My very first attempt at working on a car was back in 83.
My Uncles mate gave me two Asutin 1800 (landcrabs) these had been parked at mu uncles farm for aboput 12 months.
The first thing I did was swap the carpet why you ask because I liked the blue carpet and then buy a new towball mmmm chrome.
I bought a battery from the local servo it cost me 2.50 only because I picked it out of his recycle pile.
So dropped in the battery filled with demineralized water (from the rainwater tank) and hooked up the the tractor with my 50 amp leads let it run for a bit and low and behold when I hit the starter I thought the end of the world was happening ,the phucking smoke that came out from the under bonnet was out of this world,the leads all but dissapeared and battery spat water all over the place, I damn near #### myself as I knew if I screwed the tractor my uncle would have killed me.
I asked my uncle after the smoke had cleared to have a look all he said was turn the battery around and I did and the bloody thing started but not a single light or switch ever worked again, the car is still on the farm holding part of a bank together.
My next was simple jacked up my Datsun took of the rear drum and pressed the brake pedal to see how things work and blew the wheel cylinder to bits
Ade

Has anyone heard the joke about the guy whos arm was on fire & got booked for having a unlicenced firearm.
Well that was nearly me.
Myself & a few mates where trying to get an old smashed sigma going. It had been hit in the arse hard so there for there was no petrol in it. So i took the air cleaner off & filled a empty stubby with petrol ran a hose from the fuel pump into the jerry can. Being a daring mechanic whos not afraid of a bit of carby back firing i thought i was invincable. While someone was cranking the thing over i was tipping a bit of petrol down the carby. Next thing i knew there was a back fire the stubby went up so i threw the stubby then fuel went all down the front of me & i was on fire. So i did the stop drop roll as i was tought at primary school. Luckly i didnt get burnt. The only thing that got hurt was a bit of pride. It was stupid. I no.
Being a mechanic & worked at differant places i will post a few more funny mechanical mishaps.

let me think.. degreased the underside of my car once... rinsed it off... then got underneath to do something (which i cant remember what it was) and believe it or not a drop of water drips into my ear... didnt think nothing of it..

with time the pain became so unbearable that i went to a hospital and they had to flush my ear out.. they said theyre was blistering on my ear drum

lucky the degreaser was diluted with the water to rinse it off.. or i could have been deaf in one ear...

i couldnt do it again if i tried i reckon...
but i was lucky.. ear is all good.. just like a bought one...

its funny when i think about it now..

Mine are mechanical mishaps induced by teenage driving of my first Datsun, a 710 Hardtop.

While driving around 45 mph and nearing a corner, my friend screams "PUNCH IT!" and so I did, got sideways, over-corrected, and smacked the curb, shredding rim and tire. My friend laughed non-stop for the next 24 hours.

While driving around late night, the same friend dares me to run over a 4' clump of Pampas Grass. I thought "Well, that's an easy one!" and proceeded to accerate toward, up, and stuck on top of that clump of grass. My friend laughed non-stop for the next 24 hours.

I also experienced the loose wheel lug nuts problem, but I didn't realize it until I heard a "BANG!" while driving down my street, then a griding noise, and finally, noticing one of my wheels pass me up and smacking into the neighbor's hedge.

Last, I was playing it "cool" by not setting the handbrake while parked in the garage, even though our driveway was sloped. I was inside attending to important business when I heard a "CRUNCH!" and ran out to see my car had done a slow, backward roll into a palm tree.

Funny, those memories still haunt me to this day, and I haven't seen that friend in years either!

i remember back when i was 18 with my Gregories Guide to every thing I needed to know about my coupe, i thought i would have a go at doing the tappets, this was a safe move as i was having the car servcied the next day, so i read the section on tappets over and over again, went and brought the little spacer thingy, and changed my tappets i wont use the word Set as i didnt do a good job, the little A12 was tapping its head off, next day at the mechanics, the guy tells me he couldnt service it until he had fixed them, i blamed my dad for tinkering with my car, that he thought he knew what he was doing, and my ability with a spanner has never increased, unfortunately

Fisrst time I did a head gasket on a 1200, I was torquing the rockershaft bolts back in, and I forgot to push the button in on the torquewrench. Not once, but twice. I stripped two holes in the head.

Left the breaker bar on the front pulley nut and started her up.

Going for the first ride in a 1200 coupe after just painting it, left the bonner unlatched. whoops!

And the worse one, removed the nut off the idler arm to try and get it out of the pocket to see how hard it would be to change the bushes. I couldn't get the washer off, so I gave up. Two days later I noticed that I had left the nut off. F*CKING lucky it didn't fall out, as the the day before I had gone for a hard drive around some hilly roads.

One time I had just put a head gasket on a 2.2 liter ISUZU , got the valve lash specs from the underside of the hood, then adjusted the valves .went to crank the engine and it had a dead miss . I run the rack again still missing I worked on that engine for a week untill I found out the truck had been wrecked and the hood came off a truck with a diesal engine .