Think your msitake is bad? THE BIGGEST IDIOT MISTAKE OF ALL TIME!!!

Originally posted by Destroyer
Well Im guilty of doing stupid stuff too. When I first got my 67 Olds Cutlass I decided to change the points distributor to an HEI (stock 330ci motor). Anyway, I finally got it done started the car and went for a ride down the block when suddenly the motor started making the loudest knock I ever heard, I had no idea what happened. Took it back home and decided to pull the heads off and inspect, and my hunch was right, a screw fell from my shirt pocket down the carb and it welded itself to one of the pistons and smacked my head up pretty good. After that I pulled the 330 and put in a worked 455 Olds, things were fun after that. Heres a pic of that car.

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damn that's clean!

Nice Car!

A few years back I gave my brother-in-law an old Dodge Colt. It needed a ring job - burning oil. His wife was sitting on the couch with him when I told him he might have to top off the oil every 3 fills or so with (about a quart/litre) usually. Couple of weeks later, he told me he had to rip the car up this steep hill, and couldn't see anything out the back window for smoke, and no power. When he got to the top of the hill, he checked the oil - it was way past full. He asked his wife what happened. She said she "opened the oil filler cap, and it was empty, so I filled it to the top." He's the kind of guy that keeps a couple of cases of oil in the garage. Sure enough there was 9 or 10 missing oil containers in a case. Poor car bled oil from every oriface, and made some new ones too (reminds me of total recall with the eyeballs popping out. Car was useless after that.

We both laughed about it, since it was an old car I gave to him.
Needless to say, she isn't even allowed to put windshield fluid in his new F150...

Ahh that reminds me (funny how the posts in this thread are all starting with that phrase ) of my old 91 Explorer. The girl that had it before me drove the oil leaking bastard until the engine just siezed up and died. The mechanics said the poor little guy must have hung in there for at least fifty miles or so with no more than a drop of oil... They rebuilt the engine and once more as fate would have it, she over filled the engine oil "just to be on the safe side" and killed the engine once more. They rebuilt it a second time and sold it to my dad before she could touch the wheel again. Thank God. Since then, me and my bro have piled upwards of 200K miles on it and we've experienced nothing more than a valve tick as far as problems go.

Originally posted by droptopcobra
you always know to be scared when working with fire or something explosive and you hear "no man, i got it". when i hear that i just...

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lmao

A guy I know was working on his 69 Mach I. He just put a new carb and intake on it. He calls me up and says he can't get the carb to run right and wanted me to come over and help him. I say "your roommate is good at cars, have him tune it for you". He said he was helping him. They couldn't get it to start and it was pig rich and they could see fuel sitting in the intake. I get up and go over. They were all dumbfounded and pretty pissed that a simple replacement job was causing problems. They popped the hood and I instantly fell to the floor laughing. They hooked the fuel line to the full manifold vacuum line on the front of the Edelbrock carb. They got pissed at me for seeing it instantly and laughing. Shesh! Try to help someone and they hate you for it.
Years ago, I finished putting a chevy 350 in a Toyota 4 runner for a friend. I had it running high to seat the cam and the phone rings. It's my girlfriend (now wife) and she wanted to blab. I figured I had about 15 minutes to talk and I could work this while I do it. She was happy that I finally got it running and wanted to hear it. I was trying to put the radiator cap on and my fingers hit the flex fan that was about 3/4" from the radiator without a shroud. That freaking hurt!!! She asked what that clanking was. I said "My hand just got mauled by the fan, I got to go to the hospital. She went on yelling at me for working while I was talking to her.
I am dying reading these!! Keep them comming.
Dave

Originally posted by Dave
...I had it running high to seat the cam and the phone rings. ... She went on yelling at me for working while I was talking to her.

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hahahaha she called you then got pissed for talking to her? hahaha! I'm no stranger to that type of thing! Oh yeah, my hand has been in bandages due to a fan once....it was a chevy fan too

A month after rebuilding my bottom end on my 1st 302 I decided to install my freshly built 69 windsor heads. They were worked they had new manly oversized valves, K motion springs, 30 hours of porting done by a good buddy, and they were o ringed. Well i was pulling the distributor out and dropped the drive shaft down int the bottom end. Stupid me could not get it out for nothing. So stupid me said to myself " self thats why you put all of those magnets in the oil pan ". So with out telling anyone I bought a new drive shaft and installed everthing. I took her for a spin around the block and it was hauling ass until that drive shaft went up through the piston breaking my #1 intake valve. Now I have a brand new KB piston with a brand new manley valve sticking side ways through it. And it only cost me about $1200. The heads were only used for 10 minutes and are now garbage. I just added those to the rest of my conversation peices.

Heres a pretty good one: about 6 years ago (i was 16) I was working at a service station slingin' tires and changing oil. I hear an air horn blow outside, it's the garbage truck. The guy points at my '87 Firebird that's parked in front of the dumpster. No problem, I'll just move it. I jump in and fire up the somewhat cold natured 2.8 v6 and back up, then slam it down in drive and turn to the left. The engine starts to stall, so I pop it up in what I think is neutral and hammer the throttle, but it's actually in drive! So I plow into a Coke machine that is precariously situated on a side walk, which falls on the rear quarter of a brand new Camaro as I look on in horror. I had to pay for body work for the Camaro and my own car, and everyone I worked with had a good laugh.

Oh, another one: I'm at work doing a complete trans service on a '97 Mercedes. I had just finished putting the drain plug back in the torque converter ( which had a metric allen type head that I had to tap a SAE allen socket in to tighten, and is accessed through a small hole in the bellhousing) when the boss tells me to stop what I'm doing and plug a tire. When I finish the tire, he say's 'alright, go fill that tranny up and run it' so I lower the car down, put 7or 8 quarts in it, and start it up. I'm rewarded with a horrible metallic ripping sound and a river of tranny fluid flowing out from under the car. I forgot the damned allen socket, it was still stuck in plug and had ripped a large hole in a $2500 torque converter I spent the entire next day attempting to weld it shut. Didn't work. Had to send it to a real welding shop. Doesn't have a drain plug anymore, but drives OK!

I have two. Both on the same poor car a 94Z28

The first one. After working like 16 hours staright to change the heads intake and cam I was putting the intake back on and couldn't get it to sit flat but I could start the bolts so I decided f*** it and just tightened down the bolts. then after getting the fuel rail, tb and etc.. back on I started to look for the wiring harness and couldn't find it .Turns out I left it-- you guesed it--- Laying in the lifter valley. I even put a bead of RTV right over it. It cut every single wire for the engine harness. The next day and 50 or so butt connectors later It ran great.

The second one started at a friends shop one weekend. It was the local street racer's hangout. We were doing burnouts in his parking and there were about fifty people there. When it was my turn I was having trouble getting centered in the water so with some help I backed up, then forward, then back to get in the water. Then I revved it up to 5500rpm and sidestepped the clutch in reverse. It made the loudest bang I have ever heard. It took almost every tooth off the ring gear. I felt like such an Idiot. That was $1000 plus mistake. I had just gotten 4.10 gears.
I love this thread. It's hilarous

heres a couple, man i realize how dumb i am!!

I worked for a local fleet garage in high school and did a brake job on a cavalier. when I backed it off the rack I was going too fast and hit the brakes, they went to the floor because i hadnt pumped them back up so i smashed into the wall of my supervisors office, shattering the block wall.

a friend of mine put a new intake on his truck and then called me because it wasnt running right. after fixing the timing and vacumn hoses, the truck had no power and was noisy. he finally took it to a dealer that hooked a oil pressure guage to it and found none. come to find out he had left a rag in the lifter valley and it was in the oil pump screen. he ran this for 2 weeks!!

when me and my wife were first dating i tried to impress her by doing a oil change on her probe gt while she was at work. i did it in the parking lot in the dark, so didnt notice the gasket come off the old filter. she hits the interstate and it blows, she never paid attention to it until it locked up!! she should of known i was a douche bag then!!!

dont laugh, but i had a pinto race car and was pulling the rear tire off using a old ladder jack. just as i go to put the tire back on it starts to creel over. by instinct, i grab under the fender wheel lip to pull it back, and when it falls it lands on the tire with my hand smashed between it and the car. no one is around. i cant reach the jack and am ready to pass out when my neighbor finallly pulls up. after showing him how to use the jack i remove my hand that was totally numb and had tread marks for weeks.

also was putting a stereo in my truck and move the shifter to neutral since i was on presumably flat ground. i go back in side after 20 minutes my neighbor tells me my truck is gone i thougt he was joking, but truck was gone. after calling the cops we proceed to look around for it and found it had slowly rolled down my very gentle graded driveway about 80 feet between 2 houses and was in there back yard with out a scratch.

i could go on about the cracked blocks and broken radiators, or the time my wife locked our 6 month old twins up in our explorer, but recalling the visions of half the charleston fire dept. showing up with sirens blaring to unlock the doors are too disturbing!! im done!!!

Originally posted by black143
I have one for you guys. When I first bought my car, it was close to needing an oil change (luckily they left the sticker on the window to tell me that). I decided to do the oil change myself (no big deal right). Well this was my first Ford every buying and didnt know my car had two drain plugs. Well I unbolted the top one, let about 1/2 quart out but that was it. I was like wtf?! Well to this day I dont know why I didnt see the other one but I was like alright then. I put the drain plug back in, put the oil filter on, and filled my car with 5 quarts. Well I'm surprised I didnt blow oil out of my mufflers. I had 9+ quarts of oil in my car! OOPS!

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did that my first time to lol

This doesn't have to do with mustangs but it's still pretty hilarious. There's a local chick that hung out with the rice boys and she had a neon. Woah mama! And she wanted to lower it. So instead of buying springs to lower it like normal people or even getting them cut, she just took the damn things off! Well...she got the slammed look she was looking for but about 3 days later her shocks and struts all collapsed and the car was about 4 or 5 inches lower than stock. She didn't have any money for new shocks or struts and she didn't want to put the springs back on. The car vibrated horribly and about 2 days later the engine blew up due to the atrocious amounts of vibrations! hahaa

she's got a 91 240SX now though. She bought it from a local dealer with an as is, no warranty. 10 minutes after she rolled off the car lot, the engine in that car blew up!! Turns out the car place changed the oil and the gasket from the old filter came off and stuck to the engine. So when they put the new filter on, there was still the old gasket on there from the old oil filter. She towed it back and wanted them to fix it but they just pointed at the words "as is, no warranty" and told her to take a hike! I would absolutely MURDER someone if that happend to me.

my friends with eclipses, when the were cleaning out their intakes with intake spray, one of them got in the car and started reving it like it says, but a rag was close enought to the TB that it almost sucked it right in. and my other friend started spraying some in and the little red tube came off the tip right into his intake, it came inches from falling into his head. as for me i once drove my car to glendale CA from Orange CA (this is when i first got my car and didnt know anything about car) and i noticed it got really hot, so my friend told me to open the radiator and put fresh cold water in, so i said why not?. ever since then i had real bad over heating probs. not to recently i HAD to buy a new radiator. i think it was one of the best investments i made on the car.

also one time i was fixing the sub box in the back of my hatch, and i set the keys down on my tail light (MY ONLY PAIR OF KEYS, i dont have extras...cuz i'm living on the edge) i closed the hatch down on my keys and luckily my hatch is a little Fooked up so i could lift it a little and fish them out with some scissors. haha that sucked

Back in 97 I had a C4 Corvette and I had picked up a supercharger and brackets. I had to fab up my own plumbing for the intercooler and the intake. Well, the way the supercharger sat it was partialy in the fenderwell and partialy under the hood. After getting it all buttoned up I was scared to death to fire it up incase something was wrong (I had a 86 S10 Blazer catch on fire and blow up when I was 16) Well, I finaly fired it up and everything looked great and sounded good. My buddy and I went for a ride around his block. As soon as I rounded the corner I gave it a little gas to bring on some boost PSSSSSSSSSST and POOF! black smoke starts pouring out of the hood. I freaked, pulled over and shut the car off. I yanked the hood release and got out to lift the hood with my buddy. Smoke is still pouring out and the hood wont come up! AHHHHHH CRAP! Now I am thinking my convertable Vette is going to be a pile of melted plastic. We are trying everything to get it open. Finaly we get the hood up. The PCV valve was getting positive presure from the blower and pushed the oil up the dipstick tube and out on to the longtube headers. Where the blower was positioned it wasn't giving the hood enough movement to release the latch. I had a migrane headache after that one from the adrenaline rush I was so scared.

Jess

t

this thread has had me in pain several times from laughter.

I can't belive I've missed this!
I've got a few (cause I'm a dumb ass).
but one that used to happen before I relocated my battery is that when I would pull out the dip stick, the tube pointed right at the battery and the damned thing would touch the positive post and start arching and welding it's self to the thing! it wouldn't shock me but it would scare the hell out of me and I would have to yank the thing off of it. then smoke would come rolling out of the dip stick tube because the oil would be boiling in there.
but the real stupid part is, I did it like three times.

I got a pretty good one I was pulling an Explorer sport trac out of the shop and when I was pulling out I stuck my hand out the window to close the door and then pull out its a big garage door so you have plenty of time to pull out ive done it a million times so I hit the close button and then hit the gas and the car stalls out so I panic and try to start it but it was in drive so I slam it in to nuetral and a guy I work with comes running over and stops the door about a inch from the roof. The same day someone was pulling out and the lot boy opened the door and as he is going out the lot boy hits close instead of stop and the door hits the roof rack of an expedition.

I've done the extra gasket on the engine thing. The bad part was that i swore that i checked to see if it was on the old oil filter. For the life of me i couldn't figure out why oil was spurting out around there even though i tightened the MF up as tight as possible. I must've tried 2-3 different filters and a couple hours later before i got out a flashlight and squirmed all the way under my 72 351 to visually check and god darn it there the extra gasket was.


Another time when my dad and i were putting the manual tranny back into my 89 ranger we had the tranny up on the tranny stand up to the engine. We were lining things and manuevering it.. well i got it in the right place and was reaching under the tranny (arm under the plate of the tranny stand) to start the far side bolts in.

Well for some reason my dad thought the tranny still needed to be lowered a lil bit (read very lil). While my arm was under the tranny jack top plate (holdign the tranny) my dad takes an air rachet and procedes to lower the tranny stand w/o telling me (i could'n't quite see him and wasn't paying attention to him) only instead of lower (abiet too fast) the tranny jack failed and came down all the way with my arm underneath pinning my upper arm under the tranny and the base of the stand.

I swore for about 10 min (in front of my mom and granmother who came rusing out of the house after hearing my initial scream of pain) it took my mom, dad, and my one arm (who could barely fit under the lifted up truck) about 5 min to unstrap the tranny off the jack and shove the tranny off safely so that i could get my arm free.

I spent the next 5 hours in the emergency room (with my dad who hates hospitals, but he was more afraid to stay at home with either my mad grandmother or mom). Luckily it turned out that i had only very badly bruised the bones in my arm (along with the several deep gashes).

When we got home i made my dad maneuver under the car and put the tranny up while i operated the tranny jack. Funny thing is that he hid the air rachet from me that day.

Oh and while i was in the hospital i was lectured about keeping my hands clean and not dirty even after i told them i was working on a car.