History Seemed like a good idea at the time.Post your epic fails.

Here's me, high school freshman, channeling Evel on my Honda 90. So in metal shop, my year older and supposedly wiser friend Mark thought we needed to extend the swing arm for better handling. And he's in gas welding class, no rod, just coat hangers. So we cut the tubing mid span and found some pipe the same diameter. "Shouldn't we find some pipe to go inside too?", says I, 'cause even at that age I had extended bicycle forks and such. "No" says Mark, "the weld is stronger than the surrounding metal". And I have to admit, his coat hanger gas welding looked pretty darn good. However it was not to be, fore the next time out to the jumps it broke completely in two at the welds, leaving both the bike and I crumpled in the dirt. Fortunately young bones heal quick and Honda 90 parts were abundant.

 

At my second gas station job I was given the opportunity to be a mechanic. My boss had me cleaning and packing some wheel bearings when he left for lunch. His parting words were, “don’t spin those bearings with the air nozzle like that, they’ll come apart”. So of course that’s just what I did. I rinsed the bearing in solvent, put it on my finger and hit it with the air nozzle. Liking the sound and speed I kept it going a scosch too long and BANG! It exploded. It took out a couple oil cans and four fluorescent light bulbs. Luckily, my fingers were still attached and no customer cars were damaged. I cleaned up the mess before the boss got back but because I had to order a new bearing there was no way to keep him from finding out so I ‘fessed up. It cost me a bearing, four fluorescent bulbs, two quarts of oil and an hour’s pay off my meager $1.35/hr paycheck. My finger swole up like a sausage and hurt like hell for a week but I kept my mouth shut.


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This little mail jeep almost killed me once,or twice,maybe trice...

First time,pulling a trailer going about 45mph on a dirt road,,trailer starts fishtailing so bad but I knew if I hit the brakes the trailer would push me off the road and maybe into a huge gravel mine to the left,I still had like half a kilometer before a dead stop so I did what any rational driver would,,I floored it...the jeep redlined at about 53mph,trailer straightened out and i was able to slow down..

Second and third time,the oil/gas mix leaking outta the carb hit the distributor and engine caught on fire,,not a extinguisher,water hose or bucket of water near by....
Friend took his shirt off i took my shirt off and proceeded to whip the poor,gas starved, tired 2.5 like a ship slave but that only made the flames angrier...finally we poured handfuls of sand over it till it stopped..

4th and most dangerous one was,after I painted the poor jeep with Half a gallon of Jack's Marine Tar olive drab,I also lifted the back and front with some homemade 1/4"x1.5" steel strap with the help of a friend.
After the paint dried off and the 2" lift, we put 16" dodge wheels and old military tires we took it for a ride,If you know about these old mail jeeps,you will know that the doors slide to open and close.
We took a pretty busy road with a 40mph speed limit.
we were doing about 30 mhp with big stupid miles on our faces as we listened to those NDTs making music with the pavent. Doors were slid back and his arm was out and up grabbing the driprail.
We were infront of the firestation when I turned to my friend and asked him if he was ready for 40mph,going 30 already felt like shaking hands with the devil inside tat death trap.
He nodded in approval as he got ready for the next most awesome 10 of his life...
Our mullets flapping in the wind like a pair of desert rat flags storming some methlab to get our tool back..
When i hit 38mph we saw some serious shit man!
The fucking hood came up and all I could see was olive drab and the reflection of my scared shitless face...i slammed on the brakes,the passenger door slid forward with such might that almost guilliotined his wankin hand off, he screamed so i turned to see what happened,the floored to take the pressure of the door off,stuck my head out and got off the road slowly..
It all took 5 secs bu felt like a taranatino movie..
I make sure I latch every hood since that day,1,2,3,4 times like Melvin Udall in As good as it gets...

 

I suppose theres probably a few more.. this one is on my subaru, not the pontiac. I found a neat little "Grant Racing" steering wheel on the shelf at O'Reilly's that seemed like too damb good of a deal to pass up. Bought it, didnt want anyone who worked there to watch my dumb ass struggling to intall it, so i drove down to the wally world to give it a shot (so my wife wouldnt know i spent that money). I didnt have the right size wrench for the original wheel so i bought one and proceded to rip out every single wire attached to that thing. Im honestly not sure how i didnt get an airbag to the face. The new wheel's adapter had exited the box in the trunk of the hatchback (yes, i was one of those guys) so i had to put the old one back on and go home with every dummy light in the thing screaming at me. Found the adapter a week later and put the whole schmeer together and took it for a test drive. It worked! ....but by the time i got back ALL the new sockets i had bought and left in the driveway were pilfered by the friendly neighborhood methican americans. Anyway, i took my wife to the pool later on and since i didnt use a torque wrench, the new "racing wheel" came loose at 50 mph. Guess who didn't have any sockets (once again)?

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First car,age 15. 64’Impala ht. Read the owners manual cover to cover. There was a passage that said DO NOT shift transmission into low at speeds of 30 mph and accelerate.
25-28 should be safe,right?
Proceeded to hit the nearest tar road and carefully brought the speed up to around 30 and dropped the powerglide into low and hammered the gas pedal.
Ever see a powerglide dump it’s guts ripping the pan off in the process?
Long walk home to get a tractor,chain and a shovel.
I still think that speedometer was off.

 

Well it failed at the 1-2 shift, but didn't fail cutting the pan completely in half

 

DAMN! I guess if you're going to do something, you might as well commit yourself to the task.

Roger

 

why not dave? she wasn't bad to look at

 

Way back before 1-800 parts were readily available, I would get inspiration from the neat tricks found in the magazines at the time. John Buttera's T sedan had these electronic store plugs in the door jambs for his power windows so I figured I would get a bigger one with more wire connections for the whole front of my car. I cut a nice hole for the plug in the middle of my firewall and wired it all up. On my first big trip out of town, the car quits for no apparent reason. Of course, I have no tools with me to diagnose the problem, and even if I did, I probably wasn't sharp enough anyhow. Probably ignition related so I since the car quit in front of a K-mart, I dash in and get points, condensor, and plug wires. Put them on and the car starts right up. Goes good for some distance and quits again. Since my electronics store plug is directly above the distributor, I unplug the thing for easy access. Everything looks good so I put everything back. It starts and I'm back on the road again until it quits. Took me all night to figure out that when I replugged my connector, it restored electrical continuity and road vibration would undo it.
Also, during this era, steering column u-joints from places like Borgeson weren't available so I made do with PTO u-joints from the farm implement places. Got my friendly neighborhood machine shop to cut a slot for the woodruff key. One day going down the highway, the steering was feeling a bit loose. The woodruff key had managed to slide out. I'm glad God looks out for idiots.

 

Damn, Swade! When you do something, you do it RIGHT! LOL!!!

 

Found the trailer in one of my old pms.

 

I'm sure she's still looking for a sugar Daddy. I'll put in a good word for you!

 

Its a TROPHY !

 

You need your own TV show..

 

I keep it on the stand, change intakes and valve covers every month to give it a new look, I'd like to stand it on the flex plate and put a light inside it somehow so the light will shine out the hole..ha ha ha

 

I don't think my GF would really go along with that idea

 

Over 20 years ago I bought a '40 Ford 1 1/2 ton flat bed dump about 50 miles away down the I-10 freeway. Went to pick it up with a handy dandy rental car trailer. The truck fit on the trailer with inches to spare so I figured all was good. I tied it down not even thinking about tongue weight and proceeded to get on the westbound I-10 towards home. Started to accelerate onto the freeway and next thing I know I see the trailer tail lights in front of me! Did a 180 on the freeway and came to a stop facing the wrong way on the shoulder. I don't know how no other cars were involved but I cleaned out my britches and drove the wrong way on the shoulder and got off the freeway at the nearest on ramp. I popped a trailer tire in the process and off course no spare or jack. Unhooked the truck and drove to a nearby tire store, bought a new tire and then to a parts store for a hydraulic jack. Changed the tire, hooked up the truck and proceeded to drive the 50 miles home on surface streets at no more than 30 miles an hour. Found out that the proper amount of tongue weight is important.

 

Was doing an oil change on an O/T Buick wagon. Put the new oil in & noticed oil running down the driveway. shit. So..put the drain plug in, more oil, & proceeded to fire it up. Instantly the wife signals to shut it down. Now what? O'Riellys keeps the Wix filters behind the counter & he gave me the wrong one, seemed to fit but didn't. After a discussion with them I get the right filter & finish the change some 12 or 13 quarts deep in the project.

 

My is not car related , but a great lesson was learned . I swapped out cams in a Harley , did what I thought was timing the brute . I buttoned it up , cleaned up and climbed up on the starter real good and hard , the next thing I knew , the Bastard kicked back so hard my knee hit my chin . What a MFer x10 . That was the one and only time you forget that aftermarket cams are a bit advanced over stock , so it’s like trying to start without retarding the spark . A real true to life learning experience , that takes places in a matter of seconds .

 

When I bought my 1953 International R-130, it was located in the northwest corner of Illinois. About 300 miles north of me. This was a dual wheel heavy 1 ton dump truck. Not completely contemplating the situation, Dad and I took my 2010 Chevy 1500 4x4 to pick it up with our 2 axle car trailer. The truck fit the trailer just fine. It was really way too heavy for the Chevy. Power wasn’t the problem. Anything above 58 mph and it went into a spooky weave. Holy Toledo that was a long drive home. The next morning (short night) I wandered out to look at the rig and noticed our 1977 Ford E-250 sitting there. What a dumb ass, that is what we should have used.


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I finished painting my friends 65 GTO and it didn't have a license plate on it so I said I'll follow you home in my 65 Vette which I had the top down . Were going up a long hill and all of a sudden his left front wheel pops off and bounces up about 15 feet and it's headed toward my Vette hood . I did a hard right into a yard as the tire hit the road and rolled down the hill . The friend had to walk a quarter mile to retrieve wheel out of the brush . Only damage to GTO was a black rubber mark on fender which cleaned off with polish , the disc brake rotor kept the bumper high enough to avoid contact . The owner had removed wheel before he came over for paint and didn't tighten lug nuts !

 

Was starting my 53 Buick Skylark after sitting for many years, standing in front of the car, leaning in to the carburator linkage where the start switch was, cranking for a while suddenly the dynaflow filled the torque converter, the car nudged forward up my porch steps, knocked the porch post loose the post closed the hood on me and I was staring at the fan and radiator while the Buick climbed the porch so I put my hand over the top of the carburator and choked it til it quit. Funny now, not as funny staring at the fan going round and round.

 

Fresh out of the Army, summer of '66. Brothers and I helped dad build a 24' x 24' carport. February of '67 brother had a '51 Jeepster and I had a '51 Ford PU in the carport, both inoperable. Along about August dad got an attitude and wanted his carport back. Truck has no brakes and a bed loaded with flathead speed parts. The driveway slopes downhill into an up sloped alley. Plan: Roll truck down driveway and as far up the alley as it will go. Throw cylinder block behind tire to stop rollback. Reality: Cinder block misses (of course) and truck rolls back into corner of neighbor's garage and knocks it a couple of inches off the foundation. Tiny Model T sized garage she only used for garden tools. A couple of 1" x 4"s, started nailing at the top and pulling them together as we went down. A little paint and we were good to go. She only used the small door on the opposite corner.

 

Daaum!

 

The nerve of that guy!!

 

We were surprised it lasted that long. When we look back, he put up with a lot from us. Maybe his example is why we let sons live.

 

Second that motion!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Years ago in my youth.
I spent about 6 months doing body work on a short bed Chevy PU . I made sure the primer was right the steel was prepped correctly. Spared no expense in materials took no short cuts, rented a spray booth to finaly lay down the perfect paint job.
The day came and all my plans came into play . Man I layed down a beautiful red paint job no sags runs or holidays man it was perfect .
Took my gun out side to clean it opened up the card board box to get thinner to clean the gun .
That's when I noticed noticed the can of unused hardener I forgot to add to the gallon and a half of paint I'd laid down

What a mess. Paint never completely hardened, could not sand it could not strip it with out destroying g the body work.

 

This reminded me that I once did the same thing. But lucky for me it wasn't a whole vehicle, just a fender.
Back when I was a 20 something young buck with a 55 Chevy 150 and no extra money I was repairing a quarter panel with bondo. I mixed some up and spread it all over the quarter between the wheel well and the door up half way.
After 3 or 4 days and it still was tacky I realized I didn't put enough hardener in it. Uncured bondo is probably the worst thing I have ever tried to clean off.

 

Back in the early 80's I had picked up a 64 or 65 Plymouth hardtop, bought it cheap because it had a broken driver's side window, like $100 or so. It wasn't a bad car but I wanted the drive train to put in a 55 Dodge pickup I was building. Well, I wanted to make sure the engine ran but I had to be out of town so a friend of mine, "Don" liked to putter in my shop so he came out and put a lawn mower fuel tank on the fender, plumbed it to the engine (leaving the fuel line to the carburetor unhooked), pulled a plug wire to see if it had spark and...............well he hit the switch, the engine fired up and the fuel pump worked, spewing old gas on a hot spark. I had water in the shop and he got the fire put out, I was glad I wasn't there.
The second story also involves Don. I had built a fresh 350SBC for my 67 El Camino and was using a spread bore Holley on it. It worked fine. Don didn't like Holley carburetors so he shows up one night with a quadrajet, to keep Don happy we bolted the quadrajet on, fired it up and it didn't run but seconds and a hellava sound came out of the engine. I shut it off but it was too late. I pulled the head and found a quadrajet screw smashed into the piston. The head was OK but the piston AND THE Block was toast. Didn't have 1000 miles on it yet.
You may have a poor opinion of Don but actually that's about the only two things I can ding him on after knowing him for 60 years. He's helped me out a lot but it had some cost.
The last story is on me. A few days ago I dug out the front seat for the Studebaker, it had rotten upholstery (not much but some) on it and I had gotten most of it unfastened (lots of hog rings) when the bright idea to just take one of the seat backs outside and burn the upholstery off. Great idea. It didn't burn all that well so I just ripped it off and since I don't like a mess I swept it up....hey it's still smoldering, so I stomped it out. Finished sweeping it up and tossed it in the trash can and decided to go to lunch. I was going to put the trash can back in the shop but...........what if I didn't get it totally extinguished? So I left it on the sidewalk. The picture is what I saw as I came out of the house for lunch. I am a lucky guy I did get the seats sandblasted that day and painted the next