>>27597504
How did you manage that?

>>27597504
Fucked up a brake line and had to buy a "new" one from a junkyard

Replaced old thermostat with a new one. Car boiled all the coolant out of the expansion tank cap during long road trip. Topped it off with a jug of water I add in the trunk. A couple of miles later it had boiled everything again. Thought I had some bad head gasket, or something along those lines, so got it towed to a shop. Got charged $300 for diagnosing the issue and replacing the new thermostat that was bad from factory. Cherry is, the old thermostat apparently worked fine, it was just caked in rust/calcium deposits, replacing it was easier than cleaning it, or so I thought. Always test new parts if you can, part manufacturers don't give a fuck.

>>27597511

Seconding this.
Only way i can see this happening is the ol screwdriver staking the filter thing.

>>27597504
Why do people do these stupid boomer "tricks" instead of using a 5 dollar strap wrench
What kind of nigger brain thinks it's a smart idea to remove a maintenance item via stabbing

Sheared the head off of the main crank bolt as a kid changing my miata's water pump. 24" breaker bar.

>>27597504
Ive snapped lots of bolts/studs

>>27597650
The boomer trick back in the day was to buy the cheapass wrench

Stripped the bleeder changing my brake fluid. Needed to buy a new caliper.
I still need to properly bleed the brakes.

Honed the living shit out of a Chrysler small block instead of taking it and having it properly bored.

Tore down a motorcycle engine to see nothing wrong

>>27597650
Boomer dad has stolen 3 from the garage including the ones that I hoped he wouldn't know were for oil filters because they're pliers.

$100 later I'm just going to stab the fuckers from now on.

>>27597808
Seems like the boomer trick here is stealing tools and you should just do that back to your dad

>>27597504
I put a master cylinder on a car that locked the brakes up after 3-4 stops. This was estirely unnecessary and in the spirits of 'the entire car is new so it will be a long time before i have to fix anything'

Yes i bench bled it and its 8 replacements. No i was not converting the car to metric fittings to use a better unit. Yes i learned my lesson.

Ive started cars in subzero to warm oil up enough to do an oil change knowing full and well i was doing more damage than a thousand dry starts.

>>27597504
kek, god damn.

>>27597588
That's exactly what the reddit post OP stole the image from said happened!

>>27597504
I broke the 8mm bolt that holds the center pin in my Ford 8.8 and had to drill a trench to get the pin free from the carrier. I just put it in backwards when I was done changing the axle and drilled/tapped a new hole on the other side of the carrier.

>>27597695
This also happened to me recently and I got a caliper for the wrong side so when I bled the brakes I had to do that one upside down

>>27597713
Removed a 7.3 Powerstroke from newly aquired van to replace leaky oilpan.
Proceeded to tear down engine to see nothing wrong.

>>27597504
Nothing big but last weekend change the air filter and forgetting to replug the maf sensor. I thought it was over for the car

>>27597933
the problem is usually stamped into the part with the letters F-O-R-D in a little oval

>>27597504
front end is making a clunk noise, diagnose as bad struts
this was on a 2012 ford fusion and i was following a youtube video
did everything to a T and get to tighten the strut to the strut mount under the hood, literally the last thing, i had put the tires back on and lowered it and everything
video says 75 ft lbs (or something ridiculous) i was in robot mode and fucking sent it, breaking off one stud from a brand new strut
the real torque was somewhere down around 25 ft lbs
every comment on the video is boomers yelling “do NOT TORK TO 75 FT LBS !!!111” i was just retarded and assumed that this video that’s been perfect so far would continue to be perfect
so thats how i wasted $125 on a quick strut
aside: it ended up being the ball joint as the source of the clunk, so i replaced the struts for no reason (they were still old tho)

>>27597504
Nothing to do with maintenance, but a while back, I scrubbed the hell out of my leather passenger seat with a Mr Clean Magic Eraser, without realizing the things are fucking melamine. The luster is gone. I can always pick up a new front bench from a u-pick, I guess.

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>89 cb400
>doing a case gasket because oil leak
>one of the bolt heads rounds off somehow
>go to slot it with grinder
>sprayed some brake clean around the engine to find the leak earlier
>not all of it evaporated
>spark lights off a pool of solvent under the bike
>it startles me
>I drop the grinder
>on my foot
>wearing osha approved flip flops
>they didn't help
>luckily the grinder hit my foot and drove off rather
>still needed stitches but no major injuries

>86 300zx
>forgot what I was doing but it involved fucking with the engine then going for a quick drive
>car had hood pins due to broken latch
>forgot hood pins
>got up to 30 mph and hood shot up and destroyed the windshield
>lucky didn't bend the hinges

>03 expedition
>about to leave walshart
>engine just cuts out when backing out
>won't restart
>wtf
>fuck around under the hood to try and diagnose it
>no dice
>Try a bit of ether to maybe get it going again so I can limp it home
>keeps backfiring up the intake
>but keeps acting like it wants to start
>give it a big gulp and try again
>*wompf*
>intake is on fire
>great
>luckily I had an extinguisher
>unluckily I wasn't fast enough and the intake melted
>have it towed home
>turns out the fuel pump relay melted (super common problem)
>replaced it and the intake and fired right up

>04 f150
>doing timing job
>installing new rails and oil pump
>tiny 5 or 6mm bolts, spec is 12 ftlbs or something
>using horrible freight 1/4" toque wrench
>tighten
>tighten
>tighten
>hmmm this doesn't seem ri-
>*snap*
>fuuuuuuuuuuuck
>luckily just twisted off the bolt head so extraction was easy
>just went gud-n-tite plus a 1/8 turn for the rest of the small bolts
>been fine for 20k+ miles so far

>13 Camaro
>grinding something in the garage
>literally couldn't be paying less attention
>long story short I was shooting all of the grinding sparks DIRECTLY at the quarter window
>pitted the absolute fuck out of it
>contemplated suicide out of pure disappointment in myself

>>27597661
this plus wasting a lot of money by blindly changing perfectly good old parts for new ones while trying to fix a problem.
I also got butterfingers so I have lost multiple 10mm sockets, bolts, screws, wrenches, etc.

>>27597504
I borked a tranny by overfilling it

>>27597504
Probably fucked my power steering pump by not bleeding the air out after refilling it
It still works, but makes a pretty loud whining noise. I've tried to bleed it multiple times but it still makes the noise so I stopped caring, maybe I'll replace it one day

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I didn't know coolant was a separate thing from oil, I thought if the engine was overheating, I just needed to put in colder oil

This wasn't even counting all the extra shit like thermostats and shit
This was on a subaru gl turbo wagon

One day as I'm overfilling as usual, a methhead says "check the coolant retard, I can smell burnt coolant"

At that moment I remembered that coolant was a thing, and my vehicles have since never been more than an inch/few mm low on all fluids


And then I proceeded to mix up an use steering fluid and brake fluid in the wrong reservoirs in a 94 yj because I'm fucking retarded and blew the entire brake line

>>27597504
that hole can be fixed with epoxy

>>27597504
Left a rag inside the intake manifold then started the engine.

I rebuilt the carb on my old shitbox first car one weekend. Was so proud of myself and found it much easier that I thought it was going to be. Think I was test-fitting it for some fucking reason so didn't take the rag out that was blocking the intake. Then bolted it down for real and started the engine.

The noise was pretty bad, was pulling bits of shredded rag out through the spark plug hole for hours but the knocking didn't go away. Endeed up rebuilding the engine myself next and fucked that up too. Somehow I didn't neck myself after that saga and still have the car to this day now fully restored (by mysefl)

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>>27597504
>had to pull wires for a lighting install
>had to make hole for a rubber grommet
>misjudged where I drilled
>pin-point accuracy hole right through the diesel return line

>>27598399
why do you insist

on typing like this

fucking redditors

I swear to God

GO BACK

>>27598190
Based retard.

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>>27598704
I don't come to this faggot hole to spell gooder and put the fancy dots in the right place retard, I wanna look at cars and talk shit about cars, I'm too dumb for all that extra shit, you know what I said,here,another,few commas

And a

Space or two

And let's not forget an anime girl reaction pocture

Recently I was changing front main seal. Didn't want to scratch the surface. Saw some drill a hole in the seal and then pull it out. Well, the still went too far and I must have drilled out a small speck of crank material.
I'm hoping since the amount removed was so tiny and it's very close to the center of the crank that it won't fuck up the balance. I really hope not. I couldn't measure how much I knocked off. A couple sand grains amount ? Who knows. But yea, it feels bad. I hate pulling seals man.

>>27598206
>big boy

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>>27598704

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>>27597687
I just bought a set of these and called it a day.

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>>27598399

>>27597504
>’86 MR2
>engine overheating
>my expert diagnosis: blown head gasket
>build a wooden suicide crane arch to pull the engine out
>tear down engine
>engine is fine
>reassemble
>now engine doesn’t start
Got so pissed I sold the fucker

>’84 200sx
>first oil change
>drain plug is REALLY stuck
>strip it really bad
>weld a rod to it
>breaker bar time, thanks archimedes
>nut breaks clean off
>have to drill it out
>buy a tap kit
>break the tap off in the hole
>ended up buying a new pan
>realize I was turning the bolt the wrong way because I was upside down
I’m fucking retarded

>’70 Chevy c10
>my autistic brother really wants to help me work on it
>parents force me to let him help
>whatever, tell him to clean up the engine bay while I’m at school
>come home from school
>stripped engine block on the floor
>parts and oil fucking everywhere
>literally looks like the Exxon Valdez crashed in my garage
>im fucking pissed
>parents are like “y r u mad he’s helping tho :)”
>find him in his bathroom
>he’s naked in the tub washing the pistons by hand in a dirty black bubble bath
dad gave me $500 not to strangle him lol


I have more stories but they’re all boring, these are the only ones that stand out. Once I left my parking break on and drove around until it started making noises tho

>>27599848
Dang ol boy was cleaning that engine alright

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>replacing clutch master cylinder in my first car
>old redneck co-worker is gonna come over later to help me
>I'm already done installing it and I'm super proud of myself
>text co-worker to ask if he's still coming over
>shit I forgot to get brake fluid
>send co-worker a picture of the power steering fluid bottle in my trunk and ask if I can just use that instead
>he texts back "yeah"
>sweet I'll just start dumping this shit in and pumping the pedal
>half an hour later my phone buzzes
>his text reads "no don't use that"
>realize the "yeah" text was his slowass response to me asking if he was coming over

>wastegate actuator not working right
>have severe boost creep, pressure reaching so high fuel cuttoff keeps kicking in
>decide to remove actuator and see what the hell is going on
>start disassembling the actuator
>accidentally slip with screw driver I was using to pry open a sheet metal tab
>it goes into the actuator and punctures the diaphragm
>can't even buy the actuator as an individual part, can only get an entire turbo assembly, which is $2500

Wound up using a universal turbosmart external wastegate actuator. The original problem was the connecting rod from the actuator to the gate was slightly bent and was rubbing on the turbo stopping the wastegate from opening all the way. Have to use a boost controller now because the turbosmart operates at different vacuum than the factory actuator.

>>27597940
Didn't know boomers posted here

>>27598190
fresh pasta

>>27598190
This is the /o/ equivalent of the negligent discharge pasta on /k/

>>27599848
Based parts cleaner autist assistant

>>27599885
What the fuck is wrong with you, who just assumes they can throw whatever shit they have laying around in a car, literally how could it even cross your mind to use a completely different fluid in your brake system

>>27599917
What pasta? that's all real

>>27599885
>>27600320
It would be fine.

>>27597504
First car, was changing my own oil and found some maintenance, jack up car and set emergency brake, unknown to me though the emergency brake release was busted so I ended up driving with the emergency brake on for weeks completely destroying my brakes and shit

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>>27597504
Let a retarded and addicted boomer relative help with a repair.
>replacing intake manifold (ferd 4.6), got a NOS OEM one before they were all scapped up and shipped off to Laputa
>time to tighten down the bolts
>bolts are long, fiddly, and more importantly, hardened steel going through plastic into an aluminum head
>doing passenger bank
>hey the torque specs are such and such, please use the little torque wrench
>"okay anon I've got it"
>no seriously it's not a super stressed area and they only want like 8 foot pounds, if you caveman it you're gonna strip the threads
>"we used to rebuild whole cars in this garage anon i got it"
>look away for two seconds
>look back
>no torque wrench in sight
>"yeah you just slap on some anti seize and tighten that thing until it feels about right, then back off and tighten a little more"
>"boy this bolt sure is taking a while to tighten"

>>27600598
Kek. Would have used the tiny torque wrench and it's probably the kind that bends instead of clicks. Would have retard strengthed right through it anyways.

>>27597587
makes me think I need to test my thermostats from now on I've heard of this before

>>27597504
I had an issue with car having bad idle and dying when the engine was cold, I replaced the vvt solenoid, camshaft sensor, flywheel sensor, intake gaskets, the issue was the vvt pulley, instead of just replacing the timing kit I sold the car for pennies and bought another shitbox

>>27597504
broke the bolt off when loosening the belt tensioner for the serpentine belt

>>27597504
I think I win,
Intake manifold cracked on jelly bean Ford truck 2v 5.4 and it started spewing coolant everywhere. Mechanic wanted $1600 to do the intake manifold. I thought, I can do it myself. I've done oil changes and spark plugs before. A weekend of curses and swearing ensues. get the new intake manifold in there and start it up. Runs like shit. Starts blowing white smoke out the exhaust. Gonna run a compression test. Pull a spark plug and coolant starts flowing out. I found an engine on Craigslist for $800 called in my friends who knew more about cars than me and we threw in the new engine. Tore down the old one and some piece of metal that nobody has been able to identify punched a hole in the head and cracked the block. Probably my most expensive fuck up to date

>>27597504
about 5 or 6 years ago I replaced a VVT oil line that had a reputation for failing suddenly and killing the motor. it ran from the bottom of the motor all the way up to the rear bank. took about an hour and a half all told to get it in place, go to turn on my car and oil sprays everywhere making a huge mess.
I prayed it wasn't the bottom bolt which was a pain to get to, and it actually was the top one. felt like a huge idiot but tightened it up and never had an issue.

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i snapped my su carburettors fuel bowl while trying to lever off my jaguars stuck cylinder head with a wood board when i wanted to check the block condition

cost me about $100 used from another enthusiast but it saved me nearly $100 for the part new

I was 18-19 years old living with my aunt and uncle in California working on my 07 Nissan Frontier replacing the water pump. I was being a lazy piece of shit and I wanted to go out with friends instead so I let my uncle finish working on the water pump. The next day I was driving my car and overheated so badly that I lost compression in the engine totalling the truck. Turned out my uncle never put the gasket in the water pump. Never ever let anyone "help" work on my vehicles without me there or it being in the shop again.

>>27597511
>Kia
Chinesium

>>27600671
2gr or something? iirc toyota had a recall campaign for that to replace it with an all-metal one, instead of metal crimping a rubber section

>>27600785
Cast aluminum doesn't need to be from china to be fragile.

>>27600824
yeah in my 2008 camry

>>27600827
You don't need to be chinese to make chinesium. The difference between cast aluminium and chinesium is slight, but these plastic like breakdowns tell which is which.

>>27597504
Nigga how in the God damned fuck did you manage such a monumental fuck up?

>>27599848
Nice post, made me chuckle.

I had to take the head off my tundra because the ceramic cracked/shattered on a sparkplug I was replacing and some of it got down in the cylinder.

left the coolant cap unscrewed before going for a long drive, got home and there was nothing left
nothing too serious

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>>27599848
>>realize I was turning the bolt the wrong way because I was upside down

>do headgasket in my shitbox
>friend mixes coolant
>-30C and coolant is frozen
>find out after driving 20km with steam coming from under hood
>headgasket blown again
i was a bit pissed
>change headgasket again
>be in a bit of a hurry
>start car everything sounds fine
>get home hear rattling from engine
>camshaft pulley bolt was left loose
god i'm a retard
and i'm supposed to fix trucks when i can't even wrench my own shitbox properly

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>>27597504
>finish clutch job in a 944
>putting speed and reference sensors back in
>accidentally drop bolt into the dreaded timing hole on the bellhousing
>have to remove the entire transaxle and pull the torque tube back to get bolt back out
Many wrenches were thrown that day.

>>27597650
it's literally the shittiest "trick" too because all it does is tear the shit out of your oil filter so nothing can grab it to remove it.
on really stuck ones I use a massive pair of channel locks, hasn't failed me yet

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>>27599716
>blocks your path

>>27597504
While working on cars often runs in a family, individual execution styles can differ wildly. That was the case for my father and me. He was a "get it done" auto mechanic while I'm an engineer and tend to be more thoughtful and detail oriented.

One day I was in the driveway changing the brakes on my car. The front rotors were, of course, seized to the hub, and I was working to get them off. After spending some time trying different things, I noticed that these particular rotors had threaded "jacking" holes that would accept a screw which could be used to separate the rotor from hub. So off I went in search of metric screws to fit the holes.

In the meantime, Dad was sitting on the porch drinking his coffee and watching me struggle. After a bit he asks "Got new rotors?", to which I replied "Yes." A couple minutes later he gets up, goes to the basement and comes back with a sledgehammer. He walks up to the car, takes a single swing, and pops the rotor off. Without a word spoken, he returns the sledgehammer to the basement, then resumes drinking his coffee.

I look at him, scrunch my face, and say "Yeah, I guess that works too!"

To this day, every time I find myself struggling with a problem I think of him and smile!

Many years ago, I had a VW Transporter van with a rear 1.6 liter inline-four, water cooled diesel engine. I took it on a long vacation to the mountains with a couple of my buddies. Going uphill on a long steep grade, it started overheating. After stopping, I noticed a coolant leak. It was coming from the hose clamp on one of the hoses spanning the length of the van, from the engine in the rear to the heater core in front. I fixed the leak, but realized I had no coolant available or place to buy it anywhere nearby. I decided to fill up with water from the mountain stream flowing through the rocks. I was amazed how much water this car needed. For such a small engine, it had a huge radiator and four large hoses going from back to front, providing heat to the cabin and running to the radiator. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but once home, I immediately replaced the water with fresh coolant.

On my first drive afterwards, the van overheated. I figured that the stream water had destroyed the water pump impeller or plugged the radiator somehow. I checked the cooling system piece by piece. I could not find anything obviously wrong. I made sure that there was no air pocket trapped in the coolant. I checked belts, pump, thermostat...all looked OK. I was about to pull the radiator from the car when I realized my mistake.

To remove all water from the system, I had disconnected the lower radiator hose and pulled it from its normal position to below the front frame rail, letting out the water into the drain pan. What I did not realize was that when reinstalling the hose, I had forgotten to place it above the frame rail. Reinstalling the spare tire in its place, behind the front bumper (underneath the van), had pinched the hose to the frame rail almost completely cutting the flow of coolant. Once I rerouted the hose like it should be, the VW ran with the coolant gauge needle sitting right in the middle; no more overheating.

not really personally my maintenance fuckup, but I was personally retarded about it.

bought a brand new to me car from the dealer, good condition, ran great, excellent price. gtg. fast forward about a week I'm cruising down the freeway when suddenly I hear a noise. I can't really describe it, but it kind of sounded like a quick release of air like if you got a serious puncture on your tire, however it only lasted about a second and was just loud enough to hear, so I knew it wasn't that. a couple of seconds after the noise I get the charging light on my dash. I thought God damn it, did the alternator go out? thinking I was now running on battery alone I decided to keep driving to try to make it home before it went flat. soon after I noticed the temperature creep up and again I figured it was a symptom of the battery draining causing an electrical gremlin so I ignored it and kept driving. maybe about 3 minutes later the dash started dinging at me and the display was telling me the engine was overheating. i was off the freeway at this point so I said fuck I should probably pull over and at least look. I did just that and lo and behold My serpentine belt had turned into spaghetti and wrapped itself around the crank pulley. well... that explains that. I let the engine sit for a while so the fans could cool off the radiator and eventually it was cool enough that I can make it the rest of the way home which luckily was only a few miles away. I took the other car to the parts store for a new belt, slapped it on and it's been running perfect ever since years later. got super lucky my dumbass didn't blow a head gasket or warp the block or anything from being stupid and not reading the symptoms correctly.

and before someone says something about power steering, yes that absolutely would have been a dead giveaway... if the car didn't have EPS.

>>27597808
a pair of cheap ass rubber gloves should be all you need to get an oil filter off.
if you have to wrench it off, you installed it too tight. if you didnt install it, whoever did it before you did.

>>27597504
I took the engine out of a car and let someone help me lift it out. He lost some of the engine mount bolts and just dropped everything into a pile
The car has been sitting for a while now. Completely Lost the will to put it back together

>>27602592
I feel that. I have everything ready to finish this engine swap except for motivation.

passat oil change, oil from unknown source, did not take long before oil pressure loss appeared, never bothered to fix

I poured in 5w20 instead of 0w20 for my car, it still worked so whatever.

>>27602448
A dead giveaway would be the temperature gauge.
Isn't a faulty serpentine belt on a week-old car something the dealer/manufacturer should be accountable for?

>>27602796
Motivation is the hardest part to come by sometimes. I find it helps to just go out and do something in the shed, even if it's not related. Or even something related but very simple/menial. Are all those bolts/mounting hardware clean? Go wire brush all the threads or something. Build from that, snowballs until you're elbow deep in the engine bay with the engine swinging off the crane.

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>>27597504
I uh, adjusted the valves", on an engine with non-adjstable valves.

>>27603602
How do you adjust valves without a spec to adjust to?

>>27603617
I thought I could do it by ear, listening to how the engine ran better or worse as i adjusted things.
of course everything i did only made it actually worse. i didnt really know what i was doing.
Dad came over later to fix it for me and told me "those arent adjustable valves. dont do that!" lol

>>27603631
Jesus. how long did that take you?

>>27603632
I fucked with it like an idiot for a couple of hours before calling Dad and telling him I had a little problem and needed help.

>go to weld up hole in roof that rusted due to a deep dent
>forgot to cover windshield
>fluxcore.png
>windshield now pitted
Oh well it was chipped to begin with

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>>27603527
It should have, but again I misread the signs like a dyslexic trying to read Welsh
>brand new to me
It was used

>>27598190
>wears flip flops while wrenching

why are they like this?

>>27597504
I don't make mistakes because I'm not an incompetent loser.

>>27597650
There's two kinds of people
>those who use the right tool for the job
>retarded fags who stab oil filters

>>27603802
I hate angling the damn cover on. Gotten to the point where I remove the coil pack so I don't fuck the gasket or pinch something.

>>27603804
Yeah, why, I mean if crocs exist

>>27603802
Looks like a useful little handle to pull it off later!

>>27603833
This. My blue Crocs are my wrenching shoes, simple as.

>>27603802
>Extra clamp on the heater core
DID SOMEONE HAVE A LEAK UWU
I fucking hate those pipes.

>>27603837
Nice, mine are the same color. People joke it looks like I'm walking around in hospital shoe covers.

>>27601917
Only boomer retards buy overpriced oem filters when the walmart fram ones do a better job.
Guess it all adds up.

>>27603875
This. Each time I've install a replacement engine in my car, the first thing I do is throw on an orange cap Walmart FRAM filter.

>>27604056
You're supposed to screw them on now, grandpa. We're not in the 1960's anymore.

Back in the mid-90s, when I was a full-time mechanic, I prided myself in troubleshooting driveability problems, check engine lights, emissions failures and such. That became my primary role in the shop. Instead of spending most of my day spinning wrenches, I was typically armed with an OBD scanner or DVOM. So when a customer came in with a sweet little 1966 Mustang (a recently purchased retirement gift to herself), complaining of poor gas mileage and lackluster performance, it seemed like a break from the doldrums of checking engine codes and a return to a time when things were simpler...or so I thought.

She dropped the car off, and I took pleasure in driving it a number of times to replicate her issue, except that I could not; it always ran great. But when I pulled the spark plugs, they were pretty sooty, but would clear up after I drove it a few times. I hated to waste her money replacing parts, but every few weeks she would be back with the same complaint. I even drove the car home a few times and calculated the gas mileage, which at about 15 MPG, seemed reasonable for a V8 with a 4bbl and no overdrive. I ended up rebuilding the carburetor, adjusting valves, replacing points and condenser, etc... and the problem continued, except I had never experienced it.

Finally, I asked her to take me for a ride so I could pinpoint the exact moment she experienced the issues. Well, it took less than a minute to realize the problem. When she got in the car, the first thing she did was pull out the handle for the manual choke and hang her purse on it. Then I understood why she said it ran fine at first, then worse the farther she drove. The word “choke” had worn off the handle over the years and she mistakenly thought it was the fresh air vent. At her request, I put a new choke cable on it, and we laughed about it whenever she came in for work on one of her other cars.

While replacing the thermostat on my old 1991 Ford F150 Lariat, I got the cover housing all cleaned up and ready for the new gasket (which had some handy adhesive on one side, how convenient). Well, I set the gasket to the side, and seconds later, it was nowhere to be found. I tore that garage apart looking for that gasket.

After hearing plenty of not so nice words coming from the garage, my wife asked me what was wrong. I told her about the gasket in a very heated way, with arms and hands flailing. She immediately started laughing like crazy, and boy was I mad! She kept pointing at my elbow but was laughing too hard to speak. The gasket was stuck to my left elbow! At least I found the dang thing.

>>27597504
>stripped a brake line flare nut and tore the brake hose, had to replace both
>somehow managed to ruin the threads on a tie rod end when working on a CV axle, fixed it with a die quickly enough
>ordered the wrong cv axle so it wouldnt fit, have a new one now hope it fits
>botched the coolant bleeding because my stupid 4x4 doesnt have a bleed valve, had to drill holes in thermostat then order a new one
>overtorqued fuel return line over fuel injectors so the return washers had fused inside it, had to use the smallest drill bit to carefully and painstakingly get it all out
>tried to manually press the bushings in the control arm only to realise that a connecting rod prevents me from doing so without special equipment and a hydraulic press, ruined a tool because the bushing got lodged deep into the press bit, ended up ordering aftermarket control arm.

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>>27597504
>lift car
>lower car
>air suspension no longer works

ruh roh

I put some big bites in the lower front bumper from using ramps on a bugmobile that didn't have enough clearance. It's just cosmetic and only noticeable if you look for it, but I still feel dumb about it. Newfags, if you have a 6-inch clearance cuckmobile like me, just learn how to use a jack.

>>27605688
Low profile ramp gang stand up
>tfw discount tire was about to scrape bumper
>They realize this and go grab a bunch of jacks and change the tires that way
Kind of based.

>>27597819
>Ive started cars in subzero to warm oil up enough to do an oil change knowing full and well i was doing more damage than a thousand dry starts
why more damage?

>>27603802
:P

>>27605688
My old retarded neighbor had steel ramps and his dumb ass drove his Trailblazer off the end of them and rekt both of the running boards. I laughed. Those running boards aren’t a cheap option.

That’s the same dumbass who overfilled the oil on this old SL500 he got, decided he would try to loosen the drain plug in the street to let out a quart or two onto the asphalt, and all of it, which that V8 probably holds a lot of oil plus the quart or more extra, dumped into the street and ate away at the asphalt and left a pothole

>>27597504
Oil light goes on.
i fill up the power steering, cuz retard no mech kid.
seize engine.
it was a nice Volvo

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I tried pressing in a tranny oil seal by the edge and now I have a leak.
New seal arrives from Rockauto on Mon.

I can change the oil 12 beers deep.
Don't even need the damn strap, it's called GRIP.
You're only hand tightening filters right?

>>27603875
>>27604056
Did you guys ever watch the Project Farm video where he cut open a Fram and a bunch of dust and torn filter material fell out?
Fram is garbage, the "expensive" filters are like $12 Vs $9...
I'm all for saving money but flat out cheap faggots are the fucking worst.

>>27597504
Trying to loosen a wheelnut by stepping on the end of the wrench which resulted in a pling and the bolt snapping off clean.

>>27603875
>fram ones do a better job.
>Guess it all adds up.
>fram
I see your bait, and raise you a (You)
>>27607894
>Fram is garbage, the "expensive" filters are like $12 Vs $9
I used to use FRAM like 20 years ago before I knew any better. Eventually I realized that they were bottom of the barrel trash.

>>27597504
Forgot to slide the oil drain pan under the drain port before I took the plug out.

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>>27609306
kek, my goto is forgetting to unscrew the little stopper out of the drain pan so within seconds the oil starts overflowing everywhere

>>27609339
Or not opening the little air flow cap on a car that flows really fast, it might not overflow but there’s enough in the top that is splashes all over.

>>27608597
If it snapped off, then it wasn’t coming off anyway. You good!

My first time doing real work on my own car I was doing my front brakes. The passenger side went well, and with more confidence in what I was doing, I moved on to the driver side. However, my dumb ass forgot to account for the fact that the caliper bolt I was unscrewing was facing towards me, and I managed to snap the bolt twisting it the wrong way.
Moral of the story, don't be retarded.

>>27609339
>all my cars take 20w-50
>can change the oil with my hands behind my back
>moms car takes 0w-20
>every time i take the drain plug out it blasts the oil out like a waterfall
>always end up painting the driveway
the worst part is at first it launches out and you need the pan very far away to catch it, then after a while it slows and starts flowing straight down so you need to move the pan carefully
it sure was a good laugh when i walked away to let it drain and came back to deepwater horizon

>>27597504
The head of a bolt snapped leaving the thermostat housing open and the thread inside the cylinder head.

>>27611228
how did you get it out?

>>27611273
Remove the cylinder head, drill the stuck thread, rethread the hole and put a new bolt.

>>27611124
My first time doing brakes on my own, I never cleaned the new rotors with brake cleaner and I never pumped the brakes before I drove it. I blew through the first stop sign I pulled up to and almost caused an accident.

>>27613458
boy that SUCKS

>>27613530
>EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND HOW IMPORTANT I AM AS I BLOW THROUGH THE INTERSECTION AND KILL YOU!!
>t. namefag

>>27600610
Me too... Put a new thermostat in to replace dessert one... Truck still runs at original temp.

>>27597695
>>27597928
Replace the bleeders on new calipers before instal. Trash from the factory.

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>>27597504
>2008 impala
>oil pressure sensor goes bad
>sensor is under the exhaust header heat shield
>while removing heat shield I accidentally sling the bolt holding it on into the stratosphere
>replace sensor
>decide the heat shield can't be that important and don't put it back on
>exhaust headers melt the radiator fans within 5 months
>end up overheating in traffic
>engine has a loud tick now
I don't want to do any actual repairs on this shitbox man I'm tryna tarbo a coyote s197

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>>27599848
>he’s naked in the tub washing the pistons by hand in a dirty black bubble bath
holy fuck

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>>27597940
Ha ha! Good one James!

-Dale
Dale's rare cars
777-898-000
Dale@dalesrarecars.com
US Army '84-'88

"I'd rather die on my feet than serve on my knees"

>>27604304
This sounds like something you'd find in a RockAuto newsletter.

>>27613691
>tripfag*

>>27597695
I’ve done it too. When those soft bleeders have been salted in there for 10 years, I don’t think there’s much of a chance. And you can’t really torch the fuck out of calipers… or maybe you can but it was easier to spend $80 on a pair of rebuilt calipers

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>>27597650
literally none of these things are necessary, I just hand tighten oil filters so they're easy to take off. Same with drain plug, especially that.

My real oh shit moment was stripping the drain plug on my used 2004 TL 6MT. The car runs beautifully, but whoever did the last few oil changes was a knucklehead. On my fourth oil change, it just stripped completely, no way to avoid it. Thus began a 23 hour journey to replace the drain pan, which involved dropping the exhaust and front subframe; complete nightmare. I did change my clutch, front suspension bushings and shocks, and engine/transmission mounts at the same time though, made a massive difference to the ride at over 200,000 mi. Maybe they didn't need to be replaced, but the OEM parts were cheap(-ish, except mounts and shocks).

That said, I will never trust even a dealer monkey going forward, as this car was dealer maintained all its life.

>>27597819
assuming you use a high moly oil, which is almost all of the full synthetic ones, the coating on the piston skirts and cylinder walls should protect your dry engine for a few hundred revs, even in subzero starts. You should be OK, materials science even in the early 90s was pretty damn advanced. Combine that with modern oil, it's no issue at all.

>>27597504
>undo the drain bolt for oil change
>drain the oil, change filter
>didn’t notice the drain bolt washer fell into the drain pan
>put drain bolt back in, refill oil
>drain oil out of the pan, find washer
>ah shit
>undo the drain bolt, pull it out, quickly stick my finger in the hole to keep it from spilling
>put washer on the bolt and quickly put it back in
only spilled a tiny bit, not as bad as I expected

>>27616285
>not using new drain bolt washer every time

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>>27598399
you have to go back man

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>>27597504

>>27597687
My trick is to use a belt.

>>27616289
i like using a copper washer so i can heat it up to anneal it for reuse
yea i can be fucked doing that but cant be fucked getting a new washer

>>27616289
Why should I? Honest question.

>>27617847
kek, the renault is inside the engine, not you.

>>27617900
>what's a crush washer

>>27597933
I removed the 7.3 out of my truck to replace manifolds, up pipes, oil cooler, and oil pan and saw virtually no wear with the engine upside down, still has cross hatching with 300k miles on it

>>27617900
>>27618568
Not every manufacturer uses a crush washer.
I hate to be the "read the fucking manual" guy, but read the fucking manual.

>>27616190
>My real oh shit moment was stripping the drain plug on my used 2004 TL 6MT. The car runs beautifully, but whoever did the last few oil changes was a knucklehead. On my fourth oil change, it just stripped completely, no way to avoid it. Thus began a 23 hour journey to replace the drain pan, which involved dropping the exhaust and front subframe; complete nightmare.
For next time anon, they make a kit that lets you tap it up to the next odd size, so you tap an M14 drain plug to M15 for example.
https://www.amazon.com/Supercrazy-1-5MM-Thread-Repair-SF0087C/dp/B00V0R7LVI
I've used on several shitboxes, they're quick and easy to install and work really well

>>27619243
Where did I say "always use a crush washer even if the car came with rubber or with nothing" or "don't read the manual"? Congrats, you are this guy, nobody asked but you assumed some bullshit and wrote that anyway.

>>27619518
let me rephrase: the pickup tube on this (as you may be able to see) is very close to the drain. That makes it super easy to get metal into the strainer on the tube. Best case, slight drop in oil pressure in an engine that uses a suspiciously small amount of oil for its size (4.6qts including the filter, for a 3.2L V6); worst case: scored cylinders. Also, it gave me an excuse to change many other functional but worn out components.
It's also the opposite of a shit box, being so effortlessly performant, luxurious, and sophisticated, so it's worth it to maintain well. Not to mention the outrageously good reliability. Most OEM parts are cheap anyway.

>>27600465
didn't look it up, but presumably brake fluid is designed to have specific compressibility and viscosity characteristics to prevent boiling. P/S fluid is not nearly as resilient to pressure. This will cause problems, also because the two fluids are immiscible.

>>27600602
>bends instead of clicks
explain

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>>27620863
Probably something like this. The wrench itself flexes, while a second rod connected to the head end stays straight and points at the gauge near the handle to tell how much torque is being applied. I used one while assembling an AR-15 and it's pretty intuitive.