Admit your Garage Mistakes

[sexc351]

ok heres a few of mine

1)i asked the new young bloke from work around for a few beers and to help work on the car(bad move).i asked him if he knew how to jack up a car.he said no worries so i left him to it and went down the pub to get some beers.when i got back he was almost done.i looked at the jack____that looks a little bit far under the car.looked under the car the boof head had jacked my floor pan up about 5 inches on the passanger side and 2 inches on the drivers(when i caught him).

2)i was driving along when my car just lost serious oil pressure?got home and checked it out.there was a ticking noise coming from the pasanger side rocker cover,so pulled it of and nothing was wrong.got me father inlaw to have a look and he said it was probably the oil pump.so pulled the sump off and replaced the oil pump,still ticking,we were dumbfounded.till i said what about taking the other rocker cover off,there it was a bent and broken pushrod. doh!

3)one of my best mates is a motor mechanic.i went down to his workshop to see him.he was working on a car and had just finished.next thing you know theres smoke comming from the engine bay.i said is it supposed to be smoking he said it probably just oil on the exhaust so he gave it a couple of revs,still smoke coming out about 2 mins later.i turned to him and asked did you put oil in the thing he said im sure i did.nope bone dry and him reving the pis out of the thing.i just rolled around on the ground ****ing myself and said you call yourself a mechanic.

[TURBO_GHIA]

im still angry at my self for this

i was driving down the shops to do what ever

when all of a sudden the car just stopped ,i just finished installing turbo on it ,so still trying to sort out all the little things and wasnt use to all the new noises and what not ,so i pull over check under bonnet cant find anything wrong ,crank and crank and crank for a while ,get the shits with it and leave it for for a week ,come and try and turn it around to move it ,trying to push steer and brake by yourself DOESN'T work for a second result ,one dead written off door and one very dented number plate ,what was wrong with the car after i spent $70 towing it 400m down the road ,a coil which i had 2 spare at home ,

[Ralliart]

reversed the wrong way lose paint from left side of bumber bar : ,

[Hunter]

Another from me (well sort of) - old man decided he'd had enough of the knobheads at the Holden dealer (after they had charged him to replace cooling hoses that they hadn't - a fact he only found out when one let go and the car overheated) and decided to take my advice and do his own servicing. Now this isn't really either our fault - its the fault of the idiots at the dealership who let their idiot apprentice do up the sump plug with a what would have either been a rattle gun or a socket wrench with a very long piece of pipe on it. I get under the, try loosening the plug but no movement. Me knowing better decide to err on the side of caution and not push my luck and find something to help. Dad decides he is stronger than me and can undo it no worries. Ends up stripping one side of the frigging plug head off. We then drive over to see my uncle (who was a mechanic many moons ago). Three hours later we manage to get undo the bolt and pretty much left with something that resembles a 20 cent piece. My uncle (who is fairly strong and used to undoing ****off tight bolts) said it was the tightest nut he had ever had to undo. The guy at the auto store gave us a funny look when we brought the plug in to match the thread to the new one.

Moral: Don't let idiots do up bolts much tighter than necessary and/or using the wrong tool for the job.

[oneredED]

I refused to replace the stuffed bonnet strut on my ED, even though I had had it fall on my head several times. Then one day it fell shut as I had my hand near the coolant overflow. It slammed shut on my fingers. Without re-opening the bonnet, I instantly removed my hand from the jam by pulling it out quickly (more blood), and then punched the front quarter panel in anger (with the buggered hand). It put a sizeable dent in the front quarter and left a nice bloodied mark to clean off as well, and not to mention it hurt like hell!

[gozza]

I don't do too many mechanical things to cars just general fluids and such

The main stupid thing i can remember was needing to do a 1lt oil top up on my GF 13B...Had a moment of non clarity and filled it up with a full 5 lt's of oil....Next day when i started it it blue so much smoke it filled the entire street....had to drain it and do it again

[feebs]

I nearly forgot....

Ex ran out of petrol, took a tin of fuel along to refill.

said.. here, hold the funnel

I was half way thru pouring when we realised she had a LIT ciggy in the hand that was holding the funnel.

I still do not know why I did not die that day!

[snortycorty]

Ok this one isn't exactly to do with cars, but still happened in the shed.

Uncle went away for a few weeks and I was in charge of feeding animals, watering/mowing the garden etc.
Anyways I go to mow the lawn and I run out of petrol. So i grab the red jerry can that I was told had lawnmower fuel in it, fill the mower up and continue mowing the lawns.
It gets really smoky, and I mean REALLY smokey and it keeps stalling. Ask the partner if its still alright and he gives the ok.
Finish mowing the lawns and all is good.
Until I see Uncle a week or so later, and he asks how I went mowing the lawns... Ok I say... He asks if it was a bit smokey and I reply yes... He cracks up laughing and tells me I'd put DIESEL in the mower!!! Whoops lol
i dont know how I didnt smell it, but then again I have a really bad sense of smell, didn't realise just how bad it really is!

[Charliewool]

Years ago, a good mate of mine was a mechanic at the corner servo in Maribyrnong. He, by the way, is an amputee and wears a prosthetic (wooden) left leg. An apprentice had just started employment at the place. This particular day, said mate had a car on the hoist (the old hydraulic centre ram type)
Car was only a foot or so off the ground, with a jack also supporting the diff, mate sitting on his bum with legs under car struggling to line up leaf spring shackle bolt.
Anyhow, he says to apprentice to let car down just slightly (lever on wall for hoist) Apprentice turns lever fully to left and hoist drops all the way. Car is still supported by the jack, but mates leg and knee is completely crushed (I mean FLAT!) by the hoist "H" frame!
He screams to the apprentice to take the hoist back up, the apprentice looks under car and sees mates flattened leg pined by the H frame and just about faints, but does manage to raise the hoist up off mates leg.
Mate pulls himself out from under car and gives the white faced apprentice the greatest spray of all time. The poor kid had no idea that my mate had a "wooden" leg.

That apprentice, by the way, now owns & operates his own prestige car business servicing BMW, Porsche & Mercedes Benz, is Australian agent for Brabus, and provides workshop support to the F1 teams for the Aust Grand Prix Corporation at AGP time, so he DID turn out ok!

[GXL078]

Simmons wheel LEAKED air through seals while sitting in garage for weeks. Managed to drive a few blocks on flat 45 series tyre before it peeled itself off the rim. Due to frigin tolerances between Simmons and Moser billet axle I had to use a ruber mallet to get the wheel off the axle!! (New wheels go on and off old axles fine and old wheels go on and off new axles fine by the way) Anyway I am am hitting away under the car with this mallet and I manage to dislocate my crook shoulder. I have to call up the NRMA. A week before I switched it over to my wifes car. The NRMA guy turns up within 20 minutes and says he can't touch my car because its not the nominated vehicle. I show him my membership renewal papers that still have the GXL listed and arent due for another month. My wife is standing there 7 months pregnant in the heat and I have a bag of frozen peas on my shoulder. He says Ok I will help you out but only because I am a Ford man. He then goes on about the XD he "used to have" with 400 odd HP at the wheels blah blah blah. This was how I spent my Australia day, last Friday. I was only going to drive a few blocks to test out the new MSD 6AL I had just installed. I was so proud that it fired up first go and all. This whole crappy episode would not have happended if the dodgey (bought new 3 years ago) Simmons wheel didnt LEAK! My shoulder still hurts. But at least my wife came to rescue me. It was the first time she had driven a car by herself in nearly 25 years , so I was proud of her.

[TZENU]

After wearing in my motor for 1000k it was time for the good 'ol "straight forward" task of replacing the engine oil and filter... So i drainned my oil and pulled out my filter... Replaced both this items... Put 1lt in engine start it up to get it circulating.. Everything at this stage is fine...
Put the remaining oil in the motor wait 10 minutes and start up...
Sweet cant wait to cruise tonight...
Put the car in reverse and all of a sudden i have oil **** ing everywhere. ARGH all over my freshly painted bay AND all over our freshly paved backyard!!!!!
The old oil filter seal had remained on the block and i had thrown on the new one without realising that the old seal was still there.... Nedless to say that every oil change from then on i check to make sure the old seal comes out with the filter!!

[bonspeed]

My younger brother had a mazda 323 sedan, he brought some flash wheels for it. (momo gts). brought some new springs for it (super low kings) removed the front and rear struts come around to my place to borrow my spring compressors. about three hours later he comes back around and askes to borrow my angle grinder. (seems his new springs arn't low enough) He trundles off, rings me up come round have a look at my car, drive round have a look looks really good, go for a drive scrapes everywhere but is fine, pull in to get fuel, about 10 minuites later we are still trying to get petrol into it, ask whats going on? it seems that when he cut his new coils in half the wheels would foul on the fuel filler pipe, which ran inside the rear wheel arch. solution? bash the siht out of it with a hammer! result, the filler had closed up to be about 5mm wide and would take about 20 minuites to fill!

[bjr22n_]

I busted a head bolt on a mates XR8.
I had the head of the bolt in my hand, and the thread was stuck in the block...

we had to drill it out. the Easy out's we used were useless, and we broke a drill bit... it didn't want to come out, but we got it out in the end with blood, sweat and tears.

it must of been the 7 Weet-bix i ate for breakie ;)

[benoxr]

Many years ago a new guy started at work. He was given his car to drive and was told to make sure it had oil and water. About 20mins late he comes back inside and asks if we had more oil. We asked why he wanted more oil as there was about 12 one litre bottles in the rack. He said he had used all of them and it still wasnt full! We went to check and found he was checking the level of oil by looking in the filler cap and as the oil hadnt come to the top, he wanted more! You can guess what his next task was....

[GOF]

Kept topping up the brake fluid in a '73 kombie (as the pads wore down) then I eventually decided to replace the disc pads, levered the pistons back and dropped in the new ones, easy job. Opened the drivers door to go for a run to bed them in.......brake fluid everywhere, the breather hole in the master cylinder tank makes a lovely water pistol and it sits on the floor just in front of the drivers seat, the hood lining was saturated and dripping everywhere.

[Dazza XLT]

Haven't really had a drama...YET!

[xrfalcon]

Trying to start my old TE cortina, me old man come over with a jar of petrol slowy pouring it in the carbi,car started back fired dad dropped the fuel and caught fire lucky car and no one was hurt. Thats the worst i've had.

[Dezza]

Originally Posted by xrfalcon

Trying to start my old TE cortina, me old man come over with a jar of petrol slowy pouring it in the carbi,car started back fired dad dropped the fuel and caught fire lucky car and no one was hurt. Thats the worst i've had.

My cousin did the same thing. He ended up with 3rd degree burns on one of his ears, and some less serious burns to his face. He's fine now though.

[Phase II]

Wired up all my autometer guages in my Datto 1600, thought i'd do the job properly and wire it in along side the rest of the loom ( being neat for a change) F@#ked up and had a short and melted the lot whilst driving along.... not something to fix on the side of the road!!

[GOF]

A workmate who's husband was overseas (RAAF) was told to keep an eye on the oil level in the cortina's engine as it uses a bit, took the cap off the rocker and couldn't see any, went to Kaymart got some tipped it in, still couldn't see any. After three trips (12 litres) thought it must be enough, started it but it ran rough and blew smoke like mad so she switched it off and left it. Big panic, how was she to explain to hubby she had somehow killed the car. When he got back he showed her the dipstick to check the level (after wetting himself with laughter).

[ADSXR8]

Only two weeks ago, I jumped in the car, put it in reverse, and away I went. Only to hear a big bang, and did not realise I didn't open the garage door! Opps.
My missus went off as I did this same thing only 4 years ago......

[chrispie123]

putting an au motor into my ef i had to swap timing cases over released the tension etc ended up jumping a few teeth causing all 6 exhaust valves to snap grr so not only do i now have a low kms au motor i also have one with brand new valves stem seals headgaskets etc

[WASP]

Originally Posted by ADSF6

Only two weeks ago, I jumped in the car, put it in reverse, and away I went. Only to hear a big bang, and did not realise I didn't open the garage door! Opps.
My missus went off as I did this same thing only 4 years ago......

Not really a garage mistake, but my wife backing into our garbage bin (on bin collection day) with her new Focus Zetec not that long ago. Just trying to make you feel better about it..lol

[bjr22n_]

Originally Posted by ADSF6

Only two weeks ago, I jumped in the car, put it in reverse, and away I went. Only to hear a big bang, and did not realise I didn't open the garage door! Opps.
My missus went off as I did this same thing only 4 years ago......

My dad parked his festiva behind the garage door of mum's Mazda 3. My mum then backed the Mazda 3 into dad's festiva... both weren't happy campers that day....

[xwgasaxe]

When I was an apprentice mechanic I picked up a car from the panel beaters for a wheel alignment. It was on the hoist and I was sittting in it with the key in the start position so my boss could turn the steering.
Any way the rear demister was on so I turned it off as it was the middle of summer.
At 7pm that night at home my boss rings up saying hes been trying to get that bloody XE started and what had I done to it.
Turns out that the rear demister switch was an immobiliser and no one had bothered to tell us.

[SirJuggsalot]

When I was younger and using my mums car, I decided to upgrade the deck. So I bought one and tried to install it. Tried to rip the old one out but couldnt unless I moved the auto gearstick to 1st gear. Realising there was just too many wires I quickly put it back together before she found out. Went to turn it on and it wouldnt start. I was like WTF mums gonna kill me!! Soon realised it needed to be in park to start.

[bjr22n_]

Originally Posted by xwgasaxe

When I was an apprentice mechanic I picked up a car from the panel beaters for a wheel alignment. It was on the hoist and I was sittting in it with the key in the start position so my boss could turn the steering.
Any way the rear demister was on so I turned it off as it was the middle of summer.
At 7pm that night at home my boss rings up saying hes been trying to get that bloody XE started and what had I done to it.
Turns out that the rear demister switch was an immobiliser and no one had bothered to tell us.

similar happened to me in a XR6T, i got the car started then just playing around i flicked the cig lighter up and then turned the XR6T off, I was asked to park it back into the garage... tried to start it again, and i couldn't wondered what did i do... Asked the owner he asked if i messed around with it, i said NO. i felt really bad thinking i broke something... after 10mins he showed me that the cig lighter was a kill switch and thats why i could start it. :

[HER SVO]

Originally Posted by bjr22n

My dad parked his festiva behind the garage door of mum's Mazda 3. My mum then backed the Mazda 3 into dad's festiva... both weren't happy campers that day....

Just last weekend I got blamed for driving my GT-P right up to the **** of the Corvette - just touching- (We put bricks down so we know when to stop and my tyre was against the brick).My hubby then found after 1/2 an hour of ranting and raving that he hadn't put the Vette in park and that that morning when he polished the wheels it had rolled back without him noticing-TOOL!

Another time -not really his fault but funny- he changed the thrust bearing? & pressure plate in our XF cause it was getting harder and harder to select gears.
After finishing the job it was no better,so out came the gearbox again so he could check he'd done everything right.
Still no good.
After ringing 1/2 a dozen people for advice 1 guy told him to check the clutch pedal to see if it was cracked at the firewall and not engaging as it should - sure enough that was the problem - apparently it was a common fault.
He welded it,that fixed it,he'd wasted 2 days :

[cuz]

Just learnt a new one... never try to check the hydraulic fluid in your floor jack, when its under pressure!! fluid everywhere!! lol

[J_Tank]

bought a pair of ramps at a great price then got home and realised they're too narrow. 200mm not that good for 235mm wide tyres.