Paper towels make the whole trip!

Last Tuesday I replaced the lifters on my 55 Lincoln.

I had gotten to the point of putting the valley cover back in place then the wife and I went to lunch.

I got back, installed the intake, buttoned up everything and then gave it a test fire.

Started right up, and then immediately sounded like shit, at this exact moment I "remembered" that I had not pulled the paper towels out of the head that I had put in place to clean the gasket area. DUH....

OK, so I pull the intake, grab some long needle nose pliers and manage to get some whole paper towels, and some partials, but one towel was already totally ingested.

Long story short, I put it back together and after a second or two it ran just fine, but it did pass a bunch of shredded paper out of the tail pipes, good thing for glass packs.

I don't know why I feel the need to post this, it took me a few days. I have been playing with cars and other machines from my youth, I think this is the DUMBEST move I have ever made.

Anyone care to join me in exposing some of their rookie mistakes?

 

Ha! Ha! Ha! I was working on a Triumph TR3 one time in the driveway of an older Victorian house that I was living in. I had to replace two of the pistons and had everything done and put back together. I was crawling out from under it and saw a rod bearing laying there in the grass. I thought, naw that's not mine gotta be from somebody before me. I fired it up and clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.

 

I fix a LOT of carburetors, the last one I did (this past friday) left ALL the jets out of it. Had em soakin in cleaner. But I WAS distracted about all the Jesse James and Sandra B stuff! peace

 

sent the Snap-On dealers kid through college on the sockets, extensions and wrenches I left under intakes.

 

A friend had a distinct knock in his Chevy V8 in his Model A hotrod while in high school. Engine was bought as is from a scrapyard, turned over and had good compression so was installed. Mechanic looked, listened, pulled pan and removed 12" crescent wrench left there by engine builder or sidekick. Engine was in fact new and perfect inside, just lost a tool.
Same guy some years later had a knock in the flattie in his 32 3w he was reworking, took it to an old pro who listened for a minute, crawled under the car, called for some tools and a hammer, pulled the pan and used the hammer to knock the dent which was hitting the crank out of the pan, then reinstalled to fix a perfect flathead.

 

I was multi-tasking in my garage one day, working on the starter and the Carb. Got the carb apart and soaking. Replaced the bendix on the starter and gave it a quick crank to check it out. (I had forgotten the fuel line was loose.)

I got the fire out before the fire truck got there, but it was a real headache rewiring the engine compartment. Always remember guys, it only takes a small spark from a cracked plug wire to ignite gasoline.

 

Was rebuilding a carb from a school bus and got ready to blow it off, discovered that from tire of bus was parked on my air hose. Got the bright idea to jump up in the seat and just bump it forward in gear with the starter to get it off the hose. Open fuel line was pointed right at the open manifold, and it fired right up wide open with nothing to restrict the air. Lucky my hand was on the key and my foot close to the brake, got stopped about 6 inches from my tool box and bench.

 

Hmmm, two things.
I was helping out a mate in his panel shop, pulling apart and putting together cars and whatever minor mechanical work needed to be done. I was putting together the power window and had my left arm right up inside the door, didn't have enough room for my watch so I popped it off and let it drop into the bottom of the door.
My All singing All dancing SF issue Army watch is still in that door for all I know.........

The other wasn't so much a screw up but more and embarrassment.
I was changing the engine in my old 38 coupe, had the entire front off of it for easy access. Had dropped the new 351 in and trying to get the cog box shaft slotted into the thrust bearing on the flywheel. Doing all this by myself in the barracks car park with an engine host. I was there for more than an hour and just could not get them together!
Replaced the bearing just in case that was damaged, still no joy. I was almost ready to climb a clock tower with a rifle when two mates pulled up. Both of them were as mechanical inclined as a rock, but nice enough to offer a hand.
I stood back to describe what was happening, one of my mates put his hand on the water pump and gently shook it. 'POP' the fucking motor slotted in.
I was there for hours, the first time he touched it, it was done.
Doc

 

Helped a mate swap an engine years back, removed the oil pick up pipe, and sump to clean, and left the pipe soaking. Got the engine started, and running when we discovered the low oil pressure, 2nd mate found the pick up pipe just as the engine started knocking.

 

Guy I used to work with, replaced a starter on his rock climbing jeep, while in his basement. After completing everything on the starter, he put the battery cable back on. The starter wired wrong, started moving the jeep over the couch and up the wall in the basment. He said it just sat there jumping up and down on the back wall until he could get the battery cable off.

 

Dad and I had broken in the W motor int he T, drove it around the block about 3 or 4 times before the organizer wanted it at the indoor show. 6PM on a dark Feb night with pops following me into town when he flashed his lights at me to pull over............SOMETHING came out the right pipe in a large ball of flame! We dunno to this day what it was, nothing was hurt ran good before and after.

 

A little knowlege can be dangerous. Almost killed myself on this one. Was never much of a motorcycle-guy, but years ago I had bought a '70s Kawasaki 450 triple from my brother, and put quite a few miles on it. Time came to replace the pistons and rings, and have the jugs bored. Stupid me use gasket-sealer on the head-gaskets. Didn't realize that I had plugged up the oil injection-ports. Seemed to run good, and took off down the expressway. Ended up next to a buddy of mine driving his Olds 442. We were messin' around, racin' down the expressway. (Not weaving and stuff...just goin' fast.) He took his exit, and I continued on. Not ten seconds later, here I am, laying down on the bike, at 90+ m.p.h. and the engine seizes. The rear tire started skidding, and the rear of the bike started drifting to the right. "Oh my God", I'm thinkin, "I'm gonna die". The slide was quite smooth, and I was keepin' 'er erect, but I was starting to drift toward the median. I figured I better pull in the clutch, and get this thing stopped. I pulled the clutch, and that's when I almost fell, from the bike wobbling, trying to straighten itself. Got it stopped though, without falling. Whew. Took it apart at home...couldn't even see the rings. They were now part of the pistons. Sold it for cheap. Never have had a desire to own another motorcycle. Four tires for me, thankyou.

 

This one scares me to this day, I was replacing a set of Robert Bosch injectors and a pump on an inline six diesel. I set the injectors in the heads and went to work on the pump with out bolting them down. the engine needed to be turned over so a co-worker tapped the start button and all six injectors came out of the heads like being shot from a gun, #3 and #4 injector went on either side of my head with inches to spare. just a little one way or the other and I was a dead duck. Taught me to pay attention to what I am doing.

 

ive got the gas tank out of my 55 wagon and im out there tinkering just tonight when the wife hollers that she needs some tortillas from the corner store. its 1/2 mile down the road. so i rig up a 20oz soda bottle under the hood, fill it with gas and away i go....leaving my 5 gallon gas can at home....i get there and the damn car runs outta gas

talk about feeling stupid....

 

I use to work at a lube center after high school, a new truck came in and wanted all the fluid changed in all the cases. he had just gone 4x4ing, so i do the front and rear case no problem, then i did the tranfercase, and the tip of the atf hose comes off in the case!!!! i thought no problem ill get it right out! nope! i had to take the whole thing off and take it apart! it took me my whole shift to take it apart and put it together!!! lets say i didnt get paid that day.

 

you're lucky you didnt die!

 

I was setting the timing in my truck after doing a pertronix upgrade. Got everything tuned up, took her around the block and was excited how great it was running. Decided to drive the 10 miles to the gas station and broke down on the way back.

I thought the fuel pump went out, called a tow truck, waited in rush hour traffic, got bored and looked under the hood, and noticed I FORGOT TO TIGHTEN THE DAMN DISTRIBUTER. Eye balled it about 5 degrees advance, finger tightened it, and drove it home. She did pretty good untill I made in down my driveway and was running like crap again. Got everything tightened and retimed properly and drove it another 100 miles that night.



Attention to detail, that what I was supposed to learn after being in the army for 5 years. You dont get credit for realizing it after the fact, you get credit for realizing it before the fact.

 

I found the 3/16 nut that I was missing when I installed an air cleaner once-it fell down the carby, got sucked into number 3, and proceded to pound it's way into the piston top. So now I always put a rag into the throat to stop crap falling in. A few months ago I finished working on something and went to start it up for a test run-yep, the thing wouldn't start because I had forgot to take the rag out. It didn't do any damage, some days you just can't win.

 

I was helping a buddy put a sbc in a 65 riv, got it running......it was a bitch to get it running, when we finally did it ran like shit, starting looking at stuff and were gonna pull the motor out, started to take it apart pulled on of the exhaust manifolds off and found parts of a red shop rag hanging out of one of the exhaust ports, got most of the rag out but the motor never ran correct, so we put another sbc in it.

JEFF

 

did this with a wing nut the other day. luckaly it got caught in the throttle linkage thought. scared us when the 66 went 0-60 in 10 seconds, and stayed there. nearly took out a mailbox to. I told my mom "it pulled a Toyota".took off the carb and fixed it just this afternoon.

 

So I don't remember why (probably trying to stop oil from running out), but I balled up a shop rag and stuffed it in the airfilter tube of my '49 Willys CJ2A... Well I turned the key, the Jeepy Jeepy started right up, then died.

Well I start digging around and found the timing was in check... it was getting plenty of fuel, and it was getting one helluva spark.

"An engine needs 3 things to run! Air-Fuel-Spark" as my dad would say. Well who ever really thinks about air!?

I do now.

I pulled off the aircleaner tube and i'll be damned there was that rag I stuffed in the other side 2 weekends before and forgot about. I yanked the rag out of the carb and four wheeled all day!

-Chris

PS - Not my Jeep but you can see why it wasn't blatantly obvious there was something sucked into the carb through that long tube.

 

A friend of mine was at the track when he decided to take the air filter off his fathers BBC Camaro see if it would run a better time.
When he was doing the burn out the threaded bolt that holds the breather down backed out and fell down into the carb holding the throttle open and then fell down in to the intake breaking a valve and stamping the top of a piston with thread marks! Not a fun night for him and his father.

 

Some years ago, I was helping a buddy with a mid-'60s 'Vette that he'd just bought. This was back in the 'jack-up-the-back-and-put-on-some-WIDE-tires' days. The cheap way to do this on a 'Vette was to unbolt the outer ends of the rear leaf spring, add some long bolts and stack up a bunch of oversize nuts between the spring and the pad.

The car was up on jack-stands and I was under it on a creeper. For whatever mindless reason, I started unbolting the lower nut but didn't support the spring with a jack. When the last thread cleared, the end of the spring buried itself about 1/4" in the concrete right beside my head. If I'd been two inches to the left, someone else would have to be telling this story!

A Kaw triple? I had a 500 with some seriously hogged ports & a set of chambers back in the '70s. What a death-trap!

Dave B.

 

I was replacing a transfercase input shaft seal on a s10 blazer once and shoved a rag in the trans extension housing to keep it from dripping. got it all done and no leaks, no prob. and about a week later i was at my buddies tranny shop and saw the same blazer. he says look at this some dumb ass left a rag in the tranny and it got all ripped up and ended up in the governer and valvebody. never did tell him i was that dumb ass lol

 

Oh I'm pretty sure we've sucked about a dozen rags down the intake of our Bonneville race car push starting it over the years.

 

Put in a TH350 tranny without the torque converter one time.

 

After installing the Columbia rear end in my '40, I fired it up, put it in reverse, and started to back it out of the garage for a test run. Let out the clutch, and immediately had a WTF moment when nothing happened. Shut it down, scratched head, opened the hood, and checked shift levers in case they'd gotten misaligned. Nothing amiss there. More head scratching and WTF. Then glanced back and noticed the jack stands still under the car. DUH!! Lesson Learned: Traction is much improved when the tires are touching the floor