Hey Guys,

Time to laugh at your moderator...

Last year my alt blew (not the funny part), and it took out a bunch of stuff.

My signal lights were affected, not a single one of them working!

So I bought a new Signal Light Relay. I didn't feel like putting it in (it's a royal forkin' pain in the ***!) so I took the relay and my new gauge cluster to my trusted mechanic. (Yes, even I go to a mechanic sometimes... usually when I'm too lazy to do a pain-in-the-*** job like a gauge cluster and signal light relay!)

Well he forgot the signal light relay. It was so small that it slipped under something on the passenger seat and he didn't notice it. When I remarked that the signal lights were still not working he said "Didja check the bulbs?"

Bulbs? ... Well, no but... I mean would all 4 blow simultaneously? Does this happen?

Yes folks, apparently it does. My signal light relay was fine. My blowing alternator left the relay intact, but took out all four signal light bulbs. The brake bulbs, headlights, dome light etc... were all fine, but all 4 signal light bulbs were blown.

So here I am, looking like an idiot because someone got me with "didja check the bulbs?" when I was going to go through the hassle (or pay someone to go through the hassle) of changing the relay.


So... check your bulbs! (and your fuses, lol)

Jon

 

Jon, great lesson learned. i would probably have overlooked the bulbs as well, especially if all four went at the same time. well, next time i'll be sure to check them just to save the headache. thanks for the heads up!

 

A "friend of mine" learned a similar lesson ...

His wipers stopped working in the middle of a rain storm. Knowing that another friend of ours had a parts car, he went over to the parts car and pulled the wiper assembly and installed it in his car - in the torrential downpour. That's when he figured out that it still didn't work.... because it was just the fuse that had blown!

Jon

 

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I went out to my car after a long and unpleasant day at work right around dark? When I hit the switch on the dash the headlights went up but the lights were out, another headache for a bad day.

So I spent the next 20 minutes of precious daylight trying to figure out why my headlights were out - fusible link..., not many ideas on a fried brain. So finally I give up and try to make it home, a 1 hour drive with 20 minutes of daylight - not too bright on my part.

Anyway I'm out on 85 for 10 or 15 minutes dodging rush hour traffic without lights and hoping I don't get hit when, bing, the lightbulb comes on.

Headlights turn on with that column mounted stick on the left side, the toggle on the dash just puts the lights up.

Not many excuses since I'd been driving the car for 6 months by then, but I haven't made that mistake since.

Hey, the good news is I got home.

 

In an overvoltage condtion, the lowest-wattage bulbs will blow first - - their filaments are thinner, and they can't dissipate the additional heat created as easily as the thicker filiments on the high-wattage bulbs can.

Be glad it didn't take out the pile of little bulbs behind the cluster, the radio, the ashtray, etc... pain-in-the-*** job for anyone that doesn't have little girly-size hands.

I've seen that, combined with a manual choke, bring parking valets to near conniptions.

 

Sounds like me. Car wouldnt fire and spent an hour trying to fire it. All it needed was spark plugs lol

 

I flooded my engine trying to fire it mid winter to make sure some oil was still where it needed to be. I pulled the plugs and torched them clean after cranking the engine without them to get the excess fuel out. Put the plugs back and went to fire the car. It wouldn't fire no matter how hard I cranked on it. So I get out to make sure I hooked the wires back up properly. I didn't. In fact, I didn't hook them back up at all!!!

 

Then there's the time I forgot to put the dizzy cap back on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwKlbX0DSRk

 

Then there's this guy, who forgot to tighten down the fuel line on his home made airplane:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...ency.land.affl

 

One time my dash lights were out. Checked the fuse, it was fine. My car has always had electrical problems: the wiring harness had been halfway chewed through by some small critter, so I figured I'd have to go through it with a multimeter to track down the problem. In the meantime I was driving around not being able to see my instrumentation at night.

I eventually remembered about the dimmer ****.

 

Jon- I admire your humility in sharing that with all of us.

To everyone else, you all need to smoke less dope!

How about; forgetting to torque down the lug nuts after taking the car off the jack, spend an hour deflooding an engine before realizing its out of gas, drive off with your coffe cup on the roof of the car, forgetting to put the oil drain plug back in and then watching all your new oil pool across the floor, pulling into the parking lot and asking Orion where he parked only to be reminded that he parked back at your own damn cabin...... I could go on.

 

I think I need to smoke more to accomplish things without fuckups.

a little over a year ago I shattered my CV axle I'm my old car. not broke shattered. once I pulled the hub it just fell on the ground in pieces. I never had to deal with the CV axles so first The inside boot cv joint just fell so I had about a 4" part of it sticking out the diff. Pryed it out and spilt gear oil all over the place. Had to lay in it while i finished putting the car back together.

 

i do stuff like this a lot, the best one is this;

i have a 58 Tr3, and i didnt want to deal with the points, so i got one of those conversion kits. put it in

crank car, no start.

took about half an hour of timing lights and head scratching when i realized i was holding the distributor rotor in my hand the whole time...

put that back in, and it fired right up

 

Been there done that on the dizzy rotor. Worth more than a college education, in my opinion.

 

Might as well add another one. The first time I ever changed the oil I unscrewed the drain plug, and then wondered why the oil was so thick . . . yep . . . inavertantly unscrewed the plug for the tranny!

 

That was great. I didn't know whether I should have piped up or not. I figured you were going to make me walk to your cabin to get the car.

 

dad did something like that once. drain oil, put new filter on, start putting new oil in.

realize that the drain plug isnt in the oil pan!

put it in

buy more oil

fill engine again

 

BTW i used to work at a dealership, and go racing, i could go on forever

 

I put a different starter in the Cosmo, trying to track down a no crank issue. Turned out to be a low battery.

Then I charged it and tried to crank the new starter. It didn't even click. I was just about ready to swap back to the old starter when I realized the solenoid wire was off with a test light still plugged in.

 

Your mod status should be revoked!!

 

heres my stupidest one ive done.... before my dad passed, he was already sick, so i worked on my cars by myself now... although he would give me guidance. I had an s-10 and my brakes needed bled. I bled the brakes repeatedly for like 2 days, used about 3 or 4 quarts of brake fluid.... my dad came outside, and showed me the bleeders, i was bleeding them where the line went into the caliper... :-( he thought i was retarded or stoned, one of the two...

 

I have to add to this.

Last year was doing some wielding on my car, when i finished i could not get the car to start.
I went though every possable option trying to figure out what went wrong, checking the fuel filters, everything. Was ready to replace the fuel pump. Good thing i decided to ask the experts here :P as I then learned that the 10a fuse on the side of the fuse box, is there for a VERY good reason

A week ago while restoring my 84, after doing an engine swap, on a 4rth start, my oil warning light comes up. Now i know i checked my oil before starting, and i know the engine not supposed to have oil leaks as i checked for them the first 3 starts. But i decided to be safe. Good thing i did, my oil level was EMPTY. I then found traces of oil driping from my car right into the drain that was conviniantly placed right under the engine All my fresh new oil was down the drain and without so much as a trace. Opps.
10 minutes of looking into this, i figured that one of o-rings propably burst after taking the oil cooler off. Only when i started to take the cooler off to replace the o-rings did i learn that i forgot to tighten 1 of the 3 bolts holding it in place luckely for me, i already unscrewed the other 2 lol.

 

Last year i put a new fuel pump in and a few days later i was driving on the highway and my fuel pump cut out and the car died. i have thought that i had a bad connection on one of the wires. After jacking the car up on the side of the road and about ten minutes of looking at the wires i had the bright idea of checking the fuses. It was just a blown fuse. Learned a good lesson that day.

 

we built an FC this one time with a front mount, and a teeny little battery on a custom tray.

i took it to work one time, and then on the way to the gym, stopped at home.

get back into the car and its DEAD.

i open the hood and check the main fuse which was good, so i look down, and the battery was GONE

battery tray got redesigned

 

It didn't even say goodbye on the way out??