Technical Ever get so pissed off you wanted to, or did, destroy something?

I didnt even think of that.....I have this pain in the ass dog.....rat terrier type, the ones that must have a stash of crack somewhere because this dog just will not sit still.....Anyway she hangs out with me in the garage, constantly in my way and has to try and lick my face if I am laying under the truck for any reason. If I am pissed I gradually get more mad at her when she trips me or licks me, which makes me yell at her, which makes her pee...so I am under the truck, she wont stop licking me, I yell, she pees, I swat her out of my way, and lay my head in a puddle of dog piss......If I could throw her and not feel bad, I would.....she stays inside now.....

 

In a previous post a fellow mentioned putting his watch in the shop press and I had the same idea a few days ago but with a couple voltage regulators and then sending them back to the vendor..Vendor did say he would give me a refund so I refrained but for what he maybe gives me back, subtracting postage and his hostility, only being there to see the look on his face when he opened the box would have been worth it..

 

I had a 1951 HD Panhead that popped and sputtered and ran so hot due to an intake leak the pipes glowed red at night while riding. I had difficult time tracking down the problem. Tried everything. Got so pissed I kicked to bike to the curb one night and customized (smashed) the fuel tank with a 12lb sledge hammer. Final figured it out and had to eventually replace the fuel tank.

 

I used to get so pissed off I thought I would stroke out. A friend told me to beat the snot that old car out back. It was a 54 Ford 2 door post. I always think about that.

 

I had that same problem with my bike.... Needless to say, all the money I spent trying to fix the problem, I didn't figure it out on my own and, had to take it to the dealership. I was pissed but, they were nice enough to fix it "under warranty" for me and, didn't charge me a dime.

 

While sitting cross-legged on the floor of his garage, a friend of mine was totally frustrated with something on the rear of his car & he started savagely smashing it with a mallet. He hit it so hard that the head broke off the mallet & beaned his stupid head, sending him flying backwards & virtually K.O.ed. It was a '33 Plymouth, if I recall. Once we found out he wasn't dead, we had a pretty good laugh.

 

Maybe......why?

 

As an apprentice mechanic in the North East of South Australia, in the early 60's, we used to have some characters around. An elderly gentleman who was a rabbit trapper, had an early 36 Chev buckboard, which he used for his trapping and runs into town for supplies and to deliver his rabbits to the chiller. The old gentleman, like his Chev, didn't do many miles to the gallon between drinks. He used to call his car "Polly" and the old girl broke a piston, but Ernie kept driving it for some time on 5 cyls. He then scratched up enough cash to bring Polly in to us for repair. The trip in was about 50 odd miles and just as he reached the corner of our shop, there was an all mighty bang as the built up fuel dilution let go. This scared the daylights out of the old chap and he bailed out of the cab and attacked the truck with the crank handle. I can still remember this after 51 years ..Old Ernie smashing both the headlights in and screaming "Now you old @$!!! you made me walk, you scared me to death so now after I get you fixed, I am going to pick you up at night pissed, so that now you are blind, you can find your own way home in the dark!!
I absolutely cracked up at this and even today have quiet chuckles about it. Ernie was an old WWII veteran and the funniest and nicest old guy you could ever meet in real life.. He actually doted on his old truck and it was always kept neat, clean and tidy...except for this day lol

 

Funny but absolutely true.

 

Many years ago I took a Model A Ford block to work so I could remove the pistons that were frozen in it. It was total junk block that I only wanted the connecting rods out of. It sat inside the overhead door in the front of the shop. Something went very wrong with whatever I was working on and I guess I went Viking and grabbed a BFH walked over to the block and shattered the left side of it. It was real quiet in the shop for the next 10-15 minutes. Bob

 

I learned LOOOOOONG ago to just step away from the situation. 35 plus yrs ago while trying to remove an axle bearing. It wouldnt budge, frustration dictated that I picked up the biggest hammer I could get my hands on and beat the crap out of that bearing. Little did I know but a tiny piece of the hammer maybe half the size of a BB chipped off the hammer and entered my leg, I did not even feel it. Fast forward to 3 AM with me in severe pain and my leg swollen to the size of a watermelon. I was in surgery by 5 AM, the doctor said he removed over 100 blood clots from my leg. I got married 2 weeks later, spent my wedding day and my honeymoon in a wheelchair. Lesson learned.

 

I learned at 17....helping a buddy to do a change over from a rolled 55 to a good bodied 55... You know take all the good parts to the new body and I was doing the steering wheel....didn't have a wheel puller, got damn mad and started jerking the wheel ....woke up with my buddies pouring coke on my face and slapping me to see if I'd come back from my dreams...broken nose, fat lips...

 

It's nice to have the luxury of being able to walk away, and you always can, but sometimes it's just very inconvenient. For example, I had to walk away when I couldn't get my axle stub out in post one of this thread. Now, three days later because I had to work elsewhere and still do today, my garage is still covered in rear end parts, tools and 90w which stinks to high heaven. I should have it all cleaned up and waiting for my new axles, which I can't even order until I get it mocked back up to measure length. But that's small potatoes, so it sits for an extra week.

What if you have a customer waiting? Or you've rented tools? Or the race is Sunday? Sometimes you just have to take a quick break, a few deep breaths and get back on it.

 

Usually if I walk away you just didn't loose your teeth.

I think it is easier working on your own stuff then it is working on someone else's. if you throw a fit and break something it costs you but it is your stuff that you broke.

I was working on a bike transmission one time in my friends shop, the customer was standing right there. I couldn't get one of the snap wrings off the main shaft and was fighting it and mumbling, finally I managed to snap the end off my tool and stab myself in the hand with the broken handle end of it. I reached out and grabbed a ball peen and then felt this hand on my shoulder, I looked up and my friend handed me a cigarette and just said, "This is a good time for a smoke, isn't it?" So I walked outside and cooled off. Sometimes you just have to do that.

 

Although I'm usually kinda laid-back and calm, I recall another incident when I just simply lost it. We had one of those combination printer/scanner/fax machines. Worked OK at first, but then began malfunctioning. No matter what I tried, it simply refused to do what it was supposed to do. I finally got so frustrated with it, that I disconnected the cables, and proceeded to carry it out to the garage. Picked it up as high as I could, and slammed it down on the concrete floor, while uttering a few choice expletives. It took me quite a while to pick up all the broken pieces of that miserable piece of shit, but it was oh so satisfying. Quite a stress reliever.

 

Oh, if you're going to drag computer equipment into this... They should have old computers and hammers at psychiatrist offices. Nothing quite so satisfying.

 

unless your into that sort of thing. ding!

 

YUK!!!

 

Almost forty-five years ago when I was a young man, I and the bank were the
proud owners of a '69 AMC Javelin SST with 290 CI V8, Carter 4-bbl AFB
carb, Borg-Warner T-10 4-speed with Factory Hurst Competition Plus linkage.
Somethin' went south with the clutch. Even then, finding a throw-out
bearing for an AMC was almost as hard as locating a full set of seats for a
suburban.

I got the bearing and put the front of the Javelin on jack stands. The
stock exhaust system formed a "Y" under the transmission before running into a
single muffler. I dropped the exhaust at the manifolds and left it connected
at the back on the car. Laying on my back under the car, on the exhaust
system, I started to unbolt the transmission. I thought the T-10 was an
aluminium housing model and wouldn't be much heaver than my old '59 Ford
three-speed which I had become an expert removing and re-installing.

I was about to be severely punished for my lapse of intelligence. (Some
American general once said "Stupidity is always punished more swiftly than
evil".) As I pulled the transmission out of the pilot bearing and clutch
splines I suddenly became aware that it was the cast-iron T-10 and I didn't
have the strength to keep it from racing to mother earth. Problem was, my
knee was between it and mother earth. When the T-10 came in contact with my
knee, my body's autopilot functions tried to get me away from the
transmission by turning hard over on my left side. This reaction in the
confined space under the Javelin caused a second contact point: my right
shoulder and a rather sharp muffler clamp . . . and, oh yeah, the T-10 was
still on my knee.

Bleeding at shoulder and knee, I first made a few of the sounds all injured
animals make. I continued on into the sounds that only humans can add for
emphasis. This continued until my mother came out of the house and told me
to stop cussin' before one of the neighbors called the police. That's one
mistake I've only made once and now I can laugh about it.

 

Not since I started to taking, Zolof !

 

Ahhhhhh!

 

'62 Pontiac Tempest wagon, about 1971.... Half-a-V8 four cylinder, purchased as an 'economical' work car. Within a few days of buying it, it starts running badly... sometimes. Do all the usual diagnostics, fresh tune, etc. One day it runs decent, the next it strands me somewhere. It tries to run when it screws up, but won't, quite. This goes on for about month, I think I walked more miles than this thing ran (remember, this is long before cell phones). Finally figured out that it wasn't staying in time, check the distributor; it's fine. Ok, it's gotta be a timing chain issue.

Pull the front cover, lots of slop in the chain (which doesn't look all that old). Also has some sort of 'tensioner' for the chain (something I'd never seen) that isn't working right. So, I call my local parts house and get told all this is 'special' to the four (even though the architecture is the same as the V8) and the V8 parts don't work. No listing for the parts.... 'you'll have to call the dealer'. Sure enough, the dealer tells me these are all specific to the four; the V8 chain set will fit but not last. Nope, don't have any of it in stock; all special order. Now, Pontiac V8s were known in those days for weak timing chains (needing replacement at about 80K), the harmonics of the inherently rougher-running four required all this monkey-motion to get the basic design to live. The cost of the parts needed was roughly equal to what I paid for the car... I ordered them. Get it all back together (that tensioner was a bitch to get in), the car is finally running right....

Second time I drove it work after fixing it, it pukes again. Same ol', same ol'.... That's it, I lost it. I took the bumper jack out and proceeded to beat on it until a city cop arrived. Narrowly avoided going to jail (after explaining my tale of woe to the cop, he was somewhat understanding), and had to have it towed to a wrecking yard immediately. All in all, a learning experience and a financial disaster. I learned to cultivate patience after that.... and I'll never own another Pontiac....

Find out much later that the PO (a 'friend' of my wife) knew all this, had a 'buddy' replace the chain with a V8 set, but thought I could 'figure it out'... bastard.

 

Didn't break anything but years ago, as a young and foolish teen ager I was trying to put a clutch and pressure plate in my roadster, it was giving me a such a hard time, got so mad took the wrench I had in my hand,threw it at the back wall of the garage, hit it and fell behind my bench.I then realized I still needed it to finish the job. Had a ton of stuff under the bench, had to take all of it out to get the wrench in back. The stupid hot headedness of youth! I still curse at myself, but don't throw.

 

Threw a chainsaw as far as I could today. Hate those things, and two strokes in general. Brought two of 'em out to the job site. Old ones granted, but ones that were tuned up and running well here at home. Get out in the boonies, BRRRR, BRRRR, BRRR. BRAAAP, COUGH,BRRR, BRRR, BRRR
My anger issues are alive and well.

 

16 year old me was trying to straighten a derailleur hanger on my downhill mountain bike, and it snapped off. I threw the bike out the garage door and to my dismay it landed on its wheels and coasted 60ft down the driveway, straight into the back of my then pride and joy '79 Rx-7, and smashed the back windshield.

 

I was a young man then with a wife and our first little girl. Flat broke and working on our 64 Fairlane family car in the garage. I was having a lot of trouble (don't remember what i was struggling with), but I got so mad at it that I grabbed a tire iron that was on the floor next to the car and threw it out of the garage as hard as I could. It sailed accross the street and landed in the neighbor's front yard. I immediately came to my senses with the realization that I could have killed someone passing by with my immature temper tantrum. Still get mad at the car sometimes, but I DON"T throw anything. The thought of what could'ver happened still haunts me....

 

Chain saws and 10 second street cars, neither ever performs right in its proper environment.

Once when we were young my little brother had a pretty hot '64 Chevelle (sp?) post car. One night at the street races he lost 20 bucks and walked right over to me and smacked me in the mouth. he had a big crescent wrench in his other hand as I recall and I said, "hey what was that for?" he said, "because I cant afford a new windshield." Do you know how hard it is to blow out a clogged fuel line with a fat lip?