Dumb stuff you have done not knowing any better!!!!!

[JD Seller]

I have done several things that were dumb by not knowing how to do it right or just plain old messing up.

1) I was never around older AC tractors much. I switched engines in a D-14 for a fellow. I pulled the old filter off and installed a new one. I then tried to spin the motor to check the old pressure. I had zero flow. So I removed the front axle and dropped the oil pan to re-check the oil pump out. Everything looked great. I tried to blow air up through the oil pressure side and could not get any flow. Pulled the oil filter off and had flow. What was my mistake???? Well the tube that is supposed to stay in the oil filter housing came out in the old filter. I just glanced at the new filter and saw some thing sticking in the middle of it. Assuming it was a new tube. WRONG!!!! It was a wooden dowel just to keep the filter hole open during shipping/storage. That little dowel fit right down into the hole were the oil tube came out of. It made a perfect PLUG. I only wasted most of a day on this. LOL

2) I had a JD 5010 for a few years. When I bought it the engine was taken apart with a spun number one main bearing. It actually had cracked the block through the main bearing bolt holes. So it could not be lined bored or salvaged easily. I found a block and did a complete overhaul on the tractor. The ventilator pump had gear taken out of it when they had installed an M&W turbo on the tractor. The tractor ran great but would not hold oil pressure when it was hot. I had the oil pump out of it twice and plastigaged the main bearings again. I even pulled the front cover off and removed the cam to see if one of the new cam bearings had gotten damaged or was installed wrong. Still low oil pressure when warm. So with the oil pump out I made an adaptor plate that fit where the oil pump did. I made a small tank that I could fill with oil and then apply air pressure to it. This would fill the oil galley on the motor. I was looking for where I was losing the oil pressure. Found it!!! When they had removed the gears they had removed the front drive gear and the shaft that drove the internal gear too. This left and open hole in the ventilator pump housing that was there to lube the input shaft of the ventilator. It cost me 3-4 days of work. I bet that is what made the original main bearings go out.

3) This one was just a dumb move made while I was dead tired. In the mid 1980s things where tight. I was working in town and still farming as much as I did before the town job. I had bought a worn out IH 666 to use as a planter tractor. The engine needed overhauled due to cavitation in the sleeves. Water in the oil. I did not have the money to do a full overhaul. So I took the motor apart and inspected everything real close. Well the pistons showed little wear. They measured in spec. So I found a set of used sleeves. I bought new rings, rod & main bearings and a gasket set. The tractor started and ran great. So I started planting. After about 50 hours it started to have a bottom end knock at lower RPMs. I limped it along and got the corn planted. I pulled the oil pan off and found that I had inverted the rod bearing halves on the number six rod. So the oil hole was in the cap end not the top so the wrist pen had not been getting any lubrication. It had worn the rod enough the piston would slap. You could hear it a lower RPMs. I was able to just replace that rod and piston. I reused the rod bearing and piston rings. I sold the tractor before the next spring. A neighbor bought it. I told him exactly what I had done. He ahs put over 5000 hours on that motor and not touched it. I have replaced the clutch and TA but nothing to the motor. The injectors and injection pump are still the original ones. They still have factory paint on them. It has over 11,000 hours on it. I was hoping to maybe get another season or two with the rigged up "overhaul". Then the darn thing is still running. LOL

So here are three mistakes I will admit to in public. LOL There are others but they will NOT be open to the general public. LOL

 

[jeffcat]

Would that be a C 159 filter? I think that is the right number. Changing a filter as a kid and I wondered why someone would stick a candy apple stick in a filter. Don't feel too bad!

 

[Philip d]

Oh dear I don't know where to start lol Probably one biggie would be covering a silage pile with scattered grain,was told it would grow form a perfect seal be no waste and the grass resulting from the grain would be good feed too. WRONG!!

 

[larry@stinescorner]

you forgot moving the wrong handle on a piece of equpment and ripping the corner of the shed off? You wrote the post a few years back,,,,,lol

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Got to be careful with filters. Bought a new oil filter for my JD swather with the 225 slant six. Got home, looked at the old filter, and then the new one, found the new filter was about 2 inches shorter. Took it back, went and bought a different brand of filter , which looked longer. I don't think that the short filter would ever fill with oil, as the stem would bottom out again the filter top.

 

[Butch(OH)]

Our farm shop was also the neighborhood drop off point for everyone else's mechanical problems and when I graduated from H.S. I also took a job in town besides farming and besides working in the farm shop. As you can imagine I managed to stay quite busy. Neighbor dropped off his 1966 Chevy Impala 327 that needed an over haul and like everything else it got worked on when there w3as time. Took the engine out one evening after work. Took it down when it rained and couldn't get in the fields. Put the engine together over a couple evenings and when done I gave it a quick spray of paint and retired for the day. I woke up in the middle of the night and it hit me that I could not remember torquing the mains. Tried to go back to sleep and could not so I got up at 2AM and went to the shop and pulled the pan, sure enough the mains had been spun up with a speed wrench but not torqued. I developed a habit after that that has served me well and taught my two mechanic sons the same thing. NEVER install a part loose or or even install fastener UNLESS you have have time to properly tighten it. Many times over the years I have seen grave damage done by things that were left loose in an engine or machine.

 

[nrowles]

I bought a Polaris RZR new back in 2008. The first time I went to tighten the rear end lube bolt after a change I torqued it to foot lbs rather than the recommended inch lbs. :shock: I knew something wasn't right when it just kept spinning.

It went to the shop for a helix coil or whatever they are called. Oh well. Live and learn.

 

[Fred Werring]

Couple weeks ago, bringing in the last load on the round bale wagon, daydreaming and glad I was done, forgot to swing wide at the tight curve, took out 2 wood fence posts with fence on my calf lot.

Hate it when I'm stupid.

Fred

 

[fixerupper]

Where do I start? All I can say is if there is a way to put something together backward I will do it.

 

[Mel in SW Iowa]

IMHOP its only the best of mechanics that almost made mistakes like most of you are describing. It is that tenacity to stay with a frustrating problem that only the best are blessed with.

I had an E350 Ford work van with a 400M that locked up the oil pump twice in two months. On the third locked up oil pump, I was fortunate enough to be towed into Frances Heid in Cherokee, Iowa who was an International truck mechanic that had been building sprint cars for years. He found intake valve stem seal pieces in the oil pump large enough they should have been caught in the inlet screen. He then called the manufacturer and found out that on a cold startup when the oil filter bypass is open and the pressure is pulsing, it will pull in unfiltered oil from the pan. Frances put a fresh oil pump in, then with oil pan and valve covers off, ran my engine with an oil supply to make sure all of the oil passages were not plugged. It made a mess, but the only way to be sure all was ok. I didn't have any more problems with that motor in the next 160K miles.

 

[Dick2]

Overhauled my Chrysler 360 engine and didn't notice that the bottom end of the push rods was slightly smaller than the top ends. Didn't run well that way; ran fine after I got 3 of the push rods in right end down.

 

[rrlund]

I wouldn't even know where to start. It's been my whole life. I think they call it the school of hard knocks. It's what makes us who we are.

In my case a nervous,neurotic head case with anxiety attacks who always expects to get crapped on by life any second now. LOL

 

[n9lhm]

Ah, the school of hard knocks, where our school colors are black and blue and our class motto is "Ouch!"

 

[rrlund]

LOL

 

[David G]

Too many for me to count.

 

[Married2Allis]

Yep, dumb stuff that I don't learn from the 1st time and repeat over again!

 

[JimIA]

I could tell some of mine, but don't want to type that much!

I will tell you a recent one of a customers. He came in with a chain he was replacing. I cut him a new one. Didn't tell me what it was for. Well it was the pickup chain on his New Holland square baler. When he put it on he found the old chain was stretched and had been shortened and a half link was needed for the new chain so he took one off of the knotter drive chain..... Our baler mechanic put in new needles the next day.

 

[Kickinbull]

Ok, here's two that are still vivid. We had a 1750 oliver we bought with narrow front. Found a wide front and replaced it. The steering was loose. It took 2 turns to make it move. At the same time I was having serious family discussions with the wife. Any way, I removed the steering motor, Saginaw I think and rebuilt it. Now it wouldn't do anything. Dealer mechanic told once they came apart they don't work now more. So ordered a new charlyn motor. Put it on and it was still loose. I started checking, found a bolt on bottom of shaft of steering cylinder that was loose. Wife walks by and says if you hadn't peed me off I'd told you about the bolt.
Next, I bought a 1953 Ford 1 ton PU. Motor and tranny gone. I wanted new tires so I started to remove the old wheels. On the drivers side I snapped off the lug bolts. Not just one, but all. Pretty thick in the head. I ordered a new set and they asked for which side, because the ones on the drivers side were left handed.

 

[Donald Lehman]

Small engine work. Got the motor just about buttoned up........................part laying on the counter................................is that an old part I neglected to clear off the bench.....................or is that a part that NEEDS to be in that motor.......................

State put a proposition on the ballot to "consolidate" their holdings in the Adirondack Park. Spent a fortune telling us what a great thing it was going to be for the state and the citizens of NY. I swallowed it, along with a lot of other people. The part they didn't tell us about until after it passed, was that they literally threw people off their property and burned their homes to the ground. That was many, many years ago. Still get on myself for being stupid enough to believe what the state told us before the vote.


Many, many more, not enough space here for them all, but you get the point.

 

[gmccool]

Well a couple years ago I was painting three different things three different colors. Two of these didn't need hardener. One did. Well I had all my paint supplies lined up on the bench. I told myself when you do the last one don't forget the hardener. Painted the first one things went perfect. Mixed the paint for the next one & told myself don't forget the hardener on the last one. I even MOVED the hardener so I could see it plain as day & couldn't forget. Painted the second one things went perfect. Mixed the paint for the third one. Squirted it & it looked perfect. Walked back over to the bench & saw the hardener right where I set it so I couldn't miss it. Then I got to spend about a gallon of reducer to remove the paint that wasn't going to get hard so I could repaint it again this time with hardener. If I would have just left everything setting where I had it all lined up on the bench the first time I would have seen it & would saved myself a lot of work & headache.

 

[Harold Hubbard]

Rebuilt a Dodge flathead six. Finished it up at oh my god o'clock in the morning,installed it the next night and took it out for a test drive. It quickly developed rod knock that covered the sound of a main bearing knock. I had installed #1 main bearing shell upside down, the oil hole was in the cap, and no oil got to that bearing, or the rod bearings it was supposed to feed. A crank regrind fixed it.

Several years later I had the front end of the same engine apart, and timed the camshaft to a big casting imperfection in the crank gear, instead of the actual tiny little punch mark. It would start and run, but wouldn't make any power.

 

[flying belgian]

When they first came out with Liberty beans I was worried about yield drag so I planted half to Liberty and half to Roundup. Wrote a paper note which was which. When came time to spray I put the note in my pocket but didn't need to look at it as I can remember, right? Wrong! Sprayed one Liberty field with Roundup. Realized mistake as I was folding boom. Went right out later that afternoon and replanted. Didn't even wait to see if they would die.

 

[01gentdc]

or backing the monster 750 mf combine up to the cast iron nose of my 1070 case and smasshinhg a nice indentation inn the rear hood,,. odd thing is ,. I did that last fall, and baked it in the barn without any idea I backed into the nose of the 1070 ,, I relized that in early sept when I pulled out the combine and seen this ugly dent , couldnrt recall anything but got to loking and decided to match up the 1070 , and sure enuf it fit the dent,.. couple week sago I blew a tire that should gave up 3 yrs ago on my 730 case gasser,. the cords were shoewing wheni did the 64 m8le cancer tractor drive , those 6 plys finally wore thru while baling hay,. I continued baling with a flat front paw ,. the tire soon rolled off and I seen the rim was not getting damaged so I continued baling a few more hours and didn't hurt a thing .

 

[01gentdc]

left hand lugnuts ,, btdt ,,1958 chevy Viking c-60, is like that , and a 69 dodge polara