Silly tales from the Home Mechanic

Keith

I'm sure we all have silly tales from fixing our cars

Such as when I was undoing the thermostat bolts using a cheap socket set, the socket fell off and when I tried to retrieve it dropped in one of the timing holes on the gearbox :rotfl:

Or today...

Trying to undo a seized brake pipe union, it wouldn't budge, so I cut the hose to get down to a 17mm nut I could get the socket on, the nut on the other side of the join starts to round.

So, clamp the hose. Lets heat up the first bolt and try and open it that way.

Blow torch out.

Bit of flame is quickly damped down, then as I start looking for another tool with the blow torch held to the back of the brake union, there is a strange noise.

The grips which had held the hose closed drop to the floor, the hose flies 4ft and the leaking brake fluid is burning in the union.

Once it cooled down, I was able to undo the union

Turns out brake fluid is flammable :rotfl:

Come on share your mishaps :T

LandyAndy

Keith wrote: »

I'm sure we all have silly tales from fixing our cars

Such as when I was undoing the thermostat bolts using a cheap socket set, the socket fell off and when I tried to retrieve it dropped in one of the timing holes on the gearbox :rotfl:

Or today...

Trying to undo a seized brake pipe union, it wouldn't budge, so I cut the hose to get down to a 17mm nut I could get the socket on, the nut on the other side of the join starts to round.

So, clamp the hose. Lets heat up the first bolt and try and open it that way.

Blow torch out.

Bit of flame is quickly damped down, then as I start looking for another tool with the blow torch held to the back of the brake union, there is a strange noise.

The grips which had held the hose closed drop to the floor, the hose flies 4ft and the leaking brake fluid is burning in the union.

Once it cooled down, I was able to undo the union

Turns out brake fluid is flammable :rotfl:

Come on share your mishaps :T

I remember seeing a report that brake fluid leaking is one of the major causes of fire in accidents.

My story.

Replacing points and condenser on Triumph Vitesse. Replace dizzie cap and try to start. No sign of ignition. Go back and check points gap etc and try again. No joy. Repeat several times. Still no joy. After about 15 minutes catch sight of rotor arm sitting on bulkhead:o .

epninety

If you drip petrol on a red hot metal plate, it will sizzle and smell, but not burn. If you drip brake fluid on the same plate, it bursts into flames.

Dumb story - trying to remove a seized bolt (LandyAndy will recognise the bulkhead to chassis bolts) by alternating heat and wd40. Get bolt hot, then spray on wd40 from hand spray, then more heat. Eventually got out of sync with myself and forgot to remove the blowtorch before spraying on the WD. The resulting fireball really woke me up

Still, better than waxoyling the cat, as someone I know managed to do.:rotfl: