Most embarassing or seemingly inexplicable mistakes you've ever made?

[bugnut68]

Okay, this is to make me feel better about a recent mistake I made that necessitated the purchase of a new set of uncut pushrods.
What's the most embarassing or hard-to-explain mistake you've ever made with an engine or car build?  I recently had my adjustable pushrod correctly calibrated for making pushrods but still managed to mark my pushrods wrong and cut them too short.  Live and learn, right?
Just wondering what others have done and learned from in their projects...

[Type1/DVK]

* most of us got their camshaft placed one tooth off, or completely
* forgot one bearing pin
* forgot the deflector plates under cilinders
* forgot the deflectorplate on front of crank (behind pulley)
* connectingrods upside down
* piston arrow not facing flywheel

and many more, but hey there are many things that can go wrong when it's your first

When you've done a couple a build workflow is a 2nd nature.

[bugnut68]

Yeah, it's not like this engine build I'm currently working on is necessarily my first rodeo, I've built two others, a 1600 when I was in college (only reason it blew at 17,000 miles was I bought the wrong oil cooler seals for it; it had the early in house cooler, and an 'H' case and I mistakenly used the newer 'step seals' with 8mm/10mm diameters--engine lost number two rod bearing going over a mountain pass in the fall of 2002) and a 1776 about seven years ago, which I sold with only 5K miles on it to fund my new 2017 build.

The fact that I've done the valvetrain geometry thing before is what made this pushrod error so embarassing...   But I'm also sure I'm not the first to foul something up...

[edcraig]

Spending hours in the back seat of my Ghia making a parcel shelf cover, then cleaning the inside of the rear window when I was done.  Doesn't sound that bad, but instead of spaying window cleaner on the glass, I grabbed the spray glue.  I sure you can understand how happy I was.

[herbieharv]

i did a oil change on my cabriolet several years ago and forgot to put the drain plug back in   as you can imagine i had a oil spillage of similar scale as BP last year  

i thought what a complete berk!!!!!!!

[Brandon Sinclair]

Getting married.  Oh we are talking about cars, ok...

Re-did the brakes on the front end and was not paying attention to front end bearing play when I tightened things down and sure enough the drum and bearing got so hot that the bearing race welded itself to the spindle when driving on the freeway.  Smoke was coming out of the drum!!!  Needless to say I poured some water on it and still finished my way to a party where I am pretty sure had a lot to drink.

Another was working on an engine in the stand and I was bolting on the rockers with the engine positioned vertically and sure enough the spring washer dropped and when right down the pushrod tube.  Thank God Ratto gave me some sound advised and I fished it out of the type III oil filler block off a few days later after I calmed down.

[Taylor]

A buddy loaned me a 1915 to put in my old race car.  I asked him "are you sure this thing will handle 8400rpm?"  my gear box was so tight that if it didn't i wouldn't make it to the end of the track.  He said "it should"  well shifting at 8400 in third the valvetrain let go and one exhaust valve bent into an S closing off the intake.

Did I let off? hell no it was on a pass!  he wasn't mad about the Fumio heads but actually quite happy that it still ran 12.07 at over 108mph.




Oh yeah and once I used a Fram PH8A filter on a motor with 20w50 and it blew across my Dads garage puking oil everywhere.  I think the stain is still there!! sorry Dad

[streetvw]

replaced the diff bearings in the box on my 63 and rushing to it done ready for a show I  managed to put the diff in the wrong way round had the car ready to go jumped in and found I had 4 reverse gears  suffice to say I missed the show

[javabug]

During the install mock up of my 2110 I was lowering the engine out and onto a stack of 2x6 boards on each side of the sump so I could get the jack out. Of course I didn't have the sled tins installed yet. I was a little off on the landing and one of the boards kicked up and I kinked the pushrod tubes on one side.

Ruined my night.

[Fasteddie63]

Helping A Buddy Put His Moms Engine Back In The Car,Everything Was Fine Until She Put It In Reverse And The Car Kept Dying,He Kept Telling Her To Learn To Drive Out The Garage,Reverse Light Hooked To The Negative Terminal Funny Shit

[Sam K]

A few years ago, I did a floorpan swap on my bug one day. I had a few friends over and we pulled the body off, swapped everything from one pan to the other and got it all wrapped up in one day. The only problem was that it wouldn't start. it took me a couple hours to figure out that the fuel line was still clamped off under the tank. Whoops.

Another time, I was welding up a tiny rust hole in the drivers side wheel well and some seam sealer or something caught fire inside the car. It burned up the carpet and the drivers seat and door panel before I noticed and put it out. Double whoops.

[Fasteddie63]

Tuning My Car One Evening,Just Got Done Balancing The Webers,Turn Around For A Second,Blip The Throttle To Hear Em Bark And The Carb Sync Falls Into The Fan Inlet At 4,000 RPM OMG The Damn Sync Still Works

[GASBNR]

I once was back in the UK at the stonor park show and try to negotiate will Keith Seume on an EMPI GT steering wheel,

felt a bit silly when I ask him for his business card as i walk away

[Kaferdog]

After pulling  the tranny outta the car to install short axles...I re-installed the tranny no problem.....1 month later put the engine back in get it all in real and fast ...fires right up ....! take it for a test drive come to a stop and here a clunking noise as I stop ..! turn around to re-check my work ,pull in my drive way and check it out...all seems good .....!...take back out for a test drive and it clunks again...!!!..all of a sudden I realize what it is ...!!! Before I can pull over..."Bam" my wheel comes off....!!!! I forgot to tighten the lug nuts !!!......Duh....!!!....

[BeetleBug]

High pressure fuel system - 60 psi - E85 - and forgot to tighten one fitting. Not a problem for me since I was sitting in the driver seat, worse for the poor guy watching at the rear.

[bugnut68]

Helping A Buddy Put His Moms Engine Back In The Car,Everything Was Fine Until She Put It In Reverse And The Car Kept Dying,He Kept Telling Her To Learn To Drive Out The Garage,Reverse Light Hooked To The Negative Terminal Funny Shit

I did that once! lol

[plasticblack]

I remember one Sunday deciding to wash my Bug..

A 1961 Ruby Red Deluxe. I really loved the car. It wasn't perfect but very nice indeed.

I really did enjoy washing it as it really gleamed afterwards and with a quick wax it was looking hot..

I decided to take it for a spin afterwards, just around the nearby streets and after a while a noticed lots of people taking notice of me as I drove by and in an instant put this down to the was wash & wax??

A Nanosecond later I smelt the real reason for the interest... FIRE..

I'd taken out the back seat whilst cleaning and managed to put it back in and the seat frame had managed to cross the battery terminals ( no cover) and thus set the padding alight!!

With the windows wide open I was belching smoke without knowing it and it must have looked pretty impressive..

My face was as RED as the car, believe me....

Only damage done was to my ego luckily

[Fastbrit]

Resetting the points on my old Fiat 600. Had the car in gear so I could rock it back and forth to open and close the points. Once gapped correctly, I sat half in the car and turned the key to check it was all OK. Engine fired straight up, car still in gear with me half in, half out. Rammed my father's brand new iron gates, head on... He was none too pleased.

More distributor mayhem: set the points gap in the Scat/Mallory distributor of my old 1700cc ’54 rag-top but forgot to clip the cap back on properly. Started the engine, which ran OK, but then I noticed the cap loose. Tried to fit it while engine was running and succeeded in smashing the rotor arm to pieces… 

[Fonz]

I once was back in the UK at the stonor park show and try to negotiate will Keith Seume on an EMPI GT steering wheel,

felt a bit silly when I ask him for his business card as i walk away

 

You've been in Australia too long Oliver! 

[kingsburgphil]

Okay, this is to make me feel better about a recent mistake I made that necessitated the purchase of a new set of uncut pushrods.
What's the most embarassing or hard-to-explain mistake you've ever made with an engine or car build?  I recently had my adjustable pushrod correctly calibrated for making pushrods but still managed to mark my pushrods wrong and cut them too short.  Live and learn, right?
Just wondering what others have done and learned from in their projects...

For Gods sake I hope you're directing your question to the DIY/hobbyist's. After thousands of vehicles and decades of work, I'm spending my retirement
years trying to FORGET my screw-ups 

[Lee.C]

Testing for a spark on my old manx - I had no1 lead with a plug on the end resting on one the Cannon exhaust, I then reached in the manx to turn the key and watch for a spark out the back - As I turned the key I remembered I had the fuel pipe from the pump to the carbs DISCONECTED and as the engine cranked over a HUGE squirt of fuel went flying toward the no1 lead and sparking plug!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know how but I managed to drive back and grab the plug and pull it out of the way - It was one of those "Slow Motion" moments - A VERY CLOSE CALL INDEED!!!! 

[V.Meslet]

Excellent thread !

My most stupid thing was to drive a Type 3 years ago and finding that it was a bit too slow in 4th gear while overtaking a truck. I was in fact in 3rd gear behind the truck since few Kms. I was listening Toto a bit too loud. The engine decided to quit few days later... what a lesson.
It started all again few weeks ago with my Vdub but for a shorter period of time, but I was mad at me... so far the engine is still there 

Lesson, put a rpm gauge asap.

Cheers

Vincent

[Duck]

I once opened the deck lid on my bug (running) to investigate a rattle.
Leaned in not realising at first my leg was against the turbo muffler.....wearing shorts.
Still have the scar

[stealth67vw]

I had one of those crank pulley nuts that you click a ratchet in. After adjusting my valves, I fired up the motor with the ratchet still clicked into the nut. It backed out the nut and wedged the nut and ratchet against the pulley and tin instantly. The pulley didn't come off but it did get chewed up pretty bad.

[Ivan]

I still bear the scar from revving up the engine by hand holding the Gene Berg linkage and the fanbelt let go...
But one of the worst  mistakes has to be putting your trust in a fart!

[bugnut68]

I still bear the scar from revving up the engine by hand holding the Gene Berg linkage and the fanbelt let go...
But one of the worst  mistakes has to be putting your trust in a fart!

Stateside, we refer to the latter as a 'shart.'  Sage words, to be sure!

[bugnut68]

Most recent maddening error due to a minor momentary lapse in memory: turning the engine over without the distributor in place.  Fearing I had pinched a main bearing on assembly of the shortblock (no end play and it would no longer turn over), I've all but determined that attempting to rotate the engine with the distributor out is what did it.  No damage to either the drive pinion or the brass gear (I didn't attempt to turn it with much effort, as I knew something was up right away).

I removed the distributor to install a new threaded engine mounting bolt insert on the corner of the case ahead of the doghouse cooler, and forgot to put it back in when it came time to check end play one last time.  D'oh!

[j-f]

Trying to bleed FOR HOURS my new at this time front disc brakes with calipers mounted upside down... Took me a while and lot's of brake fluid to find what was wrong 

[Wünderwolff]

This happened long, long ago while I was still training to be a schooled car mechanic, I couldn't even drive a car yet so was still driving a Yamaha Bop 50cc 2-stroke.

A friend and I were driving it over lunch and it started sputtering and dying on us. So both of us mechanics in training thought we'd quickly diagnose what was going wrong. We checked about everything we could think of, frre movement of throttle cable, spark at plugs, at cable, at coil ... water on electrics, loose cables ... Spent half an hour before we gave up and thought well let's take it to a work shop nearby. Full of ourselves as we were we told the mechanic the full story, how we tested everything allready and how we knew what to test as we were being schooled to car-mechanics. But this really would have to be a freak occurence, something very hard to find as we couldn't find it. So in came the expert and asked one (1) question: Did you fill her up? Needless to say we tanked up and got out of there as quick as we could never to return to that workshop. I would never learn a more valuable lesson in school after that.

[deano]

Many years ago (1972?), when I only had a limited selection of tools, I was trying to remove the generator nut from the fan. I didn't have the correct socket handy, and being in a hurry, I selected the next best thing - a pair of Visegrips. But, with the fan still mounted, you couldn't get the Visegrips to lay flat, so I pointed them directly into the nut, and clamped them down super tight. I then took a long screw driver and tried (!) to twist the nut off. Those spring-loaded Grips went flying..... bashed into my face, and chipped the corner of my front tooth. I was lucky they didn't knock me out... I still have the chipped tooth. I don't recall if the generator nut came loose.