Technical Brain farts and other acts of intelligence.

It looks like it’s time to get the Kerosene and Red Rags out.

 

My wife came back after being divorced for twenty two years. Didn't remember why we divorced in the first place so we try'ed it again. After about one day I remembered what went wrong the first time. So after a day of make up sex I kicked her out for good this time

 

@VANDENPLAS , can you remember what it is you did to piss off Vulcan (the Roman god of fire)........

 

Too much time spent laying tributes at the altars of Robigus and Hermes?

Cheers,
Harv

 

I never thought of it that way..... Cool, we have "Gods of the hot rod".

 

"Gods of the hot rod"? Where did that come from? Robigus is the Roman god of rust and fungus. I'm pretty sure there's a shrine to him in my shed. Hermes is the Greek god of travelers, thieves and shepherds, particularly goat herders or whatever else those guys do with goats . Now, I have met several goat ropers down in Texas, where there's a very large culture dedicated to that particular art form. Aside from one dude who drove an F1, all the rest drove giant OT pickups .

 

Easy, be selective and choose the descriptions that suit the outcome you want. It's what most people do every day...
For Robigus, choose "rust"........... (The ancient Romans believed the rust fungus on the wheat was the same as rust on their metal)
For Hermes, choose "travel"......... (This was one of his fields of expertice to the ancient Greeks)
Just ignore the fact that we are dabbling in both Roman and Greek mythology.
If you prefer, use Mercury instead of Hermes.
I believe that praying to Robigus to ward off rust, and to Hermes for safe travels, fits in fairly well here.

.......and sometimes Vulcan reminds us of our ineptitude, and how soft our flesh is.
Internal combustion.... GOOD. External combustion.... NOT SO MUCH.

 

Thank you for a simple and very good answer to my question . However, it brings me to another . Are you a stand-up comedian in real life ? If not, you should consider it because you would be really good .

 

I've had two giant brain farts lately. Both involved my lousy eyesight and useless rear view mirrors. First, I backed the pickup into my '42 Ford left rear fender. Smooshed it up pretty good. I'm here to testify that those fenders are tough. I had to drill holes in it and run a bolt with a plate inside and hook a come-a-long to the pickup to pull the damn thing out enough to get the gas cap off.
Next, I did the same exact thing to my '48 Windsor. I think I can work it back out because this fender is really thin and a lot more flexible. Don't get old and senile. Trust me, it's not really worth the effort.

 

It probably won't make you feel any better, but there doesn't seem to be any way to dodge this getting old thing . Right after I got the current engine in my absolutely straight bodied '46 Merc four door, I was carefully backing down my driveway and bashed the right rear fender on the stump of a tree I had just cut down . If I'd just left the darned tree alone, I could have seen that .

 

Bruce Slicks on a timed run

Hello,

I had just dropped off my friend at his Bixby Knolls house. He wanted me to step on the throttle as I drove away. We had been cruising around the whole circuit of Belmont Shore to Lakewood and in our Bixby Knolls area. We heard rumors about several races taking place on Westminster Blvd in Seal Beach, so we went there from Belmont Shore, to expand our cruising grounds.

There were no types of races on the long empty stretch of road. We were well prepared as we had put on my set of Bruce Slicks for the Impala. But, to no avail. On the way back to Bixby Knolls, a 55 Chevy pulled up next to us and at the green light, he was dust in the wind. That made our empty night, as we were smiling all the way back to the drive-in parking lot in Bixby Knolls.


Jnaki

The Bruce Slicks held up and one last time, I stomped on the gas pedal to accelerate heading home. Ater some excitement, I was calmly driving on the local streets and had not noticed that it was getting a little misty or some light fog. But as soon as I drove through the wisp of fog, it cleared up. So, normal driving all the way home. or so I thought…

I may have been daydreaming about the 55 Chevy left in the dust and the fun we had with the Impala. as I got to a stop light that just changed as I was nearing the crosswalk, it was now red, so I slammed on the brakes. A combination of late night coastal mist, some fast moving fog patches and a slightly moist road surface sent me into a tailspin at the pressure of the brake pedal.

I did not expect that, but here I was spinning around sliding into the intersection. Luckily, no one was around and I spun once around, before I realized enough to let off of the gas pedal and brake. Then the weight of the car in a spin settled down and I came to a halt facing the on coming traffic lane (without any cars)

It was only a few blocks to my house and it seemed like it took forever to pull up into the driveway. Slow and steady wins the final race… YRMV (besides, I was a teenager and not a wise old man… ha! Lesson learned)

 

I was on a LNG storage tank job in Kazakhstan in the winter and we were getting off of the bus to go to the trailer offices and walking over the unlit paths that we always did. I was still tired because we got up before the sun as usual and as I was walking between two trailers I nailed the corner of a support for an a/c unit. It rattled my teeth and I was seeing spots I hit it so hard. The line kept walking and once we got inside a co-worker asked me if I was okay and as she was talking her face changed, I started to feel the blood flowing and starting to cover my face. The “safety guy” was frantic, “Don’t panic, don’t panic, etc.”, he kept on saying. I told him, I’m not panicking, I’m bleeding, get the fucking first aid kit. Naturally I ended up at the first aid station later, not the one across the road where the client was, no, I had to wait an hour to go back to the joint venture office and sit in the Soviet era medic room. No stitches, just hold this bandage on your head, if you start seeing double or have a tbi, just take a Tylenol.

This other time I really did just miss being killed. I was at a pipe spool fabricator and they were bending pipe. They have a gigantic oven that you could have parked two cars in end to end where they heated the pipe and then they pull out the jig table. There are holes in the table where they put 6” pipes filled with concrete to hold the bends in place. I watched the process (stress relieving) and left the weld station I was standing at about 20 feet away from the jig. I was about ten paces away when I heard an odd creaking noise and I turned around in time to see the bollard on the outside portion of the bend get flicked across the shop to where I was standing. That was better than 30 years ago and I don’t remember what repercussions there were if any, but I do remember thanking God, profusely.

 

As we age we gain wisdom often from making mistakes. Couple stories involving hammers. I was rebuilding the basement stairs in our old farm house my wife was watching and helping While driving a nail at an awkward angle I hit my thumb ouch ( not to bad) shook it off got a better grip on hammer wound up and really hit nail well almost hit nail got my thumb really good instead blood everywhere Wife looks at me and simply says “what , the first time wasn’t good enough”
At work a new hire hits thumb bad enough to be getting a blood blister under the nail .Old timer tells him use a small drill bit , drill through nail into blister relieving pressure and pain New hire chucks bit in in drill press and you know it ,drills clean through his thumb and promptly passes out. Would’ve loved to be involved in the incident report You can’t make this shit up. Good ending to story the new hire left! And me I use pliers to hold nails or chisels often.

 

Doing a throttle body service and I stuffed a rag down in there to catch the carbon soot because it was really dirty. After I was done I started the engine and it ran very rough with several dash lights lit. Yup I forgot to pull out the rag before running it. My lead man walked by and after explaining what happened we had a good laugh. Yea my flat rate hours were not met that day either.

 

Most of mine are something along the lines of...

Ok... this bracket goes on next.
Hey... it got bent.
I better straighten it.
Hammer hammer bang bend.
Bang bang hammer twist.
There... nice and straight.
Go to put it on...
Oh crap...
It's supposed to be bent.
Hammer bang squeeze bend...

Not quite as concerning as catching on fire.

 

I’ve had all kinds of fuel leaks and gasoline spills but luckily none caught fire. The worst leak is when you’re working on a fuel line under a car and the gas runs down an arm and into an arm pit. It sure stings like a sonofabitch. Also you stink like gas for a week when you sweat.
As a kid I had the bright idea of what would happen if you poured some gas into a bucket of water and then lit it? Well I found out that gasoline floats nicely. It also burns with a neat orange flame with thick black smoke. You’d think it would put itself out when you knock it over, right? No it grew into this 10 foot round pool of orange smoky fire in an area that was once dry grass. I panicked and spent what seemed like forever trying to stomp the fire out. I didn’t get burned but my once white sneakers were black and sort of crispy.

 

Nothing to do with cars, but the title says "brain farts and other acts of intelligence", so this qualifies. Got a job rebuilding wrecked airplanes. Rebuilt this 1959 Cessna 170, wired it, plumbed it and rigged all the flight controls. Got it on the flight line for its first start up and everything checks out. I'm standing outside making sure nothing is leaking when the guy in the plane shut the engine down. There's gas dripping out of the carburetor and it catches on fire, so I quick grab a rag, crawl under the engine and stuff the rag in the carb. Fire goes out and I'm thinking what a brilliant guy I am when somebody grabs me by the foot and yanks me out from under the engine, just as the gas that accumulated in one cylinder ignited. The propeller blades spun right through the area where my head used to be. I was the recipient of a well-deserved ass chewing.

 

Damn I’ve had so many of these moments I could write my own thread. I smoked a lot of pot when I was a young mechanic.

I replaced the tank gasket on a fuel sender and forgot to reconnect the fill hose. Next morning the customer returned to the shop and he was mad as heck. Yup he went to get gas and it poured out onto the ground and saturated his shoes and made a huge mess.

 

oops

 

Most notable brain fart - needed to enlarge the hole in the flat end of a battery cable. Not much, just a little. No need to put the cable into a vise, I'll just hold it in my left hand and drill it out with the drill in my right hand. Uh huh. After surgery I am now eligible for a 10% discount if I ever had a manicure.

 

Had the battery and gastank in the trunk of my old roadster. Needed to check the sender so I pulled it out and touched the battery terminal and a spark ignited the full gas tank and a nice flame was coming out of the sender hole!I calmly put my hand over the hole and winced and waited a minute choking out the flame.it worked and I went about my work more carefully.

 

As a kid I was cleaning 1qt. oil cans with gasoline When I was done there was a couple of inches of gas left in the last can. You can guess what I did when I saw some grass growing in a crack in the sidewalk. Well, when the flames got real low, I thought(?) they needed more gas. Flames ran right up into the can. Created a nice flaming arc on the street when I threw the can. After it was over Dad and I had one of those discussions where he asked 1,000 questions that have no right answer.

 

I set myself on fire once. My wife, son and a buddy were watching. I was cutting some big machines apart with a torch. My jeans were tattered and caught on fire. I couldn't see it because I was being safe by wearing dark goggles...
My son jumped up to put me out, but my buddy stopped him and said "Wait! This is gonna get good."

 

A buddy and I rented a two car garage to do side work for extra money. We were replacing the crank bearings in an OT Cougar during a blizzard. We had a flat top kerosene heater that barely kept us warm. Well the job was almost done, just needed to add the oil and run it, but the oil was frozen and it would take forever to pour it all in. While we were huddled around the heater I had a brilliant idea. Rest the PLASTIC quart bottles on the heater for a little while to heat them up. Everything was going fine until I grabbed a quart. The bottom of the bottle stuck to the heater and oil spilled all over the place and ignited. Holy shyte you never saw two suburban white boys dance like we did that day. Believe it or not, I turned off the heater and pushed it out into the snow and after it all cooled down, we used the rest of the oil, the bottles of which were still intact.

 

I have an older battery that I wanted to get tested. I put it on the tailgate of my truck finished cleaning up and went in the house last night. I got about 16 miles into my 20-mile drive this morning and it hit me that I still had the battery on the tailgate.