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Sometimes the problem is not knowing what you don’t know. One of the first repairs I did on my truck was replacing a leaking front pinion seal. I didn’t know to set pre-load on the bearings– they got louder and louder as I drove. I finally had to remove the front diff and learn how to replace the pinion bearings and crush bushing (along with a new seal of course).
Don’t remember what I was working on but I had the front tires off the 62 Chevy Impala. Put them back on and forgot to tighten them down good. My girlfriend, who is now my wife of 33 years, took the car to go somewhere and got a mile down the road and one of the tires came off. Oops my bad
I was working at a potato company in Washington state, this was a small operator who wanted to pay $7-8 for a mechanic back in 98. Had a Freightliner with a Big Cam Cummins (855 CID). The truck had a bad miss and a knocking sound in the top end. I removed the valve cover and discovered one of the rockers was broke and the push tubes were bent or had the tips scarred up from excessive pressure.
Working on this engine, I determined the previous mechanic did the rack adjustments for a small cam engine which is completely different for the big cam engine in the arrangement and injector torque. The injector torque in a big cam is 5 in lbs and the small cam is 50 in lbs, this is why the push tubes were bent and had broken rockers when the valves bottomed out.
I replaced the broken stuff with salvage yard parts and sanded the push tube tips to clean them up because they are $100 each. My screw up was: I forgot to torque the rocker boxes and was doing the valve adjustments… I was rechecking my adjustments and it was all screwy. This is when I noticed the rocker boxes moving on the heads while I was barring the huge engine over… This cost me two hours of my time to run the overhead again, this time the truck was running like a beast and the owner was impressed.
He had an identical truck another mechanic rebuilt. I was told the top end was put together dirty but that is not what I found wrong. The truck had a broken piston from detonation. The rod bearings looked like someone had hammered on them.
I replaced one piston/liner assembly and rebearinged the crankshaft to fix the known defects to the engine. The truck was hard to start and required excessive cranking. I removed the return line to the fuel tank and it was aerated very badly, I informed the owner that was the cause of the engine failure and needed a new fuel pump.
It is just bad when I had to fix things from mistakes others had made, reminds me of Eric’s video ‘Don’t make my life more Difficult.’
I remember I removed one of the oil filters to get the number off it and forgot to put it back on, started the truck and pumped 10 gallons of oil all over the ground C;( Someone came over and disturbed me in the lube pit and I forgot to tighten the diff plug and it fell out two days later… Stuff Happens to everyone!
Just learn from your mistakes and move on to be a better Technician, just like in one of Eric’s video (not sure which one but he said everyone screws up).
Installing a part backwards.I did this to a Chrysler 4.7 lately,installed a rocker arm in backward and ran bad.I did not catch it when I installed in the head on the bench before installing the cam.
Practicing tearing down/assembling 4t60 transmissions at school. My partner and I were as clueless about transmissions as you can get. Anyway, after spending over a week frustrated and finding all kinds of creative ways of swearing we finally were about done assembling it. One of the last steps was installing a c-clip on the output shaft. Yep you betcha’, it slipped down into the eternal darkness of various gears and gizmos. Got to tear it down for a 2nd time!!! A:(
Left a tool up in the (for lack of a better word) wheel well of a B-1B Bomber. Thank God it was found on the runway and not in a crash.
i got my first car when i was 19 got ready to change oil did not have a oil filter whence so i use channel lock.anyway i bent that filter all kind of way it had hole all over.so i could not get it off.so i pour the old oil back in and drove to a service station about a mile from my house.oil had run out .oil pressure light came on.anyway change oil pump and drove car another year.
I drained the coolant and then refilled it back up. I saw coolant going everywhere. Dumb me forgot to screw the plug back in…
Lesson learned. Now, I make absolutely certain that everything is plugged up before I fill up anything!
This kinda works with bottles of soda, milk, etc. One time I just barely put the cap on and then I went back to it thinking it was all the way on and it went everywhere. Now, I always make sure it’s tight before I leave it alone.
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