Your biggest DIY screwups
 

Lots of us work on our own cars and on this forum it ranges from people who change their own oil, to installing their own GTM twin turbo kits. Needless to say we all make mistakes so i figured this would be a funny place to post the results/mishaps (With pictures if you have them) or just tell the story of what you did wrong. I guess i'll start.

I had to install different springs in my BC coilovers because the original ones it came with were too short and i couldn't get enough preload on them. After finishing and installing everything, i forgot to take this vice grip off. It stayed there from november until march.

http://0txpla.bay.livefilestore.com/...174.jpg?psid=1

no harm done, since the suspension and wheel all move as one, but it was funny to see it there.

Not on the Z, but I installed rear springs on my last car upside down. Don't have a pic, but again... didn't even know until I swapped them for OEM 2 years later.

...

OK i'll bite:

Demon Bolt fun!

http://www.the370z.com/members/tjlaz...-escapade.jpeg

Had a heck of a time getting one of the bolts off during my HFC install. Had to resort to extreme measures. Cut the cat in half to get access to the bolt. Fun times

then of course theres the old, 'forgot to put oil filler cap on and get oil all over your engine bay.' luckily i realized after only one commute to work which was 10 miles so it wasn't so messy. :p

After I installed my HFC and CBE, I went out for a test drive and heard all this rattling going on and then through my rear view mirror I saw these two metal pieces flying out. Of course I stopped to make sure none of the seals broke lose; which they hadn't. Luckily my friend was behind me so he stopped to grab whatever flew out and it turned out to be a 14mm deep well socket and a 3/8" extension haha.

:rofl2:

Luckily I don't have any of these. I have Kirk do/overlook all my work. :p

Ohhh, plenty. Was helping an Ex GF change her oil on her car. It was getting dark, so I was rushing and not paying attention. Finished up, started 'er up (the car), and she asks, "Should there be stuff all over the ground?". Sure enough, giant puddle of oil on the ground. I forgot to make sure the O-ring came off w/ the old oil filter *sigh*. Luckly we noticed fast and no harm done, but what a PITA it was having to go get MORE oil just for that...

Also, a common cheap/free mod for LSX vehicles was to delete the EGR/AIR systems. This of course involved removing some hoses from the exhaust manifolds, and using a plate to cover the holes w/ some liquid gasket. Well, I forgot to trim down 2 of the bolts and I was REALLY rushing to finish it before the auto hobby shop closed. So I put the cap on, and figured it'd hold for a day or two until I had a chance to pull the bolts out and shorten them so they'd actually hold the bracket down.

Fast forward a YEAR or two later (yes, that long), and on a cold night near Thanksgiving in Omaha, I was showing it off to a friend and floored it to let him feel the mad siq tork. Suddenly, some loud pinging noise that went w/ the rev's of the motor. My heart immediately dropped, and I assumed a lifter had just died on me. I didnt drive it again that winter, and I just assumed I'd have to change a lifter...and when you change a lifter in that motor, you just change the camshaft out with it since it makes sense. So I got about $2000 in parts for my whole cam swap...and literally DAYS before my install happened, I was digging around my engine bay.....and find that I'd forgotten to shorten the bolts, and the stupid plate and liquid gasket finally came loose that night and was simply bouncing freely. For ***** and giggles, I shortened it up, and it never pinged again.

I still did the cam swap :-p

hahah that's what i'm talking about ! :bowrofl:

My dad was changing the oil on my sister's Audi... somehow, he drained the transmission oil instead... that resulted in an empty transmission and double the amount of engine oil... yeah transmission seized and engine smoked like crazy..crazy bill too from the dealer lol.

Discovered a wrench in the cowl under a windshield wiper, must've been left there since I last used it on the car... which was about 6 months at that point. Surprisingly the wrench didnt look that weathered, I'm still not sure how it got there.

Ouch....winner so far I think...

haha im sure the worst ones won't be posted in here, they're scared to lose their man cards.

I just installed a nismo exhaust on my base w/sport. Y pipe to H pipe and I am short 2 gaskets and 2 bolts. The install went well, but I gotta take the muffler section off again to fit the gaskets. More like a DIY fail.

Pity too, part of wrenching yourself is learning from your mistakes...

My multitude of stories are from years ago. Bel Aire, Corvair and 280Z DIY accidents.

The 280 had the oil filter mounted on the side and I would take it off first, before drianing the oil pan, spill oil all down the side of the engine onto the ground.

But the part that sticks with me is, I did it more than once.

Ah to be 18 again.

That is hilarious. :icon18:

One of my first was when I was doing an oil change on my Roadster when I was about 18 or 19. I was filling up the engine and a buddy pointed out the giant puddle growing from under the car. I learned then that the drain plug needs to go in before the refill (and to not drink beers and change oil).

Tsk tsk tsk

lol

This almost sounds familiar, but I'd been drinking so my memory is a little fuzzy. :roflpuke2:

About 4 years ago on my old 240sx, I noticed that the steering responsiveness of the car had gotten pretty sloppy in the front and there was increasing amounts of body roll. Upon inpsection my father and I discovered that a sway bar bracket had broken off. We never figured out why, and ended replacing it assuming the bolts had loosened after almost 20 years of life. Then, about 3 months later I noticed the car was acting up once again and found that the same bracket was missing. This time, it had sheered itself in half with part of the bracket still bolted to the car and the other part missing. Knowing that something was wrong with the suspension, but not having the time to tear the front end apart, we crafted up a heavy duty bracket which has held up nicely.

Then about a year and a half ago, I had to replace the steering rack and bushings. Amidst doing all the replacement, I finally discovered why the sway bar bracket had been coming off. Apparently, the front right tension rod, which is held in place by three or four bolts (can't remember), had lost all but one of those bolts. That meant whenever the weight would shift to that side of the car, instead of it being properly shared, it would all shift into that single bolt and the sway bar which is what caused the bracket to sheer off. I got everything fixed pretty easily, but I was super lucky the suspension never collapsed on me in a corner.

I have a picture of the single bolt that was holding the car together somewhere and will try to post later. It has almost been cut in half. :shakes head:

:tup:

Friend and I decided to put an overdrive pulley on my super-charged Mercedes. Read all the DIYs on it and thought we knew exactly what we were doing. Turns out we didn't. Ran great (extra 3 lbs. of boost) for about 200 miles and then it happened. We had pushed the woodruff key out of the slot and the pulley spun, sheared the key and drove it into the timing chain. Pulley grenaded and took out a bunch of other stuff, too. $2600 fix.

When in college, I purchased a surplus Post Office delivery jeep. Since it wasn't cool, I cut off the roof and made it into a proper jeep. Being a Business, as opposed to Engineering, major, I didn't take into account the loss of rigidity in the unibody.

After about six months, it literally broke in two while driving one day and burned to the ground.

From there, it was on to my first new car, a 1977 Datsun B210, aka "the penalty box". Kinda wished that P.O.S. had burned to the ground. It was replaced by a 1980 VW Scirocco, one of the all-time favorite cars I ever owned.

lol @ the jeep story. must've looked something like this:

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4...glikeaboss.jpg

Gurney that's epic.

Awesome, Gurney.

ROFL....

Reminds me of my dad and the tube of p-tex that he left in a cylinder while reassembling a triumph TR-3 and discovered the problem after he had the head back on and was looking for it. Best part was that his dad watched him do it and when my father finally asked him if he had seen the tube of p-tex he calmly said that you might want to check inside cylinder 3...

My only gaff lately was not realizing that the Akibono brakes have two bleeder valves on each caliper... Wasted a lot of Motul trying to "bleed all the air" out of the system...

Hahaha crazy story with the Jeep! :icon17:

Then there was the time we had a small water leak in the front yard. After digging-up approximately half the yard and never finding the leak, we called a plumber. The guy found the leak in two minutes about a foot from where we initially started digging.

My electrical skills are epic as well. Wired a dimmer in the dining room an hour before a big party for my wife's family. Ten minutes before guests start arriving, the wife realizes the switch is dimming half the lights in the house and the switch is "getting kinda warm". Luckily, no fire truck that time.

First and last time I cut a tree down was right after Katrina and it fell the opposite way and almost hit the house.

On my previous car, I was installing a camber kit on the rear. The bolts holding the existing camber arms were near impossible to get off without lifting the car and getting more torque. But I was trying... and pushing... so hard that my torque wrench head slipped (bolt still hadn't moved) and the end of the handle bashed into my forehead instantly drawing blood. Yes, I had my head within the wheel well... Had to get 10 stitches and my pride still hurts. I ended up bringing the car in...

Here's a simple one - was changing the wiper blades on my wife's Odyssey a few years back when I knocked the empty wiper arm down and cracked the one week old replacement windshield.

jeff- LOL!! :D first i couldnt' tell wtf that thing was since it was all rusted. :D hahahaha. should send it back to the manufacturer and complient them for the durability... or the lack of (rusty). :p

Something similar happened to me on my Z32. I was bleeding the clutch and could not get any pressure to build up. I replaced the slave cylinder, changed the line for an SS one and after like 4 bottles of fluid.... nothing. I gave up and then discovered, after driving quite a few miles with low pressure on the system, that there was another bleed valve on the engine bay besides the ones on the master and slave cylinders.. :facepalm:

Seems like you have a lot of these stories :icon17:

:icon18:

the wiper blade vs. windshield happened to me too.. lol

We all do. I'm just willing to share mine. :hello:

I guess since I'm still young mine haven't happened yet :p

Though part of that is because I don't try to work on my car by myself, only with supervision of someone that has more knowledge/expertise/knows what the hell they're doing.