What’s Your “Easy” Project That Went Sideways?

[Fowl Play]

We’ve probably all been there, trying to cross a project off the list and it just doesn’t want to go quietly!

Hope you all get a laugh, hope to hear some other stories. Today I decided to do an oil change on my F350. Done it several times, no issues. Today I go to do it and right off the bat I go to remove the oil plug and the biggest clump of mud falls off my truck, right into my eyes. Couldn’t have been a more perfect shot. Queue a couple minutes of flushing my eyes with a water bottle so I can finally see again… let’s start again. Remove the plug, oil starts draining, no problem. All of a sudden a crazy 30mph wind comes out of nowhere… now all the oil that should have gone into the drain pan, blows sideways… right into my face. To make matters worse, I did it while it was hot, so it would run out easier… draining13 quarts of oil takes a while when cold. So now my face is covered in burning oil. Fuc me!

Get the oil out, filter removed, new filter installed, 13 quarts of full synthetic oil replaced… start the truck… and oil is flowing out the top of the new filter. Tighten it some more, still leaking. No idea what I did wrong probably a bad oring. But now the truck can’t move, and I need to start the whole process again. F me.

I need to hear about some of y’all’s projects that should have been easy but went sideways.

 

[rookieforever33]

Everything I've ever tried.

 

[robtattoo]

Any job given to me by The Wife that she's convinced is "just a quick 10 minutes babe, honest!" generally ends up being somewhere between a 4 hour to 3 day debacle, involving at least 2 trips to hardware stores, learning at one new skill & usually losing skin, blood, patience & the will to live.

This generally happens about once a week.

 

[MallardSX2]

I wanted to clean my air filter before heading west this year. Dropped one of those stupid bolts down into the engine.

Took me 3 hours yo find it……I HAD to find it.

99% of people would have said F-it. I’m the 1%. lol

 

[IDVortex]

Okay, technically not a 'easy' project. It was a project I told my wife i could easily do though...


So I own a 17 F250 6.7, it got the typical oil pan leak, not just a little leak, I was having to ad oil once a week. Both lower and upper gaskets had left the chat. I researched what I was doing and to see how much a shop would want to do it. Avg shop cost was 5-6k, me being a cheap ass and also having trust issues with most shops said I could do it in a weekend. Actually went super smooth at first, dropped the Trans, lifted up the engine a bit, got everything cleaned up and re-sealed. Went to re-install and couldn't get the trans line up properly, had to take it up and down a couple times, was getting frustrated and a little hot headed with it, decided to kick it because that should make it go into place only to have it fall off the transmission jack stand and onto my wrist. Found out my right arm/hand can lift a Ford transmission off my other arm quite fast. Ended up cutting my wrist open, surprisingly didnt break it. Got stitches for the first time in my life and some weird feelings in my hand for about 5 months. But. A quick weekend project took 3 weeks, a 1500 er visit. And a pissed wife when she found out I was working on my truck the following weekend alone without help.

 

[eamyrick]

Anything involving a gunsmith and a dream rifle.

 

[Billy Goat]

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[Billy Goat]

Okay, technically not a 'easy' project. It was a project I told my wife i could easily do though...


So I own a 17 F250 6.7, it got the typical oil pan leak, not just a little leak, I was having to ad oil once a week. Both lower and upper gaskets had left the chat. I researched what I was doing and to see how much a shop would want to do it. Avg shop cost was 5-6k, me being a cheap ass and also having trust issues with most shops said I could do it in a weekend. Actually went super smooth at first, dropped the Trans, lifted up the engine a bit, got everything cleaned up and re-sealed. Went to re-install and couldn't get the trans line up properly, had to take it up and down a couple times, was getting frustrated and a little hot headed with it, decided to kick it because that should make it go into place only to have it fall off the transmission jack stand and onto my wrist. Found out my right arm/hand can lift a Ford transmission off my other arm quite fast. Ended up cutting my wrist open, surprisingly didnt break it. Got stitches for the first time in my lift and some weird feelings in my hand for about 5 months. But. A quick weekend project took 3 weeks, a 1500 er visit. And a pissed wife when she found out I was working on my truck the following weekend alone without help.View attachment 967984

Rookie.

Hold my beer.

 

[IDVortex]

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I use to do plumbing for a minute. This is a great reminder why I didnt stay in that trade.

 

[IDVortex]

Rookie.

Hold my beer.

I mean, at least I dont mess with fencing.

 

[Chris in TN]

I go to remove the oil plug and the biggest clump of mud falls off my truck, right into my eyes. Couldn’t have been a more perfect shot. Queue a couple minutes of flushing my eyes with a water bottle so I can finally see again… let’s start again.

Back in the summer the starter on my little Kia went out. Fortunately it was in the driveway, so I removed it. Which takes a while because the psychopath who designed that car jammed the starter up under it in such a way that you need to flip the car upside down to actually get to it. It can be done - if I can do it anyone can - but you have to remove maybe a heat shield and a few other random parts to be able to get the starter off, remove, replace, and reassemble.

There was a bolt I simply could not put back in. I could crawl under the car and see it, or I could lay down sort of in front of the car and carefully bend my arm up to where I could feel the bolt, but I couldn't reinsert it and get a wrench on it, by feel alone.

I asked my oldest daughter to assist - I'd get her to lay under the car looking up while I attempted to put the bolt back in from above, with her guiding me through the process.

Seconds into this task, I dropped a tiny piece of grit into her eye. Two hours later after we'd half-tortured her trying to remove it, we gave up and called our local eye doctor, who drove in to his office on a Saturday afternoon, opened up, flipped her eyelid back (we'd seen another eye doctor do this before and knew it could be done but simply didn't have the dexterity to pull it off) and within a few seconds, had removed the offending speck of grit. He charged my wife something like $100 for this weekend visit. Way more than fair, IMO.

Meanwhile, I got my middle child a pair of safety goggles and got her to help me guide the bolt in.

 

[wyosam]

Any job given to me by The Wife that she's convinced is "just a quick 10 minutes babe, honest!" generally ends up being somewhere between a 4 hour to 3 day debacle, involving at least 2 trips to hardware stores, learning at one new skill & usually losing skin, blood, patience & the will to live.

This generally happens about once a week.

I feel that. Currently in the middle of a closet door project that I’m trying to finish before neck surgery next week has me laid up for pretty much the rest of the winter (closet hasn’t had a door since we’ve owned the house). It’s a sliding barn door type thing she ordered online. Finished it Friday, or so I thought. She loves it! Except the “wood” (vinyl) is the wrong color and doesn’t match the bedroom set. (It is exactly as pictured in the picture she sent). Ok, now I’m painting this Chinese piece of sh!t white. So I’m trying to scuff sand this textured fake wood, so the fancy primer I went to the store to buy that will supposedly “stick to anything” will actually work. Now waiting for this garbage to dry, after taking the door apart to take the glass out. Hopefully it goes well for the next couple days so maybe I can have some time to focus on projects that actually affect getting through the winter with me being basically an invalid. To be fair, mostly what I want to do it spend a bunch of time at the range to make a bunch of empty brass so I have something to do once I’m off the pain medicine.


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[dgfavor]

It'd be easier for me to list the few projects that have ever just went smoooooth.

My standard operating procedure is typically some variant of the following:
1) Project A - simple, easy
2) Project B - fix the tool I need to complete Project A
3) Project C - fix the tool I need in Project B to fix the tool to complete Project A
4) Project D - go buy the tool I need to fix the tool in Project C to fix the tool in Project B to complete Project A

- sometimes it's just that simple...

 

[RockAndSage]

Any household or vehicle repair project... I 3x the estimate of both the amount of time and money I think it'll cost. That's prevented a lot of sideways projects.

 

[Muddler]

Hah. Cutting down the dead stuff in the landscaping today. 5 min job. Slashed open my thumb on the hedge trimmers. A trip to UrgiCare and some stiches later, I still feel that 5 mins.

 

[Caseknife]

Been on the receiving end of a lot of those "easy" projects. Guys would bring in machines that they had tried to fix themselves, now in a box with stuff taken apart that should have never been taken apart and usually bolts missing. Too bad they cost themselves more money by trying to fix it themselves.

 

[Pony Soldier]

I have torn apart my D7 5 times trying to get the shifting forks paired up with the respective gears in the transmission. I failed again this year.

Maybe next year.

 

[Tobe_B]

Any of you guys married to a woman with a horse addiction? I’ve got a list longer than our wedding registry of projects that went sideways.

One from this last spring involved moving horses to a new pasture. Took me three weeks just to clean up a particular area of brush and trees to make it safe enough for them. Finally set up three different pastures in one area, one specifically for a horse we had foaling out. After two days of running hot wire fence and fixing an area up we turned out our herd of rocket donkeys. I went off to a different ranch to feed cows and check on heavy breds that were calving, finally pulled back in my driveway at about 1:00 am. When I pulled in I noticed all the horses were together and we’d left them split up in different pastures when I left that afternoon. Walked out and fixed the fence back up, in the dark, caught up horses and started putting them back. Caught the last one, a barrel horse project of my wife’s, and she wigged out at the gate and bolted with her halter on. Ran right through the hotwire again. Decided I’d be better off just making one big pasture for the night and took all the dividing fence and posts out at what was now 2:00 a.m.



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[ozyclint]

Many a time I've started a job which is a 5 minute job.
Tool needed to do said job breaks then spend the rest of the day either repairing or making another tool to finish the job because it's Sunday and you can't go buy another tool.

 

[CorbLand]

This meme speaks to me