I’m a DA…what maintenance have you screwed up?

[Scooterwrench]

Yup, so does a Pontiac V8. My cousin found that out when he was tuning up Grandma's '68 Tempest 350, and it barely ran after he did the job. To be fair, he had only worked on Chevys up to that point, and he was a teenager.....

What made it a real DA mistake was that was not the first Olds I ever worked on. A month or so before that I had installed a 260 Olds engine in a '81 Buick Century that had seized its 231 and got that one right.

 

[smdk2500]

I'm sure i guilty of a lot that I can't remember anymore. Changed oil in the reefer units I work on. Started putting the filter on and got a phone call. Went back filled with oil and started unit. I didn't tighten the filter.

Again on another reefer unit. Replaced head gasket and have to adjust the valves because the new gasket is thicker. Went through checked the adjustment twice though all good. Next day trailer is sitting in a different place tagged for wont start. I thought WTF it ran yesterday. Cranked it over and sounded like it was only hitting on 3 cyl and had a very strong raw diesel smell. Pulled dipstick and just poured out very thin oil. Drained oil and and started working backwards. Found I didn't tighten the retaining nut on the adjuster on the intake valve. The adjuster and nut had backed off and fell out of the rocker. Pulled the head and found it laying next to the lifter undamaged. With that valve not opening let the cylinder fill with diesel and fill the crank case.

 

[Supercharged111]

We should have started this thread years ago.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

A LONG time ago in a town not too far away i have to admit.
I was in my early 20s working on a 1973? Mercury Capri with a V6. For some reason i remember it being a German V6,
I had put new rods and main bearings in it from Underneath.
Finally had the oil pan on and engine bolted back up. Crawled out from under it and sitting on the bench was the oil pump.

Those were great engines.The Capris were like a poor mans Mustang down here. A mate at high school put one in his Anglia van. He found an aftermarket intake manifold to bolt a 4 barrel Holley onto it, then got a Nitous setup that worked with the Holley. With a 4 speed gearbox and a narrowed Valiant Charger LSD and they were some scary times. The original Anglia had a top speed of 60 MPH from a 997cc 4 cylinder engine so it was quite the performance boost.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

Years and years ago, friend of mine replaced the water pump on his LT1. It would nearly immediately overheat. Ended up having to take a trip back to the auto parts store to recover the water pump drive sleeve off the core pump he turned it.

 

[DonYukon]

This will be embarrassing but here goes.

for the record I have done drum brakes more than a few times with no issues. Usually rebuild one side at a time. a couple of years ago I got cocky and rebuilt my rear at the same time both sides Few days later going 30 Mph I touched the brakes and the rear tires locked up. In a 2 door Yukon it was like Tokyo drifting except its harder to drift when you're not expecting it like with slick road conditions or the implied use of throttle to help control the vehicle.
needless to say, this happened 2-3 more times and every time I looked over the truck I grew more infuriated with getting farther and farther from the obvious. Could it be the rear axle locking up? , could it be the torque converter not unlocking somehow? a parking brake cable malfunction? surly I didn't put the brake shoes on backwards... what am I some sort of idiot??? ...... Yes .... Yes, I was that idiot.

Funny thing is when I slapped the last side on I paused and something didn't look right but I was tired and figured I was overthinking it.

 

[VIKING_MECHANIC]

About six months ago I was diagnosing a misfire on a customers car(4 cylinder). After finding the issue(spark plug), I replaced the coils and plugs. Went to start it and a loud POP was heard.

Shut it off, checked everything and no obvious problems. Went to start again and POP POP POP!!

I started to take the coils out to check and then I noticed #3 was missing a spark plug.

I fogort to put that plug in.

 

[454cid]

Today, while de-thatching my front yard with a cheap de-thatching blade I had just put on it..... cheap meaning one of those short blades with a spring on each end. I mowed for a bit, and it started losing power. I recently cleaned the filter out, and really had no idea what it could be. As I'm standing there staring at it, I noticed that I had not re-connected the plug wire after mounting the de-thatching blade. Apparently that little magneto is powerful enough to jump the gap between the wire and plug, if it's close. While running the mower the gap opened up a bit more, causing the loss of power.

Oh, I hate raking, BTW. I had to rake up all that grass and moss afterwards. I'm going to spread seed tomorrow.

 

[boy&hisdogs]

I was replacing my timing chain and got the metric and American tq specs mixed up. It was either 26nm or 18-ish foot pounds. I put it to 26 foot pounds and broke the bolt off in the end of the cam. To be fair, that's what the guy in the video said (1A auto I think) and I just blindly trusted it instead of double checking like I normally would.

The truck had just hit 200k miles and everything all went bad at once. Nearly all the ignition parts, fuel pump, injectors, etc. I tried doing it all myself but was chasing my tail with the electrical, and then I broke that bolt and couldn't get it out. I finally gave up and took it to a shop.

The final bill was as much as I originally paid for the truck.

 

[454cid]

I was replacing my timing chain and got the metric and American tq specs mixed up.

I always have to be very careful with that on my Volvo. I've even found Volvo documents messing it up.