in the back of the crank and put the trans in and checked it, but I didn't. I'm paying for that now.

So walking away from it for now. Just not sure what my next step is.
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Acouple things I’ve learned from the many of clutches Ive done. New build which it sounds like your doing is centering bellhousing to pilot. Check length of input length on trans. And doNot use trans mounting bolts to seat to bellhousing. Can you spin the output shaft on trans if in neutral should free spin.
 
I paid my bills for years turning wrenches, but I really had to think hard for something to post. I'm usually the guy who got called in to fix other people's clusterchunks, so my rep was usually riding on not goofing up when it mattered. So I had this friend with a '70 GTO show queen with a strong but streetworthy 455. He wondered why he couldn't do a decent quarter, let alone a decent burnout. He said he had his trans built by a local brick-and-mortar known for good work. He said they set him up with a 3700 RPM tight stall converter. He also said he had 4:11 gears to turn his 26" street slicks. Uh-huh, I said. First, a Pontiac won't accelerate past the 1,000 foot mark on 4:11s. I explained his car was a 1/8-mile car until he put 3:90 or even 3:73 gears in it. But it's gutless because he put a stall converter for a Chevy-based car in there- blowing all that off-idle torque right into heating up his converter. Even his 270 duration cam was a Chevy pattern (LSA is a dead giveaway). I made him a deal, I'd install a 2400 stall converter in his car if he gives me his "old" one. As I cinched down the final trans bolt to the engine, I realized I pinched a fancy, brand-new plug wire in between, ruining the wire and forcing me to unbolt the mess and back it out again. And of course, expensive fancy ignition wires don't come in sets of one. So I held on to that box of seven wires for quite a while until I realized I could use them on my inline-6 pickup. I didn't spill or break anything, but I sure felt dumb when I realized what I'd done. At least he was thrilled with his car's performance from that day on!
 
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