Share your rookie mistakes to help us all learn

[Rising]

Oh gosh there are a lot most of them are well documented here haha.

A small one: finally got frustrated with my valve cover leaking, bought a tube of "the right stuff", meticulously cleaned the valve cover and block, And then basically glued my valve cover on. Only to look over and see that stupid little plastic oil saver.. Pulled it apart and cleaned it up and promptly got distracted and did the same thing... It turned out it was the camshaft seal leaking lol.

Big mistake: bought a turbo with no bolts holding the exhaust housing on.. Thought they were just extras mounting spots for something else(vacuum can was 2 of them and I didn't notice the other 3 missing .) , car all together for the first test drive. Built a little boost. Woo. Okay let's try it for real, 7 psi POP!!! "Oh no. . . well there goes that."

Fortunely nothing seemed to be damaged except my pride

[FrankenDiesel]

Not on a vw but good rule of thumb.

I was doing a valve adjustment on an e30 and left a 1/2 drive ratchet on the crank to turn over the engine to adjust each cylinder. I was in a rush, but forgot the ratchet and cranked the engine. Furthermore, the ratchet spun around scoring my radiator and knocked my waterpump, which began puking pretty much immediately.

Anytime you are ever cranking an engine over, always remove that damn ratchet when you aren't under there turning the engine, or get a buddy. I know this can happen to a lot of cars because especially the e30 has a slightly tigher fit and isn't too visible, so we can get lazy at times.

[TimpanogosSlim]

oh yeah.

I have what i am pretty sure is late AAZ PCV plumbing, big cup shaped fitting on the block for plastic plumbing to seal into.

had the plumbing off because i had the valve cover off. Neglected to stuff a rag in the fitting.

dropped an M8 bolt and washer in it.

after i took the fitting off i was able to find the bolt and washer with my finger and, knock them into the windage tray. i guess if i hadn't had a windage tray they would have fallen into the pan.

it gave me an excuse to drop the pan and windage tray, and thus to reinstall them with black RTV.

[FrizzleFry]

2 weeks out of tech school I had a 97 TDI passat come into my bay for a timing belt service. This was my first timing belt job without an instructor leaning over my shoulder. I got it all together, burped the coolant and I was off on a test drive. The car did great and I was pretty happy with the work done. That is until about 10mos later when the customer called the shop saying "I went to start my car and it just cranks really fast, kinda like its not getting fuel or something". I immediately had the sinking feeling that it crashed a head. He had it towed in and sure as $#¡+ there was no compression,  I didn't torque the bolt for the intermediate shaft pulley and 8k miles later it finally decided to let go. Lesson learned, everything has a torque spec for a reason.

[Diesel_Zuk]

I got two!


#1. I bought a pump from 8v-of-fury and got screwed because I gifted the money instead of paying for goods or services. He sent me a junk pump, and therefore screwed a college student out of $400.

#2. Forgot a ratchet on the crank bolt and cranked the motor over. It hit something, frame maybe? Idk, but it hit hard enough to break that bolt loose. Had to order a new bolt and retorque it.

[air-cooled or diesel]

i had at an early time learned to use a block of wood when jacking up and using stands; a small block of a 2x4 will work. dont use tire jacks unless you get a flat, another thing after jacking-up release handbrake, i reapply brake, or use a wheel stop. the block of wood helps not wearing out jack points or going thru the undercoating/paint. i spray mine every year or so with good undercoating.