OTT: Garage Goofs (10-28-2025)

[Adam]

Off-Topic Tuesday 10/28/25 - Garage Goofs

This is a no judgement zone! Be honest, what’s your most embarrassing mistake in the garage?

Tell us what happened and what you learned.

 

[Robinjo]

I learned that you cannot lower your Goblin all the way to the floor using only a jack in the middle of the rear body (around where the rear brake T is). It will lower to the floor and pin your jack handle under the car to not allow you to jack the vehicle back up. I can't remember why but I had the rear wheels off and was lowering Drago down, trying to lightly manipulate the pressure down to a certain point. That didn't go as planned and the Goblin ended up on the ground but pinned the jack under it along with the handle in a spot that wouldn't work the hydraulic back up. I was able to use a vehicle scissor jack to get it back up but that was a fun time. My wife was out of town with our van and the Miata that traded with my friend (he needed my CX-50) did not have a scissor jack. One of my neighbors had a jack so got fixed up after an hour of

Also, check under where you are drilling to install a stereo system (or any other hole in the body). If you drill through the sheet metal in the rear of a Honda, you might just drill through the fuel tank. Luckily, I was able to fix the problem with said self-tapping screw and a bit of JB Weld directly on the fuel tank, but it had to be dropped to perform the task.

As a 16-year-old I also learned the importance of routine oil changes. I elected not to change the oil at one interval on my 1st vehicle (1985 Ford Ranger Sport) and learned about pulling a blown engine. I wasn't the easiest on the vehicle to begin with and it had a lot of miles on it. Also learned about reassembling a long block from this endeavor. I became religious about oil change intervals after this lesson.

That's about all the outright embarrassing things I've done. If you asked lesson learned from just small errors, I could write a novel.

 

[comegetjoe]

I definitely never ever knocked over my Thunderbird SC off of the factory scissor jack while changing a rear tire. Boy oh geez that would be a silly mistake to make
I also don't remember having to call a friend to figure out how to get that car off of the pavement.

 

[jirwin]

When I was 16 my S10 had a K member or some such frame piece blocking the oil pan. So when I would do an oil change, I would jack it up with that. Being young and dumb, I didn't realize that all cars didn't have that. So when I went to help my buddy change his oil, we jacked it up via the oil pan. Thankfully I realized what I was doing rather quickly, and stopped before we put a hole in the pan. It did crack it though. A little (lot) of JB-Weld solved that issue and it ran for years without leaking until the rest of the car rusted out and we scrapped it

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

In 1982, the day before my Wedding I was changing the oil in my newly acquired 1980 VW Jetta S. With pre-wedding jitters and having my brother and best man hounding me about being late to the bachelor's party I forgot to put the drain plug back in the oil pan. I proceeded to pour about 2 or 3 quarts of new oil into the engine before the puddle got big enough to start running across the floor. Needless to say, I didn't hear the end of that mistake for a while, especially since I slipped and ended up on my arse - which is how I noticed the drain plug was not in the oil pan while I was on the floor.

 

[Ross]

When I was a teenager, I did a oil & filter change on my mother's car. When I checked the dipstick. it was overfilled.
I had drained the transaxle in her front wheel drive car, and then put the new oil in the engine.
She ended up getting an oil change in both... after a second trip to the store for more oils.

 

[Brian74]

I would say the worst I ever did was on a custom build years ago I put a sheet metal screw right through the positive battery (starter) cable on the other side of the panel. Then I stupidly grabbed the cable to try and yank it loose. Burning flesh is a pretty nasty smell. This was also literally 20 minutes before we were going to showcase the build to a group.

 

[Vwsaabvt]

When I was a teenager, I did a oil & filter change on my mother's car. When I checked the dipstick. it was overfilled.
I had drained the transaxle in her front wheel drive car, and then put the new oil in the engine.
She ended up getting an oil change in both... after a second trip to the store for more oils.

I drained the transmission on my mom's Subaru when I was 16, it even had an external transmission filter that said "oil filter". I noticed when the oil I used that was dripping from the drain hole to lube the filter o-ring was red.

 

[gofast]

I have a Dynahoe 290K loader/backhoe that got its oil changes done outside until my shop was built. It always irritated me that the oil filter faced downward so the oil spilled all over when the filter was removed. The first time I changed the oil in the shop, I was finally able to crawl under the machine using a creeper. I noticed a drain plug right by the oil filter base. I was upset with myself that I didn't notice this drain plug for draining the oil filter before this. I should mention I had run the engine to get it hot just before the oil change. I unscrewed the "oil filter plug" and just as it was coming out I sensed something was wrong, but I was too far along and hot antifreeze started gushing out all over me. I tried repeatedly to screw the plug back in but the heat and the gushing force made it impossible. By the time I got out from under the machine and got a bucket in place, the shop was flooded. Luckily, none of my burns were serious.