Your Biggest Bonehead Home Wrenching Move

[jm2e]

I like to imagine I'm not alone here and we're all prone to the occasional bone headed screw up in the garage. This is the kind of stuff that, we can't learn from each other because we already know better. But sometimes the occasional wrench just does stupid inefficient shit.

Over the summer, I was setting up a new wheel/tire combo. Everything virgin. For some reason, one of them wasn't holding a bead, but the other one was. (I always try to set them up "dry" first, to determine how well this is going to go). So I put a tube in one to leave it hyper inflated overnight and left the other one inflated without sealant, because I wanted to only deal with the sealant mess once. The next morning I hit the garage, I grab the one with the removable valve core, pull the core, add sealant, reinflate. Realize I just put 3oz of sealant into an inner tube with a removable core. Didn't even know I had those!
I do shit like this all the time.

[Jong Lafitte]

Short version: I didn't pack my Jeep's wheel bearing with grease and then drove the vehicle at highway speeds, causing it to go out again. Then did the same shitty job again, resulting in failure again. In the end, if you have an Dana 30 front axle, I can damn sure help you do the wheel bearings.

Long version: I had this 81 CJ7 with 33" tires on it back in the day in HS. I had a driver's side front wheel bearing go out. I would always call my uncle or my grandpa when something went wrong on my jeep as they restored many military jeeps; AMC, Willis, Ford-Willis.

Anyway, I replace the wheel bearing and go on about my business for not very many miles until motor oil starts blowing up into the stick shift boot and running down the transmission hump into the foot well. Rear main seal blown due to worn main bearings, need motor rebuild.

Plan is to drive it to my grandpa's place where he and my uncle could pull the motor and rebuild it. Get about half way from Houston to Lafayette (Scott, actually, if you know where that is) and I can hear the bearing squeal reflecting off of the concrete barrier when driving in the left lane. "Lousy scammers sold me a fucking bad bearing" I say.Pull into Autozone parking lot with a wobbly wheel. Replaced the wheel bearing in the parking lot and down the road I went.

I get to their place and the fucking thing is squealing again! First thing my uncle asks is whether I did a good job packing the grease into the bearing. UUUUUHHHHH.... yeah, I greased them. I say that but am suspicious now that I fucked something up because I didn't think of the grease as that big of a deal.

We pull the hub apart and, as is very obvious to him, I had just slathered some grease all over the assembly and had not packed any grease INTO the assembly between the roller bearings, same way I did it the first time.

[doebedoe]

One night I was really mentally fucked up during a depression which lasted a few months. My in-emergency-only Xanax prescription had run out. Took to wrenching to try to calm down.

I forgot that the right cup of BBs is reverse threaded. Forced it. Destroyed the threads, permanently ruining the BB shell.

It would've sucked most the time. But in this case it was on a truly irreplaceable frame: my size (62cm), full 531, with Nervex pro lugs, built in the early 70s by a small British framebuilder from the neighborhood I lived in while I was abroad for a year. Now the frame hangs on the peg board over my workbench reminding me not to touch anything I value if I'm in a bad mental state.

[Tye 1on]

sort of forgot i had borrowed a ladder...

[Just a Skosh]

Couple of years ago I decided I'd replace the brakes on my car, seemed like an adult, manly thing to do. Couple of months later, brakes start squealing like crazy. Take the car into a brake place, guy is like "whoever replaced these last time put them on backwards".

Rebuilt a 1992 Rockhopper. Ended up using 3 quicklinks in the chain because I kept running it wrong. oops.

[jm2e]

Ha Ha. Most of my chains have at least 2 quick links on them.

[billyk]

Couple of years ago I decided I'd replace the brakes on my car, seemed like an adult, manly thing to do. Couple of months later, brakes start squealing like crazy. Take the car into a brake place, guy is like "whoever replaced these last time put them on backwards".

Rebuilt a 1992 Rockhopper. Ended up using 3 quicklinks in the chain because I kept running it wrong. oops.

Ha! I had a brake story, too. But I guess yours will do. Suffice it to say that after my brake pedal went to the floorboard at a 4 way stop that I ended up gliding right through, I decided to never again work on brakes.

[scrublover]

Steer tube cut too short on a new fork. I'd based it off the old frame/fork, didn't measure the new.

Oops. Much more expensive fork resulted, after buying a new CSU.

Not me, but I read on one of the forums a few years back of some cat who cut his shiny new and very expensive Colnago carbon road fork ridiculously too short.

If I recall, he sold it at a huge loss to someone riding a tiny frame.

[evdog]

Realize I just put 3oz of sealant into an inner tube with a removable core. Didn't even know I had those!

Sealant goes in all my spare tubes. But we have lots of thorns and pointy plants around here.

I do stupid shit all the time. I am great at taking stuff apart. Getting it back together, not so much. There always seems to be something left over, or it just takes me forever. Or if replacing parts the new one doesn't work because <insert reason>....

One time I took my fork apart and rebuilt it. This was an old school Marz with the bolt on crown and bolt on stanchions. When I finished and put it all back together I took it out for a spin. Doing a wheelie off a curb the wheel and fork fell off the bike. Guess what, I forgot to tighten the bolts that clamp the stanchions in place.

[jm2e]

/\ /\ /\
My go to mechanic was telling me about doing this a few months ago. First time in 15 he claimed. The kicker was, it was a fancy carbon frame color matched to the fork and the color was no longer available. He had to buy the guy a brand new frame AND fork. You could see the sad cloud floating above him.

[HD333]

Swapped out the snows/summer tires on my car a few years back while enjoying a few beers in the driveway.

Wife takes that car to work on Monday, she comes home saying she heard a thump,thump while driving on the highway.

I take car for a spin and the back drivers wheel is flopping around like a fish out of water. I never torqued down the lugs on that wheel. Could have been a lot worse.

[NW_SKIER]

Talked on the phone while doing the third oil change on a brand new yz450f. Forgot to torque the oil plug. Rode it for about 30 minutes before it seized up after the plug came out. That one hurt my wallet, and my pride.

[jamal]

Was rebuilding my fork, snapped the end of the airshaft off when putting it back together.

Was rebuilding my fork, compression damper felt a little funny at first. Seemed to hang up on the threads on the cap but then went in normally. Next ride, hear a clicking and it doesn't feel right, pull damper back out and it's broken. Fun part was the replacement didn't show up in time for a 100mi race, but my bike shop had some random fox 32 sitting on the back that I borrowed and swapped literally on my way out of town.

I was adjusting my seat post just before a 20mi shuttled backcountry ride. Using a tiny multi-tool with no leverage. And yet somehow manage to strip the threads on the clamp. We found a slightly longer bolt off the airbox of the car we took up, and I stuck a hose clamp on the seat post. It stayed at the right height but twisted around a bit.



When I first started working on my car, I did an oil change in the driveway, started it up, and hear a "pop." Turn car off, oil all over the ground in front of the.car. Because the old filter gasket had stuck on the block and I didn't check.

Also I tend to be good at knocking over oil bottles, but only if I leave off the cap.

Thankfully not too many other car related ones come to mind especially since I'm a little more than a "home wrench." Did forget to torque lugs on a car once. I drove to the guy's house to do it. They were pretty snug but he was driving halfway across the country the next day.

[Mazderati]

Started engine with no oil after an oil change. Caught after a matter of seconds fortunately.

[Jack Burton]

"I forgot that the right cup of BBs is reverse threaded. Forced it. Destroyed" most of the threads, thankfully for me it was an early E type front derailleur on a Kestrel CSX, I did need to use a traditional front derailleur which eventually warped the carbon down tube.

Drained my tranny fluid in my taco when i was doing an oil change,

Ran my first snowmobile out of oil and seized the engine, resulted in being 2 hours late for bartending shift on New Years eve, not real good

bot 650b replacement wheel for 26" bike, of course on a hook up that come with no returns for dumb reasons, i think i finally got that out of my garage

[El Chupacabra]

This is like the unsmart things done thread...

1) Broke my own nose when lying under a Jeep, pulling on a big adjustable wrench. Wrench slipped and bounced off my face on the way down. Luckily was wearing safety glasses, which took the main impact, but my nose was creaky afterward. I now have a small bump on one side that isn't on the other side - can feel it but can't see it.

2) Being very careful to assemble my new snowblower, I read the instructions, which said it took 9 oz of oil. I dutifully measured out and poured in the oil. Added gas. Started it up.
Oil poured out everywhere... Turns out that they come from the factory with oil already in them. Drained it all out, started over. Still runs fine years later, so I guess I didn't do any real damage.

[North]

Moving out of my college apartment. Trying to get the last load of stuff across town to the new place - it's late and I'm low on sleep, sick of moving, sick of cleaning etc. Parking brake gets stuck on my SAAB and I can't get it out of the downhill driveway. I proceed to lay under the vehicle, torso directly in the path of the rear wheel and yank on the parking brake cable trying to free things up. Don't remember if the car was in gear or not (manual), but it could've been a Darwin award for sure. Didn't succeed in freeing up the cable, didn't die, and rode my bike to the new spot.

[evdog]

Also I tend to be good at knocking over oil bottles, but only if I leave off the cap.

I have to be real careful about never setting down an open container, or anything breakable for that matter, within reach of either elbow.

I opened up a whole new world of possibilities last year when I bought a dual sport. I didn't have time to ride it the couple months after I bought it, and the carb got gunked up by old gas. Took it in for cleaning, bike supposedly runs like new. Get it home and try to go for a ride, get just around the corner and it shuts off. WTF??? It starts again briefly but won't run. Turns out the mechanic had turned the fuel to "off". Well I didn't even have to unload it for him to tell me the problem. Apparently this happens all the time to noobs so I shouldn't be too embarrassed. I'm sure there will be more moments to come. In the meantime I should probably be buying some tools so I can fix the first inevitable flat. Does Stan's work in moto tubes?

[I've seen black diamonds!]

I've used a foot-pound torque wrench when I should have used an inch-pound with predictable results. Twice.

[Cabinfever]

Sawzalled through a hidden water supply line when opening up a ceiling. I can still remember the metal on metal sound and thinking shit shit shit. Amazing how much water spewed out in the seconds it took to sprint to the basement and turn the shutoff. Just happy I was the only one home at the time.

Speaking of cars. Have left the oil cap off the engine multiple times. Not horrible but sure is messy and smelly.

[sethschmautz]

Different sort of "wrenching" but worked in IT for quite a while for a company that provided communications equipment to our customers - routers, switches, phone systems, etc. One night I decided to bring home an all-in-one Cisco router/phone system and configure it at home instead of staying at working late. I was connected to our office via Wi-Fi so I could pull data for the customer that I was configuring the equipment for, and I was hard wired to the customer equipment. I send a command to erase the configuration of what I thought was the customer equipment. Then my connection to the office went down. For a while, I couldn't understand what was happening...then it hit me. I just wiped the configuration for the data and phone system for our office of about 50 people and it was 10pm.

Here's the crazy rest of the story. I kissed my beautiful (but disappointed wife) and headed in to rebuild the equipment. I knew I was going to have to recreate phones, voicemail boxes (that would no longer have voicemail in them), dialing rules (inbound and outbound), IP addressing schemes for our VLANs, etc. It was easily 4-5 hours of work. When I got into the office, I got started and was able to move through a bunch of it pretty quickly. About 2:30am I started to hear this slow DRIP... DRIP... DRIP...

I went out to our Mechanical Engineering department which was right outside of my office and located the source of dripping. One of the fire alarm sprinklers was dripping onto the floor and before my eyes, the dripping got faster and faster until it started to fan out in a normal spray pattern for a sprinkler. I immediately started unplugging computer towers, monitors, and moved everything that I could out of the department as the water started to pour in. I grabbed boxes of papers and anything else that could be damaged, then called my business partner to find out where the emergency shut off valve was. It was winter, and while running our paint booth in the back we had created enough suction to pull a piece of insulation from against a wall above the Engineering department. Cold air began to freeze the sprinkler line, creating a small ice plug that pushed the plastic safety plug out of the sprinkler. Once the plastic plug was gone, enough water was moving to keep the line from freezing up. Really weird.

All in all, the fact that I accidentally wiped the router/phone system at work and had to come in to fix it prevented unimaginable loss for the company as a whole. I still look back on that and thank God that I was a bit of a bonehead and wiped that router on accident.

[RootSkier]

I borrowed a mounting jig from a friend because I NEEDED the skis for the next morning....used it backwards.

[toast2266]

I've made more expensive mistakes, but the dumbest one was hammering in a picture hook on a wall in our bathroom. A bathroom with a pocket door. A pocket door that doesn't work when it's attached to the wall with a nail from a picture hook.

[wyeaster]

i'm a moron, yes.

when i was 18 my gf had a ford fiesta and we would occasionally drive around at night, end up in an undeveloped, unlit cul de sac doing all sorts of, uh things. including some on the hood of her car. a little youthful exuberance led to her buttprint dented into the hood. we didn't realize it until we were driving to her house, where her parents who did not approve of me a single bit lived, requiring a genius quick fix.

mine? ball peen hammer from under the hood. knock it out. with a

ball

peen

hammer

round side

[wyeaster]

sorry i couldnt see this was in sprocket rockets and didnt read all of it. pretend the car is a bike.