What's your DIY disaster?

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Had a near disaster when the MG's engine nearly dropped on my foot, missing it by inches. Cheap come-along I was using to pull it out to change the clutch let go. Fortunately this was coming out and I had already pushed the car out of the way. Engine fared OK, but flattened one corner of the oil pan. Come-along went in the trash.
 
When I was 16 I was earning extra credit at a shop after school. They had me pulling the heads off a 390 ford that was on an engine stand. I got all the head bolts off and put a bar in a port to pull a head off.

I had never pulled a head that heavy off and when it came off I missed it and it fell on my foot. I screamed in pain! Then as I was screaming the now lopsided engine rotated on the stand. When it got upside down the other head fell off and onto the first head that was still on my smashed foot.
 
Originally Posted by Chris142
When I was 16 I was earning extra credit at a shop after school. They had me pulling the heads off a 390 ford that was on an engine stand. I got all the head bolts off and put a bar in a port to pull a head off.

I had never pulled a head that heavy off and when it came off I missed it and it fell on my foot. I screamed in pain! Then as I was screaming the now lopsided engine rotated on the stand. When it got upside down the other head fell off and onto the first head that was still on my smashed foot.


I can just hear the newly-created cuss words. Do you still have that foot????
 
About 15 years ago I had a 1996 Chevy K2500 pickup with a 350 V-8. One day I replaced the spark plugs, distributor cap, and rotor. Upon tightening the screws for the distributor cap the plastic base cracked. The fix involved a tow and replacing the entire distributor. My money-saving DIY effort ended up costing around $600.
 
House Maintenance Horror story:

Fixing faucet in downstairs bathroom, shut off house water and well pump, opened every fixture to drain pipes. Worked on Delta faucet, installed DANCO rebuild kit. O-ring for stem didn't fit though appearing correct size, used old rings, new sping loaded plunger washers seemed deformed though.. Turned everything on. Faucet leaked a lot on cold side. Took it apart again, installed original washer and spring. Put it back together. Turned water on again. Looked O.K.

Went down to basement to find the domestic/heating anti-backflow checkvalve from the boiler purging all over the basement.

Hit it with a wrench . kept purging. Opened boiler drain to allow the valve to activate to allow boiler water in. No luck. Took some more water out and hit back flow valve AGAIN with a wrench. This time got the purge to a drip. Shut off boiler drain. The boiler drain valve is leaking now! Opened and closed it fully a few time. NO Luck; But now its leaking out the stem too ! Had a fit and Yelled and Screamed a bit. Went and got an old wash machine hose and connected to draincock and put hose end in pail to catch a vigorous drip.

Looked at boiler pressure saw it was 15psi. Manually activated the fill valve to get boiler pressure to about 23 psi. Now the drain cock is back to a slow drip and the anti backflow is at a medium drip.

Go upstairs and the wife informs me the kitchen drain is now clogged. I find the Sink Trap is not disassemblable - it is 35 year old glued 1-1/2" sched 40.
Snaked the drain with a wire - find the trap is open but water still not flowing. I said I have to cut drain pipe to the wall wye. Run to Lowe's and get couplers and some new PVC cement and cleaner. She says don't cut the pipe I'll call a plumber. Then she informs me the Faucet I worked on originally for a tiny, infrequent drip is now leaking out the handle when the facet is open. Argghhh!

Plumber comes next day - just a roto-rooter type guy. He says he has t cut the pipe. No Kidding. He snakes the sched 40 pipes with a cutter through 3 wyes and three 90's. After an hour he says its clear. He re-couples the horizontal under-sink drain pipe with a rubber coupling (!).. Check for leaks, its now leaking out of the dishwasher stub. I look closely and its cracked at the weld. He says he doesn't have one on the truck. He gives me a bill for $ 339 and leaves. I run to Lowe's and get a new - now plastic pipe - take apart the old drain pipe and install it. It works no leaks.

Now I have to get a REAL plumber to rebuild or install a new check valve on the boiler. I could do it myself, but I'm not comfortable or well practiced with soldering a massive valve onto medium pressure copper domestic water feed - especially now with the lead-free solder.

I also have to fix the Bathroom faucet that is leaking.

True story just happened this past Saturday through Monday

-Ken
 
Yesterday, late night oil change for the brother.

Jacked the car up to remove the jack stand after finishing. Thought I pulled the jack stand out far enough. Started to lower the car, came down faster than I prepared for. The side skirt landed on top of the jack stand that I thought was 6" further away. Ended up folding and creasing the side skirt. Luckily nothing the heat gun and some gentle reinforcement with my fist couldn't cover up.
 
As a teen I couldn't figure out why my transmission would spit ATF after I drop to/from school. After refilling with ATF 2x-3x's my parents took the car to a shop which stated that the unit contain a lot of water. About 1-2 weeks prior I had driven through some standing water trying to get my date home. I never stalled and I had no idea that my transmission had a breather tube.
 
Did a cam swap on my 94 Firehawk. Somehow after a week of driving the spider that holds the lifters down popped up. We might have bent it but idk how we could have missed that. Tear it all down and the lifter is mushroomed and won't come up. Only will go down. If we take the cam out it'll drop into the oil pan. Not what I want to happen. I walk into sears and ask them for the strongest magnet they have.

Get back to the car I get my friend to hold the lifter with a pen magnet and lower the lifter. I then stuck the big [censored] magnet through the cam hole. Grabbed it as soon as i seen it. The lifter was for cylinder 5 so further back. Made it all the way out. I remember it being very quiet.. Not a word spoken as I was pulling through. Every tap of the cam journal my heart would stop. Lol


There were metal shavings everywhere. I took out as much as I could with a magnet in the drain hole. Did 4 oil changes and called it a day. I drove/beat on it for another 15 to 20k without issue before I sold it. Had 130k and to my knowledge still going.

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Nothing too serious yet, I've had a few really messy oil changes, a few stripped drain plugs from previous owners, and probably the biggest annoyance which was a few snapped bolts which really gave me a fight. I consider myself lucky with all the potential issues I could've had.
 
More than forty years ago, but had a 1976 Plymouth Arrow. Bought new with add on air conditioning. Hoses everywhere. Tried to put in one of those old Prestone flushing tees and cut the high pressure a/c line by mistake. My contribution to global warming.
 
I tried to drive my Subaru on the plastic ramp but over shot, the car land on the ramp and the ramp was shattered.

While change the spark plugs on the Honda the rubber grommet was stuck on the spark plug and neither me nor my friend realize it. Put coil pack on and moved on to the next spark plug, it's only then we realize the grommet was missing because the next spark plug didn't get picked up by the socket. Left the car parked overnight and went to get some dental picks the next morning.

On a group project we replaced oil cover gasket on a friend's car, everything went fine until one guy over torque fastener for the oil cover. We had to use a bolt extractor to take out the carcass then reinstall the new one.

Trying to re-grease the brakes on my M3, all was well and when I put the bracket back to the hub I over torque the bolt and over-stretched it. I did not have enough leverage on the torque wrench until it "clicks". Luckily the bolt did not break and it was a cheap replacement.

While bleeding the brakes on the M3 I had to almost stop everything in the middle because of food poisoning. The big take away is not to eat any left overs before working on cars.
 
Originally Posted by WylieCoyote
Originally Posted by Chris142
When I was 16 I was earning extra credit at a shop after school. They had me pulling the heads off a 390 ford that was on an engine stand. I got all the head bolts off and put a bar in a port to pull a head off.

I had never pulled a head that heavy off and when it came off I missed it and it fell on my foot. I screamed in pain! Then as I was screaming the now lopsided engine rotated on the stand. When it got upside down the other head fell off and onto the first head that was still on my smashed foot.


I can just hear the newly-created cuss words. Do you still have that foot????

Yes. But I have a hard time finding shoes. My right foot/ toes only fit into a wide shoe. Other foot is normal.
 
Originally Posted by Firehawk409
Did a cam swap on my 94 Firehawk. Somehow after a week of driving the spider that holds the lifters down popped up. We might have bent it but idk how we could have missed that. Tear it all down and the lifter is mushroomed and won't come up. Only will go down. If we take the cam out it'll drop into the oil pan. Not what I want to happen. I walk into sears and ask them for the strongest magnet they have.

Get back to the car I get my friend to hold the lifter with a pen magnet and lower the lifter. I then stuck the big [censored] magnet through the cam hole. Grabbed it as soon as i seen it. The lifter was for cylinder 5 so further back. Made it all the way out. I remember it being very quiet.. Not a word spoken as I was pulling through. Every tap of the cam journal my heart would stop. Lol


There were metal shavings everywhere. I took out as much as I could with a magnet in the drain hole. Did 4 oil changes and called it a day. I drove/beat on it for another 15 to 20k without issue before I sold it. Had 130k and to my knowledge still going.

I have found lots of things in oil pans. Including lifters,fuel pump arms etc. You could have dropped it and been fine.
 
I was using an ACE Hardware Lifetime warranty 3/8" ratchet to unbolt my strut's bottom 2 bolts, and the head snapped off. The car was stuck in the driveway preventing other cars from getting out during Xmas day.
 
I decided to try a can of CRC Intake Valve Cleaner in my FXT a few years ago...decided to spray it in through the open airbox even though there was an inconvenient 90 degree turn in the airpath just past the MAF sensor. I thought I had snaked the spray tube on the can far enough past the sensor and things looked OK as I sprayed the cleaner in with the car running (I forget the exact sequence I had to use, but I followed the instructions on the can).
Let it soak for an hour or so before taking it out for a spirited drive...I have a long driveway that is a pretty steep climb up to the street and, right when I finally got to flat ground, the car hesitated badly. It seemed to get going again and then I heard a sound I can best compare to a handful of ball bearings being thrown hard into a coffee can, followed by a near stall. At this point, I was pretty convinced I had destroyed my engine.
The car did recover from this without stalling and behaved a lot better as I zipped up and down hills and revved the car a bunch, although something didn't seem quite right.
Took the car to work next day and noticed that it was hesitating from leaving a stop...when I left work to go to the gym, I noticed three separate hesitations before the car got going (luckily nobody was coming). Started to worry that my car was wrecked again but did some poking around online and found that a fouled MAF could explain these symptoms.
Bought some CRC MAF cleaner and sprayed it up good that night, and the car seemed to go back to normal. Getting the sensor out was a PITA as it sits at the extreme left of the engine compartment and is pointed to the left...had to dig up a tiny screwdriver that I ended up dropping just as I was tightening the second screw putting it back in. Luckily, the screwdriver ended up on top of some plastic sheathing around the wheel well and I recovered it easily.

The FXT has seemed OK since then, although I can still hear that horrible metallic clashing like something from a recurring nightmare. I have since bought a Subaru tool for applying their valve cleaners and that has worked really well. I wondered at the time if the cleaner had pooled up somewhere on the way into the engine and then poured in as a liquid while I was climbing my driveway...
 
Just about every time I work on the Escalade it's a DIY disaster. It's the most difficult to work on vehicle I've ever owned. Replacing any part requires removing about 50 other parts to get access to the one part you need to replace.

The first disaster was doing some simple maintenance by dropping the transmission pan and changing the fluid and filter. The exhaust Y-pipe goes right underneath the pan, and there's not enough clearance to get the pan off with the pipe in the way. So you have to unbolt the Y-pipe from the exhaust manifolds to get the pipe to droop down far enough to get the pan off. The exhaust nuts didn't look rusty at all, and I thought they would come off easily. Nope! I had to get the torch out, and even after heating them till they were red-hot, they were still difficult to remove and gnarred up the threads while removing. I had to remove the driver's side manifold completely to remove a mangled stud. That was an ordeal that took a few days to finish. My wife was not pleased she couldn't drive her car for those few days!

Second disaster was replacing the rusty and leaking transmission cooler lines and engine oil cooler lines. The engine oil cooler lines snake through a tight spot between the engine block and front differential. I had to unbolt the front diff so it would drop down enough to sneak the lines through the tight space. At first I thought that that couldn't be right but, I Googled it and yup, that's the proper procedure.
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Replacing the transmission cooler lines required removing the whole front bumper and grille assembly to get access to the aux cooler behind the grille. There are bolts that bolt the bumper to the fenders on both sides. I broke both of them. Couldn't use a torch on the painted fenders. I ended up drilling and tapping new holes right next to the broken bolts to re-secure the bumper. I also needed to unbolt the front sway-bar from the frame to snake the lines through right above it. I broke both of the bolts on the driver's side frame rail. I had already spent way too much time fixing this thing and I NEEDED it done that morning (did I mention I finished this repair the morning of Christmas Eve? Yeah, wife was not happy with me that time either!), so I just removed the sway bar altogether and I figured I would fix that some other time. I still haven't gotten around to it...

I don't know what the heck people are talking about when they say GMs are easy to work on, and Fords are difficult. This is my first GM and it is ridiculous to work on. My Fords are 100x easier.
 
I seen a friend of mine try to tune up an almost New Plymouth. He dropped the nut for the air cleaner and some how it dropped into the carburetor. He thought he would start the car and it blew up. He lied and told the owner it just quit. The owner sold it with a blown engine. A sad story for sure. The car was in mint condition. This all happened in the back of a nice car wash.
 
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