Installing rear Swifts. The garage drop the rear axle before I had a chance to tell him to disconnect the ABS sensors. One broke inside I guess as it threw a warning light. When I had car in to Honda for first service they replaced under wty. Whew those buggers are expensive. With labour around $200 to replace.

I did warn them about front axle and they supported it.

When installing underdash lights I blew the 10 amp fuse. They are hard to find. I got the only one my dealer had.

I find re-reading the DIYs here many times before proceeding helps. I did my winker lights without a problem. That was the most difficult mod I have done.

Oh I did drop a tailight nut BUT removing the BIG panel I was able to locate it.

 

Just a simple debadge and I scratched the paint somehow.



Any suggestions on small touch ups like this?

 

Ah yes, the dreaded involuntary defect mod that happens when yer doing other mods or work around the vehicle.

Been there done that... limiting my mods these days.

 

As a professional, I pride myself in being very careful and thorough when working on cars, including my own. I have to admit, though, that when doing the rear springs when installing the Eibachs, I definitely dropped the washer atop the rear passenger shock twice- and then my extendable magnet broke while trying to recover it the 2nd time, meaning I had to dismantle much of the rear plastics. Grr Mark W.

 

The whole "rear hatch against the garage door" episode seems to be a common thing - I did it once with my Pathfinder (just some minor scratches on the very edge) and a friend did it with his Lexus RX too.

Those evil garage doors sure can be sneaky lol!

 

it's not a matter of adhesives. it's the door edge film (this is an accessory, not debris) which was optically clear urethane plastic is now hazed.

 

I recently topped of the oil and got in my car a couple of days later for a drive to town and smelled burning oil... I still have no idea where my oil cap went and I feel uneasy about wrenching anymore if someone isn't standing around that can catch and point out my mistakes before I do some serious damage. I might need to start drinking again.. I never had problems before I became somewhat of a tea totaler.

 

I once did the same thing to a previous car I drove.

I took off the oil cap to see the engine & oil (more out of curiosity than anything else)... closed the hood and took off.

A few miles down the road, I was thinking to myself... "I'm forgetting something." Took a few blocks to realize what it was... pulled over as soon as I could, popped the hood and found the cap nestled in a nook.... thanked my lucky stars it didn't fall through to the ground! Put the cap back on, and hoped the engine was okay after being exposed like that.

Too be honest, I remember the act, but don't remember which one of previous cars I drove, that I did it on (either an Acura Legend or Mitsubishi Mirage, aka Lancer).

 

These are great stories but I know at the time they happen you just want to scream. I was getting into the garage with the car in a pouring rain. I have a manual garage door and had gotten out to unlock and open it. I flung up the door jumped into the car and started backing in. When bump! The garage door had come down an inch or too catching my antena. It caused a slight bend in the garage door and a slight roof wave around the antena but no damage and no one else knows it is there but me. Luckily I stopped right away when I heard it hit so it was not decapitated off!

 

Thanks all... awesome stories. After walking around the car and looking at the scratch about 200x, I'm pretty much over it now

Hopefully my last incident because I like to wrench on stuff!

 

This past weekend, it rained off and on. Between showers, looking at the car, I decided to towel the rainwater off and move the car into the garage. I just finished wiping the car dry with a microfiber towel, when it started to rain again. I jumped up and went to drive the car into the garage, totally forgetting that I'd been drying the door sill on the right rear door. You guessed it, I slammed the open rear passenger door into the garage sill, leaving a nice vertical crease in the middle of the door panel.

It will cost $200 to make this goof go away according to the body shop.

 

Well at least you weren't backing in with the door open.... Yep, I have done that, 40 years ago in a 59 Ford Galaxy station wagon.

 

Long time ago I put a cylinder head on backwards and didn't notice till I dropped the cams in 20 minutes later.

 

I noticed a 4" long scratch on my drivers side window tint... I was trying to figure out how it happened. A week later, I'm vacuuming the stupid interior felt stuff that's on the passenger side door, and that side gets a nice scratch. I realize the vacuum attachment has a rough seam, and getting too close to the tint is hazardous...

 

Well dont lauph at me but I did a good $600 damage just trying to get gas. Got out of the car with it in reverce! Doh. Before I could stop the car the drivers door caught a metal barrier thingy and bent the door backwards on the hinges, even damaged the fender.

All fixed now but that door line will never be perfect!! oops!

 

Oh, minor mistake, but still humorous... One morning I was up at 4 AM for some weird reason. So I decided to get some stuff done instead of laying in bed. So I got up, ran to get some gas and do some other errand, than came back home and parked in the driveway to wash the car. It's still dark at this point, maybe 5:30 or 6:00 AM.

I rinse off the car, and then start washing the car. When I get to the drivers side window, my wash mitt just goes right into the car...

Yep, I had rolled down the windows while driving, and forgot they were down before starting to wash. And the lack of light made this non-obvious!

No damage done, just blotted out a lot of water, and put some fans in there to run for many hours

 

I put a set of high compression Jahn's pistons in backwards in my Austin Healey 3000... Of course I couldn't rotate the crank when I bolted down the head. I guess I have one more reason to want someone around to make sure I don't mess up lately.

 

If I had the time I would love to grab a few folks together and head down your way. I wanna get you up and running with the FIC and a healthy dose of meth. Have you started playing with spraying pure water yet? That will not need a tune, and will be a big help in the texas summer heat!

As it stands I have been buried in my finals, looking for a new job, working on the car and ferrying my dad to appointments.

I have had some sort of electronic or mechanical gremlin plaguing me since the day I took the Laser out of storage this year. I was hoping to have a few shakedown passes done at the Great Lakes Dragaway by now, as well as going for chassis cert, but something that has managed to escape me for a few weeks is holding me back.

I think it has something to do with my 5Bar MAP sensor's resolution and the fact that my last set of injectors had some odd behaviour at low pulsewidths combine with 20 year old, thin-gauge wiring on the injector harness.

So I threw the tiny stock squirters in (450cc), and I relocated my MAP and Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator reference lines:




I finally found a use for my EGR block-off plate! Which is where the MAP is located now.

Now I have to find out if it is my MAP causing all the problems in which case I'll step down to a 4Bar or if I have to dig into my old OEM harness and re-do my injector leads. Or all of the above!

If I end up buying a 4Bar MAP, Ill use the 5Bar to log turbine drive pressure to find out where my current turbine housing/manifold become restrictions!

 

i forgot to support the front axle while doing my springs. busted a clip on the rear window triangle thing when removing the rear door panel (then realized after i didn't even have to remove it). that's about it for fit mistakes, but in my past cars every 45 minute project turned into a 4 hour project because bolts wouldn't come off and end up snapping, or i'd drop the oil drain plug into the oil bucket, then have to wait for the oil to cool down enough to get it, honda has given me the wrong part before, i can't count how many screws i've dropped into the car, or worse yet, had leftover after i put everything back together.

it's part of the fun of doing things yourself!

 

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but i highly recommend Meguires Scrach X-2.0. It works miracles on most scratches. Try it out, and than return if "not satisfied"