When my '60 Pontiac was my daily, the motor mounts broke one at a time. With the rod linkage when the motor lifted, it would jam the gas down and try to take off. I got good at turning the key off and on again for a while. Then, I pulled each mount out and wrapped the shit out of them with coathanger wire and put them back. That worked well enough until I could get replacements from Kanter. Cotter pins probably should be replaced once in a while, I just today cranked on a ball joint nut on a '95 big van in the junkyard - could not get the pin out, but I had it turning okay just the same, spun it just about all the way off.
1967, I'm maybe 18, driving my stock 41 Willys sedan with 4 mates inside, and 4 more standing on the running boards outside the car, holding onto the door pillars. I came to a large patch of gravel in the road and decided to turn the wheels on hard lock and floor it. (for who knows what reason) The gravel was very dry, and the car started doing 360's, kicking up clouds of dust so I couldn't see a thing. It finally stopped after I realised I should probably take my foot off the gas. Working under my Hillman Husky about 1971. I was installing a higher volume oil pump in the Hillman Hunter GT 4 banger I'd fitted, but the shaft wouldn't engage. I reached forward with my left hand while holding the oil pump up against the block with my right hand, and pulled down on the fan belt. The engine turned slightly, the oil pump slid into place, and the fingers on my right hand got crushed between the pump body and the turning crankshaft. There was no one esle home, so I was trapped for about an hour under the car before I could turn the engine backwards far enough to free my fingers. Lost 4 nails as a result. Driving an English Ford Prefect (100E) in about 68. Going as fast as she would go (not very) on a dark road I didn't know, and fooling around with my girlfriend who was in the passenger seat at the same time. I didn't notice the T intersection sign, or the fact that the road ended until I was right on top of the corner. I hit the brakes, which was about as useful as hitting the throttle on those things, skewed the steering wheel around and went 'bush' between 2 trees. The door handles stuck out slightly on those cars, and I tore every one of them off as I went between the trees. Cheers, Glen.
I grew up in a Marine Corp family and we were living on Camp Pendleton during the mid 70's(i must have been 6 yrs old). We would play army with a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, all dressed up in our dads old fatigues and with toy guns. well my dad for some reason had left a little clear plastic box of bullets on the fridge, so i grab them and proceed to go out side and hand them out to all the kids that was playing army. We decided to see if we could get them to go off by throwing them at the sidewalk and road in front of our house, after several attempts my brother gets one to pop off mind you there was 6 or 7 kids doing this. just so happens my dad pulls in the driveway as that round went off,HE WAS PISSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no one was hurt and the M.P.'s never showed up.
Kid down the street couldn't afford fireworks for 4th of July. Decided to make his own with cut off heads of wooden strike anywhere matches stuffed in a pipe. Held the pipe between his legs because he didn't have a vise. While packing the pipe, it went off-blew part of his dick off! TRUE STORY!!! Hey you can't make this shit up!
Here is my story... A very good friend of mine, a co worker and a fellow hamber billy the kid http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/member.php?u=11838, was working on his moms car in her driveway. He must not have thought it necessary to use jack stands. The car fell on him and trapped him for ten or fifteen minutes before she found him. he did not survive. That took away a lot of the stupid things I do just to save a minutes time. Guess my story isn't as funny as your stories are.
Sounds to me like you had a scrub line problem. I've done some stupid stuff over the years, but I've been pretty lucky. Now that I am no longer invincable I just wait a little longer for that final fun blast and don't cut corners. I've used nails in place of cotter pins, I used some used tie rod ends once that were better than the ones I had in order to pass saftey inspection. That was actually lack of cash more than get on the road in a hurry, although I did need to be on the road to get to work. They lasted about a week and one of them broke just as I was leaving a stop light and making a right hand turn.
On more than one occasion in the past i used semi truck taillights to guide my path in the dead of night in pouring rain or sleet as my headlights were stuck on less than lowbeam, my wipers are practically useless and i hadn't a working heater in my sled. Man i drove hundreds of miles using that technique, how i survived i'll never know cuz often enough visability was less than a car length and i was allways pedal to the metal.
Speaking of cotter pins..... A friend of mine had a 70 boss 429 Mustang, less than 500 made. All origional/ restored, polyglass gts, etc. He is waiting in line at Goodguys, Charlotte to ride in the track cruise. We get a call that his steering wheel is free spinning. We ride over and discover that the castle nut from the pitman arm is gone and the ball joint has fallen out. The nut is on the lower control arm. We re install it and slid a hairpin in to get it home. He was about 2 runs from going on the track when this happened. He bought the car and had been driving it regularly, apparently the DPO hadn't bothered to install a pin. This is a $150k car.
once had a 76 pontiac that needed an exhaust so being 18 and broke i stuck a glasspack on it with a turnout in front of the rear wheel cause it seemed cool. didnt think of the rustout in the body and carbon monoxide. had to wonder why id get headaches and sick every time i drove the damn thing!
Back in my younger days one night I had my car probably at least 100 mph on an interstate highway. Drove it straight home and parked in the garage. The next day after work I fired it up and drove about 100 feet when the left front wheel fell off. Can't tell you how many times I've thought of this. Guess it just wasn't my time.
When I was a teenager (long time ago) I stopped by a friend's house. He needed to pull the three speed tranny out of his '53 Ford 2dr so I jumped in and helped. To get enough ground clearance he had sat the car up on four concrete blocks, one under each tire. We had just slid out from under the car with the tranny and stood up when the car rolled off the blocks. I still remember that incident everytime I crawl under a car to work on it. Good jack stands are always the order of the day for me. Warning...When you are out in the garage late at night working under your car remember that if something bad was to happen, no one will find you till the next morning because they have gone to bed and are sleeping like normal people do.
Back around 1975 I had a 54 Chevy truck, I stuck a tilt column in it and didn't know anything about u-joints. I proceded to weld the column shaft and box shaft together, they looked straight. Needless to say I was real proud of my accomplishment and was driving it, a couple days of driving and I decide to go to Hardee's for some food. I pulled off of the busy hiway and into the turn around the drive up window, the truck did not turn. I ran into the curb. Before this I had a dirt bike that I got kinda stupid with, I was about 17 and thought I could do anything on it. I got the bright idea of making a ramp and jumping the nearby creek which was probably 40 feet across. I made a ramp to practice on and got a real good run, I hit that ramp as fast as the bike would go. Now when you build a ramp you do not build it 2" high and 2' long. The bike went about 10' but about 15' high, I fell off of the bike and it landed on me, that hurt and ended jumping the creek.
Never ever assume you can pump a single bowl brake system....A 65 VW will slam into a North Dallas Churches Fried Chicken! Your boss will run outside to see what rumbled the building and you will promptly be explaining your dumb shit....
I kept my brand new MTD Yardman ride on mower in the bottom shed which had a heavy lift up door made of a wooden frame with corugated iron cladding that you lifted up and held up with a 6 foot piece of framing timber. One day i went down to start her up and mow the lawns, propped open the door and fiddled with the mower...oil check etc....then started her and backed out of the shed at low speed............clean forgot about the stick holding the door up and backed into it........... The door came down and hit me in the back of the head and damn near knocked me out...but the mower was still going backwards and the door then fell onto my two hands which were on the steering wheel and proceeded to gouge their way down the backs of them.... blood everywhere......I still hadn't come to my senses enough to put my foot on the clutch as the door then bounced off of my hands and proceeded to screech down the bonnet of said 'yardman', peeling curls of yellow plastic the length of the bonnet just like butter, before falling off the front and hitting the ground. I got my foot on the clutch and the first thing I remember doing was looking around to make sure my wife didn't see me do that! I have never felt more foolish ever. I still have ...the scars...the mower.....and the door, suitably modified of course.
Was about 12 and Decided that the best thing to clean the crap off the bottom of grandma's push mower was some gas. May not have been a completely insane thought except I had just got done mowing the yard and it was still hot. Anybody ever heard gasoline sizzle? I have....and it was enough to about make my piss my pants....
I usually don't type LOL or any off the other laughing acornyms . But I really did LOL on this one!!!! It so much reminded me of me!! Except for the worrying about the trailer lights... I just drag em dark
Three guys I knew when I was kid were doing the same thing with an asprin bottle, blew several of one guys fingers off, and blinded another. Serious stuff.
Take back hoe and build 12' dirt jump on top of big drop off out in the back forty. Take old rail road ties and create a 100 yard track leading to dirt jump. Take old beater Astro van, remove rear tires, weld steel plates to rims like tractor style tread. Grease up front tires, and grease up insides of railroad ties. Lock steering up in the van, and prepare for WOT. Position van at start of railroad tie track, no need to aim at dirt jump, grease takes care of that. Invite 100 or so friends to halloween party About mid night announce the suprise event, and crowd moves party to back forty. Lift back of van with back hoe. I Start van.... Dave sets van on fire... Jim lowers back hoe... Van does a perfect flaming jump about 100 ft in the air, lands sweet and contiues until it hits a big tree. Crowd goes wild, and we realize half the crowd was down at bottom of the hill watching. Luck for us no one was in the landing zone! This is the last surprize halloween event we ever put on, figured no one was ever hurt or killed by all the crazy shit we did, and that our luck was due to run out. -Row Z
When I was 15 i bought an old BSA 500cc motorcycle, which didn't run. So I cleaned and painted polished etc,one day I noticed the inside of the magneto where the brushes run looked kinda dirty.Better clean that thinks I.Wrap rag around finger, stick finger in, rub, rub, rub, have a look, yep one little clean spot. And here's the light bulb moment,,,hey stick finger with rag in and give bike a mighty kick over, that should clean it all real quick. Yep. Now I'm an electrician.
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