Just bought a car and got it home and went to change the oil.
Done a routine change, started it up, quickly went into the kitchen to let my wife know I was nearly done and within that 20 second window, oil had burst out of the bottom of the engine and the oil light was on.
I had only had the car for 3 hours.
So tell me, what’s your biggest f*ck up?
I drained the transmission fluid instead of engine oil. When the liquid came out neon green my heart dropped.
First major test drive of our '68 corvette build (450HP 383, lots of custom work, super awesome car).
So uh, my Dad forgot to put oil in the rear-end. It locked up at about 60mph. Car amazingly stayed on the road, was a rural road so no other cars to hit. No damage other than a toast rear-end and basically ruined all 4 tires. Not a cheap mistake… Upside, gave us an excuse to get the rear-gear we wanted for it in the first place.
Taking my time doing a top end rebuild on my Holden 253 and my wife says “we are going out tomorrow and we are taking your car”
I smash this thing back together making sure I keep the bent rods in the same spot they came from etc. Hook up and start… I was in a rush and didn’t earth the block or the alternator.
Tried to cold crank this baby V8 through the earth of the 2.5 from the headlight. No, the fuses didn’t go because it was all the ground side, but the ground side had the tiny path. OmG the smell! It never left the car!
LOL. Wife was making sure you didn’t spend all weekend out there working on it apparently.
Something similar but not at the same time. I was changing my oil on my old 02 ford f150 and the bolt was rusted to all hell. Cleaned it off with some wd-40 and start turning my ratchet wrench. I’m turning it for maybe 10 minutes (or trying) and I finally said fuck it I’ll wait until someone else got home to help me. Well turns out I was tightening it. And stripped the entire bolt. I used a breaker bar and everything. (I have no mechanical experience :)
Shit, I’ve done something similar before! Haven’t stripped a bolt (thankfully) but was trying to get my drive belt off and was attempting to loosen the tensioner.
60 mins later I figured out I was doing it the opposite way.
Would’ve been a huge fuckup if not for my friend. I forgot to wipe the oil off of my clutch kit for my golf. My friend noticed dirt sticking to it, so he blasted the pressure plate and flywheel with brake clean and wiped it down, but if he had forgotten it would’ve immediately started slipping and overheat.
Pep Boys sold me the wrong discs for my Ford Taurus back in the mid 2000s. I had both sides fully removed before realizing the replacement discs won’t fit, car was on jack stands, no spare car so had to bother a neighbor to give me a ride back to swap them out. Then they didn’t even have the right part in stock, so we had to go trying other stores, luckily found the right ones at Autozone instead.
When I was much younger, I had got my first impact and my first air ratchet. I had to do an oil change on my parents which went great, but took off the wheel as the filter was easiest to get right there.
Well your galaxy brained individual here thought, hey, let’s use the ratchet to put the lug nuts back on, not the impact you have. I never even thought once about torque specs.
We go out that night for food, have a great night. We are heading home and I swear as we are pulling INTO the driveway, the wheel slips off the threads and the front of the car leans over. The wheel is cocked inside the wheel well and kinda propping the car up.
Needless to say it was highly embarrassing and dangerous. It could’ve flew off at 60mph and I got very lucky. Since then I always make sure that I use the proper tool for the job.
Timing belt job on a Honda
We took everything apart and removed the old belt.
We put everything back together and as we are tightening the last bolts, we looked on the ground and saw the brand new belt staring back at us.
We managed to re-install the old belt!