My dumba** mistake!

[BUTCH1]

So late Thursday my car dropped a cylinder, set a code which I read through torque, #5 misfire. Rode my electric bike to work Friday, (it's only 2.5 miles) and started working on the car this afternoon. Attached a good plug to a tested good wire and put it on the #5 position on the coil-pack, zero spark. I had just bought this coil off Amazon trying to cure a slight miss at high RPM, it didn't solve it but I kept the original as a spare so I swapped them out and started her up, still missing. Now my brains going nuts over this, how can it be?, I had checked #5 spark plug for a short with a DMM, tested fine and I know the ignition module is working because the other 5 are hitting...Hmm, let's go back to basics, am I SURE the wires are on correctly??....NOPE, I had hurriedly marked the wires with a sharpie and most of it rubbed off so I had them incorrectly put back on the coil!. Damm, give me the dumba** of the day award LOL.

 

[Squisher]

If that's your worst mistake when working on cars you're way ahead of me. I once spent a half hour and had to get out a shop manual to find the oil filter.

 

[Yuriman]

I do that sort of thing all the time. E.g. spend an afternoon taking the dash apart, repair a faulty button, put it all back together, cluster doesn't work because I forgot to plug the cables into the back.

 

[BUTCH1]

I do that sort of thing all the time. E.g. spend an afternoon taking the dash apart, repair a faulty button, put it all back together, cluster doesn't work because I forgot to plug the cables into the back.

Dashboard work is the WORST IMO, the wires are just barely long enough to get some fingers in there to disconnect everything, I've had to tangle with 2 of those to get to the dreaded heater core and both were full-day jobs.

 

[Rifter]

i put in my distributor on my 84 chev piuckup 180 degrees off once, shit happens lol.

 

[msi1337]

I once put on a timing belt incorrectly on my wife's (girlfriend at the time) car. We didn't need those valves to be straight anyways!

 

[jlee]

I once put on a timing belt incorrectly on my wife's (girlfriend at the time) car. We didn't need those valves to be straight anyways!

Oof.

I'm so paranoid about doing timing belts on interference motors - triple checking, turning over by hand slowly, checking again...

 

[nakedfrog]

Dashboard work is the WORST IMO, the wires are just barely long enough to get some fingers in there to disconnect everything, I've had to tangle with 2 of those to get to the dreaded heater core and both were full-day jobs.

Confirmed.

 

[BUTCH1]

I once put on a timing belt incorrectly on my wife's (girlfriend at the time) car. We didn't need those valves to be straight anyways!

Now that's true love right there!, did you pony up to have the head rebuilt?.

 

[Slacker]

Installed a trans without mounting the flex plate, no start, go figure, separated trans and managed to squeeze my hands in there to get it on.

Cracked a bell housing trying to "draw" a trans in.

Managed to ground the batt cable at the starter, no issue noted till I turned the key and starter wouldn't stop after car was running, such a noise.

This was all the same car, was 35 years ago, and it was a ford, so I don't feel bad about it at all.

 

[local]

Thought I had a blownhead gasket so I pulled the head. Once off I couldn't see any marks on the gasket but when I turned around and looked at the head on the ground I instantly saw the broken rocker arm spring. What should have been a 5 minute job to replace a spring became a 4 hour job to remove and reinstall a head.

This was on a LT1 in a 4th gen Camaro, not the easiest access for head work.

On that same car I also misdiagnosed a bad Optispark, LT1's horrible version of a distributor, for a bad timing chain and misdiagnosed being out of fuel for a bad Optispark.

I learned a lot about working on cars from that thing.

 

[BUTCH1]

Installed a trans without mounting the flex plate, no start, go figure, separated trans and managed to squeeze my hands in there to get it on.

Cracked a bell housing trying to "draw" a trans in.

Managed to ground the batt cable at the starter, no issue noted till I turned the key and starter wouldn't stop after car was running, such a noise.

This was all the same car, was 35 years ago, and it was a ford, so I don't feel bad about it at all.

Back in the early '80's I had a '77 Cutlass supreme, I went out at night to top off the coolant and oil and accidentally added coolant to the crankcase. Luckily I realized my mistake and never started the car, walked over to an auto parts store and did an oil change the next day. Bad idea to work on a vehicle at night if your high as a kite!.

 

[msi1337]

Now that's true love right there!, did you pony up to have the head rebuilt?.

Actually she got the car for a deal and we were planning on getting a new one anyways.

 

[Midwayman]

If that's your worst mistake when working on cars you're way ahead of me. I once spent a half hour and had to get out a shop manual to find the oil filter.

LoL it took me over an hour to find the dipstick on my current car the first time. Even with a diagram. Of course the handle was black and I'd read not all models even shipped with one.

 

[twinrider1]

Replacing a water pump on a '69 350 Olds. I matched up the bolt pattern with the old pump so I thought I was good. I spent over an hour trying to get the pulleys to line up before I figured out the snout was longer on the new pump.