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 .

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.

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

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!

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..

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.

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

I had the interesting situation a few years back during a rally - We (me & my co-driver) missed the marker for a turn down into a gully & ended up getting to the bottom the fast way ie/ airborne. Car stalled & unbeknownst to us the fuel line had disconnected & the fuel pump was still going flat biscuit!
Of course we were cranking the car over to get it re-started & there must've been a spark somewhere because the whole engine bay turned into a fireball.
Yes, it did singe my eyebrows & no, I haven't seen anyone get out of a racing harness quicker since.

Remembered another one today. Once I had finished putting the new A14 in and began filling it with water it starting pi-ssing out between the head and the manifold. Hell whats wrong with it, tighten it further to no avail. Took the mainifold off after using bad language for the last half hour only to realise the gasket that came with the rebuild kit didnt have provision for the water heated manifold galleries DUH. Didnt even think about it at the time especially considering it was 11 at night and I just wanted to get the thing running.

Heres another good one not by me but someone my dad new some thirty odd years ago. This fella was changing a diff centre over and accidently put it in upside down. Dad said this is the type of bloke that if something can go wrong for him it will. Then dad said he went to reverse out of the garage only to have it lurch forward. Then realising what he had done decided to take it for a spin anyway. All forward gears were reverse and reverse was forwards. Dad said he was ripping along the road at 60mph in fourth. REVERSE. ha ha

(1) When I bought the ute, the tray had more rust than solid metal due to the previous owner storing grass clippings in the tray for goodness knows how long. My solution was to grind out the whole tray and replace it with a sheet of 1.9 mm steel checker plate. Spent ages cutting the sheet to fit nice and snug and had a mate MIG weld around the edges to seal it all up. Did a great job too. About 15 months later I noticed the cross beam above tha axle hanging down at a weird angle. Seems that from the constant suspension pounding the shocker had caused the cross beam to weaken and break. Seems the factory had spot welded the beam to the tray floor for a very good reason. After welding the beam together again with some angle iron for strength and then welding it to the tray floor, problem solved.

(2)I'm not very mechanically minded and had to replace the diff centre as three of the crown wheel teeth had sheared off. Did the job perfectly all by myself and felt pretty good about it too. Went to show off to my mechanic mate and on the way home felt the back of the ute swaying around real badly. Checked the back wheels and found that I had forgotten to tighten one set of wheel nuts. Only one nut left on the wheel and that was only held on by one turn on the thread. Couldn't find the other three nuts and had to call the wife to rescue me as the wheel brace was back in the garage.

There are probably several other stupid things I've done over the years but I think I've read about most of them in this thread.