at this thread

and i thought iwas stupid (or insane )

I managed to scrape my girlfriends corsa Gsi with a scissor jack that collapsed, it was the cars fault for being too stiff and my fault for doing it on chuckies.

A couple of nights ago we were swapping wheels from the corsa to an astra and thought it best to also swap the bolts. Raced through the job and realised that half way through the job i was back to using the original length bolts.

Bought a set of chromes a few years back and propped it up at what I thought was a fine angle to stand back and look at them.. In slow motion it tipped forward face first onto the garage floor. Five minutes and one damaged rim :(

Cant think of anything too serious though.. just time consuming or frustrating.

On my last car (Mitsi Galant V6 sport) - The simple way of replacing the headlight bulbs was to remove the 4 bolts holding the lights to the body, this would allow me to easily fit the new bulbs with the headlights away from car. So I grab the spanner and undo the first bolt.. then Snap! - Bolt was rusted and just sheared off..

So I spray the remaining bolts in WD40 leave them for an hour... Go back undo the next bolt... Snap! same again the bolt sheared off. This continued until the car was left with 2 bolts holding each headlight in place. Not really a blunder but I learned that changing the bulbs the hard way was the only way to go in this instance :P

i've dropped a headlight unit out of the front of a renault clio doing exactly the same thing as that!!

nothing too dopey...changed the brake fluid and went for a drive around the block to check that all was OK - the clanking noise when I tested the brakes reminded me that I'd actually forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts (slowest trip round the block ever)

brother fitted his brembo's upside down and spent hours trying to bleed them. mate was being towed home and forgot to release the handbrake when the towcar pulled away...

2 stories.

I once changed the oil in my car and once the new oil was in, started the car to circulate the oil prior to checking the level.............I'd left my mobile phone on top of the engine, which proceeded to vibrate off and straight into the bowl of oil below.

A bloke I knew many years back, was doing something under the bonnet and was having trouble removing a screw. He put loads of downward pressure and the screwdirver slipped and due to the combination of him pushing down and the way the screwdriver slipped, he lost an eye.

I managed to fit the rear wheel bearings to the drums on my golf the wrong way round by not paying attention and getting confused between the grease cap and inner race. I put the bearing in the drum then hammered the race on top of it meaning the bearing was tapered the wrong way. They made an awful grinding noise and made my brake fluid boil leaving me with no brakes.

I've snapped plenty studs by tightening instead of loosening - it gets all confusing which way to turn iof they are upside down. I now spend ages deliberating and flipping things round in my head to work out which way anti-clockwise is.

I had a bad day with the golf in the summer. The horn was becoming intermittant and the mot wasn't far away. I smacked myself in the nose when i took the wheel off, reassembeled the horn push and it still didn't work. Went to the front of the car undid two screws and pushed the disconnected wire onto the horn - doh! why didn't I check the easy one first. Then when I drove around the block to check the steering wheel was on straight the glass fell off a headlamp and smashed on the road - I came back and thought 'some idiot has smashed an ashtray on the road, i better pick it up incase i get a puncture' - then i notice it has hella cast into it. grrrrrrr but funny now.

Well this is bike related, had to fit a new set of headers and can, removed old ones after fighting with the bolts that had rounded, had to remove some other stuff first, but i fitted the new stuff and forgot..................to add the header gaskets and a bolt that needed to be tightened before the headers, hence it took me a few more hours to complete after a i covered the whole of the searing bible.....

Oh and i had to re tap the holes cos alloy corrosion had set in, 11 quid for tap.......b##ger......

so what i thought would be an hour job turned into about 5.....in the cold as well.

spevie

I've punched myself in the eye with a bike pump before... I used to keep the bike under the stairs in my old house, and I was on my hands and knees next to it pumping the tyres up. They're on schrader valves I think (the ones with the little metal bit you unscrew before you can pump them up)

Presta valves are the ones with the little nut you have to undo to pump the tyre up

Schrader are car type valves

i have so many stories of **** ups we could be here all day

i've started a diesel engined car up whilst it was in gear , without me at the controls , very slight damage which polished out on bumper , work bench leg well bent

poured oil in the engine with the drain plug still out , luckily drain bucket still underneath , but i have seen someone tip the oil in without a bucket , Exxon valdez sprang to mind

backed off the ramp after fitting front pads , not pumped brake pedal , hit car behind , luckily dent man on site so got him to very quickly repair car

backed off 4 poster ramp having just got in the vehicle , nothing behind me , BANG , WTF ! , someone had just parked a Fiesta right behind the ramp which i couldn't see , as the vehicle i was driving was an old Ford Maverick with the spare wheel on the rear door there was a wheel shaped dent on the fiesta bonnet , bonnet was swopped with another car on the back compound very quickly

these are the ones i didn't do but was there at the time

Audi Quattro (proper one) in workshop , had pads fitted , pads not pumped out , mechanic drops clutch to spin wheels , procedes to slam it back wall , but that slam was dampened slightly by the 4 , 25 litre gearoil dispensers that were between wall and car , all burst , what a mess , boss not amused

oops another brake related one , mechanic fits pads on an Escort , not pumped out again , procedes to reverse out of the workshop at great speed , then realises too late , hits roller shutter door at great speed , this then auto opens and rips the tailgate spoiler off the car , mechanic sacked next day

mechanic has a Fiesta on a 4 poster ramp and jacks up the rear of the vehicle , car slides down off jack and off the end of the ramp , the front of the car was resting on the top of the mechanics toolbox

Presta valves are the ones with the little nut you have to undo to pump the tyre up

Schrader are car type valves

Thanks for the info

My Audi Coupe had a cracked rear light - dad cracked it with the wheelibin trying to get it past the car - doh!!

Anyway I searched for ages to find one (18 year old car so no spare available).

Finally found a matching one on Ebay, 40 quid. Took it out of the box by the car to compare it to the old, fumbled it and dropped it on the pavement, shattering it!

I was gutted.

I Wired a 7 pin towing socket to my old car, but due to a lack of wiring digram it went abit wrong!

I wired the earth to the +ve feed for the reversing lights, so when ever i was towing if I turned any lights on, or hit the brakes the cars reversing lights came on!

Better still every time I hit the brakes while reversing it blew a fuse, which also took out the speedo....

Took me months (and about 10 fuses) to realise what i'd done!

Taking the end of my thumb off on the fan belt of my 2.8 Capri. I knew it was moving, but thought I'd check the tension.:confused:

My youngest brother lost the end of one of his fingers the exact same way. (but it was the cambelt on a Cavalier)

the pumping up of brakes after fitting new pads seems to be a common one, i've done it too! in an old clapped out sierra, drove out of my garden straight into a tree

I think "not pumping up after work" is sometimes blamed for "failing to stop" incidents which actually were nothing of the kind. Case in point:-

A mate of mine (pro mechanic) had just changed front pads on a customer's car and pumped the brakes back up engine off, then reversed it out of an angled bay, across the garage, out across the car park and into a space with no problems. half a mile after collecting the car, the customer "just went straight on and seemed to accelerate when I braked" at a T-junction. The police (neither investigating officer, nor, since the customer was adamant that the brakes hadn't worked, the police mechanic, could find anything wrong with the brakes on the car.

DIY car mistakes made one or two of those .

Restoring a mk2 Escort doing complete respray replace engine etc, removed old bonnet with rust scabbing at front replaced with pristine bonnet, got distracted came back Decided to take the car for a test drive up and down the estate. Took of down the estate as I often did when it was deserted got 1/3rd of the way down before the bonnet took of and dissapeared over the roof and landed on the ground behind, bent to a v shape. I had forgotten to bolt it down at all :( ended up having to sand down fill the scabby old bonnet instead. Shame to waste a perfectly good panel :(.

Ive managed to leave a 13mm nut on the top of a piston when fitting a head before, got allthe way through tightening the head down etc and was just fitting ancilaries when I noticed the missing nut and remembered what I had done with it :(. Just as well I didnt start it up though .

Made hundreds of foul ups over the years minro and major, Im a serious scatterbrain, and have some serious problems rememebring where I am in a job. If I get distracted its normally bad news.

I remember one time having just brought my first rally car. Driving it down some lanes and the throttle pedal just falls off completely disconnected itself from the body work, the previous owner had welded it in place but his welding wasnt so hot :(. Ended up driving a couple of miles with me operating the throttle manually by pulling and pushing the pedal with the cable still attached and changeing gears whilst my co-driver watched the road and did the steering from the passenger side Obviously my head was below dash level so I could reach the pedal with the arms.

A mate of mine wanted some help fitting some speakers to his old VW Beetle front doors.

The first door went fine, nice neat hole in the bottom left corner of the door card and it looked great.

The second door also started well, we removed the door card and again cut a hole in the bottom left corner, nice and neat, fitted the speaker and returned to the car to refit the door card!

Then we realised what we had done! One speaker was in the front of the door, and the other one at the back! Doh!

Another set of speaker and two more holes later and we had a cracking sound system!

"just went straight on and seemed to accelerate when I braked"

er....... we all know that women dont know the difference between left and right, so how can we be sure if the right pedal was pressed down at the right moment:)

er....... we all know that women dont know the difference between left and right, so how can we be sure if the right pedal was pressed down at the right moment:)

Unfortuately for that theory, the driver was an elderly gentleman.

well that has blown that theory right out of the water.......

anywho, we all know old people are stupid too

A bloke I knew many years back, was doing something under the bonnet and was having trouble removing a screw. He put loads of downward pressure and the screwdirver slipped and due to the combination of him pushing down and the way the screwdriver slipped, he lost an eye.

That sounds nasty! :eek:

lost a sidelight bulb inside the headlamp unit on my previous car ('99 renault megane) and thn did the same on the other side..... doh mate came to rescue with a contraption similar to a portable tranny ariel with a magnet on the end

Jumped in my old Primera with size 12 steel toe boots on and snapped the accelerator pedal off where it connects to the TPS!

Managed to drive it 100 miles home by re attaching it with cable ties, self tappers and superglue!

well, i've gone and done a blunder this weekend AGAIN!!

not saying too much,,,, pics to follow