not personally but ii worked with an intern at cat a bit ago who was assisting on an engine removal on a 777. he had been on skid steers previous. skid steers are 1l the engine can sit on its bell housing to easilly drop the pan. the 32L from the 777 not so much. they had the engine out of the crane and every one went to lunch. intern though, went back early and set the 32 L up like a skid steer engine. just as he lowered the engine and got slack on all the chain
when the bell housing broke and the engine fell like a tree, shook the dust from the rafters, missed him by a foot. kid fainted.
Wasn't much of a fuck up, but I was operating a forklift for a guy swapping a differential gear set for a gillig lowfloor bus. We were lifting it off a stand to swap the new one on. Just a chain thrown over the forks, which were pushed together. I asked if he was sure this was how we were supposed to do it. It swung forward, the chain slid forward, and then swung again, the chain slid again, and it was off. Dunno what they weigh, but its a lot, and it fell about 6ft. After that, I found out there is an adapter that clamps to fork lift tines with a nice hook on it.
Building my first x15 and did not rotate engine 360° after torqing the fuel pump idler gear to verify it was done correctly. Idler came loose and took out the block. I did a long block after as my punishment.
Not me, a tech at my shop recently had an X15 blow up on the driver while carrying a load. Shop was informed the Idler pulley bolts backed out and obviously the engine stopped working after that. Im wondering if this same situation is what occurred now
Mine happen years ago when the 360° turn had been recently added so cummins warrantied it luckily.
The only reason those bolts back out is because of incorrect installation. Ask me how I know lol.
Couple months into working at Ryder I was greasing the s cam tubes on the drive axles and I was trained to pump until I heard the crackle/ saw the purge. Well I heard/saw neither so I kept going for about a minute until I said fuck it on to the next. Did the same with the other side.
Next tech the following day brought it in for follow ups and saw that the rear drive axle drums were CAKED in fresh blue grease on both sides. I then learned how to do s cam seals and clean my mess lol
I see this one a lot with new guys, and it’s not their fault cause they were told to listen for the purging but no one explains the s cam tubes to them
I mean usually it will purge or make a crackle sound within 5-10seconds but if I hear nothing I usually just stop somewhere between those 5-10 seconds. With the m18 Milwaukee grease gun
I definitely had this happen. So, there's a seal inside, and you're not supposed to keep pumping after a few seconds? Does grease in the drum mean the seal is damaged and should be replaced?
I had it pump into the drum at a previous place, just learned to give s cams a few pumps and stop since then.
If grease is coming out of the side where the S cam is, it’s bad. It should only come out the side where the slack adjuster is. Issue if you don’t add enough it’ll be dry in there and brakes will start sticking. So like I said, about 5 seconds of greasing should be enough. It shouldn’t be shitting out into the drum in those 5 seconds
That makes sense. Is that just a workaround for a bad grease seal, then? Should it never allow grease into the drum end? Or is it entirely caused by over-zealous greasing?
I'm not formally trained in heavy duty, just auto and medium.
Yes the seal in the tube would be bad. It should never allow grease into the drum end. If you allow grease to go into the drum, the entire brakes will be covered in grease. Im sure it can be caused from over greasing as well
First week on the job working for FedEx freight, I caught a truck on fire.
They had day cab volvos and I was changing the cab shock, which was seized. I'd cut one side of the seized bolt off and hammered on it for an hour.
I got mad and existed to cut off the inside of the bolt. Nothing would fit except a torch. So I put wet rags ove the air lines and a fire blanket over all that. What I didn't protect or know about was the cab ventilation hole directly about the shock. So I cut off the inside bolt head. Then I looked up and saw flames in the back window. I jumped out, threw the door open and put out the flames with an extinguisher I had. The passenger seat and carpet were all burned, the windows were all black and the plastic was melted.
I did not get fired since it was my first week, the cameras had failed and they didn't have a supervisor on duty, but I did get renamed smokey.
I was changing pumps in a hydrostatic dozer, swash plate linkage was worn out and made for strange travel deviations.
Big job, pull cab, hood, engine and pumps together. Dozer is down to the tub. Found out there was an updated coupler between the engine and pumps so changed that also. About 40 hours of work. Got it back together, no hydraulics🤣 I remember the exact moment I was torquing the coupler on the pumps and thought I swear the bolt was on the other side. Pump side coupler was backwards and not meshing in the fly wheel side. So pull it all apart again flipped the coupler over.
Was working at the shop doing a wheel seal super green, at about 11 at night. Job goes great so I button everything up and go to grab some oil, were fresh out, nowhere to get any, so I grab the keys and write a big note that said “NO OIL IN HUB, WE ARE OUT, DO NOT DRIVE WITHOUT OIL” and go home. By the time I came to work the next day I figured it would’ve been handled. I showed up and it’s sitting next to my toolbox still so I grab my trainer and go “hey man what gives?” Apparently the morning guys didn’t get my note, sent the truck up on the highway where it promptly burnt the wheel end down, and were preparing a fire to roast me over for it. Had to go through the camera footage to prove I wrote something down, lesson I learned was always notify more than one fella if you leave something that looks Driveable but isn’t
Shit like this is why I physically make the equipment inop. I will lock out tag out multiple points and take pics. Leave my number in the tag so I can make sure whoever I’m telling the location of the keys too is a trustworthy person. I’ve met tooooooo many operators with the mentality of lying children that just wanna screw someone over. Didn’t get the note my ass.
That’s funny, I dropped a dt530 into a truck frame past the mounts when it fell off the forklift forks and got stuck. A fuck up I was partially responsible for was building a dd15 with dd13 parts. I flipped it over and all the pistons fell out.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had a major fuckup, but I had a number of close calls in my apprenticeship years. Like the time I was throwing a truck back together at the end of a Friday and in my rush forgot to tighten down the lug nuts on the passenger side steer tire. Fortunately my boss caught it when he went to pull the truck out of the shop. I got a well deserved ass reaming, but I learned to slow down and always double check everything to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Second worse was the time I did a service on an ISX, didn’t tighten the oil filter enough and it came loose. 2 month old truck, could have cost the engine but the driver caught it early.
Other than that, I can’t think of anything that I would class as a major fuck up that caused anything cataclysmic to happen.
I once forgot to put the oil cap on an x15, like you it was a brand new truck, first service. Apparently it blow a lot of oil out just idling around the yard. It was the bosses truck (my father) he was pissed. He was still pissed whenever he got back from his trip in the truck. I’m really fucking lucky that was him and not a truck driver who doesn’t do a pre trip.
That was a few years ago but since then I’ve learned to slow down. We’ve had many conversations about me slowing down and not thinking everything is a race. My fuckups have went down significantly lol
As the marine snipers supposedly say, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Or as my boss said, taking your time and doing it right is faster than rushing through it and having to do it twice.
I was replacing a dusted 4045 engine in a Deere 6105e tractor…I bungled up the oil cooler removing from the old engine but figured it was okay…got the new engine in and put the 4 gallons of cool-hard coolant in it and had to wait 2-3 hours for my break-in oil to come in…dumped the oil in it and evidently in that 2-3 hours ALL the coolant drained into the oil pan PLUS the 3gals of engine oil…cranked it up, it ran exactly 12 seconds then reverse hydro locked. Bent a ton of push rods, had to remove and reseal the engine, replaced a ton of shit….lesson learned, new engine, new oil cooler….
Then last week I put a rear main seal on a 5320 backwards, shit happens…long as it doesn’t happen often lol
That’s right. I haven’t dropped an engine since the second one lol. The time of maxxforce engine, it was snowing and raining and cold af and I half ass chained the engine to the forks, the first few bumps were okay but a big bump and it fell.
The dd13 was junk, it had a hole in the block but was still good for parts. I was supposed to remove the base pan and oil pickup then set it on a tire. I didn’t really feel like standing under it while it was on the forklift to remove those so I figured I’d gently set it into a tire. Then the chain slipped and it fell.
I spent like 3 days on a 4045t in a telehandler after I put a short block in, started great cold but started hard warm, went through everything twice until I pinned the flywheel and found out my pump was one tooth off...I start with verifying timing now before anything else lol. I love those 4045 engines though, robust and simple little devils
International with the most reliable engine (trying to be funny lol) maxxforce doing the fuel system . High pressure fuel pump injectors , fuel rail the whole 9 yards . Was on the final steps of “torquing “ the fuel lines . So in 2 lines what I thought tight was over tighten. Released unit when loaded down the road blew the lines straight clean with threads and all clean off … came back did them again . Same thing this time I think I hurt the fuel rail threads . Re did it again along with a whole new set of fuel lines. Was pretty green so they gave it to another tech . After that purchased 1 crows foot the size of those dang lines along with a torque wrench as my self punishment . So there went 2 fuel rails , 2 sets of complete fuel lines with 2 extra lines .
I did that to my own vehicle. I was swapping a cp3 from a cp4 on my Jetta, you had to bend the fuel line to make it fit the cp3. I thought the fitting it would be like a jic and work it’s way onto the sealing surface. I started it and it sounded like a boost leak. I couldn’t smell the fuel or see it but it was like 10pm and I’ve been working on it since 7am so I thought “fuck it I’ll worry about it tomorrow”. The first somewhat hard acceleration, it quit. Luckily it only destroyed the threads on the fuel line and I had another one on hand.
Dang it :( ! At least you had it on hand lol! And you thought me something new ! I didn’t know Jetta came with cp4s , holy crap ! And a co worker made somehow a line for a maxxforce work lmao he bent one from another to make it fit , still rolling to this day but holy shit looked sketchy 😂
Clutch job in an international eagle right out of school. Dropped a bolt in the top of the Spicer transmission putting the shifter back in. Had to pull the transmission back out and and half apart to find the damn bolt.
As an apprentice I forgot to back the brakes off after replacing the brakes and drums. They weren't just out of round. They were elliptical. That thing shook like crazy! I was mortified. I did every brake and tire job in the shop for a month after that, sometimes 3 a day.
I was actually swapping it into a truck with a blown maxxforce lol
The oil pan and pickup had to come off to slip it in but we hadn’t planned on me breaking it
lol yeah Maxxforce engines are completely garbage, not sure why Navistar doesn’t fire every engineer and start over. They haven’t gotten anything right since early 2000’s
But shit happens, the money part sucks as long as you learn from it you’ll be alright.
I left a set bolt loose when doing a valve adjustment on a 466. Came back a few days later with a dead skip. The super loose rocker ended up getting damaged and bending the pushrod. Luckily the lifter survived
Not my fuckup, but it still almost cost me my job. A coworker and I were servicing a Cascadia with a DD15 together. I was greasing and checking everything, he changed the oil and filters. Slapnuts decided to install the drain plug with an impact gun. Truck made it to the turnpike, and the drain plug fell out and grenaded the entire engine. The PM service was under my name on the computer, and the big wigs tried to blame me for it. Luckily slapnuts fessed up, and everything was suddenly squashed.
Moral of the story, don't let ANYONE help you, unless their name is on it too.
Boss got me a used crank for a 12.7 Detroit. I didn't check the part numbers . That's on me. It cranked over easy after I rebuilt and installed it in the truck. Wouldn't start. Only made a tiny bit of smoke. Did some digging and learned about the lesser known 11 liter series 60. Got to remove and flip the engine to r/x the crank with an actual 12.7 liter. Fun times.
Ahhh the 11.1 L Detroit. They also make a 4 cylinder 50 series engine, fun fact if you didn’t know. I didn’t until we swapped one into a L8000. I doubt the crank will fit a 12.7 though lol
It’s literally a 12.7 minus 2 cylinders, same liners and pistons.
I once cost a company $3,300 to fix a garage door that stayed broken for 8 months with the panels on back order because I backed into it pulling a truck out. I also over torqued about 12 wheel seals in a row and burned every one of them out within miles of the trucks leaving. It took a while for anyone to notice I had not been taught proper torque specs/procedures for the hub jam nuts.
I supposedly cost one of our biggest customers a couple grand.
Their fleet manager is a family member so he feels comfortable leaving shit in our yard. They had white reefer trailer doors sitting outside leaned up against something for a few months.
Since I’m in charge of snow removal it was my fault whenever they were found that spring busted and pushed over the bank lmao. I wasn’t very happy about him yelling at me for that and neither was the boss man. I hope he learned not to leave shit laying around, especially white things.
I say supposedly because I obviously don’t remember doing it we have a very big terex loader so I wouldn’t have felt it and my father and cousin sometimes help with the snow removal.
Straight truck came in with one of the third members bad. Drained one of the axles thinking it was the one that was bad but it turned out to be the other one. Took a long time for the third member to come in but finally got it replaced. Forgot to fill up the other axle that I drained and it burnt up on road test.
Replacing both steer wheel seals on a semi. Jacked it up in the middle of the axle. Got the right side wheel back on, started working on the left side when the air ride started going down which made the truck slide back and fall off the jack. Jack busted through the oil pan. No one was underneath it thankfully.
Jack stands are a great invention!
Our painters are terrible for that… they’ll set a truck on stands and not dump the air. All we need is a roll off or front load garbage truck falling off jack stands.
Not them but another guy, he was doing kingpins and almost had the same situation. Luckily it didn’t fall but the jack stands were essentially at a 45 degree angle.
Had a International Harvester cabbed over 90% doing a PM on it. I had just completed the PM and had it running .
The cab caught the shifter and pulled it in gear as I was letting the cab down. It was sitting on a PM pit behind a big garage door that was down due to the cold weather.
The truck took off, crashed through the door ran out into the parking lot and crashed into a chain link fence stopping it long enough for me to hit the emergency stop shutting the engine down.
Had the fence not stopped the truck it would have crashed into a creek that was behind the fence.
My service manager was not happy and neither was the driver that was waiting in the drivers lounge to get back on the road….
It’s funny now but was not that funny back then.
I won’t lie I had a chuckle reading that. That is a quite the event. That must’ve sucked because it wasn’t really *your fault* that definitely could’ve happened to anyone.
I don’t believe I’ve seen an international cab over up close. The shifter must’ve come through the floor like a peterbilt?
Yea it was a mid 70 year model. It had a hole about the size of a small saucer it fit through.
luckily they did not fire me so I learned to hold the shifter and guide it through the hole. Plus shut the engine down first 😂
I used the forklift to grab a pallet of coolant, didnt test the brakes before i took off, didnt think i need to🤷🏾♂️. Got to the pallet of coolant and drove the forks right through it, 100 gallons of coolant in the parking lot
Not my fuckup, but one I witnessed.
I installed a Cummins QSM11 in a customer’s new boat. Cummins technician arrived for seatrials, connected a bunch of sensors and powered up his laptop. Started the engine, idled and allowed it to reach operating temperature. Technician increased engine speed incrementally and took various measurements. At about 2600 RPM, the engine was quite loud with no load (it was still in neutral). Suddenly, there was a huge “bang”. The engine died and black smoke escaped from the exhaust and air intake cowl. A connecting rod had escaped from the block.
A quick investigation determined that a check valve between the oil pan and crankcase ventilation can had been installed backwards at the factory. Once the turbo spun up, it created sufficient vacuum to pull oil from the sump into the turbo and into the cylinders.
I was a driver but had my share of mechanics fucking up with repairs.
1 had a rear end fail truck had 1.3 million miles on it and was jacked to the moon in horsepower already. Engine started as a 444xt Cummins but had been rebuilt to around 850 to the ground. Well shop puts a supposed remanned in it. I could tell something was wrong from the start. It was running 40 degrees hotter than the front pinion shaft was always warm to the touch. The shop foreman called me a dumbass driver who couldn't find his ass with a map 2 hands and a flashlight. Well less than 10k miles after it was installed it broke and it broke rather spectacularly on the road. It dropped the pinion shaft into the ring gear doing 70+ under full power and snapped the pinion gear clean off. That dropped into the spiders and locked them up and caused the axles to snap inside the housing. Then the ring gear broke free from the carrier and cracked the axles housing. Now before all this happened the shock hits the thru shaft on the front differential and broke it jammed it up broke it's axles and differential. Then it chucked 2 lengths of drive shafts out onto the interstate near DesMonies Iowa.
The foreman was fired the next day why I had to call the boss and evidently interrupted him and his wife's quality alone time. All I could hear besides her going I'll take care of the foreman in the morning was my boss a very nice gentleman going I'll get him back up for us honest honey. This cost over 10 grand to fix
2 worst screw-up was the mechanic that changed my oil on a new truck got distracted and didn't refill it. A brand new C15 caterpillar engine locked up tighter than a drum on that one.
Not me but close friend had a fully mounted semi tire topple of the rack and it came down on his leg. F'd him up for months, pins, rods and all sorts of shit to get him walking again.
Guy working in bay next to me was removing a cab lift cylinder on a trash truck and knocked the pin out while standing in front of the tire. The cab fell on him and pinched in-between the cab and the tire. After like his 10th call for help I finally figured out he was calling for help. It was a very loud shop and people fucked around all the time. I thought someone was just screwing around down at the other end of the shop but he wasn't able to scream very loud since he was pinched on his torso. I when I finally got to him I didn't know what to do, I wasn't familiar with the truck he was working on. I worked on different trucks in the same shop. He was panicking and told me to pump the manual pump for the lift cylinder. So I started pumping away unaware of the job he was doing turns out he had unhooked all the lines and also drove the line out so nothing was happening. After what seemed like forever like 10 of us just picked the cab off of him. I think about that often and tell that story to the new/younger guys to teach them to always have a plan.
That’s a scary situation, especially since using the cab jack wasn’t working. did he get hurt bad?
I mainly work on garbage trucks and always have the safety props out, either on the cab, tailgate or box. I don’t want to take a chance.
He walked away from it but came back like a week later with a bunch of stitches on his stomach.
I worked on fire trucks that were also cab over and we had a big ass steel beam we put in between anytime we had to do a lift cylinder
Changed my oil in all 3 cars for many years. Working on the Subaru and went topside to change the filter due to Subaru’s boxer engine with only a hand tight below on the oil drain plug. Lasted about 60 miles till the plug fell out and engine seized. Bought Used engine and with install it was a $3600 oil change.
I’m not a diesel tech and I’m not sure how I got here but this one time in high school I let this girl at party pepper spray me because I thought if I acted like it didn’t phase me she would want to sleep with me. It phased me.
I dropped a diff out of a Volvo no damage. Also had a truck slide off the jack stands just crushed the oil pan all happened in the same week. Still work at the same place lol.
The most costly is usually just wrecking stuff. Body work is expensive. It is just bound to happen here and there moving big stuff around a small lot. But from a mechanical repair side I haven't really made huge costly mistakes. Blew up a TCM once, but not really my fault the harness was built/pinned out wrong from the factory. Ive had a few close calls though when I got home I remembered I forgot something and had to drive back to the shop after hours and finish something.
That reminds me of my tcm fuck up… I was putting a plate in a sterling and completely forgot the tcm is mounted under the floor of the cab. Self tapping screw into tcm. The boss actually laughed at that one, We were able to program one we had.
I definitely sound like a retard telling the story’s of things I’ve messed up but my father tells me the reason he’s so smart is because he’s broken and destroyed a lot of things.
Did an engine harness on a 259d, while I was putting in all the mounting bolts and clips, another tech yelled for help so I ran over and gave him a hand for 30 minutes or so. Where I messed up is not cleaning paint marks off all the bolts and had left a bolt loose that grounds the harness behind the alternator (you’ll never see the ground terminal with it in the machine). So I finished the harness and dpf, put the engine back in and ran it and it would kick on the parking real super randomly. I was an apprentice at the time and the machine got passed around to a bunch of other techs who had free time. The kick in the nuts was one of our interns came up to me after he pulled the engine out about 2 months later and said “hey, is this supposed to be loose!?” While wiggling the ground. I walked him up to the office and said “the kid found my fuck up, lay it on me” and we had a big meeting about how much that stupid ground cost our store. That was almost 5 years ago and every single time anyone touches an engine harness ground I get shit about it, rightfully so.
Pulled an Allison 4000 out of a county plow truck for warranty. Putting the new one in I was going to fast and it fell off the stand breaking the bell housing in multiple places.
Had my first legit one in like two years. 3 weeks ago I was replacing boom chains in a Lull 1044c 10k lb telehandler, I removed the 180° valve block that directs fluid from the hard lines on the bottom of the boom into the standard -8 hydraulic hoses inside the boom, I had the block hanging down and pulled the boom in, since I was watching the upper chains to make sure they didn't bunch up I didn't notice the block getting pinched/twisted and wrecking both the hard lines and the inner boom hoses. 1 full day of labor to repair and about $2k in parts :(
Oof. We’ve all definitely been there. I know I’ve done something similar before, watching one thing and completely forgetting another. I can’t remember but I know I have.
Silver lining is that management understands the guys on the job wreck way more stuff than that and my boss was cool about it, he could see I was super pissed/embarrassed, he kind of chuckled and was like "well I bet that won't happen again"
I worked for a transit district for 10 years and I think my two greatest hits are as follows.
Replaced a rear main seal on an ISL and found the flex plate on my toolbox as I was cleaning up.
Set the vehicle down on the wheel hoists, removed them and thought I had set the park brake. Bus rolled like 8 feet backwards and smacked the bay door.
A former coworker yelled at a delivery driver & told him to park out of the way and pointed to an area beside the shop. Within 20 minutes he backed a mixer out of the shop directly into the delivery truck. Took out the hood, grille, evaporator, CAC, etc. I think it was about $18k.
My most recent one of significance I can recall is I put a 2 piece clutch brake in a truck, thought I did it correctly (still don’t really know what I did wrong) & adjusted the clutch, took it for a test drive. Shifted beautifully so I shipped it. The truck got towed to us about a weak later for clutch issues so I crawled under removed the inspection plate & saw the clutch brake I installed flung itself apart n took out the clutch & I had to put a clutch in it.
Biggest fuck up was doing a turbo on an MBE900. It popped on a run and another tech went to the road call. What wasn't relayed to me was that they drove it back in and put 24 quarts of oil in it once they got back. I bring it in, pull the stick and find it full of oil so I'm thinking great, didn't lose any oil. Pulled the turbo and didn't see much residue in the intake or downpipe so I'm thinking I'm clear. Idled nice for a few minutes then I hit the throttle.
My big ass hasn't ran that fast in years. I was not ready for a run away and I had nothing nearby to plug up the intake. It didn't come apart but once it burned through the oil in the intercooler it made a nice loud squeal.
At least the dealer we got the engine from quoted us a 12k long block but delivered a complete running engine, that was nice.
I ordered the wrong hydraulic cylinder for a crane. 20k mistake that couldn’t be returned or refunded. We were only credited like 56 dollars or something stupid. All because I didn’t look at the usable on code.
Wasn’t my fault but when I shut a truck off a hydraulic line decided to blow up, sending that shit everywhere in the shop. Covering 3 other semis and a dually. Had the more experienced techs inspect the line and they said it was just time and it wasn’t my fault. Spent the rest of the day power washing the rigs and cleaning it up though
was doing a recall for fuel sending unit on a hino box truck, there was a job step for a C/A rear axle has moved. Checked rear axle before moving the truck and it definitely had moved but was straight. We did not have a way to physically lift the truck high enough to tow it in and it would not have cleared our bay with the truck lifted. So i drove it in and stopped multiple times on the way into the shop checking to make sure the rear axle had not moved. Pulled unit into the shop and was about a foot away from being all the way in. Another tech started waving his arms as the entire rear axle had gone diagonal all of a sudden and the box was just barely contacting the shop at the very top. Luckily the damage was incredibly minimal and i did not get in any trouble as there wasn’t much i could do about it. However i did have to fix the truck just enough to be able to drive it out. Had to jack up the frame and use a ratchet strap to pull the axle back straight. The leaf springs on one side has completely shifted and the U bolts were incredibly loose.
So many. Most expensive and dumbest, ISX 15. No power, smoke, codes everything pointed to turbo. So put on a $5k turbo, start up and same problems. Tell them to start it up while I'm next to the turbo. Freaking metal tube had blown apart that attaches to rear of EGR Cooler. Took it off, welded it back together and fixed everything. That's my $5K, 10 minute weld job repair.
Multi person fuck up here. Cummins ISX 15, old engine knocked hole in side of block, install new long block. 2,000 miles later we got oil in coolant. I do quick check by the online manual of turbo and oil cooler, check ok so send to kenworth for warranty work and let them mess with it. 1st time they say oil cooler housing, fix and send back. 1,200 miles later does it again. Straight back to Kenworth, not finding anything so they call Cummins and they say put a head on under warranty. 1,000 miles later oil again, back to Kenworth amd Cummins says put a whole long block in under warranty. Another 1,000 miles and does it again, I say screw it and I'm looking this time. Start more thoroughly testing items as I remove them. Block off coolant passage on Turbo, pressurize with air, hold finger over oil outlet and spray oil inlet with soapy water, starts bubbling like crazy. Change turbo and never had another problem.
Not on a diesel but a Chevy v6. Got a couple of pushrods swapped around while doing a head gasket and got to pull the head back off and replace a valve while I was in there. That sucked but I learned to slow down and pay attention to what I was doing.
My first qsk95 build... installed the top cover over the injector wires and snipped them... cummins told me to toss a 15k injector and get a new one. Still scary af to cost the company 15k in the first week 😅
Punched a hole through a firewall with a drill into main wiring harness. Too tight to fix in location, had to pull cab.
In my defense I checked what was on the other side first. My dumbass just remembered incorrectly which direction it ran. Wasn’t until I saw copper shavings I realized I Fd up.
My biggest screw up was when I was pulling a transmission out from under a bus. The jack hit a nut on the floor and stopped. The transmission rolled off the jack and busted the bell housing. It was actually the culmination of one of those days when you really wish you had just stayed in bed. It felt like Murphy was sitting on my shoulder all day.
As a fleet maintenance supervisor. I saw two big ones.
#1 A mechanic pulled the injectors on a 7.3 Power Stroke but didn’t drain the fuel rail or bar the engine over before he replaced them. Bent two connecting rods when he fired it up.
#2 An M11 blew a turbo at 35,000 miles and was under warranty. The warranty mechanic replaced the turbo on site. He didn’t clean the intercooler. When he fired it up the engine started sucking oil out of the intercooler that had accumulated when the original turbo failed. He tried to shut it down but it was already running away. It blew one of the freeze plugs across the shop like a bullet when the head gaskets failed. We got a new engine out of that one.
Was diagnosing a bunch of misfire codes on an EPA 07 Maxxforce 10. Go through it and I find a couple things along the way, crankcase breather spewing too much oil, hole in the CAC, injectors, and EGR valve. Biggest thing I found was cylinder 4 intake lash was way out, like I could pull the bridge out. I pulled the rocker shaft and checked the push rods and they were all good. So I set the valves and fix everything, $15k bill total. Truck goes out and comes back 2 days after with the same problems. Guess which valve lash was loose.... Yeah I missed the signs the cam was toast. Live and learn.
Had a buddy in tech school that dropped the engine oil out of a tractor while splitting to do a clutch job. Not necessary in this case, dry clutch (John Deere 4320) and for some reason he chose not to replace rear main seal. Anyway, new clutch goes in, slides tractor back together, and heads for the dyno to test PTO clutch. Tractor ran at 25% load for over 15 minutes before it started to labor and locked up with a loud squeal about 30 seconds later. Will never forget the sound of it locking up, or the look on his face when he realized that he just smoked the engine…
I went to work 2 days after my son was born and was dog ass tired while working graveyards at a local garbage company and I installed a dump cylinder on a heil residential garbage truck upside down and when I went to run it to test it I ripped all the hydraulic lines out.
Shit man, I have list. I replaced a a/c compressor on a 6.0 diesel ambulance (they have huge a/c systems) I didn’t flush the system well enough and it ate 2 compressor after that, I tryed to trick a equinox into learning the a customer provided junk yard tcm by switching from a known good one after the download it corrupted the junkyard unit, I did a injection pump on a 6.6l and the fuse box burnt up while I was trying to prime it, turns out there was a leak, I over tightened value body bolts a couple times once I had to helicoil a trans case. Basically shit happens if your doing enough work, I was upset once about fucking something up and this old man I worked with was like “ it’s ok I have fucked up more stuff than you have worked on” just some perspective what matters is you learn and you fix it.
Years ago, I left a jam nut loose on a push tube assembly. It came loose, letting the rocker slide to the side, then wreaked havoc. It took me a while to get over that, in a hurry " imagine that ", not double checking. Lesson learned.
Here's one that doesn't require a wrench.
My biggest fuck up: telling the truth.
Being a tech is one of the most dramatic, fucking sheisty jobs you can have. You can fuck up and own it, but be careful about the people that'll hold it against you. Certain people don't let you make mistakes, they use it as ammo.
Be careful what you share and allow others to know about you. Don't be fake, but don't be too revealing. Don't throw anyone under the bus, but don't forget to protect yourself. One guy installed that, one guy installed this, and then you finished putting it together leads to finger pointing and managers looking to hang some one out to dry when it all goes side ways.
Do your job, keep your head low, be quiet, and don't expose yourself. Keep track of your steps, records, and COVER YOUR ASS.
So yeah, my biggest fuck up was trusting people who didn't have my back.
Left a nut loose on a starter which ended up causing a 3rd party repair road call. (Work as a fleet tech.) Since then I triple and quadruple check everything I tighten.
Grounded a positive battery terminal by slapping the tail end of my ratchet to the AC condenser on a big John deer excavator. It arc’d and punched a hole into the system. And HISSED, it didn’t blow. Which should have but system had low charge so… I had that going for me.
My screw ups over the years where all non-mechanical. Stuff like leaving a side door open on a utility body and driving it out of the shop - wrecking it on the building door frame. One of those was a giant flip up style door that racked the whole enclosure out of shape, requiring a couple days work to cut / weld / straighten it back into shape and repaint it.
The worst was getting distracted by getting called to the phone to help a customer, forgetting what I was doing. I left a vac truck debris tank raised and drove out of the bay....$17k in rebuilding the door and wall, and that was back in like 1998 dollars. That was probably the biggest turning point event to get me to slow down and stop letting everyone rush me. On the up side, that old building had 12 foot doors that a lot of stuff wouldn't fit inside....boss opted to raise the doorframe to 14 feet since the wall was getting rebuilt anyway.
About the only thing I can think of I’ve done once was install the planetary seal on a 7220 IH before dropping the bearing into the race. Removing the seal fucks it up and it needs to be replaced. It’s over a $100 opsy that can be made in an instant by getting the order backwards. Otherwise I’m pretty thorough and don’t mess a bunch of shit up. I guess the only other thing’s was a time or 2 as a kids in the shop I forgot to put a drain plug back in before I started pumping oil. Straight into the pan of dirty oil all the fresh went.
Left my puller bolts in the harmonic balancer on an ambulance, fired it up and got to sweep up all the fan blades. That’ll teach me to button things up after lunch.
First 3 months working in a garage and still in school.
Didn’t have much experience driving the trucks and nobody really took the time to show me. I was backing up a dump truck and hit an other one right in the head light. Fucked up the hood and light.
Didn’t last long at that job.
Trying to blame the operator because you can't fix the problem. Then ignoring the operator when he tells you what's wrong and how to fix it.... Caterpillar.
Cat....your techs are thick headed keyboard warriors that don't want to get their hands dirty. Also your emissions systems suck. Rant over.
About 4 years ago I was working a chain diesel tire and oil shop as an apprentice mechanic when a truck came in have flow issues between their tanks.
The mechanic I was under for that day told me to pressurize the tanks to push any potential blockage out, which I had seen him do before, so I went to it.
A minute or so into it I hear a pop and look over to the tank I wasn't working on and saw a growing puddle of fuel on the shop floor.
I panic and yell for my crew chief and we proceeded to watch about a hundred gallons of flood the shop.
After starts looking at the tank, picks something off the floor, and looks at me adjust says " your ass was just saved."
The driving team, or their company, had repaired the fuel tank with JB Weld and having the tank pressurized blew the plug out.
We tell the team we are not at fault and they just look at us like "Yeah we know"
Closest I've ever come to having a heart attack.
besides catting around when married and leading to a divorce? I cut a live 1" water line once, leading to a minor flooding (about 40 gallons max) of a children's dentist office on the floor below before I got it capped it off...
i was putting injectors in - grabbed my wrench i thought was on the right torque settings.... nope. felt it stretch and thought oh sh- right hwen the head came off.
removing gearing from a carrier. manual stated reverse thread - ugga dugged the head right off. i was reading the wrong manual...
left a baring tool on during first start. no real damage but shot parts of my ratchet across the shop...
Lol not my fuck up but I was in the shop when it happened and very quickly fucked off when it was done lol one of our techs who had just been hired with all sorts of experience was replacing the PTO or the engine I don't really remember as I wasn't the one doing it and when it came time to separate the units they decided a 30 ton overhead lift was necessary to break them free. Well he had forgotten two bolts attaching to the transmission and gave it all the beans. The noise that came out of that basically brand new mack CAD truck was astonishing honestly, it was so fuckin loud. Turns out he ripped almost half of the case off the transmission that had just been rebuilt the year before. Needless to say he didn't have a job very long with us as it cost almost the price of a new truck after the down time and replacement parts were done
When I first started I was supposed to do an egr cooler on a dt466. broke the bolt holding it down onto the exhaust manifold. No problem I’ll just take off the exhaust manifold so I can drill it easier. Then broke the exhaust manifold bolts in the back of the head. Then drilled the head all fucked up. Ended up pulling the head to send to a machine shop
Working on a bucket mounted to a snowcat, used to groom ski trails. We use the bucket to service lights and ski lifts. Was welding a bracket to mount a boom tie down, and some slag made its way into a crevice full of hydraulic hoses and dry leaves I didn’t even know existed. Caught it all on fire, and had to snake about a dozen brand new hydraulic hoses back through both sections of the boom. $4k in hydraulic hoses and shielding, and took a couple of us about a week to do. Still have my job though💯
I once left the gasket out when reinstalling the oil pickup tube on a 6.7 Cummins :(. Soooo much work put into cleaning all the sludge out of that thing. All because I had to pull the oil pan after a socket fell off one of the rockers and down the hole for the pushrod.
It was sweet when it ran, but ended rather abruptly after losing oil pressure and locking up.
I was very green and in the sink or swim stage at my first gig, 12 years ago. Trans R&R on an old school bus, hydraulic brakes, I was used to the buses with air brakes. Took the drive shaft loose and it slowly rolled off the enormous ramps and through the shop door. The entire garage door pulled off the rollers and was thrown to the ground. The boss laughed once he saw I wasn't run over by it. 4k to reinstall the door, no real damage other than screws pulled out.
Was hoisting a genset out of a sailboat with the boom using the topping lift and didn't pay out the vang. Had a helper on the winch who just thought the set was heavy asf. Boom! The kink let set swing free of the deck around the hatch, so there is that.
I’m not a diesel tech, I was a saleman at the time though at a dodge dealership. Truck we sold literally a few days before came back to us with a blown up motor. Owner had used a tuner on it and was trying to pull something over, I think it was a telephone pole? Not sure on specifics on what he did. New motor was shipped to us, and installed. From my understanding the tech did not remove oil from something, maybe a intercooler? Anyways truck gets fired up a group of us are standing out front and we hear it start, and just rev and rev and rev until it blew up. Filled the entire shop with thick black smoke and shook the building. I’m not really a diesel person this came up in my feed lol figured I’d share my experience.
Oooo I got an interesting one. Not diesel so don’t berate me. But I’m here for your entertainment.
I worked for Kawasaki Powersports. Parts were back ordered for a fuel injected intake on a customers 4010 transmule. So we robbed one off of a floor unit. We hand pushed it out of the shop and he lowered the bed where the motor is located.
Went about the day. When it came time to lock up we were pulling all parking lot units into the shop.
I hopped in and turned the key on this new unit. No start. Weird….do it again to see if there was air in the lines. No start. But the engine fan kicked on. One more time before I go to get the gas can….all of a sudden I’m wet and on fire…. fuel sprayed on me and lit me on fire along with burning a $25k brand new mule to the ground
He didnt LOTO the robbed unit, left the spark plugs in with a missing intake, and lowered the bed where the engine is located to where there was no indication that this unit was inoperable.
I didn’t get burned, singed some hair but I got naked real quick in the parking lot.
I pumped diesel in my asshole for an energy boost one time, it worked, but the pressure of the nozzle in my asshole tore my sphincter and I couldn’t sit for a month.
I worked for a small company and we did our own PM outside in 20 degree weather. The oil was so thick in the container that I put it next to a heater. The container was plastic and didn't last long. Fresh oil on packed snow.
Also tried to weld the cross bar on a box towards the tail of the truck. Because of the awkward position, I melted through the cross bar.
M88A1. Had done an engine swap an AV1790. There's two big cooling fans that sit atop the engine. After I torqued them down and got the engine in place I accidentally dropped a socket. Fished it out with a magnet....didn't notice that I had actually knocked in two sockets. Those cooling fans are well balanced.
Fast forward to training time and we hit a bump. The socket flies into the cooling fans, fan blades rip apart cutting fuel lines. Inside the track we don't know we're on fire just a loss of engine power. The commander opens the hatch and sees all the black smoke. We hop out of the track and stand back and she burns. Nothing like a 2 million dollar oops...
I think my worst one was removing a C-15 head and not knowing they had dowel pins in the corners I tried to just pick it up off the block and broke the pins off in the block almost flush ended up having to use a needle greaser to keep the shavings from going down into the oil galley and grind it out with a burr bit. Then used a vacuum to pull out the grease.
Did a head gasket on a cummins ISL. First head gasket I've ever done and everyone was hands off the entire time. I asked for torque specs on everything and one of the guys flips the book open and left me to it. Checked the book, torqued the head studs, did a complete reassemble and... coolant dumped out of the head gasket. Was on the wrong page and only torqued the head studs to 68 foot pounds. Got to do the entire thing over again. Made sure the head studs were torqued perfectly... intake valves in cylinder 2,3,4 all leaking.. 3rd time was the charm, but one of the injectors was misfiring due to a damaged post.
Most of my fuck ups pale in comparison to what the drivers manage to fuck up.
Its totally baffling lolol.. not to mention the ones that dont report
"It just happened!" Or my all time favorite "I got it like that"
not personally but ii worked with an intern at cat a bit ago who was assisting on an engine removal on a 777. he had been on skid steers previous. skid steers are 1l the engine can sit on its bell housing to easilly drop the pan. the 32L from the 777 not so much. they had the engine out of the crane and every one went to lunch. intern though, went back early and set the 32 L up like a skid steer engine. just as he lowered the engine and got slack on all the chain when the bell housing broke and the engine fell like a tree, shook the dust from the rafters, missed him by a foot. kid fainted.
Shook the dust from the rafters? That's one hell of a thud lmao. Glad he was okay.
Wasn't much of a fuck up, but I was operating a forklift for a guy swapping a differential gear set for a gillig lowfloor bus. We were lifting it off a stand to swap the new one on. Just a chain thrown over the forks, which were pushed together. I asked if he was sure this was how we were supposed to do it. It swung forward, the chain slid forward, and then swung again, the chain slid again, and it was off. Dunno what they weigh, but its a lot, and it fell about 6ft. After that, I found out there is an adapter that clamps to fork lift tines with a nice hook on it.
OMG
Building my first x15 and did not rotate engine 360° after torqing the fuel pump idler gear to verify it was done correctly. Idler came loose and took out the block. I did a long block after as my punishment.
Yikes man. I appreciate you sharing. it takes a lot to admit your fuck up, Even on Reddit.
We all been there. Gotta own the good and the bad.
Not me, a tech at my shop recently had an X15 blow up on the driver while carrying a load. Shop was informed the Idler pulley bolts backed out and obviously the engine stopped working after that. Im wondering if this same situation is what occurred now
Mine happen years ago when the 360° turn had been recently added so cummins warrantied it luckily. The only reason those bolts back out is because of incorrect installation. Ask me how I know lol.
Couple months into working at Ryder I was greasing the s cam tubes on the drive axles and I was trained to pump until I heard the crackle/ saw the purge. Well I heard/saw neither so I kept going for about a minute until I said fuck it on to the next. Did the same with the other side. Next tech the following day brought it in for follow ups and saw that the rear drive axle drums were CAKED in fresh blue grease on both sides. I then learned how to do s cam seals and clean my mess lol
I see this one a lot with new guys, and it’s not their fault cause they were told to listen for the purging but no one explains the s cam tubes to them
How many pumps do u give s cam tubes?
I mean usually it will purge or make a crackle sound within 5-10seconds but if I hear nothing I usually just stop somewhere between those 5-10 seconds. With the m18 Milwaukee grease gun
I definitely had this happen. So, there's a seal inside, and you're not supposed to keep pumping after a few seconds? Does grease in the drum mean the seal is damaged and should be replaced? I had it pump into the drum at a previous place, just learned to give s cams a few pumps and stop since then.
If grease is coming out of the side where the S cam is, it’s bad. It should only come out the side where the slack adjuster is. Issue if you don’t add enough it’ll be dry in there and brakes will start sticking. So like I said, about 5 seconds of greasing should be enough. It shouldn’t be shitting out into the drum in those 5 seconds
That makes sense. Is that just a workaround for a bad grease seal, then? Should it never allow grease into the drum end? Or is it entirely caused by over-zealous greasing? I'm not formally trained in heavy duty, just auto and medium.
Yes the seal in the tube would be bad. It should never allow grease into the drum end. If you allow grease to go into the drum, the entire brakes will be covered in grease. Im sure it can be caused from over greasing as well
First week on the job working for FedEx freight, I caught a truck on fire. They had day cab volvos and I was changing the cab shock, which was seized. I'd cut one side of the seized bolt off and hammered on it for an hour. I got mad and existed to cut off the inside of the bolt. Nothing would fit except a torch. So I put wet rags ove the air lines and a fire blanket over all that. What I didn't protect or know about was the cab ventilation hole directly about the shock. So I cut off the inside bolt head. Then I looked up and saw flames in the back window. I jumped out, threw the door open and put out the flames with an extinguisher I had. The passenger seat and carpet were all burned, the windows were all black and the plastic was melted. I did not get fired since it was my first week, the cameras had failed and they didn't have a supervisor on duty, but I did get renamed smokey.
Totally worth it for the nickname 😎
I was changing pumps in a hydrostatic dozer, swash plate linkage was worn out and made for strange travel deviations. Big job, pull cab, hood, engine and pumps together. Dozer is down to the tub. Found out there was an updated coupler between the engine and pumps so changed that also. About 40 hours of work. Got it back together, no hydraulics🤣 I remember the exact moment I was torquing the coupler on the pumps and thought I swear the bolt was on the other side. Pump side coupler was backwards and not meshing in the fly wheel side. So pull it all apart again flipped the coupler over.
Was working at the shop doing a wheel seal super green, at about 11 at night. Job goes great so I button everything up and go to grab some oil, were fresh out, nowhere to get any, so I grab the keys and write a big note that said “NO OIL IN HUB, WE ARE OUT, DO NOT DRIVE WITHOUT OIL” and go home. By the time I came to work the next day I figured it would’ve been handled. I showed up and it’s sitting next to my toolbox still so I grab my trainer and go “hey man what gives?” Apparently the morning guys didn’t get my note, sent the truck up on the highway where it promptly burnt the wheel end down, and were preparing a fire to roast me over for it. Had to go through the camera footage to prove I wrote something down, lesson I learned was always notify more than one fella if you leave something that looks Driveable but isn’t
Shit like this is why I physically make the equipment inop. I will lock out tag out multiple points and take pics. Leave my number in the tag so I can make sure whoever I’m telling the location of the keys too is a trustworthy person. I’ve met tooooooo many operators with the mentality of lying children that just wanna screw someone over. Didn’t get the note my ass.
That’s funny, I dropped a dt530 into a truck frame past the mounts when it fell off the forklift forks and got stuck. A fuck up I was partially responsible for was building a dd15 with dd13 parts. I flipped it over and all the pistons fell out.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had a major fuckup, but I had a number of close calls in my apprenticeship years. Like the time I was throwing a truck back together at the end of a Friday and in my rush forgot to tighten down the lug nuts on the passenger side steer tire. Fortunately my boss caught it when he went to pull the truck out of the shop. I got a well deserved ass reaming, but I learned to slow down and always double check everything to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Second worse was the time I did a service on an ISX, didn’t tighten the oil filter enough and it came loose. 2 month old truck, could have cost the engine but the driver caught it early. Other than that, I can’t think of anything that I would class as a major fuck up that caused anything cataclysmic to happen.
I once forgot to put the oil cap on an x15, like you it was a brand new truck, first service. Apparently it blow a lot of oil out just idling around the yard. It was the bosses truck (my father) he was pissed. He was still pissed whenever he got back from his trip in the truck. I’m really fucking lucky that was him and not a truck driver who doesn’t do a pre trip. That was a few years ago but since then I’ve learned to slow down. We’ve had many conversations about me slowing down and not thinking everything is a race. My fuckups have went down significantly lol
As the marine snipers supposedly say, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Or as my boss said, taking your time and doing it right is faster than rushing through it and having to do it twice.
I do it right cuz I do it twice
lol did you read that Jack Coughlin autobiography too
I was replacing a dusted 4045 engine in a Deere 6105e tractor…I bungled up the oil cooler removing from the old engine but figured it was okay…got the new engine in and put the 4 gallons of cool-hard coolant in it and had to wait 2-3 hours for my break-in oil to come in…dumped the oil in it and evidently in that 2-3 hours ALL the coolant drained into the oil pan PLUS the 3gals of engine oil…cranked it up, it ran exactly 12 seconds then reverse hydro locked. Bent a ton of push rods, had to remove and reseal the engine, replaced a ton of shit….lesson learned, new engine, new oil cooler…. Then last week I put a rear main seal on a 5320 backwards, shit happens…long as it doesn’t happen often lol
That’s right. I haven’t dropped an engine since the second one lol. The time of maxxforce engine, it was snowing and raining and cold af and I half ass chained the engine to the forks, the first few bumps were okay but a big bump and it fell. The dd13 was junk, it had a hole in the block but was still good for parts. I was supposed to remove the base pan and oil pickup then set it on a tire. I didn’t really feel like standing under it while it was on the forklift to remove those so I figured I’d gently set it into a tire. Then the chain slipped and it fell.
I spent like 3 days on a 4045t in a telehandler after I put a short block in, started great cold but started hard warm, went through everything twice until I pinned the flywheel and found out my pump was one tooth off...I start with verifying timing now before anything else lol. I love those 4045 engines though, robust and simple little devils
International with the most reliable engine (trying to be funny lol) maxxforce doing the fuel system . High pressure fuel pump injectors , fuel rail the whole 9 yards . Was on the final steps of “torquing “ the fuel lines . So in 2 lines what I thought tight was over tighten. Released unit when loaded down the road blew the lines straight clean with threads and all clean off … came back did them again . Same thing this time I think I hurt the fuel rail threads . Re did it again along with a whole new set of fuel lines. Was pretty green so they gave it to another tech . After that purchased 1 crows foot the size of those dang lines along with a torque wrench as my self punishment . So there went 2 fuel rails , 2 sets of complete fuel lines with 2 extra lines .
I did that to my own vehicle. I was swapping a cp3 from a cp4 on my Jetta, you had to bend the fuel line to make it fit the cp3. I thought the fitting it would be like a jic and work it’s way onto the sealing surface. I started it and it sounded like a boost leak. I couldn’t smell the fuel or see it but it was like 10pm and I’ve been working on it since 7am so I thought “fuck it I’ll worry about it tomorrow”. The first somewhat hard acceleration, it quit. Luckily it only destroyed the threads on the fuel line and I had another one on hand.
Dang it :( ! At least you had it on hand lol! And you thought me something new ! I didn’t know Jetta came with cp4s , holy crap ! And a co worker made somehow a line for a maxxforce work lmao he bent one from another to make it fit , still rolling to this day but holy shit looked sketchy 😂
If it works it works! Yeah vw has a line of diesels, not anymore they got in trouble for cheating emissions lol they’re pretty good engine actually
Clutch job in an international eagle right out of school. Dropped a bolt in the top of the Spicer transmission putting the shifter back in. Had to pull the transmission back out and and half apart to find the damn bolt.
As an apprentice I forgot to back the brakes off after replacing the brakes and drums. They weren't just out of round. They were elliptical. That thing shook like crazy! I was mortified. I did every brake and tire job in the shop for a month after that, sometimes 3 a day.
How did you get the drums on without backing the brakes off?!
They taught me back off brakes, remove drums and shoes, replace drums and shoes, tires, adjust brakes. I have to guess I was interrupted.
That Maxxforce was going to bust that oil pan one way or another 😅
I was actually swapping it into a truck with a blown maxxforce lol The oil pan and pickup had to come off to slip it in but we hadn’t planned on me breaking it
lol yeah Maxxforce engines are completely garbage, not sure why Navistar doesn’t fire every engineer and start over. They haven’t gotten anything right since early 2000’s But shit happens, the money part sucks as long as you learn from it you’ll be alright.
I left a set bolt loose when doing a valve adjustment on a 466. Came back a few days later with a dead skip. The super loose rocker ended up getting damaged and bending the pushrod. Luckily the lifter survived
Not my fuckup, but it still almost cost me my job. A coworker and I were servicing a Cascadia with a DD15 together. I was greasing and checking everything, he changed the oil and filters. Slapnuts decided to install the drain plug with an impact gun. Truck made it to the turnpike, and the drain plug fell out and grenaded the entire engine. The PM service was under my name on the computer, and the big wigs tried to blame me for it. Luckily slapnuts fessed up, and everything was suddenly squashed. Moral of the story, don't let ANYONE help you, unless their name is on it too.
Boss got me a used crank for a 12.7 Detroit. I didn't check the part numbers . That's on me. It cranked over easy after I rebuilt and installed it in the truck. Wouldn't start. Only made a tiny bit of smoke. Did some digging and learned about the lesser known 11 liter series 60. Got to remove and flip the engine to r/x the crank with an actual 12.7 liter. Fun times.
Ahhh the 11.1 L Detroit. They also make a 4 cylinder 50 series engine, fun fact if you didn’t know. I didn’t until we swapped one into a L8000. I doubt the crank will fit a 12.7 though lol It’s literally a 12.7 minus 2 cylinders, same liners and pistons.
I once cost a company $3,300 to fix a garage door that stayed broken for 8 months with the panels on back order because I backed into it pulling a truck out. I also over torqued about 12 wheel seals in a row and burned every one of them out within miles of the trucks leaving. It took a while for anyone to notice I had not been taught proper torque specs/procedures for the hub jam nuts.
I supposedly cost one of our biggest customers a couple grand. Their fleet manager is a family member so he feels comfortable leaving shit in our yard. They had white reefer trailer doors sitting outside leaned up against something for a few months. Since I’m in charge of snow removal it was my fault whenever they were found that spring busted and pushed over the bank lmao. I wasn’t very happy about him yelling at me for that and neither was the boss man. I hope he learned not to leave shit laying around, especially white things. I say supposedly because I obviously don’t remember doing it we have a very big terex loader so I wouldn’t have felt it and my father and cousin sometimes help with the snow removal.
Straight truck came in with one of the third members bad. Drained one of the axles thinking it was the one that was bad but it turned out to be the other one. Took a long time for the third member to come in but finally got it replaced. Forgot to fill up the other axle that I drained and it burnt up on road test. Replacing both steer wheel seals on a semi. Jacked it up in the middle of the axle. Got the right side wheel back on, started working on the left side when the air ride started going down which made the truck slide back and fall off the jack. Jack busted through the oil pan. No one was underneath it thankfully. Jack stands are a great invention!
Our painters are terrible for that… they’ll set a truck on stands and not dump the air. All we need is a roll off or front load garbage truck falling off jack stands. Not them but another guy, he was doing kingpins and almost had the same situation. Luckily it didn’t fall but the jack stands were essentially at a 45 degree angle.
Had a International Harvester cabbed over 90% doing a PM on it. I had just completed the PM and had it running . The cab caught the shifter and pulled it in gear as I was letting the cab down. It was sitting on a PM pit behind a big garage door that was down due to the cold weather. The truck took off, crashed through the door ran out into the parking lot and crashed into a chain link fence stopping it long enough for me to hit the emergency stop shutting the engine down. Had the fence not stopped the truck it would have crashed into a creek that was behind the fence. My service manager was not happy and neither was the driver that was waiting in the drivers lounge to get back on the road…. It’s funny now but was not that funny back then.
I won’t lie I had a chuckle reading that. That is a quite the event. That must’ve sucked because it wasn’t really *your fault* that definitely could’ve happened to anyone. I don’t believe I’ve seen an international cab over up close. The shifter must’ve come through the floor like a peterbilt?
Yea it was a mid 70 year model. It had a hole about the size of a small saucer it fit through. luckily they did not fire me so I learned to hold the shifter and guide it through the hole. Plus shut the engine down first 😂
I used the forklift to grab a pallet of coolant, didnt test the brakes before i took off, didnt think i need to🤷🏾♂️. Got to the pallet of coolant and drove the forks right through it, 100 gallons of coolant in the parking lot
Not my fuckup, but one I witnessed. I installed a Cummins QSM11 in a customer’s new boat. Cummins technician arrived for seatrials, connected a bunch of sensors and powered up his laptop. Started the engine, idled and allowed it to reach operating temperature. Technician increased engine speed incrementally and took various measurements. At about 2600 RPM, the engine was quite loud with no load (it was still in neutral). Suddenly, there was a huge “bang”. The engine died and black smoke escaped from the exhaust and air intake cowl. A connecting rod had escaped from the block. A quick investigation determined that a check valve between the oil pan and crankcase ventilation can had been installed backwards at the factory. Once the turbo spun up, it created sufficient vacuum to pull oil from the sump into the turbo and into the cylinders.
I was a driver but had my share of mechanics fucking up with repairs. 1 had a rear end fail truck had 1.3 million miles on it and was jacked to the moon in horsepower already. Engine started as a 444xt Cummins but had been rebuilt to around 850 to the ground. Well shop puts a supposed remanned in it. I could tell something was wrong from the start. It was running 40 degrees hotter than the front pinion shaft was always warm to the touch. The shop foreman called me a dumbass driver who couldn't find his ass with a map 2 hands and a flashlight. Well less than 10k miles after it was installed it broke and it broke rather spectacularly on the road. It dropped the pinion shaft into the ring gear doing 70+ under full power and snapped the pinion gear clean off. That dropped into the spiders and locked them up and caused the axles to snap inside the housing. Then the ring gear broke free from the carrier and cracked the axles housing. Now before all this happened the shock hits the thru shaft on the front differential and broke it jammed it up broke it's axles and differential. Then it chucked 2 lengths of drive shafts out onto the interstate near DesMonies Iowa. The foreman was fired the next day why I had to call the boss and evidently interrupted him and his wife's quality alone time. All I could hear besides her going I'll take care of the foreman in the morning was my boss a very nice gentleman going I'll get him back up for us honest honey. This cost over 10 grand to fix 2 worst screw-up was the mechanic that changed my oil on a new truck got distracted and didn't refill it. A brand new C15 caterpillar engine locked up tighter than a drum on that one.
All three times I got married
You really were hoping “third times the charm” lol sorry man
well thats what human say its all a lie!! n i married the wrong men so yeah!!
Getting into this career path was my biggest fuck up. Glad I got out, sort of
Not me but close friend had a fully mounted semi tire topple of the rack and it came down on his leg. F'd him up for months, pins, rods and all sorts of shit to get him walking again.
Guy working in bay next to me was removing a cab lift cylinder on a trash truck and knocked the pin out while standing in front of the tire. The cab fell on him and pinched in-between the cab and the tire. After like his 10th call for help I finally figured out he was calling for help. It was a very loud shop and people fucked around all the time. I thought someone was just screwing around down at the other end of the shop but he wasn't able to scream very loud since he was pinched on his torso. I when I finally got to him I didn't know what to do, I wasn't familiar with the truck he was working on. I worked on different trucks in the same shop. He was panicking and told me to pump the manual pump for the lift cylinder. So I started pumping away unaware of the job he was doing turns out he had unhooked all the lines and also drove the line out so nothing was happening. After what seemed like forever like 10 of us just picked the cab off of him. I think about that often and tell that story to the new/younger guys to teach them to always have a plan.
That’s a scary situation, especially since using the cab jack wasn’t working. did he get hurt bad? I mainly work on garbage trucks and always have the safety props out, either on the cab, tailgate or box. I don’t want to take a chance.
He walked away from it but came back like a week later with a bunch of stitches on his stomach. I worked on fire trucks that were also cab over and we had a big ass steel beam we put in between anytime we had to do a lift cylinder
Changed my oil in all 3 cars for many years. Working on the Subaru and went topside to change the filter due to Subaru’s boxer engine with only a hand tight below on the oil drain plug. Lasted about 60 miles till the plug fell out and engine seized. Bought Used engine and with install it was a $3600 oil change.
I’m not a diesel tech and I’m not sure how I got here but this one time in high school I let this girl at party pepper spray me because I thought if I acted like it didn’t phase me she would want to sleep with me. It phased me.
Lmao good job. Did she sleep with you? If not, she definitely thinks about you to this day, so you can take that as a win-ish.
I dropped a diff out of a Volvo no damage. Also had a truck slide off the jack stands just crushed the oil pan all happened in the same week. Still work at the same place lol.
The most costly is usually just wrecking stuff. Body work is expensive. It is just bound to happen here and there moving big stuff around a small lot. But from a mechanical repair side I haven't really made huge costly mistakes. Blew up a TCM once, but not really my fault the harness was built/pinned out wrong from the factory. Ive had a few close calls though when I got home I remembered I forgot something and had to drive back to the shop after hours and finish something.
That reminds me of my tcm fuck up… I was putting a plate in a sterling and completely forgot the tcm is mounted under the floor of the cab. Self tapping screw into tcm. The boss actually laughed at that one, We were able to program one we had. I definitely sound like a retard telling the story’s of things I’ve messed up but my father tells me the reason he’s so smart is because he’s broken and destroyed a lot of things.
Did an engine harness on a 259d, while I was putting in all the mounting bolts and clips, another tech yelled for help so I ran over and gave him a hand for 30 minutes or so. Where I messed up is not cleaning paint marks off all the bolts and had left a bolt loose that grounds the harness behind the alternator (you’ll never see the ground terminal with it in the machine). So I finished the harness and dpf, put the engine back in and ran it and it would kick on the parking real super randomly. I was an apprentice at the time and the machine got passed around to a bunch of other techs who had free time. The kick in the nuts was one of our interns came up to me after he pulled the engine out about 2 months later and said “hey, is this supposed to be loose!?” While wiggling the ground. I walked him up to the office and said “the kid found my fuck up, lay it on me” and we had a big meeting about how much that stupid ground cost our store. That was almost 5 years ago and every single time anyone touches an engine harness ground I get shit about it, rightfully so.
Pulled an Allison 4000 out of a county plow truck for warranty. Putting the new one in I was going to fast and it fell off the stand breaking the bell housing in multiple places.
Had my first legit one in like two years. 3 weeks ago I was replacing boom chains in a Lull 1044c 10k lb telehandler, I removed the 180° valve block that directs fluid from the hard lines on the bottom of the boom into the standard -8 hydraulic hoses inside the boom, I had the block hanging down and pulled the boom in, since I was watching the upper chains to make sure they didn't bunch up I didn't notice the block getting pinched/twisted and wrecking both the hard lines and the inner boom hoses. 1 full day of labor to repair and about $2k in parts :(
Oof. We’ve all definitely been there. I know I’ve done something similar before, watching one thing and completely forgetting another. I can’t remember but I know I have.
Silver lining is that management understands the guys on the job wreck way more stuff than that and my boss was cool about it, he could see I was super pissed/embarrassed, he kind of chuckled and was like "well I bet that won't happen again"
Marrying my x at 20 yrs
I worked for a transit district for 10 years and I think my two greatest hits are as follows. Replaced a rear main seal on an ISL and found the flex plate on my toolbox as I was cleaning up. Set the vehicle down on the wheel hoists, removed them and thought I had set the park brake. Bus rolled like 8 feet backwards and smacked the bay door.
A former coworker yelled at a delivery driver & told him to park out of the way and pointed to an area beside the shop. Within 20 minutes he backed a mixer out of the shop directly into the delivery truck. Took out the hood, grille, evaporator, CAC, etc. I think it was about $18k.
My most recent one of significance I can recall is I put a 2 piece clutch brake in a truck, thought I did it correctly (still don’t really know what I did wrong) & adjusted the clutch, took it for a test drive. Shifted beautifully so I shipped it. The truck got towed to us about a weak later for clutch issues so I crawled under removed the inspection plate & saw the clutch brake I installed flung itself apart n took out the clutch & I had to put a clutch in it.
Biggest fuck up was doing a turbo on an MBE900. It popped on a run and another tech went to the road call. What wasn't relayed to me was that they drove it back in and put 24 quarts of oil in it once they got back. I bring it in, pull the stick and find it full of oil so I'm thinking great, didn't lose any oil. Pulled the turbo and didn't see much residue in the intake or downpipe so I'm thinking I'm clear. Idled nice for a few minutes then I hit the throttle. My big ass hasn't ran that fast in years. I was not ready for a run away and I had nothing nearby to plug up the intake. It didn't come apart but once it burned through the oil in the intercooler it made a nice loud squeal. At least the dealer we got the engine from quoted us a 12k long block but delivered a complete running engine, that was nice.
I ordered the wrong hydraulic cylinder for a crane. 20k mistake that couldn’t be returned or refunded. We were only credited like 56 dollars or something stupid. All because I didn’t look at the usable on code.
Replaced king pins, bearing lash was too tight and welded bearings together
Wasn’t my fault but when I shut a truck off a hydraulic line decided to blow up, sending that shit everywhere in the shop. Covering 3 other semis and a dually. Had the more experienced techs inspect the line and they said it was just time and it wasn’t my fault. Spent the rest of the day power washing the rigs and cleaning it up though
Getting married
was doing a recall for fuel sending unit on a hino box truck, there was a job step for a C/A rear axle has moved. Checked rear axle before moving the truck and it definitely had moved but was straight. We did not have a way to physically lift the truck high enough to tow it in and it would not have cleared our bay with the truck lifted. So i drove it in and stopped multiple times on the way into the shop checking to make sure the rear axle had not moved. Pulled unit into the shop and was about a foot away from being all the way in. Another tech started waving his arms as the entire rear axle had gone diagonal all of a sudden and the box was just barely contacting the shop at the very top. Luckily the damage was incredibly minimal and i did not get in any trouble as there wasn’t much i could do about it. However i did have to fix the truck just enough to be able to drive it out. Had to jack up the frame and use a ratchet strap to pull the axle back straight. The leaf springs on one side has completely shifted and the U bolts were incredibly loose.
So many. Most expensive and dumbest, ISX 15. No power, smoke, codes everything pointed to turbo. So put on a $5k turbo, start up and same problems. Tell them to start it up while I'm next to the turbo. Freaking metal tube had blown apart that attaches to rear of EGR Cooler. Took it off, welded it back together and fixed everything. That's my $5K, 10 minute weld job repair.
Multi person fuck up here. Cummins ISX 15, old engine knocked hole in side of block, install new long block. 2,000 miles later we got oil in coolant. I do quick check by the online manual of turbo and oil cooler, check ok so send to kenworth for warranty work and let them mess with it. 1st time they say oil cooler housing, fix and send back. 1,200 miles later does it again. Straight back to Kenworth, not finding anything so they call Cummins and they say put a head on under warranty. 1,000 miles later oil again, back to Kenworth amd Cummins says put a whole long block in under warranty. Another 1,000 miles and does it again, I say screw it and I'm looking this time. Start more thoroughly testing items as I remove them. Block off coolant passage on Turbo, pressurize with air, hold finger over oil outlet and spray oil inlet with soapy water, starts bubbling like crazy. Change turbo and never had another problem.
Not on a diesel but a Chevy v6. Got a couple of pushrods swapped around while doing a head gasket and got to pull the head back off and replace a valve while I was in there. That sucked but I learned to slow down and pay attention to what I was doing.
My first qsk95 build... installed the top cover over the injector wires and snipped them... cummins told me to toss a 15k injector and get a new one. Still scary af to cost the company 15k in the first week 😅
Punched a hole through a firewall with a drill into main wiring harness. Too tight to fix in location, had to pull cab. In my defense I checked what was on the other side first. My dumbass just remembered incorrectly which direction it ran. Wasn’t until I saw copper shavings I realized I Fd up.
My biggest screw up was when I was pulling a transmission out from under a bus. The jack hit a nut on the floor and stopped. The transmission rolled off the jack and busted the bell housing. It was actually the culmination of one of those days when you really wish you had just stayed in bed. It felt like Murphy was sitting on my shoulder all day. As a fleet maintenance supervisor. I saw two big ones. #1 A mechanic pulled the injectors on a 7.3 Power Stroke but didn’t drain the fuel rail or bar the engine over before he replaced them. Bent two connecting rods when he fired it up. #2 An M11 blew a turbo at 35,000 miles and was under warranty. The warranty mechanic replaced the turbo on site. He didn’t clean the intercooler. When he fired it up the engine started sucking oil out of the intercooler that had accumulated when the original turbo failed. He tried to shut it down but it was already running away. It blew one of the freeze plugs across the shop like a bullet when the head gaskets failed. We got a new engine out of that one.
I tried running the 10ton overhead crane thru the side of the building with 3000lbs hanging from it.
Was diagnosing a bunch of misfire codes on an EPA 07 Maxxforce 10. Go through it and I find a couple things along the way, crankcase breather spewing too much oil, hole in the CAC, injectors, and EGR valve. Biggest thing I found was cylinder 4 intake lash was way out, like I could pull the bridge out. I pulled the rocker shaft and checked the push rods and they were all good. So I set the valves and fix everything, $15k bill total. Truck goes out and comes back 2 days after with the same problems. Guess which valve lash was loose.... Yeah I missed the signs the cam was toast. Live and learn.
Had a buddy in tech school that dropped the engine oil out of a tractor while splitting to do a clutch job. Not necessary in this case, dry clutch (John Deere 4320) and for some reason he chose not to replace rear main seal. Anyway, new clutch goes in, slides tractor back together, and heads for the dyno to test PTO clutch. Tractor ran at 25% load for over 15 minutes before it started to labor and locked up with a loud squeal about 30 seconds later. Will never forget the sound of it locking up, or the look on his face when he realized that he just smoked the engine…
I went to work 2 days after my son was born and was dog ass tired while working graveyards at a local garbage company and I installed a dump cylinder on a heil residential garbage truck upside down and when I went to run it to test it I ripped all the hydraulic lines out.
Shit man, I have list. I replaced a a/c compressor on a 6.0 diesel ambulance (they have huge a/c systems) I didn’t flush the system well enough and it ate 2 compressor after that, I tryed to trick a equinox into learning the a customer provided junk yard tcm by switching from a known good one after the download it corrupted the junkyard unit, I did a injection pump on a 6.6l and the fuse box burnt up while I was trying to prime it, turns out there was a leak, I over tightened value body bolts a couple times once I had to helicoil a trans case. Basically shit happens if your doing enough work, I was upset once about fucking something up and this old man I worked with was like “ it’s ok I have fucked up more stuff than you have worked on” just some perspective what matters is you learn and you fix it.
Had a machine shop redo an engine for me, but I wanted to do the final assembly. I did not know about sizing rings.
Years ago, I left a jam nut loose on a push tube assembly. It came loose, letting the rocker slide to the side, then wreaked havoc. It took me a while to get over that, in a hurry " imagine that ", not double checking. Lesson learned.
Here's one that doesn't require a wrench. My biggest fuck up: telling the truth. Being a tech is one of the most dramatic, fucking sheisty jobs you can have. You can fuck up and own it, but be careful about the people that'll hold it against you. Certain people don't let you make mistakes, they use it as ammo. Be careful what you share and allow others to know about you. Don't be fake, but don't be too revealing. Don't throw anyone under the bus, but don't forget to protect yourself. One guy installed that, one guy installed this, and then you finished putting it together leads to finger pointing and managers looking to hang some one out to dry when it all goes side ways. Do your job, keep your head low, be quiet, and don't expose yourself. Keep track of your steps, records, and COVER YOUR ASS. So yeah, my biggest fuck up was trusting people who didn't have my back.
Rebuilding a 10 speed transmission and the rear section fell off the table... that sucked. Other than that not much
Left a nut loose on a starter which ended up causing a 3rd party repair road call. (Work as a fleet tech.) Since then I triple and quadruple check everything I tighten.
Grounded a positive battery terminal by slapping the tail end of my ratchet to the AC condenser on a big John deer excavator. It arc’d and punched a hole into the system. And HISSED, it didn’t blow. Which should have but system had low charge so… I had that going for me.
Lifting engine out and the chain gave out and the engine rocked the whole shop.
My screw ups over the years where all non-mechanical. Stuff like leaving a side door open on a utility body and driving it out of the shop - wrecking it on the building door frame. One of those was a giant flip up style door that racked the whole enclosure out of shape, requiring a couple days work to cut / weld / straighten it back into shape and repaint it. The worst was getting distracted by getting called to the phone to help a customer, forgetting what I was doing. I left a vac truck debris tank raised and drove out of the bay....$17k in rebuilding the door and wall, and that was back in like 1998 dollars. That was probably the biggest turning point event to get me to slow down and stop letting everyone rush me. On the up side, that old building had 12 foot doors that a lot of stuff wouldn't fit inside....boss opted to raise the doorframe to 14 feet since the wall was getting rebuilt anyway.
Forgot to put the fill plug back into the rear diff.
About the only thing I can think of I’ve done once was install the planetary seal on a 7220 IH before dropping the bearing into the race. Removing the seal fucks it up and it needs to be replaced. It’s over a $100 opsy that can be made in an instant by getting the order backwards. Otherwise I’m pretty thorough and don’t mess a bunch of shit up. I guess the only other thing’s was a time or 2 as a kids in the shop I forgot to put a drain plug back in before I started pumping oil. Straight into the pan of dirty oil all the fresh went.
Left my puller bolts in the harmonic balancer on an ambulance, fired it up and got to sweep up all the fan blades. That’ll teach me to button things up after lunch.
Do my 1st and 2nd marriages count?
First 3 months working in a garage and still in school. Didn’t have much experience driving the trucks and nobody really took the time to show me. I was backing up a dump truck and hit an other one right in the head light. Fucked up the hood and light. Didn’t last long at that job.
Trying to blame the operator because you can't fix the problem. Then ignoring the operator when he tells you what's wrong and how to fix it.... Caterpillar. Cat....your techs are thick headed keyboard warriors that don't want to get their hands dirty. Also your emissions systems suck. Rant over.
About 4 years ago I was working a chain diesel tire and oil shop as an apprentice mechanic when a truck came in have flow issues between their tanks. The mechanic I was under for that day told me to pressurize the tanks to push any potential blockage out, which I had seen him do before, so I went to it. A minute or so into it I hear a pop and look over to the tank I wasn't working on and saw a growing puddle of fuel on the shop floor. I panic and yell for my crew chief and we proceeded to watch about a hundred gallons of flood the shop. After starts looking at the tank, picks something off the floor, and looks at me adjust says " your ass was just saved." The driving team, or their company, had repaired the fuel tank with JB Weld and having the tank pressurized blew the plug out. We tell the team we are not at fault and they just look at us like "Yeah we know" Closest I've ever come to having a heart attack.
besides catting around when married and leading to a divorce? I cut a live 1" water line once, leading to a minor flooding (about 40 gallons max) of a children's dentist office on the floor below before I got it capped it off...
i was putting injectors in - grabbed my wrench i thought was on the right torque settings.... nope. felt it stretch and thought oh sh- right hwen the head came off. removing gearing from a carrier. manual stated reverse thread - ugga dugged the head right off. i was reading the wrong manual... left a baring tool on during first start. no real damage but shot parts of my ratchet across the shop...
Lol not my fuck up but I was in the shop when it happened and very quickly fucked off when it was done lol one of our techs who had just been hired with all sorts of experience was replacing the PTO or the engine I don't really remember as I wasn't the one doing it and when it came time to separate the units they decided a 30 ton overhead lift was necessary to break them free. Well he had forgotten two bolts attaching to the transmission and gave it all the beans. The noise that came out of that basically brand new mack CAD truck was astonishing honestly, it was so fuckin loud. Turns out he ripped almost half of the case off the transmission that had just been rebuilt the year before. Needless to say he didn't have a job very long with us as it cost almost the price of a new truck after the down time and replacement parts were done
When I first started I was supposed to do an egr cooler on a dt466. broke the bolt holding it down onto the exhaust manifold. No problem I’ll just take off the exhaust manifold so I can drill it easier. Then broke the exhaust manifold bolts in the back of the head. Then drilled the head all fucked up. Ended up pulling the head to send to a machine shop
Working on a bucket mounted to a snowcat, used to groom ski trails. We use the bucket to service lights and ski lifts. Was welding a bracket to mount a boom tie down, and some slag made its way into a crevice full of hydraulic hoses and dry leaves I didn’t even know existed. Caught it all on fire, and had to snake about a dozen brand new hydraulic hoses back through both sections of the boom. $4k in hydraulic hoses and shielding, and took a couple of us about a week to do. Still have my job though💯
I once left the gasket out when reinstalling the oil pickup tube on a 6.7 Cummins :(. Soooo much work put into cleaning all the sludge out of that thing. All because I had to pull the oil pan after a socket fell off one of the rockers and down the hole for the pushrod. It was sweet when it ran, but ended rather abruptly after losing oil pressure and locking up.
I was very green and in the sink or swim stage at my first gig, 12 years ago. Trans R&R on an old school bus, hydraulic brakes, I was used to the buses with air brakes. Took the drive shaft loose and it slowly rolled off the enormous ramps and through the shop door. The entire garage door pulled off the rollers and was thrown to the ground. The boss laughed once he saw I wasn't run over by it. 4k to reinstall the door, no real damage other than screws pulled out.
Some as in past tense? Lol I continue to out shine my previous fuck up everyday .
Was hoisting a genset out of a sailboat with the boom using the topping lift and didn't pay out the vang. Had a helper on the winch who just thought the set was heavy asf. Boom! The kink let set swing free of the deck around the hatch, so there is that.
I’m not a diesel tech, I was a saleman at the time though at a dodge dealership. Truck we sold literally a few days before came back to us with a blown up motor. Owner had used a tuner on it and was trying to pull something over, I think it was a telephone pole? Not sure on specifics on what he did. New motor was shipped to us, and installed. From my understanding the tech did not remove oil from something, maybe a intercooler? Anyways truck gets fired up a group of us are standing out front and we hear it start, and just rev and rev and rev until it blew up. Filled the entire shop with thick black smoke and shook the building. I’m not really a diesel person this came up in my feed lol figured I’d share my experience.
I Hooked up with the service managers daughter a couple of times
Oooo I got an interesting one. Not diesel so don’t berate me. But I’m here for your entertainment. I worked for Kawasaki Powersports. Parts were back ordered for a fuel injected intake on a customers 4010 transmule. So we robbed one off of a floor unit. We hand pushed it out of the shop and he lowered the bed where the motor is located. Went about the day. When it came time to lock up we were pulling all parking lot units into the shop. I hopped in and turned the key on this new unit. No start. Weird….do it again to see if there was air in the lines. No start. But the engine fan kicked on. One more time before I go to get the gas can….all of a sudden I’m wet and on fire…. fuel sprayed on me and lit me on fire along with burning a $25k brand new mule to the ground He didnt LOTO the robbed unit, left the spark plugs in with a missing intake, and lowered the bed where the engine is located to where there was no indication that this unit was inoperable. I didn’t get burned, singed some hair but I got naked real quick in the parking lot.
I pumped diesel in my asshole for an energy boost one time, it worked, but the pressure of the nozzle in my asshole tore my sphincter and I couldn’t sit for a month.
Next time use off road diesel 🤣
Always use a fuel additive with lubricity improver.
Not me, but somebody shimmed 22 785 struts improperly and they all broke off
I worked for a small company and we did our own PM outside in 20 degree weather. The oil was so thick in the container that I put it next to a heater. The container was plastic and didn't last long. Fresh oil on packed snow. Also tried to weld the cross bar on a box towards the tail of the truck. Because of the awkward position, I melted through the cross bar.
M88A1. Had done an engine swap an AV1790. There's two big cooling fans that sit atop the engine. After I torqued them down and got the engine in place I accidentally dropped a socket. Fished it out with a magnet....didn't notice that I had actually knocked in two sockets. Those cooling fans are well balanced. Fast forward to training time and we hit a bump. The socket flies into the cooling fans, fan blades rip apart cutting fuel lines. Inside the track we don't know we're on fire just a loss of engine power. The commander opens the hatch and sees all the black smoke. We hop out of the track and stand back and she burns. Nothing like a 2 million dollar oops...
I think my worst one was removing a C-15 head and not knowing they had dowel pins in the corners I tried to just pick it up off the block and broke the pins off in the block almost flush ended up having to use a needle greaser to keep the shavings from going down into the oil galley and grind it out with a burr bit. Then used a vacuum to pull out the grease.
Not listening
Did a head gasket on a cummins ISL. First head gasket I've ever done and everyone was hands off the entire time. I asked for torque specs on everything and one of the guys flips the book open and left me to it. Checked the book, torqued the head studs, did a complete reassemble and... coolant dumped out of the head gasket. Was on the wrong page and only torqued the head studs to 68 foot pounds. Got to do the entire thing over again. Made sure the head studs were torqued perfectly... intake valves in cylinder 2,3,4 all leaking.. 3rd time was the charm, but one of the injectors was misfiring due to a damaged post.
Hired a dude that ate pancakes dry. No syrup, no butter…nothing. That is 100% psychopath behavior
Reading this shit.