in high school i had a 57 chevy 350 2x4 4speed 4.11:TU: . i could race it all night till sunup on the weekends and the car stayed on about 195-210 degrees. but each morning when i drove it to school it would be very overheated:af: from the normal drive of 3 miles on the highway. for the longest time i couldnt figure out why..... :rant: . . . . . . . . .BTW ... i would store my snare drum in its case in front of the radiator on the way to schoolou: .... the drum stayed home on the weekends
i was lucky enough to learn LOTS of what not to do from my 2 older brothers .... like the time my oldest brother wanted to raise the rear of his 55 chevy by moving the rear leafs to the top side of the rearend... after a couple hours of removing the rearend, plugging the vent, flipping the rearend end to end, drilling a hole and implemanting a new vent, redoing the rear brake lines.... all to install the rearend upside down to get the perches to the top side...he then discovered he had a NEW shift pattern. R was now forward and he had 4 different gears to choose from the go backwards.:Brow:
Just to name a few... Finished a timing chain job, and found the oil slinger on the bench... Ran over my Gibson SG Standard. Long story. I could go on
Hmmm.. Plastigauged the only main bearing surface that was correct. All of the other four were cut too small and the engine had no oil pressure at idle.. Lesson learned.. Then, when I put the engine back together the second time, I could not remember tightening the the cam gear. So, I took it all back apart only to find that it was tight.. Sure does run good now though..
I was out with my fiancee one evening and punched it hard coming out of a corner. BAM! Busted a spider gear. The next day I put the car up on cement blocks to swap rear ends. Of course, I had 3 ton jackstands hanging in the garage but didn't take the time to get them down. :Smarty: She's underneath when the car teeters and falls! ou: Thankfully it stopped falling a fraction of an inch before smashing her face. She still married me.:beers2:
Last spring I took the engine and transmission out, and did some work to the heads, and put in a new cam.. cleaned everything up put the whole thing back together. Got the car going, broke in the cam, go to take it out for a haul on the highway, BAM! no reverse. No forward. Sounds great but doesn't go anywhere! Ended up pulling the transmission because I took those two tabs off the front pump when I installed the converter... :spank: May not be the most serious thing, but man I felt dumb... nothing like a make work project!
Last summer took dads 396 four speed out for the weekend for some exercise, (with his permission) For some reason the last time he worked on the car when he replaced the alternator belt, he installed one that was just slightly too long. Me and a couple buddies took the beast downtown, we were cruising around with my buddies slant 6 duster and a small block 70's camaro. I'd get an open stretch of road on the waterfront with no houses on either side and ganked on it in second gear, powershifted third at about 6500, then blam, thud, thud, thud, thud. I was crapping myself, I thought I'd blown up my dads pride and joy, (I thought I was being pretty conservative, he shifts it at 7400.) Well the long alt belt had whipped off of one pulley and clanged around in the engine compartment and then ejected onto the road at 80+ mph. So turn around drive a half click down the road and we pick up the belt and stick it back on. You would think after that I wouldn't have stomped on it again that night so as to not repeat the belt throwing, well saturday night was still young and I blew that alt belt off 7 more times. One of which me and the duster were jerking around on an empty 4 lane, not racing, but he would accelerate past me and slow down, and I yanked it into second and blew by him at 7000 snapped er into third and then wouldn't you know it that alt belt flew off again, we went and got it and we were fixing on the side of the road when johhny law in the form of two cruisers came creeping slowly by, I thought we were screwed but they just crept by and gave us that 'we know your upto no good' look, so we toned it down a bit. But a blast of a night. Of course were upto no good, a laquer black 396 Nova, a 350 camaro, and a 70 duster, fixing things on the side of the road at 12:30 am.:3gears:
I've told the tale here before, but I have done that on more than one occasion. ou: It's amazing how quickly you can tear it all back down and back together again when you are P.O.'d at yourself! :rant: When I was assembling the '70 Riv's engine a couple of years ago, I thought about hanging it from a string around my neck.
My dad had an old Bronco II that we used to haul around behind his RV. We were on a trip to see relatives in PA and hooked the sucker up for the ride home. He and I both checked that the transfer case was in neutral. We never did figure out who was first to check it and who was last to check it. It was an old car and the transfer case shifter was loosy goosy.... Anyway, I was driving and got on the highway and got 10-20 miles when I'm trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with the RV. I mean I have the gas nearly to the floor GOING DOWNHILL and I'm losing speed. About this time a car pulls up next to the RV and a lady signals me. I roll down my window and she yells, "Your car is smoking!!!!" I pull over and sure enough smoke is pouring out of everywhere on that Bronco II! The passenger cabin is full, it's pouring out of the grill, under the body- at least it didn't catch fire. Moral of the story is you can't get too far pulling a Bronco II at highway speeds when it's in FOUR WHEEL LOW! As my father and I couldn't figure out which one of us was the Dufus, we split the tranny and transfer case repair. ou: My brother had the best line on the side of the highway that day, "Maybe if you just flush the fluids it'll be ok". :laugh:
I bet if this were a boating forum we'd be hearing stories of launching from the boat ramp without checking to see if the drain plug was in the transom. Blub Blub Blub.
Can't make me do it! I've done stupid stuff car related and non car related going way back. If we learn from our mistakes, you are reading the words of a very very smart man! The way I see it is it's only embarrassing if people know when you do something stupid.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world; There are those that have done something stupid, and those that choose not to admit it! There are the classics we have all probably done at one time or another... Such as: - leaving a screwdriver in your back pocket; poked a hole in the seat upolstry - Forgot to put the cap back on the _________ (fill in) before taking it for a spin. - Left a wrench setting on the _______ (fill in) before taking it for a spin. - Didn't block the tires and set the brake before jacking and car started rolling - Not watching where you set the wrench across the battery terminals. - Something else (besides the proper fuse) in a fuse holder, "just to get by for now". Ok... now I think I'm starting to embarrass myself. Sometimes I think my garage is out of an old Benny Hill episode... Erik
Visiting at relative's cabin in mountains and decided to move the car I stored there back a little in their parking area so we could get around it. Took off brakes and put it out of gear and pushed from front. Just lucky it wasn't one of my Buicks or Buick powered Jeeps. Rolled off parking pad and over slope. Missed hitting cabin about 50-100' down the hill by about two feet. Lucky car didn't roll or hit any of the numerous trees and I could tow it out with my Jeep. Oops! Mr. Ed Thornton, Colorado
had the ignsition(spell check) on in my 225 on an incline, let my 2yr. old daughter sit in drivers seat. was at the toolbox when I hear it shift out of park, run out to the car to see my wide eyed daughter headed down the drive.ou: I was able to get to the open window and try to shift it into park, "NOT" you've hear the clicking sound. So here I am steering the car thru the neighbors bushes across their driveway into their front yard where it slowed enough to lock up in park. Neighbors usually have a line of cars parked in the drive none that day.ray: ray: I now chock my cars at the store, when I park:laugh: :laugh:
OK, This is not car related, but it ranks up there in the halls of stupidity. I was changing the oil in a relatively new lawn mower. I had just drained the oil and then became distracted with something else. When I returned to the mower, I had thought I had refilled the crankcase...but nope I left this part out. Needless to say, I cranked it up and had made a few passes over the yard. I wondered why it was making a whizzing noise a short time afterwards which only proceeded to get louder. I then remembered that I had not added the oil. Crap, it was pretty much down hill for that mower after that, it still ran but used a boat load of oil. I did managed to squeak a few more years out of it before it visited lawn mower heaven.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com<o></o>
That reminds me of a time when the anchor was stuck and I tried to yank it out and almost sunk the boat...
