I just borked my crank, old style square taper have removed countless times. Was hefting the crank puller then saw a nice curling piece of alloy snake out from the crank threads.

Didn’t remove the crank bolt from the axle. What a complete derelict. fark. Good start to the weekend rebuild.

I wanted to hide some cabling that had been run in surface trunking, so I chased out the plaster and a bit of the breezeblock and put it under some capping. All well and good up to that point, then I started the plastering, half a day later I realised if I ever did manage the get a smooth surface it wouldn’t be until I was left with a room the size of a shoebox, so decided it was time to get a professional in.

Our car has four threaded mounting points on the roof, into which the feet for the roof bars screw directly making them the car equivalent of post mount threads on an expensive pair of forks. I managed to strip one of them the first time I tried to put the bars on…

See my carbon steerer that I’ve cut too short thread. Luckily I’ve found someone to fix it.

I over tightened an m6 bolt on my lefty, striping the threads out of a £1220 fork.
The replacement part was £370 so I threaded in a helicoil 🙂

Still perfect to this day

I’d Just had the bathroom gutted, full plaster skim, tiled, new suite fitted & all I had to do was drill one hole for a cabinet above the sink – I hit the water mains and the jet of water hit me straight between the eyes. I had no idea what to do, where the stop-cock was etc. I ran around panicking for a bit until I remembered where the stop cock was. DOH..!!!

Ahhhh, feeling better already, thnks :-). It’s the having a go that counts!

Just tweaking front disk ince before a ride, not thinking, Undid the wrong bolts on an avid calliper it came apart, no ride and really fact mucky clean up. Oh, and Once when young smashed an old 27″ wheel to bits in a tantrum after trying for hours to fit a 700c tyre.

I’ve been electrocuted twice. Once drilled through a wire that went to next doors house via our kitchen wall, the other time I wired a male/ female connecter up with male side live.

Extractor stuck in Bolt stuck in XT cranks stuck in my almost new Cotic frame, it’s a year later and still there driving me a little crazy!

I completely stripped, re-tiled and installed a new bathroom suite only to realise I’d covered over the shaver point and not being 100% sure where it is, I no longer have 1!

Tightening a brake caliper bolt onto my motorbike and the torque wrench didn’t click so merrily tightened until the caliper stripped.

Tried to take off an xtr pedal the wrong way…

fitted new fork seals. Upside down (I still contend the manual was wrong). As I pushed the lowers back on the spring came off the seal and scored the stanchion along its full length. Luckily they were getting on a bit so it was an excuse to upgrade, but as they were old oil-bath Marz they probably had another 10 years in them 🙄

Tried to take off an xtr pedal the wrong way…

to be fair XTR pedals dont need hamfisted maintenance to fail…

Oh God…so many…

1) Whilst attempting to straighten a mech hanger on my old Enduro I managed to snap the lower retention bolt loop on the seatstay. Admittedly, it’s rubbish design but if I’d simply left the wheel in all would have been fine.

2) Never, ever mix a bottle of fine red wine with a wheelbuild. You will cross spokes the wrong way and if one side is dished, you’ll end up with wobble to rival a 1940s 78rpm record.

3) Whilst finishing up a ghetto tubeless bodge and trimming the excess flapping BMX innertube I put a Stanley knife through the side of a brand new Kenda Nevegal.

4) I’ve yet to cut a steerer tube straight.

There’s more, but my presence is now required at the pub. Cheerio all!

Stripped the threads on a replacement rear mech hanger bolt. Was so much easier with steel frames.

The first star nut I tried to put in my new forks still lives somewhere deep within them. Occasionally I try to blame new rattles and creaks on it.

I don’t own a torque wrench so I am completely ham fisted, I also grease everything (not any more, I use copper slip, assembly paste and grease) so these are a mixture.

Rounded all the bolts off on a ritchey stem, the heads are made of cheese, I swear. Ive got round it by not greasing the bars.

Snapped carbon seat post. (being ham fisted)

BB30 cranks fell off because I didnt have the spanner to tighten the preload so did it by hand, it did not work.

Didnt check if my tyre was seated proceeded to pump them up to 60psi before they furiously unseated and spread sealant evenly all over the garage.

edit: extra bonus, filled a clutch master cylinder with 15W40 for a project at work, all the seals swelled and it no longer moves, no leaking though..

Not one of mine, but saw the aftermath of an attempt to compensate for a short steerer by hacksawing a bit off the headtube(started off straight, and gave up 3/4 of the way through at about 15 degrees).

maximus, do you work in a LBS by chance? 😉

nicko – thankfully not, however I think I am overqualified, based on my track record, to build wheels for dave hinde. All my fails are on my own bikes, im a bit more careful if its anyone elses 😉

Not a pushbike one, but decided to swap the exhaust on my old 125 myself to save a few pennies- somehow righty tightied when I should have lefty loosied and sheared one of the studs off, impossible to get tools to it to fix so the engine had to come out 😳

Stripped the cylinder head when replacing a plug in my Astra GTE.

Bloody loved that car.

Was servicing some m-arch mazocchi forks some years ago when I slipped while removing the seals and snapped the lower legs clean through on the arch part

BB30 cranks fell off because I didnt have the spanner to tighten the preload so did it by hand, it did not work.

No, they didn’t. You are suposed to tighten the bearing preload by hand. It’s just bearing preload, it doesn’t hold the cranks on. Your cranks fell off because you didn’t tighten up the allen pinch bolts.

Anway, I have loads of which I’ll think later, but this reminded me of a friend who attempted to knock the star nut out through the bottom of his forks with a seatpost that was a tight fit.. guess what happened.

OK so now have one new drive crank arm fitted, and one old well-stripped crank arm still fitted.

Doesn’t look sooo bad 😉

Malvern – Can you helicoil it? After you get it off that is 😛

Molgrips – mine dont have pinch bolts, instructions say 40nm on the preload

Brand new Specialized Camber, first ‘proper’ mountain bike with hydraulic brakes. Removed the brake pads the first night I got it and pumped the lever to ‘see how the pistons work’.

One piston pops out, DOT fluid everywhere.

Cue frantic 1-brake ride around Leeds the next day to look for a bike shop that could do an ’emergency brake bleed’ before I went to the Lake District with friends that afternoon.

Mmmmmm helicoil….

Once managed to strip the threads on the post mounts on a brand new set of fox forks arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Very little alloy left for helicoiling I fear…

It’s staying on until next time, then it’s the lumphammer 😯

Over tightened the crank journals on my freshly built B16 VTEC engine and screwed the very expensive JDM CTR cams along with all the journals, that was pricey.

Set my torque wrench to ftlb not inlb whilst rebuilding my (still in peices) monarch plus. 130 later I still don’t have a working shockand haven’t figured out how I’m saving money over sending it to tf

Molgrips – mine dont have pinch bolts, instructions say 40nm on the preload

What cranks are they?

Mol – FSA afterburner triple. My FSA comet cranks didnt either. Not following the instructions was my problem. Im a man, I dont need instructions I said, Thats a weird feeling I said.

At least it meant I had something to mold the seattube for my full suss around… 😉

Ah, right.. I think I have some like that on the Mrs’s bike.

At 16yrs old, desperate to ride my DT50, me and a mate repaired a cracked exhaust manifold with tape and rags. Managed about 500yrds before the flames started….

At work we put gaffa tape over the exhaust ports to stop anything falling down it. It was reassembled and when turned over we were all very confused as to why it wouldnt crank. Then someone spotted a corner or tape..