Stupid things us car guys have done

[camcojb]

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 but one particular event always pops into my head.

In my defense I was probably 19 or so... 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. 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...

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. 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.


When my Mom got home and saw the washer she was not very happy. 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?

[Vegas69]

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.

[raustinss]

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 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

[anguilla1980]

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.

[srode1]

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!

[slimjim]

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.

[572Camaro]

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.

[zz430droptop67rs]

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

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by 572Camaro

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.

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...

[Vegas69]

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!