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  #1  
Old 04-28-2005, 01:05 PM
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Stoga Stoga is offline
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Gripe Share your "Jack-leg" mechanic stories here.

As previously reported on various threads here and in other parts of the forum, I've been slowly fixng things on my 68 Roadrunner and finding a lot of various screwups. Today, I was putting the front brake assemblies back together. After finding the switched brake shoes on the rear axle on one side, I decided it'd probably be a good idea to pull the drums and inspect the front brakes too, good thing I did!!
I found a bad outer wheel bearing, but that was just from simple neglect, what really irked me was someone had literally BEAT the dust caps to pieces! I was cleaning them and once I got the grud off of them, I noticed they had been hammered so hard they were cracked and had wear spots where they had been bent in so far they had wear marks from the spindle!!!
I'll replace them, but it's danged aggravating! :angry:
On top of that, the left shoes were in good adjustment, while the rights were extremely loose, no wonder the guy wrecked the car, eh?
I found myself in the garage, not for the 1st time, cussing the damn JACKLEGS who had worked on this thing before I ever touched it.
Don't know what a Jack-leg is? It's a term the old mechanics in my area used to give to a mechanic who was so incompetent, they shouldn't have been allowed to work on lawn mowers, door hinges, etc etc, let alone a car!!
My dad's old mechanic friend "Joe" was the Model T-A, brass era and flathead anything expert in our town. One time we were there and Joe was a cussing a storm and I asked him what was wrong, I was about 8 years old at the time and didn't know enough to leave grease monkeys alone when irritated!
He turned around and held up a lugbolt with badly stripped threads from the old Dodge he was working and said,"SOME DAMN JACKLEG CROSSTHREADED THE S.O.B., EFFING, @@##$%%$$%#$#$!!!!! THING!!!"
Dad hurried me up and out of the shop. Joe was normally the nicest old feller in the world, but I never forgot the look on his face, and since then have gotten to know how felt that day!!!!
Anyone else have some sad stories of automotive repair incompetence they'd like to share?
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  #2  
Old 04-29-2005, 12:45 PM
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Angry I got one

When I bought my Duster 340, it would occasionally backfire through the carb and die while at idle. Most embarrassing to have happen in front of your peers. I decided I had had enough of the trouble and began investigation. I decided to replace the old dual point distributor that was in the car, (even tho it was supposed to have electronic ignition) and replace it with a mopar performance distributor, when I went to drop in the new distributor, it wouldnt connect with the cam gear that drives the distributor. I was stumped, I tried a junkyard dist I had laying around the garage, no dice on it either, put the dual point back in, it works fine. Now not knowing what to make of it, I measure the total length of the distributor shafts and find the dual point is 1/8" or so longer than the others. What? I decide I will go with an MSD billet dist, it will surely fit, so I thought, when I get it, it wont connect to the gear either, sure enough, it is short too. I contact MSD only to be belittled by their tech who says they have used them on thousands of small blocks and the shafts are NOT too short. Being sufficiently embarrassed, then, and only then, do I notice that the cam gear has a lot of play in it, I decide to remove it and investigate, what do I find? The moron who assembled this motor had never installed the bushing for the intermediate shaft to the oil pump, letting the shaft ride down lower than it was supposed to in the pump, and also letting the gear to the cam run lower than intended. I cussed a blue streak and wondered what other oddities I was bound to face with this motor. I installed a intermediate shaft bushing and a new intermediate shaft and voila, the distributors fit beautifully. I'm glad I found it before the gears running lower had eaten themselves up on the cam and intermediate shaft. That would have been disastrous.
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  #3  
Old 05-02-2005, 09:20 PM
73Cudaswap 73Cudaswap is offline
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79 Z28 story from several years back. I picked it up from a buddy of mine for dirt cheap. No rust, low miles but wouldn't run, the only thing I knew about it was that someone had done a valve adjustment god knows why. I hauled the car to the shop, and did a quick valve adjustment on it and I'll be damned if it didn't fire right up, but the noises it made while running had dogs in 3 counties howling. After taking the motor apart, we revealed a total mess. The cam, was completely round, not a lobe left on it. (That particular cam is now spending the rest of it's life as a fairly nice table lamp.) We were able to save the block after taking it .60 over and put a nice kit in it, plus worked over the trans a bit too. I drove the car 2 weeks later to the buddy I bought it off of and he about crapped his pants. I told him next time he needed someone to turn wrenches to give me a call.
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Old 05-02-2005, 11:40 PM
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Biggrin

Helped a friend tow home an old '62 SS Implal with a 327. Clained it had a rod kocking and wanted to pull it to build to put in a '64 he had. The old man that owned it told him the rod was knocking and it would hardly run. We started tearing it out of the car. Thomas on top and me under the ole car. After a few min.s I yelled to him and asked how much he had pulled off the car, and told him to put it all back on. I refused to tell him why, I just wanted to try something. Got it all bolted up again, put in a fresh batt. and it fired without any problems. All the torque converter bolts had backed off and it sounded just like a rod knocking. Nice to buy a 327 SS car for a $100 with a rod knockin to find out it was just converter bolts loose.
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  #5  
Old 05-03-2005, 02:07 AM
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someone left a 2 pound ball peen hammer in the wing of my dads stinson (hadnt been apart since the 70's)
well, a look at the logbooks? and it was a good friend of ours that left it!
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  #6  
Old 05-03-2005, 06:14 AM
69.5bee 69.5bee is offline
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Bought a rubber bumper 70' 440 cuda for 50$ after the guy "tuned it up" and couldn't get it started again. Drug it home, wired the cap in the _correct_ rotation and varoom varoom. I'm an idiot, traded it for an 8-n-3 chunk. This was about 82'. Who knew.
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  #7  
Old 05-11-2005, 07:14 PM
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Default here's a two-fer

i set out to totally re-do the front end on my '73 dart custom 318. i am pretty profecient with everything involving old cars (especially mopar) but this was my first front end.
the kit that i ordered was far from perfect, lacking some stuff i needed (inner tie rods) and had a bunch of stuff i didn't need, on top of being three days late getting here.
everything was going good until i got to the tie rod ends. the outer tie rod just wouldn't go into the hole! i looked at it for a while, thought it out and took a drill bit to the damn thing. after a little more consideration and making it fit right, i noticed that the tie rod had to go in from the bottom, not the top. new lower ball joint assembly for me. these are the lessons that you don't soon foget. like the first time you over-torque valve cover gaskets.
on the same job i put the cams in backwards on the upper control arms and had the guy at the alignment shop look at me like a total dumb*ass.

not the worst that could have happened for the first one i guess.

dan
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  #8  
Old 05-12-2005, 01:52 AM
bjoehandley bjoehandley is offline
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Paid a hack exhaust shop to put a 3" exhaust system on my Lebaron turbo, they bent it so that when teh rear axle went up, it hit the pipe and shoverd that into the floor, torched the rear panel (behinf the bumper and bumper cover atleast) to clear the muffler, and tucked the muffler up to the floor of the trunk I took it back the next day and had them remove it from the gas tank back and had them fix it the following monday. Ran it with just the Turbo and cat for the rest of the weekend When the shop manager (a person of middle eastern decent, who drive a riced out base model Honda Accord, yea I should have known better) took it for a test drive and the car scared the ---- out of him, he turned ghost white when he told me he took it for a test drive, followed by him saying, "That car's got a lot of pick up, doesn't it?" I had to bite my tongue till I walked out of the office. Dad and I laughed our @$$' off when i relayed the manager's question to him.

This car also had a molded PCV valve hose replace with heater hose that had been X cut with a box cutter and had the valve droped into the X cut.

Both turbo cars and my ZJ had Midas restrictors...er....exhausts installed on them too, by the dealership.
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  #9  
Old 05-12-2005, 09:09 PM
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I had a POS 89 ford bronco xlt with a 300 inline 6. Well I moved to an apartment Minnesota and wasn't allowed to work on it. It needed an oil pan gasket due to a leak. I take it to a reputable shop and the jackass didn't disconnect the exhaust from the manifold when he jacked up the engine. Well needless to say I had a nasty exhaust leak bad enough to kick the computer into limp mode,And the oil pan still leaked. $400 gone! Now I'm off to automaxx, another jack leg shop to fix my exhaust. That bent pipe is a one piece unit with the cat and a dealer item only$800 later and they routed the egr pipe against the frame and wore a hole through it in less than a week. Thank God they warrantied it. Now a week after that the damn thing craps the timing gears. Paid another bozo $500 to replace them. he never dropped the oil pan to get the rest of the broken gears out. The wife drives it home and tells me that a funny red light came on while she was driving. Yea, that was the lack of oil pressure light because of the chunks of gear stuck to the pick up screen. Cost me another $200 to get this dips#!t to fix what he should have done in the first place. This Bronco had 78,000 on the clock and all this crap went on. The day I sold it I never cried so hard. My wife though I was sad. If she only knew that they were tears of joy because I knew I would never see that metallic abortion ever again.
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  #10  
Old 06-18-2005, 01:55 AM
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Got another story to tell, my POS 94 Ford always used a lil power steering fluid. I had to keep it topped off all the time. I don't drive it much so I never bothered with it. I had a brake failure with it last week so I took it to a local shop where I know the fellas pretty well and just said fix it. I also tossed them 2 new power steering hoses and said put these on while you're at it.
I get back to check on the truck and they are cussin and fussin with the power steering hoses. I ask, "didnt the ones I get you fit?" They said that wasn't the problem, the ones still on there was! Turns out someone had band-aided the hoses, patched and spliced and wire tied them together, you should have seen the mess of crap they pulled out from under the hood of that Ford!!!
Made me almost feel guilty I let someone else fiddle with that mess......almost!
You should have seen those PS hoses, I swear, I've seen umbilical cords that were less twisty!! Yeah, those kind...
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  #11  
Old 06-18-2005, 11:12 AM
73Cudaswap 73Cudaswap is offline
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Got another one, and this one was completely my fault. I didn't get hurt too bad aside from a few scratches, but talk about a bonehead thing to do.

Several years back, that same Z I talked about earlier was having tranny issues. Well anyway, a buddy of mine and I bartered out the work. He built the trans and I hung a set of headers and a complete exhaust on his 944 Porsche. So I was under the car, not using jackstands like a jackass. Everyone else had headed off to the junkyard to go shopping and there I was under the under the car working away, well then it happened, I kicked the jack and the car fell. I was ok except for being pinned under the car, then it started to rain, Yippeeeeee. It was about 2 hours or so before anyone got back. I had fallen asleep and was takin a nap since I had some free time on my hands only to wake up to my buddy screaming and tugging at my leg since they thought I was dead.



Note to self, put the dang thing on a lift next time.
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  #12  
Old 07-13-2005, 11:19 PM
riquiscott riquiscott is offline
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Well, this is a motorcycle story instead of a car story, and luckily I took the bike home before the "mechanic" actually had a chance to work on it, but here goes:

My wife's bike (Suzuki GS1100L) had a frozen rear brake pedal. I took it to the shop to be diagnosed, and the mechanic called back the next day saying the the rear brake master cylinder had seized and needed to be replaced. He quoted me about $300 to fix it. I figured I could do it myself with no problems, so I paid him the $50 for the estimate and took the bike home.

When I got the rear master cylinder disconnected from the brake pedal, I noticed that the pedal was STILL seized up - wouldn't move at all, even when disconnected from the supposedly "frozen" master cylinder.

Turns out, some corrosion had gotten into the bushing that the brake pedal pivots in. Drove the brake pedal out of the bushing with a drift, cleaned up the pedal and the bushing with some emery cloth, re-greased everything and put it back together. Worked perfectly, and cost me about 25 cents for the emery cloth and the grease.
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  #13  
Old 09-10-2005, 04:40 PM
Dr. Righteous Dr. Righteous is offline
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Default Death to FORDS!~

Fords have always empties my savings, left me walking, pissed me off to no end, and made me cuss more than anything on this earth.
I will never own another one as long as I live.
When you drive a Ford and then take it to a shop that give the worst service imaginable, that makes for an interesting day.
This particular episode I needed a brake job on the '89 Bronco XLT I had.
Took it to a Firestone service center around 2:00 on a Saturday. Told them I wanted a brake job front and rear. There was only a few other customers there so I thought I wouldn't be there that long. But it was taking them FOREVER to get to it. I asked them what the hold up was and the manager said they are really busy. Finally a guy started taking the tires off and he started on the rear brakes first. I walked up front after about an hour and he still had not touched the front. I asked the manager why the front wasn't done yet and he said he would find out. The manager walked out to the bay to see what the hold up was. The mechanic (yeah right) said "I don't know nothing about them 4 wheel drive brakes!" They argued back and forth, and the mechanic started working on the front. (at that moment I SHOULD HAVE went out and demanded that they put a mechanic that had experience with 4x4s on it but I didn't. I just supposed that the know nothing mechanic would get help doing the job)
Well, I didn't want to stand and look through the window like a goon all day so I went back to the waiting room and watched the tube for a while. About an hour later (it was closing time) I was sure they were done. I went up front and there it was still up on the lift, with the hub, rotors, brakes scatter all over the floor below it. I found the manager again to see what the hold up was. He started looking for the mechanic. He was GONE, he went home at 5:00 and just left the thing in peices!! Pissed was not the word for what I was. The entire afternoon was SHOT and my truck still wasn't fixed!
The manager pulled another mechanic off a job and I heard them exchange words about all the guys are freak'in tired of taking up the slack for that moron! The mechanic got to work on it but was puzzled by the automatic locking hubs. At least he had enough sense to pull a manual out to and finally got them reassembled and working. Finally it was back together and off the lift. I told the manager I had NEVER seen such incompetent mechanics in my life. He wrote the ticket up and charged me full price for everything. I told him OHHH NO. There better be some adjustment on that bill. Well, I guess by the expression on my face he knew better than to argue. He changed the labor fee from "4x4 brake service" to "standard brake service" which cut the labor in half. Paid the bill and left. Everything seemed to be ok, for a couple weeks. Both automatic hubs failed soon after that.
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  #14  
Old 10-06-2005, 12:22 AM
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Back in the late 80's, I took my 67 Cuda in to a tire store to get four new tires. Thinking that they know what they where doing. I left the car there and walked across the street to grab something to eat. I came back half an hour later and found five of my lugs with the nuts still on it laying on the ground next to the car. I looked at the guy and said " what the &^%$ going on here?". He look straight at me and said "all the lug nuts was rusted on the car, and broke off when we try to get it off." I looked at him and said "what do you mean rusted? There is no rust on these lugs." I then picked up one of the lugs with the nuts still on, and begain the unscrewed the nuts with my hands. I was so pissed off that I couldn't even talk anymore to this guy. Luckily for me my friend was with me. He manage to calm me down and save this guy life. These professional tire technition can't tell a right handed threads from a left handed threads. They torque the @#$% out of the nuts tell it snap all the lugs. One lugs, I could understand and see, but to do all five!

Larry G
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  #15  
Old 10-07-2005, 05:20 PM
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this is a story that to this day makes me laugh. 3 years ago i bought my first vehicle.. a 85 d350 with a 360 2wd dually...

paid 2500 for it brought it home.. Mine u i got it FROM! a dealer ship! LOL

2 days after i had it home.. BANG! no more reverse!! then after a long fight to get it fixed by the dealer which he wouldnt do!! he wouldnt even pay to get a trans.. i put 800.00 into a HD rebuild..and it worked fine.. next i brought it home after i put the new trans in and guess what! lmfao a major electrical fire under the dash melted dang near every single wire but i put it out .. sat there for 3 weeks rewiring that.. then (mind u i still havent gotten it inspected due to the fact they never had an inspecition sticker on the truck when i got it!) took it to get inspected and bang! lights woudlnt work right. 4 ways nope.. ball joints, tierod ends, wheel seals, wheel bearings.. plus not to mention the air pumps were shot! there leaks everywhere in the exhaust.. hell the dang trailer wiring stuff in the rear was taped together with duct tape and band-aides



so after 8 mnths of ownin it i finnally got it inspected.. after 3 fires, and weeks of sitting just workin on it to get it fixed.. and yea i was only 16-17 at the time... (im 18 now)

but after that i never had ne major problems.. then this summer i was on my way towing my buddies 70 hemi cuda to lebanon,pa to his cousins house when my flex plate shattered.. no .. not at 95 mph that i was doin on the highway but at 30mph on a back road.. so i had to get towed all teh way back to my house (120miles) and then come to fid out the flex plate was junk, i cracked the torque convert. and amzin i broke a piece off the crank were the flex bolted too..

tore that truck to bare bones.. sold the trans and engine then traded the truck for a 73 charger which i have now.. what a mess for a 17 yr old.. alot of good times but dang.. sometimes i wish i could hit the idiot who used a s-10 roll bar and plywood for the roll bar in the bed of a 8ft bed dually and a curtain rod to help support the push bar that was on front.. god damn ya know

hahaha
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Old 12-01-2005, 06:42 AM
fuktifino fuktifino is offline
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My current 1970 roadrunner 4 speed.
I traded a 1968 Charger for it. The guy that I got it from had just bought it the day before and didn't know anything about it. He bought it because it was a four speed car (he was looking for a 68 Charger). He paid $3500.00 for it.
Keep in mind that I drove this car before I traded my Charger for it. Part of the deal was that the chuckle head that I got the car from kept the A-833, including the bell housing. I get the car home and score a new tranny for it. I go to install the tranny and it won't go all of the way in. Now I know not to force it. So I pulled the tranny out and, after much cussing and head scratching, I looked at the pilot bushing. WTF? There was a plug where the bushing should have been (like in an automatic transmission crankshaft). I measured the depth to the plug and, sure enough, it was for an automatic. I knew that the engine had been changed at some point.
I went to the guy that I got the car from and asked to see the old tranny and bell housing. Some genius had cut the input shaft down so that the 4 speed would bolt up to the 727 crank. The bell housing had several significant cracks in it and the input shaft support was warped. He thought that he was getting over on me by keeping the old tranny, but he may have saved my life. That old transmission was a ticking time bomb and I'm certain that I would have set it off.
Same car:
Some brilliant individual (probably the same moron) had changed the points ignition to a factory electronic setup. Most likely from a junkyard. This person hacked up the engine wiring harness to the point that the ignition wouldn't work. Then they put the points distributor back in and butt spliced the wires together - without even taping them. He/she left the electronic ignition parts under the hood and jacked into what was left of the wiring harness. I'm glad that I was planning on running an aftermarket ignition anyway.
Still the same car:
at some point in it's life, the car was smashed from behind, crumpling the rear quarter panels beyond repair. Rather than install new quarters, someone decided to recreate them out of Bondo. They looked okay until the Bondo split open like an overripe melon. AND the front floorboards were "repaired" using license plates.
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Old 12-06-2005, 11:42 PM
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Default 64 Impala

I've got one. My daughter had a friend from another city about an hour away. She said that he had a 64 Impala SS. I thought that this might be a nice car to see. She said that he had done a lot of the work on it and it was rust free. Not bad I thought. She told him about my '69 Roadrunner and he just had to see it. I told her that he had to bring his Impala for me to see as well. Well one day last summer she comes over with this guy and his Impala. He was wondering if I could make some speaker boxes for the car. After I explained to him that it is not kool for his stereo system to anounce that he is coming a quarter mile away I had a look at the car. OH BOY!! The car was in rough shape. It looked like it had been done at one time, BUT someone had hit it and not fixed it very good. I opened the hood and to my surprise there were no inner fenders. They were a little rusty he said so he took them off. I then looked inside the headlight fixtures and asked him why they we not painted. He didn't know what color they should be. I told him the color of the car or flat black but NOT RUST COLOR which is what they were because they were all rusty. Seems that whenever rust showed up he just cut it off, thats why there was not much rust on the car. Then I looked at the interior of the car.The front floorboards were gone and replaced by metal that was cut from the hood of a Toyota, and only spotwelded in. NIce stereo system though. To this guys defense he had no traning and no one to really take him by the hand and show him how to do it right. He moved up here to the midwest from down south somewhere. And he didn't have a lot of money to spend on it. I asked my daughter if he was putting it into storage for the winter. She said that he had no other car and was driving it through the winter. I told her that I thought it would not make it through the winter up here. I also told her not to ride in the car with him in that comdition. She doesn't see or hear from anymore. Wonder what ever happened to the car.
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Old 12-07-2005, 10:41 PM
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wow Here's one from Pep Boys

I'm sure you all know that most of the people that work at the nationwide parts stores are let's just say, ummm, ummm...ok...I'll just say it, completely clueless about CARS! Alternators and wiper blades. Anything more than that is hopeless. I ran out of weatherpak connector inserts the other day, and as my lady was out and about I asked to stop by Pep Boys and pick some up. I had her write down exactly what I was looking for and she goes in and asks - They of course tell her they have no idea what she's talking about. She asks the manager - Clueless. My chick rules so she finally announces to the entire store that she's looking for somebody that actually knows anything about cars. A guy speaks up, she tell's him what she needs and he goes to the computer...This is the best part - She catches a glance at the screen and he's looking up WHEELS! She pretty much lost it at that point, called me on her cell, and I told her to come on home. Today I went to the the same Pep Boys - went to the electrical section, and purchased my mysterious connectors. :chainsaw:
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Old 01-15-2006, 11:33 AM
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This happened to me recently, and while not as horrifying as some of the previous stories, definetly irritating.
I finally needed to replace the rear brake shoes on the Grand Caravan, it was due for inspection so I go and get a set of shoes, wheel cylinders and a hold down kit, take it to a local garage I go to, and said, "do it".
I get the minivan back, fresh inspection sticker, think fine, pay my bill and drive off. I stop and park, then notice my emergency brake goes clear to the floor!
They forgot or overlooked adjusting the rear brakes!! I didnt feel like crawling under the minivan with an adjusting tool, that was why I paid THEM to do the job! Anyway, after a couple of days of setting the E-brake, and applying then disengaging the brakes while I have the minivan in reverse, I get the brakes to adjust up, and everything is cool.
Nothing earthshaking, but damned irritating, I paid good money to have that job done. I guess I should go back to doin all my own car work, that's what I get for being lazy and letting someone else touch my rides!
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Old 01-27-2006, 05:22 PM
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I hear ya! Can't even trust most of the freakin' dealership 'mechanics' around here to get it right when doing warranty work on my '04 chrysler!(turd)

My story is this;
Back in the mid-1980s, there was a guy that used to run with me and my other friends and he was about as dumb as a box of rocks. He owned a 1979 4x4 Ramcharger that at this point, already had the 318 replaced with the 340 out a '71 Demon that he had wrecked (because he was acting a fool in a rainstorm one day, put it in the ditch and rammed it into a big ass culvert @ about 60mph). Well, he decided one day that he was going to make his own "lift kit" because he wanted to jack his truck up higher. ...See where this is going? He went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of pieces of allthread (grade 5 )to make the U bolts out of. I told him, my brother told him, EVERYBODY told him that this was NOT a good idea....but he pressed on and did it anyway. 2 weeks later, his wife is driving down the highway 50 or so mph, and the ENTIRE REAR AXLE and driveshaft literally FALLS OUT from under the back!!! I was following the truck at the time, and all I could think to say as I watched this happen was, "Stupid M#ther F**ker!" Luckily, nobody got hurt. Dumbass.....:chainsaw:
J. Campbell
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  #21  
Old 01-28-2006, 12:03 AM
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Cool The amazing run away axles.

Back when my Volare was still a daily driver I killed the bearings in the 7 1/4. So my father decided to help me out and have the shop put a rear end under it. Well they keep it for a week and finally call and tell us that the bearings are bad and that they have finally located another Volare to get an axle out of. So we agree and they begin work. I had to have a car for college and my Grandparents talked me into getting the Lebaron from hell but that is another story which I will post next. Well nearly a month goes by total and they finally get the rearend finished and installed (after multiple angry phone calls from my dad). Well we went and picked up the Volare and were given a sad tell of how nonexistant Volare 7 1/4 axles were and that they were the only ones that would fit. So we pay the mechanic and drive the car to a parking lot to meet my girlfriend. We went to dinner and a movie and my parents dropped me and her off so I could Drive her home in the Volare. We just barely got out of the parking lot when the axle with the drum and wheel attached walks out of the passenger side. Seems the mechanic working on my car needed to run home and got some HighSchool student/shop cleaner to "finish up" my car. He slide the axle in put on the drum and bolted up the wheel. He never bolted the bearing retainer into place. So how is that for jack leg mechanics...
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  #22  
Old 01-28-2006, 12:31 AM
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c318cuin c318cuin is offline
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Cool Now for the Lebaron from hell....

Well Like I said above my grandparents helped me purchase the Lebaron while the Volare was in the shop. I really needed a car to get back and forth from college in. Well the Lebaron was a real nice car and had alot of options that the volare and our other cars did not have. So I thought nice clean car for school great not an issue or so I thought. Two weeks after I bought the Lebaron it threw a rod! So now I have to pay my grandparents back and have to use my college money to drop a new engine into the Lebaron. Freaking Great! Well I purchased a ramanned engine from a well known builder. The shop installed it in a week and I was once again off and running. Well I noticed the new engine was noisier but thought nothing of it. Even though this is not their fault I am including the part where the new engine drops a valve seat and needs a new head. So both cars are about to come back out and I start finally driving the Lebaron more than parking it in the shop. I still notice the noise. Which somewhere along the line I was told was normal! Well one day I am driving home and the power steering pump falls off the bolts were appearantly never torqued down properly. I got to looking and could only find a few of the bellhousing bolts appearantly. The bolts never put all back in or they fell out. So by now I have found another shop the one I goto for everything now. They fixed all these issues plus found that the "new" engine mounts are collapsed and were causing all that engine noise!!! They said that those mounts looked like the factory ones and not new ones...
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  #23  
Old 01-28-2006, 12:42 AM
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c318cuin c318cuin is offline
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Cool The unstoppable Volare.

Well one more about the Volare and my dad. I had to let my dad use the Volare for a while after I had finally gotten it and the Lebaron back on the road. So one day he starts complianing about the brakes being mushy and hard to stop. I popped the hood and found the brake fluid low. We went to Autozone and got some fluid to top it off and all was fine for a week and then he had to top it off again. Hmm leaking somewhere! Well my dad was a little tight on money and had heard about another closer mechanic in the area whom was less expensive. So he took the volare there and asked the guy to look at it over the weekend. This guy called us the following week and said I have had presssure on the brakes off and on for a few days now and have not found any leaking. So we paid the guy he fee for checking out the car and dad drove it for a few days. Then it started to lose brake fluid again so he took it back. Once again he guy kept it a few days and found nothing... HMMMMMM I am mad now cause dad is wasting money on someone who cannot find the issue let alone fix it. So I replaced the Master Cylinder just to see if that might be it. Nope! Well we took it to my current mechanic who put it on the rack pumped up the brakes and found the brake proportioning valve pouring out fluid. From the looks of it this was happening for a long time and was really easy to see I saw it when he showed me!! Well guys I have hijacked this thread enough talk to you all later. GOOD LUCK and Happy MOPARING!!!
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  #24  
Old 02-12-2006, 06:51 PM
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nhdriver nhdriver is offline
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Confused

I bought a '70 Duster that was made into a drag car. I had a good drive train
from a previous drag car . Well.. The guy who "built" the car took out the 340 & 4-speed. and put a Hemi in it. He was suposedly a welder by profession. The car had a full cage in it as well as a back half narrowed for 14" wide slicks. His hemi had Blown -up as he was winging the throttle in the driveway. so he never had actually driven down the track. I put my 440 in the car w/ 727 trans . take the car out to the track. 1st run as I power brake it. the rear end rotates up so far the drive shaft falls out (on the starting line) I take it home reweld the spring perches. take the car out again, as the car leaves the starting line it pulls violently to the left. I barley avoided crashing. I bring the car back to the pits, jack it up and one of the strut bars has broken. I had never seen one of these fail, I look at the parts and discover the Genius welder had lightened them up by cutting off the ends and welded the ends to plumbing pipe!, both sides! As I loaded the car onto the trailer A guy came up to me and said congratulations you have the first car this guy has built that hasen't rolled. lucky you. I went over this car from front to back and found several flaws that could have caused me to crash as well as poor welds etc. oh well live & learn. Never take anybodys workmanship for granted .
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  #25  
Old 04-29-2006, 11:40 PM
aerodynamic aerodynamic is offline
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Default Great Thread! Here's mine.

Hi all, really enjoying the stories. I had a 74 Roadrunner I bought in the eighties and restored. She had a 440 auto, and really hauled. I was in my early 20's at the time and I was living in an apartment. I got home from work one day and started getting ready for a date I felt certain was going to pay off, if you know what I mean. Well, nothing clouds a young man's judgement like the prospect of impending sex. When I went to put the shifter into reverse, I heard a "clink" under the car. The shifter suddenly moved very easily, and I knew I had busted the linkage. The shifter was still in reverse position but the trans was in park. ENGINE STILL IDLING! Being in a hurry, I jumped out, slid half under the car on my back and found the clip on the linkage had broken. I quickly rounded up a paper clip (good enough) and proceeded to move the trans OUT OF PARK to mate with the shifter position! The car immediately began to roll backwards. I had half a second to react before the left front tire would roll over my chest. I reached up and SLAMMED the trans lever back into park. The tire stopped against my side! If I would have missed, I would have been killed 4 sure. Pretty stupid eh? And as for the rest of the evening...a gentleman never tells! ;-)

Then, a year later, the car kept burning out turn signal fuses and it was really getting to be a drag. One day I decided enough was enough, and put a ROLL PIN where the glass t/s fuse goes. Life was good for three days. Until the smoke came. Rolling out of the do-it-yerdamnself car wash, smoke began pouring out of the vents and from under the dash. I yanked a very hot roll pin out of it's hole and the burning stopped. I got the car home, and I had burned up every accessory wire near the column. I eventually found the original problem, a wiring harness had been dragging on the driveshaft. I ended up having to get a whole under dash harness from the boneyard.
Ah, the good old days.

Just bought another one, after searching for years. Check out the black beauty I scored for $5000! Email for pix gregstpie@aol.com
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  #26  
Old 05-06-2006, 10:27 PM
rr69half6bbl rr69half6bbl is offline
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Default car story

When I was a YOUNG man and Foolish, i bought a 70 monaco 4-dr from this little old lady. The car had sat in their back field for a LONG time.It had a 383 in it.I had just gotten into mopes.I had a 73- 340 road runner.And that was my daily driver.I had a kid go with me to help me pick this thing up.I didnt have a truck or trailer so I had to pull this tank home with the runner.and of course I used a chain. The biggest 1 I could find.The kid who went with me was not 4 ft. tall. so It was litterally his face between the dash and the steering wheel.So here we go. It was about a 20 mile trip. We got abput half way and I looked in the rearview and I saw him waving his hand in a forward motion which I took for go faster, I was only doing like 45.so I picked it up a Little bit. we hit 55. I looked back again and he was still waving at me.same motion.So I floored it. OK. 65mph.we go a few miles and I feel the runner start to be tugged back and forth. I look in the mirror and I see the steering wheel, the kids eyes, and the dash.and his hand is going nuts.waving at me. (same motion).I look in the side mirrors and 3 of the tires had blown.The car was on the end of the chain flappinback and forth like a rag doll.i finaly got the rig shut down and when I got out he started chasing me down the road. So from then on I had a wrecker do it till I got my own setup.
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  #27  
Old 05-07-2006, 09:50 AM
rr69half6bbl rr69half6bbl is offline
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Default car stories

This ones not so funny,and it made ayoung fool a little wiser, I`m an autoworker by trade.one night I drove my cuda to work it was a friday night,it was a 73 tripple black 4-spd 440 6bbl with 3.91`s.the sub frame was tied and it had 50`s at all 4 corners.what a vette killer.anyway its almost lunch time and we had a breakdown so they sent us home early, so its like 9:00p.m. i go down to the local watering hole for a cors light and a game of pool.Well, then its 3:00a.m.and I had way to much to drink, my coworker that lived in the same town had rode his crotch rocket that night.so he followed me home. we have a stretch of highway here that runs for 17 miles with no interference, (see where this is going?) so At 6200r.p.m.`s, 4`th gear and the stereo blastin (Breakin the law) no kidding. ( spedo was brokealso) we didnt let up till we hit the edgeof town,at his house he told me 125 all the way.I thought what a dope I wont do that again. The next Friday at the local carshow a buddy if mine with a brand -x walked up to me and said hey you %$#&^ Did you have your car out last Fri. night? I said yeah why/ (ommitting to tell him what happened) He said You &&*&^ they thought it was me. his nova is dark blue.Do you know that you passed a cop? Totaly shocked I said what do you mean? He goes,Yeah you passed a cop runnin down114 that night, all they knew was that it was a dark colored muscle car, and when the cop called it in he said he let you go cause you were to fast for him and he`d never catch you.( the nova guys wife was the local dispatcher) So I went home called another freind and told him to come over with his trailer and take the thing before I killed someone.so I pulled the drive line and the car went to eastern ohio.It was my first Mopar and I had it 13 yrs. But I`m glad it walked. Morale of the story is You may think your in control, Best think again.
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  #28  
Old 05-07-2006, 12:51 PM
custom880 custom880 is offline
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Default

Good goobity goop, to many to list. One of the scareist was wayyyy back when. I bought a 68 Dart with a slant in it from a guy who sold it cheap in 1976. The car was really cheap and I was just a kid with no money and no experience on cars. The guy lived on the top of a very long hilly street. His driveway dumped right out into the street at the very top of the hill. My two friends drove me out there to get the car. I had a temporary tag so I could drive the car home. The guy swore that the car was completely reliable and he said he drove it everyday. So I pay him get in the car hit the key and it fires right up. I pull to the end of the driveway stop look both ways and pull out. The car is going down the hill and picking up some speed but nothing crazy. I can see the stop sign coming up and I will have to turn either right or left since it is a blvd stop. I hit the brakes and hear this super loud bang and the pedal goes right to the floor! NOTHING! The car is doing about 30 mph and I am only a 17 year old kid crapping in his pants. My friend who decided to ride in the car with me is screaming. I quick grab the emergency brake handle and yank hard. The back end locks up for a second or two then I hear a grinding and a another bang. I downshifted the automatic into second, (it wouldn't go into first)The car slows down to around 10 miles an hours and I make a hard left into the gas station at the bottom of the hill. The car goes across the parking lot and stopped up against his huge pile of tires. The gas station was a full service station (remember those), and the old guy who owned the place comes out. He says he saw the whole thing from his back window and started to curse me out. I told him my story and he calmed down. He thought I was screwing around. He was a nice guy and told us to push the car into his bay. We did and he put it up on the lift. He popped one of the massive 13" tires off the back and took the brake drum off. There to everyones suprise were two brakes shoes and two hold down springs and the emergency brake and nothing else. Same on the other side. No adjusters, no trension springs no adjuster cable. Basically the shoes were just held onto the backing plate. The fronts were the same. The gas station owner knew the guy who I bought the car from, called him up and started to bitch him out severly. I paid another 100.00 ( a huge sum back then) to get the brakes fixed. I learned a big lesson that day and I have never trusted a set of braked the wern't new or I personally haven't worked on. Then there is the story about how I pulled up on a steering wheel in a friends 1970 Valiant and the damn thing came off in my hand.
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  #29  
Old 05-07-2006, 06:26 PM
aerodynamic aerodynamic is offline
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Default Do mechanics injuring themselves count?

I am an automotive technician in Florida. When I lived in New Hampshire, I worked with a big guy named Dave. Dave was an ok guy, but physically had no business being a mechanic. Dave was a very large, clumsy man with hands like bear paws. Dave was short on patience and was the sort to throw tools that went so fast they hissed through the air. One day, Dave was trying to get a brake drum off a car by smacking one ball peen hammer against another which was being held against the drum. For anyone who might not know why this is a bad idea, hammers are hardened steel. They are designed to hit softer metals like nails and chisels. Hardened steel will CHIP if smacked against other hardened steel. When it does chip, the piece that comes off will move with nearly the velocity of a bullet. And that's what happened next. We were standing with our backs to each other working on separate vehicles, and he's behind me hammering away. Suddenly, I hear his hammer hit the floor followed by footsteps away. I turn around to see blood on the floor, forming a path to the bathroom. Turns out, a piece of metal had flown from the hammer and hit him in the forehead. Here's the kicker. When the metal hit his thick skull (lol), it proceeded to be deflected under the skin around his face and almost to his EAR! It traveled under the skin almost 4inches! needless to say, he went to the hospital. When he returned a couple of days later, half his face was swollen and black and blue. Oh, and did I mention...this guy went to automotive school?

Got another injury story involving falling florescent lights if anyone wants to hear it.
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  #30  
Old 05-07-2006, 10:24 PM
rr69half6bbl rr69half6bbl is offline
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Default stories

Post it areo, we love this stuff.
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