When Maintenance Goes to Hell

[Rapture]

So Saturday I decided I would devote a quick 20 minutes to replacing the serpentine belt on my Tundra. I have all the tools and parts so I pop the hood. Once I'm about to slip it on, the tensioner decides to die. Knowing disaster when I see it, the whole ordeal turned into me having to wait until today to get a new tensioner and then spend 5 hours dismantling my truck to replace the damn thing.

Anyone else have any lovely stories of when a 10 minute job turns into a 10 hour mess?

[russiankid]

Yeah I changed the fluid in my automatic transmission, turned into a 5-speed swap.

[OutToWinPAHC]

All the time, but its because I have OCD. I see something out of place and it ends up getting redid. Like when I wired my fans.... I could have ran them off a relay, but no I have a whole 3 relay interlock set up for my cooling system... Took forever and ended up costing about 1200 bucks.

[turboman808]

Yeah I once went to change the brake pads and I stripped the thread on the caliper and had to walk to the auto store the next morning to get a new caliper. I was pretty pissed.

[R22B]

I had to change the front endlinks in the MX3. Should have been an easy unbolt, put the new ones in, bolt on. Nope. It turned into a few day ordeal as I had to track down a sawzall because the endlinks were so worn out, the bolt just spun when I turned the nut. Once I got the old ones out, it took 5 minutes each to put the new ones in.

[KingKong8247]

When putting on the valve cover on an S13 and one of the rubber crescent moon shaped thingy falls into the oil pan.

Or my latest. When changing the y-pipe on my land rover. It is a total of 8 bolts. Six bolts in the front, three on each side of the V8 connected to the manifold and two connecting it to the rear of the exhaust. 2 each on both manifolds snap resulting in removing the manifolds and one of the rear bolts break. When removing the manifolds I used a torch and took my time heating the bolts so not to break any in the heads. If all the bolts came free it probably would have took a half hour. When all was said and done I think it added up close to 8 hours.

[knochgoon24]

This March, I planned on replacing the cams, valve springs, and valve stem seals. I had hoped to do it all with the head still on the block by pressurizing the cylinders with my leakdown tester. Well the keeper remover sucked and I ended up dropping a valve down into the cylinder. Soooooo, I now needed to pull the head. I had to replace the head gasket, which required about 6 hours worth of prep work in my basement since I'm a broke college student who has time but not money.

I got it all back together and found the o-ring on the water pipe was leaking. I had to pull some stuff back off the block. When I finally got that leak fix, I fired it up and a fuel injector seal was leaking.

So what started as about 5 days worth of projects on my car turned into 8 and I missed the first 2 days of spring semester. Oh, and I ended up several hundred over budget. As usual.

[DPancoast]

blown motor went from taking 2-3 months to taking 6 months....


trans swap went from putting in a spare trans in a weekend, to taking 3 weekends, the trans then failing, and then another 6 weeks to put in a newer LSD unit... I could fill this thread up lol

[i_ride_fieroGT]

I drive 2 V6 fiero's...... Which story would you like to hear about?

[Scapegoat]

6-8 hour header install took 12.5 hours

[Elliott18t]

where are the corrado owners? :P


turbo inlet job (1-maybe 3 hour job) took me about 5+ hours because of "complications"

[jpalamar]

I dropped a bolt down my flex pipe on the Talon while installing the header. Ended up going from a 40 minute install to 4+ hours when I had to remove the mid pipes(it was a bitch to get the bolts out of the cat). Took about 3 extra hours and ended up snapping the coupler due to rust.

[ThePrimerSuspect]

6 hour 350 swap in a chevy truck should have been six hours, turned into 6 weeks due to rust and not finding parts. had the truck towed twice and had to keep moving it around my block cause the cops kept coming to write it up abandoned.

[Maxxdsix]

when i lowered my car i rented a spring compressor from autozone. they gave me the ****ing wrong one. so i spent a few hrs takin the car apart, and wound up with shocks with springs on them that i couldnt take off. My friend took the springs home, shot them into a bucket. but then i still needed the spring compressor to put the new ones on...and then i had a stripped bolt on the strut tower, so that took a good hour of careful grinding when it should have taken 10 seconds to unbolt it.

after i got the right spring compressor it took less then an hour.

[98GSXdude]

This is why I dip my entire car is a giant pool of PB Blaster before touching anything.

[DPancoast]

Originally Posted by Scapegoat

6-8 hour header install took 12.5 hours

*shivers*... lalalalalalalala lol

[Nors]

I own a VW.. of course I have stories. The worst I think: Last summer doing a rear main seal in my driveway, trying to remove the seal I broke a pick tool and the tip of it went inside the the oil pan. Okay, not too bad right? Just pull the pan off and scoop it out. Wrong. Trans was out so therefore the engine was being held up by one engine mount and a jack on the oil pan (with a block of wood of course). Had to get an engine hoist to take weight off the mount/jack and then drain and pull the pan and put a new gasket on the pan etc. Got it done, but it was a total headache for an already huge job (all in a driveway). I did try fishing for the tip of the pick with a magnet for a few hours first but eventually gave in and got the engine hoist from a friend, since my was buried under a load of parts in my garage and disassembled.

[Nick Merrone]

my 5 speed swap turned into a whole motor rebuild and all the other stuff i have done..

[sundaybikes]

Simple header/exhaust installed turned into a snapped ex.manifold stud turned into a few days at r/t turned into buying another catback.

Believed clutch replacement turned into blown diff/broken teeth on final drive turned into trans rebuild turned into buying another trans for parts.

[JB'sLGT]

about a month ago when I last changed my oil I found this in the bottom of the oil catch reservoir...damn car runs fine though...don't know where the hell it came from if it even came from my car.

my hands are huge btw