Chuck Cougill wrote: "On my nearly world famous 79 MGB, old rusty, the DPO has tied a broken motor mount together with a large hose clamp. I didn't notice it til I took the starter out to replace the clutch slave cylinder hose. Being short on time I drove the car to MG2004 in St Louis in that condition, but didn't tell any one."
Gary J. Stephan wrote: "I don't remember
where this
originated, but I know i read it on Skye's bbs: some guy actually
wired a household light switch on the dash to control his lights! man,
that has to be one of the worst/stupidest/ugliest ideas ever! Like you
wouldn't go to your local auto parts or Radio Shack and at least get a
simple toggle switch?!"
Simon
Clowes wrote: "I had the sponsors of
our Mini Stock car
do the floorpan as part of
the sponsorship deal (Sahms Motorsport - build race cars). Instead of
the usual guy doing
the job the owners father did it.
As you can see one picture shows the outside edge not welded at all and
the other picture shows that the floor
is only tack welded with untidy
unground unclean welds. The main floor is actually bolted to the
subframe
channeling. Trust me, as
soon as I buy a welder I'll redo the floorpan. Oh yes they dont
sponsor the race car this year
either."
Iggy wrote: "Aaaahh... where to begin...
Ejection
Seat: This one I learned of when I first saw the car. The owner
explained to me that he "needed to be able to get out of the car in a
hurry." 
Air
Horn: An air horn in of itself isn't necessarily bad, but this one was
connected to the terminals on the WASHER PUMP. So, when I pushed the
washer stalk, this nasty noise came out from under the hood. A
sqawk/bleat, kind of like that cartoon where Bugs Bunny kills the
bagpipes. 
The Mysterious Green
Wire: When I
was poking around under the dash, I saw this green wire with a frayed
end sticking out. Knowing this was not right, I traced it all the way
to
the front of the car - and all the way back! Just one big loop of wire!
Why? WHY?!?
Multi-Splicing:
I had the alternator out to see if it was worth fixing (it wasn't - I
did the Bosch conversion), and noticed that the wire from the temp
sensor had THREE splices, one of which didn't even have tape on it. 
Bondo
Lumps: After I got the car running and all the electrical sorted out,
it was time for body work. I found I had to sand more Bondo off the car
than I had to apply! Here you can actually see the lumps sticking out
of the car. 
Carpet
Mess: One day I noticed that the carpet looked a little lighter in
spots. I fluffed it a little and was surprised to find that except for
the top 1/8" it was LIGHT BLUE! And not only that, when I decided to
replace it I was taking it up and saw the original color underneath. It
had been spray painted black AFTER it was put in the car! As if that
wasn't enough, underneath was this skanky home-use yellow waffle foam
rubber padding!!Speaker Booby Trap: After I removed the aftermarket stereo from the radio hole, I found a few loose wires sticking out and traced them to under the passenger side dash. I was lightly tugging on one when THUNK! a three pound speaker falls out from under the dash. It apparently had been wedged up there when the stereo was installed.
Multi Washer: When I was trying to figure out whey the reverse lights didn't work, I took the switch out of the transmission and cleaned it up and put it back in. Still no luck. But the switch worked fine outside of the transmission. There was an extra spacer washer jammed up in the mounting hole.
I can only hope that the fat lady has sung and I won't find any more surprises waiting for me..." for the whole story... Meet Suzette.
Tom Warren wrote: "I bought a 77 B a couple of weeks ago mainly for parts. It has a O/D Tranny if that explains why I bought . I was told it was running a year ago.Of course it didn't have a battery so out of curosity I bought a battery and when I hooked the cables up the headlights came on. The light switch did not exist in the dash so I assumed that there must be a switch somewhere. WRONG After checking under the dash I found that all of the wires to the the original switch were connected together, thus the lights were on when the battery was hooked up. I unpluged the headlights at the lights where the battery would not drain down and checked to see if the engine would turn over. I lucked out , the starter worked and the engine turned over but after putting gas in the carb (jury rigged gas can) it would not start, so I started checking to see if it was getting any fire. To make a long story shorter, no fire, after starting to try to check the wiring and I found wires going everywhere and wires tied together that doesn't resemble any wiring diagram. I forgot to tell you that the tape covering the wiring had been removed and the wires looked like a mess of spagetti. Because I like the challenge I am determined to get the engine running on this car."
Paul S. wrote: "Second hand CO (current owner) story. My mechanic was telling me about the time he had a real nice, well taken care of, LBC (forgot make/model) in his shop that wouldn't start. He quickly found out that there was water..a lot of it..in the gas...
So he drained the new looking gas tank..filled it up with gas...it was fine for months..then it was towed back to the shop for the same thing...
Shooting the sh#t with the customer...he also complained about the bad seal on the trunk...how the trunk was full of water after it rained...and how he drilled a couple dozen well spaced holes in the trunk floor, under the trunk carpet, to drain the water when it rained...and was quite proud of it...until my mechanic told him that he now knew where the water in the gas came from...and that he needed a new gas tank...and a new trunk seal."
Tony Barnhill wrote: "I decided to get my '74 round wheel arch Midget up & going - all it needs is the fuel pump rebuilt & I've had the kit for some time....so, I go to remove the old battery that I know is bad as I'll also install a new one...d@mn thing wouldn't come out! It's 1/4" wider than the hole its in! It hangs up on the lip of the hood opening...try as I might I couldn't get leverage on it to remove it....so, off came the hood & I'm climbing up on top to try & force the battery out when I notice the heater box is dented....looking closer, I see signs that its been removed at some point...sure enough, half the screws are missing...so, I loosen it up & that's just enough for the battery to pop out! DPO went to all the trouble of loosening the heater, sliding a Sears DieHard that's larger than a Type 26 in & tightening what screws he could get to on the heater!....&, a Type 26 is too large for a Midget so you can imagine how big that fullsize DieHard was! Sad thing is, I know the DPO! This is the little Midget Jerri bought for me from a friend of hers - her husband is the DPO! Whadda ya gonna do?"
Gary Mills wrote: "When I topped off the right front shock of my 70 B, after driving it home from PO, I found the fill screw had been stripped and to keep it in place, the PO had wrapped teflon tape around the threads which had long since disentergrated and dissolved into the fluid. Had to replace shocks."
Dan DiBiase wrote: "After purchasing our 1976 MGB Tourer (April 1988) we went to pick it up. It was a typical Upstate NY April day (cold rain) and we had planned to drive to the PO's house and I would drive the B home. As planned, my wife dropped me off, I attached the plates and jumped in. She followed me as I trucked along the secondary roads leading to the highway for the 20-minute drive home. Everything was going swimmingly - the car ran well, the exhaust blatted out through the leaking Ansa exhaust, rain dripped onto my shoulder from the tear in the roof - it was great! - until I jumped on the highway (a lovely concrete deal) and took the first turn. I kept wondering how much steering angle I needed to put into the wheel before the car would actually respond! For some reason, the surface of the road seemed incredibly slippery, and the car didn't seem to respond to steering inputs until ALL AT ONCE, and the front tires felt like they were skidding along sideways - extreme understeer... I crept home this way, and once the car was safely installed in the garage, I took a look at the tires. The PO had put bias-ply studed snow tires on the back and semi-bald radial tires on the front! The rears were abour 2 sizes larger than the fronts. So much for the 'never driven in the snow' advertisement, I guess.... "
James Sarrett wrote: "Went to adjust valve clearences, and after i started it to let it warm up, I heard a metallic ping. To my horror, when I made it around to the front of the car one of the pushrods was .5in below the rocker arm. I ran back and shut the key off. 3 weeks later, now that the engine is disassembled on my porch, it looks as though someone had welded a cam lobe back in place, and reground it. needless to say the cam wore out VERY quickly and the #2 lifter dropped and broke the hardened end off completely. time for a new cam, lifters, pushrods, rings, bearings, gaskets, and I'm getting it balanced. Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh cars!"
Eric Marshall wrote: "Here are just three examples of the strange things the DPO did to my 1974 MGB Roadster. These are all related to the engine.
Firstly – you can
imagine my surprise when I removed the cylinder head to find ALL the
pistons in backwards. They are clearly labeled “Front”, but the
fronts are all at the back!
Then I went to remove the
pulley bolt on the front of the crankshaft – these can be a real pain
to remove – as any MGB rebuilder can probably agree. This one was
LOOSE! On examination, the DPO had bent the locking tab very
nicely up against the bolt, but he didn’t bend it back to the
pulley! The tab came off with the bolt – and is still firmly
attached there!
The last one I simply do
not understand – he installed a gasket (that clearly does not fit)
underneath the distributor clamp! I am not sure what he expected
to seal, but there it is! Considering this engine was relatively
recently rebuilt (the piston was wiped clean with a rag!) and yet it
leaked oil at a prodigious rate (about a pint every 100 miles), it is
VERY clear that this DPO had no idea what he was doing!