I’d argue the biggest failure AND success was trying to replace the brake master cylinder on my car when I was in college. I rounded the brake line fittings right off, and ended up breaking the hard metal line as well. Then, drove it to a brake shop (yes, with no brakes), so they could laugh at me, but not only did they fix it, they gave me the friend rate. Likely out of pity, but it was such a nice gesture I remember it to this day.

I learned SO much from that. Biggest was that there’s special brake line wrenches specifically for these fittings. But also a lot about how to fix the unfixable. Turns out, just because you don’t see the solution, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t been in this exact situation before and had to figure it out. And although it doesn’t come up often (fortunately), I’ve had to replace entire metal brake lines since. Now that I know what I’m doing, it’s gone from ‘impossible’ to ‘can do’. Which I find awesome.