5 scary scenarios DIYers face
Halloween is right around the corner, and any number of scary ghouls and goblins will soon be at your door asking for sweet treats. The holiday got us thinking about DIY experiences that don’t leave our minds so easily. A few projects still keep us up at night, and the thought of repeating certain procedures can provoke a cold sweat. We aren’t saying cars are cursed or possessed—we’ll leave that to the movies—but we all know at least a few vehicles for which it was hard to prove otherwise.
From losing tools to stripping threads, here are the scariest scenarios we’ve encountered in the garage.
Using a spring compressor
The McPherson-strut front suspension design has a lot going for it, like easy installation and cost-effectiveness. Sadly, changing springs or dampers in McPherson struts can be a terror. A spring this powerful is essentially a pipe bomb, and cheap or home-fabricated spring compressors that underestimate the spring’s stored tension are legitimately dangerous. Just the thought of hearing a creak from the spring compressor and seeing a spring shoot off at full force gives us nightmares that would make most horror flicks look tame.
Discovering rust under a paint bubble
You would never pick at a scab, but sometimes you can’t help but give a light poke at that discolored spot on the quarter panel of your classic. Next thing you know, your finger has promoted inner fender to the prestigious status of outer fender. The damage only gets worse from that moment: Iron oxide takes over, a pestilence that no spooky campfire story could ever conjure. Rust is a threat that hangs over everything in your garage. You’ll start seeing the brown-ish red everywhere, until even your mixed drink seems to include red rum. It can drive a man insane, that rust.
Losing a bolt
We all know what it’s like when the bolt or tool that you just had in your hand is—poof—gone. A portal to the fifth dimension opened, swallowing that one small but critical piece of your project. The thought of where that piece of hardware went will haunt you. I’m not scared of Casper, but I am terrified of where that piston pin circlip might have gone.
Stripping a bolt
At last, final assembly. Your workbench is covered in perfectly clean, ready-to-assemble parts. You painstakingly kept all the threads of all your fasteners clean, but somehow a hard-to-reach bolt that only requires 35 foot-pounds of torque just … won’t … tighten. All of a sudden, “righty-tighty, left-loosey” becomes “righty loosey, lefty also loosey.” The split second your wrench meets no resistance, the horrors of dealing with the consequences come into sharp focus.
Burning through paint
The paint on a vehicle can get really shiny if you remove enough of it to eliminate scratches, scrapes, and other imperfections. However, the mere thought of burning through the paint of their beloved classics has kept thousands of owners from so much as looking at an electric polisher. Thanks to modern compounds, this automotive horror story no longer needs to strike fear in your heart. Random-orbit polishers and diminishing-grit compounds allow you to be gentler with paint than ever before, even if the process requires a certain touch and understanding, and the fear of burn-through lingers in the room like a ghost.
What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
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I have found that one of those small extendable pocket magnets works wonders when looking for that little lost bolt. At seventy years young it’s become my favorite tool.
Loosing a bolt is scary, but knowing it dropped into an internal engine cavity is devastating.
Replacing a timing belt while the engine is out only to find out you were one tooth off after the install and start up.
Dropped a small screw or part many times. My only hope was that it didn’t end up in that soft Michelin tire, which it did on one occasion.
Dropping a tool or fastener in the engine bay and not hearing it hit the floor.
Leaving that critical one-off, weird sized bolt somewhere when you were trying to match it up….
…maybe it was at True Value nuts & bolts aisle, or you just dropped it in the parking lot, never to be found again.
I bought a set of nut and bolt sizing tools. I measure the bolt in my shop and just take the measurements when I shop. Now, remembering where I put the bolt in my shop when I get back is still a problem.
From the list above, I would say the rust bubbles under the paint. Once rust is in the metal, it’s a nightmare to get rid of it.
That cobbled up spring compressor is particularly scary!
Gee, I thought I would give it a try next time!
(Just kidding)
Not just a stripped bolt, but a stretched one too — as shown in your photo. Did that with my lug bolts once. The torque wrench was maxed out and not giving me accurate “clicks”. I learned the hard way to never use the upper 10% of a torque wrench’s range. (Why they don’t just end the range at 90%, I don’t understand!)
I use a beam torque wrench for critical fasteners, that way I can tighten them all up gradually.
First tighten them all to about 50% and advance them to about 75%, and then maybe around 90% before finishing them.
When you drop a bolt or nut and don’t hear it hit the floor…
Broken garage door spring on a heavy wood type door. Walked up to my garage and the garage door was tilted / collapsed inward to about half the height. My 68 Shelby was behind that door. Luckily I had put nylon rope down the middle of the springs. The rope held enough to where it came within inches of hitting my car.
Car falling off the jack stands onto your feet. True story. While helping my son do brakes on his Jeep Wrangler in Costa Rica, I went to get up and pulled on the side of the Jeep. This created enough sideways force for the jack stands to tip over sideways with the Jeep landing on both my feet, trapping me under the car. Turns out the stands were not on solid ground. And, we had not put the wheels under the rockers like I normally do.
The hydraulic jack was up under the car so useless to lift it off. After screams for help, it took 7 guys to lift the Jeep off my feet. Oh, they lifted and dropped it once first.
Right foot had broken toe and left had bent bones (yep) and a lot of crushing. Mostly OK now, but get sore at end of the day.
I would agree that a vehicle slipping on jack stands or a lift is the #1 Pucker in the shop. Stops my HEART for a moment anytime it has happened in MY life (50 years a mechanic – it HAS happened a few times!). That Rube Goldberg spring compressor is a close #2. Bench grinders, cutting wheels, drills #3. I suppose fuel vapors exploding would be #4 but that’s usually preventable,; my #5 would be some 110 V tool I’m using shocking me – no wonder we used air tools so often! Dropped tools, stripped and broken bolts, missing parts were all just a day in the life…
Forgetting to check the arm locks on a twin post hoist and finding out too late that one was not set. 55 years of putting vehicles on hoists and finally it caught up to me. Thankfully I had just gotten out from under the truck when the arm kicked – but it pulled the anchors out of the floor, and bent my truck. Thankfully wr had a forklift near at hand to get the truck off the lift!!!!
Yep, vehicle coming off of ramps/stands has always been a huge pucker factor for me ever since my van caused a cheap ramp to fail due to it using spot welding instead of rivets or bolts to hold it together.
Just as I was sliding out from under the front end, the ramp collapsed, and let the van come down and brush my leg as I was almost out from under it. A few seconds earlier, and it would have crushed my chest.
To this day, it doesn’t matter how many ramps and stands I have under my vehicle, I always get a bit uneasy going under it.
Gravity rules!
What’s worse that losing a bolt? FINDING a bolt after the project is completely buttoned up!
Jump starting your car with the stereo wires still attached to the car’s battery and then realizing that your amplifier won’t turn on.
Having a brake line fail and losing all brake pressure.
How about all four brake cylinders springing a leak at the same time. Happened to me just a week ago while out on a cruise.
Almost feels like you speed up when the brake pedal hits the firewall with no resistance, doesn’t it?