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

Okay, I just remembered one. It was about '96 and I was doing underground utility construction on a Pac Bell job in San Francisco. We took out the sidewalk and trenched for a block on Union St, just up from Van Ness to add ducting. That's one of those 45-degree steep streets of San Francisco spots. We were running the job on a 4 man crew that included our company's owner/boss. He was freaked about how much time it took to get from north SF to Brisbane to dump the spoils, so he loaded about 7 yards into my 5 yard single rear axle dump truck and told me to get out of there. While we were digging, somebody with a BMW decided to park in the spot behind the dump truck, orange cones and clods falling off the back and all. I had about 16" from my pintle hitch to their front bumper, and that hill was steep (pouring the concrete sidewalk later was another story). Anyway, I watched traffic, saw my opening, turned the wheel a bit, revved to about 2000 and lifted the clutch until it started to grab, released the park brake, and fairly quickly before I started to roll backwards, let the clutch all the way out. Then BAM! I started rolling backward. I stopped the truck inches from the stupid BMW, but left chunks of ring gear and oil on the street under the rear differential. Oops. The company mechanic had the pumpkin replaced right there on the street by the next morning, the BMW was gone, and with the helping push of a backhoe I made it out of there. I never really got grief from the boss, he wasn't a dummy and knew he overloaded the truck on that city hill. Even though I'm in a much better career, I still miss working for that guy. I drove dump for several years after that. Now I'm starting to remember more mistake stories...
 
mmcmdl said:
I just put new calipers and pads on the F-250 with some minor learning issues , turns out they were easier than most cars I've done in the past . Todays project , new pads on a Toyota 4 Runner which they say is VERY easy ..........................we'll see about that . :big grin:
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After your done tell us how "easy" it was :p
 
brino said:
You know what we say here...... Pictures or it didn't happen!
;)

Brian
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With the description of her being hot, did I say hot, I'm assuming pics of the hot GF, not car stuff.

Hey, it's only fair, I posted a pic of mine :cool:
 
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pontiac428 said:
It probably wasn't deleting the valve cover breather, because the valve cover gasket was not the source. The oil fill cap is cosmetic and maybe the gasket was missing? The dipstick tube and oil filter are also on the left. Back to the breather idea, the crankcase pressure could blow the dipstick out of its seat, making a mess. Hmmm.
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John, you are basically right on the money!
A piece of rubber tubing for the crankcase vent, that runs from the valve cover to the air cleaners had fallen off. I had plugged it with a cork, which actually needed to be wired down (a hint that there was quite some pressure that needed to go somewhere.)
I finally found out what was happening when I had my buddy look at the engine while I started it up and revved it...
He quickly saw the situation and said with a big grin, "Ok. Now you look while I rev it."
Watching as he did so, I saw the oil dip stick rise up off its pipe from the pressure, drops of oil blew out, and the wind from the radiator fan blew the oil back along the side of the engine. When the engine went back to idle, the dip stick returned to its home position.
Restoring the crankcase vent tubing fixed it.
Greg
 
In 1967 I was driving a small English station wagon, Vauxhall Victor, that was rusted out completely on the bottom. One correction that was made was small "I" beams used for the back end frame. The rear wheel cylinders wouldn't take the pressure of my big (12 at age 16) foot and frequently blew up. The usual fix was to cut the rear brake line and crimp it over. I think I drove it on front brakes alone more than with everything intact.

The engine was so worn out it wouldn't start on the level. I parked on a hill and rolled it off to start. My father brought me an engine from a salvage yard that was in pretty bad shape. I took parts from both worn out engines and made one good one. The pistons in mine came out in several pieces, I now know the cylinders were badly scored. At the time, I just reinserted the pistons without any dressing.

I got in a bind for gas so put in a few gallons of AvGas to make it home. One piston had a hole through it when I pulled the head. But it ran like a scared cat while it ran. That's why it wouldn't start, having to be "rolled off". There were no interstate highways here at the time, everything was surface streets and US Hiways. So speed wasn't a big issue. It might run 60 if I forced it, but was so unstable I didn't. We won't discuss the fix for the steering, I don't want the backlash.

.
 
alloy said:

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

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Buying a new 1996 Chevrolet GMC Jimmy… worst car I have ever owned… Brakes were not worth a s**… And all the cheap plastic interior…arghhhhhhh
 
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Years ago at 15-16 of age i had a Zastava 101, it had 1,1L Fiat engine but at that age i wanted more power. I started talking to old mechanics how big trucks have so much power and one in 10 told me about turbocharging, even show me how a turbocharger looks. ( no internet then) So i started walking junk yards and found me a burned Renault 5 turbo, took the turbo and carburetor, fitted them and made a bit more power. So i went back and found me a much bigger turbocharger, if i remember right it did not have a wastegate. Made a tubular manifold and started adding propane to the impeller on the turbo as additional fuel. Blow 2 head gaskets, but the boost is very addictive, thinking i'll add more propane i managed to burn all 4 intake valves and at redline backfire, blow apart the turbocharger, torched the head and dented the hood (destroyed it). Most spectacular engine fail ever, of course in front of everyone i know at the time, racing a rich kid in his dad's BMW. I won, he ended rear ending my car did not expected for me to slow down at the end.
 
wachuko said:
Buying a new 1996 Chevrolet Jimmy… worst car I have ever owned… Brakes were not worth a s**… And all the cheap plastic interior…arghhhhhhh
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I was gonna say I bought a Chevy once. But decided to not stir the pot with this crowd. Mine was a '97 S10 Blazer


People plugging up vent hoses (and cutting off floating diagnostic connectors ) are common stories. But one in particular stands out. I had an MGB brought to me that kept getting water in the fuel. Water in the tank. They blamed the gas station. They blamed the gas cap. They blamed Lucas electrics. They finally brought it my shop. As soon as I opened the hood, the problem was glaringly obvious.

For US specs, MG had to add a charcoal canister system. Like most manufacturers of the era, they put it under the hood. Now understand that the canister is the entire vent system for the fuel tank, and the carbs. As such it has a solenoid venting valve with a rather large hose heading down towards the ground, uncapped. This hose was in the immediate vicinity of both the starter and the ignition distributor. Since there was a chance for raw fumes to be vented from the hose under various failures, in later models the hose was extended to get it away from potential sparks. But rather than running under the car, they ran it along the top of the frame rail, through the front bulkhead, ending just behind the grille. So you have this 1/2" diameter hose sitting open just to the right and slightly in front of the radiator. Someone had decided that this was totally wrong, and had a 1/2" nipple soldered into the radiator so they had some place they could attach the hose.

They didn't mention that they were also losing coolant.
 
random mouse clicks are undeletable
 
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