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

[Carbon749]

Wow .... so many and so little time


Helping a neighbor get his old car started that had stood for years. Prior to starting it, and at my suggestion, we took the plugs out and filled the cylinders with engine oil to let it soak down past the piston etc. Thought it would help lubricate the piston and bores. Left it an hour or so and then turned it over .... as the pistons came up to TDC they shot jets of oil out of the plug holes .... it shot oil up the side of the house and hit the gutters. The wall is still stained now



As a kid of 19, I fitted a re-con short block to my MKIV Cortina. Would it start after wards, would it F**K. Ended up towing it behind my mates car for about 2 mile trying to bump start it ... no joy. Back at the garage some smart ass suggested we connect the fuel line to the fuel pump started first touch.



20 years ago my mate had a Yam RD250 (aircooled) and kept it out side. He got fed up with the front discs going rusty in winter so he smeared them with a thin layer of grease then asked me a week later why I thought his front brakes were **** I was gob smacked he lasted a week of commuting on the bike with no front brakes.

[Edited on 4-3-2006 by Carbon749]

[yorkshire pud]

as a sprok. working in a scrap yard. boss wanted the springs off the front struts. off a escort. got the cutting gear. starts to cut the bolts off the top, bang spring flew off. next minute am about 5ft awy on my arse.owwww..even got a better one. i rode speedway for 12 years.well we put springs on the inside off the peaks on your helmet so you could put prepexe tear offs on. if the track was wet you would get muck on one tare. one off leaving a clean one behind. i took a mate to spanner for me first time. he came with me. and the last. showed him what to do. and to replace the tare offs, if i was busy, tapes up into first bend. am filled in cant see a thing. goes to pull the tare off. f******g idiot had taped it on i had to rip the peak off to see ware i was. missed the fence just.nearly brown leathers

[wilf]

Not sure i should own up to this one but this is why i'm not allowed to work on customers bikes!!

Rebuilding my race bike for the first race of the season I had the cases apart putting in the new crank after having it all balanced. Steve had shimmed the crank, gearbox etc and left the parts led out in the engine room, for me to safetyclean, airline, dry etc (a dull and time consuming job but one i'm qualified for!).

All parts spotless and led on the bench with shims in order, so i decided to put the bottom end together, which i did perfectly! sealed the cases and went home for the night.

Next morning Steve pointed out, between laffs, that he would split the cases for me so i could clean off the 3bond, then he could put the crank back in - THE RIGHT WAY ROUND!

I'll never live it down.

[mikesps]

A long time ago I bought a pile of bits that was mostly a 1959 Triumph 5TA. This engine has a distributor like a car behind the barrels. Somehow I managed to time the points on the wrong side of the cam, so instead of about 2 dgrees of advance it had maybe 50 degrees.

The loud backfires on the first couple of kicks should have warned me, but no.. on the third kick it kicked back with me at full swing on the kick start. I nearly went into orbit! Thank god for the old Alpinestars Roger De Coster "Mad MAx" motocross boots I was wearing, they probably saved me from a broken ankle. Aye, them were the days.....



My mate, the Triumph expert, laughed so hard he fell over.

[Edited on 5-3-2006 by mikesps]

[Mr C]

I replaced a shattred piston in a RM 125 kinda forgot to get new gasket kit, thinking the old ones would be ok. It started but ****ed allsorts out of the base and head gasket. Ever since then i dont even bother picking up a spanner

[Ains.]

Not me this time but a mate of mine from way back who shall remain nameless; OK Stan the man, decided he was going to make himself a mechanical cruise control. Very easy to do.
He drilled and tapped a small hole in the top of the throttle/twistgrip body and threaded a winged nut in it. Then when on the move he just opened the throttle to the required speed and nipped up the cable/twist grip inside the handlebar body with the winged nut.

So, on ride outs where we had to do a bit of M-way work he'd use this device. We'd all be two hands on and he'd be croooooozing along throttle hand on hip nodding his head like Mussolini.
Anyway, one particular time we'd decided to get back earlier so wound it on a bit and settled in at around 105.
Stan's there hand on hip, lording it up when we came across backed up traffic. We all shut the throttle and slowed down; Stan on the other hand hurtled on panicking like mad as he couldn't get he cruise control nut off.
When he did manage to stop having barrelled down the middle of these lines of cars, we caught up as he was throwing the winged cruise control nut into the far distance.

What had happened was, at 105 the recess where the throttle cable ball-end goes, neatly lined up with his cruise nut, so when he tightened the nut it bit into that recess and so could be undone with 1/2 a turn. It took more like 3 turns which with two hands on one side of the handlebars at 105mph is a pretty neat trick. Well we thought so.
It was bloody hilarious watching him though.

Ains.

[Edited on 5-3-2006 by Ains.]

[PDL]

This morning I struggled for 10 minutes trying to get the offside exhaust off after removing the spring, it just wouldn't budge.

Only when i decided to take the near side exhaust off instead did i realise I had taken the wrong spring off.