1984: A good friend (who is longer with us, sadly) was driving my old Caddy through the desert southwest on some godforsaken two-lane highway at something close to full throttle. I was asleep in the back seat, and woke up when we went over a bump, or maybe we ran over somebody. Who knows. I looked over the seat and saw the speedo was very nearly buried. I said "In a hurry, Cliff?" He responded "ZZZZzzz...(snort)....HUH?" Needless to say I took over the driving for the rest of that road trip. If we'd gone off the road out there, at that speed, it would've looked like a plane crash and we'd probably still be there. 1980: Not long after I larnt how to ride a street bike I was out riding like an ass and found out the hard way, the American way, why, one, you brake BEFORE the corner, not in it, and two, why you should stay off the yellow line while leaned over in a corner. The road rash healed fairly quickly, but the torn ACL has been with me ever since. Doctor is talking total knee replacement surgery next year.
When I did the assault boat course we had a Chief Instructor (CI) that was a real wanker. "Don't tell me boat's! I know boat's!!" kind of guy. Some of us already had some experience with small watercraft, on guy was a surf rescue boat captain, but this CI knew better than him! He took us all out to a surf beach to teach us beach landings. He explained how it should be done, the rescue boat captain chimed in to point out something and the CI came down on him like a tonne of bricks. 'I'm the instructor, you will listen to me!!'. As the CI and his bowman took off from the beach he just shrugged his shoulders and told us to watch closely! The CI promptly pooped the boat, stalled the motor and rolled it over a few times in the breakers. He is now known as Captain Nemo, seems to do better under the waves! He wasn't happy when 'Nautilus' appeared one morning on the bow of his boat. Doc.
back in my early teens my freinds and I had acquired a 70 something road bike, after an hour or so of tinkering with it trying to get it to run,the bike had a busted kickstart and us being to lazzy to push start it, I got the bright idea to tow start it with one of our lot cars( a chevy chevett) any way so so here we are towing a bike with a car at 30-40 mph down a dirt road, my friend chris lets the clutch out on the bike, bike starts takes off, rolls the rope up in the front wheel and does an endo into the back of the of the little chevy, try explaining that to your parents.........
This thread reminds me of what a friends father used to tell us before the weekends. " one boy has one brain two boys have half a brain three boys together have No brain whatsoever" I didnt get it until iwas thirty at least. RIP Emmett
I was about 15 or 16 (old enough to know better) tearing down a hill on my bicycle - fast as I could go, getting real low to ride out the speed wobbles when all of a sudden the wind catches my ball cap and rips it off my head. Acting on reflex rather than thinking, I take both hands off the handlebars in an effort to catch my hat. I caught my hat, right about the same time my front wheel turned 90 degrees and caught too, sending me flying right over the handlebars, landing on my chin first, then elbows, chest, hips and knees and sliding 20 feet and getting hit by my bike from behind having those fancy metal pedals with the spikes for traction dig all up my back. Oh MAN that hurt. I slid to a stop towards the bottom of the hill across the street from a rancher who was out tending his horses. He didn't say a word and neither did I. He just shook his head as he watched me get up, turn around, pick up my bike and start limping my bleeding ass back up the hill toward home... with my hat firmly planted on my head. I had gravel covered in pus work its way out of my elbows for months afterward.
again back in my teens, my freinds and I were messing around with those little acetylene bombs, well a garbage bag has got to be better than those sandwich bags, so late one night we filled this medium sized garbage bag with acetylene, walked it out to the middle of yard and lit with a lit piece of paper zip tied to the end of a broom handle, that sucker lit the whole neighborhood up like it was daytime for a few seconds , melted two feet of snow, luckily I was smart enough to put a cheep welding helmet on......
Well beening im my prime of my stupidity (17) heres the best one this year. A buddy and i are coming home from a nice day of fishing when we decide we should try one more lake. Were going down the mane street of this little town at about 65 mph in his little nessan classic with him driving. He polls this map out and open's it up and starts looking at it. well just when he finds the lake he's looking for a kid in a honda civic polls out in front of us and slams on his brakes. budy look up just in time to see this. He turns in to the parking lot the civic came from (witch has to exit the one we truned in to and one on other end) drives down the parking lot out the other exit and back out on to mane street now in front of the civic doing about 55. Got 3 Bass out of the lake
we also made one of those patato cannons, except we shot apples, anyway we made a pretty powerfull cannon out of some pvc pipe, we used hairspray but it caked the inside of the chamber, so after looking around the garage to find something else to try, starter fluid, and other solvents, I decide to try some acetylene, it worked ok, so what about acetylene and oxy, yeah it worked, blew the chamber right of the barrel , and also shot the apple, at least 2-3 football fields
Well, let me start off by saying my knuckle ain't shit compaired to this story, and you will see how the highlighted parts fit in. So my friend takes me home from school, and after I get out, I am standing on the running boards of his 4dr. Dodge Durango right behind the drivers side door... in his blind spot talking to the guy in the passenger seat. Well, he didn't see me so he took off... and the passenger thought it was fucking halarious! So there I am, shitting a brick, not even thinking to jump from the side of this vehicle, instead I reach up with both hands to get my friends attention. Why both hands you ask? I still ask myself that question alot. Well, he hit the brakes, I hit the ground (skull first, I have the crack in my skull to prove it) and roll into a near by mail box for the stop. Up to the falling off I remeber, then waking up in the bath tub thinking about how weird a dream I just had... till I touched my face, and felt massive blood blisters through out my face, I burst into tears, not because of anything other than I had no idea what happened. Now I hear alot of shit about "How stupid are you to fall off of a car?" and my responce is always "Actually, the falling off is the easy part." That is truly my best self injury story. I am really not that proud of it, but if someone takes it as a warning, then I did my job.
Stop fucking around with mates and study........err.........you do speak English? Another Army one, we were standing on the ramp of a C-130 at about 14000ft about to do a 3 way exit..... One guy stands with his back to the door and the other two stand side on and link arms. As we were getting ready to exit I notice that the no1 one in my 3 way had his toggle half hanging out. We were jumping the Army's 'Red Beret' Parachute Display Team (I was a member) rigs, normal civilian rigs rather than Military rigs. You see on these 'civilian' free fall set ups you pull out a little toggle attached to a pilot 'chute to deploy your canopy rather than the 'rip cord' type of a Military rig. Out of interest and having a keen scientific mind I just had to pull out that toggle and see what it would do in the slip stream. Funnily enough it deployed his canopy and ripped him out of the back of the aircraft! I can still see the look of terror for that split second as he was torn out of the aircraft. You could actually hear the laughing from everyone else over the sound of the aircraft. That started a bit of a war and there were many 'early deployments' for a while until the CO decided someone was going to get killed and put a stop to it. A 3 way exit. Doc.
When I was a kid I was staying for a week at my friend's house, but his parents weren't home half the time. We got bored and make a gasoline flamethrower- found a 2" cast iron pipe elbow in the garage, filled it with a mixture of gasoline and detergent, lit it, and then hooked an electrolux on "blow" to the other side and fired it up. We got about a 20 foot flame as most of the napalm exited the tube and scorched a good portion of the asphalt on the driveway. We spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing dirt and mud into the asphalt to try to hide the scorch mark, and quickly hid the pipe. Its amazing we still had skin left after that. I think we might have peeled some of the paint on the garage, too.
Years ago when i was serving my electrical apprenticeship,me and my journeyman were sent to a job. The job was install about 8-9 electric water heaters in a new const. We were doing only that, had not wired the building. So we go down to the basement which is about 6.5 feet tall, which is no problem, cause we ain't tall, the floor is completely wet with puddles here and there, but hell at least we're inside, cause it's fall and we're warm. Scattered about the basement are red 12/2 wires hanging from the floor joists, (red means 220V). I say lets check these for voltage, he says naw nobody would leave live 220V hanging from the ceiling. Ok says I, he's the boss. We sit down have coffee. Time to work.. he bends over to get something from the tool box , stands up directly under one of those wires, right to the top of his head, on a damp floor. Almost killed him. I mean so close it was not funny,,,,well at least not for a week or so anyway.
1974, was in a "decompression unit" on Camp Pendleton (that means we were out of control so bad, they didn't even want to send us back out into the civilian world yet). A friend got this GORGEOUS 64 Impala conv't from a Capt's wife for $800, white with a red int. Anyway, we used to get really lit (not on alcohol) and go up to Disneyland for the day. We'd be going up I-5 about 80-85 mph, preferably with a hitchhiker on board who didn't know about this. One of us in the back seat would start complaining about Boyds driving, and really make a case out of it. Finally he'd say, "OK then YOU drive" and pull up on the steering wheel, which would come right off, and hand it into the back seat. New riders would come completely unglued while we all laughed our heads off. Once, a hitchhiker screamed and jumped out of the car while we were doing 75 mph! We were still laughing about that 4 days later! Ahhhhh youth!
Back in highschool I had a friend who had a new jeep wrangler his parents bought him. Well we was going to a party one night and he wanted a CD out of the glove box to listen to but it was locked. So not thinking, this dumbass pulls the key out of the ignition while driving down the road and proceeds to unlock the glove box. Well when he pulled the key out the steering locked up and lets just say he didnt make the curve!
My ex wife is a magnet for electrocution. she insisted the screw in this one particular light switch would get her about every time she touched it, and I would walk over and fuck with it to no avail, call her crazy and that was it. right up until the first time in a long time I took a shower first and flipped the light switch. lit me up like a christmas tree. I hadn't noticed in the 2 years she was talking about it that she was barefoot and I was wearing shoes...heh. opened it up and discovered that the supposed electrician had not trimmed all the wire back and it just barely touched the screw in the cover. zap!
Back (in 1975) when I was 20, some friends and I went out crusing and drinking. Well my buddy with the car had an issue with it vapor locking during the summer (which it was). So here we are in the middle of no where and the car vapor locks and stops. He gets upset because he usually carries a bottle of water and a rag to cover the carb with as cooling blanket to pull off the heat. This time he didn't. So I tell him that pissing on the carb will help dissapate the heat. So, he opens the hood, stands on the front bumper and starts to take a leak on his carb base. We are laughing our a**es off when lo and behold, a cop drives by, stops, and backs up to where we are pulled over. Luckily the beer is in the trunk and no cans are in sight. Well....I have never seen a guy scramble so fast to put his johnson away while trying not to piss all over himself. The cop rolls up and asks what is up. My buddy says Vapor Lock, but we have it all under control. The cops says, you better get a mechanic to look at it because your engine smells like hot piss and then drives off. We all just about sh*t outselves laughing.
riding on hoods of cars driven by drunk people on streets with speed bumps is dumb. i've got a lifted bronco. i was out at my family's ranch in the pasture by the lake. my new g/f and i were looking at stars and stuff. we both got pretty tired and were ready to go back to the house. truck wont start. i'd been having problems with the starter relay. so i turn the key to run, pop the hood and jump up on the pass side 38" tall tire with screw driver in hand. i jump the starter relay posts with the screwdriver. the truck roars to life.. and starts rolling. it's cold and we've been out there a wile so the truck is stuck on high idle. i jump/fall off the front tire trying to not get run over. g/f is in the passengers seat screaming. with the hood up, it being dark, the truck driving, no driver she's lost it. i hit the ground and lucky don't impail myself with 12 inch screwdriver. and realize the truck is pointed toward the lake. the lake is big and has a steep drop-off after the water is about 3-4 feet deep. i ended up running it down and jumping in and hitting the brakes a few feet before the edge of the water. girl is still screaming. me, "i guess it wouldn't start cause it was in drive."
I was going TDY from Ellsworth AFB (SD) to San Antonio. I was driving down and somewhere in Nebraska I decided to stretch the legs of my wife's new Mustang. I had just passed an old pickup with a john boat in the back moving about 20mph. The road was straight as a beam of light for as far as I could see, so I kept it to the floor. I just looked down at the speedo passing 130mph and when I looked up a duck was flapping his ars off flying right down the center line. It hit the windshield right at the rear view and sounded like a bomb went off. There was a hole where the bird hit but the rest of the windshield was shattered but holding. There was blood and feathers every where and I was still north of 130mph! Luckily I had a leather jacket on, and sunglasses, so the tiny pieces of glass didn't get into my eyes. I rolled down the window to see (like pet detective) and got the car stopped on the side of the road. The roof was bent, windshield shattered, blood and feathers all over me and the car, and I was in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. Shaken but alive. About that time I could hear the old 6 banger in that pickup I had passed behind me. I turned around and this very old man in the passenger seat rolls down the window in slow motion. The other old fart in the drivers seat was looking straight ahead and never turned. The passenger looked me dead in the eye and says "It aint Duck Season." He rolled up the window in slow motion and those two old farts drove off never to be seen again. I had to drive nearly 130 miles to get to a glass shop that had a windshield for a Mustang. Most of it with my head hanging out the window to see! -Dave
My friend try to kill me yesterday. I was over helping him put the motor back in his 52 Dodge pickup. We were putting a small block Chevy with the trans back in his project. He had the motor all painted and want to put it back in the truck. He already had it hanging on the cherry picker when I got there so I help him get it over to the truck and over the frame. after that I went under the truck to guide the tail shaft of the trans into the trans mount. I just got a hold of the trans when the motor came crashing down on the frame hitting the rad. cross member. smashed the oil pan but that were it sat. I came out from under that truck like my butt was on fire. Here he had and s hook in the chain and with the weight of the motor and trans it broke letting the engine come crashing down. The s hook was on of the ones you use for the swing sets. he used the s hook on the end of the chain to bolt the chain to the motor. Next time I will check other people work before I put myself in harms way again.
In the late 70's when I got my drivers license I had a 70 Nova. Cragars, L-60 Super Chargers, air shocks, cherry bombs, yadda yadda yadda. Late one night I pull in behind our high school to do a burnout with my buddy Mike riding shotgun. Nobody around but us. Wanting to "see the action" I open the door and lean out to watch the rear tire (stupid move #1). So I tach up the motor and dump the clutch. I didn't realize I had the front wheels turned hard right (stupid move #2). As the Nova launches it throws me out the door. I am holding onto the steering wheel with my right hand, the open door with my left hand, my right foot mashing the throttle to the floor, and the centrifugal force of the car doing a donut keeping me locked in that position. Try as I might I couldn't pull myself back in the car. Meanwhile the motor is screaming, tires are squalling and wheel hopping and I am just waiting to either hit something or the motor to blow up. Mike reaches over and pulls me back in the car. Well, that didn't work at all like I had planned. All is well that ends well? That being said... a video of the ordeal would be sooooo cool!
SAme kinda deal helping a freind pull a sbc on dirt... cherry picker flipped over pinned me between said sbc and 700r4 and a 65 chevy pick up
I was 24 had two small boys, in other words, I knew better. Bought a 57 chevy, 327 4spd, been sitting. Clutch was stuck, pulled the car down the street to break it loose. COULD NOT WAIT to drive to work ASAP. Drove it 26 miles to the Dealership, fun but uneventful. That afternoon 7 miles from home I passed a line of 8 cars, hit 115mph plus. Running Good! Got into town and both front wheels splayed out. Cotter pin missing from idler arm, nut gone. Many other dumbass moves. peace
you kicked his dumb ass right? some things just need an ass kicking like almost killing you for being cheap
we had the car jacked up with just a scissor jack at the side, and my friend was under the car putting the driveshaft back on, meanwhile I'm putting the radiator back in and leaning on the car, it moved so close to tipping off the jack, and that car was low, he woulda been crushed for sure!!
That's not dumb, that's RETARDED. Shit. Glad you are okay! That could have been a LOT worse. Especially since your friend would be the one telling the story.
anyone who would let you get under an engine supported by swing set S hooks, isn't much of a friend. how much more would it have cost to get some proper welded hooks for overhead lifting? at least he got some payback with dropping the engine, glad you didn't stop it's fall!!
The Jalopy Journal
