Life is full of events that could trigger the question of “what if?” The best thing you can do is try to prepare for them, be it something as simple as asking a crush out or as complex as trying to fix your hopelessly complicated car. Sometimes, those worst-case scenarios become real life and now you’re living a nightmare worthy of breaking you. Tell us about that time wrenching went so wrong that your vehicle essentially broke you.
I like being a person with a plan. If something fails I like having a backup plan and a backup plan for when the first backup plan fails. Despite this, there have been a few times when a situation involving a vehicle has left me feeling totally hopeless.
Most recently, this happened with our ambitious Ski-Klasse Mercedes-Benz E320 wagon project. I put that car through the wringer last year and for the most part, it never gave up on me. If I blew it apart on a dirt track, I was able to cobble it back together and get it back home. When I got stuck on an icy bank during a sub-zero freeze, I used my resources to get it freed. I even replaced the vehicle’s right rear window after its regulator failed and the original glass blew up into a million pieces.
But the car presented me with a problem that I could not fix. I took Ski-Klasse on a Gambler 500 and one of its hydraulic suspension shocks decided to leave this plane of existence in the middle of a trail deep in rural Tennessee. This was bad because as our car’s builder and rally extraordinaire Bill Caswell told me, the self-leveling hydraulic rear suspension needs fluid to operate. Running it dry means a non-functional rear suspension, no power steering, and almost certainly pump seizure before I got anywhere near Illinois. The leak was bad, too, as in it sprayed at least a gallon of hydraulic fluid out of the blown shock every 5 minutes or so.
I gathered my friends and we tried everything from removing the pump to blocking the hydraulic lines to fooling around with the suspension’s adjustment lever. No matter what we did, it always sprayed fluid out.
This issue was so difficult to solve that the Mercedes-Benz expert in my group ran out of ideas. Eventually, I was all alone with a car that Caswell and I were sure wasn’t going to make it home. I had a car full of tools and none of them could fix my predicament. I was hopeless and it ruined the rest of my Gambler 500 run that weekend. Eventually, I realized that I had no choice but to drive home and hope that the pump wasn’t going to seize over the course of 600 miles. Every mile was filled with the dread of ending up stranded in a place without phone service or where nobody could help me.
Thankfully, I found help in the form of the wacky racers of the 24 Hours of LeMons, who found a way to delete the blown shock while preserving the necessary hydraulic fluid loop to stop the leaking.
My fear of ending up stranded without help had precedent.
Back in early 2020, I got stranded in rural Pennsylvania. My Suzuki Burgman 650 got a hole in its rear tire, putting me on the side of a road on a 20-degree night in the middle of nowhere. Cops didn’t want to help me, my insurance told me I was on my own, and the one tool I forgot to bring was a tire kit. I got out of it by riding on that flat tire until I found civilization.
Both of these events put me into a sort of crisis mode, where I was shocked enough that somehow, the worst-case scenario happened and there wasn’t a clear solution. How about you? Has there been a time when you’ve been put into your nightmare wrenching scenario? When did wrenching break you?
For context, I’m a new and relatively inexperienced mechanic. I was in school this year actually. We had 4 Volvos as shop cars. 2 XC90s, an XC60 and an XC70. Over the year the XC70 became my pet project. It needed a new engine after a previous student did a timing belt change wrong and wrecked the motor. The details are hazy, but I believe the car stood for 3 years before we began work.
I knew that it would be an enormous undertaking. Maybe not for most, but as I said, I don’t have a lot of experience. I should note that I had super help from my teacher (a mechanic, truck driver, truck mechanic and rallycross driver) Taking out the old engine was bad enough. We decided to take it out from the bottom, so the front subframe had to be taken out along with the axles. This went relatively quickly if I recall correctly, like maybe a month with 2 days per week. The driveshaft, fuel lines and brake lines were disconnected, and everything was good until this point. Keep in mind my teacher had plans to start up the car in November.
Changing the engine on the frame was also relatively easy, although there were times I couldn’t keep track of all the screws (it should be noted that other people worked on this a little too, so keeping track of stuff generally was hard).
The installation was by far the worst. While lifting the frame back up I pinched the brake lines, which I didn’t realise until later. I did bend up a nice line when we realised it (but then had to start over because of incorrect routing). Anyway, the engine was in around March I want to say, but it still wouldn’t run. The next couple of months were spent trying to read the problems in the electrical system, and when we finally managed that we couldn’t delete or check them in detail. I already didn’t like electrical work, and this did not help at all. The fact that the contacts for the computers were open all winter might had something to do with this.
Anyway, come and of year, and the car I had high hopes for (I thought I would buy it early in the schoolyear) didn’t start up. The engine turned over, and run on ether, but it didn’t run on it’s own. All in all, I spent the half, maybe two thirds of a school year on one car, and I didn’t even get to finish it.
I’ve owned around 50 cars. So far the toughest one is one I currently own, and plan on continuing to own for a long time as I’ve always wanted one. It’s an 85 Jaguar XJS. It’s been very neglected and it’s quite rusty, but also only has 80k and can be redeemed without too much work. unfortunately it’s also very stubborn and finding parts has been the most difficult aspect so far. I CANNOT find an ignition switch and also cannot find a few simple things that the engine needs like a throttle micro switch and the coolant controlled fast-idle valve. If it cant be repaired, I either need to find something else and retrofit or find a very expensive used part from the UK. It has a GM vacuum advance module in the distributor for example!.
Currently I’m trying to get it to rev past 4000RPM. Every little repair gets me a little step further, but what’s frustrating so far is that EVERYTHIGN needs repaired. every little connection, every little mechanical linkage or assembly.. it’s either stuck solid or not making contact, or shorting or too loose or too tight! eventually there will be nothing to fix and it will work like it’s supposed to.
This car stands out as the most amount of time I’ve spent on something, with very little progress for the end goal (daily driving), and the most amount of times I’ve went to bed disappointed. But I pass it every day and go “dayyyummm look at that thing!” and very soon I will be going “dayyyummmm listen to that thing!”.
Have goals, people!
I’m in the middle of one now.
Last December I put a new steering rack in my 320K mile 2001 Tundra and discovered that the driver’s side front differential axle seal was leaking and the bearing was loose. It’s a fairly common problem and the simple fix comes from East Coast Gear Supply in the form of a new bronze bushing, removal tool, seal and install tool. All I needed to do was remove the 4 bolts holding the lower ball joint to the knuckle, rotate the knuckle out so the half shaft can slide out of the diff, pull the seal and bearing and then put it all together.
Just 4 bolts. We’ll, on a 320K mile Ohio truck, of course 2 of them broke. Now I needed to get the knuckle out so I could extract the broken bolts. One was exposed but the other was broken below flush. I started with the exposed one. After applying a lot of heat I fought hard and turned it about 1/4 of a turn. I decided that I might get this one out, but the other wasn’t going to come, so I bought a new knuckle, which meant I should get a new wheel bearing and seals.
I’ve got a pretty well equipped shop but I don’t have a shop press. If I’m putting a new bearing in I’d need one, so off to Harbor Freight I went. After assembling the press, I started by pressing the hub out of the old knuckle and bearing. I was pretty pleased when it popped out, until I realized that the old bearing had come apart and one of the races was still pressed on the hub. There was no way to get anything under it to press it off, so I bought a new hub.
That was last weekend and I was now up against a hard deadline. I had surgery Monday and won’t be able to lift more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks. So, an under $200 repair blossomed into an $800 repair and the truck sits on my lift waiting for me to finish the job. Hopefully no more surprises in 5 and a half weeks when I get back to it.
In my case it was a dirt bike that literally sent me broke.To be fair i was on very low pay and i was racing it.But damn that thing has some crazy failures.The price i had to pay for owning a fancy euro bike in the eighties i guess?
I lost two very expensive pistons in less 25min due to detonation from (i think)bad fuel. The jetting was fine and the issue never came back so that’s my best guess.Thankfully nothing else was damaged
A stator support plate failure from corrosion. Then a ruined big end bearing from a stupid mechanic whacking the crankshaft due to having no flywheel puller (an old school method.It works great on something like a briggs and stratton.Not so much here)
Something bad -i cant remember exactly what- happened to the water pump due to not using coolant.Magnesium doesnt like straight water! In my defense there was no mention of it in any literature or advice from the bike shop.
I lost a gudgeon pin clip into the top end.Somehow that didnt wreck everything! I’m pretty sure that one was my fault.
Then the same weekend Nigel Mansell had his spectacular tyre failure in Adelaide,i cooked my engine due to a lost coolant pipe. That one REALLY hurt financially.I think it was AU$800 in mid eighties money?
And the last failure was the stator.These bikes had a once piece design with -for their time- huge power output for lights.That of course also made it super expensive.It was ‘only’ $300 but by that time i was done. I was starting to have health issues,was sick of my shitty job and wasnt in the mood to continue this state of affairs.
I sent the bike -still almost perfect but for the stator- to the closest husqvarna dealer who sold it for me.For a pissy $600
I got out of bikes for a few years,then eventually bought an extremely beat up yamaha MXer. It was a model with a particularly bad reputation (for a Jap bike).
…and it never missed a beat
I bought a ’67 VW bus with some body damage. I easily fixed the body damage, but as I went to do other fixes, each and every thing I touched resulted in finding it far worse that I anticipated. Every single thing. I gave up and sold it. The only time I even drove it was going into town to obtain payment at the buyer’s bank. I got a call from the buyer that the engine leaked oil badly. I didn’t even know as I didn’t even get to the engine before I gave up on it.
Few things really break my spirit turning wrenches. I recognized a long time ago that I’m never going to totally fail at a job or never be able to do it; it just becomes an issue of the time it takes and having to get access to the proper tools.
Occasionally, troubleshooting gets me a little annoyed, but usually, that’s just part of the process. I may not solve the problem, but every step brings me that much closer to the solution.
But one problem just wrecked me because I COULD NOT GET IT FIXED. It is the problem that I will remember on my deathbed.
Just out of college in 1998ish I had a ’85 Supra. It was a great car and super fun until one day it started to run kinda lousy. Not terrible just down on power and sounding bad. Nothing seemed off, and the fuel and ignition system all seemed good. After eliminating all the basics I decided it had skipped time. I had no idea how old the timing belt was so I figured I would change it.
Sure enough, it was 2 teeth off. I installed a new belt and tensioner, and down the road I go, the car runs just like it used to.
A few days later, we were back where we were, same symptoms.
I assume I botched the tension, setting it by feel and redo the job. Runs great and then turns to shit again a few days later.
I decided that skipping the belt must have rounded the drive teeth edges. I got a new belt and inspected the gears. Everything looks as good as new. I cannot imagine with only like 80k on it the gears are bad.
Symptoms come back. I am not grasping at straws and decide the TINY seepage of oil on the cam and crank seals is getting it slick in some way I cannot see even though it seems fine. When I go to change the crank seal the gear WILL NOT COME OFF. I broke several pullers and ended up cutting the gear and cracking it off.
Come to fins out the keyway IN THE CRANK GEAR had failed and the gear was slowly spinning on the crank and wedging itself on harder and harder as well as creating a lip on the back capturing the crank gear. It also impacted the keyway into the crank so bad it took more than an hour with a hammer, punch and die grinder to extract it.
New gear and the old belt and it ran great until the day I sold it.
I will die younger than I was meant to over that one.
I had a similar issue with my 1988 Pulsar NX SE. Ran poorly and I took it to the dealer near my parent’s house where I was at the time. Diagnosis was a bad crank angle sensor and the timing had jumped. Sensor was $400 so I went with a used one.
It ran great for a few weeks and the symptoms returned. Took it to the dealer near my house and they diagnosed the same thing. Of course, no warranty on the used sensor, but the belt should be covered, right? Nope, I had bought a Gates belt planning to do the timing belt myself and had given it to them. No Nissan belt, no warranty.
They replaced the sensor with a new one and changed the belt again. It ran great – until about halfway home from the dealer. I took it back and it took them over 2 weeks to determine the the spline on the end of the exhaust cam that drives the crank position sensor was worn. The looseness in the connection was beating up the sensors and giving false readings. The timing probably never had jumped. A new cam, and a total of $1800 in the late 90s, and it was fine.
Well, at least for that problem. That Pulsar was a lemon and nickeled and dimed me to death.
Lower control arms/balljoints on a 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Those funky two-piece arms with two balljoints. One bolt was seized, and I mean seized. PB Blaster wouldn’t touch it, even after a two-day soak. Heat didn’t help, Finally, I borrowed an impact gun, and instantly broke the head off the bolt. Drilled it out, put in an extractor to pull out the stump, and broke the extractor.
I ended up having to drill it all the way out to the edge of the threads, and finally the remains came free, and somehow or other the threads weren’t damaged. I chased them with a tap to make sure, but the new bolt tightened up fine.
Three-fourths of the job took 2 hours. That one bolt took five days. I never did figure out why it was so badly stuck when the others weren’t.
I scored a gorgeous 1984 KLR600 for free. It had been sitting, partially dissembled, in a garage buried in junk. I was there to help the executor of the estate clear out some of this junk and was offered the bike as payment. I managed to find all of the missing parts and was absolutely giddy on the drive home.
Once I got it into my garage, I got it to fire up without much effort at all. So I replaced the dry-rotted tubes and tires, ordered and replaced the turn signals as the originals had all rotted away to dust and replaced most of the other rubber.
After doing that the bike fired up and I took it for a longer spin around town. It was glorious, until the bike suddenly died and would not restart. I pushed it a mile and a half home and then discovered it had no spark.
What followed was several months of me taking the entire electrical system apart and going over everything with a multi-meter, checking all the grounds and then resorting to just throwing new parts at it because I couldn’t find anything wrong. That bike never started again. I’m guessing this is why the thing was parked to begin with.
I finally got so fed up with it I sold it and never looked back. I did get $800 for it though so that was nice.
I had a 1963 chrysler new yorker. It was wonderful. I decided I would do some transmission work. Lifted the car, started taking out the bolts for the bell housing. Crawled underneath the get the final bolts and take it out… unfortunately the bell housing ended up on my chest and I spent the next 90 minutes trying to wiggle out and get the transmission on the ground safely. Thankfully I got help to put it back in along with the right tools. But that was a tough 90 minutes under the car
Nothing that bad, although I REALLY don’t want to fix the turn signals on my Accord wagon right now.
Here’s a Wrenching Wednesday solicitation of help(maybe from David, who I know has done this before).
I’m currently rebuilding the Jeep 258 six for my 1974 J10. It clearly had many, many miles. As soon as I’m done with the engine, my next step is to work on the T18 manual transmission behind it.
But I need to decide if I’m fully rebuilding the transmission or not. The thing shifts great and runs quiet. But the input shaft seems really really sloppy, like the bearing is just super worn(this thing does have a ton of miles). But I’m seeing folks on forums saying that as long as its not noisy and the gears inside aren’t actually broken, then there’s nothing that actually needs rebuilding on a T18. Do they just have wobbly input shafts or something? Is there actually anything I need to do to it?
I drove a 1972 Cutlass in college. It was over 25 years old at that point, but because it was registered in New Jersey where my parents lived, I had to drive it home once a year in January to get it inspected (or register it in Detroit at school where the insurance cost 2x as much annually as I had paid for the car). Anyway, somewhere in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, the 1 year old fan blade broke off and sliced through my 6 month old radiator. It was also a Sunday and was before cell phones. I was at least near an exit and there was a heavy truck mechanic at the exit that was open. I still ended up leaving the car, paying some odd guy to drive me to a small airport about 25 miles away that had a rental counter that was open, and renting a car at a hefty cost (since I was under 25), to complete my journey home. Then I had to coordinate getting the car fixed and driving back out there 2 days later to continue my journey to NJ and then back to Detroit.
Had a mkVI Jetta before I understood the concept of having the right tool for a job – trying to replace the diverter valve with an oversized ratchet and the wrong bit (it took HOURS to remove the three bolts) only to find that the replacement part didn’t fit definitely broke my developing wrenching brain.
More recently I had an A4 (similar engine, with additional displacement and longitudinal vs transverse) and was able to do the job in about 20 min – I was giggling and giddy about how much easier it was!
Wait, I forgot about this gem.
Studying for the bar exam. Had a 1971 BMW R60/5 motorcycle, that I got from Andy Pelc himself, from his stash of parts bikes.
I took it apart with the intent of a full restoration. During study breaks, I would lovingly sand it, smooth it out, etc. This was weeks of work, stealing away when I could.
I lived with my parents at the time, and had every paintable part primed, wet sanded, etc., set up and ready to paint in their garage.
Using rattle cans, I painted everything evenly, no runs, no glops of paint, just a beautiful even coat on everything.
The fumes were overwhelming, so I just cracked the garage door.
Every effing piece of dust, dirt and debris in Oakland County blew into the garage like a fu–king cylclone, and adhered itself to every inch of all painted surfaces.
I was so pissed I just put the bike together and sold it as is…
Not quite broke me, but it was close. It all started when my ‘99 k2500 started rattling under acceleration. Rattling like cracked-flywheel rattling. Concerningly so. Realizing that was out of my realm of fixing at that time I took it to the shop. That was an ordeal in and of itself but not relevant to this story. Suffice to say, I’d spent a fair bit of money to fix what ultimately would up being a loose torque converter bolt.
This, on a truck that I got for free as a project, and had spent the prior 3 months working on.
The thing that nearly broke me, however, was that, literally on the way home from the shop, the truck was running great…right up til it died a mile from home.
My dad towed it back to the farm, and that’s when the fun began. It wasn’t the distributor, or coil, or plugs. Fuel pump did its thing. Timing chain was checked to verify it hadn’t jumped a tooth (it hadn’t). But still no spark. For the next 12 months, in between work and an ongoing family health emergency I spent any free time I had tracing wires, troubleshooting everything, to no avail.
It was a pretty hot day last June, after digging into it for about 4 hours with no change in the lack of spark, that I decided enough was enough. Time to take it to the shop.
The plug end to the ignition coil was cracked. Not visibly, mind you. Not enough that testing the plug or coil would show a problem. But, $6 for a plug and hours worth of shop labor later, it was fixed. I was so mad. 12 months trying to fix this thing, and it wound up being a plug that had already tested fine. I almost sold the truck after that.
Thankfully I calmed down, and it’s been a pretty useful rig since then. But man, talk about frustrating.
I purchased a 10 year old BMW that has now turned into an 18 year old BMW.
I bought a used oilfield truck a couple of decades ago. It was cheap, which was all I cared about at the time because I wanted something cheap and capable, not nice and pretty, for hauling my trailers and equipment. I soon found out why it was cheap and why the oil company was dumping it – the front differential and rear differentials were both bad. The rear had a chipped tooth, which wasn’t severe enough to require replacement (I filed the chip down so it stopped making noise), but the front was seized. Mud and water had gotten in through the breather hole and trashed the differential to the point that the spider gears had seized up. I replaced the front differential, seals, and the worn axle shafts, only to then find out that the transfer case was bad and the chain for the front output had sheered internally from the seized differential. I swapped in a new transfer case by myself with just a scissor jack, which involved mostly dropping the old one on myself and bench pressing the new one into place, only to then find out that the fuel tank had 6″ of mud in it from a tear in the fuel filler neck. I found that out when the mud-clogged fuel filter blew out and filled the fuel rail full of mud, killing all the injectors.
I could go on and on with all that truck subjected me to, but in the end I fell for the sunk-cost fallacy and kept fixing the thing despite it crushing my soul. Eventually I got it running good and it served me and my extended family well for the next 15 years until it was sold to a family friend as a farm truck. I even still miss that truck a bit, but that may just be the residual Stockholm Syndrome talking.
It’s been discussed in the below link, but replacing the engine, radiator, motor mounts, brakes, basically everything short of the transmission in my Peugeot was a bad one. It nearly broke me both financially and emotionally. So many late nights fighting with one thing or the other. If I had not built a network of contacts in the UK and other countries who have bailed me out on many occasions, there’s no way it would be running and I would have lost my mind by now.
I do have to concede though, I am grateful for the experience because I learned a lot, and truthfully it was that experience that led to me being able to be a contributor here, but man it was and still is rough.
https://www.theautopian.com/i-bought-a-french-hot-hatch-and-it-almost-immediately-imploded-members-rides/
I don’t know if it qualifies as a nightmare but it made me swear off of VWs. Changing a headlight bulb in a 2004 (maybe 2005?) Jetta on the drivers side is definitely one of the levels of hell. It was the dumbest fucking thing and it would ALWAYS go out! I feel like it was every other month and every time my knuckles would be scraped to hell trying to contort my hand in to swap them out. What’s that you say? Remove the battery? Nope because if I did the car would have a hissy fit when we reconnected the battery.
I fucking hated that car. I didn’t even own it and yet I hated it more than the Sebring convertible I did own.
Simple one here. Doing a tune up on a 1953 Chevy and the flipping thing would not start afterwards. Ran though all the diags, spray starter fluid in it (which we had Start Ya Bastard in the states), nothing would get it to run.
On a whim put the older condenser back on, fired right up. A $1 part prevented it from running I pretty much swore off wrenching as that was way to long to spend getting a car running.
This past weekend I spent time at my parents beach house moving some Honda PWCs, and fixing trailers. About a month ago we sent the 2 PWC for service, because this year was about the first time 6 years we would be able to use them. Everything went fine with the service, however both trailers broke. One trailer the axle rusted through where the leaf springs connect. The other trailer lost all rebound in the rusted springs, and shredded a tire with a nut on the fender. both trailers broke on a 1.5 mile drive from the repair shop.
Fixing the trailers is what it is, and after 20 years it was definitely needed. We got both PWC into the Bay, and thought we were about to enjoy them. First thing was to go fill up the tanks, so I headed off on one with a friend on another, and all of a sudden I couldn’t turn right (starboard). Got back to the mooring and realized a ferule had broken that keeps the hydraulic lines mounted on the right side, so only left was available. Tried to keep it in the water to pull it out the next day. Well while I was putting the kids to bed at 8pm the Cops show up to tell us one of the PWCs is sinking.
Wonderful time, pulling it onto the beach, then using kids water guns to drain it. It was at this point I lost it. For three weeks I had been doing everything in my spare time to make sure the trailers would come together, and the damn PWC broke! I’m out on them now, no more Honda Aquatrax for the bay (not a great bay ride, much better in lakes). Now it’s time to convince the old man to buy a Whaler we can all enjoy.
meh, get a tritoon. It’s the minivan of the sea. fun for all. Then, when the old man decides to pass it on you can repower with a 250 or dual 250s on the right model.
Floating party decks are cool, but he needs something he can teach the kids to sail from. So kids in the sail boat, and him near by in the Whaler. All the work for the PWCs just isn’t worth the back pain after it.
Also in order to fix the trailer, I bought a bass boat on a trailer, so I could take trailer parts. A fellow Autopian member and myself are planning on making it a temporary hybrid boat, then eventually all electric with solar recharging. If that works out, eventually I could throw the powertrain on a Whaler with minimal modification, and the old man will never have to fill it up again.
oh yeah, sailing is the way to go. I have a HC16. Thing’s a blast. I keep my neighbors on speed dial in case we run out of wind. Grampa on a Whaler would be a much better option.
I just always try to point out pontoons as they always seem to get poo pooed by the typical boating crowd. But they are like swiss army knives and with performance pontoons and enough motor they can really scoot.
good luck with the bass boat. with a shallow draft that might be a good candidate for electric. Most EV boats I’ve read about have a hard time getting enough power to overcome the drag and get on plane without massive energy.
Removed the engine in my 914 to fix the overheating and oil leak. Success.
Found the “hell hole” rust, in a car that had never been driven in the winter. Bought a welder, some replacement sheet metal, and tried to cut out the bad metal. Officially a bad idea…
My 1972 Super Beetle has a considerable amount of rust, which I’ve put off repairing since I got the car almost 20 years ago (admittedly I was 11 at the time). I refuse to do it myself. I’d be wayyy over my head and just don’t have the time to learn a whole new skill, on a car that will require me to use that skill extensively. I’m saving a couple years of bonuses and then I’m paying someone to weld the damn thing.
Smart move.
Or, and hear me out, dune buggy…..
Heh, the car is basically a family member at this point, so stock it stays! I can’t tell you how many people have told me to scrap it because of the rust (it’s a Super Beetle, they don’t get much love), but it’s worth saving to me.
I had a 914 I welded up from a donor car. The worst part was when the rear trailing arm brackets started to rust out, and the rear wheels started moving back and forth as the round hole went oblong. Anyway, my 20-something DIY self made new brackets, and they worked for about six months until everything went pear-shaped again. I didn’t have the money to do more repairs, so I sold it.