Worst DIY maintenance stories

[RayMK]

I am highly suspicious of any 2nd hand car which has fresh looking underseal, particularly in structural areas.  I have bought one or two of these freshly MOT'd beasts with immaculate looking undersides, only to find wood, old oil cans or just filler holding it together.  A surface rusted underside protected by leaking engine, gearbox and diff oil is much more reassuring.

 

My heaviest hammers and most sturdy molegrips were bought when I was learning car DIY, forced by lack of money.  The lump hammer was purchased to encourage a kingpin to vacate the front suspension arm on my first car, a Reliant Regal 2-25 saloon.  Nobody told me about the retaining pin (and I did not ask - at 18/19 one knows everything).  Anyway, the hammer sheared the pin.  Job done......by a garage.  I had smashed so much hell out of the kingpin that it would not release fully. Their 20 ton press managed, just. The hammer still comes in handy when I'm learning new tricks  . 

[Minimad5]

Also, there's nothing at all wrong with filler, indeed it is a God-send. The trouble begins when some cretin uses it in a structural area.

[ruffgeezer]

I bought this:

 

 

It was shite.

 

The worst bit about it was one of the 2 top mount studs had been sheared off and glued back on with mastic. I didn't realise that until the other one broke off on my way to work leaving a very rattly front strut.

 

Luckily I had one in my spares stash and swapped it out at lunchtime.

[MarvinsMom]

the worse bit of bodging i've seen was actually one of mine, when i had the Rover 820 coupé.

 

when trying to undo the big nut on the anti-roll bar which goes through the bottom suspension arm. the nut got more stiff and tight as i was undoing it

 until i could no longer move it with the ratchet. i trotted off to the garage, and came back to the car with the torque wrench , turned the setting right up, popped it onto the nut, and, crack.,... broke it, still with 1/2 of the stud in the bottom arm.

 

the brand new replacement arrived in the post a couple of days later, and took me all bloody day to fit to.

 

since then, i treat torque wrenches and rusty nuts/bolts with respect. i have taken to turning the fixing one way a couple of turns, and then back a couple of turns until they start coming loose. 

[Lord Sterling]

Rover 827 Coupe - Distributor cap held on by cable-tie because 1 of the 2 bolts had snapped off.

 

Battery in my KV6 Sterling was held on with a bunch of cable-ties for the MOT. I cut them off soon after and placed the battery holding clip in.

 

Cable tied the windscreen wiper connecting joint on my G-reg Sterling when it failed on the rainiest day known to man. It was later replaced with a brand-new wiper unit.

 

Once saw a car (Fiat?) which had a stone wedged in between the battery and holder to stop the battery from moving around.

[Albert Ross]

Professional Garage repair, K Series HGF.... The cam seals are handed, yet the monkey in charge of that particular job hadn't noted this.... oil on cambelt, and inside distributor cap, which had caused a misfire. alerting the owner. Lucky really. I did the job, and handed the full price invoice to the customer. Eyebrows were raised, and I was told "that's pricey"... (That's the price to them..... said I, telling of the price to them... ) Off they trotted, and got the lot back! I took my cut, and won a customer.

[Jikovron]

quality bodges I love to see ,,the sort that are comical but do no harm and are cleared up at a later date some of the best/worst I remember

 

my dad used to be great at major bodging, and still can do it to a less elaborate degree, back in the 80's he had an allegro 1750 of which he told me would suffer a loosening flywheel to the extent it would muller the key/bolt(ive no E series knowledge) so he basically drilled through the lot and used one of those scalloped bolts to self tap into it

 

Our panda 45 had a balljoint welded on to the steering arm because a new one couldn't be found quick enough, I remember that episode so clearly its mad that its 20 years ago , hot bright day, car wedged up with a pair of wheels, 1700 ital on the drive and a borrowed stick welder

 

these days its ht leads held apart with bits of plastic and gardening wire and daft bits of paint touch up as he can now afford to replace parts,,and has the correct tools etc

 

a skoda Estelle I used to have acquired a buxton water bottle windscreen washer on the way to an mot because I forgot to refit the original and with those bottles you can poke out the strainer and the pipe goes straight in

 

my Volvo 340 1.4  buggered its clutchshaft splines so I resleeved the splines with a cvt clutch shaft splines cut and bored through so I could turn the mullered shaft down and press the 'new' splines on,,this lasted a week as I hadn't radiused the diameter change

so with the spare crap lying around I used a longer 1700 clutch shaft in a 1400 support housing which was spaced off the bellhousing to accomadate the extra 3 inch with threaded m8 rods and this worked with a cvt propshaft which happened to be 3inchs shorter ! ,,the icing on the cake with that situation was that cvt props are held in place with a spring which I didn't have so some jubilee clips sorted that out

 

 

my dolomite 1500 cracked the block on 2 separate engines so to keep it on the road I drilled through the stat housing,,and the stat itself thus a funnel could be zip tied in place, then with a couple of 15 litre water bottles on board I could simply pull over and top up the steam jacket around the cylinders when the engine started to violently pink,,then I stopped throwing rebuild money at the stupid long stroke 3 bearing POS anchors and fitted a different engine

[Rusty Pelican]

Top steering bush in my imp gave up giving me a wobbly column , in desperation i got a rubber sink plug , cut a hole in the centre for the column to poke through and beat the bastard in with a socket on an extension.

Got though 6 MOTs like this before it gave up , needed the odd squirt of oil though as on hot days it squeaked like a mouse being castrated.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

My last Disco had a lovely Teflon coated battery tray, the battery never fell on the floor so it must have been ok. It went through 3 MOTs too only eliciting an an advise on the first,even though the same bloke did all three! perhaps he realised he was wasting his time.

[stuboy]

welding a friends corsa and notice paper smell. on inspection i found part of the sill was kitchen roll and filler..fire...hosepipe

[Joey spud]

 

Had a totally borked battery on a Triumph chopper that would cut out as soon as i unplugged my jump pack,so a drill battery and some cable ties then followed the guy home.

[Station]

Nova GTE with speaker wire made of household 240v wire stretched behind the dashboard connected using Sellotape and blutacked when I bought it.

Riveted replacement arches onto a Nova GSi after that car, and then hammered them in and filleted over. Looked perfect once rattle canned, but used that black undersell on the other side and it used to seep through to the other side when the paint and filler cracked leaving a weird and ugly black mark. I kept refilling and repainting until it was sold on.

[mouseflakes]

Expanding foam used in hollow box sections.

Early Renault 16s came out the factory with foam in the bottom of the A posts. Still - it provides a nice former to help shape the repair panel.

[mouseflakes]

Top steering bush in my imp gave up, giving me a wobbly column

Handling so terrifying it causes 'problems in the bedroom department'

[cros]

 Alfasuds actually had expanding foam factory fitted into box sections just to be sure.

[andy18s]

Sunroof equipped Mantas had an absorbent foam pad glued to the underside of the roofskin,to stop the sliding panel from scratching once opened.............

Any Manta that you now see with "slight corrosion on roof" will need major work to sort

[jakebullet]

Crapis got the expanding foam in the back corners of the boot. Strange how that's one of the repair panels you can get.

[Lankytim]

Mk2 granadas got foam in the lower rear quarters too. Pieces of shite. 

[AnthonyG]

A neighbour came to the breakers I was working at to get some 'cheap brake bits' for his Mk1 Fiesta. I showed him to a car on a stack with its wheels off, my eyebrows were raised when he told me 'these pads look OK, they'll do'.

 

I thought he was after calipers to rebuild or something....

[Bren]

I was told mk3 tinas has sponge in the doors which promoted rot.

[fordperv]

Talking about foam holding water and causing rot, didnt ford put a lovely chunk of it on the inside of the Ka fuel filler surround

[AnthonyG]

Is that why they all go there? I always thought it was stuck mud thrown up from the underside like on the Mk3 Fezzer.

[mercrocker]

Think Metros had similar stuff in the vertical inner join between front inner wings and outer ends of the rad panel.   They always rotted in a nice vertical line there....

[sierraman]

The Mk3 Fez/Ka had a spot welded filler to the inner wing. The lack of seam sealer/adequate welding plus condensation and mud...

[fordperv]

It's part and parcel it does hold shit up there but the foam blocks definately help the rot on its way

[sheffcortinacentre]

not on mk3 Cortina's but mk5's had the stuff in lower rear corners.

[Forty-two]

Tame and possibly not worth telling...

 

My mk2 Punto derv needed a front part of the exhaust replacing, mate who is a mechanic fitted the replacement with no dramas.

 

He always likes to hand over the receipt for parts fitted that he has collected and fitted but this time he can't find it. Then he remembers, it was in the end of the exhaust. He seemed upset that it had now been incinerated, I couldn't care less.

 

I have previously told the story of running a battery that wouldn't fit under the bonnet of a maestro via jump leads while the battery sat on the passenger floor in another thread somewhere...

[the judge]

Mate of mine was very proud years ago after changing a flat tyre with the spare on his mk3 fezzer. Until i saw the chamfered nuts were on back to front and he had travelled 200 miles earlier....

[Rocket88]

Mk3 Escort estate .....rubber floor mats were glued in..........and structural.....................

[twosmoke300]

A customer of mine put alloy wheels on his 206 himself . When it came in for a service I noticed he had used the old normal nuts not the special flat faced washer type pug alloys use. The nut almost pulled right through the holes !!