my first swap, which im doing right now.

problem facing - lug nut wont come off stud! and it wont break. which means... no axel coming out, no motor pull no swap.

 

take the seatpost out of your bicycle and put it over the end of the socket wrench. makes a great breaker bar.

 

My first was on a '68 camaro I had during high school. I wanted to put a new intake and carb on the 327 engine so I bought all the parts and went at it. I was 17 and I completely ignored anything anyone told me about torque and bolt patterns and after the first time installing everything it ran terrible, backfires, etc... Did it again and actually listened to advice and read the instructions got a torque wrench and things went great.

Next, decided to do the timing belt/water pump etc. on my '99 Audi A6. Taking the bumper off to get at the engine took a couple hours by itself. While pulling the cam sprockets to replace the seals that probably didn't even need to be replaced, one of the cam sprockets popped off and bashed into my radiator. I hope for the best and put everything back together and what do you know, coolant leaking on the ground. Had to take the bumper off and buy a new radiator.

 

My first diy went totaly wrong, i was doing my tail lights. i got a pair of altezas at my local junk yard and took them home and started to modify and one thing led to another and some how i cut my pointer and middle finger on my left hand so bad i had to get 9 stitches but after that it hasnt stoped me from doing diys.

 

did you cut your finger trying to modify the taillights or trying to install them

 

modifyin them i took them and made them into 3d tails

 

My first diy was on my first car, an 85 300zx. I was changing the front and rear brake rotors and pads. There were so many bolts to remove, and I even remember turning a bolt the WRONG way to loosen it . Needless to say, me AND a friend took about 10 hours straight to finish the job:joshers:. Now, I can change rotors and pads in about 40mins on both sides. Fun times...

 

gotta love the learning curve. and brakes, hell of a place to start eh?

 

I use to be in the same boat, with pulley bolts, and axle nuts then I bought an impact gun(on Ebay) with 1000 lbs. Of reverse torque. Those days are over for me. When people find out you have a bad ass impact, evreyone want to be your friend and use it LOL

 

My worst DIY experience was installing eibach springs in my civic. It was all goin well untill i got to the right rear control arm bolt. I was removing it when the case hardened bolt decided to snap in half inside the bushing. Because case hardened bolts are impossible to drill out, I had to carefully drive my lopsided car to the only shop open on a saturday at 5 to get it taken care of. The place was an absulute rip (90$/hr) and the only way to remove the bolt was to destroy the bushing, which isnt replaceable. So I had to go to the dealer and buy an entire new control arm for $200. Took at back to the shop where they installed it, and charged me $190 to do so. Got home, finished the last spring, and drove happily until I realized that my car was riding lopsided (they put the arm on backwards!) So in the process of fixing that, I descovered that they also destroyed my rear stabilizer bar ( becasue they connected it to an upsidedown control arm, causing it to bend out of whak. Finally, after this all 4 of my struts blew!!! I finally forked out 430 for a set of eibach struts. So, $1000 later, my car is driving sweet!