I thought I could fix a broken post hole digger in an hour

The shear pin snapped on my old digger halfway through a 50-post job in Springfield. I figured I'd just pop in a new one and be done. But the pin was rusted in place so bad that no amount of heat or oil would budge it. I ended up having to cut it out with a grinder, which took almost three hours total and wrecked the whole afternoon's schedule. My helper just kept saying, 'I told you we should have brought the spare.' What's the longest a simple fix has ever taken you guys?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant4652mo ago

My buddy tried to replace a leaky faucet cartridge that was supposed to be a 20 minute job. The old one was so calcified it shattered inside the valve body. He spent the whole Saturday driving to three different hardware stores and finally had to replace the entire sink fixture. Some simple fixes are just cursed from the start.

fisher.mason1mo ago

That sounds like a special kind of weekend ruiner... did the hardware stores at least have the right cartridge, or were they all sold out of that specific model? It's the worst when the part is technically available but you still have to hunt it down. Makes you wonder if just going for the new fixture right away would have saved more time and headache in the end.

lilychen2mo ago

Feel that in my bones. Had a shower valve seize up the same way last fall. Ended up chiseling out little bits of plastic for two hours. Sometimes you just have to walk away and buy the whole new unit.