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What's your most embarrassing Legacy DIY mistake?


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Wasn't my legacy nor my RS but rather a friends car. Completed a realitivley demanding swap. WRX motor, transmission into an RS completely by ourselves. Wiring and everything. Car starts up on the first try, when we went to back it out of the garage nothing.

 

We look over to the work bench to see the brand new Act clutch still in the box. Completely forgot to install the clutch. :lol:

 

We still laugh about this.

 

:lol:

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^^^ I did that on my old jeep cherokee several years ago, only I forgot to put the drain plug back and I lost 6 quarts of castrol syntec. What a mess!

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Ok...I'll fess up, I did that once too. But it was back in the late 70's on my Duster 340. Only took me about 3 qt's to realize something wasn't right.

305,600miles 5/2012 ej257 short block, 8/2011 installed VF52 turbo, @20.8psi, 280whp, 300ftlbs. (SOLD).  CHECK your oil, these cars use it.

 

Engine Build - Click Here

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Ok...I'll fess up, I did that once too. But it was back in the late 70's on my Duster 340. Only took me about 3 qt's to realize something wasn't right.

 

 

i dont recall much of anything from the late 70's ;)

I was 0.

 

 

 

And I'm still a zero.

 

:lol:

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It's not Legacy, but it's automotive.

 

Most embarrasing (and potentially lethal) mistake I ever made was pulling the driveshaft from my 2500 HD Silverado while it was parked in the garage. I had already pulled it once to change the U-joints, but it was shaking at highway speeds so I pulled it again to take it in and get it re-balanced. I was in a hurry though & didn't bother to jack it up this time & put on stands - there's enough room under the truck to slide in with a creeper. As soon as I popped it out this time the truck started rolling forwards with me under it.

 

It took me a second in my upside-down view to realize what was happening because I was moving with the truck (which encompassed nearly all of what I could see) and it seemed for a second that the garage was moving. WTH? quickly changed to - Oh $#!T Talk about a moment of panic!

 

Thankfully the incline was very slight and rolling with the truck on the creeper gave me enough time to figure out what was happening and throw myself away from the truck as it rolled onto the gravel where the creeper would have stopped, but the truck would have potentially rolled over or pinned me.

 

I always wondered how idiots could die having their vehicle roll over them, but I'm in no position to judge now. Be safe - use jack stands & wheel chocks! My guardian angel must have been looking out for my dumb ass that day.

[CENTER][URL="http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18504"]Subaru Plug & Play Aux-in Mod[/URL][/CENTER] [CENTER][URL="http://www.jazzyengineering.com"]www.jazzyengineering.com[/URL][/CENTER]
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Oh Yea, I forgot the TOB bearing once on the Civic race car. But I had R&R'ed the tranny so many times it didn't take long the get it in there.

 

On the wagon I removed the tranny one time thinking it was not right when the last thing I did was notice the clutch fork had fallen down and was not on the pivot ball. All I had to do was pull it up and put it back on. But by that time the tranny was all disconnected.

 

I need to stop reading this thread, the more I read the more I remember.

305,600miles 5/2012 ej257 short block, 8/2011 installed VF52 turbo, @20.8psi, 280whp, 300ftlbs. (SOLD).  CHECK your oil, these cars use it.

 

Engine Build - Click Here

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Took me two hours to figure why my front sway bar wasn't fitting only to realize it was upside down.

 

While pulling the plastic trim around the cubby, I semi ripped the dash in the brim

 

 

 

On my Mpv. While doing the timing belt change. I had changed the cam seals which required me to remove the cams. As I continued to put on the new timing belt and alining it at least 4 times , the car still ran like shit. turned out that the cams were installed visa versa (v6) UUUUUGGGHHH !

 

Also pulled the dizzy out without marking were the rotor was and that completely f'd up my timing.

 

On my 1992 Accord, I was replacing the pads right before selling it off. I thought the rear was piston style like the fronts, so I'm sitting there for hours like WTF why won't you push back in ??? Then I see that the grooves on the "piston" was to turn it back flush into the caliper.

 

 

 

FUN TIMES !

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I need to stop reading this thread, the more I read the more I remember.

 

Ditto.

 

Back when I was in tech school, we were pushing a geo metro around the shop. The idiots in the class (myself included) pushed it a little too fast and I jumped in to hit the brakes, but the pedal went to the floor and the car ran into a work bench, narrowly missing a student.

 

It was the clutch pedal that I pressed. :spin:

 

Never lived that one down!

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My dad, in 1987, trying to put a Oldsmobile Calais up on ramps. Gave a little too much gas, the ramps shot out and he drove through the wall.

 

So he sends me running to get his neighbor buddy to help him fix it before mom comes home. As if you can somehow fix a car sticking through a wall in 10 minutes :lol:

 

To this day I jack my car up and slide ramps under the wheels as opposed to driving my car up on them.

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Back in the early 80s my bud and I were cleaning the carb on his bro's lame Camaro of that era. Carb cleaner, rev, carb cleaner, rev, rev, more carb cleaner....POOM! >>>FIRE!! Holy shit! An older neighbor strolls out of his house w/ a fire extinguisher (the pink dust kind..) and calmly puts out the fire and walks back to his house shaking his head:lol: We went to the hardware store and bought clear tubing to replace the vacuum lines...it never ran right/never told the older brother about the "work". He went for a tune up and the mechanic asked him when was your car on fire?!? We were nabbed.
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Detailing the inside of my Honda Civic. I put the auto trans in neutral to clean around the crevices in the console. When I did this, I put the emergency brake on so it wouldn't roll backwards. After I got the interior clean, I was sitting in the back seat finishing up with the vacuum cleaner and saw a spot I missed around the e-brake boot. I released the brake and started vacuuming not realizing the car was still in neutral and was rolling out of the garage with the back doors open. By the time I did, the rear drivers side door hit the garage door frame and bent almost 45 degrees in the wrong direction past center. Never sealed quite right after that.
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^^ I did something very similar when I installed my short-shift and bushings kit. Amazing how you can disconnect the fact the handbrake is on with the reason for it being on. Now I get to feel stupid every time I wash the car or put something in the trunk.
Obligatory '[URL="http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/2008-gh8-238668.html?t=238668"]build thread[/URL]' Increased capacity to 2.7 liters, still turbo, but no longer need spark plugs.
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forgot to plug in the MAF after installing the intake

 

I hope I didn't botch the quote. I deleted too much. I did the same thing to my gf's

Forester a couple weeks ago changing the filter. She came back from the store with her mom and said it ran like garbage and got a CEL. Took me a few minutes to realize what happened. Glad it didn't blow up.

 

I don't know who all has read of this dumbass attack but I replaced the UP and checked the banjo filters at the same time. Filters were gone. After putting it all back together and started theit car i ran inside to grab my sister's dog to take him to her. Backed out and got out to put the garage door down and it hit me that I didn't tighten the banjo bolt on top down. Oil everywhere on the turbo and on the concrete.

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I remember on my friends wrx, my older turbo legacy. Everytime I pulled the I reinstalled a engine or transmission I would always forget to put the damn clutch fork after I had almost everything together!! I was soo pissed!!
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On my Legacy, I drained the rear diff fluid then attacked the front. I jacked the car up and drained some fluid, then filled the front diff. I drove back from my friend's house and after about 10 minutes the car started to sound like a train in the distance. I went through the vacation pictures to go through my process and quickly figured out that I had drained the front diff, but put diff fluid in the tranny... No fluid in the diff, and an extra quart or two in the tranny.

 

On my friend's Trailblazer we were replacing brake pads and rotors, and could not get the rear discs off. Banged with a hammer for close to half-an-hour, then went to the hardware store to get a mallet. We got back and realized he left his E-brake on. So he released the E-brake and we get back to work, replace everything in the rear, then set the car back down. I'm walking around the front of the truck and it starts barrelling toward me (there's a trailer 5 ft behind me) so I try to stop it while my buddy jumps in and hits the brakes. Scary stuff there

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I definently have a few.

 

The embarassing one:

I was at the track trying to figure out why our car had no power steering. Turns out the foam in the power steering container clogged the lines/pump. So i take it all apart and run the air compresser through all the lines to get them all cleared out. Then i did the same to the pump not realizing that the other hole the air would come out of was pointed right at my face and blam. Nice big face full of power steering. The team next to me was laughing sooo hard.

 

The omg that really hurt:

Friend has a veilside body kit on his rx8 so i couldnt lift it with my jack. So i made a little spacer out of 2x4 wood so i wouodnt hurt his kit. And as i was lifting the car i was feeling to make sure the wood was where it needed to be. Then the wood decided to split in half pinning my fingers between the car and the jack. Didnt feel to good at all.

 

As much of a pain the outback is to work on with the rust, i havent really done anything dumb with it yet. Sooner or later though it will.

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As a mechanic, I have a few.

 

I forgot to reinstall the clutch release fork on a 6spd Dodge diesel. It was installed on the TOB but not on the pivot ball in the trans. I didn't realize this until after I pumped the clutch pedal several times and popped the piston out of the brand new slave cyl...which on those trucks is a sealed system and not bleedable (you replace the master, slave, and the line between them as a complete unit). Had to pull the trans again to reinstall. And the 6spd on those diesels is massive to say the least.

 

I went to bleed the brakes on an older Dodge truck and broke the bleeder valve in the wheel cyl. So I went to remove the wheel cyl and twisted the brake line.

 

Possibly most embarrassing and most expensive to me...did a maintenance timing belt on a 3.2 Cadillac CTS. Tightened one of the tensioners down hand tight but not fully tight. The tensioner let loose while the boss was on a test drive, causing the engine to stall , leaving my boss stranded on the side of the road, and bending almost all the intake valves on 1 bank.

 

When you work on dozens of cars every day, you are bound to have a few blunders. These are the only real blunders I can think of.

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On my LGT, I messed up the chrome rings around the projectors when I blacked the headlights out. I ended up painting over everything in black.

 

This, I effed up the rings and ended up having to paint them as well.

 

Also when I was doing my intake manifold swap and expanding the holes that connect the manifold to the tgvs while test fitting it I had removed the tape that was covering the intake ports on the tgvs. My friend was widening the holes further and I was tidying up some hoses and zip tying a few things and dropped a zip tie into the head. It was resting against the intake valve. Then while trying to get it out it fell entirely into the combustion chamber. Ended up having to spin the motor by hand and using a miniature grabber thing to reach into the combustion chamber through the intake valve to grab the zip tie.

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