I think that's just made it worse.

[Asimo]

Driving this

 

 

On the motorway, rattle, rattle: frayed fan belt.

Showing off to girlfriend, CUT OFF frayed but still working belt, fetched spare from "boot".

The spare fan belt was waaay too long. 

Air cooled engine + no fan belt + no money + no AA/RAC = doh

 

 

 

Helping Dad to start a worn out SII Landrover diesel on a very cold day.

Air filter off, burning oily rag over the manifold and the engine fires straight away. Just enough time to feel clever then revs rise, air flow increases and burning rag sucked through the manifold and jams inlet valve open. Valve head breaks off and gets hammered through the cylinder head by an angry piston.

[tooSavvy]

can happen to anyone....

 

I bought a 998 IMP engine, from a sidecar racer guy - miner on strike & he wanted some cash obv - so, he told me all about the motor and how it was a 'Guddunn'. I bought it and shot off home... keen to get it all fitted up and running in my car. All the sump bolts were loose.....

 

Got stuck in to getting it sorted and, some time later, I fired it up and it ran sweet from the button... except it was making a 'tink..tink..tink..' noise from the top end?

 

Stopped and rang the guy back... 'Aye , he said, another guy was interested and I took a big end off to show the mint crank... but I didn't nip it all backup after'.

 

Engine out:-  4x WillsRing + Outer gasket, 4x lightened & peened ConnRods, Shells, Rings set & 1x 998 Piston [cracked into no1 ring groove].

 

The guy did include 4x Liners & 4x 998 Pistons in the deal...GR9!!

 

MORAL.... Dismantle the ffinn lot and rebuild as known good 

 

 

tooSavvy

[Rusty Pelican]

Whilst fixing a mates car i accidently shorted the starter solenoid out with my stainless watch i was wearing , blew the watch electronics up , blew a massive hole in my wrist and melted the strap to itself and again my wrist , car even tried to turn over.

TOP TIP

Dont wear watches whilst fixing cars 

[Mr Livered]

Blew a massive hole in your wrist? That sounds bloody awful. Did it recover?

[Rusty Pelican]

Blew a massive hole in your wrist? That sounds bloody awful. Did it recover?

After 4 months  , couldnt wear a watch in all that time , new watch has a rubber strap just in case i fuck up again and forget to take it off 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I had rebuilt my first engine. It cost a fortune, but I'd done it. Unfortunately I wasn't experienced enough to notice that I'd assembled the carb linkage incorrectly, so the throttle was fully open. 

 

I primed the fuel pump and turned the key. It started easily - and instantly redlined the completely dry engine. 

 

The new crankshaft was ruined, the new bearings were all ruined, I was ruined. 

 

Ironically, I knew to prime the fuel pump but not the oil pump. If only the fuel lines and float chamber had been empty there might have been a few extra seconds for the oil pressure to build up and lessen the damage. Ah well.

[purplebargeken]

Did the Redex thing on my Toledo whilst working as a sous chef at a restaurant in Delamere. A bit of smoke, no problem. Mate wanted his Marina Coupe doing as well. It was like a London pea souper. Didn't help the beautifully clean windows of the restaurant that were finished off an hour before we started. Oh how we laughed.

[Lord Sterling]

Years ago, I had a Sierra Sapphire Ghia which some lad diagnosed as having little or no oil. Conveniently there was an old bottle of 10w40 in the boot which he emptied into the engine. The next day I noticed some white smoke coming out of the engine, I took it to my tame mechanic who diagnosed that it had too much oil in it, oil drained and I was on my way. The car subsequently died from head gasket failure.

 

A very similar thing happened to my G-reg Rover, when I first got it back on the road I noticed there was double the amount of oil there should have been in the engine. The oil was subsequently drained. However one evening about a year and half later I was waiting for a girl in the works carpark who I normally dropped off home. As I waited, the engine which was still coldish started doing the usual 827 tappet sounds, I revved it too much, then whilst driving girl home, I noticed the car felt juddery. The car basically eat its own engine, I managed to nurse it to Worcester where its been ever since.

[cobblers]

I've more than likely told this story before - I finished Uni and was working from home, so I decided to sell my Lupo and buy a £2750 Mini because I was foolish and had always wanted one, and didn't really drive far.

I looked at a couple, one was dicked about with, old and slow. The other was just as dicked about with but somewhat fast (1380cc plus big cam and all the rest but still an A series so still toss)

 

As you'd expect the engine shat a big end before I even got it home (Just before J1 m18 at 80mph). I Limped it home, then decided to rebuild it on my nans drive - The crank was fucked as was one of the rods, so I got some more off an old boy down the road who'd had them in a drawer since 1981.I got them reground and some new shells to match by some ballbags in Rotherham who did a totally shit job but insisted it was fine.

 

Built all the new engine up with the usual 3 litres of hylomar and 500 assorted and ill fitting gaskets from minispares. Spent hours stripping and cleaning the gearbox since it was all covered in bits of crankshaft and bearing, got it all back together and put it in my nans shed for the night. Next morning when carrying it out I stumbled over a flower pot and knocked the eye level hanging basket off the wall into the pristine rebuilt box.

 

By this time I was past fucking caring so I just hoovered out what I could and flushed it through with 5l of brake cleaner (which I filtered through and old tshirt) about ten times.

 

Put it all back in and it knocked worse than before after about a mile so I sold the lot at a huge loss and bought a £300 106 off my mate.

[Cavcraft]

I also managed to fit eight people into the aforementioned Ka and drove into the centre of Northwich, right past the police station. To this day I've no idea how I didn't get done.

 

 

If it was after about 4.00pm, I know how you got away with it. It's because that's about the time Northwich shuts down for the night.

[The Moog]

Changed the thermost and some other bits on an early 9000. This was back in the days when I blindly copied the haynes directions. Therefore battey had been disconnected. Reconnected the battery at the end but py terminals on the wrong way round. Cue poof of smoke and burning electrics and one very dead car

[Brent_Crude]

Great thread.

 

My most recent one involved casually grabbing a bottle of Redex 'fuel system and injection cleaner' off the shelf at the garage, only it was actually the very similar looking Redex 'lead additive'. Didn't notice any difference but was cursing my carelessness.

[fordperv]

Changed the thermost and some other bits on an early 9000. This was back in the days when I blindly copied the haynes directions. Therefore battey had been disconnected. Reconnected the battery at the end but py terminals on the wrong way round. Cue poof of smoke and burning electrics and one very dead car

I'm sure the hbol has caused many facepalm moments for people

[Split_Pin]

The guy that my ex was seeing behind my back tried to jump start my first corsa with the jump leads connected the wrong way round. The car survived and sadly so did he.

 

I used to work as a fuckabout in an HGV garage. The Volvo FL7s has a long-ass flexible dipstick but the actual marker is only the last 8th or so. I filled it right up to the handle and then went home. Cue lots of oil everywhere when the truck was started and cries of "That buckin' laddie!!!!". Both truck and my job survived.

[JohnDeere]

A heating shite tale: my shit(e) underfloor heating has had a slight leak where one of the pipes meets the manifold since last winter and was losing pressure every few days. Decided to remake the connection. Unscrewed it, and while fiddling about, the nut gently slid all the way down the pipe and lodged under the concrete floor, just too far to be reached (all of this is already taking place upside down under a kitchen cupboard).

 

All of this at 4pm on Saturday afternoon, just too late to find another part. Impossible to repressurise the system without it. No heating for several days while waiting for a new gubbins (£1.99 plus £6 f-ing quid postage on ebay). Happy ending though - new part has cures the leak.

[I_am_Diesel]

I ignored a grumbling front wheel bearing on a Mk1 Astra for a long time many years ago. It got so bad that one day it loosened the wheel bolts and the front wheel came off, crushing the front wing around the wheel arch in the process.Ironically I was going to get 2 new wings when it happened.

After 'playing around' with my Mini engine when I was a lad, it developed a misfire. Thinking it was probably OMGHGF, I changed the head gasket but it was still misfiring badly. My uncle came to have a look, swapped No.2 & No.3 plug leads over and it was running like a dream.

My non-shite tale is spilling 12 tonnes of steel bars all over the A161 near Crowle. Police had to close the junction from the M180 that morning. At least I was mentioned in dispatches by Sally Traffic.

[DVee8]

Many many years ago me and my mate were jacking up the rear suspension on his MK2 escort in his back garden job done back end still up in the air on bricks and planks.

I know he said lets see how fast it will go as the back is jacked up

Cue the bricks giving at around 40ish and car hitting the ground with a loud bang

[Rusty Pelican]

Whilst trying to fix a small fuel leak in my now dead Audi 80 Sport I managed to break the main fuel pipe clean in half , fuel everywhere , mostly over me .

One upside to all this was some fuel went in my right ear , after screaming as it kind of smarted a tad I noticed the hearing in this ear improved 5 fold.

Rustys top tip ( not recommended )

Petrol disperses earwax much quicker and better than Otex 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Reading this I've just remembered another one, again as a teenager I had an XJ6. (Immaculate 2.8 man o/d, worth a fortune now) and a 1975 Audi 100 SE ( bought because it had rear headrests) I was going to Wales to take my two brothers aged 2 and 10 to my dads for the summer. I put the battery from the Jag into the Audi,casually noticing it was much taller.

Somewhere near Brecon around midnight I started to get drowsy and noticed it was getting foggy , brothers both asleep,the 2 year old lying on the back seat with loads of stuff. I wound down the window to wake myself up and the 'fog' disappeared, did I mention the Audi battery was under the,steel sprung,back seat?

Cue panic stop,lots of shouting and literally throwing 2 year old on the verge, when I pulled the base of the back seat out the sudden rush of air caused it to flare dramatically and the horsehair and upholstery went up in seconds. Apart from a red face,literally and figuratively, for a few days there were no long term effects. We just packed everything into the smoky Audi and carried on with the windows down.

Needless to say it when I sold it I didn't give this explanation as to why it had a blue and orange interior,

[saucedoctor]

While changing the carb on one of my Sambas, I dropped something down into the engine bay (spanner or screwdriver, I can't quite remember). Whatever it was shorted the starter motor and the car pinned me against the back wall of the garage, as it was in gear. I managed to pull a cable OUT of the oddball Frog battery terminal clamp.

Same car. I was doing a bit of general fettling, and later went to go out in the car, and couldn't get any gears. Much head-scratching ensued, and I ended up pulling the top off the gearstick. Culprit was a stubby screwdriver tucked neatly in the gearchange remote.

[overrun]

I forgot this one.

 

I once mounted an amp, upside down on the underside of my steel parcel shelf.

Yeah! Stealth install!

 

Anyone care to guess why it lasted mere hours?

[alf892]

Long time ago..........

 

I had put a secondhand engine in a girlfriend's Escort van along with a new clutch. The van owner was a new acquaintance and I was hoping the job would help get me in her knickers so I was pretty keen to get the job done (!)

 

Had no hoist but did have two large builders trestles with a plank across the top. Good enough thought 18 year old me.

 

Hoisting achieved by tying a rope around engine and up over plank. Then insert broom handle in rope and turn. Very labour intensive this..........and tricky once the engine is free as obvs if you let go it will spin to the ground!. Also bloody difficult to try and hang on to engine and move the car.

 

Anyway got engine in and sat on mounts only to find release bearing on ground beside me.

 

Oh..........so out it had to come.

 

So there I am trying hold engine (from spinning), trying to move van backwards and trying to get the engine clear of front panel. I didn't notice that as well as pushing the van back I pushed the trestle forward enough to topple it over.

 

Bad enough but my car was in range of the quickly falling trestle............only by about an inch.............enough to put a dent ending in a hole in the rear quarter of my Marina. It all happened pretty quick and I had my work cut out avoiding the spinning broom handle.

 

I couldn't think of enough swear words at the time..................but it must have been comical to watch and always puts me in mind of Paddy's Bucket

[chaseracer]

If it was after about 4.00pm, I know how you got away with it. It's because that's about the time Northwich shuts down for the night.

Billy, you seem to be suggesting that Northwich ever opens...

[Asimo]

Replaced the clutch plate in the Riley 1.5 I was learning to drive in. (you burned it out, you replace it) No alignment tool so centred plate by eye on the flywheel and held it in place with a few dabs of UHU glue. All goes back together a treat. Pedal down, will it go into gear? Will it fcku! Tried everything but the UHU wouldnt give up.

 

Do the job again, this time using a proper clutch alignment tool (plastic tape wound around my valve grinding stick)

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Today's instalment is probably my first,if you don't include cleaning the screen on my moms Capri with Jiff.

Spent ages measuring ,then cutting to size a piece of plywood to affix the front L plate to my FS1E,it fitted perfectly between the mudguard and headlight. All was well till the first time I braked,the forks compressed, the plywood broke,taking the headlight rim and glass with it. Two weeks it took to save for a new light, I wrapped the L plate round the forks after that.