DIY Screwups

[Mytfine]

Following the the true cost of DIY thread I thought we could share our DIY screwups.

One of my many, was in early 2000s .

Had a Chrysler Neon and was going down to the coast so decided to do a service. Rookie mistake I left the oil filter gasket on the block and put in the new filter with it's new gasket. Filled the oil, closed the bonnet, started the car and went inside to wash up. Came back out to black pool on the floor. Investigated the cause, fixed it, drove down to durbs and picked up a bearing knock as I pulled up to the hotel.😭

 

[VinceM]

Eina, that hurt!

That throat lump from the thought of “why didn’t I just pay the Rx and saved myself from this pita”.


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[Benji]

I think the most expensive DIY screwup I had was breaking off one of the nipples on my fuel pump while trying to get the fuel hose off.

The most potentially expensive screwup was when I topped off my water bottle, left the lid open on the battery and closed the hood. Luckily it was a short drive to work and I noticed the steam from under my hood when I parked. There was still water in the system and no damage to the engine and the lid was still there thankfully

 

[evnmopwr]

Learnt the importance of a Torque Wrench while doing DIY on the M54 infamous oil filter housing gasket.

Pulled thread out on 1 of the holes on the block since i felt, " just a little more tighter for a proper seal "

on a Sunday, costed me R1200 to have new thread coil inserted. that took the dude 10min to do. :|

bought a torque Wrench the next day. LMAO!

 

[Holiman]

So on my car, the rear wheel bearings are the pull out type which require bearing pullers to pull it out the knuckle. You also have to dismantle the whole suspension to get the job done. The process also completely destroys the bearing in order to get it out.

So the bearing has a magnetic side to it that the ABS sensor uses for speed measurements etc and it must go in a specific way.
The job takes a good four hours per side of strenuous labour......

Needless to say, i inserted both bearings the wrong way around. Assembled the car. Drive off and immediately got an abs speed issue...

Had to do the job all over again... New bearings and basically lost three days.

Also bought a bearing puller for this job specifically but at least got the money back by selling it.

Will definitely never do this again.

Changing engine mountings as well in your driveway is also not advised. This job went fine but I paid for it with my back. So my health suffered.

So the losses here for me was parts, time and health in both

But I love DIY. Just know your limits.

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[Ash777]

lol love these confessions...
i was working on a pocketbike and siphoned some petrol.
Ended up with a mouth full of petrol/2stroke mix with my hands tied up supporting a bike, so i leaned over and spat the mouthful into an ashtray, causing a eddie current to blow a cup full of ash into my eyeballs. One moment i was king, next i had a petrol mouth and blind with ash.

 

[Holiman]

lol love these confessions...
i was working on a pocketbike and siphoned some petrol.
Ended up with a mouth full of petrol/2stroke mix with my hands tied up supporting a bike, so i leaned over and spat the mouthful into an ashtray, causing a eddie current to blow a cup full of ash into my eyeballs. One moment i was king, next i had a petrol mouth and blind with ash.

It doesn't help your name is Ash as well.

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[Holiman]

Actually the amount of messups one has done can warrant that we must let the pros do their job as they do this daily. Some of us get weekends only. Lol. But how else will you learn. It's all fun. Expensive at times but fun

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[Holiman]

My friends actually think my car is using me. Cos I always post on my statuses when working on it. Lol

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[Ash777]

It doesn't help your name is Ash as well.

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Now that i think of it this day wasnt over...
I was living in a townhouse at the time and was mates with the neighbor. So after a few beers we thought what can we do with this fuel and 2stroke mix as it would be a shame to throw it away, and it would not be fresh enough next race day. So lets light it on fire...
Being quite responsible we decided to pour it on a concrete manhole near the fence thinking it will burn out without damaging the garden. So we do this and light it, but we used too much fuel. The flames became out of control. I knew i needed to put this out when the flames were great enough to start licking the electric fence nearby and if damaged the alarm would go off and security would know what i did. After about 15 runs with a wastepaper bucket of water i just gave up as the fire could not be put out and i was just spreading this oily fire hell. I suspect alot of the mix seeped into the drain under the man hole because suddenly we heard and felt an earth moving thump and the manhole lid popped up into the air.
Thank goodness this event also sort of killed the fire, the electric fence was ok, and we still had some beer left to contemplate the heart racing ordeal we just created.

 

[individj]

i needed to pull out my BM in a tandem garage so popped a battery in my Datto which was parked behind it and turned the key but nothing so needed to just wiggle the cable on the battery as i just pop them on....get out and wiggle the cable and the damn car starts swinging and luckily it was parked very close to the bmw as it would of knocked me off my feet and hit me at chest height....anyways so the damn car is now pinning me against the BM so i scream to my son but i dont have enough time so i manage to rip the cable off the battery....was not fun...and my legs were black haha....had a strong redheart rum after that and left the cars.

 

[individj]

sorry...didnt get to the DIY...aborted

 

[NtandoN]

My first engine oil change. I drained the oil, changed the filter and topped up with new oil. The oil remained dark but it was a diesel bakkie so I continued as normal. Few months down the line the front diff breaks down and disintegrates. I take it in to be fixed and the diff has no oil - I had drained all the diff oil, it was the only oil drain bolt visible through the underbody protection. Engine oil was completely over filled and the engine survived but the front diff failed. R800 oil change cost R15000 in school fees. Lesson learned, remove undercarriage protection next time.

 

[Holiman]

My first engine oil change. I drained the oil, changed the filter and topped up with new oil. The oil remained dark but it was a diesel bakkie so I continued as normal. Few months down the line the front diff breaks down and disintegrates. I take it in to be fixed and the diff has no oil - I had drained all the diff oil, it was the only oil drain bolt visible through the underbody protection. Engine oil was completely over filled and the engine survived but the front diff failed. R800 oil change cost R15000 in school fees. Lesson learned, remove undercarriage protection next time.

Damn. Unlucky bro. Costly

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[VinceM]

My first engine oil change. I drained the oil, changed the filter and topped up with new oil. The oil remained dark but it was a diesel bakkie so I continued as normal. Few months down the line the front diff breaks down and disintegrates. I take it in to be fixed and the diff has no oil - I had drained all the diff oil, it was the only oil drain bolt visible through the underbody protection. Engine oil was completely over filled and the engine survived but the front diff failed. R800 oil change cost R15000 in school fees. Lesson learned, remove undercarriage protection next time.

Painful…..experience is the best teacher


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[momo1]

lol great thread!
I have had some DIY failures myself, but the thing for me is that I tried and accept my own idiocy when making mistakes , ill learn.
This for me is still better than paying someone else to do what I could without any care or passion.

 

[Gordvisr]

Overhauled an engine but did not replace rod bolts with new ones........... so you learn

 

[Gordvisr]

My first engine oil change. I drained the oil, changed the filter and topped up with new oil. The oil remained dark but it was a diesel bakkie so I continued as normal. Few months down the line the front diff breaks down and disintegrates. I take it in to be fixed and the diff has no oil - I had drained all the diff oil, it was the only oil drain bolt visible through the underbody protection. Engine oil was completely over filled and the engine survived but the front diff failed. R800 oil change cost R15000 in school fees. Lesson learned, remove undercarriage protection next time.

Eina

 

[QikNish]

Was cleaning the air flow meter on my M Coupe. Had bought a nice can of proper air flow meter cleaner. Blindly picked it up and squirted it on the element.

Picked up the tectile can instead. 🤦
Used nearly the entire can of cleaner and the rest of the afternoon to fix up my mess up. Closed the bonnet and didnt touch it again.

 

[General.Massacre]

Lol this is a great thread.

Not s bad as some, but when @osiris and I did the turbos on my old 335i N54, 2 issues happened:
1. when beginning to fit the car back together, i had bolted downpipes, exhaust and all lines to the car and torqued to spec, when i slipped out from under the car very chuffed with myself, i noticed a big metal bracket sitting on the floor, needless to say this was a very important part, being the engine mount to block bracket, so i started removing everything i had just spent doing the last 2 hours putting back together so meticulously,. haha

2. same job, got the entire motors, mounts and piping put back together, to spec, brand new Coolant reservoir installed, new coolant lines etc. ready to fill and start the car, realized there was a pipe missing, which was the main coolant line from the bottom the coolant bottle to the rest of the system, couldnt find it anywhere, then realized that the pipe end/fitting was wedged between the chassis frame and the Turbo outlet to Intercooler pipe, and no matter how we tried to manoeuvre the seperate parts to free the pipe, it wuldnt budge, so again, another2 hrs. or so strip/loosen, drop the intercooler, and the relevant bits, free the pipe and refit everything

all in all cost us a good 5 hrs in total,