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Repair Mistakes & Blunders - what bonehead move have YOU pulled??

onwardjames

onwardjames

Hoardimus Maximus
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I was reading my monthly RockAuto newsletter, and thought this might make a fun thread.

The idea is simple - please share something you did that either could have ended very badly, or DID end badly, but preferably something that you just pulled a senior moment on....here's mine!!

Got my much-desired Pickering XVS-3000 with Clearaudio Microridge stylus and boron cantilever, a one-off from a known retipper, and dialed it it.....

WOW, this sounds great........wait.....SCREEECH!!! There goes the tonearm bouncing around.

Fiddle with antiskating, recheck balance and VTF........DAMMIT.

This goes on for nearly 4 hours.

Reached out to my guy, who said he had it happily surviving a torture test record at 1 gram.

WHAT THE EFF??

Welp. Turns out I didn't factor the weight of the Pickering brush, which applies a downforce of ......you guessed it......1 gram, which was where I was trying to get it to play, even going as high as 1.5 (which would give me a net of .5 grams tracking force).

Lesson learned - gotta factor in the resistance of that brush.


What do you guys have??
 
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I decided to rotate the tires on my bicycle because the rear tire always wears faster, and I'd get more wear out of them. After muscling the tires back onto the rims and then re-inflating them, I realized that somehow I had installed the tires right back on the same rims they came off of.
 
The 3 wires to the speed sensor (for the ECU and cruise control) on my MR2 were broken.
I spent hours working at arms length into an unreachable area fixing them.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was a simple 15 minute job if I accessed the wires from the bottom.
Doh!
 
I mistakenly wired my old BA A70s out of phase, and then, when the system sounded bad, turned up the volume.
I'm lucky my Kyocera receiver didn't clip (or worse) when I did that.:thumbsdown:
 
w1jim said:
The 3 wires to the speed sensor (for the ECU and cruise control) on my MR2 were broken.
I spent hours working at arms length into an unreachable area fixing them.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was a simple 15 minute job if I accessed the wires from the bottom.
Doh!
Click to expand...

I did exactly the same thing when changing the shifter cable on my Vette, 10 minute job from underneath, 5 hours and lots of blood loss doing it from the hole under the shifter. All because I couldn’t find my jack.
 
I tried to tighten the membrane on one of my Acoustats with an industrial heat gun while heavily medicated for severe ear canal blockage and sinus infection...all of which combined to alter my depth perception acuity and, well, sensible implementation of judgement.

Have you ever thrown a cellophane wrapper into a fire? Yeah...kinda like that.
 
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Went to remove the bottom cover on my spare laptop ( DVD Drive has died. ) yesterday. Got all the tools out, found all the screws I thought I'd have to remove, even found a How-To Video on YouTube.

Thought I'd better scan thru the video. The tech moves a catch switch on the bottom, and off pops the cover.

I do a double take, play the video again, play the video a third time. Then I release the catch and ... pull the bottom right off. Easy Peasy.

Found out the ribbon cable is broke on the drive, buttoned it up, then put away all my tools. An hour plus invested in setup and put away of tools, 5 minutes to open and diagnose the problem.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd taken all those screws out.

Mark Gosdin
 
Whilst trying to remove it in tight quarters, I once inadvertently pushed a vacuum tube against a piece of nearby chassis hard enough to smash it, injecting a piece of glass into left middle finger (scar still visible, and this happened over 40 years ago) and getting blood everywhere.

I once wired a replacement filter capacitor backwards in an open-chassis tube unit (I don't remember what.) It started making boiling-kettle noises, followed by a loud *pop!* and a hiss which spray-painted the wall behind it with boiling electrolyte.

I once left my bench B+ power supply running -- maximum 600+ volts, set to about 400 -- and absent-mindedly picked up the output leads by the conductors. Fortunately it was very low current, but I took it through both arms. It knocked me flat on my back, and I've never felt anything that horrible before or since.
 
tomlinmgt said:
I tried to tighten the membrane on one of my Acoustats with an industrial heat gun while heavily medicated for severe ear canal blockage and sinus infection...all of which combined to alter my depth perception acuity and, well, sensible implementation of judgement.

Have you ever thrown a cellophane wrapper into a fire? Yeah...kinda like that.
Click to expand...

Oh Michaael, that's terrible. Reminds me of the time I thought I'd tighten the screws on my buddy's 12'' Kicker subs, drunk, only to send the screwdriver right thru the cone.

I just opened my wallet and paid the man.

Stephen300 said:
Nothing chaps my ass worse than soldering two wire ends together and then realizing I forgot to put the heat shrink on first.
Click to expand...

This - I've done this so many times.

Keep 'em coming!!!
 
Not a repair mistake, but before I knew about the risk to some vintage amps when you connect them to 4 ohm speakers, I blew all the output transistors on my best vintage receiver.

I did get it fixed and learned a lot from the experience.

Cheers,

Snade
 
I was installing a bathtub surround kit in my first house in Canada, so that I could install a shower head above the tub. I carefully measured everything twice, test-fitted everything, made sure all the plastic panels aligned perfectly with the pipe holes before cutting, and then cut the holes for the hot/cold pipes.

Turned out I'd somehow cut the holes an inch to the right of where they should be. @£$%!!!

I went back to the store, bought another kit -- individual panels weren't available, at least not quickly -- and very, very, very carefully measured everything four times, test-fitted everything several times, repeatedly made sure all the plastic panels aligned perfectly with the pipe holes before cutting, went back and checked everything again, and then cut the holes for the hot/cold pipes.

I once again cut the holes an inch to the right of where they should be!

(Fortunately, the third kit went in without a hitch!)
 
Wanna hear dumb?

I had a 1964 Mercury Parklane (with breezeway window). Had it parked on the street in front of my house, with engine running.
I wanted to check that all the lights were in proper working order...
Headlights, check.
Turn signals, check.
Brick on brake pedal, brake lights, check.

Now how about those reverse lights... I, standing outside and next to the drivers door, reach in through the window and put the gear shift in reverse...


Never did see if the reverse lights worked, engine did though.
Did catch the car before calamity, but man did I ever have to stop and contemplate my stupidity.

Ben
 
Stephen300 said:
Nothing chaps my ass worse than soldering two wire ends together and then realizing I forgot to put the heat shrink on first.
Click to expand...

Same issue involving any sort of connector with more than one piece. I can't tell you how many RCA, and 1/4" plugs I've put on without the back half of the connector on the wire.

When I rebuilt the motor thats in the Towncar, I forgot to put the loctite on the cam gear bolt. It fell off about 3 months later. The cam slid back and all of the lifters that were next to an "up" cam lobe cracked. I had I think 6 of 16 fail, but I didn't know it at the time. I put it back together, found no bent valves, called myself lucky and proceeded to drive for 3 years. When I decided to swap the cam to something better I found the damage. Every cracked lifter had partly seized the roller wheel and it just ground metal off the cam lobes. There were deep grooves on each one, and they had about half the lift they should have had. The metal got run through the lifters and up over the rocker arms, where it proceded to cause excess wear in the roller rocker shafts from all that wonderful metal grit in the oil. The cam swap ended up involving a new set of lifters and rocker arms to make it work, plus longer pushrods to fix a lifter preload issue. On the up side, the engine is quieter and runs far better now.
 
gadget73 said:
Same issue involving any sort of connector with more than one piece. I can't tell you how many RCA, and 1/4" plugs I've put on without the back half of the connector on the wire.

When I rebuilt the motor thats in the Towncar, I forgot to put the loctite on the cam gear bolt. It fell off about 3 months later. The cam slid back and all of the lifters that were next to an "up" cam lobe cracked. I had I think 6 of 16 fail, but I didn't know it at the time. I put it back together, found no bent valves, called myself lucky and proceeded to drive for 3 years. When I decided to swap the cam to something better I found the damage. Every cracked lifter had partly seized the roller wheel and it just ground metal off the cam lobes. There were deep grooves on each one, and they had about half the lift they should have had. The metal got run through the lifters and up over the rocker arms, where it proceded to cause excess wear in the roller rocker shafts from all that wonderful metal grit in the oil. The cam swap ended up involving a new set of lifters and rocker arms to make it work, plus longer pushrods to fix a lifter preload issue. On the up side, the engine is quieter and runs far better now.
Click to expand...

My mechanic redid my timing belt and water pump on my Miata at 175k. Not 300 miles later, the pulley bolt breaks, and the whole thing has to be done again. 480 bucks I felt that should have been adjusted the second go-around.

That guy later committed suicide by hanging himself in his garage from a water line. The line broke, and cops found 2 feet of water, him hanging from what was left, and the sweet dog he had very happy to be found and taken away. Very effed up.
 
4 wheel abs with rear traction control on a Grand Marquis which blew a brake line along the frame, This was in the dead of winter of course in rusty NH. Replaced both lines up to the rear before they went up the frame over the rear axel. I took it for a Test drive (it was snowy) when I took off in the snow a tire would spin a bit then the car would jerk to a halt. wtf did this a few times and then realized i connected each line to the wrong side. Instead of braking the wheel that was spinning it was braking the one that wasn't. doh! luckily in the rear I had the connections next to each other and just had to swap and bleed again. Another hour in 10 deg weather.

Ever since that day I check all the lines on my vehicles the end of fall to be sure I wont be on my back again in the middle of winter. :)
 
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