Stupid mechanics thread

damn-I-Suck

damn-I-Suck

[12] Conqueror
Okay...

I know that most of you out there have had the bad misfortune of having a bad mechanic. It's inevitable, since many places will hire people who are unqualified, or just plain stupid. Or maybe the technician worked a really long week and didn't get much sleep, who knows.

First of all, I'm a full time automotive student. I'm almost finished with the 2-year degree, and right now I'm in manual transmissions class.

Anyways...

Some guy in the afternoon class (I'm in the morning classes) had to replace a clutch for his class (1996 ford ranger 4-cyl). At the end of the day, he left with the 4 top bolts to the bell housing left on the table because he couldn't line them up with the engine.

My teacher asked me to take over and finish the job.

Mistake#1

You should NEVER EVER tighten a few bolts all the way down before you even get the rest of the bolts at least hand-threaded a few turns. You want to make sure that shit is lined up perfect before you start tightening shit down. This is common sense for automotive 101, and applies to just about anything.

It was then that I realized why the top bolts he left off wouldn't line up. It wasn't that the transmission wasn't lined up, it was that there was a fucking WIRE CONNECTOR pinched between the engine and the bell housing right at the top. Here's 2 pictures I took with my crappy phone.

wireconnecter1.jpg


In the first picture, it's kinda blurry and hard to see, but if you look carefully, you can see a wire harness going to a connecter, stuck between the transmission and the engine. When he tightened the bottom bolts down, it crushed and cracked the plastic connecter with wrench tightening torque.

When I pulled the trany out, bunch of plastic pieces came out. Go figure. Here's what the connecter looked like when I pulled it out.

wireconnector2.jpg


Needless to say, this simple clutch job turned into a much bigger hassle. I eventually got it handled though.

Have any stupid mechanic stories to tell? Well here's the place. Pictures are a plus.
 
Oh my. I could sit here for days and talk bout all the stupid shit I seen. But Ill forget all that and do a couple of recent ones.

The primary business of my shop is engine rebuilding (along with many others but this seems to be what I have been doing most), So I see what happens when people dont take care of their engines. Allow me to demonstrate.

I built a 502 cid chevy engine for a customer so that he could put it in his jet boat. I was against making a 502 a marine version, being that the 502 itself is a wonderful street engine that should be in a hot rod. But not my moeny so who cares right?

On salt water cooled engines, its nessacary to need special head gaskets to hold up to the salt waters corossiv-ness (im not sure if thats a real word but you get the idea). Those particular head gaskets are more expensive than regular gaskets. I advised the guy "Hey man you need to run these gaskets." He resonpded by saying that I was charging to much money. Just to put the bottom end together and he would finish up the rest.

Well a month later I get a very angry phone call. Same dude screamin at me bout how his oil looks like a "milkshake". So rule of thumb is NEVER EVER tell a customer "i told you so". My famous line is "Look boss, I would be very upset to. Get the motor out, get it to me. Ill go through everything no charge and find out what happened. If its something I did, I will take care of it, but if its on you...". He agreed and I got the motor a few days later and this is what I saw

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Upon taking the heads off, I saw that he used regular head gaskets. So the terms "I told you so" were flowing through my head.

So when your engine oil is in that kind of shape, well things cant get lubricated. and this is what happens to your crankshaft
4C67EC96-18C5-454D-8828-2A3D4D101D7F-445-0000009773BCF411_zpsb05c7817.jpg


The tore up part at the bottom isnt supposed to be like that. Its supposed to be a nice smooth machined surface.

and this is what happens when you have a bunch of drunk idiots at the beach trying to tell you "NAH man, just bump up the timing and lets get back in the water..."
D6B4A60C-024F-49C4-A2F6-49CAD7C4AD01-445-000000976669B277_zps7073e439.jpg


and this is where all those pretty metal shavings are gonna go. right to the bottom of the oil pan
E5A736CD-ED8D-4CEE-AB2F-DB9CDE66A8AE-445-000000976C0B440F_zps6dbcd53d.jpg


So the lesson here folks is, not ALL mechanics are dumb assholes. Some of us know what we are talking bout. Granted that we dont have a great reputation. By I myself pride myself on honesty and integrity to my customers and have had a very loyal fan base for over 10 years.

Customers I hate the most: Guys that come in saying "So Ive been reading on my forums that I should...." or "I read in this one magazine that....". I say to that "Fuck you, if youve read that in a mag or on a forum, YOU BUILD IT. Most forums are a bunch of retards that can post up anything they want (sound familiar).

My most memorable customer: Lady comes in with a cool look on her face. "Dag gum I just broke my serpintine belt 3 miles down the road. Drove it all the way here, can you help me?" "Of course I can, but did you really drive it THAT far with NO belt on it?" "Well yes and no. There was no belt but I wrapped my panty hose around all the pullies and got it here." I was amazed. I went out to the car, popped the hood, and Ill be damned. She wrapped the panty hose around everything and it fuckin worked. I started the car cause I wanted to see this in action. Worked like a charm."

Unfortunatly Damn-I-Suck, you and I are the only car guys here. This might be our own little special thread that we share together. No homo
 
Might be better to change it to "Stupid mechanics/customer Thread" Cause I think I went off on a totally different tangent

oh but this is what a 502 looks like when Im done with it. Done up the right way
A0AA6EDB-46B1-4278-9721-D10949CEF6E0-445-0000009770682DC4_zpse9c4349b.jpg
 
Hrd I've also used pantyhose as belt to get car to autozone to buy belt :) I'm not a mechanic by trade but love turning wrenches.
 
Nothing feels better than a good pair of pantyhose every now and then :) my wife wasn't happy as I used her only good pair lol
 
omg. Nothing cracks me up more than the stupid customer stories that I hear from my teacher. Yours was equally priceless :)

But yeah. Some people think that if they read a few forums they think they know more than the mechanic and that the mechanic is instantly ripping them off when they tell them they need more expensive head gaskets to handle the salt water.

BTW, I am still fairly inexperienced myself and to be honest I had never heard of salt water cooled engines. Does it still use ethyl-glycol in a 50/50 mixture? Hey, you learn new shit everyday.

The thing that comes to mind with salt water is electrolysis. Salt is a conductor, and you don't want your coolant grounding out components. I can't remember off the top of my head what the spec voltage limit on coolant was.

The milkshake is a classic symptom of coolant getting into the oil, ergo the head gasket.
 
Yeah, marine engines usually cool one of 2 ways. Either with a closed cooling system (has radiator and coolant just like a normal car engine would) or an open cooling system (has a pick up that literally scoops up ocean water and runs it through heat exchangers and cools the engine.)

It is also typical that some boats are prepped for FRESH water pick up cooling. Which means those boats only go into lakes and rivers. These engines do not require a special head gasket to run.

Problem is exactly what you mentioned. Electrolosis is a huge factor for the exact reasons you mentioned. Also sat water and cast iron HATE EACH OTHER. Most people who own boats have no clue how to take care of them. You are supposed to flush out your engine everytime you are done with it as to not corrode the engine away and break gaskets and such.

Boat guys are the most dumb IMO. They continually fuck up their engines and keep me in business
 
HRD, did I tell you the story about when I bought my car it had a random misfire code? (not specific to any cylinder in particular, just random)

it took me FOREVER to figure that one out. I was convinced it was some kind of loose wire connection in the ignition system. Problem is, everything checked out. I couldn't even see the misfires on a scan tool, just that it had a stored code for random misfire.

Then one day I decided to change the spark plugs because I didn't know how long the previous owner drove on them. This car was a 4 cyl. This car had 4 long holes for each plug at the top of the valve cover. So, when I pulled the first spark plug wire out this long hole, some oil was on the end of the wire. Strange, I thought. So when I got out my ratchet, extension and socket and stuck it down there, I heard a very distinct squishing sound. I thought "oh god" and pulled it out only to find that my entire socket and half of my extension was fucking COVERED in oil, dripping all over the place, making a mess because I sure as hell didn't expect oil all around the spark plugs!!

Guess what? All 4 were like that. So then I pulled off my valve cover and tried to see where it was leaking into. I didn't see any rubber boots that go on each of those 4 long holes, stopping oil from the head getting to the plugs. I thought "holy shit, WTF!". When I went back to the work table to my valve cover that was now turned upside down, there were the 4 boots, stuck to the top of the inside of the valve cover. AND they were upside down to boot.

I then bought a 4 new boots and a new valve cover gasket for good measure.

And then it hit me. I seriously had a real life facepalm moment. Whoever worked on that car before me, when they put the boots on upside down and somehow GLUED to the valve cover, and the oil got the spark plugs, guess what that oil was actually doing? It actually grounded out the spark plugs to the block causing each plug to misfire SOMETIMES.

Before, I was convinced I had something electrical going on, but I never thought to check the plugs because each cylinder was randomly misfiring, so it wasn't tied to any one plug. Turns out I was right about the problem being electrical, but I just didn't look in the right place.... such an unlikely place.

By this time however, over the coarse of 3 months driving this car on a random misfire, it had also developed a catylitic converter below threshold code. This was because of all the unburned fuel from the misfires entering the exhaust stream and overworking the CAT. Because yeah, the post CAT 02 sensor was fluctuating between 100 mili-V to 900 mili-V, just as fast as the pre CAT o2 sensor, which is not good. The first o2 sensor fluctuating fast is OK because of the car's lean/rich swings but the second one should be fairly consistent, especially when the CAT is fully warmed up.

So yeah, all because I wasn't good enough/skilled enough to figure out what was going on in time to save the CAT, I had to eat 300 bucks for a new one! All because a stupid mechanic before me put the damn boots on upside down and attacked with ADHESIVE of some kind on the wrong place.

So yeah, when it was all done, new CAT and all, cleared the code, it never came back.

Sad story though: That car eventually got wrecked and I'm still trying to sell the parts now. Sucks that it's got a rare engine.
 
Sounds like a honda or toyota that someone had never seal a spark plug seal before.....hahaha that indeed is pretty funny.

Reminds me of my younger hacking days where I had this dodge intrepid 2.7 I couldnt figure out why it was over heating. So I threw radiators, hoses, t-stats, flushes, water pumps the whole 9 yards. Weird part was it would only over heat SOMETIMES.

So beating my brains in and having my then manager screaming at me, I didnt know what to do. So I was zoning out just staring at it one day and I saw something weird. I saw what looked like a brake bleeder screw in the middle of the intake by the t-stat housing. I called over the senior mechanic at the time and asked "what the hell is a bleeder screw doing on a fuckin intake manifold?" He looked at me and laughed his ass off. "You know these late model chryslers need to have the cooling system bleed right?" "Ummmmm NO!"

SO long story short, I got the engine warm, cracked that bleeder open and Ill be damn if a a shit ton of air came out. Filled up the system. All was good in HRD's world.

Till 3 days later when the car came back with a overheating problem, but the symptoms were different this time. Same senior mechaninc finally felt sorry for me, came over to help. "Son, did you test the cap?" "Test it? No, I looked at it, had some rust but I cleaned it up and put the old one back on." *busts out tester* *cap is a piece of shit* FFFFFFUUUUU. Radiator cap was the issue the whole time!! The bleeding of the system was a result of me changing out coolant and shit *facepalm*.

Since then I have never had an issue with chrylser cooling systems. I usually have to fuck something up before I learn how to do it the right way. Good thing I have fucked up a lot of shit!
 
Here is a project I have been working on for the past 6 months thats finally gonna leave tomorrow
Its an all original 55 t-bird with a somewhat custom 292 in it. The cusomter has had it since day 1 in 1955 and is one smart mother fucker. I would kill to know a fraction of what he knows
1391EA2E-35FA-4FAC-892A-1B00A0AC7141-538-000000A0F9991CC3_zps36b94c28.jpg


The custom 292 built all by yours truley
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Just finding the OE valve covers proved to be a real bitch. Everyone has reproductions of them. But he wanted it done right with the OE stuff. Cant really blame him

585C6A08-153F-4F94-857D-FBCFB5DD353F-538-000000A1018BB18D_zpsfe619f57.jpg

Just a gorgeous car that I had to share. Not really on topic, but something yall can appreciate I think
 
Kinda off topic but I'm swapping out my stock exhaust manifold for a stillen header I bought on cl this weekend. I already had to gut the precat as its a common prob on Nissan spec v for them to deteriorate and cause catastrophic engine failure. Plus change oil.
 
Ill dig around in my work PC tomorrow. But we dont talk about work when we arenot at work. Its easier on your sanity
 
Pernicious-Soul said:
Kinda off topic but I'm swapping out my stock exhaust manifold for a stillen header I bought on cl this weekend. I already had to gut the precat as its a common prob on Nissan spec v for them to deteriorate and cause catastrophic engine failure. Plus change oil.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming this is a pre-1996 car that doesn't have to pass emissions tests?

Yeah a clogged CAT will cause massive engine backpressure, and gutting it is one solution, however you won't be able to pass inspection if it's newer than 96'

Just a heads up, but it sounds like you might already know that
 
@HRD. It's amazing how much simpler those 60's cars were. I can practically see everything from just that one picture. AND they always have TONS of room to work in.

I can see why you got into doing hod rods. That car is beautiful.

BTW the car I was talking about was a 2001 Dodge stratus 2.4 SOHC, which used a mitsubishi powertrain. Same powertrain as an 01 eclipse, but the SOHC version is only found in 7% of those cars, and the DOHC version is in like 45% or so, the rest have the v6.

So yeah, trying to sell a rare engine is a double edged sword. I can sell it for high dollar, but at the same time not many people need that engine.
 
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