I was a teenage engineering apocalypse

[Guynemer]

Funniest damned thing I read all weekend.

[Alexander's Horse]

I bought a bunch of car repair tools - trolleys, jacks, you name it - about 6 years ago.

I looked at them last night, covered in dust, and thought - who am I kidding?

We're having a garage sale next weekend.

[Urban Ranger]

I won't touch car repairs. It's the big chink in my macho man image.

But I am pretty good at everything else, esp at fixing computers

[Alexander's Horse]

The wrong part and the wrong tool - that usually produces grazed knuckles.

The worst part is when you swear and notice that a little kid is standing next to you and has just had their vocabulary expanded as a result.

[Agathon]

Where I come from people like you are called "Bush Mechanics" and their motto is "If it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer".

[Solver]

I needed a laugh this morning .

[Dinner]

Normally those belts have a tensioner spring which you can release or there is a screw which moves one of the pulleys so you can put the new belt on and then retighten everything.

[Alexander's Horse]

shhh! don't tell him that!

[mindseye]

Reminds me of the night I helped a friend with a burst water pump hose on his ('72?) Maverick. Because of the position of the thing and the darkness, we couldn't quite get it on right. Finally we gave up in frustration and slammed down the hood, forgetting about a bracket we had earlier swiveled out of place.

The bracket went right through the hood. Looked like a steel shark's fin.

The worst part was that my friend had to be constantly reminded of the mishap by friends asking how he got such a peculiar gash in his hood.

[uh Clem]

The bracket went right through the hood. Looked like a steel shark's fin.

Kewlll! And on a Maverick!

[CerberusIV]

I used to do all the maintenance and servicing on my motorbike. I had a MZ, all the way from East Germany c. 1989. Not too difficult as it was designed and built to be fixed with a hammer and to run on fermented potato juice.

Then I bought an Italian scooter with a three year warranty. Now I pay a very modest amount of money for a trained mechanic in a properly equipped workshop to do all the dirty work for me. Anyone want to buy a nearly full giant sized tub of hand cleaner?

[Alexander's Horse]

hmmm, I think my worst disaster was connecting the battery leads to the wrong terminals. The burning alternator gave off quite a pretty cloud of smoke but I had to run away from the meltdown and um, eventual explosion.

Another good one was the day I tried to back the car out of the carport with the rear door still open. The tyre lever proved handy though for some on the spot panel beating so I could close the door again.

Or the time I nearly bogged the car on the shores of a lake. Would have been fun getting a tow truck down there with the whole town looking on and laughing at me.