[FamilyManTrackSedan]

I'll start.

Yesterday I quickly wrapped up a friend's front brakes, put the car down, started up, began backing out of the garage and heard the absolute worst scraping sound I ever heard. Like the sound you'd have in your head if you were chewing on a boulder. The car would also stop itself after a few inches. The sound just echoed round the garage and I couldn't tell where it was coming from. "What the hell is that?" I asked my buddy through the windshield. Tried it again. CRUNCH! - ah fuck ok stop. I must have fucked something up terribly. "What the ffff...." Friend's eyes are just wide and panicky, so no help from that guy. Looked at the brakes I just replaced, seemed fine. Passenger side - looks great. Looked at the rears, and removed the goddamn wheel chock which was now a chewed up scrap of plastic.

Admit it you've done this sort of stupid thing.

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

Can't say I've done that. But I did forget to tighten the caliper bolts (Fully) once. That was fun...

[Miller335]

Attempted to tighten one of the blue tipped aluminum bolts for the oil pan.
Snapped the head right off.

[135Pats]

One time took the oil thermostat backing plate off, swapped in a thermostat delete, and then went inside for a few minutes (can't remember why). Came back out 30 minutes later and started the car because 'why not? New thermo is in'.

A mini exxon valdez in my driveway it was great.

[j1gilles]

I once drove a Ford Explorer that I just finished putting a rebuilt engine in all the way to a gas station, without any oil in it... Bought 5 quarts at the gas station and the car is still running with over 80k on the rebuilt motor. Thank god for assembly lube!

[sirdaft1]

OP I thought you were going to say that you forgot to reattach a caliper or to reinstall brake pads! I'll take wheel chocks any day of the week!

Years ago I had a stupid situation take place that was a result of having too many cooks in the kitchen. My dad, uncle and myself were replacing the head gasket on my Civic. Instead of listing out and assigning tasks, we all just started pulling things apart like a finely oiled machine (ha!).

Everything went smoothly, it seemed. We replaced the HG, reinstalled the head, timing belt and topped her off with 4 quarts of oil. Upon starting her up, she instantly began spraying oil from the front of the engine. It made no sense. After an hour of scratching our heads we realized our stupid mistake. No one drained the original oil. The overfilled oil blew the cam seals on the engine and we had to tear the engine down all over again to replace that seal. Moral of the story: Apparently 8 quarts of oil is > 3.7 quarts of capacity. #slapsforehead

[Needbmwpartzz]

Did rear shock absorbers and when I finally tightened them I over-torqued and sheared the shaft thread right off the body(face palm)

[theweebabySeamus]

Ive definitely done my share but the only thing that comes to mind is my first and only cross threaded bolt....in the intake manifold of my buddie's GTR during an injector install. It was non-critical, but what a place to screw up...pun intended.


Edit: I went from CA to MO with my grandpa a while back in his 73 Mercedes and had an alternator failure. Found a shop with one locally and they agreed to let us swap it on their concrete slab of a parking lot. Couldnt get the first main bolt to turn on the alternator, spent probably 30 mins trying to get it to turn in the 100* sun....before I realized I was turning it the wrong way.

[Turbo_power4ever]

while doing break job I pushed brake piston back hard by hand and thought it still needed more and I spent like 2 hours trying to push it all the way back with a bunch of tools applying lots of leverage until I finally realized it was all the way back since the begging from the first push by hand. lol I think the whole neighborhood heard me drop the f bomb when I realized it.

[NoQuarter]

I already love this thread because I feel like I could contribute a ton. Sadly.

I was swapping out my E60 cluster for an M5 cluster with the cool lighting, oil gauge, etc. I already successfully removed the eeprom, re-flashed, re-soldered it without f-ing it up. installed it - tested it.

"While I'm at it..." to me that's kinda like "hold my beer and watch this!"

I decided to wrap up my custom install of the escort passport 9500ci and put the LED indicator into the cluster so it looked just perfect. I needed just one tiny little hole to get the wires right where I wanted it.

Now, I have some pretty good wood-working tools so I chose my best drill bit to get a nice controlled hole because taking the cluster apart had too much risk - one more time taking the needles off, one more time doing etc and I was sure to break something.

So I start to drill the perfectly controlled hole in the most perfect spot to get the best placement anyone every saw of a custom installed radar detector LED indicator.


.005 seconds into the drilling operation and my drill bit grabs hold of the plastic like a teenage boy grabbing his first pair of t$tties and wouldn't let go. I drilled that F4cker 3" across the circuit board and broke 10 different tiny trace lines that make the electricity go in all the right places.

I gave an attempt at fixing the traces... bought another cluster and started over. No energy to even try the LED indicator.

[F80Mmm]

locking myself out of the house with no phone to finish up a downpipe swap the following morning on my bday, just had to put the steering rack back on and all the plastic. I bent the metal clip that holds the steering rack bolts in place

oh and also sliding ramps underneath my car by giving it too much gas, bent my side skirts

[ilicboris]

Removed bumper to install intercooler. Reinstalled bumper afterwards after deciding to return FMIC. Forgot to put the screws back in connecting the front fender liner to the bumper. Wheels totally chewed up both fender liners as I drove. Passenger side was worse so I only ordered one replacement.

[NoQuarter]

Originally Posted by ilicboris

Removed bumper to install intercooler. Reinstalled bumper afterwards after deciding to return FMIC. Forgot to put the screws back in connecting the front fender liner to the bumper. Wheels totally chewed up both fender liners as I drove. Passenger side was worse so I only ordered one replacement.

Me again... I wanted to do a quick test of everything before I put it all back together. What could go wrong with just leaving the front bumper cover off for a bit?

Chewed up both my wheel well liners is what could go wrong!

[madmantwo]

I also scared myself by trying to run over a wheel chock. And another time I forgot to tighten the lug nuts before taking it for a spin...something felt weird so I pulled over and had that lightbulb moment. Ran home to get the breaker bar and crisis was averted!

[FamilyManTrackSedan]

Originally Posted by NoQuarter

.005 seconds into the drilling operation and my drill bit grabs hold of the plastic like a teenage boy grabbing his first pair of t$tties and wouldn't let go. I drilled that F4cker 3" across the circuit board and broke 10 different tiny trace lines that make the electricity go in all the right places.

I love all of these so far. This in particular.. I was dying.

Why is it the clearest visions of perfection, that are gonna take 30 seconds make for the rudest most spastic awakenings

[beeming]

Forgot to tighten up the wheel lug nuts and did not realize after a few hundreds miles... "Why the fuck is the wheel shaking?!?!"

Did a drain and fill on tranny fluid and forgot to recap the plug before filling... "What the fuck is that pink liquid underneath my car?!?..."

Lol

[M-335]

Pinched the oring on the oil block off plate. Started the car & instanly 3 quarts of oil was all over the place. "yes 3 quarts lol"

[335is-dct]

Smashed at a rear brake rotor for 30min with a sledge and 10min with a torch to only realize I forgot to release the parking brake. Have done so much dumb shit over the years lol...

[FamilyManTrackSedan]

Originally Posted by 335is-dct

Smashed at a rear brake rotor for 30min with a sledge and 10min with a torch to only realize I forgot to release the parking brake. Have done so much dumb shit over the years lol...

Hahaha love it

[Chris@VargasTurboTech]

Great thread. Love it.

[Needbmwpartzz]

Originally Posted by j1gilles

I once drove a Ford Explorer that I just finished putting a rebuilt engine in all the way to a gas station, without any oil in it... Bought 5 quarts at the gas station and the car is still running with over 80k on the rebuilt motor. Thank god for assembly lube!

That probably helped everything seat just the correct amount

[diablow16]

I was replacing my subframe bushings on my e92. Front wheels were on standard ramps, rear jack points with jack stands(wheels off) and two jacks(one on diff cross member and other near on side near subframe bolts.

Repetitive jacking the car up from the rear end slowly pulled the front wheels off my ramps and my front wheels rolled all the way down the ramps and back about 6ft into my driveway! Luckily the two jacks rolled and supported all the weight of the rear end and I wasn't under it at the time.

I quickly learned the hard way that the front wheels on a rear wheel drive car are completely free to roll how they please...