three more, a tire weight and a hose clamp will make a drive shaft vibrate. Pull your dipstick, take a sniff and tell the guy next to you"smell this" then in one swift move press it under his nose and pull back, in the shop where I worked we had a been there done that guy who was a legend in his own mind, I got sick of listening to him so I cut a piece of shim stock to fit under the carb of his rig punched two 1/2 holes in it and bolted the carb down, the rig would not run above 1200 RPM with a load on it but would come up to full RPM no load.
I gota running, beater 4door '50 Ford for cheap this past spring. I took it to my buddy's shop to use his pit to get a good look at the under side to make sure things were safe enough to drive. Well that led to some more friends stopping by and that led to drinking a bunch o' beer. I was sittin out back(by the beer bucket) and they tack welded my rear doors shut. It was pretty funny when I tried to get my jacket out of the back seat later on. It took about 30 seconds of pulling before I figured it out. They even painted the tacks. The doors are still that way. The way I see it, it's worth more now 'cause it's a 2 door.......
I useta chew a piece of paper and then pull the coil wire out of a car, and stick the wet paper in the cap, then replace the wire. The car would start and run until the paper dried up, then stop dead. I'd follow along and "fix" it for the poor shmuck.
I worked for a windshield replacement company and I took a coworkers van pumped a 1/2 pint of ATF and using a suction gun into his muffler, he was SURE he had blown a head gasket and had to drive the junk van for a few days (and it was JUNK) he tried to even the score by removing the window cranks and inner door handles on my van (mid 80's G-20) that was had a wall built in it between the front and rear thus locking me in my van. After I got out I used 4 tubes of windshield urethane, one under each tire of his NEW mid 80's Monte Carlo glued it right to the concrete! still not sure how he got it free but he bitched about the wheel thump for WEEKS!!
I worked for Firestone back in th early 80's. We had a battery display with real battery cases but they were just the empty case. They were real light and looked exactly like the real battery just nothing inside. We would get one and carry it with both hands like it was heavy then pretend to trip and throw it at someone. It always got them. The old honk the horn when someone is looking under the hood always works too.
Someone did this to me at a McDonalds as a kid. They put a bead of cheeze wiz on each of my windshield wipers, no big deal, didnt even notice it at first. As I was driving away I finally spotted the bead and wondered what the hell that was on my wipers. Instinctively I flipped the wipers on and BAM! my whole windshield was completely smeared. I gotta give whoever did that to me credit, it was a good one... I pull that one out every once in a while.
When I was a teenager my cousin had a Buick Vertex mag in his hands. It had no cap on it. Just the 2" pecker that goes up into the cap. Harmless right? Until he spun the drive gear. He chased me all over the garage spinning the gear trying to get close enough to get the spark to jump.
At the station I worked as a kid, there was a guy that couldn't take a joke. So, obviously he became the butt of most. The prank I was most proud of happened on his last day. I took a pair of old vise grips and crimped his rubber fuel line coming out of the tank pick-up. It allowed him to get about two blocks away before it died. We eventually had to go help him out after about 20 minutes of laughing.
I spoke to an older gentleman that as a kid he used to tie butchers string across the opening to an old covered bridge he lived near. He said the shadow made by the weak 6v lights at the time made the string looked like a rope scaring the drivers to slam on the brakes.
Funny! Reminded of something we used to do during high school: Two of us would stand in the middle of the road, and when we saw a car coming, we would pretend to unwind some "string", each of us walking backwards into the woods. The driver of the approaching car would usually stopped, stared and try to figure out where the "string" was. Sometimes they would actually get out of their car and swing their arms around trying to feel the "string". Also, in our neighbor hood, during snow storms, kids would build snow men in the middle of the street. Driver's usually fearing that there might be rocks buried in the snow men would weave in and out of the many snow men in the street.
A buddy of mine had just bought a rusty '65 ford fairlane. Big holes in the floor pans with rubber floormats to keep your feet from dangling like fred flinstone. I had just rebuilt a mini cooper A+ series engine and had a bunch of old engine parts, pistons, trans gears and a bin of rusted metric nuts and bolts that i was just going to toss in the trash. I told him we should have a little fun with the car show that was happening that Friday night. (I live in Burbank so im sure you know what little car show takes place every friday night). My buddy just put on a new edelbrock 4 barrel carb that he couldnt fine tune just right. So everytime he decided to rev his engine (to hear his rusty exhaust pipes roar) his fairlane would sputter and then stall. Which works perfectly for what i have in store. We pull up into the parking lot of said car show. I have a box of those old car parts sitting in my lap. As we drive through the small crowd of people oogling over the cheeried out cars and his loud and obnoxious rust bucket that he was reving ever so loudly, It of course starts to sputter and just before it dies, i lift up the rubber floor mat and dump the box of rusty old parts out. The fairlane rolls a few feet and dies. Everyone just stopped and stood staring at us with all these parts left in a trail behind us. My buddy starts his car, after a few tries of course, and we take off. We ended up just making a big circle around and pulled up next to the trail of parts. we both jump out, grab as much as we could of those parts and threw them in his trunk and took off. We didnt go back to that car show for a long long time. And i cant really recall what the looks on peoples faces were that night when we came back for a majority of those engine parts, but nobody moved, it was like everyone was a statue. I still think it was funny as all hell, and got all excited again just writing this.
As kids we used to take white chaulk and draw a line across the street then stand on each side with a piece in our hands,when a car would come we'd jerk on the string causing the driver to slam on the brakes.Of course we'd run like hell with the driver shouting profanities at us. We were rotten back then. We also did the condenser thing and if you really hated someone stick some limburger cheese near the heater.
The same gentleman said a couple times a summer someone would drive into town lost and ask for directions back to the highway. He said he would show the drivers how some of the utility poles in town were taller than the others, then instructed them to follow the taller poles and that would take them back to the highway. He said it was real humorous when they rolled back into town on another road about 30 minutes later.
I used to take the balancing weights off rims when I was younger and clip them on one side of the car and just laugh, the car would wobble and shake it was hillarious !
We used to support the rescue people with helicopters and fuel during Elk season in eastern Oregon my Friend put a smoke bomb on the state cops car and of course it went off and we all laughed at him, when it was time to pack up and go home my Friend jumped in the fuel tanker and took off, 10 miles or so down the road the truck began to stink, not just stink but wreak, he pulled over and lifted the hood and there was the road kill coyote the state cop had put on the manifold it was fried on there and stank for days.
A buddy of mine was getting maried and his soon to be wife, knowing how much we like to mess around with each other, gave us strick instruction not to do anything to ruin the wedding. She made a list of the standard wedding pranks, gave it to us, and made us promise not to do any of them. This didn't discourage us but it did force us to be crative. We figured that anything we did had to take place after the wedding. So me and another freind went out to the parking lot durring the reception and wired a whole frozen fish to the top of the catalytic converter. They left the hotel next morning to go on there honeymoon. They were gone for a week and said that the smeel of fish followed them every where they went. They still don't know that it was a fish that was straped to the exaust.
My dad has always been a prankster. My first exposure to a flathead was the stocker in his '50 Ford Tudor with plug wires and no boots. It was sitting in the driveway idling with the hood up and he says, "Hey, that plug wire looks loose." "No problem d-d-d-d-d--d-d-dd-d--d-d-d-d-d--d-d-d-d--a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a--d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d." Asshole. I still owe him for that one.
A mechanic in a shop where I worked years ago was pretty sneaky, he would take a lid from a spray can and fill it about half full with metal shavings from the brake lathe and pour in a small cap full of battery acid, when you left your work area he would hide it under your work bench. The smell was so bad that it would clear everybody out of the shop, it smelled like rotten eggs.
The auto tech school I attended years ago had a couple students that qualified to participate in the old Plymouth Troubleshooting Contest. A local Plymouth dealer sponsored them and supplied a new car for them to practice on, similar to what was being used in the actual contest. I don't think the instructors could have had any more fun booby trapping that new car for practice sessions. They'd take a terminal off the battery post, wrap electrical tape around the post, clamp the terminal back on and trim the tape off flush so you couldn't see it. Take a roller out of a roller bearing and stuff it into the end of a vacuum hose for the EGR valve or vacuum advance. Cut a couple thin slices off the end of a piece of rubber hose and use them to insulate the terminal going to the starter solenoid or a ground wire. Once the guys managed to get this rig running again, the actual contest was a piece of cake! Of course these same instructors would watch as you pulled the distributor out your car and mounted it up in the distributor machine. As you were spinning the distributor, the teacher would call your name and as you looked to see what he wanted you'd see him reaching into your car and cranking the engine over (and laughing) so you had to retime everything to put the disrtibutor back in. Next time you'd think you were being smart by taking your keys out, but you'd look back and he'd be on the floor with a big screwdriver shorting the starter solenoid and spinning your engine over. And laughing even harder! By the end of that course, everyone knew how to find TDC for #1 cylinder on the compression stroke.
Hide a little Ford friction modifier (posi trac lube) on a shop rag. It will stink the entire area of somthing rotting. the fun has only begun when the rag is found because the stuff tracks real easily and everything that is touched begins to smell
we used to make freon bombs, purge a antifreeze jug with r-12 tighten cap and set in sun.hour or so and bang, would scare the shit out anybody near
When I was in auto shop back in the 70's we tossed charged condensers at someone to catch. Only a couple times, and you let it drop. OR - wind an .010 guitar string around the end of your tailpipe, then cross once across the open end, wind some more around the pipe, and secure. You could back up to a big glass window, rev the motor and when the guitar string hit the right pitch - the window would crack.
The last one I bought from the magic shop at the mall said on it that it doesnt work on electronic ignition. That may be why you dont see them anymore. Its kinda like buying safe fireworks these days.
ok i know everybody in here has at least one friend that fancys himself as a ''master engine builder'' right? And every time a engine is brought up, that one friend will boast........ ''my _______(engine displacement) is bored,stroked, and BALANCED AND BLUEPRINTED'' and i dont know about you guys but i get so tired of hearing ''balanced this and blueprinted that and blah blah'' so this is how you deal with that: 1- get yourself a wheel weight and a zip tie. 2- place the weight on your ''balanced'' buddys beloved driveshaft 3- zip tie in place Now when your ''balanced and blueprinted'' buddy jumps in his rod and heads downtown............as soon as he gets up to about 3000rpm his beloved rod will start shaking like a ten year old having a seizure. The look on your buddys face will be priceless
There was a rent-a cop that would stop at a gas station we hung out at as teenagers. We would jack up one rear wheel just so it was off the ground, after a couple of weeks he would stop checking and we would do it again. Along with the stones in the hub cap trick. After a while he just laugh it off. Times were different in the 50's.
For April Fools Day the oldtimers had previously drilled a hole in the concrete driveway/sidewalk in front of the shop door so they could screw in a 50 cent piece (when's the last time you saw one?) that had a screw soldered to the bottom. Then they'd work all day with one eye on the coin and laugh at every Fool after he/she tried to pick up the coin.
This reminds me of my High School English teacher,..... she just hated me, and as hard as I tried, she flunked me the first two of the three card markings,..... so the third card marking was all mine,..... I bought a little over two pounds of Limburger cheese and put half of it on either side of her carburetor right on top of the intake ( I think it was a 61 or 62 Studebaker Lark ) you could smell that car from yards away,..... She also bent the bumper on it once, and brought it into the Auto Shop to see if we could fix it,.....,.. So the instructor wraps a chain around one of those cement posts in the ground in the bull pen area, and then to her bumper, he puts little Chuck in the car and tells him to back up slowly,.... so he does, nothing,..... he tells him to come forward a couple feet and do it a little quicker,... this got just a little activity,... I was standing next to the drivers door when he told chuck to pull forward again and do the same thing,.... so Chuck looks at me and asks "what did he say?",..... So I told him to pull back up to the pole and floor it in reverse ! The bumper now was bent way out the other way,.... by the time she came back to pick it up it looked just terrible,..... and as a bonus Chuck got in trouble for goofing around.
The Jalopy Journal
