Ever Ignored The Basic Rules And Paid The Price?

aka WayTooFurious

There are some basic rules of thumb that apply to situations ranging from home improvement to automotive work, like "measure twice and cut once." Well, on the weekend I only measured once and I wound up paying the price. I needed to replace the cable for the manual choke on my Valiant. I didn’t even make a measurement, I simply lined up the old choke cable with the new one and decided that it was as accurate as it needed to be and cut the new cable to size. Unfortunately what I failed to take into account was that the outer coating on the old cable was plastic and the coating on the new cable was a flexible spring. You wouldn’t think it would make that much of a difference, but it turned out that my new cable was too long. So what should’ve taken only ten minutes would up taking me at least a half-hour, with the use of a lot of creative language along the way. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been there—when have you been caught out only measuring once?

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Posted at 5:58 pm in Dispatch From Down Under, Guest Blogger

Comments

GTwildfire
Oct 15, 2008 at 2:58 am

That’s one sinfully filthy engine. Looks like it’s nice under all that.
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Better that the new cable was cut too long. Could have been worse.

Zach
Oct 15, 2008 at 2:48 am

At least it wasn’t too short when you cut it. I can’t count the number of times I haven’t learned from that mistake.

oldscoob
Oct 14, 2008 at 11:57 pm

the outer covering was plastic for a reason. I hope the handle inside the car isn’t metal.

Nes
Oct 14, 2008 at 9:29 pm

Not that I can remember! I learned my lesson when I was working in construction and set my back-hoe in the wrong side of the ditch and almost buried me in the ditch, so since then is ALWAYS measure 3 times cut once!

Jake
Oct 14, 2008 at 7:24 pm

I know I’m guilty of this at least a hundred times over, but one moment stands out in my mind.

Ya know how they always say to disconnect your battery when you work on wiring? Yea… I was tightening the serp belt on my Monte with the alternator adjustment in the garage in the dark (genious!). I loosened the upper adjustment bolt to push the alternator forward and the uncovered (now covered) positive terminal on the alternator grounded to my steel fuel line. The alternator was now stuck in this spot with the terminal and fuel line glowing bright orange and throwing sparks everywhere(!!!) I couldn’t budge the alternator so I had to loosen the adjustment bolts some more while the wire was happily burning a hole in my fuel line. I finally did get the two separated and the end result was not my car (and house) going up in flames, but rather a nasty hole burned right through the steel fuel line.

Needless to say, I disconnect the battery now.