Car Repair Success and Failure Stories

[Earth]

Any shade tree mechanics want to share a repair sucess or failure?

Maybe something that was a real mystery?

A remember when a tapping sound developed overnight in a 1991 Honda Civic. The sound appeared to come from the head. But all the rocker arms were torqued and calibrated correctly.

In time, with the help of a pressure guage I found the cylinder that was nearest to the tapping sound to be low on pressure. The head gasket was leaking. After taking off the cylinder head I couldnt see anything wrong. The valves werent bent or anything.

I then decided to replace the piston rings, as the car had 140k miles and I was down there anyway.

When removing the first piston and rod, well, what do you know. The rod was bent! It was tapping against the bottom of the cylinder, damaging an unused area.

As for failures, I had a workmate tell me about how he aligned the gaps of the piston rings when rebuilding his engine, which led to alot of blue oil smoke and him having to tear it down again!

 

[Bopop4]

A guy at my local kart track had his motor explode, on the pace lap...
Blew out a sizeable chunk of the block on the top and front.
A repair story would be when there was a red flag at this big kart race and due to an unknown at the time problem, the engine would be way to rich at idle and would flood after a couple of minutes. After the motor flooded from being on the track waiting for the mess to be cleaned up, it wouldn't get going again. I tried everything and was destroyed from pulling it over, and my kart friends were trying to help me too. On the other side of the pit way the team (Dad and transporter buddies, and chassis importer) were trying to help from over the wall becuase they couldn't go out onto the track. The importers son waited for the marshal to walk away and in about 20 seconds had changed the spark plug. I waited until everyone set off and the engine started first pull.
The funny thing is, the marshal came over and asked if anybody had handed me tools, everyone said no. The son said that he asked the wrong question.

 

[savage388]

Just watched someone replace both head gaskets on a ford ranger only to find out the engine had a really bed knock. So all that work just to drop a new engine in. Never even tore the old one apart just scrapped it.

 

[Dennisch]

*cracks knuckles.


1. A former colleague of mine loved the torque wrench, the bigger the better.
Instead of using his hands for the first part of the thread, he used the wrench for everything. Until one day he decides to tighten up headbolts on an old Jaguar MK2. He placed the wrench on the first bolt, in the middle, pressed the button, tightened the bolt, and we all heard something snap. The bolt maybe? No. The head split in half.
Instant fired.

2. A friend of mine, and former colleague who wasn't a mechanic for long, gets to do the brake pads on a 2003 BMW 528, and when he is done, he gets in the car, puts it in reverse, drives of the ramp, only to find out that he has no brakes. He slams it in drive, shoots back up and over the ramp, into a rack full of oildrums. 9000 euro damage on the front of the BMW. And I almost died laughing.
ALWAYS PUT THE PRESSURE BACK ON THE PADS WHEN YOU SWAP THEM.

3. My former boss lets me do the headgasket on a Saab something. Tearing it down, replacing the gasket, building it back up, I get a call, emergency, I need to go. I inform my boss, he needs to tighten up the camshafts and and put the chain back in place.
Next day I come in, see the valvecover back on the engine. I ask if everything was done before the cover went back on. Yes. I finish rebuilding, start the car, take it for a testdrive. 3 minutes into the drive, a loud bang from the engine. No more valvecover. No more inletcamshaft. And the chain has found a new home in the hood.

4. I'm working on a Porsche 968?, rebuilding it after painting. Except the front of the torquetube, huge rubbermounted flywheel thing on the engineside. Gearbox is at the rearaxle. All done rebuilding, the boss and I take it for a spin. All is well. The car sits in the carpark for a while, when my boss decides he wants to take the car for the weekend. Master clutch cylinder doesn't work. Replaced with a new one. Testdrive. My boss tells me to gun it. I do. After 20 minutes, I driving 80km/h and slam it into 3rd gear.
Something breaks underneath the car. The car jumps a good 100cm into the air and I come to a screeching hold, white knuckles and all. I look to my right, the passengerseat isn't sitting as it should be. I get out of the car, look underneath it, the torquetube and propshaft are disconnected from the engine and are bent into the floorpan underneath the passengerseat. Cause? The rubber flywheelthing has sheered off.

5. I'm busy working and prepping an Austin Healey MK3 for streetrally. Building rollcage, extra gauges, install quickrelease latches on the hood, upgraded brakes. etc etc. After tuning the ignition and carbs, testdrive. After the testdrive, I tell the boss, while I'm still in the car, give the carbs a bit more fuel. He pulls open the quickrelease, tunes the carbs, and closes the hood. Back on the road. Doing roughly 100km/h I see the hood pop up a little, and before I know it, it is 15 meter up in the air, flying towards cars behind me, they swerve all over the road. Doing a U turn as soon as I can to collect the hood. Destroyed beyond recognition. I'm thinking, how the hell is it possible??? I know I locked the quickrelease. But. I wasn't the last one to open the hood. Aha. Back to the shop, my colleague and boss are walking towards me, noticing something strange with the appearance of the car. And then it hits them. No hood. My boss freaks out at me, and I respond : Who tuned the carbs the last time I was standing here? ..... He walked away in shame.

Ah, what the hell. 1 more

Buddy of mine, the same as above, working on a Jaguar, installing Cruisecontrol, vacuum powered. Has it all installed, puts the car in ignition, and presses the startbutton underneath the hood,(don't know why there is one there, but hey) the XK engine revs to max revs, my colleague runs to the window of the car, trying to turn the keys. But the keys aren't in the steering column, the are in the middle of the dash. His panic caused an apparent black out, and before he finds the keys, the engine self destructs. Pistonrods break, causing a new oildrainhole in the side of the engine.

Done.

 

[Bopop4]

That last one would be horrible to experience.

 

[Earth]

*cracks knuckles.


1. A former colleague of mine loved the torque wrench, the bigger the better.
Instead of using his hands for the first part of the thread, he used the wrench for everything. Until one day he decides to tighten up headbolts on an old Jaguar MK2. He placed the wrench on the first bolt, in the middle, pressed the button, tightened the bolt, and we all heard something snap. The bolt maybe? No. The head split in half.
Instant fired.

2. A friend of mine, and former colleague who wasn't a mechanic for long, gets to do the brake pads on a 2003 BMW 528, and when he is done, he gets in the car, puts it in reverse, drives of the ramp, only to find out that he has no brakes. He slams it in drive, shoots back up and over the ramp, into a rack full of oildrums. 9000 euro damage on the front of the BMW. And I almost died laughing.
ALWAYS PUT THE PRESSURE BACK ON THE PADS WHEN YOU SWAP THEM.

3. My former boss lets me do the headgasket on a Saab something. Tearing it down, replacing the gasket, building it back up, I get a call, emergency, I need to go. I inform my boss, he needs to tighten up the camshafts and and put the chain back in place.
Next day I come in, see the valvecover back on the engine. I ask if everything was done before the cover went back on. Yes. I finish rebuilding, start the car, take it for a testdrive. 3 minutes into the drive, a loud bang from the engine. No more valvecover. No more inletcamshaft. And the chain has found a new home in the hood.

4. I'm working on a Porsche 968?, rebuilding it after painting. Except the front of the torquetube, huge rubbermounted flywheel thing on the engineside. Gearbox is at the rearaxle. All done rebuilding, the boss and I take it for a spin. All is well. The car sits in the carpark for a while, when my boss decides he wants to take the car for the weekend. Master clutch cylinder doesn't work. Replaced with a new one. Testdrive. My boss tells me to gun it. I do. After 20 minutes, I driving 80km/h and slam it into 3rd gear.
Something breaks underneath the car. The car jumps a good 100cm into the air and I come to a screeching hold, white knuckles and all. I look to my right, the passengerseat isn't sitting as it should be. I get out of the car, look underneath it, the torquetube and propshaft are disconnected from the engine and are bent into the floorpan underneath the passengerseat. Cause? The rubber flywheelthing has sheered off.

5. I'm busy working and prepping an Austin Healey MK3 for streetrally. Building rollcage, extra gauges, install quickrelease latches on the hood, upgraded brakes. etc etc. After tuning the ignition and carbs, testdrive. After the testdrive, I tell the boss, while I'm still in the car, give the carbs a bit more fuel. He pulls open the quickrelease, tunes the carbs, and closes the hood. Back on the road. Doing roughly 100km/h I see the hood pop up a little, and before I know it, it is 15 meter up in the air, flying towards cars behind me, they swerve all over the road. Doing a U turn as soon as I can to collect the hood. Destroyed beyond recognition. I'm thinking, how the hell is it possible??? I know I locked the quickrelease. But. I wasn't the last one to open the hood. Aha. Back to the shop, my colleague and boss are walking towards me, noticing something strange with the appearance of the car. And then it hits them. No hood. My boss freaks out at me, and I respond : Who tuned the carbs the last time I was standing here? ..... He walked away in shame.

Ah, what the hell. 1 more

Buddy of mine, the same as above, working on a Jaguar, installing Cruisecontrol, vacuum powered. Has it all installed, puts the car in ignition, and presses the startbutton underneath the hood,(don't know why there is one there, but hey) the XK engine revs to max revs, my colleague runs to the window of the car, trying to turn the keys. But the keys aren't in the steering column, the are in the middle of the dash. His panic caused an apparent black out, and before he finds the keys, the engine self destructs. Pistonrods break, causing a new oildrainhole in the side of the engine.

Done.

Thanks for vindicating my choice to not pursue a career as an auto technician.

Do auto shops have insurance for incidents like that or does it come out of your check?


1. Changing the shift Solenoid on a Dodge Caravan that was locked in 2nd gear because of it's malfunction.

A relatively easy change, only 30 minutes. The transmission has alot of dirt buildup in cracks around the solenoid. I do my best to clean it out with Q tips etc but I cant it all.

After installing the new solenoid I back the car out and drive down the street. Its shifting gears fine again. So I back up into a drive way to turn around.

And the car dies.

I get it started again but there is a really Loud noise coming from the transmission. Back at the house the noise continues along with a rough idle. At this point I'm sure I let too much dirt get into the transmission fluid and the gears are being starved of oil, and thats the reason for the loud sound.

I take the solenoid back out and inspect it. Its full of transmission fluid and looks fine. So I reinstall it. I start the van up and still theres the noise and rough idle.

I spend the whole night feeling terrible, the solenoid is a $200 part and a transmission specialist said he would install it for $200. So by trying to save $200 I caused about $3000 of damage

The next mourning...maybe the car could run right if had more gas? It looked like it was on dead empty. A few gallons added to the tank from a portable gas can and...its working fine! The noise was gone. All along the noise was from the engine not getting enough fuel, perhaps because the tank was so low trash had clogged the filter in the tank. 9 months later and the van is still working fine.

2. Plymouth Breeze has transmission leak

I dont touch transmissions so the shop gets it, a mom and pop type shop. Soon they are calling saying they fixed the leak but the car died on them driving down the road.

We come to an agreement where we both just walk away with no money being exhanged either way.

The car is towed to a Dodge dealer. They look it over. They cant tell whats wrong. They tell me they will leave the crankshaft pulley off as it will help me uninstall the timing belt faster.

So the car is towed back home. I get to work. I cant remember what I found wrong with the cam shaft, I think the pin on the camshaft that locks it into the camshaft sproket had broken off, so the exhaust camshaft was not spinning with the sproket.

With a new camshaft Im putting everything back together. Finally, the last thing, the crankshaft sproket. I have to put it on by sticking a special bolt through the threads and torquing it down. I've done this 2, maybe 3 times on this very car no problem.

I notice two crankshaft bolts the Dodge mechanics left in the trunk. Why were there two? Looking at them closer I notice one is stripped. Oh well, I'll use the new one. They gave me a new one.

Im tightening the crankshaft bolt and I get to a certain point and...the bolt just spins.

Its stripped.

The crankshaft is stripped.

I look at the crankshaft bolt and its stripped

The Dodge mechanic or the mom and pop mechanic had stripped the crankshaft threads

Not wanting to deal with it further, the car was sold for $100 when it was worth, when running, about $6k

 

[GTMail]

So my tires are almost dead now on my Sky. I decide to have a little fun before they get replaced and do some handbrake turns and whatnot. The day after I get my new set of tires, I decide to take her out to get some coffee. After I exit the store, I see some guy holding my car back inches away from hitting his. I drop everything I'm holding all over myself to help this guy. Turns out I ended up loosening my handbrake cable to a point where it doesn't work anymore. I try to do a DIY fix to it but the same thing happens the next week, except there was no one there to save it from rolling in to this female dog's Mercedes. Lets just sat I had to pay a pretty penny to get both our cars fixed. And in the end, I just end up going to the local auto repair shop and it works fine now.