Ohh sweet

 

There is a lesson to be learned, use Comp R' anti pump up lifters & set to ZERO lash LOL.

 

Fried my PCM with a corrupt file. Gave that file(not knowing it was corrupt at the time) to Ion(madwolf) to put on a new PCM so my car would run and had that shipped to me overnight. But because my file was somehow corrupt, it fried that PCM too So 3 PCMs later and about 3-4 days with about 8 hours of driving my sisters car in between my house and school... i finally got it running again.

 

When I bought the Z28 last Oct 03 I needed a new intake elbow as mine was split underneath. So I order one from the UK GM parts dealer £80 ($144) it arrives and I remove the old one, but the old ones got this long tube hanging down and the new one has the hole blocked up.

So I figure must be the wrong part maybe it for another car so I get the Stanley knife out and cut the hole myself and fit it back in. Job done.

Now I know I have just cut up a 1LE elbow and turned it into a standard one, should have tossed that black tube to one side but I figured it must be there for some reason. Yeh to reduce my intake noise and sap power!

What a bummer Doh!

Andy
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/441297
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/537476

 

My dumbest thing i've ever done was acidently buying a V6 automatic instead of a Z28 M6!!!

 

Brad you forgot the funniest part of that story. Your sisters car had the license plate "BRAT" on it. Pretty funny to see a 5'5" guy get out of a sunfire with the license plate BRAT on it.

 

My buddy/mechanic when we were dropping the engine in on Friday night, couldn't figure out why the engine wouldn't mate with the tranny, we tried for about 2-3 hours working on that thing. We were about to drop out the tranny when he realized that he had left the clutch alignment tool in. He felt like a dumb@$$

 

I had a party in my backyard and one of my guests ran screaming from the back yard saying something about somebody getting hit by a truck. I realized it was my neighbor across the street so I took off running to help him.

Well it turns out he got run over by his own truck and didn't have a scratch on him! He was working in his driveway (on a slope) on a Ford pickup and decided to not block the wheels or set the emergency brake. He was lying on a mechanics creeper underneath and when he disconnected the driveshaft the truck started to roll with him under it. He grabbed the frame rails and dragged his feet but couldn't stop it.

It rolled down the driveway and across the street right towards my buddy's vintage Corvette. If I tell you it was a miracle you wouldn't believe me. The truck curved slightly and missed the Vette by less than 1/2 inch and jumped the curb and took out my next door neighbor's mailbox. You could not fit your hand between the truck anf the Vette.

The whole time my neighor was holding on underneath. He survived without a scratch except for maybe his pride.

 

After my 383 was started and running, i drove my car to the exaust shop (and around a bit just to listen to the header music), my car suddenly had a surge of power loss. Come to find out during the 6 months the tranny was out of it all the fluid had somehow leaked out and i was so excited to have my engine done i didn't check to see if any was in. Lots of horrible grinding noises and not going into 2nd or 4th tipped me off that my tranny might be fried. *sigh* but then i had a new one orderded that cost me bout 3k.

Once i had a bad stumble under a load, like pulling a hill in 5th or 6th. Did a once over on my wires to see if they were all right cuz they were brand new wires. seemed alright, so in the end i was sure it was the opti. I couldn't wait to order one, so i paid over 500 dollars! for one at a crook of a dealership and took 7 hours to replace. Later on car still stumbles and it turns out to be a burnt #8 wire back in the back where i can't see it resting on my header. Lesson, always check the simple stuff kids....twice.

 

The "dumbest thing"...where to start. About a month after I got my car I tried to back it out of the garage. My truck was behind it and I turned too sharply and rubbed it against the side of the opening. I took out the fender and nose. When I finally got new pieces painted and hung, I was ready to put the new "SS" decals on. Back then dealers did not stock them and I had to call SLP directly, so inaddition to the big bucks for paint and parts they screwed me for $50 (or something crazy like that). I mesured the decals and had everything perfect (or so I thought). Guess what? I put them on upside down!

 

I forgot to tighten the lug nuts on my drivers side rear wheel after putting on lowering springs.
You should have seen the looks on our faces as we drove down the street and my back wheel passes us and proceeds to roll a couple of hundred yards down the road.

 

I have a few good stories.

One time I was doing some soldiering for the radio wiring harness in the car so I let the solidering iron heat up. Without thinking I grab it like a pencil and fried my thumb, index finger, and middle finger to a crisp.

Another time I was underneath the Z to change the oil after a short drive. Well I guess the oil filter expanded and was kinda stuck so I used both hands and pivot my elbow off of the chassis to get enough leverage. So what I thought was the chassis ended up being the long tube collector. I cooked my elbow pretty good on that one.

Then there was the time I was wiring a fuel pump kill switch in the door panel...didn't check the polarity and the wires were cooked and decided to weld themselves into the door.

The mother of all screw ups happened when I wasn't even working on the damn car. I recently acquired a rear hatch with the window for about $200 which was a SMOKING good deal. I left the hatch on the garage floor with intentions on moving it so that nothing drops on it. While painting the garage door I keep in mind that the ladder might fall on the hatch so I step away from the ladder to move it and the wind blew and the ladder freaking fell on the damn HATCH!!!!!! I was screaming at the top of my lungs cuz Iw as so damn pissed....I almost rammed my fist through the car window cuz I was soo pissed.

Dropping the fuel tank was also a bitch and a half...I had to do it 3 times to get it right.

One dumb mistake was not checking the piston to valve clearance issue when I did a cam swap...and ended up having 16 bent pushrods and having all of my exhaust valves get bent.

-B

 

My 95 Blazer developed a problem while driving home one day started running real crappy would barely idle, so I get it home ses light comes on won't idle stalls.Wife comes out to the garage and I'm pissed and trying to trouble shoot the damn thing, she says its probably the EGR vavle again.I had just had it replaced on a recall at the dealer about a year ago and my buddy works there and is a good mechanic and did the work.So I write that off and do a tuneup it has 100k on it was due. change cap, rotor, plugs runs better but crappy better, so I read some of the forums and see what syptoms match mine and start changing out sensors new 02sensor tbps well I change out the idle control valve and it starts running good again.so we take it to dinner that night and all seems well on the way home starts running crappy again I'm like WTF.so I call my buddy up who no longer works for the dealer works for the post office now and no longer has access to the scanner, but I tell him the problem and he says to check the egr maybe carbon got caught in it and its stuck open (grumbles about wife) I goto take the egr off and I put my rachet on there and I goto put some torqe on it to loosen the bolt and my hand flies to the pulley owww..lol well long story short Listen to your wife. 300 dollars 2 weeks later lose egr bolts tightened them up, purrs like a kitten. (god I hate her) lol. guess all those years of her hanging out in my garage paid off.

 

I had my car fall off the jack while I was doing the brakes. But it was an Accord and I hated that crappy car so it didn't bother me much.

 

I got the upper control arms mixed up when installing new shocks. It went back together, but the alignment was way off. Thinking that it was just the new bushings that I had put in, I took it to the shop to get it aligned and they were amazed that the thing even drove.

Made me feel like a real genius there.