My first DIY was my first car. When I was 16 I had $100 burning a hole in my pocket and the guy next door had an 84 mustang lx 2.3L 4-cyl. So I talked him into selling it to me. It had huge problems from the start. The tranny slipped (auto), it ran rough, rich, etc...

So first thing I did was, well, dis-assemble everything! I very nearly rebuilt the whole engine (head gasket, intake gasket, valve job, oil pan gasket, air pump, alternator), replaced the tranny fluid and filter, tune-up sh!t, some new(er) tires and replaced the exhaust. All told, about 3 weeks of work.

Once I'd finally finished and started the car up, it still ran like shit. After fiddling with the carb and getting it to idle correctly, I decided it was time for a test drive. It bucked and rocked ( :irock: ) like a bull. I, for the life of me, couldn't figure out WTF was wrong. I drove it like this for 4 months, I had no other car and I wasn't about to take the bus. When I couldn't take it any more, I took off the air cleaner and found....I had completely forgotten to torque the carb down. :exnbp: Dammit, I felt like such a moron. Because I had left it for so long the rocking of the carb chewed up the gasket, and I had to buy a new one. This time I torqued it Lesson learned :slap:

That car lasted until the Ontario Govt. decided to start smog testing. No matter what I did this car wouldn't pass smog . So I did the next best thing... I sold it to a demolition derby racer, and bought a new(er) car!