Stupidest thing you have done while working on your E30

[MT325is]

OH I have a good one for you guys! So i did my timing belt on my car.. and for some damn reason the timing belt wouldnt go on with the teeth aligned. Well long story short instead of figuring out why, i just jumped a tooth or two on the crank and put it together. So then i go to start it, starts up and runs. But making some damn noises.. hmmm, well after about 300 miles of driving i decided to take it apart and reset the timing. Did that and she fired up and runs so smooth now. I dont think i bent a valve luckily. But never skipping any teeth on timing no more!

[ky0u]

Putting everything together after a clutch change, I had been working on the car all day. After putting on the sheet metal that separates the driveshaft from the exhaust, I fell asleep under the car with my head resting on the cat converter. Decided to call it quits when I woke up.

Then, the next day, I had the middle of the exhaust propped up on a jack stand while i moved it around trying to position it to bolt the headers back in place. Two mishaps,

1. Thought exhaust was propped up, reached down to release jack stand and it (and the exhaust) fell down and pinned my hand.

2.)Got impatient and jerked the exhaust suddenly causing the jack stand to tip and the exhaust to fall and slam me in my family jewels

[bigdrick323]

Wish was on video, would be ROFL.....

Sent from my HTC One V

[Klug]

Wrenching away while doing my e36 rack upgrade....hit the positive starter terminal with a wrench- arc'ed the wrench to the bolt and immediately ran to disconnect the battery. Noticed that the entire cabin was full of smoke and burnt through a few wires under the dash, fixable but still a pain. Stupid and lucky.

[mcr_driver]

Just did a valve adjustment this past weekend, and left the 22mm wrench on the crankshaft bolt went to start it up and immediately noticed something was off. went back and saw the 22mm had taken off the crank bolt. screwed it back on as tightly as i could and so far it's been ok.

[discopete]

Forgot to tighten a caliper bolt on the front drivers side caliper after installing JOM suspension (don't ever attempt this at 4am!) Didn't go far before getting it back on the lift and problem solved!

[Regnar75]

bought some IE urethane subframe bushings and was trying to get the subframe bolt out, and after hammering for a while and being pretty frustrated i and a friend thought heres a good idea, lets put the car on the lift raise it up a bit and wedge a piece of metal between the subframe bolt and the ground and lower the car....completely underestimated the "stuckness" of that bolt and it lifted the rear of the car off the lift arms and the metal bar immediately slipped dropping the car back onto the arms....called it quits and still havent installed them yet...

[Beske]

Drove around with a gasket like this for about a year:



Reminded my to never work on my car with a huge hangover again...

[Mad Chemist]

Wrenching away while doing my e36 rack upgrade....hit the positive starter terminal with a wrench- arc'ed the wrench to the bolt and immediately ran to disconnect the battery. Noticed that the entire cabin was full of smoke and burnt through a few wires under the dash, fixable but still a pain. Stupid and lucky.

It did that also, connecting the positive on the starter to ground via wrench. Big sparks but no damage on my end. Definitely lucky.

[Oly_Schmidt]

Working in the trunk, left the trouble light laying on the carpet and then got distracted working on something else.

Me, 15 minutes later, "what's that smell?".

2 minutes later I could barely breathe. Luckily no fire and trunk carpets are not expensive to replace, but that smoke was NASTY!

[CrusherCurtis]

Ground down my brake caliper brackets. Hot metal flew in air and embedded all over the front end with fresh paint. Next day it rain and turned front end into a bumpy rusty mess.

[fronton]

After a coolant flush and finally getting my system properly bled, I went to add half a bottle of water wetter to the distilled water (no antifreeze in the summer). I grabbed the only clear bottle of redline out of the garage and proceeded to dump it into the expansion tank only to realize it was ZDDP engine oil enhancer, NOT wetter!! arwhwhwhgggg. Fortunately the car wasn't running and the oil floated so it didn't spread into any hoses or the engine but I still had to remove everything to find out and reflush/bleed again.

Amateur tip: Just because it is a clear bottle of redline fluid does not mean it is water wetter. Seriously though redline, only use clear bottles for water related products.

[ttrousdell]

thinking i could use the 88' super eta harness for hooking up a b25. wasnt long before the harness was smoking.

[ohthejosh]

While finishing up putting in my suspension on the side of the street in the dark, I put my passenger side outer brake pad in backwards. Tore the shim right off after a day. SMH just wanted to get it done and just missed it somehow.

[bataangpinoy]

let me see.

Couldnt figure out why i wasnt getting power to my fuel pump in my s13. Forgot that i disconnected the cam angle sensor.

i also broke my recently replaced tachometer trying to take the needle off so i could replace the tach face with the appropriate one. pulled the needle's stem right out of the motor.