Your biggest DIY screwups

MC · 10-20-2011, 03:17 AM

ive made a few.... probably the worst was trying to straighten up some bent fins in my intercooler on my old GTR....with a screwdriver..... once i started a couple broke totally off and others got bent in the process..... before i knew it my OCD kicked in hard and i had taken about an inch and half of one of the rows out

Boost_lee · 10-20-2011, 04:28 AM

I got 2 off the top of my head...

I remember I was swapping turbos on my Accord, so I ended up disconnecting the turbo oil feed/drain lines and took the entire manifold off from the head. Of course my curiosity kicks in and I want to hear the car open header. Fire it up, and I completely forgot to plug the turbo oil feed line...that was a mess to clean up

More recently I was jacking up my Honda with a standard 2 ton jack with a piece of wood on my front traction bar. The wood slipped off the metal, the car started to fall and shifted, but the jack caught on the thin metal under the radiator support. It bent the metal up about 3 inches, pushed the radiator up 3 inches, and the top radiator bar too (which also had the hood latch on it). I couldn't even close the hood anymore, had to bent it all back in place.

Dsevast · 10-25-2011, 09:17 PM

Changed the oil in my dad's minivan a couple of years ago. I always start the car with the car raised up to make sure there are no leaks. Started the car when I finished the job and looked under the car to check for leaks. Oil was pouring everywhere... Turns out when I removed the old oil filter the rubber ring stayed on the car and then I installed the new oil filter and there was not a proper seal. Had to buy all new oil and a bunch of kitty litter to clean up the garage!

Lemers · 10-25-2011, 09:41 PM

Sub scribed

mpusch · 10-25-2011, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MightyBobo

Ohhh, plenty. Was helping an Ex GF change her oil on her car. It was getting dark, so I was rushing and not paying attention. Finished up, started 'er up (the car), and she asks, "Should there be stuff all over the ground?". Sure enough, giant puddle of oil on the ground. I forgot to make sure the O-ring came off w/ the old oil filter *sigh*. Luckly we noticed fast and no harm done, but what a PITA it was having to go get MORE oil just for that...

Haha, no way. I just did this a week ago. Only thing I did different was in addition to my car losing all of its oil, when I was backing up my car off the two ramps, one of the ramps kicked out and hit the bucket I had used to catch all the old oil. So...two huge puddles of oil.

Once is all it takes to never do it again

radaz · 10-26-2011, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron

My dad was changing the oil on my sister's Audi... somehow, he drained the transmission oil instead... that resulted in an empty transmission and double the amount of engine oil... yeah transmission seized and engine smoked like crazy..crazy bill too from the dealer lol.

Laugh...............

11Thumper · 10-27-2011, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dthem370

I have had two occasions where i screwed up.

Changed the pads on my brother's mustang for him and then took it on a test drive to realize that the car would barely stop. Came back and had no idea what went wrong. Took the car to the dealer and found out I had placed a brake pad backwards and messed up the new rotor and had to get new pads. My brother didn't care because he was borrowing my mustang at the time which was way faster than his...haha

Second was when i changed the brake pads on my mustang. I finished everything up and lowered the car and told my dad to finish tightening the lugs on one wheel while i clean up. Drove 200 miles to go back to college and kept hearing a squeak. Next day was about to jack up the car to check the pads and realized all my lugs were loose. Guess my dad was trying to kill me!!! haha

ImportConvert · 10-27-2011, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC

ive made a few.... probably the worst was trying to straighten up some bent fins in my intercooler on my old GTR....with a screwdriver..... once i started a couple broke totally off and others got bent in the process..... before i knew it my OCD kicked in hard and i had taken about an inch and half of one of the rows out

Aren't you supposed to use a comb for that? (I don't know)

Footloose301 · 10-27-2011, 07:32 PM

I can think of two screw ups....

1. I bought Swift springs and decided not to listen to my buddies about paying a pro to do the install. I tried removing a 19mm nut from the front end of the car that holds the shock in place..... using a standard set of sockets. I ended up stripping it fairly bad so I mad a midnight run to Walmart and grabbed a set of 1/2" metric sockets. I was able to get the 19mm socket on the nut a tried to remove it. It just stripped it worse and so I take a quick look at it and realize I had purchased 12 point sockets...

. So at 1am to take another ride to Walmart and bought 6 point 1/2" metric sockets and I was able to pound it into place using a hammer and then attached the socket and it came off with ease.

Then while I was putting it back together(just about finished) I began screwing that nut back on with my fingers and got it finger tight and then used a breaker bar to tighten it since it was so difficult to get off I thought it should be rather tight, especially since it was part of my suspension. Needless to say, the nut never stopped spinning. I drove for 3 weeks with a stripped out nut without issues. I ordered both the nut and bolt that also goes to the sway bar because I wasn't sure which one I had stripped. The nut was like $2 and the bolt was $32 from Nissan. Well I removed the stripped nut easily just to find out that I ONLY stripped the $2 nut and the $32 bolt was not needed and Nissan won't take it back since it was special order.

2. I recently painted the inside of my headlights. Everything went nice and easy but then I used the larger of the tiny screws for inside of the headlights so by the time I got to the final steps of putting the bulbs back in I needed those larger screws because the extremely tiny ones that I had left would not catch at all. Luckily I'm a cable guy and I had a brand new splitter laying around and they come with the exact same size screws that I needed, so I was able to finish the job without any real issues.

MightyBobo · 10-27-2011, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Footloose301

I can think of two screw ups....

1. I bought Swift springs and decided not to listen to my buddies about paying a pro to do the install. I tried removing a 19mm nut from the front end of the car that holds the shock in place..... using a standard set of sockets. I ended up stripping it fairly bad so I mad a midnight run to Walmart and grabbed a set of 1/2" metric sockets. I was able to get the 19mm socket on the nut a tried to remove it. It just stripped it worse and so I take a quick look at it and realize I had purchased 12 point sockets...

. So at 1am to take another ride to Walmart and bought 6 point 1/2" metric sockets and I was able to pound it into place using a hammer and then attached the socket and it came off with ease.

Then while I was putting it back together(just about finished) I began screwing that nut back on with my fingers and got it finger tight and then used a breaker bar to tighten it since it was so difficult to get off I thought it should be rather tight, especially since it was part of my suspension. Needless to say, the nut never stopped spinning. I drove for 3 weeks with a stripped out nut without issues. I ordered both the nut and bolt that also goes to the sway bar because I wasn't sure which one I had stripped. The nut was like $2 and the bolt was $32 from Nissan. Well I removed the stripped nut easily just to find out that I ONLY stripped the $2 nut and the $32 bolt was not needed and Nissan won't take it back since it was special order.

2. I recently painted the inside of my headlights. Everything went nice and easy but then I used the larger of the tiny screws for inside of the headlights so by the time I got to the final steps of putting the bulbs back in I needed those larger screws because the extremely tiny ones that I had left would not catch at all. Luckily I'm a cable guy and I had a brand new splitter laying around and they come with the exact same size screws that I needed, so I was able to finish the job without any real issues.

Sounds like your buddies are a bunch of vagina's.

BTW, what were you using that stripped the 19mm socket? Tell me not a crescent wrench...

Footloose301 · 10-27-2011, 08:39 PM

No lol. I said I used a standard set rather than metric lol

shadoquad · 10-27-2011, 08:54 PM

Surprised I didn't see this thread earlier. It's a shame. So, here's the story of my six hundred dollar pedal upgrade...

I have a base, and I bought Jeffblue's touring pedals. Now, I've run into a problem numerous times. Whoever assembled my car emptied the barrel of loctite into it. My shift knob didn't come off without a fight (channel lock, strap wrench, couldn't budge it without torquing too hard), but that's another story and an easy fix.

But they also used too much loctite on the bolts holding my accelerator pedal down. I went to unscrew them and snapped the heads off of them both. "Problem", I thought, so I decided to save myself the exorbitant costs of using a garage and go buy myself a screw removal kit and new drill bits.

Ok, so after trying out the kit on some old wood screws to understand the method behind the madness, I tried a few times to get the suckers to bite the bolts. The screw remover snapped off inside the bolt. I tried another bit on the other one and same result.

I had the car towed to AAM, where they assured me they could get any bolt out. They've got a machine shop ffs, should be no problem.

After failing to remove the bolts, they had to order new bolts and drill new holes.

And that, the370z.com community, is how you can spend 600+ dollars on a slight aesthetic upgrade in the pedal region.

Jeffblue · 10-27-2011, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadoquad

Surprised I didn't see this thread earlier. It's a shame. So, here's the story of my six hundred dollar pedal upgrade...

I have a base, and I bought Jeffblue's touring pedals. Now, I've run into a problem numerous times. Whoever assembled my car emptied the barrel of loctite into it. My shift knob didn't come off without a fight (channel lock, strap wrench, couldn't budge it without torquing too hard), but that's another story and an easy fix.

But they also used too much loctite on the bolts holding my accelerator pedal down. I went to unscrew them and snapped the heads off of them both. "Problem", I thought, so I decided to save myself the exorbitant costs of using a garage and go buy myself a screw removal kit and new drill bits.

Ok, so after trying out the kit on some old wood screws to understand the method behind the madness, I tried a few times to get the suckers to bite the bolts. The screw remover snapped off inside the bolt. I tried another bit on the other one and same result.

I had the car towed to AAM, where they assured me they could get any bolt out. They've got a machine shop ffs, should be no problem.

After failing to remove the bolts, they had to order new bolts and drill new holes.

And that, the370z.com community, is how you can spend 600+ dollars on a slight aesthetic upgrade in the pedal region.

you're welcome

onzedge · 10-27-2011, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffblue

you're welcome

MightyBobo · 10-27-2011, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Footloose301

No lol. I said I used a standard set rather than metric lol

Oh geeze lol

10-20-2011, 03:17 AM	#61 (permalink)
MC Moderator Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: NC Posts: 3,238 Drives: 2015 GTR NISMO Rep Power: 24	ive made a few.... probably the worst was trying to straighten up some bent fins in my intercooler on my old GTR....with a screwdriver..... once i started a couple broke totally off and others got bent in the process..... before i knew it my OCD kicked in hard and i had taken about an inch and half of one of the rows out __________________ 2015 GT-R N1SMO "THE ONE" Instagram MCGTRN1SMO Youtube MCGTRNISMO Last edited by MC; 10-20-2011 at 03:44 AM.

10-20-2011, 04:28 AM	#62 (permalink)
Boost_lee A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: SATX Posts: 2,813 Drives: 09 370Z TT 6MT Rep Power: 29	I got 2 off the top of my head... I remember I was swapping turbos on my Accord, so I ended up disconnecting the turbo oil feed/drain lines and took the entire manifold off from the head. Of course my curiosity kicks in and I want to hear the car open header. Fire it up, and I completely forgot to plug the turbo oil feed line...that was a mess to clean up More recently I was jacking up my Honda with a standard 2 ton jack with a piece of wood on my front traction bar. The wood slipped off the metal, the car started to fall and shifted, but the jack caught on the thin metal under the radiator support. It bent the metal up about 3 inches, pushed the radiator up 3 inches, and the top radiator bar too (which also had the hood latch on it). I couldn't even close the hood anymore, had to bent it all back in place. __________________ My TT Z

10-25-2011, 09:41 PM	#64 (permalink)
Lemers A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Izmir, Turkey Posts: 15,371 Drives: 2012 Traverse LTZ Rep Power: 52	Sub scribed __________________ 2010 Black Cherry Touring/Sport/Nav Now - 2012 Travese LTZ until I leave for Turkey

10-27-2011, 07:32 PM	#69 (permalink)
Footloose301 A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Naples, FL Posts: 2,659 Drives: 40th Rep Power: 21	I can think of two screw ups.... 1. I bought Swift springs and decided not to listen to my buddies about paying a pro to do the install. I tried removing a 19mm nut from the front end of the car that holds the shock in place..... using a standard set of sockets. I ended up stripping it fairly bad so I mad a midnight run to Walmart and grabbed a set of 1/2" metric sockets. I was able to get the 19mm socket on the nut a tried to remove it. It just stripped it worse and so I take a quick look at it and realize I had purchased 12 point sockets.... So at 1am to take another ride to Walmart and bought 6 point 1/2" metric sockets and I was able to pound it into place using a hammer and then attached the socket and it came off with ease. Then while I was putting it back together(just about finished) I began screwing that nut back on with my fingers and got it finger tight and then used a breaker bar to tighten it since it was so difficult to get off I thought it should be rather tight, especially since it was part of my suspension. Needless to say, the nut never stopped spinning. I drove for 3 weeks with a stripped out nut without issues. I ordered both the nut and bolt that also goes to the sway bar because I wasn't sure which one I had stripped. The nut was like $2 and the bolt was $32 from Nissan. Well I removed the stripped nut easily just to find out that I ONLY stripped the $2 nut and the $32 bolt was not needed and Nissan won't take it back since it was special order. 2. I recently painted the inside of my headlights. Everything went nice and easy but then I used the larger of the tiny screws for inside of the headlights so by the time I got to the final steps of putting the bulbs back in I needed those larger screws because the extremely tiny ones that I had left would not catch at all. Luckily I'm a cable guy and I had a brand new splitter laying around and they come with the exact same size screws that I needed, so I was able to finish the job without any real issues. __________________ 2010 40th Anniversary 370Z

10-27-2011, 08:39 PM	#71 (permalink)
Footloose301 A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Naples, FL Posts: 2,659 Drives: 40th Rep Power: 21	No lol. I said I used a standard set rather than metric lol __________________ 2010 40th Anniversary 370Z

10-25-2011, 09:17 PM	#63 (permalink)
Dsevast Base Member Join Date: May 2011 Location: Cleveland Ohio Age: 38 Posts: 208 Drives: 2011 Nissan 370z Rep Power: 14	Changed the oil in my dad's minivan a couple of years ago. I always start the car with the car raised up to make sure there are no leaks. Started the car when I finished the job and looked under the car to check for leaks. Oil was pouring everywhere... Turns out when I removed the old oil filter the rubber ring stayed on the car and then I installed the new oil filter and there was not a proper seal. Had to buy all new oil and a bunch of kitty litter to clean up the garage!

10-27-2011, 08:54 PM	#72 (permalink)
shadoquad A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: . Posts: 42,608 Drives: . Rep Power: 3886	Surprised I didn't see this thread earlier. It's a shame. So, here's the story of my six hundred dollar pedal upgrade... I have a base, and I bought Jeffblue's touring pedals. Now, I've run into a problem numerous times. Whoever assembled my car emptied the barrel of loctite into it. My shift knob didn't come off without a fight (channel lock, strap wrench, couldn't budge it without torquing too hard), but that's another story and an easy fix. But they also used too much loctite on the bolts holding my accelerator pedal down. I went to unscrew them and snapped the heads off of them both. "Problem", I thought, so I decided to save myself the exorbitant costs of using a garage and go buy myself a screw removal kit and new drill bits. Ok, so after trying out the kit on some old wood screws to understand the method behind the madness, I tried a few times to get the suckers to bite the bolts. The screw remover snapped off inside the bolt. I tried another bit on the other one and same result. I had the car towed to AAM, where they assured me they could get any bolt out. They've got a machine shop ffs, should be no problem. After failing to remove the bolts, they had to order new bolts and drill new holes. And that, the370z.com community, is how you can spend 600+ dollars on a slight aesthetic upgrade in the pedal region.

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