A long time ago, I was changing the trans in my 59 Ford (up on drive on ramps) and forgot to chock the tires. The car rolled off the ramps and folded the open drivers door flat against the front fender when it hit the garage doorjam. BIG mess!!
i set my pants on fire, while working in my college art class last Thursday. wait. you said un-funny? that doesn't count because my entire class laughed.
An ex-club member once tried to do an engine lift with a doubled over rope, hanging from the shed rafter, and a pry bar. He thought he'd be able to twist the rope with the bar to lift the engine up high enough. He got about 12 inches of lift out of it before the twist got too much to hang on to, his buddies helping him had already vacated the area by this time, he could do nothing but let go and dive down beside the car. The bar ended up stuck in the wall of his mothers shed and the engine ended up 3 inches lower than where it started. Scotty
This didn't happen to me but to a guy I worked with at a truck body shop I worked at many years ago. One day we all came into the lunch room and this guy was nervously smoking a cigarette and was pale as a ghost. I asked him what happen. We had a hook and ladder fire truck from the city in the shop for some major modifications. The unit was the type like a semi but didn't have the king pin type hook up like a regular semi, it had a ring on ring with cleats, it also had the tiller steering on the back. The back half of the rig was just long enough to fit into one stall of the building and since we were going to do major modifications on both parts we disconnected the trailer from the cab. The guys working on the truck blocked the front of trailer up with wood because it didn't have landing gear like a normal semi trailer. The guy in the lunchroom had been working under the trailer, which was only about 18" off the ground, using a torch to cut off some brackets that were not going to be used. As he was cutting he noticed some slight movement in the underside of the trailer and quickly crawled out from underneath just before the trailer came crashing down. It turned out no one thought of blocking the steer wheels in the back of the trailer and they started to turn on their own. The next day my bosses had to hire a machine mover to come in with their huge forklifts to lift the trailer off the ground because the larger lift truck the shop had wasn't big enough.
Well, let's see. There was the time I forgot to bolt the radiator down in my '55 Chevy and took it for a test drive only to have it fall back into the fan. Also same car took it for a drive and forgot to put the battery hold down back on after charging the battery. The battery took a dive and I drove over it not realizing what I'd hit. When I got back to the house my buddy said my positive cable was arcing on the frame. I told him to put it back on the battery, that's when he informed me there was no battery. OOPS
Not long after I got my 38 Club Coupe I was taking a car load of Friends for a Sunday drive. I didn't know it at that stage but the bonnet (hood) latch was bent, as air built up under there it finished off the latch. One moment we were having a nice Sunday drive doing 100 down the highway when all of a sudden, with a resounding BANG! everything went red! Yup, the bonnet had opened on me, surprisingly little damage though, two dents in the cowl and the damage to the bonnet!! It didn't even crack a windscreen or bend the frame! Doc.
LOL i had a screwdriver in my pocket when i sat down and it ripped my brandnew seat cover, got mad threw the screwdriver bounced off the wall and put a huge paint chipping dent in the side of my truck!!
leaf blower wouldn't rev up..Took carb apart, yep main jet looks clogged..Put some air to it...Last I saw of the main jet it was about 6" away from the carb body moving towards the center of the garage..Shouldn't be hard to find a shinny piece of brass; nope gone..So I made a bunch, took me 6 trys to get the hole size right..
Back in high school, a friend's car broke down along the road. He worked on it at the side of the road for longer than he should have, but had no luck so we pulled it to his house where he continued working on it. At some point he realized it had just run out of gas. So there's the oops. Once he realized that had been the problem all along, he went bezerk which is where the unfunny part starts. I remember a length of rebar being involved, and can still see him standing back throwing his slide-in 8-track player at the headlights until he broke them. By the time he ran out of steam he'd killed a perfectly good early Mustang. His dad asked why I didn't try to stop him, well, just look at the car for your answer.
long story short..... I once had a 36 Chevy cab fall out the bed of my truck on the Vincent St Thomas bridge. . Im an idiot!
I didn't do this one, but the first story reminded me of it. My dad was painting one of those custom lifted pickups that were all the rage in the '80s. He's a short guy so he was painting it while standing on a small wooden ladder in the booth. He was just finishing the last coat of clear on the hood when his boss came into the booth, opening the door right into the rickety ladder, sending my dad swimming across the hood. There was a lot of trash in that paint.
had my 55 suburban on the lift used a ladder to turn the key off then lowered the lift forgot to close the door the ladder held up real good jacked up the door about 8" before i new why the left side was higher than the right. now nothing is within 3 ft of the lift
When the New paint store opened I tried their brand of primer sold to me by the "Hot paint chic" who was working there. I got home and thinned it as directed and sprayed the most beautiful coat of primer ever to leave my paint gun. I realized a week later when the car was big gray blob of goo, they did not sell me the hardner/activator to go with the primer. It never hardened.
Had my 47 Ford coupe last winter up on my new lift while installing new shoulder harnesses She was up about 6 feet when I decided to knock off for dinner and go in for the night. It occured to me to check clearence between the retractor and interior door panel as I slammed the door shut but I was too lazy and tired to walk to the other side and lower the lift so I grabbed a nearby chair, hopped up the 6 feet and onto the lift's platform. I peeked in the r.h. window and noted everything cleared fine. I stepped back satisfied with my work and stepped into thin air. The chair was about 2 feet North of my launch downward. Cracked 2 ribs and knocked myself out for about 5 minutes upon landing. Stupid , stupid , stupid! Had a difficult time explaining to Mia why I wasn't too hungry that evening.
Took a diagonal grinder shield off and it blew through my glove and nicked my "Ulnar nerve".. got photo's to prove that the shield is on there for a reason!
I've already mentioned a few oooops stories. Altho I probably could add a few---- dozen ---more, this is not an oops story. It is my personal thank you to you members brave and honest enough to tell yours. This and several other threads are not really traditonal rod stories. But if only a few members learn from your ---- my ---mistakes it is always worth the embarrasement. Keep screwing up and keep adding comments.
Looked for my safety glasses for 30 minutes. Frustrated beyond belief, I could not remember where I set them down. They where on my head....
First place I look for my safety glasses is on my nose, the second is on top of my head. Many times when working with safety glasses on I get so involved in the work that I forget I have been wearing them.
was painting some pearl purple flames one day for oldfart36, by the time we got to the clear coat the 36th beer kicked in ! i got a little sag in the clear, my solution? and i quote myself "i'll just keep sprayin more on till it runs off the hood and it will all be smooth" ooops !!!!
Back in '71 I had to replace the clutch, pressure plate on my Chevelle, and when I got done I pulled it out in front of the house and decided a real test would be a good hard launch. Bad idea; I blew first gear in my Muncie and ended up back under the car replacing the trans. Oops!
Many years ago I was troubleshooting a stumble on my 396. I was looking down the carb and gave the throttle a blip...it backfired through the carb and removed my moustache, eyebrows, eyelashes and a vast amount of my hair...I also nearly knocked myself out bashing my head on the underside of the hood when the flame hit me...stuuuppid
The Jalopy Journal
