Stupidest Repairs Ever Witnessed!!!!

[Fish]

Toro/Lawnboy has a great parts lookup...

https://lookup3.toro.com/partdex/default.cfm

 

[dancan]

Not on a small engine but I had a utility trailer made from an antique pop up camper come to my shop after the owner drove an hour and a half with a "Load Bearing" chicom ratchet strap holding the front of the springs in place because the frame rotted away .
Last fall I had another person stop in with a homemade 6x8 enclosed trailer with a single post coupler and it had a piece of square tubing held in place under the original beam with 2 "Structural" ratchet straps because it rotted and broke .

 

[zogger]

kohler=ridiculous expensive

One of the stupidest ones I have done is,

Threw a rod on an old Kohler Magnum, while it was down it got new valve guides, rings one new piston and rod. put some cross hatch back in the cylinders and lapped and ground the valves.

Got it all tucked back into the Sunstar, got half the lawn mowed and it lost all power. Seems the cam got cracked when that rod was flailing around in there. Took a good hour of run time before it separated. You can buy a cam and lifters for a V8 cheaper than that little dude!

--everything about those engines is way outtasight expensive. Yep, it's like buying a v8 crate engine to replace one. Was looking at a replacement short block K engine--900 bucks! Needless to say, not buying one anytime soon.

 

[promac850]

--everything about those engines is way outtasight expensive. Yep, it's like buying a v8 crate engine to replace one. Was looking at a replacement short block K engine--900 bucks! Needless to say, not buying one anytime soon.

Yep, but they pay for themselves...

We got one of them Kohler K161's on our Troy Bilt Horse tiller, it burns a little oil but still is running as strong as ever... even at 30+ years old.

I have a spare K161 that my neighbor gave me, needs a rebuild... or so I think. I will be doing a compression test on it sometime to see if it does need one... it might not need the rebuild. All I know is the carb that was on it is scrap... rusted and corroded to heck and it ain't gonna clean up. It is the generator engine, the one without the recoil rope and such... A while back, here on AS... I saw a video of a guy starting up his old two man chainsaw, and noticed the flywheel looked similar to the one on the generator version of the K161.

He kick started that saw, by stepping on the notch that was cast into the flywheel.

I am thinking the old generator that had this K161 engine on it was low to the ground to allow that starting procedure... it has a part with a notch cast into it, this part bolts onto the flywheel.

Obviously if I had it installed on the tiller, it'd have the recoil set up and the carb and possibly fuel tank from the current tiller power block.

All I know is the K series is dead reliable...

Stay the hell away from the KT series though... you know, the ones on most of the JD 317 tractors... thankfully most of them have been either rebuilt to work properly or decently enough, but they still have their problems.

One of the 317's I run is down. Something with the governor is ####ed up, making that thing produce scary knocking sounds and smoke out of the fan housing, not the exhaust. So that is something I will have to work on soon.

Hopefully the KT-17 didn't puke... or we'd have to drop 1350 for a Briggs Vanguard swap kit. I am hearing lots of good stuff about them Vanguards...

I happen to have an 18hp vertical shaft one sitting in my barn right now. It runs. Been sitting for quite a while though, so probably has some dead mice inside of the cooling shrouds... I wish I could put it on the 317, but it'd take a bit of work, and from what I've read, we'd be in for as much or more than the conversion kit.

So that 'red neck' Vanguard installation is not likely to occur. I don't need to blow up a good engine because of the oil pump location...

Wow, I rambled a bit...

For crappy repairs, I've seen the wrong lug nuts hammered with an 1/2" impact gun onto the wheel studs before... because the owner needs the car back, but the guys don't have the right lug nuts with the right thread... this was at the technical center I attended for a few years... the guy even did it to his own car... he hammered and hammered them things on since he needed the car... hmm...

I imagine it took at least a 3/4" drive to get them off...

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

Back when I was a foreman at a tractor/trailer shop, I had a bunch
of green kids working for me on 2nd shift, they came into my office
one night, saying, " Fish, come out here and listen to this tire we just
mounted, it sounds like popcorn!!!!!"
I ran out to see a couple of guys with their ears up to a sidewall of a trailer tire, [not in the cage], listening to the popping sounds.....

When I was around 15 my dad and I got an old car that had been sitting for a long time. We took the aircompressor to inflate the tires. Well the tires had sunk into the dirt along being flat. My dad didn't realize the the tire was way over inflated and the clicking was the cords breaking....one at a time.....tick....tick........when that thing blew...I coudn't hear anything for a long time! And of corse...it had to blow down by the dirt so I got that in my face too! Kinda lilke mini shot out of a shot gun!

Several years ago I topped of the tank on my four-wheeler. I cranked it and it went about 50 feet and died.
I checked everything I knew to check and could not find the problem.
I loaded it and carried it to a man who worked on my small stuff at the time. He took the gas cap of and asked if I had just fueled it. I thought he was think it had water in the gas and told him that the gas was keept in a sealed containter.
He got some fuel on his finger, looked at it then at me. It struck me wnat I had done. It was diesel in the tank. I ran a tank or to through it before I got all of the diesel out of it. Tom

Well, I did this on a riding mower! I had forgotten that I had put diesel in one of my cans for my 300SD. The engine still ran....but sounded like it was about ready to blow up! Before I realized that I had put the wrong fuel in it, I replaced the headgasket thinking it was blown. The engine was prone to going through HG. The newer diesel fuel really doesn't smell like the older fuel. IMO it smells more like gas.

 

[67L36Driver]

As a young lad crawling thru the local salvage yard, I came accross a 3/4 ton panel truck, upside down. A plumbing shop phone and address was on the side.

Yup, they had replaced the exhaust system with 2" threaded black pipe. Nipples, couplings, 45's, the whole nine yards. Had to have added another 300# to the truck.

 

[terry2tmd]

Don't sweat it. Take there money or someone else will. :msp_thumbup:

OK! A man after my own heart!!! LOL!!:msp_biggrin:

 

[frischtr]

As a young lad crawling thru the local salvage yard, I came accross a 3/4 ton panel truck, upside down. A plumbing shop phone and address was on the side.

Yup, they had replaced the exhaust system with 2" threaded black pipe. Nipples, couplings, 45's, the whole nine yards. Had to have added another 300# to the truck.

As they say, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

Being an electrician, many of my projects/fixes/rig jobs use electrical supplies.

 

[a. palmer jr.]

I have seen folks blow a tire to pieces with that trick. The best part about the video you posted is the little ads that pop up on the bottom of the screen when you hit play, the first ad that popped up was for a insurance company asking "Do you need affordable health or life insurance?"

Kinda looks like it would be easier to get a narrower rim.

 

[056kid]

Several years ago I topped of the tank on my four-wheeler. I cranked it and it went about 50 feet and died.
I checked everything I knew to check and could not find the problem.
I loaded it and carried it to a man who worked on my small stuff at the time. He took the gas cap of and asked if I had just fueled it. I thought he was think it had water in the gas and told him that the gas was kept in a sealed container.
He got some fuel on his finger, looked at it then at me. It struck me want I had done. It was diesel in the tank. I ran a tank or to through it before I got all of the diesel out of it. Tom

I did an old plymouth that way. Had to disconnect the fuel line after the pump and feed the motor gas with a bottle so it would run all that #2 goo outa there!

 

[w8ye]

I came home from work one evening about 35 yrs ago and my wife was just devastated looking. I asked what was wrong and she said that she had blown up the engine in the Bolens lawn tractor.

I asked what did it do and she said she started to mow the grass and immediately it started smoking white smoke and quit. I asked if she put gas in it before starting to mow and she said yes.

So I figured it had kerosene in the gas tank as there was a can of that in the garage? As I approached the tractor, I could smell the kerosene.

So I siphoned the tank and took the bowl off the carb etc to clean it out. Finally got the mower started and mowed the grass.

The downfall of this episode is . . . she never mowed the grass again.

 

[Johny Utah]

When I was around 15 my dad and I got an old car that had been sitting for a long time. We took the aircompressor to inflate the tires. Well the tires had sunk into the dirt along being flat. My dad didn't realize the the tire was way over inflated and the clicking was the cords breaking....one at a time.....tick....tick........when that thing blew...I coudn't hear anything for a long time! And of corse...it had to blow down by the dirt so I got that in my face too! Kinda lilke mini shot out of a shot gun!



Well, I did this on a riding mower! I had forgotten that I had put diesel in one of my cans for my 300SD. The engine still ran....but sounded like it was about ready to blow up! Before I realized that I had put the wrong fuel in it, I replaced the headgasket thinking it was blown. The engine was prone to going through HG. The newer diesel fuel really doesn't smell like the older fuel. IMO it smells more like gas.

You are right it is very hard from smell to tell the difference. Fixed many an engine that got diesel by accident. First thing I did before any tear down was to run it on an auxiliary tank of gasoline to see what it would do.

 

[Johny Utah]

I've never seen a tire do that. I guess too much hairspray would set you up for a bad day.

I think I'll try that one day just for fun.

It's a lot faster then trying to use a bead plaster cannon that's for sure.

 

[Johny Utah]

Does this sorta qualify? And wouldn't it have been easier to just replace the exhaust and muffler on this thing in the first place?

Bought it from the same guy I got the pristine 031 from if anyone remembers that thread. Actually got it in the same deal. But...

As far as "stupid" goes? I'd say actually adding a muffler would ruin the essence of such superb redneckery and I would immediately be struck by lightning and forever burn in Hell for doin' somethin' that dumb!​

Poge

Now that's a high performance machine right there. Running that straight header. lmao

 

[cc firefighter]

Working at a Honda Dealer

I worked at Honda motorcycle, ATV and Power Equipment shop for 10 years and seen all kinds of stupid stuff. One that stands out in my mind is the time that a dad brought in his sons CR125 and told me it will not rev up since his son repacked the muffler. (keep in mind that all it takes is 1 rap around the baffle with muffler packing)
It took me about an hour with a screw driver to pry muffler packing out of that thing and its made out of fiber glass. I dont know how in the heck that kid got that much packing in there. He must of used the handle of a slug hammer to tamp it in there.

There was countless times people would bring there ATV's in and say "I dont know what's wrong with it, the starter cranks but it will not start." So I would go out look at it, flip the kill switch and start it up.

The ones that drove me nuts the most is people that would want me to fix there bike over the phone. I always felt like telling them to put the bike on the phone and I will talk to it. Or the people that would call and ask me what I thought was wrong with there bike, so I would tell them and they would say "Oh no that can't be it" I always wanted to ask those people why the heck ask me if you already know.

 

[Vibes]

My brother in law owns an auto repair business. A customer of his lives on one of Pittsburghs notoriosly steet hills. He did a bunch of work on this womens car. She calls him up and says the cars broke down. The work was under warraunty so he sends the flatbed. He hits the key and it fires right up and the computer says everything is good.

Couple weeks go by same call. Car comes in on a hook and same thing. He lets the car run for 15 minutes and checks it on the computer. Car is fine. He tells one of his guys to test drive it and it runs out of gas 2 blocksaway.

Lady was running it out of gas while parked on a steep hill. He charged her 2 tows and an hr labor for his mechanic to walk back to garage.

 

[RandyMac]

I saw two guys sawing wood on the beach yesterday, they had one broke off barstud, the other was stripped. The driveside cover was bungied on, at least they were using the good black strap bungies.

 

[PogoInTheWoods]

The driveside cover was bungied on, at least they were using the good black strap bungies.

They always look so nice on those yeller saws!



Poge

 

[BigJ]

Hands down the stupidest thing I see is tape wrapped around a high pressure hydraulic line to stop a leak. Here's your sign.

Try: running your hand along the line to find the pinhole leak.

He found the leak, but lost his hand and almost died at the same time...

 

[wvlogger]

best one i ever seen was a starter tie wired on. No bolts just tie wire.


Saw a guy on time had his motor ratchet strapped into his truck and transmission chained in. And tried to say it was factory. I looked at him and said "it might be more believable if the straps did not say task force on em but rather GM".