The Official: "How NOT to (fill-in-the-blank) on your 3x8" thread...

Sorry to hear that---I guess we all live and learn

 

I'm noy ready to go here just yet

 

David,
You are my hero! I don't know what to say, you are tops for trying this job by yourself...( I am the same way ..exactly..thinking I can do it all myself and don't want to inconvenince anyone else...I am always hear.."call so and so..he owns at a bodyshop and you helped him move three times already" do I call ..never), then you get in trouble and are too embarrassed to ask for help then...) you are also tops for starting this thread..it is brilliant... we all learn much more from our mistakes.. the old quote " Show mw a man who has never failed and I will show you a man who has never learned" ( or something like that)

 

SEALANT ON CAM COVER SEAL SURFACE:
If you put sealant on the gasket mating surface of the cam cover (or WP, or any similar stud mounted object), you'll scrape the sealant off on one or more of the studs while installing the cover & not know you did it until the leak appears.

The harder it is to see what's going on, the more likely it'll leak (Murphy's law implication)>

Made this mistake twice, once when I rebuilt my Jag XK150 engine back in college. Then (DUH) forgot that lesson when I installed my 308's front bank cam cover after doing my first major. Of course it leaked worse than before I'd done the maintenance. It's in the old Fchat archives somewhere.

SEALANT IN CAM SEAL HOUSING O-RING GROOVE:
If you put sealant in the o-ring groove, it will set up & prevent the housing from self-aligning the seal to the cam. The seal will be off-center, slightly cocked & will leak sooner rathar than later. Did that too on my first major because the jmoke who bungled the major when I bought the car had put sealant in the grooves.

TOO MUCH SEALANT AT BOTTOM OF HEAD & CAM COVER O-RING GROOVE JOINT:
It will squeeze the end of the gasket out of place with expected results...

PULL OUTWARD ON A TENSIONER PULLEY THAT'S STUCK HALF-WAY ONTO THE TENSIONER:
You'll end up with an expensive handfull of ball bearings every time. No, I'haven't done this, but have been present twice when it happened.

BOARDS OUT OF POSITION:
Then there's positioning the rear wheel boards that raise the car up enough so the lift arms will fit under it too far back. If you get it just right, the rear wheels will roll off the front of the boards just as you & your son give the car the hard shove needed to get the front wheels up on their boards.

The car will leap out of your hands, & run over the stop bumps on the front boards. Thus, The spoiler you spent 3 weekends refinishing the previous spring will encounter the brick steps in the garage that you haven't gotten around to installing the foam dock bumpers you bought a couple of months before in case something like this happened....

I'm now about 20 or so hours into re-refinishing the spoiler. Sure get funny looks driving my 308 around sans spoiler....

 

Don't fill the spark plug holes with a rag to keep debris out until all the nuts are off the cam covers. Trying to remove the cam covers while two nuts are still in place (and hidden by said rags) is impossible and you will spend 1-1/2 days fighting, thinking, checking, fighting, cussing and slapping yourself silly when you see those two nuts still on there. Remove all nuts first and leave plugs in place (or put them back in if you removed them to turn the engine over).

Do not where a long sleeved shirt when draining the coolant out the heater hose under the front end. In fact, don't wear a shirt at all. Just cover yourself with a towel, and when its all over your shirt will still be dry.

Reverse is to the left and up, not 1st.

Maybe I should stop now.

 

When changing the oil, remember righty-tighty, lefty-loosy.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73485&highlight=oil+pan

Dom

 

You know, if the FAA pulled every mechanics license who ever messed up around an airplane, there wouldnt be any left. Most auto mechanics just keep thier mouth shut and never admit anything, but around aircraft its rather fun to hear everyones mistakes. Although at times very deadly mistakes have taken place. I have a pair of pliers I found up in the wing of a 172 we did an annual on. Everyone I showed them to laughed and said thats why you don't put your name on your tools. I consider myself very lucky to have caught most of my mistakes before they did any real damage or harm, but there have been some close ones.

I used to have a habit of hanging stuff back together loosely to keep all the parts together in thier respective places until I could come back to work on it. Like putting lug nuts on loose just to roll the car around. I even recall an old guy telling me that was a bad idea, and sure enough it got me finally. Or like hanging the trailer hitch on the ball to move it, but not fully connecting it. Well, now I always do a complete hookup. I knew a small engine mechanic with a split thumb. He never worked on any engine without pulling out the plug. After many years of working on lawnmowers, one had started by simply moving the blade a very small amount, and the blade split his thumb to the first knuckle. Its happened around airplanes too, but usually with more serious damage.

If you change oil enough times, sooner or later you will start up an engine with no oil in it. Anyone who says they never have just hasnt changed oil enough times.

If you change oil enough times, sooner or later you will start up an engine with no oil filter on it, and pump nice brand new oil all over. Anyone who says they never have just hasnt changed oil enough times.

If you change oil enough times, sooner or later the phone will interupt you during the filling process, and you will put in twice the capacity of oil and make a real mess. Anyone who says they never have just hasnt changed oil enough times. I no longer have the phone in the garage.


You will re-install your distributor 180 degrees out of time. Upon re-installing it again you will get the distributor in time, but get the wires out of sequence. Once you fix the wires, you will find the distributor is 180 degrees out again.

Putting a VW crankcase together, you will find you forget to put the tappets in, only after glueing the case halves together and torqing it down. Because you ask yourself how anyone could be so dumb, you will rapidly take it apart, pull out the cam, grease the tappets and reassemble the case, proud of how fast you accomplished the task. Nope, no one is gonna call you dumb. Hey dummy, where did that camshaft sitting on the workbench come from? &%@*%(!$#.

Good thread David, keep up the good work.

 

never roll a car around, even a few inches on a lift to rotate the engine or get better clearence on a muffler bracket.

never reach you hand into an engine bay with a spinning cooling fan ( "oh i'm sure I can reach it in there OK" --- NOT)

never forget that High tension wires have ...well....high tension voltage in them.

never leave an unfinished brake job or oil change for next weekend without a big post it on the sterring wheel and ignition switch saying "no brakes or no oil"

Never slam the hood closed on your prescious and impressionable alloy hood until all tools are acounted for ( esp. the longest chunkiest screwdriver sitting between the engine and said hood!)

 

Never start the car with it still in gear!

Never downshift to reverse (for the record I haven't done that but have come close).

Never plan on getting anything done on your Ferrari "cheaply" or "quickly".

Never take the windshield trim off by prying on it with a big screwdriver.

 

never clean your nice blue interior with formula 409.

 

I used to feel bad about all the stupid mistakes I've made since starting to wrench on my own cars back in 1998. Since two of my good friends are SAE Master Mechanics, I've learned that everyone makes stupid mistakes (plus rounds off fastners, drops oil filters, loses a nut somewhere that takes 30 minutes to retrieve...)

Here are mine--

-Never pick the lowest bid for auto shipping of your F-car.
-Never let a friend drive your F-car if they don't understand that starting it in gear can send it through a wall.

In all seriousness-
-Never try to use a polisher that isn't a nice random orbital...especially keep away from the corners and edges. Paint is THIN.

 

I only made that mess once when I pulled the heater hose off. I reinstalled the hose and then cut a 1" chunk out of it and installed a "flushing" tee that came with a Prestone kit I had. Now all I have to do is unscrew the cap and it drains out without a mess.

 

Actually, I bought the Prestone kit after I did it the 1st time, but didn't put it in until after the 2nd time, & yes, I had long sleeves on both times(Don't Ask). ;^)

I've since installed the flush fitting on most of the 308s I've worked on. However, It wasn't until this spring when coaching Pizzaman thru his 1st belt change & he suggested just slicing the hose where the fitting was going to go that I got it all into my coolant drain w/o spilling a drop!!! A slit half-way thru the hose makes a very easy to control drain opening!

 

THE RADIATOR CAP WAS WHERE???
Never check the coolant in your Rx7 & then close the hood & take off on a 15 mile drive on a very limited access highway with the radiator cap sitting on top of the intercooler...

OIL CHANGE:
Artvonne,
Here's one to go with your other incidents: "If you change oil enough times..."
...you'll pour the 6 quarts of premium racing Castrol that you spent your last $6 on into your XK150 Jag, then notice the nice brass drain plug sitting on the workbench.....

HOW TO NOT HOLD THE BREAKER BAR WHILE TURNING A 308 ENGINE OVER:
And a painful one:
If you use your right hand on a 1/2" breaker bar & socket on the 308 damper to turn the engine over, and have your thumb around the handle, eventually the socket will slip off of the nut and your thumb will be hammered into the edge of the a-arm by the handle. (Yes, it will break your thumb, and yes, I finished the belt job at 2:00 AM with it broken as I wanted to drive somewhere the next day.)

 

Never leave clothes into air inlet duct after washing the car ( to avoid water dropping into air box ) AND never invite your wife for a ride just afterward. When you realize the engine is hardly breathing and almost dead at every corner enter to next gas station and say to your wife " almost ran out of gas, the fuel gauge is crap...". So take time at refill to get the clothes out of the air duct and enjoy the drive.

 

I never have yet hand cranked an old car. I have hand propped airplanes, and it was about the scariest things I can think of, but never an old car. My Dad is 84, grew up with all them old cars. From as small as I can remember he warned me never to wrap your thumb around the handle, and never crank it around. Just a 1/4 flip and only pull on the upswing. That way if it fires backwards it will simply pull it from your hand.

So this neighbor buys this 1926 Hupmobile. Thing looked like it belonged to the Beverly Hillbillies. Smoked, popped and banged and made all the neigborhood dogs bark. The thing was rusted out, had been a car they cut the back off and made a truck out of about 40 years ealier. Quite a pile.

So I am watching him and he is goona show me how to start it. He grabs the handle and starts cranking cranking cranking round and round she goes. It started and ran, but I told him that although I aint never done it, Dad told me he shouldnt outta be crankin it like that. I got this go away ya dumb kid look, so I left. Later that afternoon I was mowing the lawn, and he comes walking over. I shut it off to talk to him, and he asks me about how I said he shouldnt whip that motor over like that? Yeah I said. He held out his right hand to show me. The crank had pushed back while he was pushing down, and it had ripped all the hide from the palm of his hand off, from where his fingers attached, all the way back to the wrist. Looked about a 1/4 inch thick peice of hide. Guessing he had just done it. I really felt sorry for him, but he didnt have that go away ya dumb kid look on his face anymore.

My dad said he was lucky. Said he seen guys break thier arms, thier legs, or get thrown a ways and hurt pretty bad. Said he seen a kid get whapped in the face once and it knocked most of his teeth out. Some could run backwards a bit and if you got caught in the way of the crank that thing could mess up your day.

 

Never leave a spare battery in the rear of your 308 that you were using as a source of +12V to power the timing light. When you go around a corner, it may slide and hit the inside left rear panel making a nice dime-sized divot pushed outwards.


-Rjay

 

Sounds like you're another who knows the joys of those 13B top-mounted intercoolers! They make such great tool and part storage shelves, and make for little turbo lag, even if they do heat soak in traffic. I know I have left many a socket or screw sitting on mine only to find it a hundred miles later.

I loved my RX-7 Turbo, especially with the boost turned up a few pounds and the fuel cut disabled! Nice ones are few and far between these days. Mine is third in line for a fairly complete restoration, it definately is a deserving car. So as soon as I can find a nice Mondial 3.2 and finish my MG, I'll turn my attention to the RX-7 and TR-6. Got to have your priorities straight!

Oh, and always make sure to drain the gas tank before you get underneath it in a bench-press-like position and have your friend loosen the last mounting strap. 13 gallons of forgotten gas suddenly let free from 3 feet above your head can get make the tank fall towards your face at an alarming rate.

 

never overtorque a xke waterpump trying to stop a pesky coolant drip

 

don't attempt a makeshift fusebox repair with a soldering iron while the fusebox is still mounted in your car...