The biggest mistake You have made during working on your car?

[Lloyd]

Just last week, I was boost testing the intake on the car and the fu<king bung with the valve popped out like a 12 bore shotgun and put a tiny pin dent in my bonnet. Bollo<ks!!!

[RustyNut]

OK - With my first car (Audi 80 GL), time for an oil change (seen my Dad do this), down to halfords, bought a black 5ltr oil container (has a plug on the side - i'm sure you know the one) engine flush and oil, engine flush in, run until engine warm, strategically place the newly purchased oil container on it's side to catch the oil, undo the sump plug (the final turns by hand..) and... OH F**K! - oil flew out all over my arm (ouch!) I dropped the sump plug which fell onto the container and into the plug hole (plugging the hole…), a full engine's worth of oil all over the road and not a drop in the newly purchased container… And the best bit, I did it a second time only this time I thought I was being clever and made sure I had hold of the sump plug only to learn that the now second hand but only used once oil container wasn't designed to 'catch' that amount of thinned oil flying out of a 'warmed' engine… Same result… Oil all over the road… I now either pay someone else to do it or use a bloody big tray as advised by my p*ssed off neighbour...

[macspring]

My one is easy, giving my Avant to Quattronics. Enough said.

Anything else for me now is no big deal.

[tscheel]

Memory is short, but these springs to mind :
- driving over a set of ramps. The Audi 80 2,3 survived mostly unharmed.
- driving a Volvo 340 with a cartrailer and a Mini '69 behind it, down a blind slope. Took a while to get back out.

Not tightening the front brakes before testriding a FJ1100 w. Thunderace bluedot brakes doesn't count in this forum, right?

[Rusty]

• Cam timing .
• Getting firing order on a dizzy cap 90 deg out when changing it.
• Tightening a cambelt tensioner the wrong way for it then to slip - got away with that somehow
• Snapping a spark plug off in the head - Ford Ka... twice
• Snapping a torx bit in a stud I was trying to remove.
• Cross threading a brake union into an alloy calliper.
• Disturbing some old wiring such that the car wouldn't start.
• Stopping a 6"x4" chunk off a bellhousing - not me but my car

[Ian Simmonds]

setting a car on fire with a plasma cutter

I set the engine bay of my old GT on fire (and well alight) whilst it was running, just by spraying it with WD40...

[A80Avant]

almost causing an electrical fire while menting some cables under the dash....

smoke gave it away and thankfully everything was sorted quickly. Early days of ownership while trying to get rid of old sound equipment..

And i seem to have the tendency of dropping the occasional one last bolt somewhere in the engine where there is no way to reach.... damn!!!! my fingers are not educated to catch them this way!

[mcandmar]

Only thing i can think of was doing a timing belt and valve adjustment on an old Honda. Final job was refitting the cam cover when i dropped a 10mm nut inside the head, which in turn found the oil drain and disappeared down into the sump. That turned into a long night

Or the night i slammed the bonnet shut on my mobile, the bonnet won that one.

[yavor20v]

Ok,here is the thing....
I bought pair of "quattro" seats for my ex Coupe and I desided to transport them in the car.The seats was separated (seat and back )...So...i took the back parts of the seats and throw them into the trunk and rear seat.I had two "seat'' parts in my hands and juuust before entering the drivers door they got heavy to my hands so I thought....Now,..I'm gonna throw the seat in my car,but on the passenger's seat (let me repeat,I was at the drivers door!!) Soo,I threw the seat in(on the passanger seat) ,but it was upside down and when it hit the car's seat,it bumps up and the seat hited the front window and broke it in the right up corner

[s2_bo]

Top up engine oil with brake fluid ( I had put the last 1l of oil in an old brake fluid container) and grabbed the wrong one out the boot, must have put in about 1/2pint before realising that it was a bit to liquid...

sepent about a year rebuilding my s2 engine and then turned it over and tried to start it with the cam wheel not tightened up, snapped the wodruff key but luckily didnt do any other damage... :S

[rs200]

my bigest mistake was that I put sputter bearings on rods not propetly . sputter have uper and lower bearing. I put it on rods how they was packed , piece by piece.
everithing was fine , but my mind know that is not fine, until 1 month ago when I buy new one and put it propetly on rods !

[martinws]

Setting starter cables and others around them on fire by shorting the starter to the block by dropping the front engine mount on my 2.0 8v coupe.
I now like to remove the battery before doing anything.

[j_jza80]

My worst mistake was paying a friend change the brake discs and pads on my first Supra, 3 days before I was going to the 'ring.
The UK Supra calipers use knock through pins, one was a little seized and he used the wrong tool and bent one in half, in the caliper he then decided to clear off to see his girlfriend, leaving me to cut the caliper pin and drill the caliper out myself

[mouse]

I once forgot to bend the locking tabs on the front brake caliper bolts on my MK2 Escort... was lucky that I was travelling fairly slowly down a back street when one bolt made its way out and the caliper swung out and locked up the front wheel.
I even walked back down the road and found the bolt..

The same car I decided to change the front strut inserts myself. I still don't know what I did wrong but they were flying around loosely in the struts a couple of months later and needed to get repalced again - this time by my mechanic who had a good laugh at my expense..

[quattrostyle]

Driving my coupe quattro home from the garage for about 500 metres while it was SORN'd and uninsured leaving me a fine of more than €500,-