Dumb Car Maintenance Mistakes

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Joined
Jan 13, 2012
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Location
Washington
My Car
1971 Mach1, 351 Cleveland, Ram Air (not factory), C6 Automatic, AM/8 Track, Bright Red.
Yesterday I was looking for the right oil filter in the auto section and someone behind me said "Motorcraft FL1A", at first I didn't realize the guy was talking to me and he said it again, I turned around and it was member Totalled, Pat. So I got the filter and some oil, went home put the oil drain container under the car, took out the car's drain plug and went back in the house to let it drain for a while. Came out after about 30 minutes and there was dirty oil all over my garage floor, I had forgot to open the drain plug on top of the oil drain container so it just overflowed over the top. It's really amazing how much mess 5 quarters of dirty oil makes. So I opened the trunk to get some old towels I keep in there to clean it up and in my frantic hurry shut the trunk, then I realized I had set my keys with my only trunk key down to pick up the towels. So tomorrow I'll be removing the rear seat to fish for my car keys. Two stupid mistakes within an hour, who can top that?

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:p

Sorry, had to chuckle at that one, Jim. I haven't done exactly the same thing, but I've filled the crank case with oil after draining, only to realize I forgot to reinstall the drain plug. Yep, 5 quarts of oil makes a BIG mess. You've got me with the keys, tho. :cool:

 
jumping my car in gear and almost killing myself; after not being able to start my car for hours and going insane tearing apart the ignition system, i finally jumped the neutral safety, and remote started the car, it jumped forward nearly hitting me and stalled.

I rubbed my eyes, opened the car door and put the gear shifter back into park, called it a night.

I gave myself heat stroke today working on a 73 but i think we made progress as it now has a working alternator and voltage regulator. (cross fingers).

horrible memories looming out of the time cloud;

set my entire undercoat on fire welding my passenger seat pan back together from rust damage. took 2 large fire extinguishers and my garden hose to not burn the car or garage down to the ground.

having my 351 cleveland dropped on my hand and arm during re-install. thankfully i didn't break anything.

oh the best was my slip and fall... i was wearing house slippers and went to the garage to work on some stuff. i was cleaning a bunch of parts with electrical cleaner that spilled on the floor, i was moving the parts on a shelf, slipped on the cleaner on the floor skated across the floor into my door frame holder and went down like a ton of potatoes slammed my foot into it with a pain so bad everything went white and could not get up for 30 minutes, i was panicking that i was going to be trapped on the garage floor forever. i cried.

oh man i have ton of these....

:(

 
I once did the classic aforementioned "put motor oil in but forgot to reinstall the drain plug" thing.

What a mess!!

When I installed my new rear gears I was lying on my back under the car and I was tightening the bolts on the housing when during my last pull the socket let go and I hit the ratchet square in my face. It hit both the rims of my glasses and the base of my nose just where it goes into the forehead.

Twisted the glasses of course and it also drove the nose pads of the glasses into the skin.

I looked like I had lost a fight. :)

 
Yup I've done the oil drain plug before with my Cougar I was still in high school, the worst one was once I forgot to install the filter on my Expedition, I took it off, went in the house to do something, I then added the oil, started the truck and started to drive out of the driveway, that's when I heard tapping sounds from the lifters, and my wife yelling about the mess of oil in the driveway!! I guess you can't easily kill a Ford 4.6 v8

 
I wouldn't even know where to start with the dumb crap that I've done. Not necessarily a mistake but something I still remember today is my dad allowing a socket to slip off and scrapping his knuckles. He grabbed his hand and jerked his head up and hit the hood almost laying himself out. Being a good son I did the proper thing by laying on the ground laughing. I learned many new colorful words that day and for some reason many were directed at me.

It still makes me chuckle about 25 years later.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 
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I remember when i was about 15 years old my dad had a 1979 E150 van. Had a 351 and I was just starting to get into cars at the time. I was under the tiny little hood and decided to check the oil. Pulled out the mile long dipstick and noticed it was a bit low on oil. I went into the garage and grabbed a quart of oil off the shelf(my dad always bought it by the case). I added the quart and the oil level didn't change. I ended up adding two more quarts before realizing that I was checking the transmission dipstick instead of the one for the engine oil.

 
Well, I knew I wasn't the only one, thanks for making feel better by sharing the stupid stuff you've all done.::thumb::

How about the one of giving a bolt one last turn to make sure it's really tight and then SNAP!

 
Y'all are just weird. I've never done anything that could be considered a 'dumb maintenance mistake.' Ever. :cool:

Yeah... I didn't think you'd buy that, either. lollerz

I think the latest thing I've done involved that very same oil pan... but I did the opposite thing: I opened it up, slid it under the car, drained the oil, somehow didn't make a mess, slid it back out from under the car and stood it up on its end... and watched the dirty oil proceed to run out of the open drain hole and onto the driveway while I scrambled to find the cap (rather than simply lay it back down flat and take my time). :shootself:

 
Many years ago I was working on a 73 Corvette trying to put on a lower radiator hose. A very tight fit. Got frustrated and threw a craftsman screwdriver on the garage floor as hard as I could. It came down and stabbed a one gallon metal gas can in the side. I was lucky it didn't come down and stab me in the top of my head.

I have never thrown a tool since that day.

 
Thanks for bringing back suppressed memories, things that I've tried to forget. :)

I've also forgotten to install the drain plug before adding oil, amazing that clean oil can make such a mess.

One memorable mistake was reaching across the battery with a watch on that had a flexible metal band. Couldn't believe how fast those links welded together, still got the scar from that one.

I'm like most of you, each one of those scars on my knuckles, hands and arms has it's own little story to tell.

 
Just thought of another one.

I used to have a crawler and as I was about to roll out from under the car I got my hair caught in one of the casters. Now remember those wheels not only roll but they also turn in all directions so it got really bad.

The hardest part was getting out from under the car as I could hardly move and I had to try and roll off the crawler under the car which wasn't easy due to the limited space.

Then I crawled out on my belly pulling the crawler behind me with my hair.

It took me half an eternity to get most of my scalp untangled from that caster and I had to surrender some of it in the process.

A week later a friend stopped by and I gave him the crawler as a gift.

Haven't used one ever since.

:)

 
Once after I change my son's rear brakes and had the rear up on jack stands I told my son to start the car to seat the brakes with the wheels still off. The car move forward about 4 inches rocking it damn near off the jact stands. I forgot it was front wheel drive.

 
Most of you do not even know what a flathead ford V-8 is but that was my learning platform. I worked in a race shop and had been working on my 239 ci flathead for ever. Bored .125" over, dual valve springs, Isy .404 cam, radius tappets, balanced, ported, shaved heads altered a corvette fuel injection dual point distributor to fit and Mallory coil. Had built a new 3 speed with hurst shifter and line lock and gone through the rear. The car was sitting on blocks with no engine, trans, or rear and the engine was in pieces. I worked a second shift as a tool maker so when I got off on Wednesday I started putting the engine together and worked until time to shower and go to my job. I did this without sleep until Saturday when I had the car back together. While doing other things I would pull the cap off the oil filter and pour oil in that would run down into the block to the bearings. No way to prime the oil system but this filled it with oil. I put the battery in and it was of course dead. I had not put the hood on yet and called brother in law and he came over and I decided safest to push start it since his car was 12 v and mine 6 volt. I live on a hill so pushed it out and I had in first gear and popped the clutch. Instantly it fired and the 80 lb. oil pump emptied the pan in a second. All over the engine, windshield and down the car. I killed it put the lid on the oil filer holder and filled back with oil. I washed the car went and got my gal friend and went to drive in and slept I was beat after over 3 days without sleep. I did some other really crazy things in this car. Broke the rear and changed it in the middle of the road using only to bumper jacks and not stands. Broke an axle in Kmart parking lot and had to pull rear in 15 deg. winter weather. I broke 16 transmissions in one year great engine, lol. It turned in the 15's at about 85 mph not bad for 100 hp engine.

David

 
Not Mustang related, but.. anyway: last Saturday I had installed the oil tank of my other car (911) after cleaning and painting. I made sure all oil lines where connected correctly before pouring in oil. After 2.5 Liters, I heard a noise from under the car. Quite a large puddle of oil on the floor. It would have helped to install the drain plug before filling ;-)

- Manfred

 
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