Not Buick but, working on a mazda, doing a head gasket replacement. Service Manager hawking me cause customer is waiting and needs the car to go on vacation. So I'm going as fast as I can with interuptions ever 15 minutes for an update when it will be done. I get it together and reach for the antifreeze, low and behold my eyes catch the new head gasket still in the packaging. Talk about rip it all apart and together in record time. Next time I paid more attention to the job than my boss!ou:
When I was around 14 or 15, my brother and I were building something or other that requiring using a power drill. We failed to ensure that the bits were sharp though:spank: My left thumb felt the now broken bit dance across the nail, carving a nice slice through my flesh. It looked similar to Daves thumb.:grin: Just couldn't do it.:laugh: Yup, done that too while taking this smoking hot blond out fishing one day some 15 years ago. We had a good laugh over that. Both her and the boat are now long gone. :ball: :ball: <(over the boat)
When I was in high school I was mounting one of those 100 kraco power boosters for my stereo in my car. Found a nice place for one of the brackets under the dash on the back wall. Got the drill out, drilled a hole, removed the drill bit and green fluid came squirting outou: Drilled a hole right in my heater coreou: ou: ou: Took the heater core out, put a few lead fishing split shots over the hole and got my propane torch out, melted the lead and fixed the hole:TU: Now I always check twice before I drill :laugh: Anyone ever back there car up and over their ramps Do they even sell those things anymoreuzzled:
I drilled a bracket for my stereo amp right in the the headlight wire harness and about burned the car to the ground trying to figure out why my headlights wouldn't work...this was on my 71 convertible:shock:
Got married :error: not once but TWICE :error: ou: BUT :Smarty: no more :laugh: :TU: Sorry--couldn't resist :bla: :bla:
My second car was a 70 Satellite and I didn't know much about cars back then. I took the valve cover off my 318 Satellite cause it had a valve tap ...and it was like a jello mold of sludge. I worked most of it out with a screwdriver but what was left was falling down into the oil return holes in the heads... I got frustrated, took the oil plug out of the pan and sprayed the whole thing off with the garden hose, shooting a strong jet directly into the oil return passages. Once the water stopped coming out of the oil pan, I used up two cans of WD40 trying to displace the water. I suppose the jury is out for how stupid this really was... it ran when the kid I sold it to (not long after) drove it away!
I have dozens but the one that comes to mind the quickest was last march when I put the engine in my Skylark. Engine in, trans in, hooked everything up and the last thing to hook up was the clutch pedal before firing the engine off for the first time, and something didn't feel right. I put the throw out bearing in backwardsou: I was even smart enough to take a picture of it BEFORE installing the transmission, D'oh! I was not happy about having to pull the transmission.
Ok back in the day when I was in junior high my dad would always leave a list of stuff for us to do when we got back from school. On my list was to change the oil in the 78 Park Avenue. So I did as he instructed. When my dad gets back he ask me if I changed the oil and I said yeah. So he takes off and he is only gone for a little bit and comes right back and ask me how much oil I put in the car. I said 5 quarts. So he opens the hood and checks the oil and ask me where I put the oil I took out of the car. I showed him it was still in the pan.Whe take the car to another friend of his and shows him that his car is full and I mean full of oil, and the guy says "well joe if I were you I would patent this car because it seems to producing oil" So we get back and we changes the oil again and tells me to go get the other 5 quart container sitting by the door, and when I get there it hits me, I put 10 quarts of oil in the car. That was one hard walk back to my dad to tell him what I did.
In high school my car would normally be in a parking area away from the garage. But that day, I had backed it up to the garage to wash it or something. Then my dad says, go buy the afternoon newspaper. So in that case, I asked if I could use his 66GS Riv. OKay. So forgetting my car is behind the garage, and being a stupid 17 year old and not looking in the mirror first, I backed the back end of his car rapidly into the back end of my car doing a fair amount of metal bending to both. Nothing like running your own cars into each other to piss off your dad. But he was a good guy and I lived.
I sure do watch close for that. Make the wife come and look if I can't see what I'm doing. Never done it but imagined it a lot. This is an entertaining thread.
The story of the pry bar on the cowl reminds me of one of my big "oops" moments. I was removing the decklid filler panel between the decklid and the back glass of my (at the time) Camaro (in signature). It was held in by factory sheet metal screws to the window frame area and I wanted to undo some of the previous paint job flaws that were on the car when I bought it. One of the screw heads was just barely under the lip of the glass; we're fractions upon fractions of an inch. Needless to say, the screw won, and the glass went "POOF!", all over the freshly redone interior and most of the shop. Could have used a new pair of shorts after that! :laugh: I've also managed to pull the "double gasket" trick on an oil filter change. Makes me double check every time I do it now.
I was putting the heads back on a SBB and didn't like the headgaskets that came in the valvegrind package. I called the parts store and discussed the situation with them. They assured me that the headgaskets were the "new improved" design. I'll bet you know where I'm going with this! I put the gaskets in, completely assembled the engine, started filling the cooling system; there was coolant coming out everywhere. I had to pull the customer's heads and re-replace the gaskets. I think I got home at about 10 PM that night - not in the best possible mood. I now match up gaskets very carefully.
I was replacing a bad power window motor on a 72 skylark. Had a drop light in the door so I could see what I was doing. Got all done and put the door panel back on and saw a big wire sticking out of the back of the door. Stupid me left the drop light in the door.
Ive got some silly ones, but my favorite "Coulda been REAL bad" was when I was only 5 or 6 and Dad and his friends thought it would be cool to do a "FIRE" burnout in front of our house....not a bad idea I guess, but nearly 5 GALLONS of gas is a little excessive, they lit it and of course the fuel running down the curb lit up the neighborhood on both sides!!!!
Ok, this goes back a ways. When I was in junior high school I used to build model cars. My favorite color was candy apple red. One day I was spraying plastic parts when the can plugged up. I tried running a needle into the spray nozzle and that didn't do any good, so I figured it must be the can that was plugged. If the needle would unplug a nozzle it should unplug the can, right? So I sat the can on my mom's stove and proceeded to shove the needle into the top of the very pressurized spray can. Very bad idea. After I got the paint out of my eyes I could see what I had done to my mom's kitchen. There was paint all over the kitchen. After cleaning all the flat surfaces that the paint had stuck to I looked up! Yes, I had to also clean the ceiling. That was about 50 years ago and I still remember that goof.
One of my best was the first th350 I ever rebuilt. Rebuilt it for a chevy truck with a 454 on a Saturday after work, and finished it Sunday. I threw it in the back of the work truck and headed to my buddies house to install it. He was still at work, so I had an hour to kill. Thought I'd go ahead and start gathering up all the bits that attach it to the motor (odd looking cylindrical things with a lump on one end). There at the bottom of the bucket is a very familiar looking snap ring. Oh sh@$! And since Mr. Murphy was watching over me, it was the very first one I should have installed. Yea, the one on the output shaft. Tore the whole damn thing back down on the tailgate of the truck in his driveway. Luckily the Kansas wind wasn't blowing that day or I'd have had to take it back to the shop. Had it back together in less than an hour. Damn thing even worked! Well, until it exploded anyway. If you ever rebuild one with a drum that bolts together with allen head cylindrical things, I would suggest using LockTight on them. And I burned the carpet up in a 85 Celebrity by using a paperclip for a fuse. There was a penny that fell in the cigarette lighter. I guess pennies don't belong there. Or paperclips for that matter.
This thread sure makes me feel better!! My most recent stupid act was my 96 Silverado stalled one day. It would start right up then die, over and over again. I thought it must be the fuel pump so, called my Dad who had to drive 20miles to pick me up then take me 20miles home to get my car trailer. His van won't go in my short garage so we had to winch the car trailer out of the garage so we could get my GS off the trailer, then drive the Van and trailer 20miles to pickup my Truck. I get home, roll it off the trailer and immediately pull the gas tank, and put a new fuel pump in. After about 8 hours of dicking around, the truck still won't stay running. For the first time in this ordeal I opened the hood...(most smart people do that first) just to notice the air cleaner hose had fallen off. ou: could have fixed that with my left hand in 5 seconds.
