# Biggest screw up's!



## the65gto (Oct 9, 2008)

Thought it might be some interesting reading when "we" Pontiac guys confess some of our screw up's. 

Was rebuilding my engine in the middle of winter in Michigan, no heat in the garage, and one of my replacements was the oil pump. During assembly, I could not get the headers on with the oil filter and housing installed so they were removed, headers installed. Since I used up the filter housing gasket, I made a new one with gasket paper, using a ball peen hammer to outline the housing, installed it, and for the following week finished the assembly. It was now time to turn the distributor with a drill to build up initial oil pressure. ZERO!
Turning it CW and then CCW, nothing. After two days, convinced myself that the pump was bad and would have to pull the engine. Talk about crying in your beer. Unbolted the header, filter and housing thinking I could snake a hose down there one last time and see if I struck oil. It was like a miracle, noticed I forgot to knock out the holes in the center of the gasket. Reassemble, now 65psi!:willy:


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## 05GTO (Oct 6, 2004)

After I completely disassembled the 66 I decided to take the radiator and heater core to a radiator shop and have them cleaned and tested. Picked up the items within a week and stored them for a year until I started reassembling the car. Got the car to about 90% and noticed the passenger’s floor was wet. I spent another day removing and replacing the heater core with a new core that I should have purchased to begin with.


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." I've screwed up so many times I don't even know where to begin!!! Although the _good_ news is, after over 30 years of wrenching, I _usually_ only screw something up once these days, instead of 2 to 4 times!!!


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

I submit...

http://www.gtoforum.com/f50/biggest-screw-up-ever-need-help-38214/#post311159

I wish I could say that was my only one. Heck, it's probably not even my biggest.

Also on the Beast, after getting it running and driving last November. One of the guys from my scout troop came over and I was going to give him a ride in it. We got about 2 blocks away and it died - stone cold dead - wouldn't start. Roadside diagnosis revealed there was no fuel pressure. Welp, bad pump -- we pushed it home and into the garage.

Only it wasn't a bad pump. Turns out the bolt holding on the fuel pump eccentric (and the cam gear) had backed out and was allowing the eccentric to free-wheel. Had to remove the balancer and timing cover to get to it, and ALSO pull the intake and pushrod cover so I could verify that the cam hadn't "walked" and let a lifter ride off the edge of a lobe and ruined the cam or lifter(s). (It hadn't).

Evidently, in fooling with the cam and re-degreeing it after breaking in the motor, I'd negelected to properly re-torque that bolt. :shutme

You'd better believe that sucker's on there NOW.

Bear


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

Got married..............seriously, I gotta think on this one there are so many prime candidates in my "screw up list"....:willy: :lol: Eric


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## likethat (Oct 5, 2007)

This Week:



Went to San Antonio for 9 day to see my son graduate basic from the Air Force. We headed down to Corpus Christi for some beach and surf. We show up at Padre Island National Seashore Park. There was 5 people over 8 miles of beach it was great. I decided that I have enough base tan and we will spend most of the time in the water. So no sun screen needed. After a 6 hour crab boil I feel a bit burnt on my back and chest. This was Tuesday this week. It is Saturday and I have 2nd degree burns, swollen, can only sleep an hour at a time, wishing I would have just greased up. I can't wait till next Saturday maybe by then I will feel better.


As for cars well. Not seating a torque converter all the way, putting a cooling fan blade on backward on the clutch, Leaving out the center gasket on a carb rebuild....ect. Most of the time every thing goes as planned some times tho you can over think you project.


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## Icefan71 (Apr 7, 2011)

Not a Pontiac, but - I was replacing the front to back brake line on my wife's car. I jacked up the front of the car and removed it from the proportioning valve, then lowered the car. I got lazy so I decided I would back the car up onto my ramps to do the rear. It wasn't till I got up on the top of the ramp when I remembered the car had no brakes. What made it worse was I had the door open and my leg sticking out so I could turn around and watch the rear tire go up on the ramp. I drove up and over the ramp and crashed down on it. The ramp shot out the side of the car just as my leg and the open door rolled past it, pinning my ankle between the door and the ramp. All I heard was "crunch". I then proceeded to roll off my driveway and down the hill toward my neighbor's garage. Screaming in pain I stomped on the brakes, which of course still didn't work. I managed to cut the wheel and kind of roll back and forth till I stopped. Thankfully nothing was broken. Just a badly bruised and swollen ankle. And the shame of explaining myself to the wife, then the admitting nurse, then the ER doctor.


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## 69Goatee (Aug 14, 2009)

I have a few that come to mind. For some reason all of these involve brakes.
My first car was a 1976 Pontiac Ventura with a 260 Olds motor in it. When I first got the car in highschool, a friend of mine had a Chevy truck that would smoke the tires with no effort. The little engine in my car would hardly spin the tires on gravel, so I had the bright idea of removing the right rear drum brake and putting a large hose clamp around the shoes. Now I could powerbrake it and spin the right rear, brilliant!! So one day I was driving along and heard a bunch noise coming from the right rear, when I tried to stop....nothing! The clamp came off and the cylinder leaked all the brake fliud out. I turned into a shopping center parking lot real quick, turned off the engine and went in circles until it stopped.
Same car, brake job after fun above. I had the car jacked up doing the rear brakes. I was using the stock bumper jack and no jack stands. When I was pulling on the drivers side drum, the car shifted and fell off the jack onto my legs. I was sitting crosslegged and the drum was in my lap and the axle shaft on my ankles. I had just enough room to wiggle out.
Fast forward to my GTO about 15 yrs ago. I had just bought it from a pawn shop and was changing the front manual drums to power disc. At the same time we put a shift kit in the Th400. I didn't have the tools to make the brake line from the prop valve to the rear end, so it had no brakes. I REALLY wanted to feel how the trans shifted, so I made sure the E-Brake would stop it. Then we went for a test drive with only the e-brake to stop us. I got brave(stupid) and went down a busy street to hear the tires bark when it hit second. Well we went too fast for the e-brake to stop easily, so I pressed it harder and the rear tires locked up and I let go of the release handle. So now the e-brake was locked up, the rear tires were locked up and we were going 40 plus mph. We did about three 360's, and ended up in the other lane fracing the wrong direction. Luckly, we didn't hit anything. I went directly home after that at less than 5 mph!!!


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## jetstang (Nov 5, 2008)

Swapping distributors on my 454. Hooked up the power wire. Cranked the truck, no spark. I missed the 12v hot connector, rehooked it up, hit the key and KABOOM, huge backfire. Girl friend ran out thinking I got shot. Gas in the exhaust is a bad thing. Had to buy mufflers later that week as it blew the welds, sounded cool, but destroyed it.
Oh, just read the other threads reminded me of another stupid thing I did, of many.
Putting rear shocks on my Mustang, put the lower mount on, car was too high, so held the shock in my hand to align the top hole. Other hand releasing the jack, except didn't lower it slowly, dropped the car and my hand was between the rear end and inner wheelwell. No shock so the car came all the way down almost chopping off my hand, had 1/2 inch of play in there or something. Had marks on both sides of my hand but no blood, I was happy and shocked.


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

So far Ice fan is winning......:willy: HERES ONE : Many decades ago, in the last century...I was doing some wiring under the dash....I needed a 'third' hand, SO, I put a 12 gauge wire in my mouth, between my front teeth.......It was "hot"...HUGE SPARK...LOUD POP....SMOKE, SMELL....PAIN.......burned both lips, and took a small chunk outta' my top front tooth......YES, 12 volts can hurt you......LESSON LEARNED: DRY mouth thouroghly before inserting live wires.


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## Icefan71 (Apr 7, 2011)

If I'm winning, you can't be too far behind with that one, Sparky, lmao


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## Icefan71 (Apr 7, 2011)

There must be more stories out there. This is one trophy I don't want.


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

......cough........(the sound of crickets in the background).........


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Ok, waaaaay back yonder in about 1985 when I was just starting on the Beast (yeah it's been that long) I was learning how to "hammer weld" and was working on a small patch along the base of the windshield using my oxy-acetylene welder. I was gripping the welding rod too far away from the weld joint and was having trouble controlling it because it was flexible and flopping around. I needed to shift my grip closer to the weld point. I didn't want to set anything down, and my other hand was busy holding the torch so without thinking I braced the incandescing, orange hot, near molten tip of the welding rod against "an object" so I could partially relax my grip and slide my hand down the rod to get closer to the weld joint. Problem was, "the obejct" was the closest heavy thing around: the center of my chest.  It instantly burned through 3 layers of fabric and put the nicest little "brand" you ever saw right in the center of my sternum. The reaction was somewhat delayed. First I smelled, then saw, smoke curling up in front of my face -- then the pain hit. :willy: All I could do was stand there and shake my head, talking to myself: "Can you possibly truly be THAT dumb???" :shutme

Bear


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

C'mon Ladies....fess up!:rofl:


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Not car related, but stupid, nonetheless: when I was a kid of about 12, I used to light those kitchen matches with my thumbnail...pretty slick. Well, I was hanging out at a friend's house, talking to his dad in the kitchen, and I had a whole pants pocket full of those matches (I was probably lighting firecrackers that day or something equally as constructive). Well, anyway, I had my hands in my pockets, and unconsciously lit a match with my thumbnail.....promptly igniting the other 50-70 matches in my front pants pocket. My friend's dad laughed so hard he blew beer out of his nose as I danced around the kitchen with my pants on fire.....I got them pulled off and the put out, but I was burned on the thigh, had a big hole in my pants, and a bigger hole in my ego.


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## the65gto (Oct 9, 2008)

OK round 2 for me. Prior to my first confession in an earlier post, approximately 1970, the Mrs and I were going to town to do some shopping (approx 25miles) and about half way there, I shifted into 3rd to negotiate a corner and a awfull noise started comming from the clutch area. Inspection on the side of the road revealed nothing I could see and I noticed if I kept my foot on the clutch the noise would lesson. Turned around and headed for the garage. Dropped the drive shaft, transmission, bell housing and inspected the pressure plate and clutch. Nothing seemed wrong. Then noticed that if I pulled on the fly wheel, it would move horizontal about 1/2". WHAT?? My son observed that the front pully was not moving when the rear fly wheel with crank attached was moving. WHAT?? OH CRAP!! Engine removal revealed that the crank was now two piece, broke right before the rear main. Pressure on the clutch allowed me to drive it home, about 15 miles on a broke crank. (It broke at an angle rather then straight across) Would have had it towed if I knew what had happened. (screw up #1) Parts place wanted to know if I had a trade in crank for a replacement, since the price would be cheaper, so I went searching and found a 65 Catalina in a junk yard near buy, it had a 389. The junk yard operator said it would be cheaper if I pulled it myself, so me and a buddy dismantled the front end, took out the motor mount bolts, pried off the transmission and removed the intake and heads and all the time having a good time just throwing them around the junk yard. (may have had some beers involved?). Rolled the engine out thru the grill and removed the pan and bolts and took out the crank. Threw it in the back of the jeep and headed off to the machine shop to see if this crank was good enought for a trade in. He said it was perfect, only needed a polish. :lol: When I got home and started to remove the pistons etc noticed that again me driving this thing with a broke crank, had in turn broken several rings and just gouged the hell out of the cylinder walls. The block was trash. (It was already 60 over) Where could I get another block,  wait, there was one in the junk yard sitting in the mud & snow, the one we had abused just three days earlier. Went back and retrieved that block, machinist said after a nice boil job, boring etc. it was perfectly useable. That is the one that is in my Goat at the present day and the one I was building during an earlier post. When I am working on my car and look at that engine, remembering we have been thru hell together.


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