Oh sh!t moments in the life of a project car

[ksechler]

I found a part of my car in a box today. I have been doing a staged restoration and am through the front and rear suspension and working on the brakes. The car isn't quite drivable but it does run and is very close to drivable.

The part was a pretty little silver washer/shim. When I looked at the part my first thought was, "hmm...I know where this goes." Then my second thought was, "Oh sh1t!" When I realized the implications of installing said part.

I thought it might be interesting to share and see what other stories people might have about things they forgot to install and found later.

My part was a spacer. It goes on top of the Illumina Strut insert on my front right strut. I recognized it instantly. So this is going to require pulling, disassembling and reinstalling the strut. Not horrible, but not exactly a light task either.

[LeonV]

The spacer is not required if the gland nut is seated on the insert properly, i.e. there are threads showing on the gland nut with it torqued down.

[beermanpete]

A number of years ago I was putting an engine in my truck (Ford F250) and was almost done. I picked up the air cleaner from the bench and found under the air cleaner the steel plate that is supposed to go between the engine and transmission. Bummer. I had to pull the engine again. Luckily it was an older model ('69) and did not have a lot of stuff like the newer vehicles do.

[ZohanIsBack]

Ugg, I hate that. When I rebuilt my auto transmission in a Dodge Shadow I bought for $300, I had to pull it and install it three times. First time I rebuilt it. Installed it and the input shaft wasn't lined up with a clutch pack correctly. Reinstalled, then didn't seat the torque converter correctly. Reinstalled and it worked. Haven't touched an auto since, but I would do it again for the right incentive, .

[EuroDat]

I was helping a friend rebuild a transmission and we just put the car on the ground. When we were putting the trolley jack under the work bench we found three circlips. A lot of ahming and arhing and it finnally dawn on us. The circlips held the speedo gear in place on the rear shaft. We had two old ones and perfectly new, never used one. We forgot one:angry:

We had to pull the transmission back out again.

[ZohanIsBack]

Ahh.... That would be the worst ever.... I dropped so much stuff into the differential on the transaxle I rebuilt. Had to fish it all out with a long pair of needle nose and a magnet. Oh gosh I am so glad to be done with that...

[Kurbycar32]

Fox bodied mustang with a 5.0 in it: The oil pump runs on the distributor shaft and the shaft is held in place vertically by a press on clip. Well the new clip that came with whatever i was working on slid itself right off after seating the distributor and fell all the way into the oil pan. The v8 on that car was in there so tight you have to jack up the motor to remove the oil pan, this happened twice over the lifetime of that car.