What's your DIY disaster?

[antonmnster]

Changed the plugs in my high mileage n54 BMW. Immediately developed a miss. Spent a ton on the usual suspects: injector and the coil. Still had a miss. Tried using a multi-meter to monitor injector pulse and spark primary voltage. Thought I found the injector pulse, couldn't find the spark primary. Replaced the MOSFETs in the DME for some reason (brain surgery for the car), still had a miss.

Replaced the DME brain. Major bucks, down time, and lots of coding. Still had the miss!!

The problem turned out to be a bent electrode on a plug that I dropped in my dark garage, and didn't notice. Threw in an old plug and ran great!

NEVER overlook the simple!!

 

[edyvw]

Changing coils on VW.
So I take out coils, and put new ones. Number one does not want to get in all the way. Push, pull, push etc. nothing. Then it dawn on me that maybe insulation rubber broke off. Of course it did. But, in process of pushing it I managed to nail down that rubber all they way around spark plug.
Instead of 5 minutes, I spent 2 days working on getting that rubber with something that resembles dentist tools. Finally did it, vacuumed it, air pressure it etc.
I do still admire myself that I basically welded that rubber around spark plug.