Memorable screw ups

[Fialaja]

Was working on my Ridgid one handed reciprocating saw that stopped working. The LED lights still worked but no motor. I tried switching the leads that power the led to the motor to no avail. Took the switch out of the equation and voila some motion but not smooth and smoke and smell of armature

After I gave up noticed one brush seemed longer than the other...yup, probably could have just changed brushes. Didn’t check those because saw is not that old and doesn’t see that much use.

Another good story: working on bro in laws deck yesterday with my son as a helper. He finishes using a hammer and proceeded to throw it up onto the brand new TREX decking. Made me think of a time when I was working as an electricians helper, putting in a roof vent. Cut the hole in the roof and proceeded to throw the scrap circle of roofing I had just cut off the roof to the ground. The electrician I was working under flipped out, pointing out that there could be someone watching on the ground and I could have seriously hurt or killed someone. I heard about it for the rest of the day

 

[MayerMR]

Oh man, I have screwed up at least as many times as I've fixed things. But I guess that's how you learn.

I actually started a "Shelf of Shame" where I keep the small pieces of my screw-ups to remind me of my own idiocy. The most common thread; When you start to get mad, WALK AWAY. Go inside, eat lunch, take a nap, fill your truck with fuel, whatever. But don't keep at it else you'll inevitably break something and make it so so much worse on yourself.

 

[Richard Cranium]

When I was a young man, In the summers while out of school for the summer I would work summers in construction, We I was working on an apt. complex, I was on a upper floor and needed to use the restroom, I chose to just pee into the toilet pipe, Not knowing that the plumbers were working on the pipes just under the floor I was on. Boy did I catch hell and never done that again.

 

[cptn_zippy]

When I was younger, I worked construction as general non-skilled labor, and was often sent to lumber yards to pick up materials. One day, we needed a 2x12 to finish a job so I drove our Ford rack truck to the yard and got one. Well, being a dumb@**, I put in in the truck with the end out over the cab and headed down the highway. Didn't take long for it to catch the wind, flip out and smash itself on the road. VERY fortunately for me, it didn't hit anybody, being it was early afternoon and not much traffic. I drove back and picked up the parts and drove back to the yard and bought another one. To this day - I over secure loads when I drive around with them. People think I'm nuts about how I secure stuff, but I could probably have killed someone and I won't make that mistake again.

J

 

[kb1982]

My most recent screw up was installing a new chain on my motorcycle. I was bouncing in-between that job and helping my cousin replace his brake lines on his truck. It didnt help none that I had been awake since 4 pm the previous day since I work 12 HR night shifts. Somewhere along the line, I lost my train of thought and cut my new chain one link to short. Ended up ordering a new chain. When the new chain came in, I ran into a new set of problems. While riveting the masterlink, the backing anvil that supports the rivet while being flared, punched through the center forcing out the pin instead of riveting it.
Only way I could get the chain tool off the chain, was to use the die grinder and cut the riveting pin. I had another masterlink, but not another chain tool, so off to harbor freight I went. Watched a YouTube vid on how to use the HF chain breaker tool to rivet a masterlink. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the task and failed miserably at a job it wasn't intended to do. In the end, I ordered a high quality D.I.D chain tool and another masterlink and finished the job almost a week and a half later.

Sent from my Z962BL using Tapatalk

 

[Al Borland]

We got a truck stuck in mud at work.
Got it unstuck with a come-along.
When we were done, I threw the come-along into the truck through the open passenger window,
Unfortunately, a co-worker rolled the window up first.
It was loud.

 

[FigureItOut]

I was finishing up a rewire on Saturday testing everything, and I had no dash lights. I started testing and I found I had some resistance in the circuit somewhere. After an hour of careful disassembly and searching for the resistance, I found it, in the switch, in the big *** resistor that dims the dash lights. The lesson I learned is to try turning it ON before you start troubleshooting.

 

[mv213]

Not all of them by any means...when I was a teen we were remodeling the folks garage into a family room and had run copper tubing to the new bathroom. I was nailing down the subfloor and hadn’t made note of where the tubing ran. Yep, put a nail dead center through the tubing.

Another time I had pulled a toilet to work on the floor. I had a jumbo paper coffee cup I had just finished, and used it to block the sewer opening while I worked. It fit like a perfect tapered plug. Yep, forgot to pull it out of the soil pipe before I reset the toilet. First flush had water running everywhere—it was one of those old 1940’s or 1950’s toilets that took like 6 gallons to flush and could easily overflow if plugged.

 

[Roberts210]

Not my screw up, but one of my co-workers: When I got out of the Army in 1971, I got a job spraying really nasty acidic chemicals onto stone and brick buildings in Wash. D.C. and then cleaning the stone with high pressure water hoses. This was pre-OSHA. So we got the contract to clean a brick church. The church was in a 2-story building with a flat roof, but it had a tall chimney. Three of us were on the flat roof, spraying down onto the brick walls below us. At some point I turned around and there were only TWO of us up there. Where the hell did Michael go? A minute later he came up the ladder. He'd fallen off the roof, but had landed in pretty soft ground and it didn't hurt him. After that we were more careful.

 

[larry_g]

Some years ago I was making an R-8 tapered shank flycutter. Got everything turned up and was looking real good. Put a hole in the end and threaded it for the drawbar on the mill. Put it up in the mill and the drawbar would not grab it. Futzed with it for a bit and knwe the DB was long enough to grab it so pulled the drawbar and it was to small to fit the hole in the Flycutter. Checked it out and I'd grabbed a 1/2-20 drill and tap when it should have been a 7/16-20. I was bummed and set it aside.

Some time later I was ordering some Helicoils and found that for a 7/16-20 Helicoil you drill and tap 1/2-20. So I installed a Helicoil in the flycutter and have been using it for years now.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Wamsutta]

Thread chasing 5/16-18 threads with an M8-1.25 tap. Cylinder heads. I'll never live that one out. I'll take that one to the grave with me.

 

[SilverBulletZ06]

Cutting 7" solid oak dental crown and miscut. $70 piece of wood for the trash.

Forgot to check the bearing in a new turbo and pre-lube the unit. First time under 13s was the last time for that turbo.

Pool as disgusting and I was throwing chemicals at it like hotcakes one sale. Decided to drain and start over. Never secured the pump so it drained the pool out causing the vinyl liner to shrink. New pool liner, at least we got 13 years out of it before I screwed up.

 

[BucksCtyMike]

My very first screw was was splicing a 110v plug on to the end of a 12v CB radio when I was 12 years old. Oh, I can still hear my father cussing as he fumbled for the fuses in the dark.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[shoeless]

First job in a mechanic shop while in school and the first thing I get to do is an oil change. No big deal right? Done my own many times. Get done fill it up, start the engine and oil everywhere. Check the old filter, no gasket. Yup I double-gasketed it. First and last time that ever happened.

First job out of school working field service for a seismic system company. We get an old system back in on trade for a new one. So I get to go over it and make sure everything is functional and up to date. Hook everything up, it was a big server cabinet full of electronics, PC's, RAID array, VME chassis, timing circuits, etc all ran on 220V. So we supply a printer with the systems. Apparently someone swapped the printer out at some point and apparently the replacement was 110V or the selector switch was set to that. Turn everything on and just smoke out of the printer, all the big caps puked their oil everywhere. My boss just laughed. Wasn't the first time that someone had done something similar and wasn't the last. I remember we had some diagnostics stations that consisted of Dell pc's. A company in India ordered like a dozen of them. Several of them blew their power supplies when they turned them on for the first time before someone realized that they were all still set for 110V. Still not sure why PC power supplies aren't autoswitching.

 

[928'er]

In the summers while out of school for the summer I would work summers in construction

Was that in the summer?

 

[jeffmoss26]

working on a safe door, tapping holes to install a new dial, telling a coworker how I'd never broken a tap...30 seconds later...snap!

 

[sweet victory]

I'm an R&D engineer for a T1 DoD supplier. A fellow co-worker made a mistake that delayed the deployment of a carrier strike group. I had to go resolve the issue and deploy with the group. 20+ hour shifts and lots of enjoyable conversations with captains, admirals, chief engineers, port engineers, and abs inspectors. In the end, missions were completed, and I gained an invaluable experience.

 

[dwasifar]

My very first screw was was splicing a 110v plug on to the end of a 12v CB radio when I was 12 years old. Oh, I can still hear my father cussing as he fumbled for the fuses in the dark.

I have a story like that.

When I was very little, no more than about four years old, I had this "bell box" that my uncle had made for me - a wooden box with a dry cell and mechanical bell inside, and a doorbell button on the top. Press the button and the bell rings. I had opened it up and played with the wires, and got a general idea of how it functioned, what the difference was between the conductor and insulation, and so on. (None of this was the intended lesson; my uncle just wanted to make me a toy, he didn't know I'd dissect it.)

On this particular day I was unsupervised because my parents were having a cocktail party. I wanted to play with the bell box but the battery was dead. I knew that electricity came from the battery through the wires, and I also knew that electricity could come from the wall through wires. So I got a pair of scissors and cut the plug off of something (my record player, I think), stripped the wires, and twisted the battery wires from the bell box onto them. I knew nothing about dead shorts, and my splice was a giant ball of bristling copper.

I plugged it in - ZAP - and put the lights out on my parents' party.

I evaded punishment for this because of the ongoing party. By the time the party was over, I was in bed asleep, and by the next morning my dad had cooled down about it.

 

[pilotmotor]

My friend owned a body shop many years ago and I used to go there every day and help him out after work. He was great at body work but not much of a mechanic so I would de most of the mechanical work he got. One of the cars he just finished repainting needed front brakes so he decided to do it himself . He pulled it up on the frame machine and took care of it, but never pumped the pedal back up . Well when he rolled it of the frame machine he smashed it into another car in the shop! He was pissed!

 

[vavet]

Wow you guys make me feel not so bad about some of my mistakes.
I'll go in chronological order.

Year ~1992: I was about 17 years old. I had a 69 Cougar I was trying to fix up into a nice driver muscle car. I'd been working on it outside and was proud to have the engine running. I don't remember exactly what i was doing, but it was not a small deal to have it running again. My parents were nice enough to let me use the garage for this jalopy. I decided it would look really cool to back it in. So I get in, start it up and start backing up, carefully looking behind me. There was a little slope going into the garage and a little bump, but I remember thinking it was taking a lot of gas to get it up. Oh well, give it a little more. I turn around and see my driver's door is open to about a 135° angle because I never closed it and it was hung on the garage door frame. UGH!

My first job in an auto shop. This was an indy euro shop. I did an inspection service on a E46 M3. I drained the diff oil. I remembered to remove the fill plug before removing the drain plug. Then I put both of them back in, finished the oil change, and shipped the car. It was back on the hook the next day - diff locked up. No oil. UGH!

I needed to rebuild the front porch railing on my house a few years ago. That went pretty well. Then I needed to paint it. I bought a HVLP sprayer. I didn't realize how far the paint would carry and I ended up spraying my neighbor's red Grand Cherokee. He was cool about it, but I think he wasn't sure how I was going to react when he told me. We were just very matter-of-fact about it. I screwed up. He got some estimates to get it corrected and I paid him about $600. Would've been cheaper to pay a pro to paint the porch.

 

[Catfishdan]

I had a good one just last week.
I was removing a closet wall in a resterant I'm remodeling. I go to cut out a stud and cut into the main hot water line for the whole building. Water and steam spray everywhere. It's a Pex line so I finish cutting it and crimp it off with my hand to stop the flow.
I'm working by myself, so now I can't let go of the line to grab any tools or go for the shut off upstairs. I'm starting to imagine spending the night holding on to this damn water line when in off the street walks a stranger. He says " I heard some water running in here. I'm a plumber." He fixed the line for me and hung out for an hour or so to make sure I knew what a bonehead I was. Thanks buddy!

 

[Rewind97]

Many moons ago my father was cutting the hedge with an electric trimmer and accidentally cut the power cord with it. He asked me to splice the ends back together. I grabbed my pliers to cut a clean end on the cord only to find out he hadn't unplugged it!!! I won't make that mistake again!!! Yea I was a total idiot for not checking myself.

 

[MayerMR]

I had a good one just last week.
I was removing a closet wall in a resterant I'm remodeling. I go to cut out a stud and cut into the main hot water line for the whole building. Water and steam spray everywhere. It's a Pex line so I finish cutting it and crimp it off with my hand to stop the flow.
I'm working by myself, so now I can't let go of the line to grab any tools or go for the shut off upstairs. I'm starting to imagine spending the night holding on to this damn water line when in off the street walks a stranger. He says " I heard some water running in here. I'm a plumber." He fixed the line for me and hung out for an hour or so to make sure I knew what a bonehead I was. Thanks buddy!

That is about the luckiest damn thing I've ever heard. You must have used up all your good karma in one go!

 

[MShaw]

Many years ago I was replacing a clutch in a 1953 chevy for my father. He and one of his friends were heckling me thru the whole job. Done and started it up, the clutch would not release. Took it apart and found I had put the clutch plate in wrong side out and the damper springs on the clutch plate were dragging on the flywheel mounting bolts. This was an exceptional pita as the 53 still had the closed driveshaft that you had to jack down out of the way to get the trans out.

 

[aka Larry]

Back when I was single I lived in old mobile home. The original 15 year old water heater was a 60 gallon unit, and it had rusted out. Since I lived alone, I bought a smaller 20 gallon to replace it. Brought it home, connected all the plumbing and electrical, and it worked. I was proud of my DIY since I'd never done one before. It was fine for about 15 days or so, then no hot water again. It wasn't leaking, but I check the element and it was fried, so I drained the tank, bought a new element, installed it, and thought it was good to go again...until the next morning.

Thinking I now needed professional help, I told the maintenance guy at my work my story and he said "Did you change the electrical from 240V to 120V when you installed the new water heater?" Wait, what? OK, so I still to this day don't know how the first 120V element survived 15 days connected to 240V, but it did, but the second one didn't last 24 hours. I bought another new 120V element and the guy at work told me to just move one of the 240V legs in the circuit over to the neutral bar, and it worked for another 10 years like that.

 

[zktk01]

I was changing a window regulator on a Crown Vic and they have rivets that need to be drilled out. I got carried away and the glass shattered into a thousand pieces cost me $85 for a replacement glass.

 

[Kaervak]

I'm rushing to finish up a rear brake job on my truck because I had to pickup my uncle from work. "I'll adjust the drums later, I'm already running late" Put the lugs on finger tight since I'll have to pull the wheels again to adjust. Truck sits for two weeks when some warmer weather shows up. "I'll get the EVAP system sorted today and do some runs on the highway to get the monitors ready" RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE, BLAM. Lug nuts are gone, wheel is destroyed, lug studs destroyed, new drum with three miles on it destroyed.

Incredibly INCREDIBLY STUPID on my part. I'm so thankful the wheel didn't come off and hit someone on the highway. Unbelievably lucky on that.

 

[dwasifar]

Incredibly INCREDIBLY STUPID on my part. I'm so thankful the wheel didn't come off and hit someone on the highway. Unbelievably lucky on that.

If someone had had a cell phone pointed in your direction at that moment, you'd be a viral YouTube star right now.

Here's my latest. Replacing light fixtures in the basement. Old fixtures are shoplights plugged into ceiling mounted outlets. New fixtures are hard wired to the boxes. Routine has been: connect flex conduit whips to the fixtures, mount them to the ceiling, turn off the juice, drop and disconnect the outlet, connect the whips to the box, turn on the juice (to have more light to work), lather rinse repeat until all done.

I am on the last of seven new fixtures. Prepare and ceiling mount new fixture, drop the outlet, cut the wires to it in one snip, BANG FLASH everything is dark now. I forgot the "turn off the juice" step. Got it right six times, skipped something important on the seventh. Dead short through the jaws of my lineman pliers.

Fortunately I have the habit of handling any wire or device as if it is live even if it isn't, so I did not touch the contacts of the inadvertently live outlet when dropping it, and the only results were a startled moment, an interesting new mark on my old pliers, and a walk of shame to the breaker panel. It could have been so much worse.

 

[engineer2]

I was a pretty green homeowner and GFCI outlets were the new thing. Put one in my bathroom. I wondered how good do these things work? Stripped the ends off a short piece of copper wire and plugged it into the hot an neutral. BAM! Big spark shoots out and I trip the breaker. Black mark on the outlet. Then I read up on how they are supposed to work, LOL.

 

[kctyphoon]

Was installing a new utility pole, and digging the hole with the auger on the boom of the truck.. Underground utility mark outs were a bit "off", and I hit a 4" natural gas main on the highway. The two guys on the ground start running, every person within 500 feet was outside watching cause of the smell. ill say this much - there was no shortage of vehicles with flashing lights that showed up within a few minutes...

I actually got a call from the gas company like 2 months afterwards, cause the repair bill they were mailing out to my company kept getting returned to them by the post office, (they had an older mailing address) so they called me since my number was on the markout request, the only number they had - asking where the bill should get mailed.. after some laughing on my part, I asked "I'm curious, what's the total?" "Little over $7,000" they said.. after some more laughing, I gladly provided my manager's phone number...

 

[Orangestang]

Bolted in a automatic trans in a car, linkage, driveshaft all ready to go and realize the torque converter still laying in the driveway. Another time I was going to change a timing chain on my buddies car couldn't get the balancer off for the life of me only to realize the next day the the fat washer was still up against the balancer and the puller I was using was pushing against the washer. Told myself never to smoke dope while working on cars ever again.

 

[SuperCat]

Topped off the master cylinder on my Rambler project and didn't notice 3 drips on the fender. Came back after putting stuff away and discovered that brake fluid dissolves car paint. #@$>$%^?/*(& !!!

 

[zorrox]

First job in a mechanic shop while in school and the first thing I get to do is an oil change. No big deal right? Done my own many times. Get done fill it up, start the engine and oil everywhere. Check the old filter, no gasket. Yup I double-gasketed it. First and last time that ever happened.

I did that once at my parent's house. Sprayed almost 5 quarts of oil all over their driveway. Cleanup was a nightmare. That's the last time I'll neglect to check the old filter for a gasket.

 

[itstippy]

As a young man I borrowed a friend's old flatbed farm truck to move furniture. After loading up tables, lamps, chairs, TV, etc. the truck barely started. It was obvious that the battery was very weak; the truck seldom got used. So, when I got to where I was taking the furniture I left the truck running, put it into neutral, and pulled what I thought was the emergency brake lever. Much commotion ensued. It was the hydraulic lift lever to raise the flatbed.

 

[skruft]

Many things in my youth, but probably the best was dropping my 1966 Lincoln on myself by placing a jack incorrectly and crawling under without stands in place.

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

I had a good one just last week.

I was removing a closet wall in a resterant I'm remodeling. I go to cut out a stud and cut into the main hot water line for the whole building. Water and steam spray everywhere. It's a Pex line so I finish cutting it and crimp it off with my hand to stop the flow.

I'm working by myself, so now I can't let go of the line to grab any tools or go for the shut off upstairs. I'm starting to imagine spending the night holding on to this damn water line when in off the street walks a stranger. He says " I heard some water running in here. I'm a plumber." He fixed the line for me and hung out for an hour or so to make sure I knew what a bonehead I was. Thanks buddy![emoji481]

I had a similar experience with a V16 Detroit Diesel with a remote radiator 100' away so about 350 gallons of coolant.... Was doing maintenance checks and found a very brittle 1/2" air bleed hose which snapped in two when I touched it.

I managed to get one end folded and the other end was too short so all I could do was plug it with a shop rag from my pocket. Coolant of increasing temperature was still working its way out of the block through the rag as the block heater keeps the engine around 135 degrees F.

I got the folded end clamped with my leatherman vice grippy thing but after about 5 min it was too hot to keep the rag on the other end and I had to let it volcano while I ran to my truck to get some hose and another vice grip. Then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cleaning up coolant. Good times.

 

[MetalCutter]

Installing a new clutch in a Toyota 4X4 pickup. Got through stabbing transmission along with transfer case, bolting up drive shafts, etc. Crawled out from underneath the truck and grabbed a cold one to congratulate myself for a job well done. Standing next to the truck enjoying the brewski and looked down at the brand new unopened box containing the throw out bearing sitting on the passenger seat. Back to square one.

 

[jrsavoie]

Drank most of a bottle of scotch watching the Bears play. After the game I decided to swap out front brake pads on the 1988 Chevy Spectrum.

Somehow I managed to put the pads on one side on backwards. I hit the brakes and ripped the rotor clean off.

 

[Todd.Brock]

Wow you guys make me feel not so bad about some of my mistakes.
I'll go in chronological order.

Year ~1992: I was about 17 years old. I had a 69 Cougar I was trying to fix up into a nice driver muscle car. I'd been working on it outside and was proud to have the engine running. I don't remember exactly what i was doing, but it was not a small deal to have it running again. My parents were nice enough to let me use the garage for this jalopy. I decided it would look really cool to back it in. So I get in, start it up and start backing up, carefully looking behind me. There was a little slope going into the garage and a little bump, but I remember thinking it was taking a lot of gas to get it up. Oh well, give it a little more. I turn around and see my driver's door is open to about a 135° angle because I never closed it and it was hung on the garage door frame. UGH!

My first job in an auto shop. This was an indy euro shop. I did an inspection service on a E46 M3. I drained the diff oil. I remembered to remove the fill plug before removing the drain plug. Then I put both of them back in, finished the oil change, and shipped the car. It was back on the hook the next day - diff locked up. No oil. UGH!

I needed to rebuild the front porch railing on my house a few years ago. That went pretty well. Then I needed to paint it. I bought a HVLP sprayer. I didn't realize how far the paint would carry and I ended up spraying my neighbor's red Grand Cherokee. He was cool about it, but I think he wasn't sure how I was going to react when he told me. We were just very matter-of-fact about it. I screwed up. He got some estimates to get it corrected and I paid him about $600. Would've been cheaper to pay a pro to paint the porch.

We have similar stories. I had a GMC Jimmy with a bike rack on top. Forgot that you can’t pull into a garage with a bike on top.

Last year I pulled out of my driveway and hit the neighbors car. They were cool about it and let me not go through insurance. Even let me take it to the body shop my buddy runs so I could save some dough. He just called me for the CC number when he was done. That was an $1100 mistake.

I seem to have about one of those per year. I just eff’ed up tail gate on my Dodge. I was at Home Depot and the flat carts for drywall ran away and went under the tail gate. 4 nice long gouges about 18” long.

Or the time my wife didn’t pull the car in garage far enough and closed the door. 2 parallel scrapes in the bumper from the door hinge

Or the time 3 years ago my buddy used his trailer blazer to pull out some honey suckle stumps. SMASH goes the glass as a root ball flies through the air into the cargo area. This was after the chain let go and put a huge dent in the tail gate. We switched to tow rope after that. Trip to the junk yard and found the tail gate 3” too short. It was a high roof model. Back again for the right one. man that was a waste of a day. Shop vacs will **** up glass in dirt if necessary.

And on and on.

 

[Nineeightyone]

My best friend and I were doing the shocks on my '10 Mazda... For anyone who's done one of these before, the top two bolts for the strut bushing in the rear are welded to the car, and you just have to remove the nut and the bushing/mount thing drops off.

I'd read in a DIY that these can be a real PITA, because they're exposed to the elements and can be rusted if they've been on the car for a while (information from the '04-'09 ones, but the design is the same for '10-'13) so I didn't think much of it when one was being a real turd about coming loose.

Turns out I was tightening, not loosening. One of the studs broke.

I turned what was running along smoothly into a big fiasco, we had to remove half the rear interior to get to the head of the stud and drill it out, get nice new hardware and hold it from the top to tighten the nut on the bottom. It's not welded at the moment, but I plan on going back in and welding the top of the bolt to the chassis (again) so that it's not a hassle later on. The bolt is only mean to be torqued to ~20 ft-lbs, and I was really in it. Thankfully my buddy is a lot more experienced than I am, and isn't scared of drilling out bolts when necessary.