Street Rat

Anybody have something stupid happen while working on your cars?

If it's weird, unusual, and has never happened to anyone before... well that applies to me.

The latest issue that I encountered, happened while changing transmission fluid and filter on my C3. I have a TH200 4R with a deep aluminum pan. The fluid and filter change went well. I put the pan gasket and pan back on and filled with fluid.

I started the car and it was stuck in park. I looked underneath the car to find any problems with the shifter cable. Everything looked good. I couldn't move the shift shaft lever out of park either.

The culprit?
The cotter pin for the cable linkage at the transmission. One end of the cotter pin had become squished between the pan and the transmission case. It prevented the lever from moving out of park. After replacing the cotter pin the transmission shifted in and out of gear perfectly.

Craig

chazde3

When a friend and I were dropping my 68 body back down onto the rolling chassis we had a hiccup. Due to how the lift setup and straps was done we had to lower each side a little at a time. About 6 or 8 inches from being down on the chassis one of the straps came off the body and caused that whole side of the car to literally drop onto the chassis. There was my 68, one side planted on the chassis leaning at probably a 10-15 degree angle. We got the other side down and it ended up sitting exactly where we wanted it to be on the chassis.

sug

Here is my stupid repair story .Just put in a new dewitts radiator and after a couple of weeks thought I would change the timing chain and sprockets .No need to remove radiator just fan and fan shroud . Going good got large sprocket off and chain .Small sprocket had some resistance got my two hands in there and started pulling oh no flew off straight into my new rad now I have a hole in the middle of my new dewitt rad .Had a go at fixing it with some high temp solder with no luck .Two dewitts radiators in a month ($900 AUS each) So note to self when doing timing chain remove radiator.

DUB

I cannot respond to this due to I have so many...

DUB

Bergerboy

New Oil Pan Confessional:
Got a new pan and gasket set to replace the beat-up one on my '69 SB.
My main goal was to replace the rear main seal, which I suspected of a slow drip on my garage floor.
The removal of the pan and the replacement of the rear main seal went just as instructed on this forum (thanks!).
Put the new gasket and pan up and buttoned everything up nice and snug, torqueing all the bolts in proper succession.
Filled-up with new oil and started her up.
No leak, but had a nice tap-tap-tap coming from my nice new oil pan!
I could feel it on the bottom of the pan, even though it sounded like it was coming from top-side.
Dropped the pan again and thought for sure I had a pan with a slightly shallower baffle that one of the crank/piston caps was knocking against.
So I went and did some internal metal shaping of the baffle to get it cleared of the rotating bearing cap.
Buttoned her up again, refilled the oil, started her up, and ......same rapping noise!!
Arrrghh.
Decided to partially drop the pan at the front and peek in there with my cell phone camera.
What I saw was pretty embarrassing:
The rapping noise was actually coming from the oil sump/inlet, which I failed to make sure was tucked UNDER the baffle shelf, so it was getting knocked by the bearing cap, once per rev!! (didn't remember that the sump tube had a rotating joint to the pump body, and it hit the baffle each time I went to install the pan, and stayed on top of it!)
Picture attached is the "after" photo, just before buttoning it up for the last time. Notice the oil sump properly placed BELOW the baffle shelf. But mainly notice the surgical-like quality of my metal work on the suspected baffle!
Live and learn!
Fortunately, this lesson only cost me an extra 10 quarts of oil, and a longer afternoon than I planned to be under the car!

drwet

I've got no shortage of stupid repair stories too, but this one's probably the dumbest. Back when I was a teenager, I had hair. Lots of it. (It was the 70's.) One day I was home alone changing the oil on my car. I was using a creeper and as I rolled under the car I managed to get my hair tangled up in one of the wheels. I lay there for close to an hour trying to get untangled. Lost a little in the process. I've lost most of the rest of it since.

C376FL

I also have done some dumb things. I guess you live and learn. In the middle 70's I had a 67 GMC pickup, with a big v6 that weighed a ton. I got a little 283 to replace it . A year before replacing the engine I had to put in a new fuel pump. I was home alone, the wife was gone. When I got the old pump off I was playing with it in the driveway, when I pushed on the plunger real hard, and I could not have had the pump aimed any better when gas shot up straight into my eyes. needless to say I dropped the pump and did my best to make my way into the house, to the kitchen sink and flushed my eyes for about thirty minutes. I can't remember if I ever changed another fuel pump after that, but I am sure I probably did, but I sure did not push on the plunger again.

Rescue Rogers

I had a 89 mitsubishi montero with springloaded rear seat for lifting and lowering it. It must weigh close to 100 lbs. I want to make it easier to get in and out of the truck since i was using if for MTB racing and hauling tools for my business.

Well I pulled the seat out, pulled the mecahnism off the seat, but it was still locked in the down position, sooooo, pull the lever and the bracket swung up full force right into my face. I couldnt see out of my right eye and I could make out blood and a mess in my right hand. All I remember sayng was please let my Eye still be in my head.

I made it into the house and took a bit of time getting the blood cleaned up and I could see a big gash above my eye in my eyebrow. Luckily my eye still worked but that was a biggest scare too my body related to a car repair.

A couple of motorcyle accidents were more seerious. The worst thing that happened to any vehicle repairing it was last weekend putting the motor back in my 68. I had the drivers side wheel off to get the crane under it better and it was sitting on my quickjack. well I should have taken the passenger wheel off because when I lowered it it rested on the wheel and drivers side was resting on the engine lift leg which made it sit at an angle. Well lift the car and lowering it had the jack lifting it at an angle and it messed with the rubber blocks.

Well it slid off the lift onto the jack on the engine lift and messed up the fender paint pretty good and cracked it in 2 places, bad enough to **** me off but not bad enough to ruin driving it . Now I'm looking at a paint job and body work some time in the future. I'm guessing after I clean up the frame. 2-5 years out I guess

c3_dk

Well I used brand new Comp Cams rocker nut (cut thread) on brand new set of AFR heads with ARP rocker studs (rolled thread), don't do that !

They don't like each other !!

DavidandJoansVette

Many ,many years ago tuning up my first wife's 67 Corvair. Plugs, wires, cap the whole she bang. Buttoned everything up and it wouldn't fire. Pulled the plugs and wires no help. Finally pulled the distributor cap and found....no rotor! Put the rotor button on and it ran like a top. The beer I had been consuming while doing this probably contributed to the problem.

Lyndwood

Berger Boy ,FYI - there's problem waiting to happen, oil sump not pushed in all the way and you should braze the sump on so it doesn't drop off or at least safety wire it to the main housing before it drops off and cause's your engine to blow due to no oil. if you can't braze or or safety wire you can buy a pre-set bolt on pick up or buy a pump pick up bolt on retainer like this.

C3 4ME

That's pretty much my story too. On my 71 Cutlass as a teenager doing a tuneup, mine wouldn't start either. When I noticed 2 rotor buttons sitting on the radiator support, I quickly figured out the problem. Sadly that was after about an hour of trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

C376FL

Reading your post brought back something we would do to a friend when we were changing pionts and condensor when we were young. We would take the condensor and stick the end of it into a spark plug wire and charge it. We then would lay it down where we were working and another friend would come up and we told them to hand us the condensor. you can guess what would happen when they picked it up. I know that was bad, but it was for a good laugh. It happened to me one time.

Mr D.

Too many to list but a few years ago I rebuild the T/A's on my 65 during the frame off restoration and swapped the LH and RH bearing hubs. Didn't discovered this until I went to mount them a few months later.

Worst part about this is I knew better and still don't know why I let this happen.

Metalhead140

I have long hair also. Angle grinder with wire wheel.........

bazza77

Ouch !!

derekderek

Cutting a rear quarter off a Mustang a million years ago. Two of us we didn't know what we were doing. Started cutting through the middle of the shock absorber. Soon as it burns through all the oil in the shock absorber lit up and came out like a blowtorch. It blew a line of fire right in between his head and mine, least little bit of an angle to either side it would have burned one of our faces right off. Though I think my really funniest one, 65 GTO ignition switch in the top left-hand corner wasn't running right. Took out the back plug on the left cylinder Bank. Hook the plug to the plug wire put it on the inner fender with a Pontiac you're looking straight down the spark plug hole Reach my hand in start cranking the engine, and then I hear this whoosh and I see this gas air mix come blowing out of the spark plug hole. Goes right by the spark plug and it right around to my face. Then the spark plug Sparks and it all lit on fire. Unpleasant.

Go-Gone

1969 Boss 302 Mustang running a Unilite Distributor. Module failed which they did often back then. I had a ford points distributor I carried in case the Unilite failed. I installed the points distributor and connected the wires to the cap. Car would not start no matter what I did or moved the timing. Firing order was 15426378 C-Clockwise. After I had it towed home I saw the wires were set at 13426378 clockwise.

WKM

Had a 64 Chevelle that I wanted to add a FM stereo too. Had a good friend said he was good at it so I let him install it ( under dash unit ) when I went back several hours latter he had burnt the wiring under the dash all up. Had drilled 2 holes thru the radio including circuit board and had stuck the power and speaker wires all under the same wire nut. Was several years before we talked again.

Brian74n81

Ooof. My big rookie mistake was back in 2006 right after i got my 81 vette. Long story short after dropping in new crate motor (and blowing it up) the second one was put in. I was a bit cautious to say the least with the new setup. Kept hearing a metallic clicking sound coming from the engine bay. Was driving me nuts. Car kept running hot! Except on highway. Was sure something was broke in motor. Well one day i was inspecting the new radiater and glanced down at the fan and noticed gouge marks on tips of fan blades!! What? I had cut the fan shroud in half to get it back in and i put metal brackets and screws on it to hold it back together. The screws were to long and the fan blades were hitting them, lol. They aren’t to long anymore! Top that! Oh i have more!