have you ever..... ?

[OzFab]

Ah, the things we do when we're young, stupid apprentices...

One day, as a first year apprentice in the TAFE workshop, I was working on the rear brakes of an old FIAT 131 coupe. I put everything back together flawlessly & without incident. Quite pleased with myself, I stood back with a huge smile on my face... until the instructor returned from the test drive... AN HOUR LATER!

Turns out he'd had to chase a wheel after it came off the car...

...& if you think that was good, did you hear the one about the apprentice who fitted a set of spark plugs... WITH A RATTLE GUN! Or the one about the same apprentice who filled an engine with oil... TO THE TOP!

 

[fowler]

Ha
I'd never be that daft
To fill it to the top

I have filled a 789c diff
It takes around 1000lt of sae50
On a cold June morning this can take a few hours to fill

Do I'm standing there watching for 1 1/2 hours with just the du chug du chug of the diapham pump
So I thought bugger it ill go talk to someone
The oils not even close to full
Come back 15mins later and there's a 7metre dia puddle in the floor
And cold 50 weight doesn't just mop up

Not that we use mops
Even conventional oil soak stuff wouldn't pick it up

 

[mckutzy]

That crap is like a runny grease. unreal.. I guess shoveling doesnt work ether. Better off using a giant honey stick.

 

[machinist@large]

I got back to the shop where I used to work one day to find the village idiot's (the two man "machine building" dept.) running around like a poor imitation of a Monty Python skit because they had been in rare form that day, just before I got back, and ~45 minutes before the customer was supposed to show up to do a buy off run on their modifications to a machine.

They had spent almost 5 HOURS trying to figure out why the hydraulics wouldn't work. We started at 7:00 AM; at around 11:55 my forman wanders over to watch the circus, and asks them why the motor for the pump was running the opposite direction from the arrow on the pump (indicating the proper direction for operation). Then he, with the rest of the crew went to lunch, with pretty much everyone going out for lunch or taking it at the picnic tables in the shade outside.

That's all the information anyone would tell me when I got back at 1:30 PM to find the shop flooded/ trashed because, SOMEHOW a 150 gallon hydraulic reservoir got drained at high pressure, via the ceiling, with it being accomplished using a pump that could only move 10 gallons per minute..........

 

[Poboy kartman]

MAL- sounds like a lot of people were out to lunch for quite awhile.

Me too apparently, I had drained the oil on the 5 hp Tecumseh because I don't think anyone else had. The valve cover was barely screwed back on so I sprayed carb cleaner on the valve train followed by a kerosene rinse.

So when I went to fill it back up the oil was so clean I couldn't get a good reading on the dipstick. So I decided to run it and then check. It was low but on the stick. I was out of oil so I decided to leave it out until I filled it.

I kinda forgot and started the motor-Spindle Top all over again. The kart is nice and shiny now with a motor oil and paper towel wax job.

 

[firemanjim]

....had to chase your 2 year old around the house,trying to catch him so you can remove a short broken crayon from his nose? Then try holdin him down while attempting to grab the crayon with some medical tweezers?
It was WAAYYYY up in there.....

 

[Doc Sprocket]

As a matter of fact, yes. But instead of a crayon, it was a button from a shirt or something. Been a few years, a bit hazy on the details. The wife was freaking, and I was having a hard time controlling my laughter.

 

[OzFab]

My stepson did something similar when he was about 3, a dome nut up the snoz (nose). Missus was freaking out (we'd only been together a few weeks), I calmed her down & slowly worked it out, then she looked at me as if to say "how the did you do that?"

 

[Poboy kartman]

This doesn't have anything to do with sticking things where they don't belong but my daughter was in that age range at the time.

I had to get her ready and take her to daycare then drive to my bosses house to catch a ride to the job 45 miles away. I almost scarred this child for life with some of the tactics I was forced to use to get her ready to go.

One time I got in the car and left- for awhile! (She was too danged smart for her own good).Anyway-this was all about a 3yr old that suddenly developed such a fashion sense that nothing in her repertoire would quite do!

Of course this was an everyday occurrence and only drastic measures allowed me to get to the bosses house on time. Then I would sit in my car for 30 min. until he came out and went to work. One day she was particularly belligerent and I was 5 min late.HE WAS GONE! People said that they took one look at me when I walked in on that job site and took cover.I won't go into everything said because most of it is not printable, but one thing he said- "well you just have to put clothes on them".REALLY? I told him "IF you can manage to get anything they don't want on their squirming little bodies they can get out of them twice as fast! " Can I get an Amen here?

 

[OzFab]

Amen brother! Mine is 9 & still carries on in the mornings; I don't call her "the little princess" for nothing...

 

[firemanjim]

Amen brother! Mine is 9 & still carries on in the mornings; I don't call her "the little princess" for nothing...

I got 3 drama queens..... 4-9&11 ..... Church in the morning. Me n the 2 boys,20 minutes..... the wife n three girls....... well ,lets just say i can go get donuts,gas, eat said donuts, make some breakfast for us all, and still wait for them to come eat before we are late..... :toetap05::toetap05:

 

[fowler]

Have you ever
Seen a good air compressor deal on Gumtree(like Craigslist)
Knowing they go real quick phones the bloke up and said u will come immediately

Then given up a lovely day u should be spending preping the garden for spring to drive the 1.5 hour trip from one end on the city to the other

Show up and the guys like
"Na sold it to old mate 1 hour ago"
Well thanks for the call buddy
I'll just back away slowly before I kill you

But it's all good now
Found a better deal within 15mins from my place

 

[ed1380]

Had that happen a couple times. People are just rude.


I'm in the middle of a big PITA right now. Picked up an Audi with a burnt timing belt. Pulled the motor. It's a cluster They squeeze 6 cylinders and 2 turbo's in the engine bay. It's like a giant puzzle. Oh, you need to get to one bolt? Well first remove these 5 other things first. Anyways rebuilt everything. Stayed up 60 hours bolting everything together. It started right up, but gushing oil from the rear main. Pulled the motor today. Rear main is dry. One of the oil feed lines wasn't tightened. That's an hour long job. I just spent 2 days pulling the motor

I had a picture of the mess and it just happens to show the culprit

http://i.imgur.com/myRVB9v.jpg


Beautiful pain in the
http://i.imgur.com/GmQFQMZ.jpg

 

[fowler]

what a down right ****

thats tight
not a single square cm is wasted is there
ill stick to big machines

 

[Doc Sprocket]

Have you ever
Seen a good air compressor deal on Gumtree(like Craigslist)
Knowing they go real quick phones the bloke up and said u will come immediately

Then given up a lovely day u should be spending preping the garden for spring to drive the 1.5 hour trip from one end on the city to the other

Show up and the guys like
"Na sold it to old mate 1 hour ago"
Well thanks for the call buddy
I'll just back away slowly before I kill you

I went through a rash of these in May (I believe it was). I had gotten my income tax cheque in, and was looking to have a bit of fun before real life took hold again. There were I believe 4 articles (and sellers) in a row that did this to me. The largest of which was a welding machine, and a mask was involved, too. As I recall, there was a set of go kart tires, too.

Needless to say, I was pretty soured on Kijiji (like CL) sellers.

 

[fowler]

The thing that really annoys me is just driving down there I used over 1/3 of my fuel
Some 60lt of deisel and at $1.55
It cost me more in fuel to get there than the thing was worth
So really it was a stupid Chioce to ever undertake the exersize

 

[OzFab]

That's why I try to keep my search within a 25km radius... but, I suppose, there's more in a 25km radius to me than a 100km radius to you right...

 

[Doc Sprocket]

Yeah- that really depends where you live, eh? If I stayed within 25, I'd never score anything. 25k won't get me to Toronto, Barrie, or anything else worthwhile. Just a few small towns, half full of nothingness.

 

[fowler]

Yeah I set it to a 250km radius

25 km gets me the small country town I live in

50 km gets me the farm land around it

100km gets me the northern and eastern suberburbs of Perth
250 gets me all of Perth and surrounding areas

 

[OzFab]

See, I live in the middle of suburbia, 25ks doesn't get me out of Sydney metro...

On the flipside of that coin, there's not many places to ride a street kart around here