Mechanic Fails

[EricTheCarGuy]

If you’ve worked on cars for any amount of time you’ve done something wrong I’m sure, feel free to share it here.

Topic

[Ian Williams]

[quote=”nuttytechy” post=179771]I was doing a head gasket on a car in the uk. Not only I decided to do it in the cold where I was freezing my nuts off lol, I took off the head, Cleaned everything up, Put the head back together, Did the timing etc, So basically I rebuilt the engine, I went to turn the car over and what did I see on the passenger seat… The head gasket still in its wrapper. What happened was, As I was getting the head all ready, Someone came out with a cup of coffee and disturbed me, As they disturbed me, I went to put the head back on the block so after I had a coffee and smoke, I’m like I think im ready to tighten it down now. So there I go and cracks on with the job.[/quote]

D’oh

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[Jeff]

Late to the party.

I had to do head gaskets on a late 90’s Toyota pickup with the V-6. I sent the heads out to be checked and one ended up being warped beyond repair, so I had our porter go to the junkyard and get a used head and drop it off at the machine shop. They cleaned it up, checked it over, threw new seals in both heads and sent them back over right at the end of the day. I had a good 20 minutes before I was out of there, so I decided to push the truck in so it would be warm by the morning (I hate working on cold cars in the winter). I decided I’d just throw the heads on now, get a headstart on tomorrow, and I would leave my tools out instead of spending the last 10 minutes cleaning up, since I’d need them all in the morning anyway. Bolted the heads down and called it a day. I came in the next morning, got the intake on, most of the harness back in place, and then spent a solid 2 hours trying to figure out why the timing set wouldn’t fit together right. I had an extra idler I couldn’t find a place for, and I finally gave up and consulted Alldata. I could see where the pulley was supposed to go, but there was no hole Turns out, aside from the one hole to mount the idler pulley, the left and right heads were identical, and the junkyard had sold us the wrong side. I tore it back down, sent the head back to the yard to be exchanged and taken over to the machine shop. I got pretty sick the next few days and my dumbass service writer handed the job off to another tech to finish up. He gets the new head and gaskets and puts the heads on, then spends an hour trying to figure out the timing set. He’d bolted the heads on the wrong sides.

4 heads, 3 sets of head gaskets, 2 techs, and 1 seriously stupid design choice by Toyota.

[Tom]

I was replacing a CV axle on my mothers Dodge Caravan, in front of her house. I’d done quite a few CV axles over the years, but never one on a Caravan. Got the wheel off, van up on jack stands, spindle nut off, no problem. Removed the pinch bolt for the lower ball joint, pried the collar apart, but the damned stud wouldn’t come out. I tried everything, including lifting up the lower control arm a bit to see if that helped. Finally, I cut a short length of steel dowel a bit smaller than the ball joint stud, and used a puller to press it in from the bottom, and force the ball joint stud out. It was working amazingly, and I was so proud of myself right up until I realized that I still had the lower control arm on the jack, raised up, with plenty of tension on the strut.

Unfortunately, I realized that just as I was making that last critical turn on the puller, and at the exact moment that it started to strike me that this was a bad idea, BANG . . . out comes the ball joint, violently, and thanks to the tension on the strut, the steering knuckle shoots out, catching me in the cheek just below my eye, and knocking me flat on my back on the ground. My wife lets out an oh my god. My mother hears it from inside and comes running out to see if I am still alive, and all I can do is lay on the ground, holding the side of my face and mumble holy s*%^$t.

Thankfully, I wasn’t hurt beyond a bruise, and a hit to my pride lol. Lesson learned about the tremendous energy stored in springs, and making sure that you understand where that load is going to be applied, and what is going to happen when you remove parts.

[Author]

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