Repair Mistakes & Blunders

[7t9l82]

an elderly couples mid 80's chrysler suddenly shut off at a traffic light. it had no power getting anywhere. a "mechanic" and myself stopped to help. mr know it all said the battery was dead, i recognized the symptoms of a bad fusible link. i asked for a piece of wire but none was around . another guy said i have a paper clip.i thought now i have 2 idiots here with me, then the light bulb in my brain said give me that paperclip. i spliced the paperclip into where the burned thru link was and as the genius "mechanic" says " theres no possible way...." i said try it and the car fired right up. never trust a g.m master tech to work on a MOPAR. the ingenuity of an old drag racer should never be underestimated.:drink:

 

[mrvette]

One of the guys across the street, diagnosed a Honda POS SUV something with a 4 cyl DOHC engine, that we thought the engine was locked up, as it would not turn over, no matter what.....

turns out the acc. drive belt is about 1.25" wide and so the ALTERNATOR was locked up tight, and it stopped the engine because the belt is in fact too wide....:hissyfit::gurney:

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

You mean the time I ordered a Thumpr cam for my Corvette instead of the part to make my wife's car move under it's own power?

Other than that mishap, I've never made a mistake.... ever. :drink:

 

[mrvette]

You mean the time I ordered a Thumpr cam for my Corvette instead of the part to make my wife's car move under it's own power?

Other than that mishap, I've never made a mistake.... ever. :drink:

:club::clobbered: UHHHHH you mentioning CAMS, I was talking to a guys about my cam fight some years ago, INTERMITTENT rough idle, the cam lasted almost a years on the initial build, then the rough idle started, it would smooth out and run like stink from 1500 rpm up, idle was 850 rpm.....

it was SO rough it broke the wire from the alt that came out to the left of engine to the horn relay/power dist. stud.....so when it broke it flashed/arced/burnt and blew out the computer, last thing to give up was the MOV on the power input, I had goofed, and left a 30 amp test fuse into the computer, it's now down to WTF it was supposed to be...7.5 amps.....

SO, upon replacing the computer AND the expensive prom, I still had the crappy idle, but once in a while it would smooth out....

after going through injectors, induction, fuel, spark, plugs, plug wires, caps, coils, and shit, I finally gave up after fighting it for some almost ten years.....

SO I was pissed about the fuel economy, and a nice fellow on this forum happened to send me a dead stock L98 cam, so I decided to change it out a few years ago....and when pulling that damn ZZ9 cam from TPIS it found it rough as hell on 6 lobes.....lifters were prefect, and on the 'new' cam, which for years now, has been running fine.....

SO talking to this guy the other day, he said he faced the same shit on a Comp cam/Crane?? install not so long ago...a roller cam, same shit, Mustang.....go effing figger.....caused by a CAM, INTERMITTENT rough idle....how in the HELL????


:club::hunter::clobbered:

 

[DeeVeeEight]

While leaning over the fender of my '69 Plymouth Satellite convertible, I grabbed a spark plug wire while the motor was running. I did not know that the wire was bad but I found out the hard way. My right leg spasmed every time the plug fired because it was grounding out against the fender. My knee hit the fender several times before I was able to let go. It was funny but it hurt. :gurney:

Another '69 Plymouth, this one a beat up old '69 383 Road Runner with an auto tranny that leaked. I would fill it up when it started to slip and drive as far as I could, then repeat the process. One day I was out of tranny fluid, out of money and about a mile from home when the tranny went dry again. After a moments consideration of the principles involved in an automatic transmission I figured almost any fluid would do, so I peed in a tranny fluid container, poured it in and drove the rest of the way home.

As an aside, I had three '69 Plymouths at the same time when I was 19. I don't know how, I was broke as all get out but I had em, that was a few decades ago. They'd be worth some $$$ today...

 

[7t9l82]

on occasion we would chase each other around the shop with a vertex magneto, once you get zapped with one of those you don't forget it.:clobbered:

 

[mrvette]

on occasion we would chase each other around the shop with a vertex magneto, once you get zapped with one of those you don't forget it.:clobbered:

Chicken shit, that ain't nuttin buddy......try an old Vacuum Tube CRT, TV set that has 35kv on the inside of the glass tube, one of them old things from the mid 70's......

at one point there was NO way of bleeding off the HV charge from the CRT, and if you did not ground it properly, it was about to knock the living shit outta anyone.....and lemme tell you, it's much more vicious than any mere car ignition, because that CRT glass with inside/outside on the black conductive material acted as a storage capacitor, and it would toss 35 kv so fast, it's amazing....next life.....I some how survived it, being a TV tech for many a year in the 60's and 70's....some say the d d d damage was permanent....b b buut I dunnno about t t thtat, methinks it's jest nerve damnage....


:hissyfit::gurney:

OH, back in the daze, there was a thing called the 'flyback' it was the HV transformer that generated the HV pulses that ran through a HV rectifier tube to charge the adequac on the pix tube/CRT so that flyback had a hell of a pulse on it, but problem was....IF the set was running/trying to run, and I forgot once that it was plugged in, and reached inside the HV box, and shot a HV arc through my thumb and thumb nail....it was self cauterizing ....

 

[DeeVeeEight]

on occasion we would chase each other around the shop with a vertex magneto, once you get zapped with one of those you don't forget it.:clobbered:

Chicken shit, that ain't nuttin buddy......try an old Vacuum Tube CRT, TV set that has 35kv on the inside of the glass tube, one of them old things from the mid 70's......

at one point there was NO way of bleeding off the HV charge from the CRT, and if you did not ground it properly, it was about to knock the living shit outta anyone.....and lemme tell you, it's much more vicious than any mere car ignition, because that CRT glass with inside/outside on the black conductive material acted as a storage capacitor, and it would toss 35 kv so fast, it's amazing....next life.....I some how survived it, being a TV tech for many a year in the 60's and 70's....some say the d d d damage was permanent....b b buut I dunnno about t t thtat, methinks it's jest nerve damnage....


:hissyfit::gurney:

OH, back in the daze, there was a thing called the 'flyback' it was the HV transformer that generated the HV pulses that ran through a HV rectifier tube to charge the adequac on the pix tube/CRT so that flyback had a hell of a pulse on it, but problem was....IF the set was running/trying to run, and I forgot once that it was plugged in, and reached inside the HV box, and shot a HV arc through my thumb and thumb nail....it was self cauterizing ....

So that is what got me when I reached into the back of that old TV set when I was wearing my I.D. bracelet? (remember them?) I wound up on my ass on the other side of the room.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

You mean the time I ordered a Thumpr cam for my Corvette instead of the part to make my wife's car move under it's own power?

Other than that mishap, I've never made a mistake.... ever. :drink:

:club::clobbered: UHHHHH you mentioning CAMS, I was talking to a guys about my cam fight some years ago, INTERMITTENT rough idle, the cam lasted almost a years on the initial build, then the rough idle started, it would smooth out and run like stink from 1500 rpm up, idle was 850 rpm.....

it was SO rough it broke the wire from the alt that came out to the left of engine to the horn relay/power dist. stud.....so when it broke it flashed/arced/burnt and blew out the computer, last thing to give up was the MOV on the power input, I had goofed, and left a 30 amp test fuse into the computer, it's now down to WTF it was supposed to be...7.5 amps.....

SO, upon replacing the computer AND the expensive prom, I still had the crappy idle, but once in a while it would smooth out....

after going through injectors, induction, fuel, spark, plugs, plug wires, caps, coils, and shit, I finally gave up after fighting it for some almost ten years.....

SO I was pissed about the fuel economy, and a nice fellow on this forum happened to send me a dead stock L98 cam, so I decided to change it out a few years ago....and when pulling that damn ZZ9 cam from TPIS it found it rough as hell on 6 lobes.....lifters were prefect, and on the 'new' cam, which for years now, has been running fine.....

SO talking to this guy the other day, he said he faced the same shit on a Comp cam/Crane?? install not so long ago...a roller cam, same shit, Mustang.....go effing figger.....caused by a CAM, INTERMITTENT rough idle....how in the HELL????


:club::hunter::clobbered:

yes but we've already talked about this - I'm fixing the oil leak on my 350 with a 427.

 

[VegasJen]

Don't know if you'll want to use this because it resulted in serious injury but it's a story with a warning.
This story has been told before but bears repeating.
Years ago, I rebuilt the engine in my '81. As part of the rebuild, I decided it was time to ditch the crappy original CCC module. The option was to update to a newer computer control or backdate to conventional controls.
Since it was cheaper and easier, I decided to backdate to conventional carburetor and distributor.
After years of tinkering with the car I had forgotten one tiny but crucial detail. Years of setting the timing on the CCC distributor taught me to disconnect the 4 pin connector to the distributor. I forgot that on a vacuum advance system I needed to disconnect the vacuum canister from its source. The result was timing set far out of base specs. My first test drive ended in painful disaster when the car stalled in the road.
Being a manual shift (like Corvettes were intended) I thought I would just get it rolling and pop the clutch. All went well until I tried to jump in the car. The back tire grabbed my left foot and pulled me down, wedging my right knee between the seat and door jamb. At that point I was at the mercy of momentum and along for the ride.
Since the car was on a slight decline and I had it rolling at a good jogging pace when I made the fateful jump, the ride was far longer than one might expect with a human foot acting as a wheel chock. The whole time I'm wondering "why won't this fucking car stop?"
Finally, it did, then rolled backwards off my foot. The damage was extensive, resulting in the complete elimination of the "knuckle" on the inside of my left ankle. It was "deep exfoliated" quite literally down to, and into, the bone. I was extremely lucky in that I was young and the surgeon that put my foot back together did an excellent job.
That was January of 2007 and now at 7+ years I am happy to report that I am at over 90% with the ankle, a result that the doctor never would have expected.
But I post this as a warning. The main reason for the failure is that I forgot to take into account the switch back to a vacuum advance and proper procedure for setting up that timing. It was not the car's fault, purely operator error.
I was not helped by the fact that, like many people who enjoy modifying their cars (Vettes no exception), I have big, fat tires on the back.
So let that be a warning to all regarding pushing a car, but with special relevance to the proximity of the rear tire to the door particularly in Vettes.

 

[mrvette]

OH GOD!!!, U 2??, a few years ago, just as I turned into a gas station, the vette ran dry, engine quit, so I got out to push it, and the damn thing ran over my right foot with that 275 tire so I got lucky and pulled it back off, and some folks came to push......So I now have a new occupation....flatfoot....


:cussing: