OT - Your worst auto repair disaster - OT

GrateEggspectations

blasting said:

Not a big deal, but you may enjoy laughing at me.

My Suburban has a power window problem.  Dealer wanted almost a grand, and my frugality kicked in.  Bought the parts, took it all apart and stopped for the day.  Then the heat kicked in and I stubbornly refuse to do anything unnecessary outside during our ridiculous heat (PHX)  So I've been driving like this for over a month, and will continue until at least the end of September.  I'm now "that guy" .  No doubt I'll also forget how it all goes back together.

Time for a Haynes manual?

Botch

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Pulled the motor apart and found out an internal plate resistor had a resistance that was too high.  I put the plate resistor in a vise and squeezed it till the resistance was at the bottom of the resistance spec.  Reassembled the whole unit and it worked like a champ.  Saved $175. 

   That... is amazing!  

Carolina Q

lousubcap said:

blasting said:

Not a big deal, but you may enjoy laughing at me.

My Suburban has a power window problem.  Dealer wanted almost a grand, and my frugality kicked in.  Bought the parts, took it all apart and stopped for the day.  Then the heat kicked in and I stubbornly refuse to do anything unnecessary outside during our ridiculous heat (PHX)  So I've been driving like this for over a month, and will continue until at least the end of September.  I'm now "that guy" .  No doubt I'll also forget how it all goes back together.

Looks like the passenger side and as long as the window is up, in that weather who cares about the inside...(either side). 

See if you can find a YouTube video. Some suck, but others are quite helpful. They won't lower the temp though.

Killit_and_Grillit

I rolled my first car, an old Blazer, the week I bought it while crawling with some buddies. Took us forever to get it flipped back over. Fluids everywhere. Quarter panels and roof dented. Broke the hard top. We did our best to put humpty dumpty back together but a couple of 16 year old boys were probably doing way more harm than good.

We managed to get it in gear and get it to the local mechanic. He said he could at least get it running right in a day or two so I could take it to a body shop.

Friend drove me home that afternoon. At dinner my dad asked where my truck was...I lied and said I left it at a friend's house to save gas. He smiled and dropped it.

The next day my truck was ready. I took a fistful of cash down to pay the guy. Got in and there was a note under the windshield. 

"Come straight to my office when this is running again. Hope you aren't wearing sandals, you'll be walking home. -Dad"

Guess I shouldn't have gone to the mechanic between my dad's office and the house. Guy left it parked out front. Teenagers are dumb. 

lousubcap

@Killit_and_Grillit - Great story and I don't think it dumb as much as the proverbial lack of ways with the world and the vision to think it thru.  Granted you had a compound casualty when your Blazer was in the line of sight but you likely would have been found out regardless.  

Killit_and_Grillit

@lousubcap yeah I don’t know how my little feeble teenage brain thought my parents wouldn’t notice the truck I had been wanting for about a decade went missing for a week right after I bought it. 

I was probably mostly just worried I wouldn’t get it going in time to take my girlfriend out that Friday. So dumb. 

lousubcap

Killit_and_Grillit said:

@lousubcap yeah I don’t know how my little feeble teenage brain thought my parents wouldn’t notice the truck I had been wanting for about a decade went missing for a week right after I bought it. 

I was probably mostly just worried I wouldn’t get it going in time to take my girlfriend out that Friday. So dumb. 

As I vaguely recall, when teen-age girls are involved no amount of common sense is going to get a say in the process.  Every thing about life is a matter of relative priority... and what head is controlling thought    

nolaegghead

My machiavellian thought process automatically considers optics and exposure to parental units from an unnaturally young age.  Maybe that's why I'm still perceived the golden child when all evidence points otherwise.

erniemcclain

‘72 Dodge Dart with a 225 slant 6.  Needed to rebuild carburetor. Had no idea.  Spent two days trying to figure out where parts went.  Took it to a cousin in a Kroger bag.  He made it work perfectly in about 15 minutes. 

theyolksonyou

I may have a new story soon. 



Replacing the belt. Slowly 

1voyager

Killit_and_Grillit said:

@lousubcap yeah I don’t know how my little feeble teenage brain thought my parents wouldn’t notice the truck I had been wanting for about a decade went missing for a week right after I bought it. 

I was probably mostly just worried I wouldn’t get it going in time to take my girlfriend out that Friday. So dumb. 

When I told my parents that I had totaled my Nova, my Dad yelled through the phone, "How can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?!"

theyolksonyou

theyolksonyou said:

I may have a new story soon. 



Replacing the belt. Slowly 

Took way too long, but a successful operation and they both learned something. 

theyolksonyou

erniemcclain said:

‘72 Dodge Dart with a 225 slant 6.  Needed to rebuild carburetor. Had no idea.  Spent two days trying to figure out where parts went.  Took it to a cousin in a Kroger bag.  He made it work perfectly in about 15 minutes. 

Shoulda googled it. 

nolaegghead

erniemcclain said:

‘72 Dodge Dart with a 225 slant 6.  Needed to rebuild carburetor. Had no idea.  Spent two days trying to figure out where parts went.  Took it to a cousin in a Kroger bag.  He made it work perfectly in about 15 minutes. 

What was your cousin doing in a Kroger bag?

theyolksonyou

nolaegghead said:

erniemcclain said:

‘72 Dodge Dart with a 225 slant 6.  Needed to rebuild carburetor. Had no idea.  Spent two days trying to figure out where parts went.  Took it to a cousin in a Kroger bag.  He made it work perfectly in about 15 minutes. 

What was your cousin doing in a Kroger bag?

Let’s eat grandma. 

Let’s eat, grandma. 

Ozzie_Isaac

Had a buddy spend 3 years rebuilding a 68 Bronco.  Started when he was 13.  Within 1 month of completion he rolled it onto its side and proceeded to slide right by the entrance of our highschool at about 45mph on the driver side.  It was in the morning right as everyone was getting dropped off.  We never let him live it down.  I helped him pull and replace some body panels and repaint.  Since he built it from the ground up he had it fixed in a few weeks, he knew every inch of that Bronco.

Fred19Flintstone

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Had a buddy spend 3 years rebuilding a 68 Bronco.  Started when he was 13.  Within 1 month of completion he rolled it onto its side and proceeded to slide right by the entrance of our highschool at about 45mph on the driver side.  It was in the morning right as everyone was getting dropped off.  We never let him live it down.  I helped him pull and replace some body panels and repaint.  Since he built it from the ground up he had it fixed in a few weeks, he knew every inch of that Bronco.

He must have used Clark Griswold's sled lube.

 

Ozzie_Isaac

Fred19Flintstone said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Had a buddy spend 3 years rebuilding a 68 Bronco.  Started when he was 13.  Within 1 month of completion he rolled it onto its side and proceeded to slide right by the entrance of our highschool at about 45mph on the driver side.  It was in the morning right as everyone was getting dropped off.  We never let him live it down.  I helped him pull and replace some body panels and repaint.  Since he built it from the ground up he had it fixed in a few weeks, he knew every inch of that Bronco.

He must have used Clark Griswold's sled lube.

 

 The side was in surprisingly good shape.  Dented totally flat and paint rubbed off and mirror torn off.  I expected it to look like Clark's sled worn totally through, but it wasn't. 

RRP

Back in 1965 between my sophmere and junior year in college I finally was able to purchase a foreign sports car. It was a 1956 MGA roadster which had been wrecked in the front end.  I had seen the owner constructing a "cool front end" using fiberglass sheets and Bondo at a park near school.

Fast forward nearly a year and the guy was drafted. That Spring he had told his wife to sell "everything" and move back to KC, MO. Luckily I just happened along at the right time and was able to buy it!

That fiberglas effort had some issues which I tried to smooth out and complete. One particular area was particularly rough so I cut into it. As I did there was a horrible stench that about made me gag! The guy had used paper mâché as a basis and apparently he had used lake water. Man-o-man did that rotted stuff stink! I decided to leave it alone and used a bunch of Bondo to cover it back up!

fishlessman

the worst

15, bought 2 dodge darts, 1 totaled, one burnt to a crisp but good parts.  replaced the front end, nose, hood, fenders, steering linkages, radiator, etc, a summers of saturdays.  get it bond-ode, primed, then had the shop next door paint it.  go 3 miles down the road and the freeze plug between the engine and tranny goes. 2 days later removing the hood, radiator, nose, grill, engine, tranny, i replaced that 7 cent plug and got it back together.

the funny

out in a sandpit where no dodge dart should go with the girl friend=) together up on the roof, we will just call it a picnic,  plane flying low around the pit, can he see us, who cares, roof buckles, gives way and drops a foot hitting the back of the seat.  one push up and its good again, not one dent visible.

oops

fell asleep going 70 on the high way, wake up just moments before hitting the front end of a double guard rail, launched maybe 20 feet in the air. one hell of a show for the guy driving behind me. rolled it down the exit ramp sideways and came to a stop with four wheels on the ground, a little shorter, a little narrower. 2 in the morning i have an ax and am cutting the fenders off the car on said ramp then drove it home. put the engine in a 72 dodge club cab

rover update

adjuster has it appraised for 9300 dollars to fix the plastic, 1 month, 9 days later its finally in a shop

the h2

nothing left to fix, the tailgate was salvageable

alaskanassasin

We are rolling! New compressor, orifice tube, and condenser core. Thanks, reading your stories gave me a laugh!

46 seems acceptable on a 90 degree day   

frazzdaddy

Nice work! If you come back to Cary there's a job waiting for you.

Carolina Q

@fishlessman, we live less than two hours apart. It is not inconceivable that we will some day meet. It IS however, inconceivable that I will ever get in a car that you are driving!

Cashfan

At age 18 I bought a 78 Malibu with a 350, and I drove it like it was a hot rod. One night it killed at a stop sign, when I opened the hood, the whole engine was red hot. Got it cooled off, drove it for a few more days, then spent the next 4-6 weeks tearing the motor apart and having the heads repaired. It ran ok, but would smoke when i stopped at a light or stop sign. Made people think it was on fire.... A couple weeks after it was running before I could fix the smoke problem, I pulled out in front of a Cadillac going 60 in a hungover stupor and got t-boned. Didn't bother to fix the motor after that...

About the same time, a friend had an S-10 Pickup that had the tranny go out. We loaded a bunch of tools, and headed out to the field drive(middle of nowhere in the country) where it died. We had no way to lift the tranny in, (dont remember why), so I crawled under and lifted it into place. Wasn't too hard, but I literally could not move my arms the next day...

fishlessman

Carolina Q said:

@fishlessman, we live less than two hours apart. It is not inconceivable that we will some day meet. It IS however, inconceivable that I will ever get in a car that you are driving!

sometimes it goes the other way   several years ago pulling a trailer near conway nh the transfer case locked for a second or two, the truck and trailer spun 180 and now im traveling backwards, i actually had time to wave to the guy behind me , then for whatever reason the truck finished the 360 and im back driving the truck without stopping or incidence.  just missed an oncoming tractor trailer full of tree trunks it was during a blizzard, i was fishing the same pond, the same annual weekend derby that the hummer flipped   i skipped that derby this year. lots of screeching screams from my buddy in the passenger seat.

Carolina Q

My position stands.

RRP

fishlessman said:

Carolina Q said:

@fishlessman, we live less than two hours apart. It is not inconceivable that we will some day meet. It IS however, inconceivable that I will ever get in a car that you are driving!

sometimes it goes the other way   several years ago pulling a trailer near conway nh the transfer case locked for a second or two, the truck and trailer spun 180 and now im traveling backwards, i actually had time to wave to the guy behind me , then for whatever reason the truck finished the 360 and im back driving the truck without stopping or incidence.  just missed an oncoming tractor trailer full of tree trunks it was during a blizzard, i was fishing the same pond, the same annual weekend derby that the hummer flipped   i skipped that derby this year. lots of screeching screams from my buddy in the passenger seat.

I had a similar "death defying spin out years ago". I was driving my RX-7 in December up on US80 going to an early morning meeting down in the Loop in Chicago. For those who don't know IL - US80 that is a screamer where most times you can let her rip across Illinois. Well I hit a patch of ice on an overpass doing at least 85 and HOLY SH*T I did at least 2 360's before I was in the medium! The last I saw in my rearview mirror was a BIG *SS 18 wheeler with his air horn screaming past me! 

Talk about sh*tting your pants!!!