Well that was dumb...

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Woodys_Cuda

Woodys_Cuda

Ontario, Canada
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I think we all mistakes while working on our cars, those oops moments. My worst one was when I was removing my steering wheel. I didn't have a puller so I was tapping on the back of my steering wheel to remove it. It was almost off so I decided to give it one last yank. Didn't work, so I yanked as hard as I could and the wheel came free and I hit myself in the nose with it. lol. My eyes were watering and I thought I broke my nose. Man did that hurt!

When I brought my car in for an alignment they told me my steering wheel was upside down. Oops again. I posted a short video clip on here where you could see it upside down but nobody noticed (well commented anyways). *phew*.

Do you have oops moments too? I think you do.
 
Woodys_Cuda said:
I think we all mistakes while working on our cars, those oops moments. My worst one was when I was removing my steering wheel. I didn't have a puller so I was tapping on the back of my steering wheel to remove it. It was almost off so I decided to give it one last yank. Didn't work, so I yanked as hard as I could and the wheel came free and I hit myself in the nose with it. lol. My eyes were watering and I thought I broke my nose. Man did that hurt!

When I brought my car in for an alignment they told me my steering wheel was upside down. Oops again. I posted a short video clip on here where you could see it upside down but nobody noticed (well commented anyways). *phew*.

Do you have oops moments too? I think you do.
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Putting on or taking off break spring using vice grips, they slipped and I hit myself in the face. Next time I bought the break spring tools.
 
Hey, at least you didn't break the steering wheel. Lol

Stripping a wire in a ceiling box working on a 10 foot ladder. Using linesman pliers, cause I didn't want to climb back down. The linesman slipped, and smashed into my teeth. Oww.
 
In 1980 I was replacing the clutch in my 69 GTS and the trans would not come out. Laying under the car in my driveway I gave it one last yank. The trans immediately came out and landed on my chest. Have you ever tried to get a trans off your chest while trying to breath and roll out from under the car? Glad nobody was around to see it, but wish somebody was around to help me get my breath back, I thought for sure I was a goner...
 
HemiSSDart said:
In 1980 I was replacing the clutch in my 69 GTS and the trans would not come out. Laying under the car in my driveway I gave it one last yank. The trans immediately came out and landed on my chest. Have you ever tried to get a trans off your chest while trying to breath and roll out from under the car? Glad nobody was around to see it, but wish somebody was around to help me get my breath back, I thought for sure I was a goner...
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That's the only way to do it, with VW Bug transmissions. With a 833....ouch.

My most recent big oops was pulling the steering gear out of my Dakota, and then absent-mindedly giving the steering wheel a big spin. That damn clockspring was a goner.
THEN I found out that they're unobtainum.
 
I screwed up again just this weekend while replacing a master cylinder.

My neighbor had me pump the brakes while bleeding the rears. I couldn't get it to pump so he asked me to get out of the car. When i got out I saw the drums were laying on the ground. We forgot to put them back on before bleeding and the wheel cylinder was out all the way pushing the shoes out of whack. lol. Oops again.
 
I've made so many stupid mistakes I can't begin to document them. One REALLY REALLY stupid mistake was when I had the part time job at the auto hobby shop at NAS Miramar. Part of my job was to help guys tune up their rigs. We had an Allen scope in one bay.

One day is a nice (and of course fairly new) Judge, this was ??72--73?? Bear in mind that my own 70RR the 4 speed reverse lock linkage had been DISCONNECTED.

I was somewhat dirty and the owner had walked somewhere else, and I needed to run the engine. I did not want to sit in the car, so I reached in, pulled the shifter into neutral, and twisted the key. "DOH" clutch interlock. So I stood on my left leg, reached in and pushed the clutch with my RIGHT foot, and twisted the key, then let out the clutch

AND OFF WE WENT IN REVERSE!!! The linkage was not properly adjusted, and the "drag?" of the reverse lockout had kept the gearbox IN REVERSE. Folded the driver's door back on the way out
 
Cutting up a car with a torch, not paying any attention to anything but the cut, noticed it felt hot, found I'd set my shoestrings on fire.

Working at Sears, a guy pulled in a car for a tune up and left the key on. He knew the first thing I'd do was to walk up, pop the hood, remove the distributor cap and then the rotor. Bam. Ha-ha funny if you weren't me.

Still at Sears, working on a Mustang this time trying to figure out why it wouldn't start. Had the dist cap off for some reason or another. Decided to check it if had jumped time so I pulled #1 plug and bumped it over with a starter switch to find TDC. Fumes built up in the engine compartment, the distributor sparked, and a fireball hit the ceiling. I learned to always check the floor underneath a car when trying to put out an engine fire.

At an Exxon station, an older GM comes in for an alternator belt. I loosen up the bolts and the alternator drops free. It had the wrong alternator on it so the battery stud met the engine block. You could see the fire run up the wiring harness until I got the battery disconnected.

I only remember hurting myself once worth mentioning, this time at a Gulf station. I had a late 70's Vette up on a rack doing a safety inspection so I had the tires off. Those things came with monster sized tires, even though they were barely able to spin them. I ruptured a hemorrhoid lifting one of the back tires to put it back on. I was only 18 - I guess I was an early achiever.
 
jos51700 said:
That's the only way to do it, with VW Bug transmissions. With a 833....ouch.

My most recent big oops was pulling the steering gear out of my Dakota, and then absent-mindedly giving the steering wheel a big spin. That damn clockspring was a goner.
THEN I found out that they're unobtainum.
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Did that to my 2000 Jeep GC... horn never worked again!
 
How about in 1981, working in a Texaco outside of Denver, a brand new Toyota Unibody came in for its 1st oil change.
I sent the lift up thinking I set it right, placed the pegs on what I thought was the frame rail.
The lift and pegs went up, but the car stayed for a few seconds before it finally lifted up. I Proceeded with the oil chg.
Afterwards I got in to move the car and the floor was noticably humped upwards near the pedals. I pushed the floors up with the lift!
I franically smashed the floors down with my feet. Then cleaned the new tan carpet from dirty boot marks the best I could.
Bad rookie mistake.
 
Welding on my 71 Demon in about 1995. Trying to add metal where PO had cut clearance for slicks in front of rear tires very early in its life. Car cover on but pulled up halfway on door glass (windows rolled down).

Welding along, going well. Then I happen to see smoke billowing out from under car cover. Car was in rear of double deep garage so I sure didn't want to burn house down!! Pulled cover up and interior completely full of smoke. Opened door to see smoke coming out of back seat area. Turns out my welding on outside caught the jute on rear bench seat bottom on fire .

So I took a deep breath, held it, jumped in car to pull rear seat. Can't see a thing due to smoke but I know how to kick seat and get it out...but nope, not this time. Seat won't budge! Jump out to get a breath of air, jump back in, and literally rip bench bottom out (bent the wire frames). Hop out, take it outside, and douse the smoldering mess.

Fast forward to 2021 when car was nearing resto completion. Had to buy Legendary seat covers and rear side "doorpads" to fix my stupidity!

And I certainly have more stupidity acts i could share!!
 
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One of my dumbest move was utilizing stranded electrical wire for the choke circuit on my barracuda. That should work just fine right? wire is wire right? lol.
I fired the car up and immediately noticed smoke rolling up from the back of the hood and at the same time molten copper and vinyl dripping on my floor mat and shoe.
I shut it off and flew out to yank the - battery cable loose.

All across the recently painted firewall was a nasty black streak where the wire was.
In my rush I forgot to hook the choke wire back up and failed to put a fuse inline.
I learned my lesson well, but lucked out because I waxed the paint on the firewall and the damage just wiped off.
Had to buy a new floor mat though:lol: This was decades ago but I was old enough to know better, but learned of automotive wire, Verses commercial:eek:
 
I was working on a 2001 Durango 5.9L for a fellow pizza delivery driver back when I was still in grad school. I forget why but I was under the truck and had to reach up to check something near the engine. I had it running as it was the middle of winter and figured I could carefully snake my hand past the HOT exhaust pipe. Well I did but when I went to pull my hand out I nicked the exhaust pipe with the thin-skinned inside edge of my wrist and promptly got a nice 3rd-degree burn. That **** hurt for weeks and really restricted my motion, had to reapply dressings multiple times a day for the first few days.

Another time I was in a cranky mood while replacing the license plate registration tags on my mom's car. Using a razor blade to remove the old stickers, I wasn't paying attention and was holding the plate with my left middle finger, right in the path of the blade. Welp the blade slipped and I sliced off a small piece of the tip of my finger, RIGHT where the nerve ending was. Damn thing just kept bleeding like crazy, after a couple hours I gave up and went over to the nearest Urgent Care. They realized it had to be cauterized to stop the bleeding. I really really didn't want an anesthesia shot numbing my whole hand for hours so I told them to just use topical. Well the blood flow was too constant that not enough of the numbing stuff actually got into the wound; as soon as they touched it with the Silver Nitrate stick I felt a massive jolt of pain like a lightning bolt running up my arm and let out a yelp which freaked out the nurses lol. At that point I audibly said "F*** it, give me some wood to chomp on and just go for it". Bit down on a stack of tongue depressors while they finished cauterizing the wound. One of those times that I was in so much pain I got woozy and nauseous afterwards, crazy how something so small can cause so much pain.

Yet another time I was trying to unscrew an upper ball joint on my Duster, the socket wasn't quite the right size and on one crank I didn't make sure it was seated properly... socket slipped off and I slammed the end of my breaker bar right into the center of my chest. Thankfully didn't cause much damage but I had a cool-looking scar for a couple months.

All that stuff happened within a year or so and I quickly did a 'self-eval' and told myself to stop being so careless and stupid lol. I was lucky I'm still young, I'm sure those experiences would have been worse if I was 60 instead of 30.
 
Yup been there under the car with the 833 on my chest using a creeper. Didn’t have the car up high enough and didn’t fully disconnect the shifter linkage. Trapped and couldn’t move for an hour and a half. Finally wiggled free. Not easy on a creeper and an 833 on your chest with bound up linkage. I’m not an auto mechanic, just 19 and DUH in 1977.
 
Remembered another one. Working as a truck tire mechanic and for some reason decided I was going to start chewing tobacco. Had a big old plug in my cheek, pried the lock ring off a wheel and flipped it up against my thighs to hammer the rim out. I must not have been paying attention and got my knees in the way of the rim, which shot out on the first good whack. My reflex was to swallow. I quit chewing then and there. Well, I guess I quit as soon as I finished puking and gagging.
 
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Was a young lad - probably about 12-13 yrs old. Didn't really have any tools or knowledge but working on the family lawnmower. Wanted it to cut deeper grass so took the carb off to clean it, etc, etc. You have to understand that nobody in my family had any mechanical aptitude but I was determined that I would be the first!

Well, it was one of those mowers that had the throttle control lever so you could adjust the engine speed. Did the cleaning, put it back together, and lo and behold, it started! Revved it up fast and, Gosh am I smart!! Gonna cut some serious grass now for sure!! Went to turn it off - which you did by moving the throttle lever until it somehow grounded the spark plug - and it wouldn't shut off! Now what? Well, the bare spark plug wire was attached to the plug and sticking out the back of the engine. So I figured I'm smart and can do this fast and just hit it with my hand to knock the wire off.

So I did that and the wire didn't come off so fast and the spark jumped from my leg (I had shorts on) to the metal mower handle. I'd never seen a spark before but I got to see one that day!! Felt like a swarm of hornets stung me all in one place at the same time!! Who said I couldn't jump...or scream? I may have set the high jump mark that day!! And I had a nice red welt/burn mark on the side of my leg for about 2 weeks after.

And you wonder why I'm leery to this day of being too near a coil wire on a running engine?
 
Demonx2 said:
Was a young lad - probably about 12-13 yrs old. Didn't really have any tools or knowledge but working on the family lawnmower. Wanted it to cut deeper grass so took the carb off to clean it, etc, etc. You have to understand that nobody in my family had any mechanical aptitude but I was determined that I would be the first!

Well, it was one of those mowers that had the throttle control lever so you could adjust the engine speed. Did the cleaning, put it back together, and lo and behold, it started! Revved it up fast and, Gosh am I smart!! Gonna cut some serious grass now for sure!! Went to turn it off - which you did by moving the throttle lever until it somehow grounded the spark plug - and it wouldn't shut off! Now what? Well, the bare spark plug wire was attached to the plug and sticking out the back of the engine. So I figured I'm smart and can do this fast and just hit it with my hand to knock the wire off.

So I did that and the wire didn't come off so fast and the spark jumped from my leg (I had shorts on) to the metal mower handle. I'd never seen a spark before but I got to see one that day!! Felt like a swarm of hornets stung me all in one place at the same time!! Who said I couldn't jump...or scream? I may have set the high jump mark that day!! And I had a nice red welt/burn mark on the side of my leg for about 2 weeks after.

And you wonder why I'm leery to this day of being too near a coil wire on a running engine?
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No Kidding. Last year I was adjusting the timing in my car and I had my hand around the distro cap and somehow the damn MSD wires allowed the spark to jump to my right hand and I felt the zap in my right leg as was wearing shorts and leaded up against the fender. I got zapped about 10 years ago by 208 when I touched the cord of a hard wired piece of commercial kitchen equipment. That really sucked, I was buzzing for weeks after that one..
 
Scody21 said:
No Kidding. Last year I was adjusting the timing in my car and I had my hand around the distro cap and somehow the damn MSD wires allowed the spark to jump to my right hand and I felt the zap in my right leg as was wearing shorts and leaded up against the fender. I got zapped about 10 years ago by 208 when I touched the cord of a hard wired piece of commercial kitchen equipment. That really sucked, I was buzzing for weeks after that one..
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I always wear some form of gloves when adjusting timing on a running engine. Got zapped once, never again lol.
 
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