changing a cambelt on a peugeot 309, fitted belt and aligned everything, thought I would start it to double check it ran ok. Ran fine so gave it a couple of revs and bang !!!. I had not bolted crank pully back on and bent a few valves, head off ect ect ect. Not made that mistake twice lol.

 

just a few weeks ago i fit some 6" door speakers and tweeters into the front of mine. itll only take an hour i thought, so i stripped the doors and took out old speakers and housing, sat speakers into door and thought "nice 1, what a good fit", thought it would be easier riviting than screwing them in place. put door cards back on. went out in car later on , went to put my window down. . . and then it stopped when it hit the magnet on the back of speaker! was wel pist!! had to strip it all down, drill the rivets out, make some mdf packers. screw speakers back in place (... 2days later as i didnt have any screws the right size) check the windows worked and put it back together again.

 

I had just finished an oil change, and quite pleased with myself I jumped in the car and tried to reverse off the ramps. But for some reason I was having great difficulty doing so, anyway I gave it a touch more gas, when all of a sudden the front of the car dropped to the floor with the ramps accelerating forwards at a colossal rate colliding into the garage wall 15 feet away, obliterating anything in their path.

My dad was stood in front of the car, luckily he was central and the ramps just shot passed him. Would have snapped his legs like twigs.

Anyway after I picked my jaw up off the floor, walked around the car I had realised my schoolboy error. I had only left the bricks behind the rear wheels

Was frightening at the time, but me and the ol' man have a good laugh about it now

 

fantastic -- its amazing we are all alive, and thank god we dont work in F1 or WRC

 

no, I never did have a wagon, mineses is a 93 1.6GL classic

windyboy

 

its the one with the stickers all over it , and bullet hole stickers on it and so on, i was saying wagon as in motor, car, vehicle etc.lol

 

thats the one LOL

I got one of those... phanarr phanarr

 

Can't think of anything off the top of my head but there ususally are some dumbass mistakes whenever i touch the car.
Good to know I am not alone.
Keep em coimg, it's brightening up my lunch break

 

Having watched F1 pit stops for a while.... I think we are just as good !

My best one was attempting to change the steering rack, started by jacking up the car on a scissor jack, and then knocking it off the jack, trapping me under the car....

17 is no age to die so I calmly reached round behind my head screwed it down again, then plonked it upright and lifted the car enough to slide out.

Took me nearly an hour because I could barely breathe 'cos of the weight.....

I couldn't even shout for help as my chest was a bit squashed.

Could have been a lot nastier if the engine hadn't been in the rear, Hillman Imp.

dunx

 

Tryin to get a hub off with a big hammer and i missed and hit my self in the face.lol
And i welded a back box on my old golf and they used solder to fill the the little pins holes that worked well untill it got hot.

 

Wasn't on a car but on my ERV - Electronic Repair Vehicle (sounds far better than what it is)
In the vehicle was a Farady cage which is a bit dark, I was soldering one of the lights back in and decided that it was a bit dark so I flipped the lights on, which was great I could now see, however, once I connected with my soldering iron to the now live wires there was a wee pop and lots of glass in my face.


Another I was involved in but not responsible for was when we were in the servicing bay and I was changing the fluid in the hubs of my Bedford, after doing one wheel we needed the wheels on full lock in the other direction that they were currently in. I step out from under the bedford but still down in the pit stand in front of it so I could let my mate know when it was over enough.
For some reason he started it and it was in gear and handbrake off, the Bedford shot forward towards me and luckily being as short as I am I tucked a little bit/enough for it to go just over my head.

Oh how we laughed afterwards.

 

Regular one that hurts at the time but makes me laugh ...


Car jacked up and you bang your head on the bottom of the car while moving around, the reaction is to move away and then hit the back of your head on the floor

Tell me I am not the only one who has done this !!!

 

Had the head off a 309GTi to replace the valve stem seals. As usual had all the bits laid out in sequence in a drip tray on the garage floor so I didn't have to think too hard on reassembly. Head back on, cam about to go in, hears a tinkling sound behind me. My son, still in nappies bless him, playing sandcastles with all the shiney things. Laughs and thinks "no worries, bearing caps are numbered". Fit the caps and commence torquing. CRACK goes a bearing cap, just as I remember that the silly French number from the flywheel end, not the timing belt end, DOHHH!

 

Your not alone lol, its ether that or get a bit of flakey rust in eye and turn your head and headbutt he jack or somthing.


]

 

me and my apprentice was doin a service on a ford ka the other week and i put it up on ramp with engine running while i checked exhaust etc. only for it to start making funny noises, (he had took sump plug out with engine running!) my god what a funny site it was, managed to switch it off on time so wasnt too bad just messy,

 

Many moons ago whilst at work,a work mate decided to save some money and buy from a scrappers some rear strut thingys to hold his rear window glass up on his Scimitar, beautiful looking motor, anyway took the old knackered ones off and measured them off he went to get the secondhand ones.

Came back with 'em pleased as punch, came of a Robin and said they where exactly the same so on they went, looked about right so he slams the window shut and the whole window shatters into a thousand pieces

So he then has to ring up Scimitar owners club to source a new window and decides to bite the bullit and orders two new struts as well but decides to fit it himself, so gets all the correct parts gets new rubber edgeing for the glass and glue stuff fits all the lot and looks better even shuts without breaking anything.

He then notices that a little bit of the glue stuff has left some marks on the glass so decides to clean it with some cleaning fluid we used to have at work called R1 anyway has he rubs the glue off he tilts his head to have a look and tilts the can of R1 at the sametime thus pooring some on the paintwork and then start to merrily wipe it off as he does it fetches the bright red paint off straight down to the primer

So the whole money saving effort ended up costing him best part of £600 instead of paying £19.99 in the first place for some new strutts. Never did have much luck with his motors but he never stopped p*ssing about with them.

 

Slackened off all the unions on the fuel pump of the Mrs's Golf GTI, turned the key, and wuff up it went, total burn out, nearly took the next door kebab shop with it. That was pretty idiotic i think you'll agree!

 

Removing a rear diff/axle from a Toyota Celica. Bolts were totally seized even after loads of heat etc. So went at the bolts with a drill. Problem was the drill was totally underpowered for the job n got too hot n then exploded, sending the drill bit through the floor of the car and into the roof, missing my mates head on it's way by a few mm

 

changed a cam belt in my old saph cosworth but moved the crank a tooth or so out needless to say that was 1 engine that needed replacing

 

Over the years I've worked on my own car's alot and whilst working in various garages some customer's vehicles too.
Working on an old MGB Roadster with wire wheels...didn't quite hit the wheel spinners hard enough as the owner found out at 60mph on his way home
Luckily he got away with it, no real damage to the car and we sorted it out for him but he did leave a nice 1/2" trench on a famous Welsh road
Got distracted once whilst topping up the oil level after a full service on another customer's car, to be fair someone else decided I had finished & let the customer go so they drove off with about 4 litres of oil in there car instead of 4.75 litres. I realized my mistake and we let him know that he needed to top up the oil a "little".
Not really working on my car but I once bought four brand new £105 (each) tyres for my Seat Ibiza "system Porsche tuned" hatchback....blew one out on the way home (by hitting a curb moving over for a woman on a phone)so had to change the wheel (she just drove off BTW). Found out quickly I didn't have a jack handle so improvised with the brace....then found that the brace was too short to remove the newly "air wrenched" on nuts plus it was not quite the correct size and was trying to round off the nuts! rang my Dad who came to my rescue with a new brace Went back to the garage...got another tyre, £105 later and I'm sitting at home thinking "what a day?".
Wrong! next day crashed the car barrel rolling down a hill.....writing it off and I couldn't even salvage the tyres as they where fooked after the crash (blew two out on landing after take off).






not admisable evidence in a court of law

 

Fingers crossed ive never done any major damage to myself, I do always end up bleeding from my hands and ive put my back out undoing the bolts that hold the wishbones on

 

i remember trying to get the flywheel of my Mini Cooper S engine

it is a friction fit on the crank so on fvcking tight -- I had the engine on its side and went thru, over the course of 3 evenings(it was in a lockup) several flywheel pullers, each bending out of shape before making any headway on the flywheel

I would make longer and longer extensions (each visit) using various combinations of sockets and extension bars until they bowed thru a 30 degree angle

the energy that the whole thing contained was frightening

out of fustration one evening I hit the center nut of the puller with a hammer, missed and hit the flywheel -- well the whole fvcking lot shot up 2 foot in the air, and the flywheel hovered like a demented frisbee and then shot to the other end of the lockup, missing me and the car.

fvck me

 

Once me and my dad were doing a simple oil change on my saxo then i had to nip out half way through, leaving the car on axle stands with no oil, my dad went in for some lunch, then I got back, topped up the oil then went in for lunch then dad went out and also topped up the oil. There was a lot of smoke and puzzled faces before we realised what had happened lol. Also managed to put a screw driver through a panel filter once when i tripped. haha

 

Great thread lol

Nothing too serious here, but i left the oil cap off once after an oil change and didn't notice until i had an extremely messy engine bay.

I've since developed a tendency to check everything approximately 8 times.....

 

i had to tow my mates pug 205 home from work after it would not start a few years back, couldnt belive how much my bravo hgt was labouring all the way home, then realised my mate had left hand break on in his 205 lol,

also after draining used oil on the scoob the other week went to put sump nut back in and droped it in tub of used oil wasnt impressed trying to get it back out,

also many years ago working on my xr2i, my mate thought it would be funny to tell me to remove the oil filter using a screwdriver straight through it and me only been 17 and not having a clue really about cars agreed, well lets jus say lesson lernt lol

 

I bought a nice genuine subaru oil filter and splashed out on some Silkolene oil to do my last oil change costing about 65 quid in total. Fitted the filter and it seemed to go on ok then carefully put the oil in making sure to get it exactly in-between the markers. Feeling quite proud, I gave the engine a quick start to make sure everything was ok but after a few seconds I heard a pop. Thought for a second then shut off the engine and went to inspect. The oil filter can come off and the car had pumped 4 odd liters of premium oil all over my drive

For some reason a previous owner had decided to fit an oil filter relocation kit but it didn't take a regular oil filter.. the threads were slightly different. Tuned out I need a filter from a 2002 Ford Ka

After it happened I just laughed went inside to make a cuppa tea and watch the tennis.

 

worst thing ive done is use a drying blade to dry my car ended up with a long scratch down the middle of my bonnet

 

This reminds me of when a mate brought round his brand new Boxter a few years ago. There we were stood on the pavement with me doing the usual bit of tyre kicking, when he says "take it for a spin and tell me what you think" and throws me the keys.
I went to catch them, missed and they went straight down the gulley.
You should have seen the look on his face, worse than dropping the catch to win England the ashes!!!
The little lad that lived across the road, vanishes and re-appears in minutes with a little fishing rod. I says your wasting your time lad, that'll never work in a million years. When f@ck me, he only goes and hooks the keys first time, and out they come straight into my mates grateful grasping fingers.
So I said, "shall we throw em in again and see if he can do it again?"

 

fitted a new boost guuge in my car the other day and didnt know i had pushed the button ontop of my steering colum for the parking lights, spent ages checking all my wires thinking my boost gauge was makeing my lights stay on, then i found that switch

Ive also done the oil change and forgot to put the sump plug back in