The DIY Workshop Incompetence Thread.

[Guest Hooli]

****for the youngest readers a dipstick is something cars used to have so didn't need to wait for the bigend rattle to tell you it was low on oil.

[fordperv]

****for the youngest readers a dipstick is something cars used to have so didn't need to wait for the bigend rattle to tell you it was low on oil.

Now the dipstick is the one behind the wheel

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

the good old oil catcher at oil change time  .....

 

finding out that the sump holds 5 plus litres of dirty old diesel infested goo ...

 

that overflows the 4.5 litre bucket   ... and spreads across the drive ..

 

whilst you have a cuppa and a warm inside ,  thinking what an easy oil change this has been .................

 

The most relatable video on YouTube:

 

[red5]

John (new friend over here) wanted to check the gearbox oil level in his 944 Auto. We decided the best thing would be to back it up on my ramps, the box being rear-mounted. So John comes to my house, backs up into my drive, lines up on my halfrauds ramps...

 

...and overshoots, pulling the ramps under his gorgeous car and putting a nice crease in the sills. Cue much playing about with assorted jacks and blocks, until we got the back wheels sitting on the ramps again (the back tyres being at least 50% wider than the ramps...).

 

Ouch.

 

'Flat, level surface' for checking oil levels...

[Arthur Foxhake]

Nobody who posted in 2011 will still be here.

 

 

Oh...wait a minute.

[xtriple]

Have I ever mentioned putting new discs and pads all round on my Omega, on to the last corner (drivers side rear) and my son came up with a cuppa for me and we chatted while I did the brakes. Took it for a test drive and I very quickly realised something was seriously amiss as I lost the brakes entirely. Yes, I was so busy chatting I forgot to put the pads in.

 

Or about the time I was welding the sill on an old Astra estate and burnt through a petrol pipe? Major panic but nothing developed. All done, off to the MOT station only to abort in double quick time as, once again, I lost the brakes. After much head scratching, it was a brake pipe I burnt through, not a petrol pipe and so a petrol pipe type repair was not going to be successful on a front to rear brake pipe, now was it?  Once again, I was bloody talking to someone when I should have been concentrating...

 

Or the time I put a single disc pad in the front of a Fiat X1/9 the wrong way round, in my defence, I did get the other three right! Guess what, I was busy talking...

[Guest Hooli]

I put new front pads in a Midget & managed to get to a dual cabbageway before finding out I hadn't pumped the brakes up as I entered a roundabout... I didn't do that again.

[Jikovron]

On 3 occasions i have removed a gearbox with a view to replacing it only to find a minor difference that has massively scuttled the job:

 

Dolomite 1500 OD box with a failed reverse gear evicted from the shell with great vexation as the tunnel comes out and the exhaust has to be disturbed amongst other things,I then equipped the replacement with the bellhousing and immediately noted the input shaft was 1.5" longer so i had to basically refit the hideous mess of a gearbox to drive home.

 

latterly i removed the 4 speed gearbox of my estelle with a view to fitting a 120l5 gearbox however i baulked at relieving the floor crossmember for the extra bulk of the 5 speed so again simply* refitted the 4 speed back.

 

Most recently my good lady off her own back found a mk2 suzuki ignis of the same year and facelift etc being parted up for spares and subsequently arranged to pick up the gearbox, a quick deek revealed it looked basically the same, however upon removal of the tired gearbox out of our car i discovered the clutch splines,mounting points,clutch connection,diff splines where all rather different !!

after some hasty hindsight research i inferred that mk1 ignis cars have the light duty gearbox,shafts,hubs and a narrower track, and mk2s have the 'vice versa' ,but our car is a sort of facelift mk1.5 with the mk1 gearbox and a hybrid set of driveshafts to adapt to the wide track and mk2 hubs of which has made finding driveshafts/cv joints almost impossible to find!

[mat_the_cat]

A few years ago I was replacing (I think) the handbrake cables on the BX, and jacked it up in my customary way - put it on high, slide a couple of logs on end underneath, and lower the suspension until the wheels are clear of the ground.Isn't height adjustable suspension useful!

 

This however was to bite me in the arse, when I had finished the job. Obviously I needed to start the engine to get hydraulic pressure, so I leaned in through the window and turned the key. Moved the height lever back into high, and started to clear away my tools as the system built up pressure. Completely forgetting that I'd put it into first to lock the wheels so I could loosen the wheel nuts...

 

I'd even seen the wheels turning, and just assumed that it was the usual drag of the gearbox oil rotating the driveshafts. By the time I had twigged, the spinning wheels had hit the ground, and the driverless car was escaping from me down our track, with a couple of logs jammed underneath! Fortunately I managed to chase it down and dive through the window to turn off the key, but a close call

 

I put new front pads in a Midget & managed to get to a dual cabbageway before finding out I hadn't pumped the brakes up as I entered a roundabout... I didn't do that again.

 

This reminds me of a time when I was changing the front brake hoses on a 205, when a mate came round and asked if I could weld up the exhaust on his 309. "Not a problem" I replied, just pop the 205 off the ramps while I grab the welder. I neglected to mention that I had yet to attach the new hoses, which became apparent as he shot off the ramps, sailed through my gates, across the road and onto the grass opposite

[Parky]

Changed a Cambelt on a friends Cavalier and for some reason didn’t think the crank and cam needed to be aligned. Oops.

 

Same Cav - thought the sump bolts were a tad loose. Tightened one and it sheared. Shit! Best tighten the ones either side of that. Shit! That’s three sheared in the same corner. Yes it leaked like a bastard.

 

Sorted that and friend drove away happy. Or at least until the bonnet flew up half way down the road as I forgot to shut it properly.

 

Still, all good lessons learned!

[Ohdearme]

Only last night replacing blower motor on fan on the Galaxy. Ordered a new one, nice easy five minute swap but thought I’d plug it in and test it first before fitting.

 

Neglected to realise I was holding the motor and fan in my hand as I turned the blower on twatting my fingers and causing my to throw the new motor in thefootwell in a panic, smashing the vanes off it and rendering unusable.

 

Situation salvaged after two hours of fiddling about, head scratching and finally swapping motor bushes from new fan motor to old fan motor to make something that would work.