Chances are, if you've been playing with building hot rods and customizing old cars long enough, you've made a few small mistakes. Maybe a few large and ugly ones, too. Often in the pursuit of instant gratification or due to limited funds, I've made ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
I could talk about the time that El Polakco and our buddy Tom and I got drunk and decided (while I was mixing more gin and tonics...) that I needed a convertible - from my beloved, already daily driven '48 Plymouth...
Reminds me of that old country song: "You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel" Also I've had mixed results cutting coils on cars, it all depends on the car. I cut one coil on a 92 Chevy PU, lowered it 3.5 inches, looks great rides fine. I cut 1/2 coil on a 95 caprice and it was bouncing off the snubbers.
Fully rebuilt front suspension- left a cotter pin off the lower ball joint. A month later, while backing out of a parking space, the ball joint broke. Could have been WAY worse. Rich
I was 16. I didn't replace a broken cotter pin on a rear brake drum on a '63 VW Bug. Can't be that important right? Well, my wheel fell off turning into a parking lot. Had to call dad for a floor jack and a cotter pin. What a dumbass! Coulda been waaay worse!
I'm only 26 so I'm sure many of my modifications are like that, but my most recent is getting new exhaust done the week BEFORE I lowered my car. Needless to say I've rubbed it in a few places and my brand new tips don't look so new... Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Had a bus (VW) come into the shop with nails driven in the now gaps where the axle spline 'was' because someone did the same thing. You got away eazy and probably learned a valuable lesson. Mine involved not retorquing lug nuts on Ansen Sprints and having the left rear leave at speed. Pure luck nobody was killed and I got the rim/tire back in one piece.
In a hurry to go to a party when I was about 19 or 20 I forgot to put the clips back in when I changed a u-joint. Stranded on a back road with no lights and girls in the car I climbed under it and put it back together the best I could and limped it down the road a few miles to the party. Had to get the girls a ride home with someone else. That was thirty years ago or more so no cell phones.
Back in the early 80's I decided I wanted to make a tilt bed cover out of metal and roll beads in the top,,turned out pretty good,,then I turned my attention to reinforcing it to help keep it rigid. After consuming too many adult beverages I started welding after I was satisfied that everything was done I flipped over the big ribbed bed cover to discover I had wrapped the cover so bad that there was no way I could ever make it look good. To this day that overpriced mistake is leaning up against the wall as a effigy to stupidity. HRP
Not noticing that all the extra holes in a nitrous plate weren't normal. A "200" shot was actually closer to 450. Oops. The cylinder wall in that block was completely gone from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock, from top to bottom. I still have that block, somewhere. Standard rods don't like that much juice.
I rebuilt frontend, 1 day later trackrod broke at 65mph, took me two years to recover car and myself...
Nothing too serious (yet). Over cut my '49 springs, bottomed the front end of the car out when I let the jack down (luckily I had some of those old aluminum pucks to raise it back up some). Forgot to torque my front wheels on my A and drove it probably 40 KM's before a buddy pointed out my wheel was trying to make it's escape.
Was on break from school doing a bunch of work on my OT 3ed gen. Trans Am. Lost the rear u-joint caps so I bought another and just swapped the caps over, but didn't notice the old seals stuck to the joint. Threw it back together quick (had to be in class the next day 65 miles away). On the way up I went to pass some dude in an old Challenger, really nice one BTW. One thing led to another and we're doing 120+ on this little 2 lane out in the middle of nowhere. I started to feel a funny shimmy from somewhere in back when all of a sudden I hear a big BOOM, a grind, feel something funny in the shifter, and the engine hits about 8k. As I look down I realize I'm just holding the shifter knob, the shifter itself was about 4 inches too low! Look around and my driveshaft is rolling down the road behind me <O</O <O</O The said U joint let go, driveshaft hit the floor pan tearing two big holes in it, in the process I cracked the trans case and split the bell housing in two, only thing holding the trans in was the rear mount Could have been a lot worse, I was very lucky. Still, I can only look back and smile about it..<O</O<O</O
I drove a 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door hardtop in High School. It ate a rear wheel bearing on the 9", and I could not figure out how to get the old one off...so I torched it. Pressed a new one on and off I go. It took about a year, but one day I go around a corner and the rear wheel shoots out from under the car. The axle had broke right at the bearing, the heat had made it brittle.
I made three relief cuts at the top windshield corners on my shoebox, (each one all the way through where the visors mount) when I really only needed one. So it looks pretty crooked and lame inside... But hell, I was 18... One chick that was riding in it noticed and said "Awe, it's like your first tattoos that are all blurry and crappy"
Jaguar XK150 brake job. master cylinder - check push rod - check clevis - check clevis pin - check cotter pin - duh.....
If you didn't do your own work, or most of it there would be no stories. First steering I ever built, if you steered left it would turn right.
No "big" mistakes here (knock on wood). Once I was installing an oil pressure gauge, took the old sender out, routed all the lines inside the cab, hooked up the gauge, started it up, no oil pressure? Walked around front and see a steady stream of oil shooting out of the engine and onto everything! Forgot to hook the tubing under the hood!
Oh boy, i remember when i was a young kid me'n dad got our 57 custom 300 finally going after we painted it. It had been sitting in our shed since before i was born, my dad bought the car when he was about 20. I remember sitting in it pretending to drive it when i was a kid so i was exited...anyway we got the brakes going everything was set to go, so dad said to me "here put the wheels on on that side, ill do this side" as he handed me the lug nuts. i put the steel wheels on the hubs and i remember looking at the lug nuts, i had never put a wheel on before and thought the flat side was supposed to face the wheel like a normal nut....whoops we were driving down the road when we notice a strange rumbling sound haha we were only a few blocks away luckily...now i know how to put a lug nut on hahaha
This one is recent so it still hurts. Needed a gasket for water inlet to head on my 235, but didn't have one and was in a hurry so cut one out of sheet gasket. Traced it, cut it, punched holes for bolts, and mounted inlet to head. Oops! Forgot to cut out center of gasket. Ruined 235 head.
19 years old: Had a 59' Impala with a 348 and replaced the head gaskets. Looking at the gaskets I noticed that the water passage holes seemed to be too small because they didn't match the holes in the heads or block....so I opened them up to the same size. It overheated no matter what I did to the radiator, water pump, etc.. When I complained about the faulty head gaskets to the parts house I was told that the holes were purposely undersized to restrict coolant flow long enough for it absorb the heat from the block.
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