Thursday, September 18, 2008

Hmmm... engine work, my fav-o-rite





Otherwise known as "how to spend lots of money by being stupid"




just so you know all or this happened around June/July-ish.. now i was involved in a car accident (on my side at least) in February of this year resulting in two nicely fractured legs and buckets of pain! on the up side it was my sisters car not mine! the down it wasn't insured!! (a lesson to all of you out there!! GET INSURANCE!! especially if you're going to let your crazy brother drive your car ;) but another upshot was that i was able to nick the battery out of her car for mine! (sneaky yes, but hey it was going to the scrap yard!!)

and now for your second lesson of the day, never ever ever EVER work on your car when you are tired! (don't go getting ahead of me now!) so i got back from work having snuck out at lunch to hijack the battery from my sisters bug that was lying downstairs, now it had been a long day and i was tired so you'll have to forgive me, but i was so excited to get my new toy into her i went rushing out, opened up the boot tossed out the old battery and popped in the shiny new one.

it was at this point i made the most basic and retarded mistake i possibly could! i hooked the battery up backwards!!
now anyone who knows anything about a car battery knows that in order to prevent idiots, such as yours truly, from doing this the terminals are different sizes, one big for positive one small for negative, but in my exhausted little mind all i could think was, "hmm wont go on! must change terminal!!" and so i did.
and if that wasn't bad enough you'd think the little sparks flashing about the terminals would of triggered some kind of "stop-what-you-are-doing!!!" mechanism in my brain! but nope, sorry, too tired!

Now here's a nice opportunity to study the effects of miswiring a battery in a car!
first off you get one or two little sparks around the terminals, this is your "disconnect NOW!!" warning
next you'll notice funny buzzing noises coming from under the bonnet, this is your "you're in trouble now!!" warning
after a short while this buzzing will be replaced by a new popping noise! and if you haven't soiled yourself yet and gone diving into the boot to disconnect that battery now you may as well kiss your car goodbye cos you've just blown all the major electrical components in your car!!!

yup that's right, here's the list of part that i managed to destroy:
1 x rectifier (blew all the diodes right off!!)
1 x starter solenoid
1 x ignition coil

amazingly that's all!! but they add up to quite a hefty bill!!




stay mini!! (and don't work too late!!)

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