YEA!!

#400!!

 

USA....fortunately, I haven't had that happen to me yet! [Crosses fingers]

 

Sounds more like a general what not to do

 

I recently added a cd player. DO NOT touch the constant power and the ground wires together on your finger. Not only does it hurt but it blows fuses and takes longer to get the cd player working. Just a little more help for you all.

 

Actually happened yesterday: I was changing the brake pads on my friends roommate's car as a favour ok.. so i'm done and I bleed the brakes (ran out of fluid too) so I put in more fluid (after I bought it!) and ok that's done... He doesn't offer to reimburse me but instead asks me for 5 bucks gas money! I'm like WTF!!!!! some people are ****ing *******s

 

double post

 

After you pulled an engine and set it on the floor to get the new one off the stand and in the car, make sure you use BOTH legs of the engine picker. We, only ONCE, in a hurry and jammed for space put on one leg just to lift the engine off the ground and onto the stand. Well lets just say the loud noise of a complete 350 and a engine crane slamming to the ground of a hard concrete shop floor is very satisfactory, and kinda scary. Boy was that on f***ing loud sound. The block was cracked anyway so no major loss, luckily it was at night so no customers were around. We felt pretty damn dumb.

 

i got a new one.. it follows the addage of "if it aint broke, dont fix it"
I was looking at my Haynes manual, and i saw that my firing order was not the same as what haynes had. so off i go to fix it. The car ran fine with the "messed up" firing order. But the worst part is that i didnt remember what it looked like before. So i start re wiring the plugs... go to start her up... nada.. no start... i try to remember what it looked like and put it back.. i start it... i hear a loud blam, and the car turns off and i got a check engine light.... now its sitting there, waiting for me to fix it... anyone have any idea why? and was that loud blam a back fire?

 

HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHA
I did that exact same thing. Took me all morning to figure it out. The distributor was in 180 degrees out. Therefore all of the wires were exactly opposite of the Haynes manual. 1 in the place 6, 2 in the place of 5, etc.

Yes, the loud "blam" was a backfire.

 

This happened to a buddy of mine, sort of. They just finished replacing the intake on a TBI pickup, and had the firing order right, but 180 off.....well they "fired it up" and BAM! one of the valve covers is now bowed way out, lol!

 

Holy ****, he blew a valve cover??? Damn...I've never seen a valve cover do that. Closest I've seen is this 4.3 liter V6 in a van that me and a few friends did donuts in in a field..catch is, it's a tired motor and the tranny has blown all but first gear. So we were cutting donuts with our feet to the floor...it had no tach but I assume we were revving it to the very top it would go....so we hear a loud BANG and see smoke start flying...turns out the old owner double-stacked the valve cover gaskets..we blew both of the gaskets clear out. Thing still ran. We jammed re-bar through the radiator and busted all the fins up. Still ran. Still runs to this day after cutting donuts at probably 6000 rpms constant for about 30 minutes total, about 10 minutes of that with the busted up radiator and blown valve covers. Unbelievable.....

 

well after playin around, i fixed it... i set it to the standard firing order again and that didnt work... so i moved each wire one over in the clockwise direction. started right up... wheww!

 

This one's about 2 weeks old...

Don't finally have the fan switch installed in the engine, after drenching your hands in coolant (not to mention dumping about 2L of it on the driveway), put a new connector on the end of the wire, plug it in, tweak the connector so that it fits better because it was constantly falling out, get it just a little too tight, tug on the wire lightly to make sure it won't fall out.... then... get this... litterally yank all the "guts" of the fan switch out with the end of the wire.

Now i gotta do it all over again....

 

This ones probably been said but here:

DON'T think that you can change the vss after you've diven the car for a few hour's... still if you do..
remember to lift the rear end up... not the front.. or you'll find out how well atf works as hair gel (or more like hot wax. aww)

after getting your head burt and lifting the car from the rear and getting the vss out.. you notice that your local dealer gave you to wrong sensor... so you end up changing only the sensors gear and reassembling with the old vss.. ( now being unable the return the wrong vss cause it has no gear)

well if you were smart at this point you should have changed the o-ring but noooo.... you lower the car down a notice that it's leaking atf... after lifting the car (again) you think the only way of patching the leak is sealing the on to the trans with a rubbery subtance... praying it won't burn and leak again..

And one more thing... while installing new speakers under the dash... DON'T lean the dash against the car... it will fall over and the ruin your paint job...

That said... I'm gonna have to paint the car this spring..

$1K,
down the drain...

 

Never use a magnetic tip screwdriver...with changeable tips anywhere near a carb on a 66 IH Scout while the motor is running...bang bang clunk clunk erch.........

 

Ever wonder what happened to that socket you swore you had put away after swapping intake manifolds. When in doubt, disconnect the ignition and just bump, I mean bump the motor over and listen!!!! OHHHHHH!! THere it is!!! In the cylinder!! I just thought it would be safe there!!!

 

Ha ha ha...wow, ain't that a b*tch! Luckily I've never dropped anything into my engines yet! Although I did lose my hood light bulb from closing the hood a tad too hard..it ended up resting on my lower manifold, blocked by the plenum. Never did get it out.

It's always comical too when you've been replacing vacuum lines on your engine, but your replacements are just a TAD off, like 1 mm, because you bought the damn Autozone universal r!cer set figuring they'll fit.....seems to fit..until you hit the final corner to go home and your cruise control box vaccum line comes off, as suddenly your brakes seem to lose power and there's this enormous hiss from the hood as your idle skyrockets pulling into the driveway.

 

here's mine...

don't work on friends' cars without asking them what they tried to do on there own when they don't know anything.

 

Amen to that. A guy I know tried replacing his Optispark on his '93 Trans Am (LT1). For two weeks afterward he couldn't figure out why his engine was overheating and why the fans weren't coming on. I had to go over there and fix it for him. Apprently, when he put the water pump back on (had to remove it to gain access to Opti) he never put the collar on the gears so it would spin. His water pump wasn't pumping .

 

...If the Lucas Oil Stabilizer looks like it will never come out of its bottle while at ambient temperature, and you decide to warm up the bottle in a bathroom sink , do not go to the master bathroom to "sculpt a Saddam replica" while the basin fills (as the current sink is now taken up and will not be suitable for handwashing).

Oh, you will promise yourself that the procedure "will only take a second", and that the safety drain on the front of the sink provides a margin for error. You will be wrong on both counts. You will invariably get caught up in the Summit catalog (even if only the cover ads), partially flooding your other bathroom when the safety drain is overwhelmed by the torrent of hot water.

Two towels later I am prepared to TestOnly/RectalExam the F0rd. This is what I get for a)waiting until the last minute to smog the car, and b)driving the arch enemy of the Formula.

Peace and dry tiles,

K

Edit: Just came back from the TestOnly. The car passed the test. Not bad for 125K on the factory cats... FWIW the TestOnly was easy as pie, same checks as the regular test in less time...

 

after canging the thermestat on your new thirdgen, dont break the egr temp valve, or loose a lot of fluid cause its the first thermestat youve changed

since you got a bad thermestat and you have to change it again, when you take everything apart be careful not to break teh valve this time
then when you put the thermestat down cause you have to go do something make sure you know wich one is wich, cause when you put the old one in it suck taking it apart again a couple days later to do it all over

 

And we all thought this post had finally died... Almost 2 months later......muahaha, IT'S ALIVE!

General car rule: If you "know" what the problem is but can't afford to fix it, you're probably right. If you "know" what the problem is and decide to buy the part to see if it works, you're going to be wrong. Always. And invariably, half the time the car will run worse after replacing the old, crappy part. Such is the case with my oxygen sensors. Freaking F0rd. I give it new sensors, reset the computer, and now it's enormously lacking low end power.

 

If you only drop the rear of the driveshaft down (leaving the front still in the tranny) to adjust the parking brake, don't forget to re-install it before testing to see if the newly adjusted parking brake will hold the wheels with eng in drive.

 

please tell me you didnt do that

 

If he posted it, with three forehead smacks, you'd better believe he did it! I've done dumber. Like turned the car off, stepped out, then realized I was parked too high on my driveway for my dad to get out, so I figured I'd turn the key and throw it in neutral real quick while it rolled back a foot or two, and then I'd jump in and brake and park it.. I forgot that a car weighs 3000 lbs and it doesn't take much of a grade to get it rolling very quick very fast.

 

Yep, I did it alright.
To make matters worse, I drove it for 2 days and decided to replace the u-joints. Good thing I did. The prev owner of the driveshaft didn't use any locks on the front u-joint cups. One of the cups was abt halfway out. Almost had a pole vaulting story to tell.

 

Maybe that's how the "turbo boost" on Knight Rider worked.......

 

nah that was straight menthane injection

 

Lol...I can't imagine methane injection would give a car the magic ability to "leap" about 15 feet into the air....

 

Wow, my camaro had the same problem when I bought it too. Maybe we bought our cars from the same dumbass. Mine was the rear joint though. I had this nasty vibration on the highway at about 80, soon it started at 50. I got an idea that maybe the driveshaft was bent so I crawled under it and noticed the caps coming off. I grabbed to rock it by hand and the caps fell off in my driveway. Damn...was I lucky. This happened 2 months after I drove the car almost 3000 across the country!!!

 

Well, I do have a pole vaulting story. I wasn't driving but I was riding shotgun for this one.

Back in my Federal Highway days, we had a '68 International LoadStar 1600 as one of our support vehicles. It's kinda like the truck in the picture, but mine was white, and had a good-sized crane mounted on the back. You can read about my other adventures in this rolling collection of accidents in the 'Moments of Stupendious Automotive Idiocy' thread on this site.

Anyhow, we used to use this truck to pick up large/bulky/heavy items from suppliers and bring them back to the lab. One one occasion, we were going to pick up a load of guardrails, when at about 50 mph or so, the front u-joint gave way. For those of you who've never been under a large truck, the driveshaft is about 9 feet long and a good 6 inches around. I'm not sure how much air got under the back wheels, but the truck put enough load in to that pipe to break off about the first three feet of the driveshaft. Of course, the cab was not equipped with functional seatbelts, and I got bounced in to the dashboard pretty solidly. More notes: If you have a vehicle of this type and vintage (read: all-metal dashboards) Please install seatbelts in the cab. If you get in any kind of accident, there's all kinds of hard sharp metal things to kill yourself on in there.
A final note on this wreck, after getting more or less off the road, we had to go find something to block the wheels with, because the parking brake is on the tailshaft of the transmission, so no drive shaft, no brake. I ended up using the 90lb downhaul off of the crane cable to keep from rolling back out in to traffic.

 

When laying on your side welding underneath a car on jackstands make sure the helmet covers your ear. You will flop around comically when crackling spatter flies into it.

Don't take Centerforce's word for it when they say their $330 dual friction clutch is balanced. You will be angry when you finally decide to get the flywheel & clutch balanced as an assembly (instead of just the flywheel) after taking it all apart for THE THIRD TIME.

Don't decide to tweak the position of the guard on the 4 1/2 angle grinder right after you just turned it on. You might be amazed at how quickly the stone eats through the top of your nail when your finger slips, and at how little it hurts. At first.

Try to keep straight in your head which days someone is in the bed next to you before you let out a huge f@rt. She will jump when it startles her, leaving little doubt that she was asleep at the time, until you hear about it the next morning, at which point there will be no doubt.

 

HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!

That's a good one man!

 

ok first let me say HEY ALL im dave and im a new member
(please dont hold that against me)

i read EVERY post in this topic and fell out of my chair NUMEROUS times laffing


i have ONE for ya that i havent seen yet

DONT let the inspection guy TROMP ion your brakes when the car is on the dyno
it will just cause 40 dollars in reapirs to the rear brake line (blowout) and a rejection sticker to be placed on your windshield

 

At one point I found out why the torque arm was supposed to be bolted to the transmission.

its not funny when you mash the throttle only to have the torque arm put a hole right behind your shifter and stick up into the car.

oh yeah and then when i mashed the brake because i thought somthing blew up the torque arm ripped itself out of my tranny tunnel and buried itself into the asphalt.

 

always remembder that although transmission fluid is sold in quart bottles, the gm manual lists the capacities in pints...thank *** for the tci deep tranny pan (+2 quarts)...pops caught the mistake after 3 extra quarts were in, only had to drain one...

 

84, where do you live?
Oh man, im gunna start doing my head/cam/exhaust mods soon... i should have plenty for fill up 2 or 3 pages...

 

bigals your probably gunna freak but i live in Ware MA
work often in Springfield

 

When replacing an alternator on a car with a serpentine belt, don't assume the belt stayed in place around the crank and power steering. When you have to go back to wrenching the 5 minutes of wrenching it takes to take off that tensioner, you'll know why. And then, don't forget about that bolt that mounts the alternator that was supposed to go behind the pulley you just put BACK ON!! Turning a 10 minute job into a 25 minute job sucks!

 

cool, but i no longer reside in springfield (THANK YOU G0D) Im only up there to get an education (WNEC) and then I return back home to Big Ol'Jers baby! I am not a big fan of mASS and there drivers or for all of New England for that matter. I cant understand the concept of everything closing at 10pm in New England. What gives? I guess its a blue law or something. Im not exactly 100% on where Ware is, but sounds like its pretty close to Springfield.

P.S. I have a list off all the things i dont like about New England, but thats neither here nor there.

Heres something that you can add to this list.... not really workin on your car but about cars...
If when you come home from college on winter and spring break and tell your dad that summer is coming up and ask him that you want the insurance placed back on your car and when you finaly get out of school for the year, you come home still asking.... theres a good chance your gunna be driving your winter beater all summer long.
Moral of the story,
Get it in writing
(yea.... im pissed, or for my NE friends, im "wicked" pissed.)

 

Here's a funny one I just remembered. When you take your alternator bracketing out, except one piece, and swing it out of the way, because you're going to be stupid and spraypaint the bracket, be sure that you can put it back in. Something had moved and I couldn't get the bracket back on. I figure, ok, there's like 2 others...it'll be fine. I drove for a few days..it held. And then I start it one day....SCREEEEEECHHHH, followed by a loud session of belt squeal. The alternator had rotated under the pressure and super-tightened the belt. Had to get my friend's dad to use a breaker bar of his to help me get the bracket in position.....couldn't get enough torque behind a small ratchet or wrench.

 

dont put your ear by open headers while someone is starting the car.

dont try to look down the carb to see if its getting fuel while trying to start the car.

those two above got me pretty good.

 

You know I had the same thing happen to me with a TBI car! My friend's Iron Duke S-10....had all sorts of sensors toasted out, horrible ignition components, etc.. The plugwires weren't in the correct firing order. Cranked a few times and CRACKLE, sparks, a spurt of flame, and smoke comes out of his throttle body. That was funny. His car ultimately died about a month later...started ticking, then tapping, then knocking...then all three. In its final days, it was shooting a combination of water, a little bit of oil, and a little bit of gas, out the tailpipe. Never did find out what was wrong...I assume his head/head gasket was destroyed...but his rocker arms were severely out of adjustment, to the point that I could rock one of the arms completely off of the push rod... They weren't even tightened in a sequence that makes sense. Like, one cylinder would have both a loose intake and a loose exhaust rocker, then the others would be tight and loose in a random sequence. From the way he described it, it sounded like his motor seized.

 

Ok, I did a v6 auto to v8 manual swap over christmas break, so lets see how many things I can remember, that I'm willing to admit

1) When cutting the hole in the firewall for the hydraulic clutch, don't forget that the padding on the inside is NOT fireproof! Lots of sparks from the dremel + "what's that smell?" = I NEED WATER!!!!

2) When changing motor mounts (sucks anytime anyway), don't drop the nut into the engine x-member (it's a tube, don't forget). If you do, remember that coat hangers are a wonderful invention

3) If your oil pressure sensor isn't fitting quite right - won't screw in the damn hole - make SURE you are putting it into the correct hole! Couldn't see the hole, but the oil all over my sister's garage after attempting to prime the oil system told me I missed. Side note here, don't work on your car at 3am when you can't see what you are doing - working by touch does not always work! What is that hole into the clutch area for, anyway?

4) When filling your tranny with ATF, and your mechanically declined sister is pouring into the tube, and you are holding the tube in the hole (T56 is a pain to fill), make sure you KEEP holding it. She might just pull a little too hard on the tube, and ATF tastes horrible.

5) Distributor - 180 degrees off - backfire - flames out the intake - you know the story

6) If you have a sister nice enough to loan you her garage for a few weeks for the swap, and you end up spilling the whole case of oil you bought on both the floor and the engine, have the courtesy to push the car out of the garage BEFORE letting the oil cook off the engine (or clean it up first). In my case, her garage attached to the house, and her living room smelled like burning oil for a week. I'm just glad that my car is faster than hers, now!

7) Even after mopping up spilled oil, the concrete floor is like ice - harder too!

8) Before the first test drive, be SURE you have all the wires OFF the headers - a fire in the engine bay after all that work just sucks.

9) Finally, when changing the front springs, and using the jack lever to pry it into place, keep you fingers out of the way. It might slip and . . . well, my finger nail is still growing back 2 months later.

10) When bolting on the starter, be sure your bolt is the right one. Mine was 1/4" too long, and trying to turn it that last little bit caused me to shear if off, flush with the engine block. Then the easy out snapped off flush with the hole in the sheared off bolt. The kids down the road got a lesson in swearing that day. Actually, I think the kids in the next town got the same lesson.

BTW, NOTHING cuts through a broken easy-out, except the carbide bit I was lucky enough to have for my dremel. The bit is now toast, but I got that damn easy-out out, and then the bolt.

 

learned this last night:

Remember to roll up your windows BEFORE you take out the motor and all the electronics in the car. getting electric motors back up without electricity is a pain.

Remember to unbolt starter before unbolting exhaust. yes they will touch and yes i did a good buzz.

Before you remove that last bellhousing bolt make sure the transmission is supported. I knew this already but i seem to have forgotten it at 2AM...

 

how did it give you a buzz? Well, let me rephrase that... where did the electricity come from that zapped you? From the starter?

 

Don't do like I did today...

Don't go all over looking for something (manual, etc) that will help you tune your carb (hey, its my first time...) because its seems like its running really rich for some reason..

Reason being: gassy exhaust smell, engine won't rev well at all, seems to choke alot

It took me 45 minutes to finally discover a loose #8 spark plug wire

 

Heh..that's great... Same thing happened to me...I walked away from my car for 5 minutes. Came back out and started it...it was ticking and loping like it had a cam....I revved it a little bit and it missed all over the place...I thought I had just busted a valve or something....then I find out that two of my friends had thought it would be funny, while my door was unlocked and I was out of sight, to unplug the plugwires to cylinders 3 and 6.

On the plus-side, I discovered that these motors are strong enough to run DECENT on only 4 cylinders!

 

Amen to that

 

Its more fun to disconnect the throttle cable from the TB when they aren't looking. When they go to test drive and NOTHING happens when the gas is pushed the look on someones face is just classic. Once my friend looked like he was gonna cry. I mean red cheeks and watery eyes. You all gotta try it at least once, as long as they can take a joke...