Dummy of the week

[bc1025]

I nominate myself for this prestigious title. I think we should all post our blunders so others my have a good laugh or to think about their work.

Still investigating my "Fuel/odor/vapor" smell I discovered the following...But let me go back to 2 months ago.

I replaced both of my O2 sensors because of the CEL going on when my SHO reached operating temp. Well after my install, CEL didn't go off and I was ****** off.

Then my SHO started feeling sluggish and fuel consumption was poor.

Back to today..I was checking my vapor lines under the car and discovered the back O2 wasn't plugged in....

Need I say more? LIKE I said DUMMY of the week.

BC

 

[TimboSHO]

I did a clutch job and put the disc in backwards. This was after reading 'engine side' on the disc and thinking "only an idiot would put this on the wrong way!"

Needless to say, I spent half the time on the job doing it the second time around

 

[hawkeye18]

One time I spent an entire month troubleshooting a strange noise coming from the (recently replaced) brakes, going down to replacing the wheel bearings, only to discover that the noise comes from the fact that the new rotors are dimpled and slotted, and they all make noise.

One time on my plane I troubleshot radar for a week straight because there was no transmit pulse coming of it, only to cry uncle and call a tech rep in, who looked at it for fifteen seconds and said, "You put the wires on this box back on backwards."

 

[Shovert]

My 74 Midget was running ruff so I thought the dual SU carbs was off. Spent all day Sunday trying to solve only to make it worse. [Good lesson there unless in ditch leave it alone on Sunday] When done car would barely run so gave up. Thought about it all week. Then it hit like a ton of bricks. [Duh points are burnt] Sure enough replaced the points. Put the carbs back to where they were. Problem solved.
Moral sometimes best thing to do. Quit if can and think about it. Maurice

 

[rubydist]

but the real lesson there was not to own an MG...

 

[BasedBidoof]

One time I cracked a rear caliper b/c I didn't know that you have to screw it down in. I tried using channel locks like on the front, didn't work, and I was working on it with my dad at the time and he took it off and was like "I got this". He put it in a 6 ton press and tried pressing it in and it cracked the mounting spot clean off lol

 

[SHOmethewayhome]

can't remember how many times my step dad said those three magical words "I got this" before catastrophic wreckage/failure would occur. love it!

one of the first times I did a brake job, someone told me I had to grease the brakes (they should have said slider pins and been more specific) so I applied a liberal amount of grease to the rotors installed the calipers and man did that crap stink and stop terribly.

had the rotors turned again and a new set of pads later all was good, but that's still my favorite oops when it comes to cars.

my favorite one my stepdad pulled was trying to stab a screw driver into an oil filter to take it off and just tearing the thing apart, then driving to the parts store to get an oil filter wrench with the damn oil filter and oil gone from the engine.

drove it back home and it dies, blown engine.

he felt extra dumb when I showed him where the oil filter wrench was in my tool box.

 

[Airborne]

My daughter-in-law brought me her Expedition because the AC stopped working. Spent 2 hours diagnosing the AC system and concluded there was nothing wrong with the AC system. I concluded that the PCM was not sending switching power to the AC Clutch relay. I couldn't find a used one at the local junkyard, so I ordered a used PCM from back East. While I was waiting for it to come in, I looked the Expedition over and changed out a coil due to a misfire. After I changed out the coil and got rid of the misfire and CEL, the PCM engaged the clutch and the AC works!
It never occurred to me that the PCM would do that.

 

[boat]

Picked up a 3.0 SHO motor for a buddy. Decided to clean it up for him and put his new 60k parts on it and freshen it up before it went in the his now dead and gone 93 SHO.

Put the cps on, the water pump, started working with the timing belt and couldn't get TDC on piston 1 to set the timing properly, I was sure something was interfereing and keeping it from making a full revolution.

I dug into the bottom end and couldn't see anything inside the engine that would keep it from making the full revolution. So, puzzled, I began disassembling the motor determined to find the problem.

Well, one evening he was over helping me on the engine, after we had pulled the heads off of it, thinking maybe something fell into the one of the cylinders (nothing had fallen in the cylinders). We begin to dig deeper in the bottom end and he was like "Oh, look, one of the flywheel bolts is hitting the engine stand." He was like

Tore apart a perfectly good 3.0 only to find I had not looked at the end of the crank for the flywheel bolts hitting the engine stand. Won't do that again.

This happened probably about a year or more ago.

 

[kevinspann]

Picked up a 3.0 SHO motor for a buddy. Decided to clean it up for him and put his new 60k parts on it and freshen it up before it went in the his now dead and gone 93 SHO.

Put the cps on, the water pump, started working with the timing belt and couldn't get TDC on piston 1 to set the timing properly, I was sure something was interfereing and keeping it from making a full revolution.

I dug into the bottom end and couldn't see anything inside the engine that would keep it from making the full revolution. So, puzzled, I began disassembling the motor determined to find the problem.

Well, one evening he was over helping me on the engine, after we had pulled the heads off of it, thinking maybe something fell into the one of the cylinders (nothing had fallen in the cylinders). We begin to dig deeper in the bottom end and he was like "Oh, look, one of the flywheel bolts is hitting the engine stand." He was like

Tore apart a perfectly good 3.0 only to find I had not looked at the end of the crank for the flywheel bolts hitting the engine stand. Won't do that again.

This happened probably about a year or more ago.

When I was working on my 3.2, I thought I had valves hitting the pistons (stage 2 cams) and I was so afraid trying to turn it over, because I couldn't.

Then I drilled two holes in a long piece of angle iron to bolt to the balancer to use as a lever....and bent that...

I had left the cam timing tool on, and that was locking them, and the rotating assembly in place.

 

[EL SHO]

well me and a buddy were doing the upper 60k on my SHO. After spending a good afternoon replacing the valve cover gaskets, old coolant hoses, spark plugs and wires.. we cranked the car and it wouldn't fire up.

We were thinking about it and looking for stuff that we might have missed... until my friend told me he had forgot to plug the CPS harness back in ! Cranked the car and it fired up, but.... it wasn't running right, sounded like it was missing.

Long story short... I remembered that when we replaced the spark plug wires, the front ones were: 4,6,5 and I even thought, previous owner musta have switched the wires, I'll install them in the "correct" order (4,5,6) . That came to my mind. I turned off the car, switched again the plug wires, cranked the car and presto! It was running nice and smooth!

 

[Shovert]

Ha Ha on the MG. Have had them over 30 years been towed once. The small wire to the distributor fell off and buddy stopped by at same time. Hadn't even had time to open the hood. By the way no offense at all taken. Maurice
Ps first one I bought still have. Wife and me old picture. This one that got towed.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w224/mgman75/MG MIdget/scan0006.jpg