What is your worse memory about working on a car?

[RangerBob]

Mine was the winter of 1981, up north in Minnesota. I wan unemployed and didn't have much $. My auto tranny went out in my 1968 Roadrunner. I changed it out in with a $35 junkyard tranny in the snow, by myself. It was maybe 15 degrees out. But I got her done.

Changing sparkplugs in a F-body doesn't even come close.

Bob

[BrdWAtti2d]

Actually being stupid enough to buy a Vega, mercifully it blew up at 45k. Youth is wasted on the young.

[ConElite]

ha ha ha. Ouch.

Worst, hmm

2005 or 2006
Me and My best buddy were hanging out Halloween night. Landed on a Sunday and Hollywood is the place to be to go clubbing Sunday's. So we decide to go club it up. Run to the local Liquor store and got a lot of drinks since we were both under 21, we were not going to be able to drink there. So I was driving my Honda. We got loaded and partied until 2am. Well I start driving home and got on the freeway and this Lexus starts racing me. So Im chasing him doing like 125+ and all of a sudden my front tire Blows. Lucky for me that It was not a blow out but a slow flat. Extremely bad for me b/c I didnt have the spare or Jack in the car. I had to call my Brother at 3:20am to drive 15 miles to bring it to me. And I was still loaded. The worst part was that I started my new position at my job that Monday at 7am. Lets Just say it was one of the worst days for me.

(Yes I know I should not have been Driving and drinking and even more racing. Believe me, That has changed)

[Z Ya Later]

Worst mechanical memory, huh? That's easy. Spending 3 mo. and 16 days trying to get the Z running only to find out the Opti wasn't the @^%@#% problem, but instead the ICM had gone out. GRRRRR!!!

P.S. That amount of time was due to almost 7 weeks for the Dynaspark plus finding the time to do everything thanks to work (and Craig being busy as well lol).

[TODD 2000 V6 CAMARO]

Ok, this is kind of embarrassing , but when I was about 17, I had my first car which was an '81 Honda Accord. I was doing plugs and wires on it and had never done plugs and wires before. I stupidly tried to do it myself with no input from my Dad or older brother. So, I removed all the plugs, and wires from the engine. Then I put the new plugs in and quickly realized that I had no idea of the firing order for putting the wires back on. So, of course, just using trial and error it was running rough as crap every time I started it to see if I had done it right. Well, finally I got my borther out there to help me and he told me to first make sure I had all the wires securely in place. I guess I probably should have shut the engine off before I tried this. I quickly learned that one should not grab the coil wire with the engine running. I think my arm snapped back like a whip and then instantly went numb for a minute or so. When my brother finally stopped laughing, he helped me get it working right. After that, I always make a diagram of the firing order before I remove one wire. Lesson learned.

[ConElite]

I quickly learned that one should not grab the coil wire with the engine running. I think my arm snapped back like a whip and then instantly went numb for a minute or so. When my brother finally stopped laughing, he helped me get it working right.

LMFAO-!!!!!

Did that when I was 11. ha ha ha ha Horrible. My dad laughed for days every time he saw me. ha ha ha

[BrdWAtti2d]

Yep, my brother did it to me too with the family lawnmower. That's something you don't do twice. But he zapped himself plugging in a 220 window shaker a/c a couple days later. I laughed my butt off as he flew across the room.

[Joshu]

Embarrassing.......

Before I had any knowledge of cars....I was in my Camaro and on my way to my girlfriend's place (a trip we are actually taking next week) my engine kept heating up really hot. I pulled over and found out the coolant was low. So dumb a$$ me goes and opens the Radiator cap (ya know the one that says "don't open when hot") and s**t spews everywhere except me luckily. THEN I go and pour in GREEN coolant instead of the Dexcool! Not only was my coolant system screwed up and clogged, two months later my head gasket blew really bad. Which upon that happening I joined F-body.com. No major problems since!

[sneitzel]

First car was a '79 Formula 403. Had it at college and the headlight switch shorted out and caught the inside of the car on fire. It was parked at the time and I was in class getting edumacated....

So the worst memory is being a broke a$$ college student, ripping burned plastic, carpet, wiring, seats and headliner out of the car while it was sitting in the parking lot of the dorm. Then begging friends for rides to local junkyards looking for replacement parts, buying them a few at a time as I could afford them. Also going absolutely crazy looking at wiring diagrams trying to figure out what changes I needed to make to the stock '75 wiring harness to add back in the rally gauge option so it would work with the gauges I scrounged up.

Did I mention everyone (including the campus police) thought I was crazy for even trying to fix it?

Took part of the fall semester and most of the spring but she finally came back to life.

Drove her for another 5-6 years after that.


Really miss that car...

[Performin Norman]

Changing plugs on my 94 Z28. Ick.

[ConElite]

Changing plugs on my 94 Z28. Ick.

HA HA HA. Oh what fun

[Trash man]

prob when i was 15 and finally got my frist t/a (1983) running then relized i never hooked up the batt-to-alt wire so yea

[JPack]

I was 16 and working on my first car, a 76 Nova. Well, dummy me jacked the car up with a bumper jack in the back. I was instaling my headers and mufflers. So I am wrenching like crazy and all of a sudden the car start creeping forward. Well glad I was skinny, the car came down on me enough to hurt like crazy but not totally crush me. So there I am home alone, stuck under the car and can't move. After about a 1/2 hour of trying, I finally managed to reset the bumper jack and relieve the pressure on my chest enough to wiggle out. So my mom comes home and finds me laying on the couch in pain. Needless to say, she about had a heart attack. Now 22 years later if she finds me working on the car, she always asks..... do you have jack stands under there...... Yes Mom, I do!

[Rhode Island Red]

When I was 6 ... my 4 year old brother put his elbo on my side of the seat


blew the 10-bolt at the strip ... 200 miles away . what sucked more was the stories I had to hear from the driver (rear fixed for free though )

[MN6WS6]

The LT1 spark plugs are pretty bad. That is definitely the most time consuming thing I've done that should have been very simple to do. The clutch would be next, as I had to separate the tranny from the bellhousing to get it out. Then of course comes the fuel pump without cutting a hole in the floor. Of course, all of this is because I had to do it by myself laying on the ground with the car on car ramps. If I had a lift, life would be much easier.

Most embarassing? When I was 16 years old, my first car was a 1978 Pontiac Catalina. I didn't even have my license yet, but I was putting car audio equipment in it. I learned real quick that fusing a hot wire is necessary. I had a nice 18 foot long burn mark from the battery to the trunk in that car the entire time I owned it because of being naive.