well i probably dont have the number one but, what have you guys done to screw your day up working on your vehicle. heres mine

rented a bobcat. took the bobcat home at 200/day. started to install my lift, and realized my ubolts the guy sent me werent long enough. so my truck sat on jack stands and rental company was forced to pick up machine on my dime at another $50. man up and tell us your screw ups.

 

What do you consider the screwup? Not having the right parts ready, or spending money on a skid steer instead of buying a decent floor jack?

My story goes like this: I was parking a Vette in a rental storage locker and needed to do a bit of work on the supercharger. I lifted the hood (front hinge) and after a short while I decided it would be better to have the car outside where I could get better light. I backed the car out by pushing against the pillar located behind the driver door. As I was walking out I heard a "crash" noise behind me. I turned around to see the hood stuck against the top of the garage door. The car continued to roll out, the hood sprung backwards against the hinges, cleared the door, and then sprung back forward again SLAMMING down shut. Ended up with sprung hinges and broken fiberglass at the cowl. Ya, I felt stupid.

 

This one turned out ok in the end,,,,I am self-employed,,Builder/Contractor,,built this nice 36'x 28' Post & Beam Garage,,was time to do the Concrete floor,,,me and a buddy poured the floor,,,I was all set,,so he left,,,I went around the outside troweling the edge,,,,then was time for the Power Trowel,,,,I had started it that morning,,, making sure it ran before I ordered the crete,,,,well low and behold,,the Briggs would Idle,,,but would just die when trying to rev it up,, to engage clutch and make the Power trowel work,,,,,OOOOHHHH SHI% and a few other,,, choice words I had,,,The POS would idle,,but nothing more,,,My Concrete was setting and my STRESS was building,,NOT A GOOD FEELING !!!,,,Finaly I just pulled the carb completly off,,went to the neighbor who I knew had a compressor,,,blew the carb all out with compressed air,,,put it back on,,,the Briggs started and Ran good enough to finish the Floor,,,,,should of been smoother,,,but I have seen much worse !!

I gotta tell ya,,,that was one stressfull 3-4 hours I had there and Now I can see why stress could kill a person,,,or make them real Ill,,,,anyway It turned out OK,,,and I sure pounded a few Beers after that day was Over,,,,,, !

Whos' Next ??

 

I was flushing my powersteering. Dad's in the truck with the front jacked up turning the wheels and pumping the brakes while I watch the fluid get forced out of the hydrobooster into an empty bottle. I was watching the reservior, but the level didn't seem to be going down. Hmmmmm, I guess I'll add a little PS fluid, maybe it went down while I wasn't looking. Right after I added it, I realized... that was the BRAKE FLUID reservior! Bummer. But, little did I know at the time what PS fluid can do to seals in the braking system. So, I got he air out, and finished the PS flush. A few weeks later, my brake pedal gets squishy, and would plunge down if held for a while. Oh dang. Blew out my master cylinder. The PS fluid ate the seals. An expensive but extremely avoidable mistake. I also once stripped a spark plug hole on a Johnson 2-stroke outboard. Had to get a whole new cylinder head. What else... Oh, crossthreaded my EBPS after cleaning the tube, and the brass fitting snapped. $110 for a part the size of my thumb. Great.
Honestly, there have been many more. I am a bumbling mechanic.

 

Oh do I have a gem for you.

I was the groundskeeper at a multi-million dollar house a couple of years ago where I was working in the woods splitting wood and stacking it in my truck to take it to the barn. The woods was muddy and I got finished loading the truck and went to back up and turn around. When I went to back up my wheels were slipping a little and when they started to get traction I went to turn the wheel and couldn't. So I smashed into a tree with the tailgate down.
Upon inspection of my truck I discovered that the hose leading to the power steering cooler had gotten caught on a branch and come off, draining the power steering reservoir while I worked. Looking back I realize that being a very scrawny 17 year old and given the fact that I was in ruts that were 6-8in deep I didn't have a prayer of turning the wheels, but I was still pissed at myself. The worst part about this story is that 6 months later when I finally got a new tailgate and got it painted. I had it for no more than 2 weeks before it got stolen. Its been about a year since my tailgate got stolen and I have yet to get a new one.

 

Wifes G6 spun 3 rod bearings.....Pull engine/trans assembly, dissassemble engine, replace all 4 rods, crank, rings, bearings etc. Get engine/trans back in car. Attemp to start the car. No start. Had no crank signal from crank sensor. Got to looking around, and the old crank had a tin reluctor wheel bolted on the end of it, this is what the crank sensor picks up. I hadnt swapped it from old crank to new crank...Got to pull it all out again and dissasemble. Atleast I got paid warranty time on the first job, did it for free second LOL

 

I had a Land Rover Discovery (repair work was/is REDICULOUS) and I can't remember exactly what I was working on, but the front end was up on jackstands. It was the middle of summer and the jackstands started sinking a little in the relatively new pavement. I had to jack it up just a little to even get the wheels back on. As I was jacking one side, the opposite side jack stand fell over. THANK GOD I wasn't under the truck. I was trying to save a hundred bucks or so, but ended up having to buy a new track rod cause the truck landed on the jack stand. It not only cost me the expense of a new track rod, but I worked at Papa John's Pizza at the time, and I lost out on a night's work, since I had no ride. Overall net loss was 3 times what I would've saved doing it myself.

 

Like any person who's changed oil, I ran into the "forget to check that the old o-ring came off" problem. Except I was around 12 and it was on my fathers dt466. He started it up and oil was spittin right out between the two o-rings. Needless to say my heart hit the floor. After that you'd better believe I check, double check, and triple check every damn time.

 

I'll admit mine's not that bad, but I installed a Pioneer Avic D-3 on my wife's truck today. After being told beforehand to write down the number on the XM radio thing, I pulled the upper and lower dash, trimmed things, fabricated a mount, and shoved everything back togehter, just to realize I forgot to write down the stupid XM number. I get to pull the dash all apart again so we can activate that little thing.

 

Ok, mine's lame... Rewired a couple things on the truck for the salt spreader lights today, and found that I had forgotten to shrink the shrink tubing on the waterproof butt splice connector for the trailer brake wire when replacing the receptacle last fall (remembered everything else though). It was getting quite green, glad I found it before I lost trailer brakes all-together...

 

Last winter I got my truck stuck trying to cross a creek while checking cows, so I walked back to the barn and got my D6 cat. Anyway im on the way back, and to get to the crossing you have to cross a big hill sideways, and as some of you may know frozen ground and steel tracks sideways doesnt mix. So the dozer cut loose and i slid down the hill full steam and then smack right into my truck. It smashed the corner and broke the mounts of my flatbed. Luckily it hit the back and not the front. So I had to buy a new flatbed and I ended up with a torn rotator cuff from trying to hold on.

 

Cattlerancher gets my vote. That is brutal.

 

No doubt, that's beyond having a "bad day"...

 

Well here is mine. I told my buddy not to take his truck to a local shop and have the transmission fluid changed, and like a good friend he dosent listen well(more on that later). So at any rate they over fill the trans and they dont change the seal or filter yet they charge him for it. The tuck keeps leaking trans fluid so I get under the truck to check it out and low and behold they couldnt get the pan off the trans becasue of some exhaust being in the way, so they just put rvt seal on it and well it dosent seal.
OK so I tell him to get a filter, gasket and fluid and I would fix it. I go to get under the truck and ask him to get in and set he parking brake and hand me tools. next thing I know I am being drug down the steep drive way for about 20 feet wedged between the cross member and the ground. Like I said he dosent listen well. I ended up with road rash on at least 1/2 my back and on most of my upper right arm, my pants were tore all to hell with road rash on my *** and legs and as if that wasnt enuff I had tore legaments in my left arm. Thanks to the doc he gave me some good pain meds and off to work I went.
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I let someone else do work on my truck because I was to busy and making good money at the time. They ordered the wrong parts (shocks) they had to upgrade them and tried to bill me the difference. I made them order the correct parts and they had to put me in a rental at their cost. They ended up ordering the wrong parts again from their own distributor and had to order them from another shop that had them in stock at a greater cost. They tried to charge me the difference again. Not happening, they had me in a rental for a day and I racked up over 400 miles on the truck. They got charged for the extra milleage too.

Never let shops touch my truck no matter how busy I am and now. I don't have the extra money anyways.