What is the worst mistake you made doing your own wrenching?

I tried Changing the brakes on my Grand Am once, rounded the bolt on the caliper, tried easy outs which just shaved the bolt head even more. Had to throw in the towel and take it to a shop that welded a nut on and got it out with heat.

 

Let it turn into my profession.

 

Bought one of these oil containers to change wife’s oil in her grand Cherokee. Ended up with 6 qts of oil on my garage floor. 10 minute oil change turned into 90 minute cleanup.

 

What was wrong with it?

 

What was wrong with it? I use something like that sometimes because it will hold the fifteen quarts from my truck.

 

Even with the vent open, the draining oil cannot go down the hole fast enuff. It overflows the sides and gets everywhere. I should have read the reviews.

 

I took my pro charger piping off to paint it. I stuffed some plastic grocery sacks inside the piping to prevent overspray dust from getting on interior of piping. Reassemble everything and car won’t start. Guess what I left inside the piping...

 

Weird, I have one of those (might even be the same one) and that never happens. Maybe the Jeep drains faster than the Tacoma does?

 

@BartMaster1234 had a similar experience recently installing his supercharger....

didn't you Tyler

 

I have no idea what you’re talking about...

 

Overfilled blinker fluid

 

Two bad ones for me.

First one was many moons ago. Changing oil filter out on my old 6th gen civic with the d16 engine. For those of you who've owned one of those, know that the filter is in between the firewall and block and barely visible; basically feel for it and thread the new one back in. I installed the new one not realizing I left the gasket from the old one still on the block. Didn't bother to check for oil leaks afterward. Got about 20 miles from home and damn near blew the engine, luckily I filled it back up with oil and limped back home and realized what my dumb ass has done. Now I ALWAYS make sure the old gasket comes off with the old filter.

Second was last year, re-assembling my F350. Had the 7.3 pulled and was putting everything back together. Went to start it up and the starter sounded like it shorted out. Well turns out it did, the ZF6 transmission cooler lines run real close to the starter solenoid bolts, turns out I bent one of the cooler lines re-assembling. Once the engine turned over the transmission pumped about a gallon of oil on the ground before I realized what was going on and shut it off. Luckily all it cost me was replacement lines, which probably weren't a terrible idea anyway considering the truck is almost 20 years old now. Lesson learned, ALWAYS check clearances of stuff when putting back together

 

Oh yeah, blame it on the pan

 

I use a slightly different large capacity Flotool from Wally World for my 10 quart 5.2. Works like a charm (except the little vent tube cap hasn’t snapped on since the first week I’ve owned it) and those 10 drain FAST...

 

I just changed the diff fluid and realized I put the fill plug in the drain position. Only realized that 2 qts into the refill.
That's what I get for finishing in the dark. Guess I can treat it like I'm flushing the diff with new fluid to make sure I got all the old stuff out, right?!
ughhh. I'll change it again next week or whatever. Gotta get paid and buy more fluid. I hate dumb mistakes.

 

Shattered my finger tip. Doctors wanted to amputate from the first joint up but I decided to have a deformed finger instead of a nub

 

I did that on a vw jetta

 

when i was like 11-12 yo, i was helping my dad rotate tires on the 4x4 f-100, but I thought i was being more efficient by leaning the tire against the side of the garage instead of laying it flat on the driveway.

A little while later, I bumped into it and it rolled down the driveway, into the street and down the hill. When i was trying to chase it down, i was too scared to try to grab it or try to kick it over and it accelerated down the hill until it crashed into the curb and flew up into the driver's door of a neighbor's pickup. Stupid kid.

 

Show off the aftermath

 

Remember to always use jack stands.
Ended up deleting the finger nail, fingerprint and rearranging pieces of the bone.