I did teach my wife how to change the oil on a Corvette she had. She really enjoyed learning how but never did an oil change on it. Somehow, I still had to change the oil every time for her.

I did the same with my daughter as she really wanted to learn. I stood out there telling her step by step what to do. I went inside when she about to remove the drain plug as I knew it would take a while to drain. Well, she came in about a minute after me covered in oil and wanted to know why I didn't tell her about oil coming out after she removed the plug.

And believe it or not, she's not a blonde!

 

Oh that is absolutely EVIL! (snerk) . Hey best way to learn though.

 

I think I just had my worst one. I did rotors, calipers, hubs, and axles on my 2002 Grand Cherokee. It took about 4 hours to get the rotor off one side, and another two to get the hub off. The other side took about 2 minutes for the rotor and an hour for the hub. Got it all back together, and life seemed good.

Two days later my son was driving it down the highway and one of the wheels came off. Totaled.

 

OMG, is your son OK? That must have been super scary!!!

What do you you think happened?

 

My son's just fine, and thanks for asking. He handled it like a pro. Got it to the shoulder, but there was a ditch, and he got high-centered, so he was literally teetering there. Not a big drop, maybe a couple of feet, but he stayed put until the tow truck arrived and got it stabilized. He got a rumble of a warning, started to slow down, and then it was gone, and the ride got interesting. Can't say how proud I am of him. He did EVERYTHING right. He's only got a couple of years behind the wheel. That's a tough situation for any driver, let alone a kid.

I know exactly what happened - me. I had a huge fight with one of the lug nuts. Jeeps of that vintage have a very stupid factory lug nut. It has a chrome cap covering the top of the nut. It's built in, and they round off pretty easily because of it. I had had to get a nut removal tool on it, and even with my very nice AirCat impact, it would still not budge. (Pay attention to that detail!). I had to use a half-inch breaker bar with a 3 foot pipe extending it, and stand and bounce on that, to get it loose. I didn't care if I sheared the lug because I was replacing the hubs anyway.

Well, I didn't want that fight the next time, so I used the lowest setting on my impact to replace the wheels. It was clearly not enough torque.

Now, maybe it was 100% my stupidity, but I'm wondering if that AirCat was also not putting out its best torque. I had to replace my old compressor last year, and the replacement is not as potent. (Picked up a used 60 gallon Campbell Hausfield one cylinder job. Better than nothing.) I'm only running around 100 PSI instead of the 125 I used to run. I'm wondering if that contributed.

Either way, it's all still on me.

 

Thanks for the update. And yes, your son did great!

As for the lug-nut. It is so easy to take things for granted and forget to check. It happens to the best of us.

But at least you didn't do what a friend in college did. After spending spring break rebuilding the 350 in his Suburban, he got the new engine running great and everything looked fine. What he didn't get right though was he put the lug nuts on backwards on one of his front wheels! It came off at 55 mph on the highway! Somehow he and his girlfriend were fine and with little or no damage to the truck. But what a rookie mistake after rebuilding the engine!

 

Glad to hear your son is fine. The story could have had a much less happy ending.

Not to give you a hard time, but that's why I ALWAYS tighten lug nuts with a torque wrench.

 

That's not giving a hard time, that's giving good advice.


BTW, I got the official estimate back this morning. Mot nearly as bad as I expected. Just to make it functional, as in, safe and legal, it's only just over a grand, and that includes the towing and a new wheel and tire. No cosmetics, just functional, so it will be ugly. I have to pay the $250 towing anyway, so for $750 I'm getting it back on the road, so I suppose you could say I didn't need to buy my new Blazer to replace it.

But I'm glad I did!