I got my car out of storage to finish putting it back together. What started as a 3-month quick paint job, turned into a 5-year project. Anyway, I tried to keep the paint job from getting scratched while I pushed the car around the garage over the past couple of years. Everyone in my family knows - Rule #1 of the garage is don’t scratch the silver car. But, I failed. When I pulled it out to start finishing it this weekend, I noticed a few scratches in the paint. I sure would have liked to have driven it before scratching it. How I managed to scratch it, I have no idea. I guess the rule is - whatever you are trying to avoid scratching, will, in fact, get a scratched.

Anybody else scratch their new paint before finishing reassembly? I figured I’d start a knucklehead move thread. A form of group therapy I guess.

When I got Igor painted years ago, I had the top painted to match the rest of the car.

I brought the car home, and I put a different top on it so I could put the hardware back on the painted one. I promptly dropped the freshly painted top about 2 inches to a carpeted floor. Of course it chipped on the edge above the passenger window.

Yes Sir, I feel your pain.. I recently moved my '71 Volvo 1800E from off-site storage to my new house. In doing so, I bumped the rear quarter with a seat rail trying to get the seat into and past the driver's door - for the journey. I was in a hurry and added a nice little scratch to my fresh single stage paint. I wanted to puke considering how much time it had taken me to get the car to that point and how careful I'd been up til then.

A few winters back I had just gotten some new steel ramps to use instead of jacking up the car to work under it. I had my 914 in my cement floor garage. I put the two ramps behind the rear wheels, got in the car and started her up. I slowly started to back up the ramps. All went well until I got to the top flat part of both ramps. As I came to a stop, the passenger side ramp apparently didn’t have enough “bite” on the concrete floor. It shot forward under the floorpan in an instant and the right rear wheel dropped. The ramp came to a stop under the middle of the passenger seat pan, bending the floor pan upward as the now trapped ramp took half the weight of the car on it!
I had to jack the car off the ramp and repair the floorpan dent with a sledge hammer. Now I use rubber matting under the ramps. Doh!

Ha! Yeah, this one happened just a few hours ago. I was sanding the orange peel out of my nice new paint in prep for buffing. Working on the roll bar top and the wife walks in and we started talking. Like an idiot, I kept sanding while we chatted. Next thing I know, there a little spot of primer popping up at the edge. 2-stage paint so now I get to sand the whole panel down and respray.

I had my 1972 GTV up on a lift while I was replacing the clutch slave cylinder hose and I had open the door to make sure it was actuating properly. Yep, when the job was done, I proceeded to lower the car with the door open and it caught on a nearby welding table and tweaked the door hinge.

Ouch.

Did some garage roof repairs ,overnight freak wind storm blows the alloy ladder over and dents my car,was a totally straight car before .

Oh yeah!

A could years ago I filled up the side of the garage where I park my Boxster with what probably amounted to $200 worth of stuff to finish off our guest bathroom. Time drug on for months and the Boxster continued to sit outside. We had several very tall pine trees next to the driveway which are constantly dropping needles. Late one very stormy and windy evening the Boxster alarm starts going off. I run out in the storm to find the lights flashing, horn blowing and the convertible top clam shell flapping up and down as IF opening the top but of course the top is securely latched and therefore can not move, breaking several parts that operate the top, bending and badly damaging the clam shell. Over the several months that the Boxster sat out under the trees, pine needles had clogged the drains under the top so the rain spilled into the passenger compartment flooding the carpet and collected at the lowest part of the interior right where the Porsche engineers thought would be a good place to put the computer that controls the top operation, anti-theft mobilizer, etc.

$3200 later, new computer, new top operation parts, straighten and paint clam shell.

Good news was, the $200 worth of stuff for the bathroom was safe and dry.

And so was the 914.

Oh, I might add that those damed pine trees are history

When I carefully lifted my freshly painted GT racing rear trunklid over the freshly painted car body I smacked the edge into the rail for the garagedoor in the ceiling... I cleared the car body by a wide margin tho.....

In the early eighties I stored my freshly painted orange car in my in-laws garage.
They needed only one bay for their car.
They asked if I would look at the door opener of the bay my car occupied.
Of course I would. The storage was free.
That's when the drive chain fell on my fresh paint.
Probably a good idea to put the car outside for garage door repairs, right ?

My wife likes it when I put a scratch on a car, because as she says "It takes the pressure off of me!"

Here's my bone head story,,,

Came back to my 914 with a dead battery after a long rest. put the battery charger/jump starter on the targa top to charge my puppy up. After a few hours of sitting, the battery was charged, so I started her up and let her idle. Well my car had a 1.7 with carbs back then and the idle was a bit high as I let her warm up. The vibration from the car idleing caused the charger to slide off the top and put a nice dent/gouge right next to the sail panel as it bounced off my car and hit the floor. DOH!!

Don't rest your charger on the targa top,,, put it on the trunk lid,,,, ALWAYS!!

If you run into me with my 914,,I'll show you the mark of shame as I still haven't painted her yet,,, but soon I will. Then I can worry about scratches again. 8-)

-Rotary Rob

After a day of autocrossing I swapped back to my street tries, hooked up my AX trailer and started to drive home. About 6 miles into the drive in slow traffic I started hearing a "rubbing" sound. Thinking I might have a bad wheel bearing I pulled in to a K-mart parking lot. Just as the car was coming to a stop the drivers front dropped down, WTH?

Yep, in a hurry to get home and forgot to torque the lugs after the tire swap.
Wheels were real minilites with special lugs. I could only find two lugs on the ground. I found one more a few days later while driving that same stretch of road. The minilites were drilled for a cone seat, so I had a few spare alloy lugs for my racing fuchs so use two ball seat lugs until I got home. Bartlett914 (Mark Kinaman) was kind enough to turn a few extra alloy lugs into the proper cone seat for me.

Damage was minor, but still not happy.

I was just finished building and restoring a '73 baja bug with a professional paint job. I hadn't put everything back together, but was too excited to see how it drove. I was taking it to the gas station for its first full tank of gas, and decided to see how the new turbo motor handled a few hot shifts. At about 75, I realized that I had forgotten to put the hood pins on and watched as my MarkV fiberglass hood flipped open, smacked the windshield, broke one of the hinge mounts and dragged down the asphalt until I could stop. The hood was toast and the hinge ripped the quarterpanel just under the A pillar. That was almost 12 years ago, but I still get pissed when I think about it.

there's storage in my garage rafters courtesy some old closet doors. being too lazy to move the car out while retrieving an item, i knocked my flashlight off the closet doors and onto the fender of my mercedes, leaving a nice ding i see every time i get into the car...

another good one was when i removed 1 too many links from a new chain on my honda blackbird after a sprocket change. thankfully, i had a smaller rear sprocket that allowed things to fit...

A few years back, while organizing the garage cabinets I managed to bump a small box out from the cabinet. No big deal right?
Well having the luck I have, the box lands on a hammer that was resting on the workbench below the cabinet. Thus launching the hammer in the direction of my
‘92 GTi . Which up to that point was pretty pristine. No more.
The “claw” portion managed to not only scratch but dent as well the perfect front edge of
the hood.

Parked the 914 at moms house, off to the side, what I thought would be a safe spot.
Except when a tree trimmer canvases the neighborhood, and offers mom a deal!
Trimmed that tree up the 914 was parked near. Numerous branches fell on the car, and a nice gouging dent when he dropped is trimming tool on the right front fender.
She’d paid them, they left.

I was lowering my Cayman down from the upper lift position, and was distracted by talking to another person in my garage. Not watching the lift, I didn't notice the L rear latch had not disengaged, and nearly dumped the Cayman off sideways as the lift descended!

Too many idiot mistakes to list them all.

I dented the door on my '86 930 with a bungy cord. I used the cord to hold up the discharge guard on my lawn tractor as I stored it in the garage. I was backing the lawn tractor in the garage one time and as I attempted to put the bungy on the guard, it got away from me and hit the door putting the only ding in the car.

At the end of a long hard day I put my truck in reverse by accident and hit the accelerator only to fly backwards, through my partially open wood garage door, and into my previously undamaged 914 that was being stored in the garage. There is nothing that can compare to the intense ten seconds when I thought my wife, who was previously behind the truck, was pinned under the truck. She wasn't, but I nearly had a heart attack until I saw her off to the side of the truck. Then, the parade of neighbors coming to see what happened, another several hours in the late night/early morning trying to piece a destroyed wood garage door back together, then $3K to replace the garage door, having to see the damage every time I look at my car or my truck, etc.

It's been a few months and I still haven't taken the cover off the 914 to fully take a look at all the damage. Still working up the courage.... I'm just lucky nobody was hurt and that I didn't make the evening news. On the plus side, the new garage door is nice

I bought an orient red 996 TT last year and while washing for the first time, I mishandled the rear wiper and applied two deep scratches above the driver side rear glass — perfect place to see it, every time I get in . Had the scratches fixed and it was close to $1K.

mark me down for another hood pin horror. I had just left a local cruise in my 65 mustaang coupe. A split second after I realized I still had the hood pins in my pocket and hit the brakes, the hood flew up at me, bending it and the hinges in the process. I'm so lucky it didn't smash the windshield.

yes, we've all paid the "idiot tax"

Another one of mine....

If you look at the ceiling in my garage, above the lift, you will notice two curved holes in the sheetrock. One day I raised our 95 BMW 540i up and forgot to set the rear of the hood down on the body. The rear corners of the BMW hood match the curved holes in the ceiling. Luckily therw was no damage to the BMW hood.



One more recent. I changed the oil pressure sender on Igor, and forgot to hook the hose that runs from the oil tank to the top of the engine back up. So there was an open hole in the top of the motor. Then I took it out for a drive..... BIG oily mess........

Looks like you are in good company Steve! I have a few spots, scratches that all have a story , one was as I was putting the trim on the front window slipped and the trim gouged the top front , but the one that hurts the most is probably when I was putting stuff away in garage and I could see it happening and do. I thing to stop it as it was out of my reach, stuff started to fall and right onto the front hood of my Maserati which btw the whole car is dent free scratch free and show quality- couple plastic drawers start to fall and land on the hood! Bunch of junk that should have been thrown away that the wife couldn’t part with well it’s all in the trash now but too little too late... I was a able to buff out most of the scratches but I now have a small dent right in the middle of the hood I hope a dent repair guy can pull out.
I guess it will happen eventually.

Learned my lesson, NEVER do that kind of work with the car in the garage!

I took my freshly painted, slope nose Chalon kit car out for a spin as soon as the dual Webers were tuned enough to run (ignoring my mechanic friends advice of "Don't drive it! The brakes are toast."). Well years of teenage angst and desire were suddenly erased the second I backed the thing out of the garage and ran it up the street. Twenty minutes later and I was all smiles until my pedal went soft as I entered a hairpin turn. I down shifted as fast as I could, pumped the brakes, and turned the wheel as fast as I could but I only made it about 130 degrees around and ended up smashing my new front end into the hillside.

The good news was I never liked the early '80s slope nose bumper so now I got to upgrade to the flat, late 80's style with integrated fog lights.

In the process of working on my 1.8L engine I would place items on my protected rear trunk hood. One of the items was a plastic grocery bag. I didn't notice that it had disappeared. Took the car for a 20 mile run an when I pulled in the drive way my oil light came on and there was a lot of smoke coming from the engine compartment. I thought it was going to flash and burn. Turns out the bag had been blown into the engine bay and sucked into the fan blocking the cooling air. The engine was toast. Happy ending: I bought a 2056 long block way sooner than I had planned.

It seems unavoidable. BTW - I got wait listed for Amelia C&C. So we will see if it works out.

Not that I'm admitting I did it but:

When drilling into a panel to mount a fiberglass part, always check that the wiring harness doesn't run RIGHT BEHIND where you're drilling.

Or a fuel tank or fuel line,,,,,

I forgot to install the oil plugs in the back side of a 302 Ford when assembling after rebuild. All was fine until I tried to prime the pump. It wouldn't build pressure. That's when I saw the big puddle of oil under the car. Oh and it soaked the new clutch too. Another, being too lazy to move the car, I managed to slice the tire's sidewall with the mower deck. I was pretty sure the mower would fit through there.

I was pulling the motor from my freshly painted VW T3 van. The back wheels were up on ramps and the tailgate was very close to the ceiling (and some steel L sections which were tied up there for storage). Brain obviously wasn't engaged and so when I removed the engine the back end of the van became lighter and the springs pushed it up a little. Just enough to hit the stored steel sections and damage my fresh painted tailgate.....

I used to park my motorcycle behind my 914, because of limited garage space and the 914 was short. Stopped doing that when I knocked the motorcycle over onto the trunk.

We all get scratches, but one of the ways I try to stop this is with trying to protect the area where I am working. I used to use fender pads and stuff, but the bottom sides get dirty and scratch the paint anyway.

So I do this now. If I am working on an area of the car where I am going to be working, I cover it with shrink wrap. Comes on a roll and I just roll it along the car covering the area needed. I use easy lift tape on the edges.

These are pictures of shrink wrap on my Audi, but you get the idea.



This one is covering the fenders for working on the engine bay.



On this one I had to remove the whole rear interior in order to get the gas tank out.

If you don't feel one layer is thick enough, wrap it twice.

Greg W.

My first 914 was a 1974 2.0 in 1979. I had it at my friend’s shop doing some work on it and to get into the building you had to drive up the driveways into the building. I was going to back it up a little with the engine off and I was haft in the car with the driver’s door open with my left foot on the ground pushing to start the movement out and my right foot was going to put the brake on when it started to move down the slight angle.

Started to move and when I pushed the peddle down to stop it is was the clutch and well it did nothing and as it hit the garage door frame it opened the door all the way and busted the stop and opened the door all the way creasing the front edge a bit. I was so pissed off but it could have been worse. Nice factory black car only 5 years old back then.

Bob B

I installed my wiper rack 180* out and when I turned on the wipers for the first time they went the wrong way and put two chips in the paint in the cowl.

That experience brings up one of my own personal tech tips: If you've ever taken the wiper rack out, make two pointers out of masking tape and insure correct rotation before installing the wiper arms

After we moved into our new (to us) house last December, I was moving the 914 from the upper parking area to the lower garage, at night.
The driveway makes a sharp right curve and there is a 6" or so curb on the right side. I thought I had plenty of room until I heard a horrendous crunching noise

Destroyed the passenger side rocker panel. Thankfully the curb was low enough that it didn't hit the door!
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I eventually hammered it out, painted and reinstalled it right before Okteenerfest.

I was once at the Restoration Shop that had restored many Pebble Beach winners. I felt much better about myself when I found out they too scratch cars new paint during assembly and it is common for them to do final paint repairs before shipping the car off.
Much Better

I did the same thing, but I jacked up one side of the car and the charger slid off the roof and did the same damage.

Painted my 914 Purple had huge steel flares to accommodate the my 315-45-15 drove it home from paint shop and scraped the fireplace sticking out of the driveway with the rear fender. I thought my life was over hahahahahahahaha.

I don't own anything that has a decent paint job! A few fresh paints done at home in my dirty shop. Little dings, scratches, no worries!

When I worked at the shop the techs used to scratch up paint all the time. They just expected the paint guys to touch it up. The truth is, it’s very hard to touch up and make invisible but the customer expects new paint to be perfect. Every scratch was a huge waste of time and money.

I’m my perfect world, I would fit all the major pieces of the car before paint and then install again after. It’s all the work to get parts to fit correctly that tends to mess up paint.

I commented on the little red wagon in Doug’s garage next to his brand new 6 conversion because fresh paint attracts falling parts like a magnet.

Years ago when I worked at the bike shop we had a customer who commissioned a custom build bike. He bought a new bike rack that fit on the top of his new car. Bike was painted to match the car. We installed the rack and he drove off. Came in the next day, bike was in the trunk in pieces. He explained that he drove home, under the train bridge, like he’s done for years. The only problem was his prior suv had a rear hitch mount bike rack and the new car had the bike rack on the roof.
I believe the repair of both bike and car totaled about $12k.

I made the mistake of taking my car to someone that thought they could properly roll the fenders, and they damaged both fenders badly, this is quite a while back, but it lead to having to have Chris Foley actually cut off the bent lips and fenders a nd weld on "new" ones from a parts car he had, this was done while the car was there to get new floor pans and all the rust removed in the longs etc, but i'd say that the extent of that mistake was in excess of $2500 for the body work and metal work/welding to fix that damage, and those fenders were perfect before that. and all that due to having wrong offset rims and wheels too wide. - actually I took it to the shop to have the new tires mounted and fit and told them to make sure they checked for clearance before driving it, but they drove it , they rubbed causing blistering of the paint and then they decided to try and "roll and stretch" the fenders---- using a bat!, which caused 3 semicircular creases in the sheet metal of the left fender and a bend. anyway be careful who you take your car to and don't ever try to roll your fender lip with a bat!

I am pretty sure we all know the knucklehead mistake I made.......

you painted it green instead of the original color?

I rolled and stretched the fenders on my 944 S2 cab with a 5 lb hammer. My neighbors who saw the work in progress question my sanity.

Yeah.... amazingly I have seen a couple metallic gold 914s since deciding to go Irish Green and now I really regret not going with the gold. I may ask Kent about repainting it to the original color.

My teener and tools are in rented space. I had the seats resting on top of a rolling tire rack. The seat fell, metal sliding rail first, of course, onto my friend's Ferrari that is also stored there. Luckily, I know a good body guy and my friend is still my friend. But I was sick at the time.

I probably would have questioned your sanity too lol! but yours look pretty good, mine did not! and they spent 2 years in primer looking like junk, now whole car is repainted, which really needed to be done anyway, and car looks pretty amazing, but if I could turn back time.... that is one thing I would change.

So I knew this guy with a seven series BMW. He takes it to Alison BMW in Mtn. View, CA to get the cup holder fixed. They dropped a wrench on the roof. Several body shop episodes later didn't quite get the dent out. On top of that, as they're driving up 280, his wife goes to use the cup holder & it's still broken.

This is not a big one, but incredibly stupid
After fabricating a small repair panel the mostly enjoyable part of welding it in place remained. I made some spot welds to see the fit and called it a night. The next evening I continued to seam weld the rest. It went fine except from about one quarter of the weld in one of the corners where the weld turned out really terrible with a lot of splatter and holes. I redid this corner several times, grinding away the bad job each time, but still, I was suddenly a useless welder. After thoroughly ensuring there were no bondo or lead soldering left in the area, I started blaming the equipment. I dismounted and cleaned the nozzle and tightened the feeder mechanism. Not finding anything wrong I started suspecting someone had borrowed my equipent and messing with my settings. After spending some time figuring out nothing was changed I then turned what was now great anger and fury towards the plate part again. I decided making the gap a bit larger would solve all my problems. Even this turned out more challenging than expected. Why is this thin plate so much work to cut through?? Oh, the welder magnet is under there apparently..



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