Done a BIGTIME automotive screwup?

Post by **matthew1** » 24 Apr 2009, 13:46

Back in high school I took the carburetor off my family's (not my) Chrysler Horizon (Dodge Omni clone). I figured if I didn't actually change any settings on it I'd be ok.

Took it in the house and cleaned it. Then I put it back on the engine and started her up.

vrooooOOOOOVVVVVVV

Regardless of throttle, it would rev until redline. I shut the car off to keep it from exploding. My dad made me drive it to the dealer to get repaired, following me in the other car. It was only a mile away, and it was a 4-speed manual, thankfully.

I had to turn the car off while idling at a light, and had to apply the brakes a few times while it was in gear moving.

My dad still jokes with me about that whenever I tell him I'm working on my Volvo. "Fixing the carburetor on the Volvo huh?"

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 24 Apr 2009, 17:04

I know a guy who pumped gasoline into a diesel-engined fire truck. Ruined the engine and cost $8,000 to fix.

Another guy pumped gasoline into the water tank (for fighting fires) of a different fire truck. Didn't cost anything to fix, but it was embarrassing.

And then there's the guy who pumped Jet-A into a piston-engined airplane. Luckily the pilot was able to make an emergency landing and no one was killed. Both engines had to be rebuilt at a cost of about $10,000.

I also know a person who changed a tire and didn't tighten the lug nuts, then asked "Why is my wheel making that noise?"

I knew another guy who asked me to diagnose why the car he was using (he borrowed it from a Doctor friend of his) wouldn't move anymore when he tried to drive it. Turned out that a CV boot was torn on one of the driveshafts and he just kept driving it until the shaft broke completely in half.

57buzzard · Post by **57buzzard** » 24 Apr 2009, 18:07

My Dad watched me fix the rad in 15 minutes on the road after I took an errant truck part in the grill.
He was suitably impressed and never said that 'everything I touch turns to crap' ever again.

Post by **stone36** » 25 Apr 2009, 08:42

In High school I was working on my parents Audi 5000 (yeah that's right

). I don't even remember what I was doing, but I took out a bolt from the power steering system, it was a bolt that was hollow and had two holes that let fluid pass through it. While putting it back on I was using a ratchet that was WAY to big, and this is where I learned my first lesson on leverage. I just kept tightening and the head snapped off. Given the bolt was hollow and fed PS fluid, the car wasn't going anywhere. Did I mention it was a Friday afternoon in the early 90's, not exactly the resources for parts and info we have today. I spent Saturday at the pick a part going through Audi's and VW's trying to find a match. I eventually found one that was clearly not to spec, but got the car home (with very erratic steering) while I waited for the correct part to come in, from the dealer of course (it was the early 90's

).

Post by **matthew1** » 25 Apr 2009, 10:29

Audi 5000 -- I loved those. My family only had frumpy American cars (no pre-70s American cars anyway).

One day in high school I got my hands on a radar detector. YES! I CAN NOW GO FAST, and I promptly went out to speed on the highway -- in my dad's 1988 Olds Cutlass.

The car wouldn't go over 70mph.

It was such a pathetic POS 4-cylinder. I could get over 70, but only downhill.

My grandparents had an identical Olds, and the engine seized on it. My grandfather was an airline mechanic, so I'm sure it wasn't user error.

Post by **stone36** » 25 Apr 2009, 11:33

matthew1 wrote:Audi 5000 -- I loved those. My family only had frumpy American cars (no pre-70s American cars anyway).
.

Same for me with the exception of the powder blue datsun 210 (nicknamed the blue bomb) that my dad could make backfire on command anytime we drove under a bridge on the highway... man that sucker sounded like a shotgun.

He was talked into the 5000, it was an 88 and a "great" deal, turns out though that those seemed to go bad at 60K. A friend told us later buy them with 40K and sell by 60 or buy with 85K because everything would be fixed by then. Bought ours with 60K...

Since then they have had 5 saturns in a row, but I got them from a PC to a Mac so I think I can get them from saturn to Volvo...

Post by **matthew1** » 25 Apr 2009, 11:41

stone36 wrote:Since then they have had 5 saturns in a row, but I got them from a PC to a Mac so I think I can get them from saturn to Volvo...

My mom had a '92 Saturn 5-speed. First week she had it, not being used to driving a manual after so many automatics, she left it in neutral w/ no parking brake. It rolled out of the garage, down the driveway, and knocked down a stop sign. Luckily nobody was hurt.

Post by **billofdurham** » 25 Apr 2009, 15:51

My first ever repair was to reface the contact breaker points in the distributor of my 1955 Standard 10, called Mathilda. I had taken my parents to visit my uncle and Mathilda was running like a bag of hammers. He diagnosed the problem as pitted points and told me how to get them out, clean and reface them which I did in his garage. When I put them back in Mathilda wouldn't start. As was to be expected the battery went flat so out came the good old crank handle. She still wouldn't start. Uncle got his hands dirty but couldn't find the problem, but he was a plumber whose taps always dripped so we didn't think much of his mechanical abilities anyway.

We got home on the end of a tow rope. The next day our neighbour, who had been a chauffeur when Adam was a boy, took off the distributor cap, looked at the points and pointed out that I had put a wire on the wrong side of an insulator. Thirty seconds later Mathilda was running as sweet as a sewing machine.

Needless to say I learned two lessons by my mistake:
1. Never let my uncle near my car.
2. When contemplating a repair visit my neighbour, armed with a couple of bottles of his favourite beer, and get him to supervise me.

For those of you wondering what the contact breaker points do or what is a crank handle this happened in 1961.

Bill.

dan2286 · Post by **dan2286** » 25 Apr 2009, 22:47

I tried to attempt to put the V-belts back on my 86 Cutlass in the dark outside. From what I could tell everything went back together fine. The next day I noticed one of the belts were put on up side down and it was squealing and was causing the p/s not to work that well. I figured it would be fine to get me home, but the belt ended up coming off. I noticed the temp gauge was in the red zone and the p/s was even worse and steam was coming up through the hood. I ended up having to have it towed home.

I never try to fix important things at night anymore