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

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Plumbing is also my arch nemesis

A long time ago I was at a tournament down at Lake Mead. As I was pulling my boat out my alternator takes a shit on the boat ramp. No big deal get towed up to the parking lot and hitch a ride to autozone for a new one. I call ahead and they say yep we got one right here for your 5.4 v8.... perfect. I get there and they hand me the box and i ask again this is for the 5.4 and they say yep!

Sweet, get back to the parking lot and with just a few shit tools i get the alternator on no problem. Shame on me for not inspecting and counting the grooves on the pulley.... I get 40 miles outside of Las Vegas on a busy freeway and I hear a loud pop come from the engine. I put it neutral and shut down the truck and let coast to get pulled off to the side of the road.

Those fuggers at autozone gave me the alternator for the 4.6L not the 5.4L and I ate belt and broke the timing arm. At that point it had to go to the shop but it was a sunday. So I ended up in a hotel for two more days until it was fixed.

That’s why I call it “Idontknow Zone”.

 

[Deeker]

Well I have so many of these. I’ll just give you a couple from the last month or so.

Putting a gravel path around my house, told my wife it would be a weekend project. Was going to dig out and build the border on Saturday and would backfill with gravel Sunday. Ended up taking half day Friday and started on border, that went into Saturday. And then Sunday. Then all week after work. Finally got it done after a week. Then came the gravel. Severely under estimated how much I would need, had to go back to get a dump trailer load three times.

Toilet reinstall, done hundred or more at work. Did one at my house to finish up the bathroom in our downstairs. ( house was a full remodel. Down to the studs). Need to replace flange, which is fine until I realize it was poured into the slab. Out comes grinder. Few minutes later it is cut out. Then I gotta grind out concrete to make a flat surface because concrete isn’t flat. 1st trip to store. Get a grinding head . 2nd trip was for concrete bolts to hold flange down. 3rd was for drill bits that would work on concrete. …….. 2 days and 9 trips to the hardware store later I got that damn toilet installed.

Last one was my favorite. I’m not a mechanic. I can change oil and do basic maintenance, but I generally just send my vehicles into the shop. I was working a lot of hours and had put off changing my wife’s oil for a few weeks. She catches me on a Sunday while I have some free time and asks me to change her oil. I want to go shoot, so I am not in a good mood about doing the oil. Got in a rush and crawled under the car to start draining oil, notice that the drain is much further back than normal. Start draining it. Why is the oil red. Then have the realization that I was draining the transmission. Awesome. Now I need to go get transmission fluid. Do that, and then pop the hood to check and fill transmission. No way to check it. No way to fill it. It’s a sealed transmission. Several YouTube videos, a couple hours and 2 more trips to the store later and I have the transmission filled back up. Still don’t have the oil changed.