So,

After finishing a bunch of work on the car I decide its time to give it a go and take her for a ride to see if everything is working correctly...

Everything is going great for the first 25 minutes or so, car is handling fine and I am begining to rember what its actually like to drive my little toy...

then...a bad noise from the rear end...getting worse and louder... I pull over, hop under the car to see what has fallen off or broken...nothing...everything is tight, so I hop back in, and proceed on...noise gets worse...

This time I get out, shut off the car and begin to go over it bit by bit... turns out, in my stupidity I forgot to tighten the rear lug nuts on both rear tires after bleeding the brakes....all four nuts are hanging on by a thread...

I jack the car up and hand tighten everything...and then realize that I took all of the tools out of the car.


time to call the wife.. for the tools, who's not very impressed....

word to the wise...dont do this. I am lucky as hell that i wasn't going any faster or that neither tire fell off...

make sure after finishing a job that you have replaced everything that you took off...

-=Adam

lay the torque wrench on the last wheel to go on the car. you were very lucky.

kevin

BTDT....best to slow down and take a deep breathe after finishing a job and mentally check off things that need to be done before hitting the road......

Once you get to ld phart status, have a printed checklist....or better yet a HEY STOOPID erasable grease board in the garage good for laughs and obscene additions by your friends.....

I know this sounds dumb, but also take a minute to examine the weather and conditions too.

One late night after a stereo install on a friend's car we failed to notice it had gotten a bit icy outside. 50 mph off camber turn, a street sign held up by 3x3"tubular steel poles (5mm thickness) and 2 rolls of the car later it seemed like that would have been a smart thing to have realised.

Stereo still worked after the accident and survived another wreck by the same friend (again with me in the passenger seat) a couple of months later.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of forgetting to tighten the wheel nuts on more than one occasion. With the car in the air you can't get enough torque, so what do you do? Simple, forget about it. Drop the car and drive off. Thankfully the drives were short and I had enough torque on the nuts that the wheels never really loosened. But talk about dumb!

Mike

PS: It's probably about time to get MikeZ's old fart checklist!

I forgot to mention that I tried to just hand tighten the lugs and see if I could get home....got about 10 feet on the first try and maybe 50 feet on the second...

After getting home I also noticed that i stripped out all 8 rear lugs....(so if anyone has extra-and is heading to the NE get together next weekend, bring some by! I'll pay$$

-Adam

I hate to say it, but i did the same thing after I swapped wheels on my 72 and 73. A friend came over to help me find out what was wrong. I was just standing there, and he start's laughing and tell's me what's wrong. I felt like a moron for sure. I could have easily ruined my wheels.
Eric

OK I'll go ya one better in the stupid department

After putting on the last piece of body trim on my MGA I could not wait to take it for a ride. I had to pick up my daughter from Grandmas so I ventured out down the street and cruised for awhile unitl I had to stop at a two way stop intersection, bad one too lots of bad accidents. Well you guessed it I forgot to re-bleed the brakes after I adjusted the rear brakes. WHOOOSH righ through thank God no one was coming the other way.

After cleaning out my pants I limped home slowly. I never take a test drive until I check ALL systems.


Todd

Adam,
What did you strip???
The lug bolts or the rotors??
I have both and will bring them if you need.

Rich

Ok, my name is Bob and I'm stupid too. I've been wanting to get into a 12 step program like this thread. Rebuilt my tranny a year ago last summer. On reassembly, I read the wrong spec for torquing the nut that retains the pinion shaft in position. (It was the torque spec for the item on the line above the torque spec for the pinion shaft retaining nut.) Some crap like, you know, 12 in.lbs. Happily mate tranny back to engine, reinstall engine (after having the car inoperative for 2-3 months while I'm screwing it up), and excitedly head around the block for a drive. Of course as the nut loosens, the pinion gear is migrating farther and farther into the differential ring gear (unbeknownst to stupid) and I start hearing this loud whine from the rear end, followed shortly thereafter by locked up rear wheels. Top's off, of course, and it starts raining, of course. This is followed by hitching a ride back to the house (not too far away luckily), grab the top & neighbor's flatbed trailer. Have to disconnect the CV joints from the tranny flanges to get the GD thing onto the trailer; in the dark naturally. Then back to the house, pull engine, again, disassemble transmission, again, and do it right the second time. Also spend 300 bucks to have repaired the ding to the rear wheel well while getting it up on the trailer. Not one of my more stellar moments of shade tree mechanicing. Wife feigns sympathy, but like someone said above, was not impressed.

Note to self: Next time, go ahead and double check that torque moron.

Rich, are you going to the shows at Jazz Fest in New Orleans--May 2?