What are some... oh yeah... duh moments?

Ha classic!

 

was gonna make a parts run so the (former) boss says take my truck, headed out the door he hands me a bank deposit and off I went, got the parts and headed to the bank drivethru, noon on friday so there a long line in front and behind me.

get to the window and realized that this truck is a dually and I'm now fully trapped by the fuck you poles just in front of the rear fenders and 20 cars bumper to bumper behind me.

 

Growing up I was always the kind of kid that was not afraid to tear into anything. At seventeen, I had a 55 Chevy that I had been working on for three years. When I first got it on the road it had a BW T-10 four speed that a local circle track racer had given to me to donate to the cause . Needless to say, my seventeen year old budget did not include a rebuild of the tranny. I drove the car around for about a month before third gear decided that enough was enough and left me stranded one night. I then decided that an automatic would be less maintenance and more durable. I find a 350 turbo that was "rebuilt" for a hundred dollars. I get the tranny and one of my buddys on a Friday night and we go to work on the swap. Everything seems to be clicking right along ( I don't know if it was the beer or if we were that good). We get to a stopping point and come back the next morning to finish it up. I'm getting excited at this point because we are getting close. I'm under the car installing the driveshaft and the crossmember, my buddy is up top connecting the vacuum lines and the tranny lines to the cooler. We finish up and I jump in the beast to take it for a ride. I pull out of the garage and head down the street, but wait a minute somethings wrong.......it's not shifting! I turn around and pull into the garage and tell my friend that this tranny is a piece of shit and we need to take it back out. After I calmed down a bit I decided to check everything out before we took the tranny back out. Then I see it! My dumb ass buddy shoved the vacuum line over a cap on the carb that I had plugged off for the 4-speed. I jump in and take off again. Tranny shifts fine then all of the sudden it sounds like a hand granade goes off under the car. Guess who forgot to put the internal clips on the universal joints!

 

Duh moments? Is that why they call me Dumb Guy at work?

 

When I was a kid we lived on a ranch with a lot of "Scrub Oaks". One in particular behind our house was about 5' in diameter and well over 100' tall. One of the limbs was getting close to the roof, so dad decided it had to go. A friend of his was a real tough guy and big drinker, and had this monster McCulloch chainsaw, so dad invited them over for lunch and a few drinks, then they decide to cut the limb off the tree. The friend climbs up on a big extension ladder and begins sawing the limb off. I was around 6 or 7 at the time, but I noticed something wrong. I kept yelling at my dad and tugging at his arm, but he just pushed me away and told me to keep clear and shut up. OK! A couple minutes later, there is this huge CRACK and the limb begins to go, along with the ladder, friend and giant chainsaw. Dad's friend had the smarts to throw the chainsaw away as he fell, so he "only" ended up breaking his arm. Yup, you guessed it...he climbed the ladder, which was set against the limb, and cut the limb off on the tree side!

My dad just turned around and stared at me, but after that he always took a little more interest in what I had to say...

 

Sounds like what I did a few months ago. I was turning the engine with a socket and breaker bar to install a distributor.I didn't think to remove the tools when I fired the engine. I heard a BANG and shut off the engine. The breaker bar had hit the frame, the socket stayed on the balancer bolt head, and spun the bolt right out of the crankshaft! I picked up the bolt and washer off the floor and screwed the bolt right back in. Didn't hurt a thing!

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=553188

sorry couldnt resist.

 

Done that!

 

I always carry my cell phone in my shirt pocket.
So I call my honey to tell her I'm on the way.
As I'm walking out of the shop and talking to her and pat my pocket to check for my phone and it's not there so I said dam I have to go back for my phone and head back toward the office , then she said what the hell are you talking on ?

DUH

 

Spent two weeks on and off trying to take a wheel off a '68 Chrysler.
Heat, breaker bar, drill - nothing worked.
Vaguely remembered something about LH threads, so I check the other front wheel. Nuts come off no problem, so I figure that they're RH threads as 'normal'.
Back to the offending wheel. Stuck solid.
After 2 weeks I finally saw the 'L' stamped into the end of the stud, turn it the other way and it pops right off.
So Chrysler decided to make the driver's side lugnuts LH threaded and the passenger's side RH threaded.*

 

I remember as a little tike watching my Dad curse like hell, and twisting a lug wrench trying to get a flat off his '62 Tempest not realizing the driver's side was left hand thread.

 

my cousin has a '65 dart and after he put his freshly built mopar 318 in it , when he got under it to bolt the torque converter to the flexplate.....UH OH, no where to bolt it to, he forgot to put the flex plate on the engine before he dropped her down in there, had to pull it out again and do it right , safe to say he got plenty of training on removing and installing and engine in a '65 dart

 

Rebuilt the four banger in my daughters Escort years ago...all went well till i fired it. It started but had a bad miss, I checked and rechecked the firing order looking at the manual I had bought for the rebuild... yup just like they showed. Took the engine about halfway back apart looking for what was wrong, couldn't find anything wrong so i reassembled it and it ran the same way....looking at the manual again I flip the page...there's the other firing order for an Escort, changed two wires and it ran like a newly rebuilt motor. I stood on top of my right front tire on a fenderless straight axle car to grab something out of the rafters in the shop and realised I had just jacked up the front axle..as i was falling onto the tire I looked over at the other front tire with a sheet of glass leaning against it, then watched it fall over and shatter as i bounced off the tire and onto the floor. All i could do was laugh too.

 

Well.... Just the other day I had a GM power steering pump all apart to put new seals in, clean it up, and paint it.. Got it all cleaned up, painted a nice black and gold, slip the can back over the pump.. bolt it together, and bolt the brackets up to it... and press the freshly painted pulley on. then I look over at the vice the pump was clamped in... and stuck to the jaws was the magnet that goes inside the pump... Pull it all back apart, touch up the paint, put the magnet in, and back together it goes...

and the second one happened a while ago... went to the gas station to fill up... pulled up to the pump, hopped out pulled the nozzle, and looked at the side of my car.. no gas door... ah! wrong side... hang pump up... flip the car around... get out, pull the nozzle.. no gas door.... hmmm........... shit........ look around to see if anyone noticed, pulled down the rear license plate, spun off the cap and filled her up.. This was on my '80 Olds Cutlass I've owned for 6 years..

 

I haven't got that many hands.

 

Yup... been there, seen it, done it, got the t-shirt... lots of sweat and cursing, and a search for an ever larger pipe to gain leverage on the breaker bar. Good thing I didn't torque the wheel studs so hard I broke them!

 

LOL.... This made my day

 

Doing an engine swap on an Olds years back with my father. Distributor is in, lets turn the engine over to make sure we're not a tooth off. No carb on yet, no wires or cap. Turn engine over, gas shoots out and directly into the distributor, the points arc and then an instant ball of fire.

 

many years ago put an electric fuel pump on my ot 72 Nova with a built straight 6cyl that had been using a mechanical pump . all new fuel lines and etc. decided to fire her up, but forgot about the fuel still in the block mounted pump that i hadn't removed. the engine fired and then burst into flames as the fuel spraying from the mec. pump found the plug wires. fortunatly my dads boat on the other side of the garage had a fire extingisher. I think i only took about 3 steps total to get it and let me tell you they make a hell of a mess when discharged. DUH!!!!!!!!!