well i moved the '47 over to my moms to work on when we had the buckets of rain (the '36 is in my garage). i did some small stuff and then went to work under the dash. i was going to put the rebuilt gauge cluster in and fix the gas pedal. feet up in the air, head on the floor i knocked the starter button wire off. now the car still has the flathead but is converted to 12v and i made sure to find a starter relay that work off of ground. so you guessed it, it started to crank over (ignition was off so it didn't start) and i guess i bumped my head on the shifter because it started to go backwards....up and over the wheel chock. the end result was i owe my mom a new garage door, my rear license plate that i just restored needs to be restored again, my trunk lid needs to be re-sprayed, my shorts need to be washed and i'm going to put a horn relay inline with the starter button so it won't crank with the ignition off .
yikes! i had an event similar to that once. Good thing your door wasnt open to get caught on somthing and no one got hurt
first time something like that has happened to me. i wasn't doing any wiring so i didn't even think about un-hooking the battery (and i always leave the car in neutral). i cracked my head on the dash trying to get up enought to hit the clutch.
This is one of those things you'll look back at years later and have a really good laugh over... just like we're doing RIGHT NOW!!! Seriously, glad to know you're ok.
yea, kinda laughing now but the garage door guy is coming friday and then i won't be laughing (i could use that money for parts ). the real bitch is she just had the door replaced last november.
Reminds me of a guy I knew who was working on his 68' Vette. Motor running, winging the motor with the nitrous unit. Car went into gear and drove through the garage door. No one was hurt, but the whole front of the Vette had to be replaced.
glad your ok .. something similar happened over here a few months ago my daughter was washing one of my cars and was moving it , foot slipped off the clutch and she ran the car thru the garage door .. thats her story anyway... and yup shes blonde..
I had a 54 f 100 when I was 15, first truck. dad and I had put a 302 and auto trans in it. had just got it back from being painted. it still had the push button starter in the dash. I was standing out side the drivers door with it open, with one finger holding the choke shut, the other hand in the cab pushing the starter button. it fired and instantly reached about 3 grand. the bad part was it was in reverse, did'nt hook up the nuetral saftey switch. it left black marks on the floor, tore the door off the ol man's shop, folded the drivers door around to the fender. I caught up with it about 30 feet from going thru the fence into the pasture. not a happy day. I was 15 at the time, I am now 42. I still catch alot of shit over that one. my son is 13 now, I keep a close eye on him. you know the story ( like father like son)
For me it was my 46 willys jeep i was turning it on and off testing somthing and i was putting it in gear in between tests so it wouldnt roll away and of corse one time i forgot to put in neutral. Its a push button start so i was standing outside and off it went right into the back of my brothers 69 nova. My tow hook went right into the back tail light and pushed the car like two feet. No body damage to the nova though so that was good
SAFETY REMINDER: Don't drink and wire. Seriously though, glad it wasn't worse. Reminds me of something that could only happen in a bad movie.
Back in the late 70's I was working in a shop and rebuilt a transmission in a Trans Am and was doing the final fill. I had the engine running fast idle. I didn't know it but the shift linkage was just a little out of adjustment. I was adding the last quarts of fluid and bam into gear it went. Luckly it was in reverse and not forward gear when it decided to take off. It took out the 12 foot high glass and aluminum door and a good portion of the rear of the car. The door was up about 1/3 to let the exhaust out. I stopped it by grabbing two big handfuls of plug wires and of course the door helped. It was headed toward 4 lanes of busy traffic on highway 66. To this day everything has wheels off the ground when refilling a transmission. Shit sure does happen.
holy cow... glad that i hardly ever work on my truck.. blessing and a curse at the same time dangit...
One of the funniest I ever seen was while in the Army in the mid 80's this guy named Heuling was the deuce n half driver. We were out on this long pier unloading stuff off a ship onto the dock, then a forklift would put it into the 2 1/2 ton. Now he had this deuce n half parked the skinny way on this pier and the forklift guy pushed the load up into the truck while Heuling and myself were standing at the back of the truck. You guessed it, he left the switch on and when the load got shoved into the truck it also push started it. Now here is this truck headed right for the edge of the pier and the deep blue sea. The look Heuling gave me will never leave my memory bank, you talk about eyes bugged out and mouth wide open, man it was funny as hell. He ran around the truck from the passenger side rear, stiff arming the grill as he went by, man I got tears in my eyes just reliving this...lol He just manages to dive into the floorboard pushing the brake pedal with his hand and trying to shut it off. The truck is lurching and sputtering as it rolled to the little curb on the edge before it stopped. Man he was like just a few feet of this truck going into the brink with him hanging out the drivers floorboard. He imerged white as a ghost but the truck was saved, what a lesson to remember that was.
This happen to us in a body shop were i was a manager .Customer had a remote start key fob ,my body man had the car in his stall ,when he went to open the door it was locked .He thought the fob was to unlock the door ,well the car was in gear and it started and hit the wall and stalled .He had to get in the car to find out what happened hit the fob again ,this time his chin was on the ground. Well i call the customer and told her what had happened ,and we couldn't have that fob in the shop any more . She came to pick it up ,and while she was in the office she was playing with the fob ,and the car hit the wall for the third time. At this point my body man wanted nothing to do with the car.
Took me 2 days doing body work on my natural gas furnace when i reached in the door of my 34 and fired it up for 1 more listen and remembered i just kicked it out of park and pushed it forward .. Fucker backed right into the furnace and I thought it was gonna go thru the back of the shop. It took a brand new downs 34 ford glass rear apron and liked to rolled it inside out but when i got it stopped there wasnt any damage. Im really glad it was in reverse and not forward cause it woulda went right thru my overhead door.. i laughed my ass off after i got the furnace bumped out... dave
In the early eighties I was helping my dad unload a ford truck off the top of a two car hauler (anybody remember those? top car is at a 45 degree angle). My dad unhooked the safty chains, and said "ok" but I let off the brake and it didnt move. Truck was running, idled up pretty high, and about a third of the way down. I'm looking straight up at the sky. (keep in mind I was 10 years old at the time, and not very bright). So I gave it gas and very quickly I relized it was in drive!!!! I saved it before going over but that is the reason to this day I double, and tripple check everything.
When I was in college I did some delivery for an Industrial Supply company in Joplin, MO. They used a, more then wore out, mid 70s Ford Fan for delivery, blue shag carpet and all. Anyway, it was an automatic but would start in any gear. One day I filled it up as usual at the corner gas station and went in to sign the fuel ticket. The guy working behind the counter was just starring out the window with his mouth open. I turned to see what he was looking at and it was the van still parked next to the pumps with engine compartment totally engulfed with flames. I don't know what I was thinking but like an idiot, I ran out and jumped in hit the ignition and believe it not it started. I shot away from the pumps to an open parking lot, clear of the station. I killed the ignition and jumped out leaving the van in gear. Now here is where the story has some relevence (finally). The engine compartment was really going now, coming to my senses, I wasn't about to burn my self opening the hood to attempt any rescue of the vehicle. The station attendent had just joined me with a huge fire extinguisher, we were watching it burn to the sound of distant approaching sirens when the manager from the supply company came pulling up. "Put it out," he yelled. I told him I thought it was a loss cause. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and headed in...(I really never liked the guy, he was kind of a tight ass know it all)...Anyway he ran to the front and started shooting the fire extinguisher under the wheel well. Then bowing down in front below the black smoke billowing out of the grill he started to shoot it up under the front bumber. It was about this time that starter wires finally melted and crossed engaging the starter. I will never forget the look on his eyes when that thing, driven only by the starter motor began to chase him. It only moved a couple of feet, but the look on his "know it all face" as he fell backwards, threw the fire extinguisher at the beast and then got to his feet and ran, is etched in my brain for life...Wow that was a novel, sorry.
The Jalopy Journal
