Stupid Things You've Done Modifying/Maintaining Your Ride

[Hank3]

Tested out HID bulb and laid it on a small hand towel. Fibers from the towel melted onto to the bulb. Bulb = ruined.

 

[aMaff]

cut the crash bars out of three doors.

Are those just adhesive / bonded on there? How hard were they to get out?

 

[iracemine]

They are welded in with some super heavy plates. I cut the ones by the latch. I then grabbed a bike der cable to cut the adhesive. Then rocked the bar back and forth till the spot welds popped on the hing side. Cutting the plates was next to imposable.

 

[P5wutlezz]

tried to roll my rear fenders and f-ed them up =[

 

[sneakypete]

forgot to reconnect one of my ignition coils after changing my spark plugs, and drove to work limping on 2 cylinders

 

[magnumP5]

Here's a couple:

While gutting unneeded wires from the wiring harness I got carried away and removed the fuel pump +, - and fuel level sender wires. I didn't notice my error until I had completely re-loomed the harness so I had to undo everything and put them back in (about 8' of wire).

Broke the plastic speedometer driver gear while trying to reinstall the driven gear into the tranmission. The only way to get at it is to remove the tailshaft housing, which requires the transmission to be removed. One week without a speedometer and a 4 hour job to replace a $5 part FTMFL!

Trusted my '89 RX-7 to a modern Mazda dealership for some work that required "SST's". I somehow made it home with the leading sparkplug wires for crossed (i.e. ignitor 1 connected to rotor 2 and vice versa), one trailing sparkplug wire crossed and the other trailing wire disconnected. I guess they weren't kidding when they said they had one old guy still knowledgeable of the old RX-7's. He might be knowledgeable but apparently he was so old he forgot what he was doing.

 

[CTt3P5]

My latest and greatest was the maintenance I didn't do. Didn't want to put $850 on the credit card a couple of years ago to get the timing belt changed so I decided to take my chances with the understanding that the FSDE was non-interference....so I have to sit on the side of the road and wait for a tow truck... Three weeks ago the timing belt went and took cylinders 2 and 3 along for a ride. Of course it happened in CT, 170 miles away from home vs. my 20 mile daily commute so $315 for the tow, $795 for a used engine with 68K, and $2570 for parts and labor with my mechanic and that $850 job turned into a $3,680 job. :/

 

[tweety2300]

Ya, not sure why everyone says non interference. Mine was at 155k and all I did was change the belt. I'm waiting for something in there to break hopefully it will last till it gets rebuilt

 

[JaLMP5]

I wish CTt3P5 was able to get some pictures of the damage to the engine because it doesn't make sense to me. Unless it was valve to valve contact that caused the valves to bend which could theoretically cause the piston damage.

 

[tweety2300]

He's not the first person to have it happen

 

[CTt3P5]

Ya, not sure why everyone says non interference. Mine was at 155k and all I did was change the belt. I'm waiting for something in there to break hopefully it will last till it gets rebuilt

(shrug) Fingers crossed nothing breaks on ya.

I wish CTt3P5 was able to get some pictures of the damage to the engine because it doesn't make sense to me. Unless it was valve to valve contact that caused the valves to bend which could theoretically cause the piston damage.

No pics and doesn't make sense to me from what I've read on here but I trust him. A longtime school friend of both of my in-laws and I've been taking my cars to him for 19yrs now so I trust his word. I didn't ask him whether it was valve to valve or not but that makes the most sense to me.

He's not the first person to have it happen

Yup, unfortunately.

 

[zeak89]

didnt seal my left side headlight properly from DIY black housing...was in a hurry now it fogs and gets oober wet behind the headlight...hate taking the bumper off lol