What's your most stupid DIY cockup?

First ever car Mk3 Cortina and around 6 years old when bought.

I thought it was a good idea to fit an after market oil pressure gauge. After fitting, the gauge took about 30 seconds to register so I concluded that I had a problem with oil pressure.

Removed the gauge adapter and asked a friend to start the car while I checked under the bonnet. As the car started the contents of the sump shot out of the hole in the adapter, missed my ear by a few inches, hit the underside bonnet and descended again covering everything within a 3 foot radius.

Reply to
alan
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Mum used to make banoffee pie quite often. Part of that involves cooking an unopened tin of condensed milk for a couple of hours in a saucepan of boiling water to turn it in to caramel. This requires remembering to return to the saucepan periodically, to check and top up the water level. Should you forget to do this for some reason, you are reminded by the bang from the kitchen as a can of caramel explodes on the stove. There were caramel stalactites hanging from the ceiling over 20' away from the cooker...

Nowadays, you can buy the caramel ready-made, but back then, you had to make it yourself.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Reminds me of a post here many years ago from a farmer (IIRC) who had a campsite on his land, and the pipe to the septic tank had blocked. Had to go into the manhole to rod it from downstream of the blockage. He had thought to put wellies on, but had not thought through how much shit a campsite generates, and the ensueing gush overtopped his wellies before he could get out.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Hee hee - been there, with front fork oil for a motorbike. On a Sunday in the days before such as Half Frauds were open on such days. I think I had to resort to trudging to one of those off-licence/motoristy sort of shops (ca. 1980) to get more (at a rip-off price).

Reply to
Frank Erskine

I had to laugh at that mental image..

Reply to
Gib Bogle

On 15/05/13 14:21, F Murtz wrote: xxxxxxxx

terrible, [g]

Reply to
george - dicegeorge

----------------8><

The most significant thing to learn from an event like that is that, no matter how much heat you push in the bottom, the temperature of the water itself won't rise above boiling point. [1] The excess energy gets vented as steam. The objective, therefore, can be achieved with a gentle simmer (you can then leave the lid on, and save even more energy).

[1] For all intent and purpose.
Reply to
Apellation Controlee

A highly intelligent person I know thought he'd change the oil in his MR4. He looked in the manual and found how much oil he needed and bought it.

Then he goes under the car and drains the oil. Replaces plug puts in measured amount of engine oil and drives off. (Never checks dipstick) Ten miles later, big bang lots of smoke. He had drained the gearbox. So he needed new engine and gear box.

This fellow was an RAF pilot.

Reply to
harry

So 5 l of oil all over the yard as well?

If it had gone into the empty but not cleaned out drain container I'd have just bunged it back in, hopefully after putting the drain plug in. A little bit of "contamination" of the new oil wouldn't hurt, what about all the old oil still in the oilways and clinging to surafces in the engine....

Pilots fly 'em, they don't fix 'em...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

What's an MR4?

Ah - right. I have it :)

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

er no. under pressure the boiling point can rise quite substantiall. Pressure cooker.

So te point to learn is that it is extremely dangerous to release pressure on superheated 'boiling' water, since io all then boils instantaneously and turns to steam.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No, no, no. The important point is that banoffee is simply a means of consuming vast amounts of sugar with, unfortunately, very little nice flavour. It would be very close to the bottom of my list of desserts - only a little ahead of the ones which are positively horrible. Anything with marmalade or most forms of cooked orange!

Reply to
polygonum

Mainly depends if you like banana I suppose.

I do, and am indeed quite partial to the occasional slice of banoffee pie. And I also well remember my mum boiling up tins of Nestle's, which even as a kid struck me as a rather odd and dangerous thing to be doing.

However, I have to say my life-long love affair with bananas took a somewhat downward turn when I visited a beer festival recently, and spotted 'banana beer' on offer.

Well, you've got to try it, haven't you?

Sadly it proved to be probably the most disgusting stuff I've ever had the misfortune to put in my mouth. Who'd have guessed, eh?

Reply to
Lobster

Never had "Dr. Peppers root beer", eh?

Reply to
Huge

I used to have a soft spot for some forms of root beer! But like so many things, they seem so much sweeter these days than when I were lad...

I *do* like bananas - but not in that concoction. Any decent banana is more than sweet enough already...

(Mind, I do find "dollar" bananas seem to be somewhat starchy and very much less pleasant than our traditional Caribbean sources.)

Reply to
polygonum

It is the most revolting fizzy drink I've ever encountered.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Is it time to mention expanding foam?

Reply to
Bob Eager

I spat the first mouthfull out and poured the rest down the toilet.

Reply to
Huge

Which is more than I can say for methi (fenugreek) flavoured potato crisps.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

Trouble was it was hard to be as rude about it as the circs demanded as I was surrounded by septics who thought it was wonderful - they even drank the diet version vomit vomit vomit.

Reply to
Tim Streater

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