Your biggest DIY balls up

[shail 0]

Just read the 'Stupid Ricer' thread. Following on from that, and a conversation i have just had with my sister - whats the biggest balls up you've ever made trying to DIY fix your car?

Mine was filling the coolant system on my first golf with screenwash.

Oh, and the conversatoin with my sis? - she rang to tell me that she topped up her oil & now her car was making funny noises. I asked what she had done, the reply -" i checked the dipstick & it was at 'Min', so i poured oil into the engine until it was full". Yes, she is currently at the road side waiting for the AAto come and drain some of the extra 4l of oil she has just put into her car.

[ingham 5]

this is the only one i will admit to

http://www.vr6golf.co.uk/forum_viewtopic.php?2.7672

[FishWick 21]

I've only ever done silly little things like slamming the bonnet down onto sockets and screwdrivers and things, leaving tools on the roof and driving off etc, but my mate filled his gearbox with oil via the rubber bung that covers the flywheel timing marks, thinking that was the oil filler, LOL!

I think he squeezed in about 4 litres and wondered why it was pouring out from under the bell housing cover by the sump!

Now, do you think VW would use a flimsy rubber bung as a filler cap? LOL!

[BenW16 0]

now i dont belive u wanted t do that.. he he

mine biggest ball up was bout 6 years ago now, i used t own a ford onion (wata beast she was!) anyways parked it up at a mates in brighton then left in his motor for the journey t the ferry port.. we were all going for a mash up in ampsterdam for the week and wata week it turned out t be..

got back home with a very pickled brain(still dont think ive totally recoverd ) went t fill the old girl up with some juice.. then after 20 quids worth went in realised that i was putting diesal in.... how fecked off was i..

[vdubgirl 3]

Humm well I'll admit to after topping up radiator water leaving the water bottle cap lose in my engine and forgetting to put it back on and then driving off into town thus losing the pressure cap. Its a pretty inexcusible thing to do once but I did this three times with an old mkII gti of mine

[KingOfPear 0]

lol vdubgirl - i did exactly the same but at least i only did it once

[VRmonster 1]

if the galery was still up you would see pictures of my seat toledo, i had chopped the full front rebar to bits, which holds the 2 wings together. just so i could fit bmw lights, i was gonna weld supports into the places i cut it to get it safe again but worked out at about £7000 worth of work to get it ready for paint, ha ha. ballsed it up badly, but thats y i baught the vr tho. yey

[VR6si 0]

Put the 2 front wheels back on my VR with the directional tyres going the wrong way and drove it for a month without noticing!

[Mangold 0]

"Your biggest DIY balls up" Lets hope its not one of us lot fitting our Schrick manifolds.

[BenW16 0]

"Your biggest DIY balls up" Lets hope its not one of us lot fitting our Schrick manifolds.

yeah u know that will be expensive

[patrick green 0]

Apart from the usual like not checking I've got the right tools & getting stuck halfway thru a job, my stupidest has gotta be filling up, driving off without the gas cap & then spending the next week wondering why I could smell petrol & getting worried that something was wrong! Only realised my mistake when I filled up again a week later! :@ doh!

[six appeal 53]

Apart from the usual like not checking I've got the right tools & getting stuck halfway thru a job' date=' my stupidest has gotta be filling up, driving off without the gas cap & then spending the next week wondering why I could smell petrol & getting worried that something was wrong! Only realised my mistake when I filled up again a week later! :@ doh![/quote']

A tank of petrol lasts you a week! Think I must have too heavy a right foot, lol!

[sciroccorrado 0]

Similar to Patricks, I could smell petrol after my biggest ballsup. This was in my old Series III Land Rover where the fuel tank is beneath the driver's seat. I didn't know this and proceeded to drill a hole there to mount some speakers there (it seemed a good idea at the time).

It was only a few days later when I actually filled the tank to the brim that I realised I had drilled through the top of the fuel tank and my feet were awash with petrol about half a mile down the road....

(Good job I don't smoke!)

[patrick green 0]

that wasn't in the VR it was in my MI16 which was a lot better on fuel! But accelerator pedals ARE meant to go right to the floor! Shame most Rover,Nissan, Ford etc etc don't realise that!

[six appeal 53]

that wasn't in the VR it was in my MI16 which was a lot better on fuel! But accelerator pedals ARE meant to go right to the floor! Shame most Rover' date='Nissan, Ford etc etc don't realise that! [/quote']

LOL!

[vwmadgirl 0]

lol.....

Ive only done the oil cap on the side and forgot to replace it when filling up...

And wondering why i could smell burning oil for days after , never realised until i opened the bonnet and found the engine covered in oil and no cap..... :?

(That was ages ago now, and in the cabby.....lol)

[Slacky 0]

Putting mounting brackets on my mk2 GTi for the mother of all spot lights I managed to slip and drilled through the radiator - but i was a youth then!

[purpiablo 0]

My greatest f$$7 up was:

Letting some tosser Jennings anywhere near my VR6 engine,

now a bent crank and a severely dented wallet.

A WORD OF ADVICE TO ANY NEWBIE'S MAKE SURE THE GUY DOIN' THE WORK HAS MORE THAN JUST A COSWORTH TRAINED MECHANICAL QUALIFICATION. THESE ENGINES NEED VW VR6 EXPERIENCE TO PUT RIGHT.

“Hindsight explains the injury that foresight would have preventedâ€

[bulldog 2]

My stupidity was washing and waxing the car, then I sprayed the tyre side walls with some wet look silicon. Then I wash and polished the Fireblade and sprayed the tyre side walls with wet look silicon and put the bike back in the garage.

A few days later I took the bike out and thrash in down some local roads and lost it bigtime on the first corner when I lent right over at a high speed because the wet look silicon was on the tyre edges too, I managed to stay on and not drop it, dropped one in my leathers though.

[cabrioman 6]

well mine has gota be removin the gearbox to replaced my blown clutch and flyhweel and gettin covered in coolant !!!!! worked out that last time i fitted the gearbox i had got the two top bolts on the wrong places which craked the water jacket so now every time i have to take the box out i have to change the coolant lol .... tried to seal it up but no good lol

[Roan 0]

April 2004 to December 2008. Must be a record for a resurrected thread!

My biggest balls up was using wheel bolts which were too long after fitting some spacers. bent the ABS rings, which in turn destroyed the ABS sensors, which in turn knackered the ABS module. Cost hundreds to fix...

[Phat VR6 3]

haha love this

Ive done a few, After fitting a engine even tho there was a small coolant leak i dropped the bonnet and went for a test drive, been young and in a rush to get out i didn't connect the bonnet pull back up :-d which ended in hours of trying to get my bonnet open in the middle of nowhere haha overheating ect

fitted my calipers on upside down so i couldn't bleed them, 3 days down the line before i worked it out

Filling the engine oil up at work without the sump plug :-d (they loved it)

theres a few more but noones ever going to find out about them LOL

[xyber 1]

trying to swap wheel studs on my RS fiesta when I fitted wheel spacers, It envolve a VERY big hammer and anger and the end result was 2 ruined wheel bearings and the car off the road for a week

Done loads of stupid mistakes that just cost me time though, like building up suspension with the parts in the wrong order and only noticing as it was about to go back on

[MAHOSTRIDERDG 0]

Put 10yoyos worth of diesel into my mkii GTI and went to bring my girlfriend on a romantic drive...couldn't figure out what was wrong till I passed da garage on da way back and spotted the pump i was at......I spent about 2 hours pumping out da fuel through a semi-disconnected fuel pump by starting an stopping the car....dimwit

[The Monk 50]

Lowered a ramp with my car in the air, so the trye was under the arms, onto the tyre and damaged the ramp and my car spent an extra 2 days in the air.

Started a car up after doing an oil change and realised the sump plug wasn't in and so sprayed oil all over my drive :S

After being shouted at by the parents and pretty pi**ed off, I reversed my old rover out the garage and scraped the n/s front wing after a respray infront of the chap that had just done it...lol, I had to laugh or I would have cried.

Since all this though I check all my work carefully and make sure everything is fine.