I bought a '58 chevy truck about 4 years ago. Never have driven it much due to steering problems and a bad shake at speed. Replaced king pins, wheel bearings, balanced tires, replaced shocks, brakes, had it professionally aligned and it still had a terrible shake and shimmy. Crawled under it today and realized that a "c" clip was missing on the front universal joint. 75 cents later, the truck was driving like a new car! (Okay, a new '58 truck with manual steering, but still!) AAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! This post is 1 in a series of 247.
Here's my best-- In the late 50s I was working my way through school in a paint body shop that ran a wrecker service. In order to meet the police contract we needed a big wrecker so the boss bought burned out International 5 ton for us to fix up. Long wheelbase dual rear axles and a ships winch it was real big. Anyway, it was seldom used and always had mechanical issues. One day we got a call for a big panel truck (like a fed-ex) ran off a small bridge and landed on its windshield in about 10 feet of water. All the clean laundry went forward and was under water ---very heavy. To save the truck it needed to be lifted by its back frame straight up and we rolled the big truck. After a battery jump off we went with me driving and the Boss riding shotgun. The battery box was under my legs and the floorboard cover was loose because of the battery jump. My Boss leaned down to fit the cover with his head in the middle of the seat. Just then I was winding 3rd (5 speed with 2 speed rear) and a car jumped out in front so I went into the brakes without holding on to the knob. The transmission was worn and we all knew 3rd would jump back violently when used in deceleration. Opps cold cocked the Boss! really! Somehow I kept my job. Chuck:TU:
Borrowed the dog dish caps off the Police Sargents Cruiser, then we rode around with them on my GS looking for him, and we found him....
Back in the early 80's a buddy and I worked afterhours part time in a bodyshop.One evening we came in to find a 76 Blazer hit hard in the front that boss man wanted us to tear down and put a used front clip on it.The front bumper was so mangled that you could not get to the bolts to remove them so I got the shop torch set but couldn't locate the cutting tip so I just heated up a bolt cherry red and got a big hammer and hit the bolt with a big glancing blow from the side to konk it off .It worked! but the heated cherry red bolt flew 50 foot across the shop and landed right in the open top of 5 gallons of used lacquer thinner at the paint mixing bench.We were expecting a explosion and to burn down the body shop full of cars but thankfully nothing happened:laugh:
I think my favorite was trying to see if the 318 in a dodge challenger would turn over, many years ago. It had no carb, only a starter and ignition components. No steering wheel, no gear shift, no brakes, just an empty shell with a motor. After hooking the coil and distributor up, dropping a splash of gas into the intake, and hitting the starter, it started right up for a second or two! We figured we could "regulate" our gas pouring into the intake and see if we could keep it running, which did not work well... First, a backfire out the intake set the glass cup of gasoline on fire... So my buddies dad decides to do the smartest thing, TOSS IT!! Which of course, increased the flammable surface area of the gasoline exponentially. The second fun part of this adventure, was after we stomped the backyard out, we tried it again... and we were semi successful... got the engine to rev up. However none of us had the foresight to see if the car was in gear..
Ok, About 1980 or so I was working in a hobby shop and in walks this little old lady wit a sad look on her face. She reminded me of my grandmother and she asked if I could help her? Her Plymouth Volare wagon would not start and I had a mechanical background so out into the parking lot I go to do my good deed for the day. Well just as she had said, the car did absolutely nothing when she turned the key and she said she'd never had that problem before. I can remember that car like it was yesterday, almost a chocolate brown. Like a big piece of well you know, Chocolate. Those Mopars all had fenderwell solenoids on them so out comes the trusty pocket knife to see if it's the switch or the starter and zap boom crunch. She had the shifter in reverse and that's why the car would'nt start until I jumped the solenoid and then it started immediately and backed right into a UPS truck. She was stunned but ok and I was embarassed and the UPS guy was po'd so back in the hobby shop I went but with a renewed respect for neutral safety switches. Come to think of it, That Volare wagon was about the same color as that UPS truck.
Whoa! This thread is jinxed. Just today I was getting the last of my stuff out of a storage unit that a buddy and I have shared(he paid, I stored:shock: ) and lo and behold I had a new stupid moment to add. About 10 years ago I parted out a couple of Skylarks and a GS and had most of the glass stored and "had" a perfect rear windshield until this morning. While trying to rearrange some stuff in my Jimmy to make more room I lifted one end of the backglass and KABOOM! I guess it was caught under something on the other end and my leather interior had a really bad glass rainfall. I can only hope the same bad luck does not befall anyone else who has posted here. Here's what that looks like. Duhou:
Yup, been there done that. Years ago I was moving some door glass I had saved when the 71 was getting painted. I picked it up and was holding it right in front of me. I must of just banged it against something just right and POW- the damn thing shatters right in front of my face. I was standing there with my arms in front of me and no more glass. The exploding glass made little nicks in my eyeglass lenses. Thank God I was wearing glasses! ray: My face had little cuts as well. You got a mess on your hands, but Im glad you werent hurt. :beers2:
My 58's back glass mysteriously exploded when it was sitting on the basement floor (carpeted). I put it there the nigtht before, and came home after work the next day to find a pile of tiny little glass pellets in the shape of a curved rear window on the floor. Try finding one of those in good shape.ou:
Back in 69 when I was 16 I worked in a gas station when they were full service. A friend kept pleading with me to get him a job there but he knew nothing about cars, absolutely nothing. I finally relented and talked the owner into hiring him. The first day he was filling up a pick up truck and back then the gas tank was behind the front seat. You filled them from the filler cap at the drivers door, door handle high. The driver had the window open while "Tommy" was filling the truck. When Tommy took the nozzle out of the tank he kept the trigger pulled and sprayed gasoline all over the driver and interior of the truck. He never learned where all the items were we checked, oil, coolant, brake fluid, power steering and tires. He just could not get the hang of it. On another occasion a week after the fueling disaster he put a quart of oil in a radiator and that was his last day. Personally I ripped the drivers door off my 61 Chevy backing out of the garage. I've put the trans and drive shaft back in but forgot the throwout bearing in my 69 Valiant. In a blinding white out in a snowstorm I got tired of waiting for it to let up to see. I was afraid I was going to get rear ended so I decided to just gas on it to cross a main highway hoping no one was coming. Wrecked my 69 Pontiac, a pickup truck and a sheriffs car. Installed a timing cover without the oil throw ring on the crank in my 71 Electra. Had it running filling the radiator when I found the ring cleaning up. Drove 400 miles without the loading ramps in the car hauler. The worst though was; I am an A/C contractor and was repairing a freon leak in a huge evaporator in a department store. The leak had sprayed oil everyhwere and refrigerant oil is extremely flammable. The evaporator was 8' long, 6' wide and was horizontal about 2 feet off the floor of the air handler. I had to lay on my back and crawl and clean my way in mopping up the oil that was everywhere before I could find the leak and braze the copper line. I cleaned as much as I could and proceded to braze the crack but flame spread everywhere overhead and was spreading down the walls to the floor on all th oil residue that was there. The heat was building fast and I crawled out on my shoulder blades at lightning speed. I was hoping I could get back in and extinguish it before the fire alarms went off. I keep 2 20# CO2 extinguishers handy for my work and it only took one of them to put out the blaze. Fortunately the box only had one way to feed oxygen to the fire and that was through the access door I used to get in. The CO2 did its job and put the blaze out quickly without the smoke/heat/fire alarms going off. No one ever knew. The fire burned off the oil and I fixed the leak. The list is endless. Mikey
THE ONE THING THAT I DID STUIPID WAS BREAKING IN MY NEW 455 WITH A V6 DIS WITH A V8 DIST CAP!! I BOUGHT IT USED FROM SOMEONE I WONDERED WHY IT DIDNT SOUND RIGHT. ALSO RAN IT OPEN HEADERS LOL ou: THAT WAS ALONG TIME AGO
Adam, you failed to mention the oil was about 35*!!! Damn was that cold.ou: Back in about 87 I was driving the GS when I heard a strange clunk. Pulled over to see if something was broken, only to find the idiot (me) had installed the wheels and forgot to fully tighten one wheel!!!:error: I was lucky to find it before it left the car. Now, I usually check 3 times before driving. .:3gears:
Not to mention the time I did an all nighter in the heat of summer (upper 90's) on my 350 rebuild. About 4:30 am I installed the shim kit on the oil pump. I subtracted instead of adding the clearance I was after. Anyway, it was very easy to find the problem on the dyno (you know, after shearing the distributor pin and wasting the pump shaft).:af: ou:
Years ago, on my old 67 Skylark 4-door, the rear u-joint was causing a driveline vibration. I bought both u-joints and figured that I'd replace both of them while I had the driveshaft out. My dad looked at the front u-joint and said it was fine, so I left it alone. We replaced the rear joint, and re-installed the driveshaft. The next day, I was hauling ass on the interstate when things got violent. I pulled over, thinking I had a flat tire or something. I couldn't find anything wrong, so I started back down the interstate, and then it started shaking again. I looked under the car, and I'd slung off one of the front u-joint caps. I was about 40 miles from the house, and I figured I'd limp it down the shoulder. Anything over 15 mph caused the driveshaft to hit the hump in the floorpan. When I got off the interstate, there was a stop light at the bottom of the ramp. When I came to a stop, I heard a clunk, and that was the driveshaft hitting the pavement. The front of the driveshaft was destroyed. It cost me $150 for the tow truck and the repaired shaft, for a $13 u-joint that I had IN MY HAND, and my dad told me the old one was fine. Worst of all, my dad walked out of the house when I got towed in, and said "Well, that'll teach you to listen to me, won't it!!" -Josh
15 years ago I worked for a car audio shop. We did most of the installations for the surrounding dealers. In comes in a brand new 4 door Explorer with 3 miles on it for a CD changer. After the installation was complete I started backing the truck out of the garage, looking over my right shoulder. Never noticed the drivers side back door was open. ou: We have to have the spider gears welded in our race cars. During a routine inspection my friend noticed one of the welds broke loose. I grabbed a can of brake cleaner (that's all we had at the time) to wash out the remainder of the gear oil. He immediately jumped in with the welder and we found out that brake cleaner ignites very quickly when presented with a welding arc. Good thing hair grows back.
Not only is it flammable, it's downright dangerous! Ever hear of phosgene gas?! Inhale one little puff of that stuff and your nervous system is fried for life- If you survive the ordeal.
I..... Sold my 68 Buick Riv with 455, 1st car I got @ 12ou: :ball: Only 20 now but I atleast picked up a 69 Skylark:beers2:
