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

Before or after you rode the Hershey Highway?

 

Might be! I think you mean Gigawatts

 

High voltage is far more dangerous. But low voltage, high amperage, hits like the Columbia river. Slow but massive.

 

Yep lots of current there. That’s 4 times the voltage and a shit ton of amps. Nothing to play around with when it shorts out. I’ve seen videos of those things exploding. Not something I would want to be near

 

The worst thing I've done was forgetting to plug a single injector on my 02 Eclipse after replacing the spark plugs. I had to remove the intake manifold. It sounds easy but it was an SOB because there were many components that had to be removed. Those who have owned an Eclipse know how little room those sickers have under the hood.

 

Was working on a 2015 bmw330x twin turbo. It had some issues, and I was set to disassembled the engine head down to the cams. I had just removed all 6 of the injector lines (high pressure direct injection).. detailer came by and opened the car door as this was soon to be a lot used vehicle for sales (I had not removed the battery/disconnected).. got a face full of fuel from all 6 lines from the fuel rail.. engine was toast.. previous owners skipped maintenance and the oil filter housing leaked oil (theh are prone to) this went on for a while. It then caused the belt to slip off the pulleys and get sucked into the crank seal, it are the seal, and also destroyed the oil pump chain that is right behind the seal.. starved the engine for oil.. needed all new bearings, and new turbos....

 

My simple little ditch light install took a turn for the worst in about 10 seconds. I was having fun minding my own business on a Friday night dinking around with my truck in the driveway. It started to rain so I hopped in and moved my truck forward about 6’ to get it into the garage to keep going. I for some reason out of habit when it rains flipped on my windshield whippers forgetting I had stuffed a bunch of extra wiring up under to cowel to keep it organized as I was running wiring. Well long story short the whipper motor grabbed the wiring and winched it into itself and ripped every DT connector and the wiring out of the connectors on the battery. I spent the next hour cutting about 12’ of wiring out of the motor and links destroying my wiring harness. Needless to say I was pretty pissed at myself

 

Unbolted the steering box on my Jeep while I had the steering wheel turned installing a new front bumper



Don’t do this

 

I was in high school as well.
I did row through all 4 gears going backwards down my country street. Forgiving machines.

 

Ever since I picked up my mig welder, this has been my go-to for a broken stud before I start drilling. So far, I've been 100% successful and I haven't had to drill in years.


Welding the washer and then the nut usually gets the bolt/stud red-hot and it backs out super easy.

 

Genius

 

Seriously. A couple of years ago I even used it to back out an exhaust stud on a '70 Mopar smallblock that had snapped off practically flush with the head, no problem. Saved me a lot of trouble, because the motor was still in the truck and it was the last stud back, so I'd have had to pull the head to get onto it with a drill.

 

I put the O-ring on the wrong lip on Sunday and drove 10 miles, then got a low oil light. Biggest facepalm of my life, lost 3 quarts.

 

had that happen to me on my 79 camaro on the way to work...I didnt have any straps to hold it down so I found a shoe lace I had and stopped before coming in the front gate and pulled it down and tied the shoe lace to get me on base and back home...it cracked my window. I dont remember changing it though...

I dont run into this problem much but I like the idea of the washer...Seems like it would also protect the area around to block it from getting welded shut. Definitely going to use this though...

 

I like the idea of the washer too, I have always just welded a nut onto the stud and it works about half the time.

 

I forgot to tighten the oil drain bolt on my turbo 240sx. The plug fell out while tuning the car at 10psi, oil went everywhere, I didn't notice until I spun a bearing and the engine started rod knocking.

 

Yep. You fit a tight washer on over the stub to keep any overflow from welding the bolt/stud to the block/base material/whatever. And then once the washer is welded on it gives you that much more contact area to weld the nut to, as well. The only thing to really be careful with is if you're extracting a bolt from an aluminum block or transmission housing that you NEED to let it cool down first, otherwise it'll come out but it'll take the aluminum threads with it.

 

Put rear shocks on my wife’s Altima with a impact gun.
Snapped the bolt on the top with a quickness.
Had to rip out the entire rear of the vehicle so I could weld in a new nut.

Also added 5 quarts of oil to my tacoma with the drain plug still out.
Party!