I'm ashamed, but this really happened.

[TylerCharger69]

    About 9 or ten years ago when I lived briefly in Arizona, I had a local garage where I did various auto repairs.  A friend of mine owned a 1970 GTO Judge clone.  It was originally a LeMans.  I built the engine for him and installed it.  The car ran pretty good for a stock 400.  He decided about 3 or 4 months later that he wanted to put an aftermarket intake and carb on it. I said "no problem. Leave the car with me for a few days as there are a few more nickel and dime jobs ahead of you."  Came time to change out these basic bolt on components.  After about 4 hours of disassembly, reassembly, and fine tuning,  the car ran great.
     Somewhere around a week later, he came back with the car.  He's telling me that he has a MAJOR oil leak.  I asked him "how can you tell?"  He said, "well....the engine started getting a slight tick to it and my oil pressure gauge is acting very erratic, so I checked the oil and none registered on the dipstick, so I added about 3 quarts and everything was fine."  So I asked him "is there a puddle of oil where you park?"  He said no.  Then I asked "does it smoke?"  He said no.   I looked behind the car first to see if there was any oil spray all over the undercarriage and so-forth and found none....dry and clean as a bone.  I then jacked up the car and meticulously looked for any sign of leakage.  Just as clean as the day I installed the engine.   Hmmmmmmm.   I decided to pull a few spark plugs out to see how they looked.   They were very clean as well.      I thought to myself that as much oil as he's claiming to be losing.....someone's either seriously drunk or on some other kind of mind altering substance.    Anyway....I topped off the oil (2 quarts) and sent him on his way.
     3 days later....he comes back.  "I just put another 3 quarts of oil in this thing for the second time this week!!!"  I, again, checked the car over and found no sign of anything he has been claiming.  So...I top it off with another 3 quarts.  Keep in mind,  That's 5 quarts that I put in plus nine or more quarts he claimed to have put in.   Roughly 15 quarts in about 2 or 2 1/2 weeks time.  I told him to keep a close eye on it, and if the results persisted,  bring it back.
     Another 3 days later......same story.  I beginning to get a bit agitated.  Another 3 quarts he has put in.   I should've asked him this earlier, but i asked him  "was this happening before the top end change?"  He said no.   Allrighty then!!!!   "Leave the car here, and I will track the problem down"  The car was about 2 quarts down, so it was obvious something was wrong.
     When I removed the new intake manifold.....well....I then realized immediately what I had done.  I had placed a beach towel in the lifter valley to keep debris from falling in during the change out,  and had forgotten to remove it.  This thing weighed.....well....I dunno,  but it was pretty heavy and totally oil soaked.  It was like a 30 pound soaked sponge hitting the shop floor.  We both got one hell of a laugh out of it.  He had just called me to say hello and "remind" me of my absent-mindedness.....I guess that's one of those things in life I'll never be able to live down......Haha....Just thought I'd share with everyone here and hopefully you'll get a little chuckle out of it.......Ace

[RD]

dont worry about it!  i went over my friends house a couple of weeks ago after they just got done putting on a intake on their chevy and couldnt get the pushrods to seat in the lifters...  guess what.. their towel was in the way   they had to remove the whole thing and remove the towel.  they called it "practice".

[b5blue]

 

[TylerCharger69]

Wow.....and I thought I was the only one to do such a absent-minded thing......i agree...count it up as "practice".....lol

[John_Kunkel]

Never done it myself (yet) but I've found a putty knife and a 10" Craftsman screwdriver in the valley of motors I've pulled apart. No rust to be seen on them. 

[1969chargerrtse]

That is funny, kinda of.
My dad drained his oil out of his motor and added 5 quarts of motor oil to the trani and drove off, until the knocking and oil over flow caught his eye and ear. 
We sent my brother out to add a quart of oil in the car before we took a ride when we were kids.  About 30 mins later we went to check on him and he was still dribbling the oil , IN THE DIP STICK! ( He's a cop  )

[Brock Samson]

   great stories,.. mine is that after we rebuilt and reinstalled the 318 in my first Van there were four really big bolts left over in the air filter, never did figgure out what they were for.. 

[A383Wing]

Man...you are lucky the cam didn't wind that towel up inside the motor....had a guy put rags in the valley of a 318 years ago...he installed the intake and put the motor back in....fired it off and it ran for about 1 hour....cam sucked the rags in and chewed them up....pick up screen was plugged solid with shop rag

[greenpigs]

Coworker swapped a 305 into his v6 pickup. He couldnt wait for his headers so he put factory manifolds on. Then he drove around for a bit. Yep he burnt(bent) a valve. Not as much a brain fart as just not thinking. 

[Landonsrt]

Went over to my father in laws shop the other day. He had a Chevy truck up on his rack that a customer had towed in. The driveshaft was cut in half. The customer had just had it at another shop the week before with the same problem. The previous shop replaced it. Well, the next week, the same thing happened. My father in law looked above the driveshaft where that cab and the bed meet. There was a 12 inch sawblade right there! Grinding away on both shafts. I dont see how the first shop didnt wonder how a driveshaft just gets sheared in two like that? didnt ask him what the customer said to the other shop. Customer told him (father in law) it was a blade he lost.

[Ghoste]

A buddy of mine once worked at a shop where one of his co-workers left a shop rag inside the top end of 69 383 Dart.  He didn't completely destroy it but it wasn't good either.
A shop where I once worked had two, one really bad the other not so much.  The not so much one was a kid working the lube rack who would routinely install the wrong oil filter or completely forget to install one and then flood the floor when he started the car to take it off the lift.  The worse one was also on the lube rack at the same shop but a different guy.  For whatever reason he thought the oil had to be filled to the top of the fill hole in the valve cover to be at the correct level.  Hydraulic lock can bend so many things.  That was his last day.

[b5blue]

My friends wife was told check the water level, lucky for him the neighbor saw her with a hose sticking out of the valve cover, she had just "filled" it

[68charger383]

I have a similar story with a towel in the valley. I guess we, or everyone else, should just be glad we never became doctors 

[RECHRGD]

About 15 years ago, I noticed that the brake fluid was low in my truck.  I ran into my shop and grabbed some fluid and filled it up.  The next morning on the way to work the brakes started acting funny.  Suddenly I realized that I had grabbed power steering fluid by mistake!   I had to replace just about the whole braking system.

[nh_mopar_fan]

I've seen some stupid stuff that just amazed me.

One Saturday afternoon, kid pulls in with his Duster. Says that every time he hits the gas, there is a real loud bang. As we're walking to his car, he tells us that he just swapped out the 225 for a 340. We pop the hood and there's the motor with a chain around it sitting on a couple landscaping timbers. Apparently, the fact that he needed motor mounts wasn't going to stop him. When he hit the gas, the motor hit the hood. That was the loud bang.

Another day, this woman pulls in with a Nova. Tells us that it's leaking oil. As we get closer to the car, we can see oil EVERYWHERE. I mean coming out of the grill, the fenders, EVERWHERE. We pull the hood and everything is just covered with oil. The hood insulation is soaked and dripping. We ask her, "lady, what did you do?" She says, "it was low on oil so I added it.". Uh, how did you know it was low? She pulls the oil cap off the valve cover and says, "See, it's low right now".

[Magnumcharger]

Never did anything like the above mentioned oversights...except:

I borrowed a '68 dual snorkle aircleaner off a friend, to try on my Charger to see if it would clear the hood (I had a Edlebrock Torker on my 440).
I took it off the carb, and absent mindedly sat it on the ground as I was working on the engine.

Not long after, I decided to take the Charger out of the garage for a rip.

Yup. Drove right over the aircleaner.

And it took me several years to find a replacement.

[TylerCharger69]

Speaking of which...I watched a guy run a brand new, just scalloped and EMG pickups installed, a Gibson Les Paul.  He opted to get a gig bag instead of the hardshell case because the guitar and all of its mods was too expensive and couldn't afford it yet.  He had the trunk open to put the guitar inside.  His landline was ringing, so he shut the trunk, left the guitar propped against the rear bumper and ran in to answer the phone...He came back out, got in his car, fired it up, and CRACK!!!!!!   He just backed over the guitar......He literally cried like a biatch!!!

[Silver R/T]

simple mistakes

[jaak]

Ok wasn't gonna tell, but here is one of my dumb-ass moments...

You know a couple of months ago, I replaced the clutch in the Rallye, I decided to pull the engine, do some cleaning/painting, etc.
Well I was on vacation, one night I couldn't sleep, everyone else was, so I went into the shop around 12 a.m. to start re-assembly. Well got the engine/trans in, wiring back in, everything hooked up, etc. I wanted to atleast hear the engine run before calling it a day. (mind you Ive worked quiet a few hours with no sleep) I fired it up and it just didnt "sound" right. The engine seemed like it hesitant like it was choked...well any ways I had a couple of other issues, decided to call it a day.
I took alot of photos along the way and was uploading the ones I took that day, and looking at some I took earlier.
When I was looking at a a previous pic of the engine after I painted I realize what the problem was.....I left some shop rags I had stuffed in the intake....DOH! I ran out to the shop right then yanked the carb off, and sure enough...that was it. They was half-way sucked down into it, but I could grasp them and pull 'em out. A couple days later I put the carb on, fixed a couple of other issues, got everything button up took it for a drive, and everything was fine and it ran good.

Boy, felt like a dumb ass!

Jason

[TylerCharger69]

These are awesome stories and experiences guys.....KEEP 'EM COMING!!!

[69bronzeT5]

Speaking of which...I watched a guy run a brand new, just scalloped and EMG pickups installed, a Gibson Les Paul.  He opted to get a gig bag instead of the hardshell case because the guitar and all of its mods was too expensive and couldn't afford it yet.  He had the trunk open to put the guitar inside.  His landline was ringing, so he shut the trunk, left the guitar propped against the rear bumper and ran in to answer the phone...He came back out, got in his car, fired it up, and CRACK!!!!!!   He just backed over the guitar......He literally cried like a biatch!!!

[teddy1500]

Years ago, my daily driver was an 89 dodge daytona. I knew it needed front brakes, but I didn't want to take the time to fix. Finally, the noice stoped, and outside of a pull to the drivers side, all was good. I was going from NC to Ga, stoped to visit a friend in Statesville ( a mechanic). we put the car on the lift, only to find the passenger rotor, cut in half, with the now outer ring held in place by a frozen caliper. I probably drove it a month like it was, before we found it, and fixed.

[TeeWJay426]

While changing the oil in my Intrepid last year, I noticed the filter I took off didn't have a gasket it on it... thought that was strange, but didn't bother looking for it... 

Needless to say, when everything was buttoned back up and I started the car, the stream of oil coming out from under the car was my first clue that something wasn't right.

Found out that oil filters don't seal too well to the block with an extra gasket in between the two! 

[TylerCharger69]

Ive had that happen too....lol   Of course I removed the stuck on gasket before putting on the new filter....but I have had a rubber gasket get stuck before...

[jb666]

18 years ago I said I do 

Ok, ok, fine, not the kind of story you were looking for..

The only thing I can say I did was when I was 16.. I had a '69 Camaro with a built 327. I decided I'd tune it up.. I messed the firing order so bad I was CONVINCED I ralphed the motor.. I traded it to a buddy who had a ratted out '69 Skylark convertible. The next day he came over with it running like a DREAM (The 'Maro) and told me he swapped 4 wires around and voila... 

From then on, I NEVER forgot 18436572.