My mistakes occured when I installed my rebuild. After checking everything I fire up the engine for first time. I had the fuel lines reversed for flow and return piping. Fuel started spraying all over my engine bay. Good think nothing caught fire! Then my new oil cooler hose popped off and started dumping all of my oil all over the floor. Finally, one of my ECU wires was disconnected disabling my waste gate soleniod = no boost. All in all pretty minor but she runs great now!!

 

Had to completely remove my FD's radiator and fan assembly in order to remove a ruptured radiator hose that wouldn't come loose. This was in the parking lot at work, so I quickly bought a similarly shaped radiator hose from Auto Zone close by, put everything back in, and refilled her with coolant. I fired her up while keeping the coolant level topped off and everything seemed normal.

However, about 5 minutes later, I was talking to a co-worker when I heard a buzzer go off. I immediately knew exactly what it was even though I had never heard it before, and was in the car shutting her off within 2-3 seconds of it coming on. I went back to the front of the car to figure out what went wrong only to realize that I did not reconnect the fans! FFFFFUUUUU...!!! I reconnected the fans and and the temp dropped down to normal, but I felt the damage was already done. I DD'd the FD for a week dolefully expecting the infamous white smoke out the exhaust, or for coolant to suddenly start disappearing. But thankfully, 2 years later, it's still all good. *Knocks on wood*

 

I went to jump start my Escape. I was mad because I had told the people in the car to not turn on the radio because I had a soft battery. They turned on the radio and turned it up. I hooked up the leads backwards. No one in Houghton, MI carries a 120 amp main BUSS fuse.

I was checking my plugs for spark on my old FB. MSD coils @ 40,000 volts. I was home alone. I grounded out the plug on my strut tower bar (RB triangulated one piece), and reached through the driver's window to turn the key (i'm 6'5...). Turned the key and the car grounded through my neck, which was resting on the a-pillar. Did it twice before I figured out how I was getting electrocuted. My neck was spasming for hours.

 

He is the rotary ender though so no shock lol.

My first tune up was my last mistake with ignition. I was changing spark plugs and checking things out on my first truck for the very first time.

I changes all the plugs at once and took all the wires off at once... with no memorization or book!!!! FFFFUUUUUUUuuuuuuu.

I finally got all that sorted out and fired up the truck. It ran HORRIBLE! so I get mad and get back under the hood(its STILL RUNNING!) I propmtly see a wire I forgot to plug back on a spark plug. YAY! so I reach down and put it on the plug. for a few seconds... every time that cylinder fired... I was knocked by the ignition. my ***** hurt and my nipples were on fire. My brain felt like mush and my breathing was irradic. it passed quickly but the funniest part was... I held on to the wore trying to figure out what was shocking/happening to me.

 

floor jack slipped off the center crossmember and went straight into my radiator.

 

This one is really not my fault but i thought it was funny (and embarassing if anyone actually saw what happened).

I was basically towards the end of washing/waxing the car. I normally do the hood last because i feel like it should be done last lol, I was up to the passenger side which was my LAST area of the car to do.

And what do i hear? A loud "ahhhhhhhhh" in the sky. In my mind i already knew what it was.

All of a sudden, SPLATTTTTTTT right on the area i was working on, the passenger side of the hood, where i was, right where my hand was ONE SECOND before this happened. I looked at the splatter and was like WHAT????!?!?!? NO WAY!!!!

I went inside to get a wet piece of tissue and cleaned it off carefully. Then went over it again with another clean wet paper towel, then wax it.

It just sucks if anyone was looking out their window or something, cause that would suck lol

 

At least it didn't hit you in the head.haha

 

Yes, that would suck. I don't think it landing on the car is as embarrasing as landing on you though, especially if someone had witnessed it.

 

haha true.

Although i was wearing a hat that evening so i probably wouldnt have cared.

 

-2yrs ago i was about to leave from my buddy's house when my idling FD just turned off by itself. so the problem was the ECU somehow shorted out or something (turned out later it a wire was touching ground in the engine bay). i decided to reset the battery and i pulled the passenger seat as far up as i could.

i have the battery in the bin behind the seat so i squeeze in there and begin to remove the cable and i lean up hitting my head. because i hit my head the wrench somehow managed to hit both of the terminals creating a loud pop that sounded like a gunshot right in my face and i hit my head on the ceiling again. the car got some smoke and the wrench had a dent in it. goddamn optimas are strong!

-last month i finished changing the oil in the FD and in my excitement to get it going i took off. the wolf 3D began to act up again recently and thought i fixed it. well on my way back i hit a bump, then all of a sudden half the engine just turned off. the car died but managed to coast into a middle lane where i was stuck for about 15 minutes. i had no cellphone and my wallet was back at home. FFFF UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

i tightened the ECU back into the frame (if it shakes...car dies) and few miles later i go down my bumpy *** street. on the way down the street it went from 1 rotor - 2 rotors 1 rotor 2 rotors. it was awful and sounded like a bad episode of looney tunes. anyway, never underestimate the art of the ziptie combo! no problems in runnin the car, so ill be gettin rid of the wolf 3D and puttin in that new haltech...without comical incident i hope.

 

replaced my clutch with i was putting in my new full bridge. I changed the throwout bearing and fork with spring. I get the engine in after struggling with it on a sloped driveway. as soon as i went to put in the slave cylinder i realized i forgot to put the fork spring back in.....

I tried for an hour to do it through the inspection hole with no luck. Had to pull the engine again and put it on.

 

I was going to attempt my first brake change and do the oil while I was under there on my first car. I decided to go to autozone and get a brand new jack for the job. Jack stands at this point in time where meaningless to me. Loosened the lug nuts and jacked the car up as high as I could get it, took the wheel off and began fighting w. the oil pan bolt.

While under the car trying my hardest to get the bolt off, I heard a weird creak come from the jack, and crawled out from under immediately.

The jack was a 4 wheel jack that rolled around, however it wasn't making use of all 4 of it's wheels, it was balancing itself on the 2 left side wheels while the 2 right were about 2 inches in the air. I put some pressure on the right side w. my foot and the jack slipped out from under the car and the car came crashing down on it's front rotor.

Took me 2.5 years to get back under a car and I'm still creeped out.

 

Was checking how much I needed to extend my exhaust, got the measurement, thought my head was out so I lifted up as fast as I could and BAM, nuked my head on the frame causing my head to crash against the cement. Knocked myself out.

 

did my engine swap and got it all the way back together and i mean all the way fuel system and all coolant and intake equipment mounted and pressure tested where necessary and when i went to engage the wedge collar to the throwout bearing the wedge collar and wire ring came completely out of the pressure plate.

 

when i was pulling my engine a couple of years ago for a rebuild, i was soing all the mods i could while the block was out, one of them was the dobble throttle removal, at the time a had been in my garage for many 10hour days, so i was tiered an worn down,
when the job was done i got a baaaad feeling in my stomack, turned my laptop on, looked at the removel instructions with pics, looked at the TP, the n at the pics, i could swear i allmost started to cry. i had done the dobble throttle removal to my throtlebody:S
it took me 4 hours to fix that mistake
damn i felt stupid after that one
hehe

 

That's why they invented jack stands.

 

I was installing new fuel rails and 1600cc injectors. I bought the little aluminum spacers from KG Parts, put them in the freezer to shrink them, installed them, go to fit the injectors and they didn't go down into their holes.

I was supposed to remove the plastic diffusers first. Uh oh. There was no way they were coming out without grinding them out.

Luckily its already a single turbo, so i popped of the turbo, downpipe, and LIM, ground them out of the LIM and installed new ones.

The good that came out of this was that now I had it all apart again so I heat wrapped the downpipe and header. but still added a lot of work.

 

that sucks

 

Me and my brother were doing vacuum hose job, replacing hoses under the UIM. We forgot to cover the LIM and dropped 12mm nut in there. we actually tied the magnet to a string and managed to get it out but it scared the **** out of us completely.

 

When doing a swap in a friends honda I was under the car trying to get the bitch pin out, he decided it would be a good time to pull the intake manifold without draining coolant. I got a nice coolant shower and a very wet work area for the rest of the day.


Working on my 87 Camry on the side of the road(turned out to be the alternator) a gust of wind lifted the hood then slammed it on my head knocking me out. Woke up to a cop asking me if i was alright.

 

OH ****! can I use it as a sugnature?

 

sure if you want....

 

if he didn't want anyone to know about it he should have posted it

 

My first engine build. I forgot a shim or end bearing plate, SOMETHING, I don't remember.
The side seals dug into my freshly resurfaced end plates as it spat out smoke until it ran out of oil and seized up. ******

I learned my lesson on that one. I've built several since without a hitch, you learn through experience, and that was a bad experience.

 

I use liberal amounts of highly pressurized cans of carb cleaner to clean.....everything!

Sprayed it into the turbo/lower block area of the engine. The spray bounced and came directly back into my right eye :-( Oh, the pain!

Always wear protection!