Ridiculously expensive "blonde" moment thread

My most expensive Blonde moment was when I tried to diagnose a noise coming from the engine. Thought it might be related to the blower fan for the HVAC. So I started the car and pulled the leads to the fan. Noise persisted. Turned the car off, plugged the fan back in. Several days later, it gets cold again, hit the fan and boom, whole car dies.

Long and short, plugged power to ground when reattaching the leads, and $600 and new fuseable links and relays/labor later my $1500 cavalier finally ran again...

Whats youre most expensive "Blonde" moment?

Go

(please note, no Blondes were harmed durring the formation of this thread)

For about five years, my Chevy truck had an occasional "click" when I turned the key. Kind of like when the commutator plate gets dirty. Turn the key again, until it starts--it always does (until that one time).

So I go buy a new starter (can't rebuild the solenoids any more), and when removing my "bad" starter, the small bolt breaks, ensuring the starter is now junk.

When I disconnected the hot lead on the solenoid, I noticed it didn't spark. I then realized I didn't disconnect the battery. So I disconnected the negative terminal, and finished replacing the starter.

Now the new starter was doing the same as the old. Then I thought about the lead not arcing, and realized I had a bad positive battery connection.

I had push-started my truck a few times (once, immediately before said repair, in a mall parking lot when I forgot and parked in a poor spot). I spent $160 on a new starter, when five minutes with a wire brush would've fixed the problem.

My wife aways says "Who asked whom to marry who?"

Big one. I'm not even blonde....

Putting the power top down for the first time in the spring, on my '67 Dart.

Because the top hadn't been down for six months, I wasn't surprised that it stalled and didn't quite go all the way down - stopping maybe 6" short. So I backed it up a foot and gave it good running start for a second attempt.

That sound you just heard was the shovel that I forgot about in the trunk smashing through my glass rear window.

A timing belt job went horribly horribly wrong after the second jump on the 2 foot cheater bar on a foot long breaker trying to get the crankshaft bolt off on my miata. Sheared at the first thread. Almost spelled the end of "Mia" and ended up requiring an emergency crankshaft replacement.

Doh!!

My worst one was when I was around 15; I had a Honda SL 100 that I busted first gear in. This meant splitting the cases. So I pulled the motor out, tore it all the way down, bought the necessary gears, gaskets, a new piston and rings and had the cylinder bored, yada yada. So I'm putting it back together and there are O rings in the gasket kit that I can't figger out exactly where they go, so I just stuck one over each of the studs between the cylinder and the head.

I cranked it up, it ran GREAT for about twenty seconds then it screeched and quit. Postmortem indicated that my dumbass mechanic had installed those O rings in such a way that it blocked the oil passage to the cam bearings, resulting in the need for a new cam and a new head. Ouch ouch OUCH...

Then there was the day I was hanging out with some buds and we were shooting a pellet gun, one of those things you can pump up like crazy and it shoots a little cylindical pellet with a point on the end. So it's my turn, I pump it up, aim at a small tree and a bud says 'Isn't your car parked over there?' and like a complete idiot I shot it anyway. I heard the SNAP and ping almost immediately. I had just shot the passenger door of my freshly painted '65 Falcon.

I once replaced an entire tranny, turned out all i needed was a wheel bearing...oops..

Non car related, I built my first computer after growing up on Apples. Screwed everything in, powered it on and nothing came up.

Ahhh, you have to put spaces under the motherboard so that the board is not directly attached to the steel case.

Fried the board and a memory chip, but not the processor or anything else. That was 300 bucks there (built in 94 when that crap was expensive.

Not as expensive as funny, but...

Back in the '80's, I woke up (prolly hungover) and hopped in the G10 van to go somewhere. It was parked on a slight incline, so I was slowly letting the clutch out (3 on the tree). The van kept rolling back as I let the clutch out. I remember rowing the gearshift and again engaging the clutch, but it still rolled backwards.

So I decided to dump the clutch. The van lurched. I had it in reverse, and I slammed into a tree (luckily close behind), and then a large branch fell off the tree and crashed into the roof of the van.

I'd driven that van hundreds of times, but for some reason, the previous night killed the brain cells that told me which gear was where.

I ignored what sounded like a bad diff (Again!) on my First gen RX7 because I was trying to find time to get to the junkyard to get a "new" one. Turns out the Special Edition wheels need special edition lug nuts. Lost one at 65mph on the Interstate. I never did find that wheel.

The 14" mesh wheels? No, they don't.

P71 wrote: The 14" mesh wheels? No, they don't.

Source of your info? Had a wheel come off twice and was given that info at the time. Its been awhile but I vaguely remember comparing lug nuts and them having a different cone angle?

derekshannon wrote: I once used a paper clip to test a circuit. I was pinching it between my thumb and index finger at the time. Well, the circuit was good and when the paper clip glowed red, it burned itself into my fingers. Smelled pretty bad too. PS I'm blond and I was hurt during the making of that moment.

Did the same thing trying to reset the oil change IIRC on my old 328i at the 20-pin connector under the hood. Poor light meant I couldn't read the pin numbers, and I mis-counted and wound up going from a high-amperage 12v hot to ground with a paperclip. Had the line burned into my finger and thumb for a week but didn't hurt the car at all.

Thankfully no really expensive blond moments I can remember - then again I've probably blocked them out of my memory...

Not me but it is a true story. A Miata guy went to set the timing. Procedure is to jump GND to TEN in the diagnostic box with a paperclip to put the ECU into timing mode, then check the timing. The engine's supposed to be warm. So he jumped the pins in the box and went inside for a moment while the car idled.

Mazda put a 12V pin straight from the battery right beside TEN. Guess which one he plugged into? The car burnt to the ground. Bad, bad day.

As for me. I was working on my Locost on a weekend. I had been working on the dyno, which is a little more modular than most. There are two big cooling fans that sit in front of the car and contain radiators for the hydraulic fluid - pretty neat setup, but outside the scope of this discussion :) I had the car back on the wheels and reached over to fire it up for some reason. Flipped the ignition switch, hit the starter button and the car caught on the very first plug firing - in gear. My ignition switch is actually a toggle with a red cover (right out of a military jet, actually) so I was able to shut it off before the engine had turned over more than twice.

Drove the car into the two cooling fans, which were then pushed into the back of one of the shop's Miatas. The one with the custom Lotus paint. My electric pusher radiator fan (the nose was off, luckily) got pushed back into my rad, poking a pinhole in it. I had to sit down for a while.

End result: I fixed the radiator by pulling it, filling it with Bars Leak and pressurizing it with a radiator pressure tester. Once it sealed, I flushed it and plumbed it all back in. The dyno was undamaged if a little dented, and we had enough paint left to reshoot the rear bumper of the pretty Miata. It could have been worse, I could have set my car on fire.

Back in my car stereo install days I had a nice 79 Cutlass that I installed 4 amps and 24 speakers in. One of my trademarks was nice contoured box work that looked very high end but was rather cheap to build. I was having a bad day when I went to modify the amp placement and the power cables weren't quite long enough... most SMART people leave a little slack in the lines inside... well the rocket scientist that is wearing my shirt tugged a bit too much...

When I looked out at lunch my car was burning to the ground.

Keith wrote: Not me but it is a true story. A Miata guy went to set the timing. Procedure is to jump GND to TEN in the diagnostic box with a paperclip to put the ECU into timing mode, then check the timing. The engine's supposed to be warm. So he jumped the pins in the box and went inside for a moment while the car idled. Mazda put a 12V pin straight from the battery right beside TEN. Guess which one he plugged into? The car burnt to the ground. Bad, bad day.

That's right, it was the Miata that burned me, not the BMW. At least only my fingers got singed and the car didn't burn...

2000 BMW Z3: I heard a funny noise coming from the engine compartment. A friend of mine and I diagnosed it as a bad bearing somewhere in there. I continued to drive it. Well, after the water pump bearing disintegrated, the cooling fan hit the radiator, broke the fan shroud and then exploderated. I had to get the car towed and the fix it myself. That sucked. That cost neigh $500.00 in parts, a $70.00 tow, and a month of driving the Miata (which broke while the Z3 was out of commish - see next story).

1994 Miata: The car would fail to start from time to time. A minute or two of rest would solve the problem. It only occurred a few times in a coulple months, so I didn't worry. Finally, I started having real trouble getting it to start. I figured out that the fuel pump wasn't turning on. So I bought another. $140.00 and 2 hours later, the problem came back. It was a broken wire running from the fuel pump solenoid to the pump. It should have been a $0.02 cent repair.

My dad had a great big John Deere tractor. Last fall, he decided he wanted to shoot his .22 in the back yard. He knew the tractor was off to the side of where he was shooting up in the corner of the yard, but he was REAL careful not to aim at it. Yeah. I took the rear tire that he punctured to the dealer to get a tube installed. He picked up the dashboard glass a couple of days later and she was as good as new.

Tore apart a Mk2 GTI air flow meter box to try and mount a CAI. $400 for a rebuilt VW box. Not expensive in comparision to a burning car, but I didn't have it at the time, so I drove around with the current one getting about 10 MPG and watering the eyes of anyone behind me with the rich exhaust.

Same GTI, forced a set of steelies with snow tires using the lug bolts becuase the center caps were too small. Stripped all 4 holes on all four wheels, didn't notice until I put the summer wheels back on. They all wobbled and wouldn't tighten. 2 new rotors and 2 new drums.

Same GTI again, spent a frozen weekend under it on the street replacing the starter. The head gasket had gone and filled the cylinders with antifreeze and when the starter would not turn (becuase it was compressing antifreeze) I brillantly decided that was the problem. A $150 and two frozen finger days later finally get it to start and see the smoke from the tail pipe as it tries to burn said antifreeze.

Just recently mounted driving lights on my van. Very nice craigslist set up with 4 Hellas, and a relay. I am too lazy to find an ignition source, so I plug both leads directly to the battery, which opens the relay and drains my dual battery setup. No money, but I should know better.

When I was at the Buick dealer, we had a Skylark with a Quad 4 which after a top end rebuild had a knock noise in the top of the engine, but only while the steering wheel was being turned. Weird. Much head scratching and swapping of parts was done; it turned out that on the DOHC Q4's the, IIRC, exhaust cam had a pulley on the back side to drive the P/S pump. When the tech was putting it back together he couldn't find the cam gear bolt so he grabbed a bolt and washer from the 'bolt bin' and buttoned it up. The 'bolt bin' item was about 1/8" longer than the OE bolt, it bottomed in the cam and left about .005" clearance between the washer and the gear. So when the steering was turned, the pump 'pulses' made the cam gear clack against the drive pin.

I was working under a car without safety goggles and sure enough, a flake of rust went straight into my eye. After spending all night in the emergency room getting it out - with a needle! - I never forgot garage safety tip #1 ever again.

Many years ago a buddy shattered the driver's side window of his new Buick with my 'toy' BB gun from my living room window, using the logic that it was only spring loaded, thus could not be powerful enough to hurt his car.

On the plus side, it only took one shot - so he was a pretty good aim!

I guess I'm sorta glad to know I'm not the only one who has shot his own car.

A buddy of mine called me on a Sunday morning, he was on his way to church in his MGB and it died a block from my house. I went to help (Im a heathen and dont go to church) Turn the key on, no clack clack from the fuel pump. jumper power from the battery and still no go. When trying it again I remembered what an instrutor at Mercedes always said "check the ground" well as soon as I jumpered the ground side of the pump clack clack goes the pump. Took longer to find the intermittant loose ground junction that he had loosend and not retightend when sprucing up the trunk.

The fuel level sender in an A2 Golf is very vehicle-angle dependent.

For example: On, for instance, my copy of this exquisite vehicle, when the needle drops to E, there is about 70 miles' worth of reserve left before it's empty enough to chug and stall out on long inclines, just like a faulty in-tank pump.

However, the mere installation of Neuspeed 2" lowering springs on the rear (and only the rear) alters the fuel level reading enough that E means empty, no reserve.

$70 tow, $150 pump, and it was just two gallons lower on fuel than I thought it was.

confuZion3 wrote: 2000 BMW Z3: I heard a funny noise coming from the engine compartment. A friend of mine and I diagnosed it as a bad bearing somewhere in there. I continued to drive it. Well, after the water pump bearing disintegrated, the cooling fan hit the radiator, broke the fan shroud and then exploderated.

A customer of a local dealership did something similar. The dealership techs didn't want to touch the car, so it got shipped off to us. Fortunately, we thrive on this sort of stuff.

The water pump disintegrated, yes. However it wasn't something inexpensive to repair like a BMW or something, it was an Audi with the AVK engine. That'd be the 3 liter V6 with FOUR camshaft pulleys, unlike any other VWAG V engine. It's a 30 valve. This is relevant, because the cambelt drives the water pump.

So, after the cam belt sawed through the timing covers for a while, the debris under the covers wedged the belt out enough to BREAK the belt, which promptly wrapped itself around the crank pulley. All of the exhaust valves and most of the intake valves were mangled. Exhaust valves retail for $71. Each. Intakes aren't much cheaper. The parts alone to put it back together are something like $2800 (there were some potential nightmares found under the intake that we're dealing with, too) and when all is said and done, well you could fund three Challenges with the bill.

Oopsie.