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

[displacedtexan]

Approximately half of the well bred bird dogs I've owned.

Wheel bearings on my friends northern Illinois f350. That rusty pile is back in my driveway...

 

[taskswap]

Does my first marriage count?

 

[Macegl]

This spring I just finished (well mostly) our house that I have been building for the last four years.
It turned out well, but literally every project went a little sideways at one point or another. I finally just realized that to keep what little I had left of my sanity, I just had to find humor in the way things would go off the rails sometimes.
I’m sure the guy upstairs gets a good kick out of watching my life.

 

[sf jakey]

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.

You left the old o ring from the filter on the block. Remove the new filter and you will see it stuck there.

 

[wyosam]

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.

Full replacement cost x 2 is how I used to quote that sort of thing.


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[SonnyDay]

Yeah. Most of them. I wish I had more patience.

The only project that went pretty much as planned was cutting a ridge vent in my first house. I thought it ought to take about four hours to cut the vent (~60 ft), add the spacers, and re-shingle over it. And it did.

Damn near everything else has been a mess. Particularly if it involves a vehicle!

 

[EastHumboldt]

Every thing I do goes smooth as silk, because I’m a friggin genius. Women want me, men want to be me, dogs and horses obey my every command. Also I have shares of a certain bridge for sale.

Almost every time I’ve worked on a car or truck it has turned into a total shit show. To my credit I don’t do it anymore because after 47 attempts over 30 years, I have quickly learned my lesson. I’d rather do something I’m good at like carpentry or electrical, and earn some money to pay a mechanic.

Way back about 1990, I thought it would be a good idea to do my own engine swap on a Chevy 1/2 ton. After days of sweating, cursing, and bleeding… I had the engine in and everything hooked back up properly. Wouldn’t run. Screwed around for another day with timing and I can’t remember what else, then finally hired a mechanic to get it going. Can’t remember what I did wrong. I think I’ve blocked that memory.

 

[hoooogan]

Starlink flat mount conversion of the previous dish with the pole on it. Mounted to my truck camper with a 12v and household wifi router conversion.

TLDR: A somewhat simple conversion took 2 days to get functional. It should have taken about 45 min tops.

"Chop the dish off right about here and it should drop right into the mount." Well, I chopped there and continued chopping only to find out the contour of the mount did NOT fit the dish contour. What should have taken less than 30 min, took about 4 hours. The chopped ~1" thick dish was less than 1/2" by the end of it. And that's just the dish.

The 12v conversion was a whole 'nother bag of bullshit. Needed to shorten an ethernet cable to tidy up the wiring, but there was a wire order switch that needs to happen for the PoE injector to power the dish. Easy, no problem! I redid that cable probably 8 times to find out the PoE injector was dead on arrival. That was the whole rest of the day gone trying to make one Ethernet cable to fire up the dish.

Several days later, swapped the PoE injector and the issues continued. Initially, couldn't remember what config I left the cable so the cable didn't work and the dish never powered on. Redid that and it worked, right? RIGHT?!?!? No. The wifi router of all things was dead. So not one, but two devices in my system were DoA. In-between each change was probably 15-30 min of troubleshooting.

Finally got it working where it was basically trouble free for over 2 years. Then tragedy struck. The screws holding the top panel of the flat mount had backed out just enough to let in a bunch of water. Smoked the dish. Found out as I was driving to start my hunt, where I was going to rely on it for looking at maps and communication at camp. Took a break from hunting after four days and grabbed a new starlink mini. Grabbed the cheapest stainless mount on Amazon and double stick VHB taped it to my truck. The built in router and me having an inverter in the truck made the new setup stupid simple. Literally just route the power cable and turn the inverter on. Took 15 min, whereas the previous setup took the better part of 2 full days of troubleshooting plus waiting for new parts to get working.

 

[TaperPin]

Replacing 50’ of crown molding in the kitchen over the weekend. Painted and had two pieces up before it hit me it was the wrong size. Rookie. lol

In my 20s, I was crunched for time and changed the clutch in a jeep after work in the company warehouse building. About 2 am it was back together and I was backing out of the warehouse to head home and in the rush the pressure plate was left out. Oh dang.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Had an old winch sitting on the shelf for years, decided to put it on the toyota. I'm lazy so building one didnt sound all that great. Found a weld it together kit that would work. Its got holes for extra lights so might as well hang a few lights while I'm at it.

Then get to looking at it, and I can clear a bit bigger tire now....so that happened

I was wrong, cant clear that much tire. So start trimming on the truck.

Dont have the motor for that much tire either, so gears happened and if your that far into it. Might as well do lockers as well.

I wanna use 2low. So buy new shifters so I can do that.

Radiator hangs down below the bumper now..skid plate time.

Really need to tub the firewall but I'm dragging my feet on that as if I pull the interior out. Sound deadening and new flooring is goin it. And I'm already well past $5k and a years worth of dicking around just to mount a stupid winch that I got for free.

 

[hoosierhunter11]

I think I hold the hold the world record for the duration of a bathroom remodel...

Nov 2021 - demo'd bathroom, patched walls, painted, installed new vanity, hired a contractor to install tub and do tile work for the shower. Said I would do the trim work shortly after... well it's Nov 2025 and the trim work still isn't done. Back in July 2025 I did demo the linen closet and built a tall cabinet and installed that. Still need to build a door for the lower storage space... and finish the trim work...

We have a bit of remodel ADD but the house looks pretty damn good minus these one off 90% done rooms lol. Need to just get it done.

 

[5MilesBack]

Shoot, there are some days when I lean over just to tie my shoes, when it seems my hands and fingers have completely lost any memory of form or function. And after 4 or 5 unsuccessful attempts, I just put my ropers on.

As for actual projects......too many to list. Yet the easiest ones seem to cause the most problems. And yet some of my more daunting projects have gone as smooth as they could.

 

[Poser]

Too many stories. This thread raised my blood pressure.

 

[MNGrouser]

I'm afraid that I'm in the camp of those for whom the projects never go smoothly. I don't even attempt automotive repair, I know my limits. I live out in the country a ways. It is about a 35 minute drive to the nearest "real" town for supplies. I try to get everything in one trip. Invariably that doesn't work. There is a little mom and pop hardware store only about 15 minutes away. The kind of place where every plumbing fixture is 1.5-2X the cost of the big box stores and if they have the part you need, they only have 1 in stock. I end up at the mom and pop place fairly often. When I check out they never say, "thanks for your business" or "have a nice day". They always say, "Good luck!" I feel like they really get me at the mom and pop place.

My most recent entry in this category was just a couple weeks ago in Montana. Dad, brother and I all tagged out on mulie bucks. We've got all the meat cut, wrapped and in the cooler. Trying to skin and clean up the heads for transport out of state. I got my buck taken care of and ready to boil. Brother and dad are still working on theirs so I decide to "help out". I'm most of the way through my dad's and just need to force off the lower jaw. Top jaw/nose in my right hand, lower jaw in the left. If I just torque hard enough, I'm home free. Ended up breaking the lower jaw sending the broken jaw bone straight into the meat of my left palm. It has healed up most of the way by now, but I felt the pain of my rushed stupidity every mile of the drive home across North Dakota.

 

[MuleyFever]

I mean, at least I dont mess with fencing.

Thats why he needs someone to hold his beer.

 

[HuntHarder]

This year I was setting up our Poverty pool (above ground) in the backyard. I got finished, filled it with 4500 gallons only to find out that it was 2 inches out of level. I had to use a bottle jack and 1/2" shims and go around half the pool to level it. I was not about to drain that mfr. The bottle jack adjustment was nothing short of sketchy. I was running the jack with a 4' 4x4. Lol.