Technical WORST MECHANIC EVER............

I made a ton of mistakes and sent a lot of tools airborne but at least I learned from them or cost me money. Where were the trade schools when I was growing up??? But I wouldn’t trade it for the 50’s and 60’s!!!

 

That's right, "manly" men use MAN BAGS

 

the judge died or the drunk?

 

Poetic justice if the judge died

 

I don’t have a wife any more because she unilaterally decided I did not need my big block elcamino anymore.

 

"Fanny pack" doesn't translate too well into Aussie English either .

Mind you, the local equivalent (bum bag) may raise a few eyebrows too .

Cheers,
Harv

 

Years ago we had this guy I’ll call Bob. Bob thought he was the greatest mechanic ever. Everything he touched turned to shit. His crowning achievement was a THM400 R&R in a late 80’s Chevy G-30 cube van. Gravy job. This stupid prick somehow assembled the shift linkage upside down. Park position on the column was low and low was park. I tried to tell him what he did and he blew me off saying it was correct. Murphy’s law states that you never argue with a fool so I went about my business. He was filling the transmission with fluid with the engine running, and walked away to get more ATF when the front pump in the transmission picked up the fluid. The van shot across the shop (carb on high idle step) headed right for the owner’s new Oldsmobile. To this day, I don’t know how Bob got the van stopped inches from the Oldsmobile. Stupid fuck finally got fired when I caught him with my 460 Channellocks (with my name engraved on them) in his toolbox. The choice was simple, fire him or I was going to clock out and kick his ass.

 

it really upsets me to pay other people to learn on my car . sometimes i have to learn . but , i work for free . i had a no cold start problem with my 03 ram cummins so i said to my self im no computer savvy diesel mech. so i put it in the shop . 3 days later i pay 2500 and pick it up . next morning it wont start . i bring it back . 3 days later i pay 3500 and pick it up . the second time they figured out it was bad injectors . the first time they never had a clue . just throwing parts at it . seems like it was the pump they said . so 6k for new injectors . not bad . next time i trouble shot it my self . bad lift pump . i think it was 100 and 30 min. install . never again !!

 

I haven't seen tire "tech"s mentioned yet, the guys who change tires( costco/sams etc) they remember ( mostly) to give you new tires, but often don't remember to tighten lug nuts.

 

Up here they pound them on with an impact gun, and don’t clean the hubs of corrosion.
So if you end up with a flat your tires are never coming off again.


When I worked in automotive aluminum wheels got torqued by hand .
Steel wheels I used my torque sticks

I’ve had wheels I’ve needed a 3/4 impact gun to get off, then pound the wheel off the hub as they are stuck together.
It drove me completely fucking bonkers !!!!


First shop I worked at my boss had me look up torque spec a for almost anything I did the first couple weeks and use a torque wrench.
When I questioned him on it his explanation was “ you would be surprised how little torque is required to keep things together. You need to learn the “ feel” of right on certain fasteners and jobs. Not everything is torque it down until your bicep shits itself and your forearm hurts !!!
Life lesson I still use and abide by.

 

The judge died. What I forgot to add was that the guy who hit him head on was "drunk". Karma?

Just so everyone doesn't have to search. My car was legally parked next to the curb in front of my house, and being held up by a bumper jack while I patched a flat tire.
A drunk in a stolen car tore up my neighbors bushes and then veered across the street and hit my car which was still o the bumper jack. He then fled the scene and went AWOL.
The judge decided it was my fault and threatened to throw me in jail for contempt when I pointed out that my car was parked.

While I don't wish for anyone to get killed, I have to say that I didn't shed any tears either.

 

what goes around comes around for sure. had he jailed him, he would have still been around.

 

I learned a long time ago to dab a little anti seize on my daily drivers hubs the first time I pull the wheels. Especially if they salt roads in the winter.

 

Good one, Harv!!!

 

Bought a very nice 275 horse 340 for $20 it was laying in a guys yard. he told me they rebuilt it and it was locked up. Thay put the pistons in backwards. one for me.

 

I found a simple solution to tool misappropriation. Paint all your tools pink.

 

First real job I had, everyone marked their tools (all company tools) we had a community box as well. 1/2 of it was full of some awful colored purple tools. Guess that guy left before I came on board.

 

And the tire kids break every modern wheel cover they touch. Insisting on one-pull removal, they fracture or break one or more tabs that hold the spring wire. I've learned(on my own) that apparently the covers now become not only unevenly held but also imbalanced. There's hardly a Camry or Corolla out there with 4 covers.
D

 

My father had a VW with a diesel motor. It developed a leak in one injector, repaired under warrantee. Dad kept the car immaculate, including the underhood so he noticed swelling on the lower hose. Service manager refused to change it, but Dad made sure it was documented. It blew a week later on the Long Island Expressway, we lived in CT. Dealer
had to eat the tow and engine replacement over a 15 dollar hose.

 

When somebody wanders into my shop and asks me to work on their vehicle problem, I always respectfully decline. I am not a professional and I can't afford to lose any friends over that fact.

 

Everybody gets those tote bags at some car shows. If you have to use them, the manly way, is to grab the side of the bag in your fist. Never use the handles. That's nancy boy. You're welcome.

 

Well, not HAMB friendly, but the AC went bad on my 2014 Forester. Would work for a few minutes, then need a rest, then work again. Traveling in Iowa, shop said it was low on refrigerant. Didn't solve the problem. Then, a good mechanic couldn't get it to fail. Finally took it to Subaru, right? First time, mechanic said it was too full of refrigerant, so high pressure switch is failing $170. Nope. Second time, same guy says definitely electro-magnetic clutches and wants $1700 to replace compressor after charging me another $160. Had compressor replaced at non-Subaru good shop-for only $900. Works fine-when it works, but still only 5 minutes at a time. Still the mechanic did what I asked. The Subaru guy-idiot. I sit down one night, look up system-spend $18.99 for a new relay at Autozone + five minutes in the fuse box-fully functional. Wrote to owner and shop steward at Subaru-no answer. Dr. Padmore, when I was in vet school 35 years ago, told us that for every problem you don't know the answer to, nine times out of ten you are not "Listening" to what the problem really is.Mine was intermittant-what could cause that?

 

I know a guy who was a GM Service School electrical systems instructor.... He always states that there are NO intermittent problems, but rather intermittent symptoms. Follow the symptoms to the problem...

 

Exactly. The problem is there all the time, even if the symptom may only show up once a month. The problem remains even if it doesn't cause a symptom, if there's dirt floating around in the carb occasionally plugging up a jet the dirt remains a problem even if it has moved away from the jet so the carb works perfectly for a while.
Unfortunately symptoms are the best lead to finding the actual problem, so finding and fixing it while the symptom isn't there can be very hard.

 

My brother's buddy buys a 351 Ford Cleveland that was supposedly just "rebuilt". So they get it home and pop a valve cover off... what do they find? SAND everywhere. So the engine comes apart. It was like it was built on the beach outside in a high wind. It was never fired up, but it needed to be torn down and cleaned. All the machine work was good.

 

I was around 14, I was with my brother who was 11. We were watching 2 guys up the block trying to start a freshly "rebuilt" 283 that was in an old straight-axle Falcon.

They had just tried 24 volts to get it to spin over and were setting up to hit it with 36 volts. My brother asks one, did you gap the piston rings? The brothers looked at each other. My brother at age 11 was a better mechanic than just about anyone.

Our neighbor had changed a short block in a '58 Ford about the same time. They were trying to light it off on a bitter cold evening. It was popping back through the carb... my brother utters that the distributor is 180 degrees off... they chased him out of there. The car was junked shortly after. They previously had tried to "fix" the old engine that threw a rod with a used rod/piston. The broken chunk of the block was put back with plastic steel. The oil pan was dummied up with who knows what.

 

I once had a cat as a patient who had been treated by various doctors for occasional vomiting-sick for a few days, treated, then better for a while. I finally convinced the client to let me x-ray her cat-and there was a penny inside the stomach-you could see Lincoln's head! Fortunately an old, solid copper penny, not a newer,toxic zinc one. When the penny blocked the outlet into the intestines, the cat vomited, when it moved away the cat was "better". The cat never got better from our treatment, until I removed the penny. Not cars, but another example of a permanent problem with intermittent signs.

 

50 year dealer tech vet here, mostly chevy and VW. had this handed down to me with a statement that it ran when pulled,. nice 1986 086 chevy 350, from a truck, good flat/roller tappet core. yah sure maybe it ran but for sure it smoked a TAD, maybe more than a tad . new heads and a 030 rebore, 010x010 crank cut ,light decking of the block
another that came my way, a real 1966 K code 289, the motor knocks when it ran, pickup plug'ed with silicon from reusing the old gaskets over on a cam swap, they threw away the hatchet weight , cam bearings had zero barbet left . 2 pistons had loose pins,
too boot both motors cam from the same mechanic.

 

Back in the 80s I worked at this shop owned by a friend of the family. We had a car come in that wouldn’t run and clattered something terrible when trying to start it. We checked the oil and the dipstick had this gritty grey film on it.
I pulled off the oil cap and inside there’s what looked like valve grinding compound visible.
Come to find out her ex sabotaged the engine by filling it with valve grinding compound.
The engine was a total loss.

 

I could nominate myself a couple times. (For the record I have since learned how to properly fix shit.)
I once replaced the entire ignition system, distributor and all, in my truck because it just shut off while warming up one morning and would only cough when trying to restart. It was out of gas...
I hotwired my beater daily driver with all red wires, and even used a light switch out of a house as the ignition switch, because nothing in the original wiring harness would work right. Turns out I forgot to bolt the ground strap to the engine when I reinstalled it, nothing was wrong with the wiring...
Learning things the hard way sure makes the lessons stick, I'll tell you that much for free.