stupid things you have done to your car

[Killacortes]

forgot to tighten down a bolt that held a pulley on a motor i just bought and shot out the bolt. through the timing belt cover, then got stuck and grinded down the harmonic balancer which eventually stopped turning spun the timing belt and threw timing off and led to
Valve hitting piston!

[payney8]

^^^ ouch white pen is your friend

[dreamer420]

I accidentally dropped a socket in my engine bay after adjusting my valves, and after looking for a very long time, i never found it.
turns out it fell inside the timing cover and was laid on top of the belt, and when I started my car i heard a loud thunk and shut my car off quick.
made the timing cover into 4 pieces, and completely bent the cam sprocket and destroyed my rotor. only 8$ for all that at a junkyard though.

I also once removed my hood and after i put it back on i was trying to put the arm back on that holds it up and dropped the hood, making a really sucky outward dent that also cracked the paint a bit.

[greanthumb]

damn.... i always do knucklehead things:roll:.... but.... ive been lucky with my e30's:D. these stories are great.




NOW i KNOW what NOT to do.




just for this post...i will prob do something stupid tomorrow.:p

[nando]

I left the oil cap off the engine, and drove to work, and then to lunch, and then to my other house. Somehow I didn't lose that much oil, but it made a damn mess, and I had to buy a new oil cap.

I've also left a wrench on the crank numerous times after doing a valve adjustment and then went to start the car. No damage so far. ;)

[straight6pwr]

after re-tightening lug nuts the other day, i set the breaker bar and the wheel lock key on my trunk. i went inside to grab my wallet and then left to go buy some parts. well about half way there i heard a weird thunk, and then a i remembered about the tools!! well i turned around and parked and was able to recover them out of the gutter of the road. idiocy cannot be avoided!

[ldsbeaker]

after re-tightening lug nuts the other day, i set the breaker bar and the wheel lock key on my trunk. i went inside to grab my wallet and then left to go buy some parts. well about half way there i heard a weird thunk, and then a i remembered about the tools!! well i turned around and parked and was able to recover them out of the gutter of the road. idiocy cannot be avoided!

At least you remembered to tighten them.

I, however, did NOT. They were finger tight for my first test drive after a r3v. they backed out, and my car ended up sitting on the wheel. Luckily, I was literally crawling.
No damage, but a scratch on the inside barrel of the wheel.

I did that once on my e28, too. But just had the nasty 'gronch, gronch' sound from a wobbly wheel until I got home.

Another time, I forgot to locktite the threads on the rear DS halfshaft after some driveshaft and diff work. A thousand miles later, and visiting friends five hours from home, I was pulling away from a stop sign and BAM! bambambambam bam bam bam...
I pushed it back to the house and tightened them up again. Can't remember if I did the locktite... brb. :p

I've done some pretty heroic saves and fixes, but these always keep me humble.

[E-Thirty]

Replacing engine head and wanted to take it for a quick test drive. Put the hood back on without fastening anything down and the hood eventually flew off and over to the side, bending the fender.

[Cabriolet]

Forgot to center my hub-centric wheels, bolted them down, and got on the freeway LOST the wheel, searched for hours. If you have an LSD and you drive over 55mph the car can run on 3 wheels (lost the rear driver's side one) btw is a bitch getting another 6.5"x14’s gold bbs wheel.
The wheel sheered of 2 and stripped out 2 of the lug bolts.

Just ruined my new to me 4.10LSD, forgot to put the o-ring back around the sender, leaked fluid and now its grinding after refilling.

forgot to tighten my caliper after a break job, locked my front right wheel up, damaged the rim and ruined the tired, it was dark on a sharp curve on hwy17

The last stupid thing was selling my 1986 325es, just had done a full rebuild /cry

[Bimmerman325i]

Blew three clutch slave cylinders trying to get my E36 transmission back in after fixing the detent pin issue, all for different reasons.

1- was an idiot, forgot it wasn't attached to anything. Big puddle of fluid and dead cyl #1

2- bought new clutch slave, installed it, buttoned transmission back up and put the exhaust, driveshaft, etc back together. Went to bleed clutch and it exploded, turns out the clutch fork wasn't on its pivot pin, resulting in a hyperextended clutch cylinder piston, and dead cylinder #2.

3- bought another new clutch slave, installed it, didn't button anything back together, bled slave and it survived. Went to bleed brakes, and slave cylinder exploded as well. Throw out bearing was in upside down, causing the damn thing to hyperextend again. Dead cylinder #3.

4- borrowed buddy's used one, it worked.

Moral of the story: brake fluid should not come pouring out the bell housing of a transmission, and the Bentley is useless for figuring out how things go back together without blowing up the cylinders.

On the E30, my second stupidest moment was driving around for an hour with half of my tools open under the hood and the strut brace half attached. Didn't lose any tools nor dent my hood.

Stupidest moment was selling it.

[e30:)]

i have this really old bumper jack that works perfect with diving boards, it had to arms that hook under the bumper so you can lift the front or back like 2 and a half feee off the ground. well one time i had thr front jacked up and it wasnt compleatlylocked in the jack so i tryed shaking it a little. one of the arms slipped off and tore through my grill...ellipsoid... and put a little dent on my hood and also ripped the latch out. luckly i had the parts to fix it.

[325ix]

I haven't fucked anything up on my e30 yet, but I did manage to lock myself in the trunk of an e34 I was working on once. And guess what, in the trunk of an e34 in a paint booth in a metal building, there's no cell reception. Luckily I stayed (mostly) calm and was able to tear the carpet back and activate the latch manually. It would have probably been a couple hours before someone noticed I was missing, and let me tell you it gets hot and stuffy fast when you're crammed in there.

(for the record and mental image I'm 6'4" and 280lbs, it was a tight fit)

I would have FREAKED out! I hate small spaces. They scare me to death.

[Uber E30]

When i got my first e30 i tried to change out a flat with the OEM jack. My car was on a slight incline and once i had the wheel off the jack slipped out. It bent the hell out of the brake shield but thats about it. I went out the same day and bought a real jack.

[ZekeTheSneak]

I was at work (Ace Hardware) and i had just got in the key blanks for the e30. I cut 1 key and went to test it. key worked but my door lock broke in the deadbolt position. So 50 dallors later a locksmith came and opened my door in 2 minutes. I should have just broken my window i had another one anyways. Thankfully my car was stripped awaiting new interior so changing out the lock from a parts car was a piece of cake. FML

[the fil]

When installing a used diff, make sure it has fluid before going for a test drive .... whoops.