Stupid things you've done while working on your vehicle

hscrugby

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Location
Raleigh, NC
Well last night I pissed myself off pretty good. (at myself. I have issues :( )
So I'm finally doing a SYE on my jeep. To start with i don't pay attention to what parts are in the bag and I assume it comes with a replacement retaining ring, since the last 2 I've done did.
It doesn't. I notice this AFTER I mangle the original one getting it off. But that's not the "stuipd" part.
I finally get the new one in from the dealer, and get the tcase all put together, sealed up, get ready to fill it with fluid, and realize,
I forgot to attach the oil pickup tube to the oil pump.
:shaking:
So I had to tear the damn thing COMPLETELY back apart, to "not forget" that step.

Felch.
at least I hadn't already filled the thing.

In addition to that, I've managed to put a dust shield on my front brakes rotated ~30 degrees. Bolts all fit, until I went to put the calipers on. So back off comes the hub, etc etc.
(And my wife always wonders why it takes me twice as long to do anything as it should on the jeep)

Anyone else care to share the stupid things they've done by not paying attention/hurrying to finish late at night?
 
More or less my stupid things hurt, instead of being time consuming.

Taking off the front lower control arm, Not paying Attn to what I am doing I manged to take the nut off, remove the bolt, and get hit in the had with the control arm as it swung down. Oops.
 
I had a similar TC folley... took it apart, replaced shifter fork, re-installed but forgot the center peice for the oil thrower that has the rounded gear teeth.... Had to take it apart again...

I have enough blood in my jeep to make it a relation..
 
One of the funniest ones I have been involved in was with my brother and an old Chevy van he had. I was about 15 and helped him replace the clutch. We pulled the tranny and put in the new clutch kit. When I was tightening the bolts down, the van started to rock back and forth on the ramps we had it on. I asked him if he had chocked the wheels, he said he didn't need to. He had left it in gear...

I looked from him, to the tranny laying on the floor, and back to him about 4 times before he realized the error of his ways.:shaking:
 
Pulled a radiator out that had a small hole in it. Layed it across the top of a garbage can (55 gallon drum with top cut off) sprayed brake clean on the surface really well to clean, fired up the torch to solder the hole closed. BOOM blew the barrel across my shop and burnt a good bit of facial hair off. I apparently had a good vapor cloud of brake clean contained in the barrel. I've never made that mistake again.
 
Picture this..................22 degrees outside, replacing a heater core in a tj...outside... I had the thru-dash cage so the old one would'nt come out in the normal direction. I had to remove entire dash, steering wheel and column, just to have rome to slide it left, then out. After all that extra work we finaly installed new one and buttoned everything back up.(mistake) Started it up and oh @#$^# the damn thing is shooting out fluid under the hood. I had ran a screw through the copper line during install. Had to do remove it all over again,braise the line and re-install. By this time it is around 20 degrees and very windy!

What a suckfest and no humor to be found.
 
burns

Anyone ever had brake kleen sprayed in ther eyes while both of you were under the hood? My eyes were on fire . Its was ok cause he had a dent in his head from the hood when I knocked the prop rod loose. It almost hurt as much as pepper spray.
 
Well, I seriously am not really sure how I havn't died yet, there have been sooo many almost life ending circumstances that I have have dimwitidly put myself into I seriously must have someone upstairs looking out for me.

I'm not going to go into all of them because I can think of about 7 different instances off hand that I almost died, seriously, just please people . . . . chock the wheels of the vehicle your working on, and make sure that the vehicle is supported well by jack/jackstands/whatever, in more then just one location while you're working on it especially not the part that your unbolting, also make sure you don't have sparks by the gas tank thats open that your either sitting or leaning on.


Otherwise you'll end up like I should have been several times :handed:
 
I feel this post is going to be a good one...

Being I don't mechanic for a living, I wasn't thinking and dropped my drive shaft on my 76 F-100 2wd to replace a bad rear u-joint from the rear end and forgot to scotch the tires. My driveway is on an incline and I found myself crawling on my back holding the drive shaft for dear life as it starts slipping and starts going faster and faster. I was screaming for anyone in the neighborhood as I was scooting on concrete on my back looking down at the 30 year old wore out saggy springed low front end coming at me knowing my big round head wouldn't squeeze through.
Adrenaline does wonders when you have eyes filled with death! I done a dive between the rolling front and rear tires when I couldn't hold the shaft no more to lay and watch my truck roll on down to the bottom. Was the fastest my heart ever beated besides the time I had a dog clamped on my hand one time. LOL Best thing to consider since I lived was that nobody saw me and ever knew this happened until now. :) Happened about 4 years ago.
Was the closest to death I believe I ever came. Although a vehicle is in Park means absolutely nothing without a driveshaft. From then on I make sure to scotch a couple of tires and pull e-brake and I HAVE to warn anybody getting ready to drop a drive shaft for my own consciousness...
 
haven't done the almost rolled over,
But I forgot about this one.
helping a buddy on his truck in the apt complex I used to live in.
Laid out in the parking lot, under his truck, (I forget what we were doing, but it was something with me under it)
I ask him to grab ______ wrench/hammer/something from the other side. He walks away, just then one of our other neighbors sees him outside by his car, decides to whip into the spot beside him to see what he's doing to his truck.
Unknown to him, that spot is currently occupied by my feet/legs.
And said feet are in flip flops. I saw him as he was almost over my feet, bashed both legs against the side of the truck, leaving two flip flops to get run over.

Since then, I wear normal shoes, and if in a parking lot, I try to put something big blocking the spots on both sides where I might be standing/laying/sitting to avoid the mangled feet.

Thanks for the memory. :( I had blocked that one pretty well from my mind.
 
I'm glad I have 2 eyes...
I was reassembling drum brakes, without the brake spring tool. I was using a flathead screwdriver to pull the return spring over the post. Well it was getting tight, almost there, when the spring slipped off and I jammed the screw driver square on the bridge of my nose. Ouch that would've hurt if I was 1/2" left or right.
 
no near death ones for me my dad tought me to be extra careful during my younger years because of all the stories he had while working in a shop for a few years, but have had a few funny ones, changed the oil in my '72 lemans and the old o-ring on the old filter didnt stay on the filter and got stuck on the engine, so when i put the new filter on it didnt have a good seal, two seals back to back and once i started it up the filter blew off and oil went every where luckily no harm done except loosing some oil
another one was i had a car up on jack stands and wanted it mobile so i put the jack stands on the single wheel car dolleys started pushing it to rotate the car and boom it falls immediately off the dolleys and puts a nice large chip in my garage floor
 
One I won't forget.

I got an MSD ignition box for my CJ. Note, I suck at Electrical, but this time I had directions. I got it all wired up, fired it up and hey, it worked. took it for a spin and forgot to latch down the hood. Ya, I'm sure many of us have been here before. I get on the entrance ramp to to highway and open her up to see what she'll do. I hit the end of the ramp and merging on when the hood flies up. scares the shit out of me. Oh, but that's not the end of the story.

Latch it down, get home and go to shut it off. It won't shut off. Apparently it's a typical problem with an easy fix. Engine run on, so it needs a diode. Ok, but I need to shut off the Jeep. COMPLETELY not thinking that I have a clutch and good brakes, I walk around, pop the hood, lean against the metal bumper reach up and grab the Coil wire..... at the distributor and pull it off. Hey Look, I'm a big ass Resistor now!

That sent me for a loop for several minutes. I just kinda walked around in a daze for about 5 minutes. That was way worse than being hit by 110V.
 
Another that Caver won't let me live down, so I may as well tell it.

I swapped out the Carb and Intake on the CJ. First time I'd been past the carb on an engine so it was new territory for me. Pull everything off, and stuff paper towels in the heads as not to get trash in heads while I cleaned the valley out.

Put the new Gasket on, Install Intake and Carb. Go to fire it up and she won't crank for nothing. Double check everything, still won't crank. Battery is getting lower and lower and all I'm getting is slight hit now and then. I happen to lean out and look back and see something black shoot out the tail pipe.

Burned paper towel. :mad: I pull a couple couple plugs and try to fish anything out that I can, but to no avail.

Call Caver for any ideas. He swings down and drags me behind the Moss while I'm in gear and ignition on. After about 2 laps around the block we were able to burn and blow everything out.
 
The worst doh for me is ruining the crank on the original 4.0 in my YJ. I was trying to swap the existing internal slave equipped ax-15 transmission for a newer one with an external slave cyllinder. So, I ended up needing to remove the pilot bushing in the YJ. I tried two different pullers, grease and a dowel rod to push it out. All with no success. So after scouring the intartubes for a better way to do it, I found a couple of folks suggesting drilling two holes on opposite sides of the bushing and removing it in pieces. I was further emboldened when I found stu olson recommending the same and documented it with pics.
awww.stu_offroad.com_engine_aw4_images_IMG_2781.JPG

So, I began and as I drilled I realized my engine/tranny being a 91 only had a bearing and that what I thought was a bushing was really the back side of the crank. Mad, mad, angry mad and a lot embarrassed.
But the mistake ended up causing me to be at the right place and the right time to end up with a new <5K miles factory take out 4.0 for a great deal. But explaining to my friends/relatives why i needed a new engine for the new tranny I was getting got old after a while.
 
replaced a differential and cv axle and didnt put locktite on the bolts that hold the lower ball joint and spindle together. A couple of bolts fell out and the other two broke off driving the wheel up into the fender and creating a lot of fun work.
 
mbalbritton said:
Burned paper towel. :mad: I pull a couple couple plugs and try to fish anything out that I can, but to no avail.

Call Caver for any ideas. He swings down and drags me behind the Moss while I'm in gear and ignition on. After about 2 laps around the block we were able to burn and blow everything out.
Click to expand...

wow. :lol:

kcarroll said:
The worst doh for me is ruining the crank on the original 4.0 in my YJ. I was trying to swap the existing internal slave equipped ax-15 transmission for a newer one with an external slave cyllinder. So, I ended up needing to remove the pilot bushing in the YJ. I tried two different pullers, grease and a dowel rod to push it out. All with no success. So after scouring the intartubes for a better way to do it, I found a couple of folks suggesting drilling two holes on opposite sides of the bushing and removing it in pieces. I was further emboldened when I found stu olson recommending the same and documented it with pics.
awww.stu_offroad.com_engine_aw4_images_IMG_2781.JPG

So, I began and as I drilled I realized my engine/tranny being a 91 only had a bearing and that what I thought was a bushing was really the back side of the crank. Mad, mad, angry mad and a lot embarrassed.
But the mistake ended up causing me to be at the right place and the right time to end up with a new <5K miles factory take out 4.0 for a great deal. But explaining to my friends/relatives why i needed a new engine for the new tranny I was getting got old after a while.
Click to expand...

don't feel bad, i didn't have a puller so I tacked a welding rod to the end of the bushing and tried to pop it loose. well, that was my idea anyway. I ended up not making a good tack and pulled the rod away. it hung a little and it scooted across the flywheel wrecking the $40 resurfacing job..........





nah, yours is worse :flipoff2:
 
I have a funny one that I did not do but was there to witness..

a fellow board member. is pissed cause he has a oil leak at the front main seal.. so he goes and buys new seal..

while he is pulling front seal off he slips and puts a big hole in radiator.. so we take radiator out and he has to get a new one.. then he puts new front seal on truck and goes to drive it..
But Damn it.. it still leaks.. ends up being that the oil pan bolts were loose..

all the work and money for a 5 sec fix.. heheheh
 
This weekend was pretty good. Simple task for the morning was change the fan belt in the yj.

step 1-go get belt from unnamed auto store
step 2-install
step 3-realize its the wrong belt
step 4-put on old belt and drive back to autostore
step 5-install new belt
step 6-realize that not once but 2x they gave me the wrong belt
step 7-drive back to store and finally get the right belt
step 8-not once but twice turn bolt the wrong way and pop off a pulley
step 9-get really drunk and try and forget it took 3 hours to do a 5min job.
 
Rejetting a Kawasaki Vulcan

You think that'd be simple but I'd never worked on a carb before.

So part #1, was removing part of exhaust system to make it louder. errr flow better, that's it.

Part #2, is removing gas tank, carb, diassembling, installing new jets and needles. Gotta get more gas to go with that better airflow, right?

So it's all back together and it's ~11pm. I fire it up, wow! that's loud! sounds a little rough. Fair amount of backfiring and such. I joke with my buddy that it sounds like a Harley now.

Next day I discover I only had one spark plug wire on.

Moral of the story, Jap cruiser running crappy on 1 cylinder sounds a lot like a Harley.

2nd moral of the story. Exhaust, airbox, rejet mods are overrated. I ended up with 10x the noise. as mileage dropped from 45mpg to 35mpg. Probably from me wringing it out trying to find the mythical added performance.
 
BRUISER said:
I have a funny one that I did not do but was there to witness..
a fellow board member. is pissed cause he has a oil leak at the front main seal.. so he goes and buys new seal..
while he is pulling front seal off he slips and puts a big hole in radiator.. so we take radiator out and he has to get a new one.. then he puts new front seal on truck and goes to drive it..
But Damn it.. it still leaks.. ends up being that the oil pan bolts were loose..
all the work and money for a 5 sec fix.. heheheh
Click to expand...
Too soon...

But I know a guy on the board that had his injection pump rebuilt, and spent 3 or 4 nights bleeding the injectors, broke THREE banjo bolts in the process, only to find out that the pump was reassembled wrong. That did suck
 
Back
Top