Stupid things us car guys have done
 

After reading threads here this morning it reminded me of some of the stupid things I've done car-wise on my road to learning about cars. There are many :sieg: but one particular event always pops into my head.

In my defense I was probably 19 or so... :lostmarbles: I had a 71 Camaro, bought it completely stock as a 350/auto car. It went through a lot of changes over the years I owned it, starting with a single turbo kit. Made good power but the wastegate I used (Impco valve) was really bad at controlling the boost levels. :animated_bye_bye_em After blowing that up a couple times I sold the kit and put on a 6-71 Weiand blower with two 660's. This was my daily driver, rain or shine. Fun car, but I was always tinkering on it.

One day I was adjusting the carbs. I was in my driveway which was sloped upward. I had the car in gear idling, no parking brake, and it had just enough of a hill that the car stayed in place. I had finished adjusting the mixture screws and the car sounded fantastic. I was standing in front of it and without thinking I grabbed the throttle linkage and gave it a quick blip. You can guess what happened next... :badidea:

The car shot forward, throwing me onto the running engine (no hood). Was able to just keep my hand out of the blower belt and rolled off the fender on the drivers side. After pulling myself off the ground I see the car heading up the driveway on it's own. Fortunately the garage door was open. :lol: I dive through the drivers window and desperately try to shut the car off while doing my best Fred Flintstone impression with my feet. The car was in the garage and about 10 feet from my Moms almost new washer when I got the key turned, but momentum was not my friend that day. Smashed her washer pretty good but at least it didn't hurt my car.
:thankyou:

When my Mom got home and saw the washer she was not very happy. :warning: Of course I explained how I almost died and anger turned to tears and I escaped punishment. Pretty stupid thing to do but sometimes you don't think before acting. What things have you guys done?

Great topic!

I've done so many stupid things with cars.

One of my genius ideas at the ripe old age of 16 was to install a Budweiser bar tap lever onto the shifter of my 81 Monte Carlo. It was really cool until the cops caught on to my weekend festivities. Luckily, back in the early 90's as a minor they just called my folks to give me a ride home in my car! It got to the point by my senior year where they would just walk up and go Mr. Akes, what have you been up to tonight? HA The beer would get poured in the street.

I slapped the short block together for my 355 late one night with red rags, newspapers, and liquid wrench. I bet I was 19 at that time. I was a proud engine builder out on the maiden voyage with my Dad and friend until we started to hear a knocking noise. You guessed it, a rod bearing decided it didn't like my assembly practices. That was really bad karma for helping myself to an old set of double hump heads in a friends barn. They were off a fuelie I believe. That one paid me back up until the time the car was stolen! That engine just wouldn't stay together. I deserved it!

Shortly after I bought my 68 Camaro my senior year in high school, I saved up just enough money to put solid centerlines on her! At that time, nothing looked better! Well, not long after I decided to spray an aggressive wheel cleaning chemical on them and ruined the clear coat. They were dull right up to the time the previously mentioned karma caught up to me!

I have to share one about my Dad. It was right around 1992. A friend at school had professed that his fuel pump gasket was leaking oil on his small block. Well, I decided that if his was leaking my gasket needed to be replaced as well. I summoned my Dad to help me. The problem, the cam lobe just happened to be situated where the pump arm was under compression. My Dad and I wrestled, cussed, and threw tools trying to get the damn fuel pump back on. I don't recall how we finally got it back on, but it wasn't long after I learned the trick.

good lord , i could write a book , one recent one that comes to mind was in that last 5 yrs so being in my 40s ,clearly i dont learn lmao .
The SUV : 2007 Cadillac SRX sport V8
The job : CTSV brake swap
The BONE HEADED move !....."testing the brakes in the driveway ,before i bled them , in reverse ,with the driver door open , hit the house lol:knock: lucky for me i already threw it into drive and killed the ignition but managed to bend the top of the door on the brick work , sorta fixed it with a hammer and some black spray paint , then bought my truck lol

Well, at 17 I went off-roading in my 1982 Firebird S/E. Punched a hole in the oil pan, made it a couple miles with no oil to a local gas station where I JB welded it and filler her back up. A couple months later, did the exact same thing, go figure (too much alcohol and weed). After that time tho it was only a week or so until the dreaded knock of death started.

Also in high school I had a 70 C10 with a camper and a full size spare in the bed, threw a kid we didn't like back there and proceeded to do some wicked jumps with the truck, it was so awesome. Almost broke the kids legs, but he was fine and learned his lesson.

Used to get drunk and high (while listening to Ozzy) and do donuts at the edge of a lake with only the interior dome light on with the car hot boxed. Kept swinging the rear tires into the water. did this several times and never had a problem.

Had my 8 month pregnant wife pushing my Porsche 914 to start it, but if you know how light those are it was just good exercise for her.

There was the time I snapped the crankshaft snout key off on my 78 280Z doing donuts.

I could go on and on, so many good stories lol.

Had a friend who was working on his Cuda pull the drive shaft while the car was up on ramps in his driveway without the tires chocked...... his body stopped the car from rolling into the street and he only suffered some substantial bruising on his rib cage!

Same guy asked me to come over and help him, he was removing the heads from the car, and he had all the bolts out but they would come off. I came over and he had a pry bar he was using and actually moving the head just a tiny bit off the block but wouldn't pop loose - after some looking around we found a head bolt hidden under a header gasket. A number of friends and I encouraged him to stop working on his car without assistance after that one.

Then another friend, put an engine in an old Plymouth body, up on ramps. Had almost everything hooked up and just wanted see if it would start before he had it finished up (about 17 years old at the time I think). It was in his family's yard, it started right up ...... in gear and with no throttle return spring proceeded to fly across the yard smashing their small storage shed to pieces before a tree stopped it.

I can't remember doing anything that dumb on cars, plenty of other really stupid things of course!

At 17 I took a friend for a ride in my dads VW Manx buggy, which I'd only ever driven a couple of times.
OBVIOUSLY I wanted to show off, I saw a nice gravel patch and gave it a huge squirt, sliding all over the place, smiles for days, and I screamed up the road.

The problem was, I wasn't trying to scream up the road. My dad had recently changed the accelerator pedal and made no mention that it wasn't correct and the pedal would lay flat and get stuck to the floor.

friend did not ride in it again.

At the age of 17, I took my girlfriend to the high school prom in my 1968 Camaro. Having only a stock 230 ci six cylinder, I pulled two spark plug wires so I had a lumpy cam idle.

Back in the day at the age of 19 I had a 55 Chevy with a screaming 0.30-over 283. The solid Isky cam would allow me to buzz it over 6500 on a regular basis.

Once after a brief rain on the streets of San Diego, a split-window Corvette was bugging me at the stop lights. Well, I wasn't going to let that stand.

My chance came at one particular stop. We took off... I was running a Borg-Warner T-10 4 speed. I banged 2nd and the last thing I remember was glancing at the Sun Super tach up around the 8k mark with the rear tires spinning on the damp pavement.

That was followed by some thrashing noises from under the hood. Duh...I managed to nurse it back to the garage, and imagine my surprise when I pulled the valve covers and saw several pushrods poked clean through the stock stamped rocker arms. After that I upgraded to some Isky rockers. LOL

A friend of mine had a 68 Road Runner with a 383. He accomplished his lumpy idle by setting the idle so low it would barely run... :D

I sold a 1978 Caprice Classic to a friend for $75. The brakes would come and go and that was disclosed before the money exchanged hands. Magically, the brakes started working fine upon the transfer of the money and he would rip around town with amnesia about the brakes. I must have been in the sauce as I was riding shotgun when we pulled into his folks driveway when to his surprise, his right foot kept hitting the floor board as he pumped the brakes! The next thing I saw was the hood of the Caprice Classic going through the garage door in the detached garage. His Mom didn't have the reputation for being the most graceful lady I'd ever met. When she came home he got the butt chewing of his life. That led to us deciding we'd try our hand at garage door repair. The details are fuzzy, but I believe I had the spring wound up somehow and my hand slipped or the vise grips failed. The spring wound up and my buddies hand just happened to be between two of the doors. Not only did he destroy the garage door and get his butt chewed, he broke his hand. HA HA This was about par for my adventures with him. It was never dull!

Another friend would request the used lawn mower oil in our shed. As per usual with an old Chevy, his camaro marked its territory everywhere he went. It wasn't that long after he started feeding the old 305 black sludge that it started to smoke if memory serves me well.

The last one of the day! ha Another friend had an 1988 mustang with t-tops I believe. Well, every single door handle was broke inside and out. We were Bo and Luke Duke rain or shine! It wasn't long after this that he was thrown in the pokey for driving up the interstate ON THE WRONG SIDE!

I think the Statute of Limits still applies so I will take the 5th!

I'll just let the picture speak for it's self.. and yes, I did mount a radiator and fire it up in the shopping cart. I'm the skinny blonde kid on the right

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9cfe7363_o.jpgFB_IMG_1538614029036 by F G, on Flickr

Trusted a body man
 

It must be the fumes..

chicken $#it lol

I’m loving this thread guys. I’m embarrassed to say I have nothing to add, however I can’t help but think if only Mr. Weld were here for this one...oh the stories he could tell.

Thats a lot of weight for a sopping cart, close to 700lbs there 685 dry weight, scary!!!

At 17, I pegged my parent's car at 135 mph on a freeway in the Bay Area. When I hit a bump and was nearly airborne, I s%&t bricks and ended my quest for top speed.

You don't have to lie to hang hahaha

Great stories here!!

19 yold. 84 Trans Am. Had an oil leak, thought I would Gunk the bottom so it would be a less messy repair (oil pan gasket). Put it in the grassy field behind my house, jacked it up and put it on stands. Fortunately, I did the shake test before climbing underneath. Yep, stands rolled in the grass and it fell to the ground. That would have been bad. Stupid stupid stupid

When I was very young, grew up next door to a short track racing family, still great friends today. The dad was working underneath a 57 Chevy race car and it slipped off the stands, frame crushed his jaw and his arms were trapped underneath the still mostly hot headers. Had to talk his wife through jacking the car up.

Still gives me chills.

I'm about 8 days into my first job as a mechanic at a Toyota dealer. I get this Jeep Comanche pickup truck thing that needed some power steering work done, a hose or pump or something. Well, I go to bleed the system and reach in to start it, and it's a manual transmission, and it starts. It stopped when it hit the workbench. Thought for sure I'd get fired, but nope.

Same place, a guy who worked across the shop from me suspected a bad fuel pump on one of those Toyota pickup motorhome conversion abominations. It's fuel injected. He decides the best way to test the pump is to remove it from the fuel tank (which you have to drop out to do btw) and then proceeds to place it in a metal drain pan full of gasoline. He grabs his handy 12 volt battery, some jumper wires, and places the pump in the pan of gas and connects her up. Well, it sparked and the ensuing flames spooked him causing him to knock the pan of gas off of the milk crate it was resting on. This is about the time, as I'm working across the shop from him, that I notice a co-worker walk by and grab the fire extinguisher off the wall behind me. I figure this is worth peeking out from around the open hood, and it was. Once everything settled down I walked over there. There was fire extinguisher stuff EVERYWHERE, but the funniest was all his sockets in the top of his tool box were filled with the stuff!

Then there was the FJ60 Land Cruiser I put about 3 rear main seals in because they wouldn't stop leaking. Come to find out I nicked the crankshaft on the first one, so I ended up putting a crankshaft in that beast of a thing. I only got paid for the first seal too!

My dad had a 87 Jeep Comanche I believe with a manual transmission. Those little trucks would rip around pretty good with the 4.0 straight six. My poor dad agreed to let me take it out on the town for the evening. As you can imagine, the burn outs and high rpm clutch drops started not far from the house. I was having a ball until I heard a distinct TINK. Hmmmm, what was that. I took off in 1st gear and about every 10 yards the truck would hop.

I get home. "Dad, I was driving along and the truck started making a funny noise and hopping." He said, "Ah bull**** or something to that degree." He jumped in and I watched as he took off up the road. Sure enough, he made it about 10 yards before the rear tire HOPPED. He came back and I figured I had it coming. To my surprise, the old man said the rear end was getting loose anyway and he wasn't surprised. HA I got away with one! I believe I broke the spider gears.

My grandma has a 1976 Oldsmobile 88 I believe. It was a big old boat with a 455. It would just float down the road and drink about a gallon of gas per mile. I borrowed it one night for a hot date! This baby had a back seat any young buck coveted. Big and plush! Well, that night I took my date out to a county park out in the Iowa country. I convinced her to hop in the backseat to get a little more comfortable. We were hot and heavy and I look up and to my surprise, here comes the park ranger. He knocked on the window, "The park closes at 10 PM." Without hesitation I said, "Well then, I still have 10 minutes." He said, "You're right, be out of here by 10!" I wasn't the only grandson to borrow Grandma's car over the years.

Run over by a Pinto
 

With great risk, I must share..,
Think early 1970’s..,
I was 14, Pinto owner was too young to drive.
I took out my dad’s Massey diesel tractor, hooked up the disc and harrow, and made a full go kart track on a full eight acres.
I was sporting a five horse Briggs and Stratton go cart with a magnesium butterfly wheel. Total go cart budget was $100. It smoked really bad because I installed the oil ring upside down. But it ran like hell because of gears.
So anyway, I am hot lapping the cart on a plowed field track, and out of nowhere comes this brown 4-speed Pinto.
We are now racing in a dirt field!
It took the Pinto only two laps to catch up when I broke a rear axle.
Pinto slammed the brakes.
I ducked.
I literally saw the underside of one brown Pinto.

One of the first places I actually got paid to turn wrenches was a import shop. (about 1973) I was supposed to replace the timing belt for regular maintenance on an Alpha Romeo. It was a SOHC motor. I said to myself this is a piece of cake, as the front cover was easy.

I bumped it over until the crank timing mark was right on. I proceed to loosen the tensioner and remove the belt. Only then I did notice the cam mark was 180 out. No problem I thought, I'll just take my 1/2 breaker bar the turn the cam so it lined up. Well, it bent every valve. My boss had explain to the customer why it came in running fine and now it was hammered. Ended up eating the whole thing, parts and labor.

In the mid 1990's. I was a line tech at a Cadillac dealer. They use a vacuum diaphram on the the E-brake pedal so it will release when it gets put into gear. It's a very common failure when they go bad.

The young lot girl that brings cars into the shop came in a said she couldn't get the car to move. There is manual release lever up under the dash for just that reason. I went out to the lot and saw the car in question. I noticed it was running. She just put it into drive and came to get help. Didn't bother to put it back in park. I got under the dash and pulled the lever. That's when the car took off with me running along side trying to hit the brakes. The scraped knee was better than the alternative...it was heading broadside right for the service manager's car on a downhill slope.

She felt so bad she brought me in 2 cases Corona.

Me too. Finished putting new front seat covers on that afternoon.

Second car was a 1971 el Camino that my dad made some kind of trade for. Every engine part was some kind of awful aftermarket POS that was installed by a gorilla. It had the nasty green interior with the horrid smell that came with many not well taken care of GM cars from that era. In 11th grade driving from school to work and home was 11 miles, and it used a quart of oil. While driving my mom somewhere one day the engine wiring harness caught on fire. I'm an ignorant teenager, but the only thought that came to mind was yank the battery cable. Fortunately it was loose enough that it came off and the fire stopped. I spent the next month going to Pick A Part and taking home enough parts to turn the entire engine compartment back to stock. I learned a lot on that car.

Todd, I too had similar run-in's with the Park Rangers, but the el Camino had a different "back seat." It was especially nice when backed up to a San Fernando Valley overlook point on a summer night. Worked great for the Winnetka Drive In Theater too.

Gretchen R, and my future girlfriend Lynette N were in Alice L's blue 1965 Mustang. My buddy Phil and I were in the Camaro when it was still a 327/2bbl/PG monster. Coming back from lunch we lined up at a stop light and let 'em rip. Oh how embarrassing to not only have the Mustang pull away, but then I lock up the crappy drum brakes, spin the car, and end up pointed the wrong way in the next intersection.

Took a girl to the beach in the Camaro for a nice day and picnic. On the way back the engine starts running pretty badly, like really bad. My friend Chris and I had just put a cam in the car, but being now the ripe ages of 17 and my dad hating changing a car from stock, there was a significant mound of ignorance working against me and the resultant valve spring binding issue. The pushrods on two cylinders broke, but I managed to remove them and drive the car home (using the same set of Craftsman tools that I bought new and still use today.) Had to leave the car for a few weeks before I had enough money to work on it, but inside the car now smelled like something died. Summer picnic leftovers left in the trunk went really rank. Mmmmm, two-week old fried chicken......

Like many, our parents may have had some kind of discussion about drinking and driving. Mine basically said "Don't do it or else!" There was one defining time when I should not have been behind the wheel. It was really dumb. Later, I thought back about why I did it and what I should have done. When my two boys came of driving age, I told them something that I wish my parents had said in a calm and rational way:

If you get behind the wheel of a car while under the influence and get caught and/or hurt someone, there will be a very high price to pay. Not just from me, but for what you will go through legally, financially, and perhaps morally, especially if you hurt or kill others.
If you are ever in a situation where you even think you or others you're with should not drive, just call.
It does not matter where you are, what time it is, or the circumstances. Just call.
I will come and take you, and your friends, to where you need to go with no judgements or questions asked. It will be like it never happened.
Just call.

I’ll keep this short and unsweet. Bought used Honda Civic in late 70’s to save gas. Sewing machine motor seizes up on way home...lol

OK, one I can tell. On a Date using my parents Station Wagon. Driving Cindy home she started getting "Frisky", I got distracted and took out a Row of Mail Boxes. Broke every window on the passenger side and I was lucky I didn't get any damage to my "Unit"

Have they called? ha

Understand calling BS on this, but did it on a long downhill straight and definitely was 'floaty' after the bump as 90's Acura Legend's weren't exactly built for speed.