[dirtyjim]

most of the stupid stuff I did was when I was younger but here are a couple I remember. I bought a truck and the owner said it needed tie rods and probably a few other front end parts and since I only lived a couple miles away it should be ok to drive home if I went slow. I drove it home and to work the next week, then that weekend I jacked it up to se how worn out it was. I could move the tires by hand around 4" from side to side from the tie rods, idler and pitman arm being completely shot.

another time I was putting a new transfer case in my land rover discovery. there are two versions of the lt230 transfer case. the later version is called a lt230q the q is for quiet. the output shaft on the transmission is slightly different between them, a lt230 will fit a lt230q output shaft but not vise versa because the splines on the lt230q shaft extend farther down the shaft and if you try to put a 230q transfer case on a 230 shaft the it will bottom out the splines about 1/2" before its mated up to the transmission. I snapped an ear off transfercase when it bottomed out. luckily once I figured it out all I had to do was pull the rear cover plate off the transfer case, slide the gear out, then remove one bolt to pull the transmission output shaft. the bolt the transfer case up. get the new shaft and install it all through the rear cover plate.
the bad part is that I was aware of the shafts and asked the place I bought the transfer case from that I also needed the output shaft if the transfer case cam out of a 97 and up land rover. and it takes a whole 30 seconds to remove the shaft. I was assured that it was from a 95 and I didn't need the shaft