I had heater hose blow (steam everywhere) a couple of years ago. So, I rode the bus down to the the auto parts store to get the replacements.
After getting the old, stuck, 10 year old hoses off, I put the new ones on and got them all tightened up. Or so I thought.

But when I started her back up coolant came running down on my feet inside the cabin... Oh crap, I must have broke the heater core from pulling and tuggin on the old, cracked, hoses, or so I thought.

I didn't want to leave it in a parking lot that night so I towed it to a friends house. I ended up just looping the system and bypassing the heater core because I thought it was broken.

I just recently got around to pulling the dash and planned to fix the heater core. I spent 4 hours pulling the dash just to find out that the heater core was fine the whole time(3 years or so with no heater or defrost), it was just a loose hose clamp and the heater pipe coming from the core was just a little bent/dented.... duh.

 

i hate removing the dash. is there a quick fix to this horrible encounter? such as. the magical 5 bolts i hear so much about. so is it really just 5 bolts to remove the dash?!?!

 

mine took me 4-6 hours to remove.

 

I was putting on the ACV when I dropped the nut down into my turbo and it of course wasn't a magnetic metal

an hour later I had the turbo out and got the ****** out of my compressor.

Oh, and then there was the time I was replacing my diff mount and found that I had snapped the metal off of the subframe. 2 days and a welder later I was back in action

 

Did you just reply to yourself?
9 bolts + 2 screws total. 2 bolts on each side by the door hinges, 3 bolts on top under the dash vent piece that has one screw in the center, then just pops off, 2 at each side of the transmission tunnel under the kick panels, 2 more that hold up the steering wheel assy. and a 2 screws under the center console... thats it.

 

^ Yeah, most of the time is spent removing a few things that need to come out before (radio, Logicon, etc.) and trying to break as few clips as possible.

 

yet, inevitably, clips get broken, and slowly a sinking feeling comes. then you think to yourself, "how much is this going to cost me?!"

peace

 

yup. apparently the edit and reply button look to much alike

oh. and to add to this thread

number of banjo bolts broken:2
days down to order parts from mazda. at least 6
rofl

 

replaced connector for the water temp sensor and blew my alternator, fried my battery and stranded myself on the freeway.

I pinched my positive wire to the alt.....which grounded to the hot hot engine.
oh, if anyone wondered.... a steel washer can melt.

 

After installing a 944 IC in my TII, I went to fire it up. Fired right up but the throttle was sticking. It felt very hard to push down, and was idleing high. I figured that I had a vacuum leak, but that didn't explain the fact that the throttle was difficult to push down. I shut it down and checked to see that nothing was interfering with the linkage. After numerous attempts to figure it out, I decided to just stare at it for a while thinking WTF! Then I remembered that I read a post where a guy had some papertowels or a rag stuffed in his IC to keep out debris and forgot to take it out before he fired it up and he couldn't figure out why he couldn't build boost (ic inlet was clogged with rag). So I laughed really hard, pulled off IC pipe to TB and there was a red rag wedged firmly into the throttle plates. Who says forums arn't helpful!

 

my guess is vacuum leaks are the most common issues that cause big problems but are usually cheap and easy fix. mine have been so far. I also had a coolant leak that was just a matter of hose clamps and tightening a fitting I had installed.

 

pretty much. everything just breaks on ya.

had to take my dash out, and put it back in. put it back in by myself and it wasnt too bad as taking it out.

 

i broke both of the bleeder screws off of my front calipers while changing the master cylinder today.

 

i was changing front and rear main seal and cam shaft seal and timing belt on my old civic ( i know i know its gone now) changed distributer and wires and the clutch as well. couldnt get the ******* thing to start figured i messed up the timeing belt, so i changed a few noches over.....it was worse. so i changed the timeing belt back the other way a few noches..... and was worse. put it back to normal, by this time it was 4 am at the shop i was working at. finally got the car to start and limped it home , couldnt get past 40 km down hill !!!! fried my starter trying to start it. just to find out i crossed 2 wires on the spark plugs 3 day slater

 

listening to that cute little guy where to jack my car up and break my radiator

 

I took a bunch of odds and ends to the salvage yard, and pitched my waterpump housing by mistake.........

 

changing a steering wheel.... pissed off my power steering computer permanently; I eventually just disconnected the power steering computer buzzer

 

Bought an ACT street clutch. Put it on and car wouldn't go into gear while running. Adjusted the pedal...stilll wont go into gear. Removed tranny, checked pilot bearing....replaced pilot bearing and installed tranny. STILL NO LUCK. Dropped tranny...replaced fork, master cyl(hate bleeding that little *****)and flywheel.

Still no luck, so I say f*ck it and put in an old exedy unit....works fine. Send the ACT kit back to the manufactuer and come to find out that the clutch disc AND pressure plate were faulty. I got a thousand apologies from the company and a 400 credit.

So 4 tranny removals later and a lot of profanity i just kept the Exedy kit in and got cash instead of credit after some polite arguments.

 

3 hour hub swap has turned into nearly a 7 month job....

first... the front brake discs were stuck to the hub, had to have them broken off...
second... the calipers were seized up, had to buy new ones...
third... one of the ddts bolts were seized up... had to torch out the bushing... so now i need new bushings...

ugh... almost done though...

 

Removing my AC, I got the 2 12mm bolts off underneath the AC compressor, and 1 on top off in bout 2 mins, quite easy actually. But the last one i've spent hours trying to get off, its the worst bolt i've seen. I've tried everything, the vice clamp just shreds it even more, and the spanner wont grip enough to have an effect. I sprayed it with RP7 and left it overnight and tried again with no luck. I'm thinking of filing it down and trying an 11mm piece.

 

Hi all, normally I just scan this forum with no involvement, but I had to get in on this one.

First one that really pissed me off, I had an incredibly strong running TII, that fried a wiring harness. Pulled the harness, rebuilt the bad section, and reinstalled it. In the process of reinstalling the I/C I managed to miss a vacume hose on the underside of it. Got it all back together, went to start the car, but no luck. The car would try to start, but wouldn't stay running. Tested everything, went through everything, wore myself out dealing with the car for 2 months. Finally I got fed up with dealing with it, and sold it to one of the mechanics at the Mazda dealership I worked at for $900. He towed it to the dealership, tried to start it, popped the hood, reached around the back of the I/C, plugged in the vacume hose, and started the car, took it for a test drive, said it was one of the strongest running 7's he had ever driven.
He wouldn't give it back to me.

The second one that comes to mind just really made me feel stupid, didn't mess anything up, just a stupid oversight.

In addition to the various 7's I've had over the years, I also have a Mazda B3000 p/u that I drive from time to time. I was working at the same Mazda dealer I worked at in the previous story, and came in on my day off to put a clutch in my truck. I worked in sales, so most of the techs were pretty skeptical about me working on my truck, but they let me borrow a bay, and some tools. Due to the truck being 4wd, the extra shift linkages, drive shafts, ect. it took me a bit longer to do the job than it normally would. (I can do a clutch in a 7 lying on my back in a driveway in about 1.5 hours) Anyways, by the time I finished all the techs had left for the day. I let the truck down, fired it up, shifted into reverse, let the clutch out, and nothing. no noise, no, feeling of engagement, nothing. Checked everything I could think of, everything was in place. The store was about to close, so I borrowed one of the used cars for the evening. Came back in the next morning, talked to all the techs in the shop, none of them could think of anything that would cause it to act that way, I talked to the parts guy to verify he gave me the correct clutch kit. he had. Frusterated, I talked one of the techs i was pretty cool with into checking out the truck for me. He hopped in it, started it up, tried to engage it in a couple of different gears and got the same result I got. Scratched his head, looked down, grabbed the transfer case shifter, and shifted from neutral to 2hi.

Everything was perfect, I just managed to leave the transfer case in neutral when I was re-installing the linkages.

I couldn't walk through the shop for 3 months without having all the techs laugh at me.

 

+ motherfuckin one! I did the same thing...wasn't too bad to change though.


I've taken the engine/trans out of this car a handful of times, and it hasn't even run yet...and for some reason, I get the engine bolted in and the transmission mount NEVER lines up right. One of the bolts was badly stripped and I replaced it but the chassis side was stripped, too, so I just got the next size bigger and ran it in. One of the bolts got ridiculously snug and it's not in all the way. Not happy. I foresee mount breakage in the middle of doing something stupid.

 

Not my FC, but:

Torrington bearing fell down:






When tightening the oil pressure sender, the owner of this car over tightened and broke the boss on the rear iron. Several welding attempts later:



The oil starvation killed the bearings and e-shaft:



The result of trying to build an engine when we were both way too tired and frustrated:





All these are very minor problems, basically resulting in engine destruction.

 

Removing the intercooler to redo some grounds and shattered both couplers (the stright and the 90*) that comes from the turbo to the IC. Those couplers are hard to find.

 

one day i was warming up the car, and wanted to actuate the 6 port so i keep everything moving, all my belts broke.

one day i was in a rush so i just moved my car and parked it, next thing u know the car dont start, flooded... shortly after that my starter burnt out while in the same day i got a street cleaning parking violation. Hmm... lol

many many... dumb things.