Pagoda SL Group
Off Topic => Way Off Topic => Topic started by: 69280sl on March 02, 2012, 02:41:14
-
The RockAuto newsletter has a feature about repair blunders. I submitted one of mine. While RockAuto does not identify the blunderer, I confess it to my Pagoda peers.
This links to the current newsletter, not the one I referenced 3/24/2012
-
Timeless ... :D
-
Gus,
This immigrant from Guatemala lived across the street from me and my pals when we were in college. He lived with an uncle, and life at home was rough, so we took him in to live with us. His name was "Toto". Toto provided a lot of comic relief as he learned English in our home filled with 5 college students; what was even funnier was his writing, as he wrote everything perfectly phonetically, which meant we read his many notes with an accent! Anyway, I sold Toto my 1970 Datsun 510, and he was doing some kind of valve work on it; maybe it was changing the timing chain. He had a diaper rag around something on the chain, was distracted, and then went to turn over the engine--forgetting about the rag. The chain pulled it right into the sump.
Needless to say, that faux pas begat a more extensive repair...
-
Hi Gus - takes guts to own up to such a mishap :D
So who's next? Any incidents in your past that served as a gentle reminder that us shade tree mechanics should stay away from our Pagodas?
While you ponder that question, let me think about my own dark past ...
-
Not Mechanical but always makes me chuckle,
When I purchased my car I drove it around for a year or so using all 4 speeds until I got the data card and saw the ZF 5 speed option code. My wife said the look of horror on my face was priceless and she asked if I had ever tried to put in 5th gear. Simple answer, No.
The car was garaged about 200km away so a really really quick trip to the car was done but unfortunately I could still not find that 5th gear. A PO had removed the gearbox. Could easily have been a very embarrassing story rather than a funny but sad one.
Garry
-
There is a similar thread with a funny story about brakes here : http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/vintage-mercedes/311968-split-caliper-uh-oh.html
Here is my story : when I was a student back in Europe we decided with some friends to drive to the French riviera in the middle of a very hot month of August. So we all jumped into that old Peugeot 304 and off we went. After a few miles the car started overheating so we stopped at a gas station and I thought that removing the thermostat would improve things. So I started unbolting that bracket that was in the way until a friend, sitted by the side of the road and looking at the car told me : That's funny. The more you turn that wrench the more the engine is dropping (he could see the bottom of it going down). In fact these engines are kept in place from the top and I was dropping the engine without knowing it !