Biggest bone head wrenching mistakes as a teenager

[Scott Liggett]

Not me, but a HS friend built a badass 289 for his 75 Ford Elite. Engine leaked everywhere on start up and break in. Bob kept running to ignition switch around that massive door. He thought he would save himself the door detour by grabbing the coil wire and pull it off to stall the car. ZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!!!! He hit his head on the hood twice trying to get away from the voltage and danced across the yard holding his arm and swearing up a storm.

[Cyclone03]

Not me, but a HS friend built a badass 289 for his 75 Ford Elite. Engine leaked everywhere on start up and break in. Bob kept running to ignition switch around that massive door. He thought he would save himself the door detour by grabbing the coil wire and pull it off to stall the car. ZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!!!! He hit his head on the hood twice trying to get away from the voltage and danced across the yard holding his arm and swearing up a storm.

Ive NNNNNEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEEERRRRRR done that.......................
My dad did it ONCE to my MSD'd Mustang, I LMAO! He didn't...

[Caveman Tony]

I also stuck my head through the window of my 4 speed truck and started it without checking to see that it was still in gear. I dove in the window to shut it off just as it ran into the side of my house, that was fun explaining to the wife.

Haha, I've done that. Damn jeep ran over my foot while dragging me as I tried to turn it off.




Yes, it hit the house.

With me hanging halfway out of it.

[Caveman Tony]

Also nearly burned down a '65 Impala by touching a wrench to the alternator "hot" post and the other end to a steel fuel line... while the engine was running...

I got zapped, swore, threw the wrench behind the distributor, and hit my head on the hood all in the span of... oh, lets say.. one TENTH of one second.

[Caveman Tony]

And there was the time in HS that I helped a buddy remove a 3-speed truck tranny... he didn't tell me that if you tilt it, it pours smelly trans fluid all over you.

He also didn't tell me that the only way to keep said cast-iron trans from crushing your face is to hold it in place while it empties fluid onto you.


And yes, I also learned what happens when you try to get trans fluid stains & stink out of jeans with straight BLEACH and AMMONIA simultaneously.

You get white splotches on your jeans, and you also get lightheaded.

And NO, the stains and stink didn't come out.

[66PAPR W8]

My friend and I sand blasted my grungy oil pan, Inside and out. But didn't think about all the sand that got stuck in the baffle. That freshly rebuilt 400 sbc ran one trip around the block before it started knocking. Luckily I only wasted the crank and bearings.
As luck would have it, another friend had a 400 short block that had rusted cylinders from sitting with out heads on it. They took the heads off of it to replace the heads on their 350 after they lost a header bolt, only to have it turn up in one of the cylinder and poke through the existing head.

[ksj2]

Since its cold and there is snow on the ground this one comes to mind.In high school,first hotrod and I forgot to change out the 20/50 wt oil.Surprise cold front with 8 inches of snow. and car wont crank over.Shoveled snow away and got the little Benzomatic torch out to warm the pan.Get it started,let it run for 30 minutes and borrow the neighbors garage to change to 10/30.

[Leadsledcaprice]

This happened with me and a friend (an experienced wrencher, but hey, we all goof up now and again). I've been chasing a weird oil pressure issue since I put the motor in the car, so we decided to try the oil pump and see if that was our culprit. After wrenching for a while to get the motor up high enough to take the pan off (motor in car still), we get the old pump out, and decided to check the orientation of the bypass spring on the new pump, thinking the old pump had a faulty spring. Things looked good, so we buttoned the new pump back up, brazed the pickup to the pump, installed, and put things back together. New filter and 5 fresh quarts of oil.... lets see how it does....

Fire up the car, "hey wow, this thing has great oil pressure, its at 60 lbs and still going... now at 80... 100.... still going?" Thats when our friend JP frantically waves his arms at me to kill the motor.... 5 fresh quarts of oil are on the ground... what gives? Turns out when my friend reinstalled the spring, he put it in backwards, not allowing it to bypass at all. All that extra pressure ballooned the oil filter and shot the oil out between the filter and the block. Doh!!!! Another afternoon, oil pressure gauge, oil filter, and another 5 quarts of oil, things were happy again... but still chasing my oil pressure issue.

[moparmaniac07]

Aside from not being able to figure out how much torque is too much for almost every bolt, this is probably my biggest.
Cold road, cheap tires, not ABS, and a surprise turn. Lack of experience also played a large part.

And my second biggest, I apparently don't have a picture for on this computer, don't know what happened to it. Don't try and bump the timing to try and get more power with the engine off kids. It could lead to some bent/broken pushrods and some missing exhaust.

Also, I found this as I was trying to find the aforementioned picture:
The hill's a lot steeper than it looks. I almost forgot about hill climbing in my Sebring.


EDIT: Neither picture is related to wrenching, I forgot the question. But I found both pictures searching for the aftermath of my biggest bonehead wrenching move (that I never found the picture for), so I'll leave 'em.

[Beagle]

SBF 302 oil pump shafts have a keeper on them for a reason.

Forget to put shaft in, mount pump, oil pan, paint everything pretty.

Pump shaft on table. Ooops. Cut off keeper, slide shaft carefully into place. Install Dizzy, off by a tooth. Pull dizzy. Hear the dreaded CLINK as shaft turns loose of dizzy and hits the bottom of the pan. Moral - install Dizzy correctly first timeif you are lazy like this and think you can get away with it.

Another 302 trick- impatient while waiting on cam, want to wrench on somethign. Don't install roller lifters, but go ahead and install heads. Yeah. Remove heads. Remove 50.00 head gaskets that tore on the way out. Install lifters.

I've never done this of course, it was my "friend" HA! Too bad it wasn't my friends wallet too... hehe. One time mistakes? Probably not.

[Leadsledcaprice]

Had to pull the spark plug wires off to do something, completely off. Couldn't remember firing order to save my life. Wound up having make a phone call to get it put back together. <----- bonehead

[yellomalibu]

Biggest bonehead move wasn't in my teens, it was early 20's. I've shared this story before here.

I had the car up on ramps to change the oil. No parking brake, no chocks.
While under the car, looking around, I recalled that it didn't always go into low gear - I really had to snatch the column shift lever hard to get it to go into low... so I looked at the linkage and determined which way things had to move in order to make that adjustment work. Put the wrench on the bolt that needed to be loosened, and "click" it was out of Park and rolling down the ramps.

I reached up to grab the car to stop it from rolling (ha!)... I remember making a heck of a grunting sound as the right side of my torso got a nice Michelin patterned bruise, the left side of my back got road rash as I slid the car to a stop as a human chock. My arm was cut by the lower control arm, and my cheek bone got bruised by the bottom of the exhaust manifold.

If I had lowered the front suspension already, I probably wouldn't be here today.

[Beagle]

yikes... I think a few guys on here have similar ramp horror stories. I haven't used them in years, but it was with the rear end already up in the air and on stands. Glad you didn't have it lowered!!! holy crap.

Dang, teenager huh? I guess I should retract my statement, I was pretty far from a teenager. Ahem. cough.

What about putting headers on your in the house build only to find out it's too damn wide now to go back through the door? Does that count? haha. Not a teenager.

[Deaf Bob]

Bone headed, I'm good at, especially when dog assed tired!
Few years ago, i had a couple holes to torch in the hood.. Had already been busting butt getting the car done so it could be painted before the evening cooled.. First hole blew the sparks into the garage door (swinging barn door style) 2nd hole, because I was too tired to move the hood, I blew it and realized I started a fire in the 3 story evergreen that was less than 5 feet froom the 2 story shop downstairs/apt up stairs... Yelled FIRE grabbed the water bottle, almost had it, bottle went dry! By then.. The kid had the hose on it.. I had blistered arms and face, singed beard and eyebrows, son just his hand got blistered as he was behind the door..
My flatbed that was just used to haul hay was a few feet away and got moved, had the hay filled rack holes smoldering when the fire dept got here .. Singed the paint on the building, burned the dish and cables.. The fire dept was gonna call an ambulance for me.. NO..NO..NOI'm fiiine.. Man I was ready to pass out! The landlord laughed uproarishly when we told him, slapped me on the back.. With tears in his eyes!

[173rdherd]

mine is nowhere near as exciting or interesting but plenty boneheaded. borrowed a friends late 60s dodge dart to get the Fabulous Susie K for our first date and buried it in a snow bank....went back to get it the next day and it had a flat.....i'm bending lug wrenches standing on them and everything trying to loosen the lug nuts, gettin mad and she says are you turning it the wrong way?.....I totally lose it and just to show her, try it and wouldn't you know it .....it works. later found out about mopars reverse lugs.