For the gearhead readers. Have you done any bonehead things while workign on your car (or tractor or??)? Autoblog is looking for submissions here, inspired by Car Craft magazine's Stupid Gearhead Stories. Here's my submission:
Oh boy. Let's see.Anyone else got a story to share?1 - Dad's '80 Citation had a bad clutch safety switch, so I occasionally started it by shorting across the starter with a screwdriver. This involved placing my arm between the radiator and the engine past the elbow. One time I forgot to take it out of gear. Thankfully it was in reverse, so I didn't get run over when it started. I managed to get in it and stop it in the neighbor's front yard before it got to their living room.
2 - Putting a clutch in my '80 Chevy Monza, my friend put the clutch disc in backwards. He, my Dad and I spent something like 4-6 hours trying to get that tranny in before we finally took the bell housing off, despite my friend's protests that he was sure it was in right.
3 - My '76 Camaro was dead in the driveway and I wanted to get to in the garage to find out why. The problem was there was no one home to help. No problem for a teenager. I just put the Camaro in neutral and used Dad's '77 Cutlass to push it up the driveway. The right turn into the garage did present a little problem, but by pushing it a little, stopping, cranking the wheel on the Camaro, letting it roll back a little, cranking the wheel the other way and then pushing a little more, I was doing fine. Until Mom and Dad got home. They were not impressed with my creativity.
I'm sure there are more, but I don't remember them now.
My aunt was pulling my uncle's car with him in it, she forgot and he was not amused by her quick turns and fast driving. We still laugh about it years later.
Well Doug, you know my limited experience with cars. (by the way: thanks for the input on my site.)
Here's my story:
The guy who works on the really big trucks at work assured me that it is really easy to change out a set of spark plugs. He said just to make sure I didn't tighten them up too much. "Hand tight", he says.
I finished my project and was extrememly proud that I tackled my first car repair (other than tire changes, that is).
I drove it to work the next day. Well, that's not quite true.
How about, AS I drove it to work the next day, I got on the highway and heard the most amazing BANG come from my engine. The BANG was followed by what sounded like rocks being thrown around my engine. That sound was followed by no sound at all...my engine went dead.
Apparently the mechanic at work and I have different definitions of "hand-tight"!
I put a manual oil pressure gauge in a jeep motor as the electric one didn't seem to work. As it turned out both only showed pressure when it was cool. Anyway, I used the nylon tube that came with it and my dad drove it right after that. It blew off along with all the oil. There was a 90 ft. trail of oil from our house then she ran dry for about 8 miles...next motor.
The next motor I put in I rebuilt and put silicon on the head gasket. It ran great until that blew out and put water in the oil and it overheated and cracked the block. Got pretty discouraged after that but I learned a lot.
Oh yeah...when I clean out my cookies I need to put my name back in.
Anyway, just remembered next motor, (all three in same jeep CJ-7). We found an AMC Ambassador that had a chrysler engine. The jeeps used to have Chryslers so it would fit but instead of a 305 it was like a 400 something I think. Anyway, my brother drove it home from the place where we bought it and looking in the rear view mirror it occured to me that it looked familiar. Then I remembered the first car I remember riding in as a kid was our green AMC ambassador and this one was identical to it. My brother and I went inside and asked my dad what we had and he said green amc ambassador and we said theirs another one in your back yard. We had a good time looking at it and my brother, newly married, decided to use it for awhile. Eventually we put the motor in my jeep. It was big and fit but if you gassed it quick it would torque the motor and the oil filter would hit the frame and it's seal would break and the oil would pour out. We took it easy until we could get a remote oil filter and never had problems until my girlfriend was driving it and guess what...a trail of oil and a lost engine. Three engines same machine. There were actually more engines in that thing as the straight sixes would throw lifter/rods a lot but those are the ones where me's make's my mistakes.