Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Your worst ever dumb ass mechanical mistake

[BDG]

Come on folks confess your worst ever mechanical mistake and embarrass yersel in public. You can even pretend it was your mate and not you.



When i was 18 i had a Suzuki GT380 which handled worse than me after 10 pints of stella.

As the front end was particularly bad i thought i'd replace the fork oil with something thicker to stop it bouncing around quite so much.

So i put the bike on the centrestand and unscewed the first fork cap. I then unscrewed the 2nd fork cap.......BOING.......

Fork cap shoots off like a bullet and richochets all over the garage.

As i didn't have the brains to put a support under the bike, the front end of the bike collapsed, the fork springs shot out as well, followed by 2 streams of dirty fork oil all over the place.

What a feckin' mess.

The story doesn't quite end there. When i i put everything back together i wanted thicker oil in the forks rather than the de rigeur ATF or fork oil (no special weight fork oils back then) i used 2 stroke oil which was about 30w instead of the fork oil or ATF which was about 10w i think. At least i wouldn't have to worry about de-coking the forks.

It still doesn't end there, as i still wasn't happy with the handling i tried EP90 gear box oil to stiffen things up even further. Well at least i was young and trying, very trying. No wonder Nelly makes me stand in the corner on my own when i go there


Moral of the story, either learn to do it properly, workshop manuals are good things, or get the experts to do it.

[BDG]

Two other horroer stories. Running a courier company i've seen a few dodgy things but 2 gems that spring to mind that honestly weren't me are.

One lad changed his back tyre on his bike and it was dreadfull on the road. Someone suggested getting the wheeel balanced to he took it to the tyre place to get it balanced.

The wheel went on and nearly wrecked the machine it was so far out of balance. The tyre fitter toook the tyre off to find a 10" adjustable spanner inside the tyre


The second is one of the best dumb ass storys ever and it happened right in front of me. One of the guys had an old Astra diesel van which desperatley needed a service. Some had suggested flushing the engine out. Instead of using flushing oil, he drained the oil and put a hosepipe in the oil filler cap and ran water through the engine for 10 minutes (creating a massive slick underneath the van) then put the drain plug back in and filled it with oil The clods of white smoke were unbelievable and the van was never right again.

[t5mission]

Trapped a pull tie between the head and the barrel on an rd 125. stuck it all together and proceded to fill the crank space with coolent when filling the rad.

I was young and teaching myself. For really stupid **** ups talk to kye from the scooter shop he does at least 2 a day and hes got book learning behind him.

[Scooter916]

Originally posted by t5mission
Trapped a pull tie between the head and the barrel on an rd 125. stuck it all together and proceded to fill the crank space with coolent when filling the rad.

I was young and teaching myself. For really stupid <b>[Censored]</b> ups talk to kye from the scooter shop he does at least 2 a day and hes got book learning behind him.

Harsh But true

[adam]

har to admit this but, when replacing my 748r with new oil and filter, which i had done myself several times, took the old filter off but couldnt understand why the oil wasnt coming out. stood there for ages before phoning my mate (ducati mechanic) have you removed the sump plug? what a dick head. soon the oil was flowing out.

[Tantrum992]

At the tender age of sweet sixteen i owned a Suzuki TS 50
One day it went "pop" not too mechanically mind but very determined (and skint) i decided to strip the engine down to see what the problem was..........in my mums kitchen......"What!!!!!!"..................it was cold out side besides.......my mates said she probably wouldnt mind oh well, thats another story
Engine stripped......found the piston in tact but no rings.....either off them, now what asked the girl freinds dad to take a look (well, he owned a socket set so i figured he new all about engines:P) he tells me "the barrel and bottom end seem ok so just put a new piston and rings in". So the next day i come home from work and fit the new items in Billy Wizz time, wheel her outside and spend the next hour trying to get it started i was about ready to torch it when my neighbour offered to take a look (only cause he was trying it on with my mum and getting no where ) he takes the head off the barrel and chuckles, (smug get) he then tells me the arrow on the top of the piston should be pointing at the exhaust port and not the carb....................... i rebuilt the engine on that bike a further four times before selling it on...........but i never made that mistake again

[stuart hill]

Hmmmm, so many to chose from
One that immediately springs to mind is overtightening the sump plug on a VFR400 to find a garage covered in (unused) oil and a completed shafted sump!

Genius.

[TORTUGA]

A guy I used to work with was the Grandson of a wealthy construction company owner. When the company was bought out he became wealthy. But he wasnt the brightest light on the christmas tree. His life is one catastrophy after another. Some years ago he bought a sloop sailing boat to pull the ladies in, but he had no sailing knowledge. One day whilst at his moorings the outboard stopped working so he undid the nuts which hold it on to have a better look. Unfortunatly he undid all the bolts at once and it fell off and sunk, Luckily for him some divers were nearby and retreived it for him. Another day he arrived at some resort and tied his sloop up to a pier to go off looking for ladies. However he didnt know how to tie the correct slip knots and the tide had gone out meaning that the upper bow of his sloop had snapped off and the rest of it was 6 foot lower in the mud. It needed an expensive rescue and repair. And finally he bought a small rowing boat because of the earlier knott incident so that he could drop anchor and row ashore. The rowing boat was wooden and was a bargain acording to him. Him and a mate put on their best suites to go out on the town on the pull. They lowered the boat into the water, got in and started heading for shore. But becasue the boat had not been in the water for so long it had dried and was no longer watertight and so it got lower and lower and their feet got wetter and wetter until it sank. He sold the lot within one week of that. It may not be mechanical but it is funny.

[chief]

Changed the cam belt on my Escort RS2000 rally car. Shut the fiberglass bonnet.
Started it up........only to see a 19mm ring spanner smashed through the said bonnet at great speed hit the ceiling of my garage and come down with such force it smashed the windscreen

moral of this tale....dont leave a spanner on the front crank pully bolt

[Griff 64]

In 1987 i briefly owned a Formula Ford 1600.At a MAllory test day the car developed a missfire.Diagnosing the problem as the points i replaced them.Unfortunately my Pit Bitch had took all the plug leads out of the cap and not noticed the firing order or where more importantly the posistion of no1 plug was.
A bollocking later out comes no1 plug and in goes a round file to see where TDC was.Engine turns over up comes file to the top of the stroke.Bingo, order sorted.Remove file Press starter button engine fires and the sound of the end of the file which had snapped of in the cylinder could be heard echoing all around Mallory
The piston resides in my fathers garage as a constant reminder.