Admitting a Mechanical Mistake (Whats Yours)?

Gaped points at the low side of the distributor cam.
I was in a hurry ok, ha.

 

?????

 

had to lol at this one

physics can be a bitch

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=700279

lesson learned.

 

I was just about to post this... I was 14 and it was my first engine...Yep my first engine had 10.5-1 compression . I had it all together and I was ready to bolt it to the trans..had I installed the rockers and adjusted to valves I would have figured it out sooner but my rockers wern't here yet and I was impatient. I went to bolt up the flexplate and the thing wouldn't turn over all the way. luckily I was just using a wrench on the balancer. It would turn about a quarter turn either way then stop... When I blew it apart I noticed that the machine shop had thoughtfully marked the pistons "front", I just didn't notice when I put em in the holes I guess! Havn't done it again since...I have however managed to install the plug wires backwards on the cap numerous times..one actually ran! It ran like shit but it ran. I called a local mechanic to come give it a second ear and he walked around it a couple times before he figured out what I did wrong...I still havn't heard the end of it!

Race

 

I was working at a shop servicing heavy trucks. The FNG at the shop was changing the oil on a Detroit and got in a huge hurry to get home at the end of the day. He forgot to put the filters on and when he fired it up, the 40 quarts of oil he filled it with hit the floor instantly. It's amazing how fast the oil pump will empty the pan. It made a HUGE mess on the floor. Luckily he got it shut down before it did any damage to the engine.

 

I got an angle grinder. I can make anything except a mistake. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

 

Putting the rods on the crank journal to check clearance with plasigauge. Was distracted talking. Noticed the torque didn't feel right. Took it apart to find my new arp bolt stripped. I forgot to use lubricant on it. Try to buy just one arp bolt..

 

at the all-knowing age of 17, I helped a friend put his '59 348 back together after he had the heads/valves reworked.

everything went back together OK, but it only took a coupla turns on the starter to turn about half the pushrods into pretzels.

just a note to pass on..... pushrods have 2 different lengths in a 348

 

Back in my teen years I had just rebuilt the 406 in my '63 Galaxie. After installing the engine in the car I could only get a very weak spark. I tried everything I knew about a point distributor for two nights. When I got home from work on the third afternoon I sat down in the drivers seat and in my mind went over everything about ignition systems. Frustrated I turned the ignition key to on and noticed the factory temperature gauge went to hot. I knew exactly what was wrong. After switching the wire to the coil and the wire to the temperature gauge the engine fired right up when I cranked it.

 

16 years old and I was upgrading the rear end in my 50 Plymouth. I had already installed a 283 and T-10 transmission, with a slim shady homebuilt driveshaft running to the stock rear. I knew that was not going to make it, so I bought a 67 Camaro 12 bolt (pretty much bolted in). The plan was to get a real driveshaft made for it and to hook up emergency brakes.

The reason I needed an ebrake was that on the stock Plymouth, the ebrake is on the tranny, so with the T-10 and stock Plymouth rear, I had no emergency brake.

I lived in Brooklyn at the time and did all my work on the street. For this work I scored big. My sister was going to let me do the work in her driveway.

She had a big old house in a nice area. The driveway sloped uphill at a very sharp angle, and there was a level area at the top where I would do my work.

So, all I needed to do was to drive the car up the driveway, jack and block it, and get to work. Right? Simple.

Oh, forgot to mention, for some reason that I don't remember, the car had no brakes - a bad wheel cylinder or something.

Well, I am driving the car up the driveway and I somehow managed to stall the engine right at the top of the hill. No problem, I though, I will just switch off the ignition and let compression stop the car. Right? Simple.

The driveway was so steep that even with the ignition off the motor just windmilled sweet as can be as the car accelerated backwards DOWN the hill. And there I am behind the wheel, no brakes, no emergency brakes, and to engine braking.

For some reason I did not steer the car sideways for it to grind to a halt on the concrete walls on either side - this driveway was really narrow. I just held on.

Now, this was a fairly busy street in Brooklyn. Pedestrians, kids playing, buses every couple of minutes, traffic constantly, and - usually - a car parked right across the street, opposite my driveway.

I guess the rod gods were with me that day, as there were no pedestirans, kids, buses, traffic or parked cars behind me. The probability of everything being clear at the same time is frighteningly low. But I lucked out.

I sailed down the driveway, into the street, across the street, up the curb on the other side and my Plymouth embedded itself halfway into the hedges in front of the house on the other side.

Embarrassed, I fired that thing up, revved it, and drove it right back across the street and up the driveway at a pretty good clip so that it would not stall again. Got it all the way to the top, on the level, then killed it and put it in first. It stayed put.

Installed the Camaro rear, and all was well. Never did hook up the ebrakes, though.

To get rid of the stock Plymouth rear, I humped it down to the curb. The good old NYC Sanitation Dept. guys threw it in the back of their garbage truck on the next regular pickup.

Gotta love Brooklyn.

 

installed throwout bearing wrong, when 19...as MANY people do, put bearing under tabs, not over it so it would pivot correct....I am sure I am not alone on this or at least you guys have seen it

 

Anyone who hasn't done this shouldn't be on the HAMB.

 

I had a part in something like that at work a couple months ago. We managed to shear of some studs in the process though.

Did the head gasket and put in a new cam in the 250 in my nova when i was 18. Went to fire it up and it wouldn't start. Fought with it for a while, worried that I messed somehting big up I had pops come take a look at it. Pops takes one look at it and plugs in the coil in. Waddya know? Fires right up.

Not something i did but I saw a guy at work pour 12qts of 15/40 into a cummins with out a drain plug. That made a nice "little" mess.

 

A tooth or two off when installing a new cam/timing set. The bent push rods were the first hint to my mistake.

 

If anyone sees me do that, I tell em I was practicing.

 

I did something similar with my first car ('74 Nova) We got the engine put together, ready to fire up and my dad asked if I had hooked up the TC. I crawled under the car and realized I forgot to put the TC in the tranny before dropping the engine in. OOPS He still reminds me of it after 16 years.

 

Agreed. If you're posting on the HAMB usually you're about to fuck something up OR already did and learned from it.

 

haha, I practice soldering wires all the time before I put the shrink tubing on...

Installed new clutch and pressure plate, put the trans back in, then spot the throwout bearing on the bench.

Helped my buddy in high school flip the rearend under the springs in his 57 Chev to raise it up...... 3 reverse gears and one forward.

Took up the 'car hobby' instead of collecting stamps

 

this thread has much shame.

 

Ha Ha! I've never done that!

 

I had one of them glass bowl fuel filters on my truck and I put it in backwards. Changed 2 fuel pumps and ran new fuel line and pulled my hair out til I figured out I had it backwards!!

 

i almost made the same mistake in reverse on a 65 k code with 3/8 rod bolts. caught it before i put the pan on. the 2brl std. 289 had 5/16 bolts. live and learn. it gives us something to talk about now. lol

 

All of the above,,,,twice!

 

Won a brand new 290 horse Chevy 350 crate engine. Installed it in a '39 Ford tudor. Ran fine. Drove it to a little paint shop for a full paint job (in January, in the N.C. mountains.)Turns out I had neglected to put antifreeze in it, and the shop turned off the heat over the weekends. Not only pushed out the freeze plugs, but cracked the casting in the lifter valley area.

 

We all have one of those days.....

In the haste to hook up my heater hoses to try to get the transmission to engage into gear, I hooked up one of my heater hoses to the bulk head fitting going to the A/C Evaporator.

Its a Vintage Air Mini GEN II system on a 49 Ford Pickup.

The Good:
- Ive only had a few of the A/C lines crimpped so far, so I didnt have any lines going to the compressor.. It was still capped off with the caps from the factory and not subject to my follies.

- I pulled the lines of the condensor and blew the coolant out of it.

The Bad:
I had the A/C Lines ran to the entire A/C system but the compressor.

- The Drier was totally full of engine coolant.

- I pulled the lines off the Evaporator and blew them out. Ton of antifreeze and water came out along with the oil that the unit comes with from the factory. You know how water and oil when mixed turns kinda a milky white? This crap looked like a green neon milk shake!

 

Built a SBC using a balanced rotating assembly kit. After putting some time on the engine, it seemed to have lots of blow-by, but still ran great I figured the rings were not quite seated. The problem got worse and the engine was pushing lots of oil out the breathers. A leak-down test showed it was time to take it apart. Pulling the first piston found the top ring in several pieces but still in the groove. Turns out my kit supplied me with 1/16" rings for the pistons that were supposed to have 5/64" rings. I didn't check ring side clearance because it was new parts. I got lucky without any cylinder wall damage. Just goes to show that you should check everything new parts or, not.

 

I had a 1958 Chevy years ago when I first got out of high school...It was a ragtop with a 327 and three-on-the-tree.....now when I started the engine it would smoke from the right side tailpipe until it warmed up....then it smoked only a little every time I shifted the trans...So my friends and I decided to change the valve guide seals and we removed both heads to do the job....we found two different style heads !!...one had a small rectangular block on each end, and the other had double camel humps !!...I bought the car for $600....and it ran fine....this is the way I bought it....we found a pair of matching heads and put them on and all was good.

 

i could write a book on the mistakes i made but im afraid some of our customers might read it! lol but the funniest thing ive done lately is having my wifes ot67 impala up on stands. fresh build and was checking trans and shifter.had the car in gear and i got out of it for some reason. back wheel spinning while the car sat there idling. i thought id put my foot on the spinning wheel to stop it. why i dont know.maybe it was late. anyway me being crippled up didnt help my dance none. when my foot hit that wheel i took off across the shop like i had wings and hit the wall runnin. i cant run. im crippled up. my cousin was laughing so hard at me i was close to shootin him. but after i found out i didnt brake any bones and i didnt hurt no worse than i normally do . i thought about it damn it was funny.