This idea came from another thread, but that wasnt the purpose of that thread. But it is here. So, what have you done that is a little embarrassing? I'll start. I was changing the oil in my daughter's car, nice day, right out front of the house on the driveway. Drained the oil, changed the filter, added two quarts of oil, and I look down behind the front tire. It seems I neglected to reinstall the drainplug. Oil running all over the driveway. !@#$%^&*)ou:
First 430 engine rebuild ever in '85, didn't know I had to pack the pump with petroleum jelly OR even prime it. Ran it for a moment with no oil pressure and sought advice. Luckily it lived a long time afterwards. Lesson: pack it & prime it. Ran with oil & water gages only, no warning lights. Overheated it so badly one time that the hardened exhaust valve seats dropped and destroyed pistons. Luckily the forgings took the abuse without grenading. Lesson: the warning lights need to stare you in the face; you cannot drive and watch gages at the same time. There are tons of piddly things, I've just chosen to block them from memory at the moment. Edit: Baffled the oil pan and didn't remember to make clearance for the dipstick. Another mid '80's lesson - broke a TH350 front pump on a buddy's Olds because I didn't check for correct torque converter insertion. Devon
I have a tendency to leave a mess as I am working on a project - was doing an intake swap and leaning over to put a 2bbl intake into a corner of the garage. As I am stretching with the intake I hear a hiss and cannot think what it could be. I put the intake down and look for where the sound is coming from - while leaning over, my knee was resting on a Buick engine red spray paint can which shot a perfect red circle onto my jeans.ou:
When my engine was assembled last January, we were getting it ready to dyno. We filled it with oil and installed the filter. I started priming the pump with a drill, and ran it for about 15 seconds before I heard oil hitting the floor. We forgot to install the sending unit! I proceeded to fill Dan's shoe with a quart of 30w $$$ break-in oil:laugh: Dan didn't think it was too funny...but it was a good break in a VERY long weekend in Cinci.
End of last summer- I was backing the 70 GS out of the garage. The right side mirror wasnt adjusted properly, so I had no view. Too lazy to reach over and fix it. Didnt see the car trailer and scraped the right side quarter against the side of the trailer. I felt sick to my stomach for three days. Yesterday- I took the freshly painted Riv out of the garage to clean it up and start putting it back together. There is sand debris in the dash from the massive amount of sandblasting the car had received. I was trying to use come compressed air to blow it out of the dash. Instead, I got fine sand debris inside all the guages. So now the instrument cluster has to be removed and completely disassembled. Two steps forward, three steps back. So after royally effing up the instrument cluster and giving myself two weekends of extra work, I narrowly averted disaster when I closed the garage door after carefully rolling it back in the garage. I had some lengths of steel line and a piece of door molding against the wall very close to the garage door track. A little too close. When I hit the buttom to close the door, the steel line and molding got caught in the track. The steel line bent, but the stainless molding didnt. It popped out and was headed straight for the quater panel. I literally dove onto the garage floor like a football player and cought the molding literally a split second before it kissed the quarter. It was like a millimeter away. I wound up pulling something in my side after that. After that I just went inside and started popping open some Heinekens. Those are the only two I'll fess up to. Any more and you'll think Im a complete idiot.:spank:
:af: I took a freshly rebuilt 8.5 posi axle out for a spin with no lube in it. Made it about 2 miles before the pinion bearing cage melted and locked the rear solid. I was not happy with myself
After putting rags in the lifter valley to catch dirt as I cleaned the heads I forgot to take them out. Made it a few miles down the road before oil pressure started going down. The rags made their way from the lifter valley into the oil pan and clogged the pickup.ou:
In fact, just yesterday. I rigged up an oil priming tool from an old distributor, put it in the cranked the drill only to have it almost break my wrist. Posted on here with one of the many "WTF" emails you see from people who are usually stumped. I forgot to take off the distributor gear. :error: Try turning over a 455 with a 14.4v Dewalt sometime. ou:
Shared workspace with a friend in the '90's. We put his Ford F150 baja racer up in the air to give the new 460 engine and transmission a run through the gears before he trailered it for the next off-road race. I hadn't thought about the fact that his tires could have been full of stones from a previous run, and my Wildcat was sitting some 15 feet in front of the truck. The stones were in the tires for a very short time, then ended up ricocheting around the shop with some taking chunks of paint out of my car. That being said, I'm lucky I didn't put my eye out, or lose some hard-to-find Buick glass. Devon
All thanks to you with your response to Devon's query about the gear on the disty. I caught myself, as all of us have, with the DOH! moment. We've all been there. :beer I may even relate the story of my avatar someday.
Ive had many moments like that. One time in particlular comes to mind. It was my first transmission swap. I took the old powerglide out and bolted the TH350 in place, got all the linkage and connections hooked up. This is the kind of job where you lay on your back on the floor and its cold and it takes you all day, looking for tools, cramped workspace, using the wrong tool for the jobs, improvising.. I was 21 i guess.. so go to test drive, it wont grab.. cant figure out why? I look over and see the powerglide and its torque converter laying quietly in the corner on the floor.... and I realize, the torque converter that I see is the Turbos torque converter, and the powerglides converter was covered with a shop towel on the workbench... so DOH! I installed it without a converter had to take it all out again and basically start over.. See if you can top that for stupid. LOL
Dave, it's time to come clean on the busted thumb. Gary, welcome to the stupid thread. Nice to know you're in good company with me as another dumba$$. Devon
In the automotive industry nowadays, Things Gone Wrong (TGW) is documented, believe it or not. By documenting it we learn from it. TGR (Right being the last word) is too, but less so. Cheers to a good V8Buick thread on TGW. Any time we can learn from what's been done is a good thing. Devon
Years ago was doing a rebuild on the 454 in my '70 Chevelle. I had just gotten the intake manifold back from having it chemically stripped, and noticed some gunk (for lack of a better term) between the manifold and the splash shield. These shields were riveted to the manifold, and I couldn't get a tool between them to get the stuff out. So in my infinate wisdom, I decided to use a hammer and chisel to sever the rivets, and remove the shield. I set the manifold on the concrete apron at the entrance to the garage and began hammering away. First rivet...cut, second rivet...cut, third rivet...cut, fourth rivet....well as the fourth rivet released it's hold on the shield, the shield was propelled and flew like a frisbee into the garage in what seemed like slow motion. I looked at my GSX, I looked at my Chevelle, and I looked at the flying splash shield. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I imagined the damage that that shield could do to one of my beautiful cars. As luck would have it, the flying hunk of sheet metal totally missed both of the cars, but landed in a 5 gallon plastic bucket that was full of used ATF. It split the bucket from top to bottom causing the entire contents to spill out onto the garage floor. After taking my first breath in what seemed like hours, I got to work cleaning up the "Red Sea".
