Alright,

My first tech blunder was setting my truck on fire in 2008 (1996 5.2). I was taking off the fitch and when I disconnected the fuel line, gas sprayed everywhere. I had some leaves lodged in the engine compartment from many seasons up north and me not really cleaning it.

I took the fitch out, and then drive it about 15 minutes later. I drove it 3 miles, parked it at an autozone, then when I was pulling out of the parking lot, the engine was on fire.

2 weeks and 2300 dollars later i had it running again. Moved it to california from oklahoma and then found my new truck while in California (Upgraded to a 5.9, off road package, and extended cab). I took out all my performance parts from my 1996 (Injectors, headers, fastman, Mopar PCM).

After getting her running after the engine compartment was burned up...I feel like i can do anything. But, I still get really scared to drive my truck whenever I do something to the engine.

 

My biggest blunder was offering to help a friend replace a rear main seal in his jeep. I had recently done the same job on my truck with a 318 which was a piece of cake so offered to help him. Little did I realize that a moron designed the jeep and just used a dodge motor as an after thought. On my truck, the biggest challenge was getting all the bolts off the oil pan. Little did I realize that on the jeep that I would have to completely pull the front axle to be able to get the pan off along with exhaust removal because the cross over pipe ran up against the oil pan. What I thought would be a 1hr job turned into a full day of removal.

My biggest blunder came from my suggestion. I said "well since we have the pan out and it took all day to get to, it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace your oil pump" I then went on to sugget going to the local parts house instead of getting a cheapie from Advance or auto zone. Another day of putting everything back together, we fire it up. Guess what? No oil pressure. A half day of troubleshooting and I said that hell with it, we have to tear it down again. We pull the new pump and it had failed. Took it back and the guy said 'yeah that happens sometimes and gave us a new one.' Another day of assembly and more grief from my wife about the amount of time it was taking we finally got it back together.

Lesson learned. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

lesson(s), uh, Lesson(sssssssssssssss) learned for me too- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.." professionally, I follow this advice to a 'T'. On my own ride? Not so much...

my most recent: plenum plate kit from Hughes.. Used the old intake manifold bolts because I couldn't find them locally.. Figured I'd swap em' out later when I went back into the engine in a couple weeks.. They were torqued to spec, but they still couldn't hold... allowed my cooling system to take a dump in the valley, which made for some interesting oil- which put the absolute freak on me that the heads were either cracked or blew a gasket.. but, it was just the bolts not holding the way they were 'sposed to and allowing everything to mix...

lesson: use new bolts. Use New Bolts. USE NEW BOLTS...

 

I learned that there is a difference between loctite 518 and the blue loctite.
I replaced my rear main seal and the book says to use loctite 518 between the rear main bearing cap and the block so when I was putting it back together I was just thinking loctite so I used the blue. I later found out that the 518 is an anaerobic sealant and not a thread locker. ugh...

I've learned after a couple big flashes from different times that I've disconnected wires and accidentally grounded them that you should always disconnect the battery when you work with any wiring on the truck.

If you're going to weld a new catalytic converter on yourself, go ahead and put it in place then weld the bottom to keep it lined up correctly then drop the y-pipe to get to the top of the pipe. It is almost impossible to get a welding gun over the top of the cat to seal it up.

Transmission fluid burns when it gets in your eyes - leaking seals between the transmission and the transfer case caused the transfer case to be overfilled so I got a face full when I went to check the transfer case fluid level.

Antifreeze burns even more when it gets in your eyes - working on the rear main seal the same day as the timing chain and water pump so there was some dripping green stuff.

In the winter if you get gas on your arm and you rub it on the ground a little, it'll rub it raw - fuel filter on the Thunderbird a few years ago.

Headers are hot enough to give you second degree burns within 5 seconds of starting your truck. I installed the headers, cranked it up and walked around the passenger side so I could hold my hand next to the flange between the y-pipe and header to feel for a leak. My wrist touched the header and burned the crap outta me.

When you pull all your spark plug wires and write the wiring diagram on the back of your hand, put a little front arrow on the diagram. I read one side upside down and it took a minute to realize that I had all four on one side backwards.

An angle grinder is a good idea for severely seized u-joints on a drive shaft. I broke a 9" c-clamp and a big vise (cracked it right down the side between the jaws) before I put my rear drive shaft on an arbor press and got the u-joint to pop out.
While changing the u-joints on my sisters truck, I first tried a hammer and socked and when it didn't budge I went to get the angle grinder. About 2 minutes per u-joint and I had the centers cut out and the caps popped out with ease.

While trying to get a friends 80-something Camaro running (v8 with a carb) I found out that you can get a pretty good fireball out of the carburetor if you pour gas in it while trying to crank it up.
I also found out on a different day that a car that low will catch the grass under it on fire if you let it idle for a few minutes in grass that is a little too long.
That guy found out that if you accidentally slap the shifter into reverse while doing about 40mph that it will put a 1/2" crack in the bell housing and destroy the transmission.
It's a good thing that car was a cheapie from the car auction because it caught hell for a short time before the transmission was blown up.

I found out on my sisters car that if you slide a jack under the car while a tire is losing air that no matter how much you work the plug kits reaming tool, the tire won't flatten out because it doesn't have any weight on it. I was scratching my head because I knew I had that thing all the way through the tire and the tire looked like it still had air in it. It took a minute to realize that I threw a jack under the car so it wouldn't squish the tire with the rim.

Some of my best ideas come from screwing up and having to find a way to fix a problem with whatever materials I have available to me at the time.

I'm sure I have a few more but I can't think of them right now.

 

Nice about the spark plug wiring diagram. I put them on backwards because I paid no attention to the arrow (I was wondering why the wires did not fit on the rotor snugly). Scared the crap out of me because I just finished the plenum, and 1.7RRs. SO I thought I messed something uip.

A 1986 camaro incident:
1. Got a new carb, put the throttle linkage on backwards, so when I started it up, it was at WOT!!!!!

Electricution:
1. When connecting the terminals on my battery, wrench slipped out of my hand and fell on the pos terminal and the frame. Happened multiple times
2. Used a long ratchet to put the terminals on and touched my MSD box, located DIRECTLY beside the pos terminal on my PDC cover. Happened pultiple times. Now I understand the mechanics of stick welding!!

 

I've done that on the Thunderbird a time or two.

I also learned a while back not to use the cheap jumper cables, they melt.
I have some 4 gauge cables now.

 

also, forgetting to hook up my alternator wiring after the plenum and 1.7 RRs. Had a GEN light and drained my battery. ALMOST bought a new alt. Good thing I had it tested (Notived it was not hooked up when I took it off, but had it tested in case running without charging messed it up.). Had I not had it tested, I would not have found out what my problem was and would have spent 200 on a new alt.

 

I was changing the oil in the mini-van, got in a hurry and didn't double check what I was doing. I dumped 5 quarts of oil on the driveway because I didn't make sure I replaced the drain plug. I was fixing to start it until my 4 yr old daughter said "Eww, Daddy you made a mess." It's the little things that will bite you.

 

I sent the short block out of my Jeep to get some blueprinting done at a highly recommended performance shop and didn't notice when it came back that the pilot bushing was missing from the rear of the crankshaft. I again failed to notice that it was missing when I put in the replacement TH400 transmission several months later so that one went south, too.

Due to interesting life circumstances I was a single father and that Cherokee had become my only vehicle, so when the transmissions puked in the middle of the week I stayed up all night to get it back on the road so I could get to work on time the next morning. Being stupid on caffeine, adrenaline, worry, and racing the clock, I wasn't capable of being as attentive as I should have been.

I was feeling like a real idiot when I finally drove that damned bushing into the crank.

 

Silly putty does not do a good job of sealing vacuum ports. It will disappear into your intake manifold as soon as the engine is started. Good thing I had to change the plenum out anyway, or else that chunk of putty would still be in there.

Remote start systems act really weird when you reconnect the battery, don't be leaning on the fan when you touch the terminals to the battery.

ALWAYS use a clear hose when siphoning gas (that one should be self explanatory)

When checking trans fluid level, don't wear a hooded sweatshirt with long drawstrings. They like to get caught in the serpentine belt.

ALWAYS disconnect the battery when wrenching on anything in the engine compartment. I dropped a wrench on the starter solenoid in my '75 Dodge and I had my foot resting on power steering pulley. That hurt.

They aren't kidding when they put that warning label on the radiator cap. If the coolant is hot, it WILL explode.

Using too much starting fluid and holding the throttle wide open will create a huge fireball. Don't do that.

Wow, I gotta be more careful.