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So what's the worst experience you've had installing a part?

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EdwardNorth

15+ Year Contributor
292
1
Dec 20, 2003
Waterford, Michigan
Hey all,

After watching last night's UIC S-pipe install turn into a 5+ hour nightmare experience, I started thinking about what other "simple" installs could go south in a heartbeat. I mean, I've done quite a few things under the hood in the past, including my E316G upgrade, Intercooler upgrade, fuel injectors and pump, a transfer case swap on my Cherokee, and even the dreaded fuel filter change on my FD. So a simple IC pipe swap should be cake, right? WRONG. I got my butt kicked and the paint on the pipe got scruffed up pretty good in the process, and I'm feeling pretty stupid right now. So I thought it might be fun (and theraputic :p ) to post stories of installs that unexpectedly took a turn for the worse. Here's my account of all the drama that went down last night:

I bought a Hahn Racecraft Stage II UIC S-pipe to complete my hard pipe set (already had the Hahn BOV pipe). From what I understand, they've been discontinued so I got the last one. The stock TB Elbow and rubber IC hose came off without a hitch. When I went to install the Hahn pipe, however, things went downhill fast!

First I tried connecting the 2 UICP's with the silicon coupler, then connecting the TB end to the TB. No dice. Try as I might, I could not position the flange to slide over the studs on the TB with the pipe coupled at the other end. So next I tried putting the silicon coupler on the existing BOV pipe, then connecting the TB end of the S-pipe to the studs and trying to slide the other end into the coupler after. That didn't work either. The coupler would always be rolled where the pipe was pressing into it, and even with a screwdriver I couldn't roll it out to cover the edge of the pipe. I fiddled with these 2 methods for roughly an hour but it wasn't going to happen.

I then got the idea of sliding the coupler up onto the bottom of the S-pipe, and then sliding it over the other pipe after connecting it to the TB and lining it up with the BOV pipe. That worked, except for one big detail -- I couldn't get the coupler to move or slide back down the pipe at all!! It was way to sticky and tight. I tried to twist and turn it and it seemed that the flesh would rip from my hands long before the coupler would move, so I gave up. I was now well over 2 hours into the project, the pipe was getting scratches all over it from my attempts at installing, and I was dirty, bleeding, and beat. I needed a break.

I came onto the forums here and got a few good suggestions, but I went with using soap & water as a lubricant so the coupler would slide down the S-pipe. Long story short, using this method, I finally got the pipe installed. However, the fun wasn't over. :rolleyes:

As I was reinstalling the bolts on the TB studs, I dropped a washer down into the engine bay. I was unable to retrieve it, so I went fishing through my bags of spare parts and found a replacement. As a final kick in the balls, as I was doing the final tightening of the stud bolts, the small socket wrench I was using wound up slipping from my grip and falling way down into the bay. I used another to finish torquing the bolts, and though I could see the one that fell, it was down in the bottom of the bay and out of reach. I started the car and drove it up onto ramps, went underneath, but could not find a way to get at it or even see it from down below. Now I have to wait until tonight when I'll borrow a magnetic wand used for retrieving stuff like this, to even test-drive the car with the new pipe on. *sigh*

The only saving grace with this is that the worst scratches in the pipe's paint aren't visible with it installed, as they are basically underneath the pipe. Just knowing I scruffed it up like that will drive me crazy though. :mad:


So, that's my nightmare of a story. A seemingly simple 30-minute task turned 5+ hours of hell.


I'd love to read any stories that you guys would like to post. Thanks!
 
You could have completely disconnected the whole pipe and installed it as one piece probably also. The worst things I've done are lining the tranny up after a clutch install, which took us a few hours. Just used a jack and bare hands. Cherry picker will be used next time...Fuel pump install went sour very quickly also. The damn fitting broke loose pretty easily, but for good reason. The fuel line that it was connected to broke. And so did one of the studs around the pump assembly. I had to replace the fuel line and I have yet to fix the stud.
 
I haven't really done anything too difficult yet, but my worst experience so far is throttle body shaft seals. One screw stripped and the other's head snapped off. No big problem....except then I broke a screw extractor. I tried to drill it out, but the screw extractor is harder than any bits I had.......Ebay sent me a new TB for 25 shipped.
 
Doing the 60k on my car for the first time.... once I got to the waterpump, I noticed there was a glue gasket helping to seal it (like glue glue, not like permatex or any other 'sealer'). No big deal I thought, I'll just scrape it off and do it right. Get the water pump off, notice that one of the bolts was missing, and later find that the one missing bolt was broken off flush in the block. Got to love those previous owners! Long story short, damn near had to pull the whole engine to extract that bolt...
 
it happesn to the best of man no need to be feel stupid for a half hour job turning into a 5+. i mad ###### the stupidest mistake of all. my turbo blew no problem, i order a new one nothing fancy just a replacment t-25. got it all a part ordered all new gaskets. the install was a piece of cake nothin to it. got it all bolted up, went to torge tha exhaust mani down and the wordt thing ever snaped a stud off in the head about a 1/8 of an icnh:cry: . wanna talk about being pissed off. but i thougt i could get away with out replaceing the studs and use the ones already there wrong. so a 2-3 hour job was a 5-6 hour trying to tap the bolt out. needless to say i was on my computer order a stud kit for me exhaust mani, i also though ahead and just order a stud kit for my head as well as a head gasket change is comeing up very soon i can fell it
 
doing the midpipe in my GT. the passenger side lower header bolt is insanely stupid and hard to get to. took me a full weekend to tackle a single bolt, after that it took about 20 minutes to swap the old with the new.
 
Swapping my turbonetics deltagate out for my tial. 4 bolts took 2 hours ### should have taken 10-15 minutes max
 
I was putting in my shift kit. I spent all day tearing apart the valve body and such, everything looked good. Time to put it back into the car, ok its in filled with fluid, I start here up, reach for the shifter, and its stuck in park!! I spent atleast 6 hours trying to diagnose the problem before i called IPT for them to tell me i broke the manual valve. So then i have to wait until monday when they got the new valves in to pick it up and drive one hour there and 1 hour back. So I put the manual valve in and WHALAA! It works! I wasted alot of time trying to daignose an obvious problem but i was tired and pissed off, but i got it to work again. :D
 
when my friend stripped the bottom left bolt on his exhaust manifold when we were turboing his 420a, talk about one of the worst places to strip a bolt. ended up just plasma cutting it all out after about 4 hours lost to it.
 
Good stories everyone. Not good that those things happened of course, but good stories! ;)

Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming!
 
Fuel filter install I twisted the feed line that comes from the tank. It was my first dsm and had no idea about using ss line. I ordered another one from the dealer and it was a total bi***. I second the guy saying lineing the trans up after a clutch install with just a jack and your hands. Although I have done that about 5 times now so its getting easier.
 
Installing a stock ecu back onto a car that had a full aem ems....finding out that harnesses plugs were cut out and wires swapped. 92+ full wiring harness in a 90. gahhh

having a vendor tell me to not use anti-seize on my ss-bolts for my fp 3052. then realizing that now they all galled/cold-welded/seized and not even heating it up with a tig could help get them out. now THAT sucked
 
Installing my exhaust should have been easy enough, but we (I) broke a bolt in the turbo housing, so we stayed up until 1am drinking beers and being cold and angry on the pier, in the wind.

Installing my Supra SMIC was a total kick in the balls, as far as getting the right connectors and piping to fit up. Then it blew apart on the test drive so I had to dissasemble it all, JB weld it, and hammer the shit out of the clamps so the JB weld would freeze them in position forever. Then I had to go back through assembling it ALL OVER again.

I recently tapped a tree during a snow storm, so I pulled a fender from a junkyard car. I'm just hoping that installing the fender was as easy as pulling it, and has absolutely nothing to do with my SMIC.
 
...to not use anti-seize on my ss-bolts for my fp 3052...

Don't ever install parts on a turbo without antisieze. If you ever do that to a car and I buy it, and have to pull the turbo, I will hunt you down and kill you.

The shop that installed my turbo (car was stuck in MD, I had to be in VA or else I would miss movement, since my ship was sailing) didn't use antisieze. That was the cause for 1 broken bolt and 2 more that were total bitches to break free and remove.
 
Well, I managed to fish the wrench out of the engine bay with the magnetic rod, worked like a charm! I took the Talon for a test drive afterwards and noticed both something good and something bad... the good part was that the car felt like it wanted to pull just a bit harder, seat of the pants.... up until it hit the bad part anyway--a boost leak!! :cry:

Not a bad one, but when doing a pull, I will hit my set boost (20psi) and over the next couple seconds, it works its way down to about 17psi, and I can hear a slight hissing sound with the windows down at full boost. Hahn told me I didn't need to replace the TB gasket(s) for this install, but apparently they were wrong. Looks like the fun isn't over yet with this IC pipe install. :sosad: But now that I know how to get it on, it shouldn't take long to do. Imma get some gasket making material (the thick kind, with 2 layers of metal and paper in the middle) and trace/cut out new gaskets tonight.

I sure hope when it's all said and done, I'm happy with the difference over the stock hose and TB elbow.
 
When I got rid of my stock T25 for an AGP T28 I got off of a friend, it was hell. We couldnt get the manifold-to-turbo bolts out. Nothing we did worked. We broke 2 14mm sockets and 2 14mm wrenches trying to get this thing off, mind you, we were using a big ass breaker bar and an entire can of PB Blaster. So we take the manifold over to our mechanics house because he has an impact gun. NO DICE. He cant even get them out with an impact gun. Long story short, I had to leave the manifold with him so he could take it to work. He had to heat it up, and use a bigger/ more powerful impact gun to get them all out. Then once that passed, it was a PITA to get the stock oil feed and return lines to fit. Other than that, it was a sinch.
 
Trying to place a 7.5" diameter c-clip (circlip or whatever you want to call it) that holds my compressor housing onto the CHRA. It took 2 hours, 3 pairs of vise grips and 3 people to get it into the groove. Not only that, but it snapped off the vise grips 2 or 3 times while fully compressed, knicked my aluminum oil drain line fitting and left a bruise on my finger.
 
HG swap on my friends 1g. Everything went fine till his dad decided it was a good idea to put the timing belt tensioner on AFTER the belt was already in place. He wouldn't listen to reason either, because " all the timing marks were lined up, and he didn't want to do that again." Ended up trying to hammer it into place with a bar pressed against the ground and underneath the tensioner.Took like 30 minutes to install and left me with a nasty cut across the wrist from that )(*^(&*%^ing bar slipping out ( although it could be argued that it was my fault, because I was the one stupid enough to hold the belts in place :/ )
 
You know what else sucks? Axles seized in the hub...you lose the hub, the axle, the Arm and no doubt about it, you WILL break the ABS sensor taking the arm out your gonna rib the ball joint boots too and you will bleed...then you WILL take it to a machine shop and leave it on a 30 ton press for 3 days and it wont budge..he will burn it out in hopes of saving something and nope it WILL be ruined. The NAPA WILL give you the wrong exles 3 times in a row and not accept your burnt core.

When I work now...I dont even bother just "jumping in" I remove everything in the area so I can work EASY. Shit I took out the fans rad intake headshields and fender well just for the alternator.

Hands down the easiest way to work is just do it smart, dont spend an hour trying to persuade a part to fit or come out, just easily remove what is blocking it.
 
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