LowCarbZ Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Well here it is, time to confess. Post up any dumbass wrenching moments, slip ups, etc. you've had in the shop/driveway/roadside while working on your Datsun. We've all been there during our learning curve where you do something so stupid you question your own integrtiy, well here's your chance to get it off your chest and be the laughing stock of HBZ. My personal story? Back in the fall I had the Z on the 4-post lift in my shop. I changed the oil in the transmission and then proceeded to jack up the rear of the car with the center jack on the lift. Lifted it up just enough to get the tires off the ground so I could rotate my driveshaft and axleshafts to grease the joints. Well, I finished that up, moved onto something else and lowered the rack. Went to back the car out of the garage and it wouldn't move. A moment of "what the hell did I do to the transmission?" crossed my thoughts. The car won't go forward. It won't move in reverse. NOTHING. I rev it up a little bit and still doesn't move an inch. I feel it vibrating and think the worst. I was scratching my head as to what the hell I could've possibly done. I got out. No puddles under the car. Hmmmm... Got back in and tried again, maybe I didn't engage the shifter all the way in reverse. It was at that moment I looked down the back of the car while in reverse and see my driver's side wheel spinning gleefully at my side half an inch off the runway. I had lowered the whole rack with the car still jacked up on the lift slightly. So let's hear it HBZ. What's your least proud moment wrenching on the Z? What would make your old man smack you upside the head for being so slow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hughdogz Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 My palm is still on my face! (yeah, I can type with one hand ) About six years ago, I was adjusting my valves so I had to remove the cam cover. I left the bolts in the holes when I removed the cover. Well, one of them fell down the front cover!! I looked down the opening and couldn't see it, and thought it must have fallen all the way down into the oil pan. I was getting the car ready for a ~2000 mile road trip to MSA and didn't want to pull the oil pan. I thought if I'm lucky, it fell down and it will be okay. Sure enough, I drove it for the next six years like that!! Well, this year, I dropped the timing chain tensioner spring "down the chute" (Doh!) Then, I tried to recover it through the oil drain hole. BUT the magnet fell off the wand!! Argh!! now I have THREE foreign objects in my engine. So I pulled the front cover off, and the valve cover bolt, timing chain tensioner spring, and tensioner washer all fell out - they never made it into the oil pan!! I still have to pull the engine / oil pan to get that damn magnet though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 My palm is still on my face! (yeah, I can type with one hand ) About six years ago, I was adjusting my valves so I had to remove the cam cover. I left the bolts in the holes when I removed the cover. Well, one of them fell down the front cover!! I looked down the opening and couldn't see it, and thought it must have fallen all the way down into the oil pan. I was getting the car ready for a ~2000 mile road trip to MSA and didn't want to pull the oil pan. I thought if I'm lucky, it fell down and it will be okay. Sure enough, I drove it for the next six years like that!! Well, this year, I dropped the timing chain tensioner spring "down the chute" (Doh!) Then, I tried to recover it through the oil drain hole. BUT the magnet fell off the wand!! Argh!! now I have THREE foreign objects in my engine. So I pulled the front cover off, and the valve cover bolt, timing chain tensioner spring, and tensioner washer all fell out - they never made it into the oil pan!! I still have to pull the engine / oil pan to get that damn magnet though... Ok so wait... You're driving around with the magnet in your pan still? >_< DOAH! My face palm moment was when I installed the rear main cap backwards and had to face my dads large hand hitting me outside the head for a stupid mistake. I have many more involving steering rack boots and wrestling those bastards for hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeeZ Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Haven't we been here before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayolives Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 When I was a high school student, eons ago, I worked part time at a local garage/service station. I did a lot of oil changes and on that particular dark day in history, the pick up truck that I had just raised on a four point lift, started to teeter and listed to the front right and then continued to tumble off it's perch on the lift, onto it's side and landed on the garage floor. Man what a rush! It was apparent to all that I had not used to best lift points on the truck and that I was solely responsible for what had happened. My boss was reasonably cool with my major fu++ up and I continued to work for him until I moved on to bigger and better things Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsunlover Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I did something stupid the other day in fact... I chock it up to working on a house for the last 6 months, and I've lost some skills in the shop.. lol I tried for hours to get a GM ignition module to fire my 280, and couldn't get it to go for the life of me... FINALY, I realized the mod. was not grounded properly.. durr... the funny thing is, I had a plug out of the motor, sitting on the valve cover so I could see if I had spark... After grounding the ignition module, I walked over to the drivers side, reached in, and cranked it. Keep in mind it's been cranking for hours, there is lots of fuel, and NOW.. lots of spark.. POW!!! Dang thing fired up and ran pretty good on 5 cyls!! It took me about 30 seconds to clue in and shut her down.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240hoke Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Making a brake flare and forgetting to put the nut on it. *Facepalm* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Wearing a loose sweat shirt while using a wire wheel on my angle grinder. DOH!! I still have the scar from that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 First I had my shirt ripped by a jagged peice of metal coming off of a classmates rusted up Nova and the next week or so that rip fell in the way of the oxy/acetelyne torch and caught fire. I was using Big Bertha (biggest grinder in the shop) to grind on the wheels hubs I was modifying and I didn't see that the sparks were that close to me and they caught my shirt on fire. At my old job in a metal shop I caught my shirt in the wire wheel numerous times. There was a GIANT I-beam thing I had to clean (my job was the grinder/cleaner of what the welders welded up) and it started falling of the saw-horse like things we set it on, I was dumb enough to try to save the ton of steel but ended up jumping out the way like a ninja and it fell to the floor. Didn't hurt a thing on it, the only thing that did get hurt was my pride. lol. I'm getting better, I haven't set myself on fire or anything lately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickG Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I replaced the air flow meter in a 76 280z 3 times because I was out of gas. The people at my local import parts store were pretty upset that I told them they gave me 2 units that were faulty... and it turns out that sending unit in my tank was bad. So I died on the side of the road one day, thinking that I had 1/4 tank of gas. Had to get towed, whole nine. Troubleshot everything I could before I came to the conclusion that it was the AFM (would start but ran chuggy, and would die, etc). Eventually I was like... well maybe it's bad gas? So I put some gas in.. problem disappeared. I realized then that I was just out of gas. I had the car off the road for 2 weeks. MEGA facepalm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eec564 Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106774 I'd also add that once I burned a hole in the carpet and floor of my old minivan. Spilled battery acid and didn't realize it. You could see the rear axle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S130Z Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I accidentally left the old o-ring from the oil filter stuck to the bock of my boss's truck during an oil change. I put the new filter on and cranked up the truck. Oil went everywhere and I had to clean it all up. This was when I was first learing about cars. I was changing my rotors and pads and had one of my brake calipers off the rotor trying to figure out hoe to get the piston back in to compensate for the thicker new brake pads. I went in the car and pushed the brake pedal down. Sure enough, the piston popped out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowCarbZ Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106774 I did a search but it's not exactly an easy topic title to accurately search. Some good stories on here for sure, if a Mod/Admin wants to merge the two threads or delete this one then by all means... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi303 Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I was working on my old Isuzu Bighorn with the 4JB1-T 2.8 Direct injection Turbo Diesel and wanted to pull the injectors to have them re-calibrated. Not having a service manual, I just dug in with some tools and ended up with the bodies of the injectors coming off but leaving the nozzles and bases still in the head. instead of a quick recalibration, that meant I had to have them rebuilt... mega dollars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rustyfriend Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Friend of mine was looking for a gas tank that was in good shape. I knew the one on the parts car I had was almost mint so i offered it to him. Just to double check I jacked the car up and saw it was still fine. I then called him up to tell him it was all set. On the way down I put the jack in another position and ended up dropping the gas tank directly on the tank. Nice big 'ol dent.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armand Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 So I was at the Willow Springs (streets) track, and at the end of my 2nd run, right before the end of the few turns on my cool down lap, my tach starts jumping along with my ignition. It stops and I'm just like "Okkk easy we just have like 200ft to go" and before I go into the pits it starts jumping like mad clearly having some sort of electrical failure and I had enough speed to roll the car engine off into the pits. Pop the hood, my battery's loose. I check connections and they are free, but man are they sinched. I touch the battery and it starts smoking like mad. My entire turn-signal/alternator ground starts burning off all the insulation releasing a giant cloud smoke from my engine bay. I run and get the fire extinguisher from the car, and I pull the pin and try it and nothign! The pressure leaked out and I wasn't aware of it. DOH! So I yell out, "FIRE!!!!!" And my neighbors run up and start pouring water on the whole harness that's practically on fire. As they pour the water bottle, the emotions on my face is straight out of a movie and I'm just like, "NoooOOOOooo!!!" Then my other neighbor comes with a fire extinguisher, but he was too late, the damage was done. So I check every possible damn thing before I touch it again, and I find the damn factory battery tray has both terminals attached to it. So I slowly make sure the tie down was free. And ever so gently lift the tray off the battery. It grounds and becomes BURNING RED HOT.(Isn't that just wonderful?) While I hold the terminals up and out of the way of the continuing burning carnage being done to my precious, precious car. The track crew arrived right in time with proper gloves to lift the battery out of the engine bay and out of the car. I take a look at my clothes and they all have holes in them. My favorite pair of jeans had tons of holes in it, along with holes directly over the logo of my "I :heart: my datsun Z" shirt. Fantastic! So the tie down rod on the battery tray was so hot it burned a hole right through the battery and poured out a good amount of battery acid onto the harness, you know, because it could definitely take some more punishment. So to cut it short I managed to get the car running off the battery, not touching turn signals/headlights or anything really. Charged up the battery and made the 80 mile drive home with 80lb's of tools/stuff in my trunk with my brother. By the way, I had to drive with only a left turn signal on(because it was stuck on) for the last 12 miles in the night. Yea it's fixed and the battery is properly mounted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skib Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 when I was putting my L28et together I kept ripping rear main seals. I went threw about 4 or 5 of them before I realized, because it came from an auto there was that little "cap" bit on the end of the crank. tapped it with a hammer, came right off, and problem solved and I was helping a buddy tune up his 240sx, I did all the plugs and wires and stuff up top and he did the oil. He started it up and there was a ticking off and on and I was like "WTF is that noise?" I looked under the car and come up holding a bolt and ask "dude, whats this?" ... he hadnt put the drain plug back in when he "filled" it back up with oil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam393 Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 After getting the Z all back together and getting it ready to fire it up for the first time after it had been apart, my dad and his friend were going around checking everything while i sat in the car to fire it up. First crank, nothing. They played with a few things for a few minutes. Next crank, nothing. After many more of these going back and forth for about 2 hrs with all of us checking things, my dad finally realizes that the battery kill switch on top of the battery was off. Turned it on, a few cranks later, viola, running car. *facepalm* And another good one, back when my dad had his old Italian car, it went to the shop and after he got it back, it was pulling right horribly. He couldnt figure it out, he sent it to his suspension guy to have it looked out. He checked everything out and found nothing wrong, but the car still pulled to the right. My dad took it to a specialist who raced cars from this manufacturer, he looked at, and about 5 min later came back and said, "One of the rear wheels is on the front" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wigenOut-S30 Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 When I got my new Intercooler and piping I put rags in the intercooler openings so nothing would get in them. Well I completely forgot about it and put the car back together and cranked it up.. It would run for a few seconds and die.. then the throttle stuck.. Took me a few minutes and took my IC piping off... heh face palm.. and I see a rag stuck in the TB plate.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobythevan Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 I accidentally left the old o-ring from the oil filter stuck to the bock of my boss's truck during an oil change. I put the new filter on and cranked up the truck. Oil went everywhere and I had to clean it all up. Ha, I did this one last weekend on my talon. 5 quarts of oil across the garage floor as I backed out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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