The consequences of carelessness...

Dear readers,
  Today I came across a good example of the consequences of carelessness, and thought I would share the lesson with all of you... :-)
  As you may well know, I have been making a little business of buying cars in need of repair, fixing them up, and then reselling them for a profit... I really enjoy working in the shop, and the joy of making something work again is almost as good as the extra money it brings in... :-)  My latest project is a 2002 Dodge Intrepid, which I just picked up last Sunday. The previous owner had done some work to the engine, as it had had a broken rocker arm, which then ruined the camshaft. While it did run when I bought it, it still had some engine problems, including what sounded like noisy lifters, and it wouldn't idle smoothly...
 After changing the oil, and checking the oil pressure with a gauge, (because the oil pressure light on the dash was flickering,) I came to the conclusion that the only thing wrong was the lifter noise, which might go away on it's own... That was until I checked the dipstick again, and found that there was coolant getting into the crankcase --  NOT GOOD...
  I got some time to work on the engine this afternoon, and got it torn down far enough to find the problem. Apparently, when the previous owner replaced the camshaft, (which requires removal of the head,) he was not very careful while putting the head back on, and messed up the head gasket:

The offending corner:

Yes, that is supposed to be flat!

Now, simply because of the carelessness of the last person to work on this car, I had to tear the engine all apart again, and will have the fun job of trying to clean all of the watery, oily goo out of the engine... Ugh! Hopefully it didn't do any permanent damage in the mean time...  

 So, the lesson for the day:  "Whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability"
 
    Andrew B.