Funny things that happen while working on your car...

Gary W. Graley

Gary W. Graley

“Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Mar 2, 1999
Messages
27,451
Got my car inspected today, they said the brakes were getting about
time to get them changed out. I've a 2002 Alero 2 door with disc brakes
all the way around. Never changed out the pads on this car yet, as they
put new brakes and rotors on when I bought the car 30,000 miles ago.

So, off I go to get some pads.
Get home, take off the front left tire, grab two brake pads out of the box
and go to put them on, both look the same so I put them in, the bolts were
TOUGH to get off, not much room back in there to put any torq on them :(

So, I move to the other side front right, take the tire off, finally get the bolts
out and go to put the pads in, but, the one side, to the outside of the caliper
won't fit, no matter what I did, then I checked the pads I took off,
each one has a tab sticking down, but one is half as long as the other!
LOL, the ones I was trying to put in were both LONG, guess where the short
one was? give up? :) you guessed it, on the other side.

SO, I had to put that back together, put that tire back on, go around and jack
up the other side, AGAIN, take off the tire, bolts came out a little easier this
time around, and sure enough, there were both of the short tab ones, they
of course easily went in to position! Put the longer tab in and put it all back
together and went around AGAIN to the other side and took that tire off
and put in the pads. UGH

Then the rear pads, I was smarter this time ;) no problems there.

BUT the kicker was/is, the pads that were on the car, they were still almost
like new! maybe just a little thinner than the new ones were!

I figured already went this far, just put em' on and be done with it.
I took the old ones back to the garage that inspected my car and
showed him the pads, he nodded and said ok, but that's the way it was
the brakes have metal band around the ends so it LOOKED like the pad was
a lot thinner than it really was. OH WELL, at least they work and I should be
good for a long time now.
I told him also how I goofed and he said he's done the same thing too.

So, what silly stuff have you guys/gals done pertaining to the cars/trucks?
G2
 
I've seen people do things like that. I've also seen people put MAF sensors in backwards in their cars, (there is a huge arrow that shower flow), and then wonder why their car runs poorly. One thing that disturbed me about your post is that you said you had to put the wheel back on, to go work on the other side. Are you working with no jack stands? and if so WHY?!
 
Yep, no jack stands, just the car jack to do each wheel, as you can
tell, I'm not a regular mechanic :)
G2
 
Ackkkkk! Buy a pair of jack stands; they're a lot cheaper than doctor bills. The cheapest kind is good enough for occasional use.
 
Too many stupid things, drove my Jeep off a cliff all 'cause I was too lazy to see what was on the otherside.

Left the 9/16" deep socket on the flange nut for the rear spindle of a FWD Toranado then drove away, destroyed the rear brake assy.

Drove my Chrysler Town and Country with a $$0 in it on 4 spare tire donuts for 3 months.

Started more fires than I can count by pourin' gas directly in a carb to start a car, bad timing, flamin' backfire spewin' gas everwhere.

Makin' my own parts, although this had a learnin' curve which played in well with becomin' a mechanic, fabricator, millwright.

The older I got and the more I did the less I screwed up, I hate rework, add to that growin' up in my Mom's Salvage Yard and my funny things became annoyin' things so I try hard to avoid those ha, ha's anymore.;):D
 
Car jacks, ok, it's on my list...

T. Erdelyi, funny stuff there!

my wife says the stupidest thing I've ever done was give
my credit card number to PetroMizer, many years ago
I cancelled it aftwards, but, they still had it and later on
I got a charge in California for a nice dinner at a fancy restaruant
but I live in PA, don't know if you guys heard of that PetroMizer
deal, magnets attached on your fuel lines, I was duped into it
by a shop foreman at work, he also had charges hit his card too.
My wife, she never forgets to remind me...of everything ;)
G2
 
Get the jack stands. Jacks are dangerous!!! I always buy a shop manual for any car I buy. They always pay for thmselves the first time you avoid doing something stupid thinks to reading the proper procedure.
 
Most times if I screw something up,it's not funny,to me anyway,I have a very bad sense of humor about things like that.I do remember the days of pouring gas down a carb and the resulting fireball under the hood because the timing wasn't quite right,my shop teacher had a very bad sense of humor about that if I remember correctly.Growing up on a farm,I've been working on machinery just about all my life,I got my first set of good sockets when I was about 12.The funniest thing I ever saw,I worked in a garage at a truckstop in the Pocono's for a year or so after I graduated from high school,we got called out on a road call one night,a trucker had his fire extinquisher go off in the cab of his truck while driving down I-80.Then there was the time that I put a cabover Pete through the overhead doors at the truck stop,I don't remember all of the details,I do remember it was late and I was in a hurry,we jacked the cab up and while doing that,we must have bumped the shifter into gear,whatever needed to be done involved starting the engine.When the driver started it,it took off,he couldn't stop it because the clutch on a CO doesn't work with the cab up.Luckily it had a Detroit in it and he remembered the emergency shutoff just about the time it hit the door.I'm sure I could think of a couple more doozies.
 
I was working on my 1974 Jeep CJ-5 back in the early 1980s. I replaced the original distributor cap with a brand new one. The old cap was working OK, but I thought I'd replace it with a new one "just in case."

The Jeep started bucking and stalling on the drive to work the next day. It turns out that the brand new distributor cap was defective so I should have left the old, trouble-free cap alone. :mad:
 
i dont see how folks make it without a floorjack, ya can get them fairly cheap these days, then ya really dont need jackstands, though i suppose ya could use them both, i never/rarely do.
 
Even with a floor jack,I still use jackstands if I'm working under the vehicle.I had a friend killed as a teenager from a car pinning him because he wasn't using jack stands.
 
A floor jack is a convenience but it is NOT a substitute for jack stands. It holds up the car only as long as it holds oil under pressure -- if a seal ruptures ... :thumbdn:
 
Cougar Allen said:
A floor jack is a convenience but it is NOT a substitute for jack stands. It holds up the car only as long as it holds oil under pressure -- if a seal ruptures ... :thumbdn:
Click to expand...

It's common practice to slide the tire under the car frame as an additional safety to jackstands.
 
Hehe, ok guys, I think I need to change the title of this thread to
"Why didn't I get a set of Jack Stands?" :)

I get it and will make sure that I'll use those things if I jack a car up
again, unless it's to change the tire along the highway I reckon.

It was not a pleasant day and finding out the pads weren't really needed
meant I wasted the day, my back and money all for naught, but I did try
to see the humour of the disc pad mix up, I don't normally work on cars
just not that handy with them, but simple things, I figured, a simple guy could do ;)

Thanks,
G2
 
changed the oil on a relative's PT Cruiser, accidentally fitted two oil filter gaskets... it sprayed oil everywhere

I also managed to lever my car into a door at a 90* angle while jacking it up to change the oil on it... that one's harder to explain.
 
iif you are getting some stands i would recommend you get solid ones
the light metal or tin frame ones are no good i have seen many in shops that are folded
here we can get solid ones made from recycled plastic and i imagine they are available there as well
 
I spent a saturday getting one of my cars detailed for a show.... I Woke up early on sunday to head for the show..... got 1/2 a mile and smelt burning. I pulled over and saw oil leaking from the engine bay. I opened the bonnet and realised......I checked the oil but forgot to put the oil cap back on! :barf:

It was everywhere....:eek:
 
not mechanics related but i once removed the heavy duty steel truck rack from my truck, put it in a 6' wide but deep "V" channel stream, lashed a bunch of 6" thick logs to it and drove across the "bridge" (creek was too deep to drive across).

it worked. very well. It just took awhile to remove the 300lb rack and cut the logs etc.
 
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