The things you see at the workshop

[Mrs flatchat]

The thread for "Classical clangers" to be sure
I'd reckon ya'll know of plenty............

Hey dad I think I may have flat spotted a tyre

[deano59]

seen a few scary things over the yrs working as a mechanic . first yr apprentice driving a car into the wheel alignment pit . god knows how he missed the drive on runners . took a tow truck to lift it out .and some good will to the owner who actually was quite calm over the whole thing . saw a car fall off a 2 post hoist as the arms weren't positioned correctly car fell from nearly full height just missing the bloke under it at the time .
or you get the customer who puts there secret mark on a oil filter or air filter just so he can check if its been changed lol when I spot these marks I mark the new ones the same lol and draw a smiley face with a paint pen lol .
ive worked with some shocking mechanics over the yrs but on the other hand ive dealt with some nut case customers as well. more stories for later on lol

[David Hodgson]

Originally Posted by deano59

seen a few scary things over the yrs working as a mechanic . First yr apprentice driving a car into the wheel alignment pit . God knows how he missed the drive on runners . Took a tow truck to lift it out .and some good will to the owner who actually was quite calm over the whole thing . Saw a car fall off a 2 post hoist as the arms weren't positioned correctly car fell from nearly full height just missing the bloke under it at the time .
Or you get the customer who puts there secret mark on a oil filter or air filter just so he can check if its been changed lol when i spot these marks i mark the new ones the same lol and draw a smiley face with a paint pen lol .
Ive worked with some shocking mechanics over the yrs but on the other hand ive dealt with some nut case customers as well. More stories for later on lol

ditto!

[leroy17]

There is a brake place at southport where I get stuff from.

Anyway on the shelf behind the counter they have this round thin piece of metal, barely 1 or 2 mm thick. Looking closer and you can see its a disk, or whats left of a disk. I asked and it was confirmed that this was taken off a customers car.

Will try and get a pic.

[boxhead]

I have seen troop carriers at the Toyota Dealership when I was there, 9000 kls from brand new delivery.
Rotors worn down to the vents, no pads and piston contacting rotor.
The sand in central Australia is very course and abrasive.

[Rog246]

Well this is a bit long but has a point to it.
When I was working being a rubber grub in the ACT, we had an ex-police XD Falcon Interceptor come in. It was a Victorian reg car and 3 blokes and 2 girl friends got out of it and asked if we could do a wheel align and balance on it.
We took it up to the wheel alignment pit and jacked it up to check the front end for worn bits as per normal.
Well this car had, had a very hard life and being a Falcon it needed bottom ball joints , idler arm and both outer tie rod ends. In other words absolutely pointless doing an alignment. The bottom left BJ was so bad we could have pulled it out of its socket using a lever . I called the driver and his mates over and showed it to them, and the response from one of the blokes was " Jeez mate its a Ford , they're all like that -she'll be right!"
We offered to replace it at a knock down price because it was so dangerous but they all said they were broke and that they'd come to Canberra to work on the Parliament House construction to make some big $'s and they'd fix it when they got paid. I explained again how bad it was and that it could just fall out especially at speed if they hit a decent hole on the back road to 'struggle city' (Queanbeyan)-'yeah yeah heard it all before !'
Well my missus was in the Canberra Hospital in the ICU less than 3 days after that, as she was really really crook. I went up there after she came out of surgery, and as she had all the curtains around her & I was focused on her I took no notice of what was going on around the room. Anyway, the next morning I'm back in and they pulled the curtains back and in the bed next to her in a coma was the bloke who was driving the Ford, with 2 of the girls that were with him visiting.
I spoke to them and got the story-the day after I had them in the workshop they had slept in-late for work and had the whip out on the Ford! It it a large pot hole ball joint dropped out, car flipped, threw one bloke out who hit a guard rail left his head on one side and his body somewhere else, the second bloke also fell out only to have to catch the whole car, but then dropped it on himself-he ended up with his mate albeit somewhat thinner and taller if you catch my drift The fella in the bed next to my wife was the driver and he had the steering wheel to hold on to, so he was just a mess with what they thought severe brain damage-but they couldn't really tell as he was in a very deep coma .
The girls--well they were a real mess as they lost 2 of their friends and # 3 was pretty stuffed AND they had to call ALL the parents and tell them what happened.
A very sad situation that they KNEW could have been avoided so easily. I really wanted to say " I told you that could happen !" but what would it have achieved ?
The only thing that I hope happened is that when someone said to them in later life-that needs to be fixed right now they will do it.

[Modena]

I worked on an old Peugeot once where the rear discs had worn right through, suspected by a lodged stone or something, so there as an outer "ring" to the disc which was fully detached and floating around between what used to be the pads!

the driver hadn't even noticed, it was in for a "minor service"

[Mrs flatchat]

"Brakes making grinding noise!" --- metal back plate to the rotor

Race day --wheels off, gear box out, clutch in pieces - meticulously measuring things, trying to figure why no drive --bemused by all this frantic activity, casually rotated a wheel hub only to reveal the lack of rotation of the axle
( broke axle at the outer CV --a testament to the boot for making it look normal)


Engine running hot and smells like BBQ

[Jaydee]

That roo reminded me of a friend who drove coaches to Darwin. On dusk a couple of Japanese tourist was talking to the driver, and asked, Will we see some kangaroos? 5 minutes later, bong bong splat. White faced, they sat down. On his first trip he was still a bit nieve, and he parked the bus facing the window of the kiosk. He walked inside, and there's the front of the bus covered in blood and guts. He moved it.
JD