Didn't we call them Monkey Bikes... Excuse but the first is the fifty...the other the 'trail' 90 or therebouts..
Years ago me & a friend were driving home from seeing our girlfriends in seperate cars & it was really late & night. He shuts his headlights off, so I figure he just jacking around and I do the same. After a little while he turns his back on so I do the same. This goes on for about 30 minutes til we get to his pad. Then I find out he was having alternator problems and was'nt charging, so he was using my headlights to see the road by...oops, hell I thought he was just jacking around...
In 1987 I bought a '69 Pontiac Tempest convertible, actually a body tub with a new top and a bunch of other parts. I had to buy an engine and transmission and found one in a running '74 Tempest. I could hear the engine run but the car was being taken apart to modify and I couldn't take it for a spin to check the condition of the tranny. I get the car together with the "new" drive line and the cacophony of different color body parts, it looked like a circus wagon. I planned to drive it like that a while to make sure everything worked before diving into the body and paint work. The first time I had it out the transmission started acting up and got worse real quick. I made an appointment for a rebuilt transmission to be installed. I lived on the end of a dead end street right next to a rail road track all of my life and in order to get to the tranny shop I had to go north half a mile then east a block to hit the main drag and then head south, crossing the same set of tracks. As I'm coming up to the tracks the warning lights come on and I stop, first car in line. I'm waiting as the train is getting closer I notice the pointy nose of the Tempest is a bit too close to the tracks for my liking. I put the car in reverse to back up a little, nothing, I put in drive, nothing. The train is about a football field away and I start to panic. I've lived next to the tracks all my and I've seen quite a few cars that got caught by a train and dragged down the tracks half a mile until the train stops. I'm trying to get the damn car to move and nothing, the only option is to bail. Well, as I said, I'd been working on the car and I had only the seats in the interior, no door panels and only slipped the handles on without the retaining clips. I reach for the door handle to bail and the handle had fallen off the door. Luckily, I had the top down so I jump on the seat and over the door, leaving the car in one of the non operating gears. As the train just about hits the car it decides to roll back enough to be missed by the train but it's still rolling back and the car behind me wasn't very far behind me so I have to jump back in the car and stomp on the brakes before the car backs into the car behind me. After train passed, and my heart goes back closer to it's normal rate, the transmission decides to engage and I'm able to make it the rest of the way to the transmission shop without further problems. This wasn't out in the middle of nowhere, it was near one of the busiest intersections in that area of the city. It really didn't help the situation to have about dozen cars waiting behind me. I'm just glad I would never have to see these strangers again. I felt like an ass.
Back in the early '70's after a few too many tickets and under much pressure from his parents, a buddy of mine sold me his cammed-up and otherwise modified and 'hot rodded' 283 4-speed '64 Chevelle Malibu SS and a bought a "safe, sane and practical" (and parent-pleasing new Austin Marina econobox (YUCH!). We lived at the end of a slightly curving street that dead-ended at a lake and when he had the Chevelle, because it was loud and my parents sometimes objected to the noise, he had developed a habit of running the car up to about 80-plus mph and then turning off the ignition, putting the keys into his pocket and then coasting silently into our driveway with the engine shut off. The first day he had his new Austin, without thinking, he tried the same thing. He ran the car up to 'speed" (probably only about 60 mph in the 4-banger Austin, instead of the 80 or 90 mph he was used to running the Chevelle up to in the same distance on our road!LOL) Then he turned the ignition to "off", pulled the keys out and put them in his pocket per usual. All was fine until. still coasting about 40 mph in neutral, he turned the steering wheel slightly to negotiate the last curve in the road before our house and line the car up for the turn into our driveway. Suddenly there was a "click" as the anti-theft steering lock (that '64 Chevelles don't have but new '74 Austin Marinas did have! LOL) engaged, locking the wheels nearly straight ahead and heading him and his brand new, with less than 20 miles on it - sh*tbox Austin Marina towards a ditch deep enough to swallow the whole car. Just in time he nailed the brakes hard locking the wheels up and stopping just inches from going down into the ditch. Mart3406 ======================
Ha! sometimes you guys are stuck in the passt soooo bad. this happened in 1996. on one of these... that's the kind of honda trail 50 I speak of, old guys.... which is indeed, a 50c.c., 2 stroke childs dirtbike.
Years ago, I almost got arrested doing something similar. Theres a spot in my home town where there is a pedestrian tunnel under the 4 lane highway. Halloween night and we are bored, looking for something fun to do. So my buddy and I buy a BIG box of roman candles and head for the tunnel. he stands at one end of the tunnel, and I stand at the other, and we start lighting them off and firing them at each other. We have used about half of them, by now the tunnel is so full of smoke, we cant even see each other, so you just see this colored fiery ball flying towards you out of the smoke. They actually smart a bit when you get nailed by one. All of a sudden, this voice behind yells "WHAT THE H*LL DO YOU *SSHOLES THINK YOUR DOING!" We didnt think about it, but the highway was COVERED in smoke, and someone had called the cops. It was pretty difficult coming up with a rational explanation. He let us go, first he says "I cant decide whether I should take you two idiots to jail or the psyc ward."
Ok, I've been pretty forthcoming about my bouts of stupidity on a couple of threads here, but I have one for this thread... Lot's actually! Back throughout the nineties when my deeply dropped '62 Falcon was my daily, I was blasting down the Superstition freeway out in Mesa just before rush hour one day. This entails about 75 mph on an average day, door handle to door handle, bumper to bumper. NASCAR for the masses... I see an empty space in one of the center lanes, jump on it, crank the wheel slightly left, and.....................SSSSCREACHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! All forward motion stops! The car is now happily sliding slightly sideways at about, Oh, 70 or so - in traffic. I still to this day don't have any idea how I got it across three lanes and to the right side without taking it and everybody else out, but there on the shoulder I stand. The "what went wrong"thought process then takes over.... Lost a wheel bearing? No. Kicked the trans into park? No. Everything seems to be in order, but the car is definitely not goin to mve under it's own power. Wait a second, didn't I have a big loose bundle of nylon tie down tape sitting on the rear floor well earlier today, I think as I look through the rear window? Here comes the punch line - Guess who had to cut up the driveshaft tunnel in his car after dropping it 6" or so several weeks earlier? Guess who also is absolutely notorious for not bothering to complete things like, oh say drive shaft tunnels before driving the hell out of his cars? Any ideas where 100 feet of nylon tie down tape went? How about in a giant ball wrapped around the drive shaft at the rear U-joint!You should have seen that roadside repair!
T achilli"post reminds me about a kinda general moment of stupidity as a kid. We used to make "Polish cannons" out of soup cans taped together, and with the aid of lighter fluid, launch tennis balls. At age 8 or 9, these are heavy contraband in a parents eye, because mayhem WILL ensue when used. So, a bunch of friends and I find ourselves in our neighborhood park one late summer/early fall day, happily launching tennis balls with said cannon. Genius here says that some of the older guys said that if you soak the tennis ball in lighter fluid, it will catch fire and look real cool... The somewhat sane friends want nothing of this, (I'm pretty sure they grew up to be stock brokers or accountants, not hot rodders) and leave the scene. Tennis ball thoroughly soaked, a little for the chamber, a match, FOOM! What do ya know, the older guys were right! It is on fire - it does look cool!!! But why is it heading in the direction of the only empty lot full of dried weeds in the area?! Approximately six acres burned, a half dozen fences, a car, several trees, five firetrucks, one shed, all watched from the relative security of my parents balcony quite a ways down the street. Don't know if the tennis ball was ever found, and I did try to admit to it much, much later in life...
Around last year my dad and I had an old 38 Chevy truck that some one had already put a nailhead in. This thing would fly, so one day I was coming home from school and me and this girl where driving around, needless to say I got the bright idea to take the old beast for a spin around one of the cranberry bogs. (you all know to show off) Well any way you have to drive one of theses bogs is like flat track racing all about throttle rythum. So I came in to a corner a little hot and hit lose sand and flipped the truck. To make a long story short the girl and I are both fine but she hasn't ridden with me sense.
Years ago, out at a motorcycle run, everyone setting up their tent and bags and stuff. A friend of mine had a air mattress and one of those new fangled inflation tools, where you removed one spark plug , got it running and proceed to inflate the mattress using the dead cylinder - Job done, now it's time to party - Well after many hours and many drinks and party favors later, he decided to hit the sack. He was smoking when he entered his tent and just a minute later we heard this big woosh sound and looked just in time to see his tent go up in a big flash - it looked like one of those air balloons in early morning launch - He had dropped the smoke onto the mattress - which was filled from his motorcycle cylinder - which pumped it full of raw gas fumes - fumes + ignition = fireball. He was O.K., but he looked like he was melting,his hair was all burnt and frizzy and his skin was all smudged with soot.
Ok this one is pretty recent. Over the summer I got a waterballon launcher, you know the kind that 2 people hold and one person fires. Since I am an only child I decided to make a stand for it so I could fire it more often. It turned out pretty good considering I was using warped wood. so we took it to our lake house and I got the brilliant idea of firing rocks into the lake, dad and I set the launcher up on the retaining wall, and dad had to put his foot on the bottom so it would not rear up and hit me. The launcher worked really well, I could shoot a rock 400ft. It was about the third weekend I had the launcher out and was firing it after dinner, as usual I had Dad holding it down with his foot I had the slingshot really cranked back and was just about sitting down, I had my right hand over the sling so the rock would not fall out and my left hand on the strap to hold the sling I let go and dad says "the rock didn't fire" while he said that I am dancing around the yard holding my middle finger on my left hand. After dad said that I said ya because the rock backfired and hit my finger! I look at my finger hoping that it will just go away because when that rock hit it hit so hard it just kinda tingled, then I see my finger bleeding. I went in the house and in about an hour my finger had swelled up so much that I could not see my knuckles. When we came home from the lake we went to the hospital and found out that the rock had backfired with so much force that it shattered my finger between the 2nd and 3rd in 4 places. The doc said that if it had hit me in the stomach I would have had pretty bad internal bleeding and if it had hit me in the head it could have killed me. I learned my lesson: If it is called a waterballon launcher, don't shoot rocks! Oh and I got my dad to draw some flames on my cast with a sharpie. Feel free to delete this post if it is off topic. Matt
I thought my "One time in mexico we got stopped by federales..." story was cheating death. There are alot on here that don't make it sound too bad...
Just one small mistake, and all hell breaks loose. One day, I wanted to start my 55 Chevy after it had been sitting for a while. Naturally, the Edelbrock carb would be dry, and I would have to prime it. I removed the air cleaner, and grabbed a gas can. The can was low, and when I dribbled the gas into the carburetor, a seemingly insignificant amount spilled over the throat (where the distributor is located). I went around to start the car, and turned the key. When I looked up, between the crack of the hood, I could see flames shooting up from the engine. I shouted to my wife, who ran down with a fire extinquisher. The result, was burned wires, and some blackening of the carburetor. The worst damage was the crap from the fire extinquisher which stuck to everything. It literally melted to the engine. We have yet to remove all of it, even with a lot of elbow grease. The lesson- it take only the smallest of sparks to create quite a fire.
this past summer i was doing some off roading down by my local river when the cops showed up well i figured after the 3 or 4...mabey 10 beers i had he wouldint understand what i was doing so thinking safty last i hit the gas and got a move on and this jackass cop desided to give chase in a new dodge cruzer...well he did ok i did better i got far enought away and came to the river with a train trestle going over head so i got the big idea to drive in the river and hide my truck behind a 20ft piller lucky for me it was only about 2 1/2ft deep..well it worked i got away but i have a feeling he knew i was there..but i made the best of my time and me and a few friends did some fishing off the bed ..it was a really good night cought some fish and out ran the cops and earned braging rights for life
I was about age 8, I liked to watch Mary Poppins on TV fly around with her umbrella. I tried jumping off tables and such, didn't work very well, however, my grandpa drove a school bus and parked it every afternoon on top of a very high hill with a steep gravel drive, so one day at age 8, I climbed on the hood and then the roof with my umbrella, ran from front to back as fast as I could and then leaped as high as possible, well, I guess you know that is probably why I must have rocks in my head to this day. "Live & Learn"
I was at a friends house that had a long hill for a back yard. In the middle of this hill was a rock ledge about 6' drop off. I got a bright idea and pedaled as fast as I could. Ramped my bigwheel off the ledge. After the moms came running I looked up and said "Just like the Duke Boys mom." Being young I guess you never think about what could happen.
Back when we were about 13 or so my best friend were riding our stingrays around some new houses being built in the neighborhood. This was in a wooded area and the houses were cut into the side of a hill, from the back yard you could jump onto the roof of the house. I guess you can figure out what happend next,Brian decides to jump his bike off the roof. Great plan except with the angle of the roof he couldnt pull the front wheel up in time and landed front wheel first, racking himself on the frame and handlebars and getting other cuts and bruises.
OK, I was about 6 or 8 and wondered just how bad the shock would be from sticking my finger in a light socket. But I only did it once!
I still have the 1968 Honda Trail 50 and owners manual that I rode as a kid setting in the corner of the bike shop. The bike is a four stroke 50CC, 3 speed auto clutch. The top speed was 32 MPH. Hp was rated at 5 hp and the bike is known as a Z50. 1968 was the first year for the Z50 If you took the spark arrester/tail pipe out of the muffle they had a deep throaty sound. I have some funny stories about me and that bike. There is not a straight piece on it.
My brother and I were drinkin at a park It got to be aroun 2:00 am and we got into some kind of arguement about somthin,he got into his 78 bonneville and I got into my 77 F150 and decide to have a crash up derby in a park, he cheap shotted me doin about 40mph and into the woods I went.Nuthin like seeing trees flying past you at 40,well I hit one, head butted the steeringwheel, those trucks have no padding.Jacked my front end all up.So wefound the nearest telephone pole to push my bumper back and went to far and smashed my bumper into my tire hooked it to his car pulled it out straight ahead then preceede to push a dumpster around a restaurant parking lot trying to straighten it.We gave up. Dont drink or hang out with my brother anymoremiss my bro
couple of way too may! Skippin HS one day with my friend Keith, who had his dad's brand new 71 Challenger conv't (1352 miles or like that) w/318/auto. He were being good just cruisin around the next town with the top down (early May) and decided we better head home. Goin down a 2 lane state hwy and he got on it hard. We come flying up behind this mom in a station wagon and pull out to pass.....WHERE'D THAT SEMI COME FROM??!!! Without thinking he slapped it back into 2nd gear at about 95, and it caught! Squatted down and left 2 black marks for about 50 ft before they swerved back into our own lane. Took tide to remove the other 2 black marks. BTW, came home on boot camp leave summer of 71, and another friend and I went to town in his moms new 71 6 cyl Mustang. He got it up to 90 and said, "Not bad for a 6 banger" I said, Yeah, especially for 2nd gear!" He about shit! LMAO Look on his face was priceless!
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