Hello- I am in the middle of replacing the timing chain and tensioners on my son's Infiniti G35. I work behind a keyboard, and haven't really done much mechanics wise other than basic car maintenance since I was in college.

The engine is a VQ35DE engine and I think I have spent more on seals and gaskets than I have on actual parts.

I was putting the rear timing chain case back on, and although I thought I had cleared the entire perimeter, a grounding strap got pinched on between the case and cylinder head or block. As I was tightening the 26 bolts in order, the case broke.

I found a replacement online. Now I just have to wait, and suck up the $75 mistake. I will double/triple check this time.

Ive welded up a broken timing cover off a Toyota before after it wrapped the broken chain up around the crankshaft.
You probably could have had that one repaired for $25or so.

 
I put the head gasket on backwards (end to end backwards) on my Toyota 2F engine (FJ40). It fits either way, except there is a small oil hole near #5 that has a matching hole in the block. If the holes don't align, no oil gets topside. Cost me a brand new OEM gasket (no way I would reuse the other new OEM that had been torqued down), and "some" time.
 
The way I discovered it is there is a tab in the gasket that sticks out the end. When I went to bolt on the thermostat housing, the tab was in the way. The tab is supposed to stick out the back.
 

This message has been edited. Last edited by: henryaz,

I was helping a friend reassemble a Honda CB350 engine and, due to a few factors;

Beer
Late night
Beer
Cockiness (rebuilt my SL350 motor a few times)
Beer

I somehow put the cam in ass backwards and thank God I used the kick start lever by hand to check everything as opposed to hitting the start button

Live and learn... sometimes the hard way.
I'll tell one on myself if it makes you feel any better.

I left an oil baffle out of my first small block 327 Chevy rebuild back in my high school days. I was 16 or 17. Luckily I found the "extra" part before putting the engine back in the car and only had to pull the intake. This was before the internet so the really embarrassing thing was I had to take the baffle to a "real" mechanic to even find out what it was and where it went, LOL! I felt like the dummy I was.

My buddy (really, not me!) put a 327 together for a guy in a '57 Chevy, this was about 1979. Ran it for about twenty minutes on and off mostly at idle and could not figure out why it had no oil at the rockers.

Another friend and I got there about ten minutes after the debacle started. I did get there in time to hear the owner say "The oil light went out". So after some head scratching on all of their parts I jumped in and turned the ignition to "on" the and only light that lit was the Generator, the Oil Light was not on. So I said "You make sure the intermediate shaft is in? The oil light is not connected". The last cycling of the engine as we got there, I heard a pronounced squeak in it.

So quickly he pulled the distributor to find that he forgot to put the shaft in. The other friend and I picked up the parts we were after and left. Once we got to the end of the driveway we both shook our heads in disbelief. My friend that put the engine together was a state certified auto tech, and been to school for it and had been a dealership tech for over ten years. Well, we all have our off days I guess.

Though on the bright side I bet all the high points in the engine were well burnished........

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shovelhead,

It is a pain. My oldest has been driving the car my wife normally drives, and so she has been driving the truck, and I have not been driving. it isn't a hardship as I work from home. the engine itself is a jewel.

luckily the nicoclub has the manuals for the car online. It has every bolt and fastener in it with the torque settings needed. it is just a matter of technique.

Everybody makes mistakes. I spent three hours inserting the engine into my son’s S10. It was so tight and impossible to line up that I spent all morning. Just as I’m bolting up the transmission, I look across the floor and see the torque converting laying there. Yea!

At least things go easier the second time.

Shoot. Back in the 90's I replaced the timing chain on my 59 Corvette. Simple old 283, right? That damn job took me all day.

I wasn't even all that old back then.

driving to a job about 200 miles away, I was 20 at the time, I know my vw bug needed a new clutch but I figured I would just do it when I got back a week later. a couple of really steep hills got the clutch slipping and I never made it.

luckily I had the parts with me, I pulled the motor on the side of the road with a china made floor jack , I did this at night with a flash light while it was raining and wind blowing I was on highway 101 out of gold beach Oregon.

I cant tell you how many mistakes I have made putting engines together, live and learn.

I was helping a buddy reassemble a Dodge V8 (something we had done more than once) and we got it all back together before we noticed the oil pump sitting on a shelf.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:
I was helping a friend reassemble a Honda CB350 engine and, due to a few factors;

Beer
Late night
Beer
Cockiness (rebuilt my SL350 motor a few times)
Beer

I somehow put the cam in ass backwards and thank God I used the kick start lever by hand to check everything as opposed to hitting the start button

When I worked on those, I have seen the cam sprocket installed backwards.
As I recall, this would advance the cam just enough so the engine will run OK at lower RPMs but it will act like it is starving for fuel at higher RPMs.

I do not see how it would be possible to install the cam backwards and get the engine assembled due to the tach drive being on one side and the shaft for the points cam on the other.

Oh I've NEVER done anything like that before....

Oh I have never crushed the crank position sensor in-between the bell housing and engine block on my truck when I changed the clutch out. Nope, I never did anything like that before.

Nothing like a complex assembly put back together out of sequence and having to take several parts back off to put on the one that should have gone on first.

I helped a buddy rebuild the motor on his race bike. We were under a bit of a time crunch so we installed it, but didn't have oil. At the track, I was checking things over and safety wiring the brakes when he walks up and says "I got the oil". In my mind that meant he was going to put the oil in. In his mind, that meant he had purchased the oil and I was going to put it in.

It lasted two laps.

I think we've all done it. Anytime working on a car the devil is always in the small details. Of course, the part you forget is always on the job that has the least amount of room and the hardest to get to it seems.

When I was in high school I had a part-time job in an auto repair shop.

One of the guys did a lot of engine rebuilds, and was very good at it.

So one blazing hot Saturday, one of the service writers decided to prank him by placing a brand new piston on the floor just under the edge of his work bench.

It was hilarious when he found it. He stood there with piston in hand staring at the car with its just rebuild engine.

After 10 minutes of contemplation he says "Hell with this...." hops in and fired it up. The look of relief on his face was epic.

At one time I built engines for a living while working at a hot rod shop. I built an alcohol motor for a customer, had about 15 grand invested . Built a test stand to fire it up, I show no mercy to my bricks, I run them at 2 to 3 thousand rpm for the first 20 min to break them in. All was well this thing was rattling the windows in the shop, walking across the floor of the shop in the test stand, one thousand hp easy. call the owner to come down and see his bullet work, I was so proud. fire it up to see the smile on his face. 20 seconds in, I had what I call a RUD...rapid unscheduled diassembley, shit.........

In mid '60's a biker friend bought a used Yamaha motorcycle, a 200CC two stroke bike, made a few years before Yamaha came out with automatic oil injection.

Guy who sold the bike forgot to tell my friend about need to premix gas/oil. So, he filled up the gas tank and off he went....

Bike ran about 5 miles before motor seized.

When I was a teenager I put a pair of rear shocks on upside down, on my 65 Chevy. Didn't know until a year later when a mechanic noticed.