"Mechanical Genius" comments you've heard?

One of mys son's friends were over when were talking about taking the quads out to the off road park. He asked what we had. I told him my sons was a 250 2 stroke and mine was a 500 4 stroke. He told me he had one at his uncles house and it was a 600 3 stroke!

 

Back in my mini truckin days, I had a buddy that wanted to lower his S-10 with some drop shocks. I told him...Dude, you can't lower your truck with just some shocks. You need some lowering springs or drop spindles. He then puts a magazine in front of me and points to the ad with the "drop shocks". He wouldn't believe me that those shocks are for trucks that are ALREADY LOWERED.

 

OT, but I went to school with a guy that had an uncle who had/ owned/did anything you can imagine.(never saw 'em) But I was told he had an acid that would dissolve anything but a diamond. Never figured out what he kept it in.

 

I can't believe how many people actually think the shocks are what supports the weight of the car. I've heard that one alot.

 

Actually, there just might be some truth to that.........

You can check this one out for yourself.

When the first 360 LA mopar was released, it had a tendancy to crack the block due to the castings being too thin to handle the additional cid's, so starting in '73, the castings were revised to give added meat, including extremely thick cylinder walls.

Sooo, a '73 up 360 can take a .130 overbore if you have the block sonic checked, and Ford 428 pistons, which just happen to have the same pin height, and just happen to come in standard bore 4.130 can be used to make an honest to goodness 383 small block mopar!

There used to ba a nasty street plymouth scamp that ran around here with what looked like [and the owner claimed was] a stock 318 with an aluminum intake, headers, and a cam. Once you got to know him, he would let you in on the sectret of why it ran soooooo hard.

 

a friend of ours in highschool (reTodd, we called him) put some extender tips on the end of the shocks in his 70Firebird for "that look". he said that when he set it down it wasn't any higher (shocks must be bad), so he bought new shocks (bad), and then more (bad) shocks, before telling us he got 2 sets, bad out of the box. "I'm gonna save up for some real good Gabriels" was his answer. we would have told him - but our jaws were still on the floor.

 

By the time you've made it idiot proof they've already invented a better idiot!!!

 

Back 50 years ago it was actually common to do just that. I've got the style of hone that they used in my tool cabinet. They started out with a stone with something equal to about 50 grit and changed stones when they got close to the finished diameter.

One of the best ones I have heard came from my fatherinlaw in the mid 70's during the first gas crunch. He had just bought a new to him two or three year old Full size Ford sedan. When I asked him what engine it had he said "blue". It had a 390 and pulled about 12 miles a gallon and he drove anywhere from 100 to 300 miles a day on his sales job.

 

A Few years ago a buddy of mine owned a Cabinet Shop. He got busy and had to hire an experienced hand to help him. After a few days, he noticed that every piece his new helper had made was about 1/16th off. Upon investigation it turned out that this genius had gotten tired of the end of his tape measure being loose and had peened the rivets solid.......

 

was it a CrossFire?

 

sounds like he was one of the guys standing next to a friends car.
:why would anybody put a ford engine in a nova?"

car is a sc/rambler......

 

Chevy 350 BIG block. Swore up and down.

 

yep, it sure will....
been having a few NOX failures lately,too.
sure glad my own shit doesn't have to be tested...

 

My wife is a serious fan of Roseann and has all of the episodes on DVD. There is the episode in which daughter Darlene is wanting to buy a car that has been hot rodded and describes one of its features as a "tilt tranny." Still trying to get my mind around the idea of a transmission that can be tilted at various angles in relation to the engine, or what the benefit of that feature would be.

 

In the early 80's when computer chips first started appearing in cars, a mate worked for a Peugot dealership in Sydney. An almost new car came in with an ingnition fault, and the workshop 'genius' tracked it down to the chip, so they grabbed a boxful of spares (at $900 each mind you) and replaced the 'faulty' one. The instant they installed the new chip it blew, so they reefed it out and installed another one, with the same result.

After half a dozen attempts to install a new chip, each resulting in a brand new $900 chip crapping itself, they decided to read the instructions. In very large letters on the box...

WARNING, TURN IGNITION OFF BEFORE REMOVING OR INSTALLING.

Cheers, Glen.

 

I have actually done that, on the customers request. In 1982 we was doing some work on a ferry. The brake on the rudder, was squeaking, because of new brakepads. We was first ordered to wear them in, with sandpaper. When that didnt work, we was told to grease them with dieseloil, the onboard mechanic used to do that. Our protest didnt help, so eventually we did as ordered.
Lars

 

I have to call BS on this one

Actually, the early 360 blocks were cast on the same core as a 340 block and therefore had a .040" thicker cylinder wall. This was up to 74 or so. The trick was to bore the block .070 to .080 over and use .030 or .040 over 340 pistons. The increase in bore brought the 360 up to 372 (.070) or 374 (.080), essentially a stroker overbored 340.

Never heard of a 360 cracking the block unless it was left outside in the winter with water in it or using a ton of nitrous, blower or making over 500 hp.

You can bore a small block out .130 if you want but I wouldn't want to keep it cool or build much power with it - that one would surely crack.

The Scamp ran hard because it was a Mopar!

 

Not a BS story, I seen it with my own eyes.

 

OBee KayBee!

 

Probably a script writer screw-up and it was supposed to be a tilt steering wheel.


But . . . Oldsmobile had a slant-pan hydro.

Started around 57 I think.
The bellhousing had the trans mounting flange/bolts tilted at about a 20*-30* CCW angle looking from the drivers seat.

Idea was to get a lower floorboard and gain a touch of room cuz the shift linkage/throttle rod was a little lower.

 

i am a mechanic at a dodge dealership and come across this stuff in one form or another everyday, but i had a service writer that took the cake. one day we had four vehicles come in on the hook all for dying while driving. the last one that came in was a chevy suburban. as my writer is getting the information from this guy he starts telling the customer how there was a solar flare that occured earlier in the day and thats why all the fuel pumps went out on all these cars and trucks. seriously, wtf?

 

Glen your story reminded me of my cousin:

walks around the used car lot,talks to the sales guy;

cousin: Whats up with the Honda behind the building?

salesguy: you don't want that; it's got (cue spooky music) electrical problems, won't run

cousin: how much?

salesguy: $500 but our tech has put 3 computers in it and they keep blowing up. It came in on a trade, we detailed it, now it won't run. We think it's (spooky music) cursed.

cousin: I'll take it, be back in a hour.


He returned with a new computer and a towel. Opened the hood, disconnects the main harness pigtail dumping out about a cup of water, replaced the computer and drove it home

Moral of the story: computers and water don't mix OR watertight connections aren't watertight at 1500 PSI


Dutch

 

Now that's funny

 

I was working in a body shop and when I asked one of the body guys why he never wore a welding helmet, he said "I have UV-protective contact lenses, so I won't get welder's flash--it's the UV light that gives you flash."

-Brad

 

My BIL did the same thing with a toyota truck, brought it to me because the engine was down on power and the trans was slipping. I was real happy to find out that though toyota had thoughtfully included a drain in the trans pay, the only way to fill it was to drop the pan, fill it to the top, and hoist it back in place. The the bastard said I was a shit mechanic because I didn't just drain the bad oil off the bottom and leave the 5 quarts of castrol synthetic that he had poured on top, and refused to pay me for the additional 5 quarts of oil. Last time I touched that f-er's car.

A female acquaintance checked the oil in her 2.0 mitsu and found that it was low, so she poured two quarts of dextron in the crank case. The car had an automatic so she used the oil for automatics, couldn't believe that I didn't know that...

 

this isn't auto related but i work on machinery in a factory.We have polishing benches that sit back to back(jewelry bussiness).I was replacing a big polisher & when i plugged( plug is behind the bench) it in it was turning the wrong way,not a problem, motor can be wired either way.So i start to rewire it & some guy comes up to me & says" plug it into the bench behind it!! it will go the other way!!!
Kind of hard to visualize but its one of the stupidest things i ever heard anyone say.
JimV

 

I bet that was the cleanest engine in town...

 

I sent a kid back to the trailer for the portable air tank once and I told him to make sure it had 100 pounds in it. He comes running up to me telling me how the gage is messed up because it reads 100 pounds but the tank only weighs as much as it did when it was empty. Maybe its just me but when I was 15 I knew that much at least. JC

 

The only one that comes to mind every time. Back in High School, went to a local cruise. We had no car. Standing next to the local speed shops 75 Olds Omega (yea the nova) and the hood is up on the car. Guy comes by with his "girl" or the girl he was trying to impress.

Looks under the hood and says "Look at that, an 850 double pumper with FUEL INJECTION!"

It was a rochester two barrel...

Ok so mabey some birth control is in order...

 

I had a jackass friend that sold some rims and tires on Ebay, then proceeded to let the air out prior to shipping to save the extra shipping fee.