Does anyone have? Not necessarily to be that bad but at least at one point you go . . . AARRRGGGHH!!!

If you're game do please share for the benefit and information of others.

 

replacing exhaust gasket - broke a header bolt off in the head -- ARGHHHHHHHH.

 

One that comes to mind, but hasn't happened to me. When changing out catbacks, some have learned the hard way. You don't want to push up on the threaded c shaped muffler hanger bracket. Once pushed up and falls into the rail, it's in Never Never land.

 

Did that installing a header on a car while LOOSENING the original bolt.

Figured had a couple hours to kill, install the header I bought. Turned into a nightmare going forward.

Tried to extract it....snapped off. I was slightly off center. I burned out all my bits even left-handed ones trying to remove it.

I was out of times so just dropped the car off at a shop to fix it. Their solution was using 100 grinding stones and then the guy just JB welded a stud to it. When he finally gave up. Fortunately he did grind out the extractor.

It failed on my first drive about a block from the shop. Then they gave me a dog and pony show about how I needed a new head. They could get one the next day and it'd be only a couple thousand bucks...

Limped home, tried drilling it myself, aligned the drill proper, went for it.

Dead on, only I hit the water jacket

First I was told to use a helicoil (my money is on unless you absolutely have to use a fastener of the same size just skip this and drill to the next size up. They make reducing studs for this purpose (12mm to 10mm) and they work well).

leaked coolant.

Finally drilled from 10mm to 12mm with a proper tap. Added some high temp sealant since I was in the water now.

It's been an almost 3 year repair and no leaks. I am a bit afraid if I ever need to pull the header again.

I have had other ones...this was the worst though.

 

Lowered the rear on the stock bolts as far as it would go. Liked the look, but didn't check underneath to make sure everything was clear. The left side metal brake line was rubbing on the rear axle, and I lost the brakes while driving on the freeway. Barely made it home.

I had to cut out the damaged section and graft in a new section. I also had to raise the rear end up some.

 

good lord.

ive been here so many times (not with that problem) but just bangin my head against the wall saying "Why didn't I pay someone to do this"....

that royally sucks. i could imagine the frustration...

 

just look at it like a learning experiance!! hahaha

 

This happened to me and with a little luck and 2hrs of fishing with a hanger I got it out!

Now i hold onto them until I get a couple of threads on it!

Mario

 

about 4 years ago when I made my first double din bezel and keep in mind at that time there was no info on the install

So I go over to forum member Pentavolvo's house as he helped me figure out the install and to do his work on the car.

First nightmare was trying to cut the support brackets with a dremel. NOT! I got pissed and told him to take me to the hardware store for a sawzall. Problem solved

The big issue came when we were trying to figure the best way to install the dd head unit. Keep in mind no instructions write ups nothing at this poitn was available for the double din conversion.

so we had a great idea to pull my shifter(a4) to remove the mounting cage. Well little did we know that the shifter cables is something you dont really want to mess with. We damaged the shifter cable and the car would not shift into gear via the shifter.

I live almost 3 hours from his house and well to get home I had to get in car as he reach under and manually put the car into gear. We thought we had it in the correct location but well I ended up driving home the whole 3 hours in 3rd gear.
Took my time no hurry made it home safe and sound. Bought 80.00 cables a couple days later on Monday dropped h pipe removed the gazillion tunnel plate screws installed new cable reinstalled the gazillion tunnel plate screws put exhaust back together and good as new

who would have thought that day of hell would have been the beginning of a business

At least I can honestly say I learned alot of vauluable lessons to pass on to my many customers to not do what we did.

 

I have one that I am still haunted with...

I wanted to replace the all the interior lights with LED's. The process went very well and everything was great until the very end. When I took out the stock mini circuit boards in the inside rear view mirror, popped in the aftermarket boards, I couldn't get the @#$%& circuit boards and light bezels back on. I ended up staying up past 2AM because I couldn't believe they didn't just pop back right on the way they came off. I became so frustrated because I spent the day on the project and all was great... then in the very end, this happened ...to this day, my rearview mirror lights only work on one side with the aftermarket LED I am using. I decided to go back to the stock boards but I ended up messing up the rear view mirror and I am not sure if it can be salvaged. Incidentally, it is virtually impossible to remove it. There are two kinds. There is the easy kind that has a screw you can loosen and then the whole mirror comes off. Then there is the kind I have which uses an impossible to reach clip. I will get back to this eventually

 

The only one i have had thus far is when I had to fix the horn membrane. Laid down in the seat to get behind the steering wheel to get the 2 bolts out of the back of it so that the horn and airbag section would come out. Well, one of the bolt heads stripped. We tried drilling it out, and burned up a few bits. Tried one of the "grabbers" that has the left handed threads and it didn't work either. Took a torx bit that was a hair to big and hammered it in the head enough to turn it a little. We finally had it loose enough that we could lift up on the middle section and with a long 9mm wrench was able to unscrew it from the inside, the hammer and torx bit wouldn't work anymore. Took an hour to find the wrench, Lowe's didn't have it, another hardware store didn't have it, finally found it at Autozone. Took all day to get it out. Went to buy one of those bolts and it was a stupid price. So we found a bolt that would fit and then just added around 6 or 7 washers to get the thickness right. Works like a charm. But trying to unscrew that while bending the middle section enough to get the wrench in was a nightmare. We only had enough room to turn the wrench about a 1/10th of a turn. 3 of us took turns with it.