Projects 30 sedan Mishap...Dumbbutt Move of the Month

Guy I worked with was a big fan of the 2 cycle SAAB's, and tinkered with them endlessly. He drove one to work; sounded like a pissed off giant bumble bee trailing a plume of blue smoke when he passed you. He and a buddy were wanting to advance the timing on one, but there was a boss in the way. So, they worked the boss down and set the timing where they wanted it. One of them got in the car and started it; it backfired and then ran. He put it in reverse and promptly drove forward thru the front of the garage. At that instant they understood why the timing could only be advanced so far...two cycles run either way, equally well.

 

that sucks, did this in my '65 coronet 500. Hood landed on the trunklid. But mine was an Iowa rust bucket, so I wasn't out much.

 

This is a little OT but still funny, Now! I had just finished putting the new seamless fiberglass skins an a closed car trailer that my brother and myself built for a Model T customer of ours. I was going to move it out of the way of the garage door to finish cleaning up. Brought the trusty four wheeler around with the 1 7/8" ball on it to the trailer with the 2" ball tongue, you see where this is going? Anyway I hook up and proceed to pull the trailer over to the side yard, going quite well at this point. i've got one last corner to go around when all of the sudden,wham it hits me from the back, starts shoving me and the small Honda four wheeler down the parking lot . The next thing I know Steve, my older brother and boss at the time opens up the man door on the opposite side of the brand new trailer to find me laying inside on the floor looking out of the beautiful bay window that I had just installed at no charge! Needless to say , this was probably about the twenty fifth time I was fired at his place, but certainly not the last . Ha,ha!

 

It's amazing how some of you guys, and your friends, make it thru life.

Oh yeah......can you say Neutral Safety Switch??

 

I myself have a body dolly story of shenannagians....

Just a few weeks ago I fabbed up a quicky body dolly to hold my recently sectioned and recently primered cab of my 49...well the body dolly holds the cab upside down so I can do the work I need too standing up instead of laying down...had my neato casters on the bottom...all was well...

Did I mention I made the dolly kinda tall so I dont have to stoop over to work on it?

Welp the center of gravity isnt the best, I was wheeling it outta the way in the garage when a extension cord came from no where and jammed up the wheel.....

my freshly cleaned and pressed cab started to tip...I started to get a bit nervous....I hopped on the body dolly end to throw some weight to the side that needed it to counter balance it....little did I know that I needed a bit more than the 200 lbs of ass that I had...

The cab kept going...luckly my welders cart and welder was in the way which provided a cusion for the cab as it was commin down....it did not however provide a cusion for me, still attached to the side of the cab and I went sligshot into the wall and landed in a heap on top of my welders cart...

It crushed my welders cart and bruised me up....

The welder and the cab came out unscathed...thats all I care about anywho

needless to say I'm much more carefull wheeling the cab around.

 

it's a sedan thing.

about 2 weeks ago, I was playing with mine after I got my new bitchin scoops in.
so, to figure out how much more the motor needs to go up, I sat my grille (34 ford truck) on the crosmember, and admired just how cool I am going to look.

I would typically wire it in place ( no radiator) , but this time it seemed to be sitting pretty well. so I left it.

The car has 33 inch slicks on the rear. slicks, as we all know, lose air gradually. all of this went down on a friday.

I came in monday, and found that a firewall peice off another car was STUCK under the lower passenger side door hinge. being a rocket scientist, I added air to the passenger side slick first. as the car "came up" it pitched the body of the car (slowly) at a pretty steep angle. steep enought that the grille fell off and dented the SHIT out of one side of it. add to that that the firewall peice was nicely tacoed, and my door hinged is now slightly tweaked, I am trying to figure out if I have just completed the worlds slowest automobile accident. I figure that as the slicks lost air, the whole thing was moving at less than 1 centimeter an hour.

 

I had a 24 foot Budget Rental Truck that I had to return after delivering a load of high end kitchen cabinets. Stopped by the house to get my year old Snap On floor jack and star wrench to remove a flat tire on a parts car on the way back. My wife opened the front door of the house as I was loading to ask when I'd be home. One hour tops and I jumped in the cab and took off. Arrived at the Budget lot after closing and got all my paperwork and crap out of the cab, then went to get my floor jack. NEVER CLOSED THE OVERHEAD DOOR!!!!!!!! Star wrench was there, grabbed it and retraced my trail to find the jack. I think it was less than a mile when thoughts of it sitting in some guys lap with whindsheild glass covering him after crashing into a tree replaced thoughts of finding the jack. It never made the first uphill, so I'm sure someone is using his road find. Still haven't replaced it but I will someday.

 

I love these stories. I was recently thinking about how non-gearheads sometimes marvel at the finished products of our efforts thinking we know what we're doing all the time and not realizing how we screw up (occasionally ) on the way to completion. Unfortunately I'm able to contribute to this one. My brother has a salvage yard and was storing a '39 Plymouth coupe for me - body still attached to the frame - nothing great, really way far gone but I couldn't bear to part with it. He had put it up on top of a big old step-up van to be out of the way. While moving things around his yard, he slipped the cable of his yard crane through the windows of the coupe (front to rear, basically) and thinking it wasn't that heavy, lifted it off the van. About two seconds later the cable tore through the roof like unzipping a zipper and when the whole thing hit the ground, it folded up like a house of cards.

 

Reminds me of when I used to work at an oil change shop with my older brother as my boss. An old lady pulled her car in and my brother went to see what she needed. She thought she put it in park adn let off the brake. My bro had his arm pinned in the car by the door from it lunging forward. I think she tried to hit the brake, but hit the gas instead. He managed to yank it into park while clinging to the fender/door. All of this going on over a partially covered pit. I remember him being pissed. The old lady acted like it was nothing new.

He could tell the story better.

 

My Dad was tuning the motor in his 54 Chevy truck. He adjusted the timing and reached in through the window to start it. Didn't realize he left it in first gear. The truck started right up and drove itself right into the back edge of the house. Put a nice hole in the house and trashed the fender and grill. He always checks to make sure any car is in nuetral or park before starting. I beleive he also added a nuetral safety switch after that.

 

Can relate to the powerglide story. In my younger days, I was messing with a 39 Chevy sedan, transplanted 327/glide. Anyway, I'm under it, with it running, moving the shift lever on the glide back and forth wondering why it isn't engaging. All of a sudden that tell tale powerglide whine starts up (thank god) and I realize I'm not in the greatest position to have this car move either way. I roll out just in time as the the back slick just rolls over the cuff on the arm of my flannel shirt. Car proceeds to roll to the wall and come to a stop.
Lesson learned right?
Nope.
Later that day I'm explaining to my buddy why I'd had the tranny trouble, and he was standing next to the car by the front fender. I reach in and fire it up, and since I'd fixed the problem, the car now lurches forward (No safety switch) and just misses my buddy. He tries to stop it from hitting the wall by grabbing the fender, but it's moving pretty good. It hits the wall and bounces back, throwing him flat on his face. I get it stopped, but he doesn't get up right away, so I go running around the back of the car to see him pinned to the ground by the front tire having ridden over part of the sleeve on his carharts.

 

I thought this might bring some funny stories... man i've got tears rolling down both cheeks from laughing

 

I'm right there with ya, buddy !! Last summer I had the body of the '36 up on my little utility trailer, using it as a sort of portable work table. The body was propped up on stacks of 4x4 blocks at each corner eek and I'd been rolling it in and out of the garage for sandblasting, priming, etc, no problem.

I had to move it from the front bay of the garage for some reason, and thought I'd just pull it around thru the yard to the back of the shop, and put in the rear bay. Great idea, but the yard is (evidently) much rougher than the shop floor and driveway, and guess what happened? Yup, the body fell off the blocking, off the trailer, between it and the '48 Pontiac I was pulling it with. Didn't hurt anything, but it was a bugger to get it backup on the trailer, and then in the garage. I also dropped the body while putting it on the chassis with my cherry picker, so I guess it's pretty stout...

 

NEVER , I REPEAT NEVER cross both posts on an accel super coil with a long ratchet extenstion while adjusting lifters on a running engine. You will find yourself 5 feet away from where you were still with the ratchet in your hands unable to let go. That and the fact that your buddies are wetting their pants laughing at your dumb ass .

 

Is this the place for the 354 HEMI and transmission falling through the wood deck of my trailer story?

 

What IS IT with guys not having a neutral safety switch?? Is it really rocket sceience to install?? NOPE

 

I'd just take it as your cars way of telling you "Hurry up,I wanna hit the streets!"..Glad you and the car made it out of a situation alright

 

Long ago when I was a kid, I "helped" my neighbor install a fresh 327 in his 66 Impala. The car wasn't that nice, it was his wife's daily at the time... Anyway, he's got the engine hanging from a garage rafter by a come-along, and we're trying to maneuver the car under the engine. The garage had a cement floor, but the approach was gravel and slightly uphill. Turns out one grown man and 2 kids can't push an Impala that way, so he goes and gets some more help. Now there's about 6 of us pushing, but no one is lifting the rear bumper so the rear end doesn't want to climb over the edge of the concrete. Finally, we all give it a mighty shove... and the engine goes right thru the windshield and ends up laying on the dash. I went home.

 

I did the coil wire trick once... And one other thing, never use a pencil to help you find TDC through a plug hole... The pencil breaks. I won't go over again on never using the oil pump rod off a Chevy II on anything but a Chevy II. Strap the small block chevy on a pallet in the back of your new PU down before driving around with it... smashed the hell out of the front of the bed... Make sure the borrowed tow dolly pivot, pivots, or the tire will run up under your '52 Ford and mash the rocker in... I'm sure I'll think of more...

 

I think you need your own reality show!

 

How about driving under the (not quite fully open) brand new garage door with a rented cherry picker in the back of the pickup that you've forgotten about being higher than the cab...

 

For a couple years I used my dad's old shop to work on my bugs. Had a really nice '67 shell that I was stripping to get rid of the previous owner's flower-power jive and then for paint prep.

Should be noted here - the shop was kinda dug into the side of a hill, and the ground sloped away into the woods once you got out of the rollup doors, then a few feet further dropped off to a pretty steep incline, all overgrown with trees and briars.

Once I got the car cleaned out and stripped, I decided it really needed to be pressure-washed inside and out so I pushed it out of the shop. Once it hit the dirt and started rolling I realized I forgot to put some chocks out in the yard to stop the car (no e-brake). Uh oh. Thought the shell was light enough to stop it by myself. Not quite.

Right away the car started picking up speed, and I couldn't get enough foot traction on the grass to stop it. Being a total genius I dived in the driver's window up to the waist, and tried to steer out of it with my feet and legs dragging the ground (I was smart enough to bolt the steering wheel back on).

The shell rolled down the hill and started picking up speed, taking me with it, still dragging my legs and feet on the ground and through the briars while beating the hell out of my head and upper body which was still inside the car, it was a real white-knuckle ride. One of the rear tires slammed into a good-sized tree and that was enough to stop it.

No real damage to the car, but I collected a couple cracked ribs, some pretty bad cuts and scrapes on my feet and legs, a black eye, and big cut on top of my head from bashing something inside the car. Co-workers thought I'd been in a bar fight and wouldn't hear anything different.

 

I didnt do it,but a friend did. After spending hours block sanding the hood for his 36 ford sedan he set it outside to dry in the sun.He then proceeded to back his car over the hood.needless to say the hood was destroyed beyond repair.

 

We have go to hear more of this one....

 

My ex and I swapped cars one day because I needed her van. When I drove down the long driveway I commented on how nice the yellow driving lights looked in the grill of my Datsun (not Nissan) 200SX. Then I remembered, I don't have driving lights. We lived on a hill above a 16 mile long lake. Apparently she parked on the "level" parking area and didn't put it in gear or use the e-brake. The car rolled across our lawn, picked up speed and took out two tomato plants at the first neighbor's house. Somehow it turned a bit right and headed away from his house. It was going nicely when it got to the little pile of dirt that was left from the installation of a new telephone pole.. That launched the car upward into an apple tree. You could see the bark scars abut ten feet off the ground. They needed two tow trucks to get it down from the tree and back up the hill. It looked okay at first, but the driver's wheel/suspension was pushed back to the clutch pedal. I went to the tow service to fill out the insurance paperwork. The guys laughed and said I was now in first place for their "Best Story of the Year" competition. I really liked that car.

 

1963 - A buddy of mine had a badass black 56' Chev. hard top with 327" FI. In his frustration with the FI one night he threw the small 3/8" wrench he was using at it and it bounced back knocking a front tooth out. We all felt bad for him but couldn't control our laughter. The harder we tried the funnier it got!!!

 

This is sad, but true...
I was at a local car show and I saw this beautifully restored 55 Chevy 2dr hdtp, tutone lime green and black, all stock with the continental kit on it. It was a fantastic job and I had to compliment the guy on his nice car.

Well...
Two days later I'm talking to one of my friends and he proceeds to tell me about this guy who had a stock 55 Chevy, had just brought it out for the first time and won a trophy at a car show. He was so proud that he set the trophy on the hood of the car and went inside to get the camera. (have you figured it out yet?)

While grabbing the camera, he looks out the window and there is his pride and joy rolling down the driveway with the trophy proudly displayed on the hood. It rolled across the road, over a bank and rolled over, twice I think. Car was totaled.

I had to ask my friend, was it green and black?
I think you know the rest.

Scott

 

In the early 80's I worked for a specialized courier service. The way we operated was that we would fly via company aircraft into one of the cities we served, then use a company car to make the actual delivery. One day, the guy who normally did the Bakersfield run needed some time off, so I was assigned to do the run for him. The courier car was a high-mileage Chevette.

"The starter in our Bakersfield car is on it's way out" the boss said. "Do you know how to jump a solenoid?"

""No problem, I replied.

"Good! There's a tire iron under the seat, you'll probably need it"

I flew up to Bakersfield, located the car, and used it to make all my deliveries without a problem. As I was about to leave the last stop and return to the airport, I hopped in the car, turned the key, and......nothing.

I was ready. I popped the hood release, pumped the gas once or twice for for good measure, grabbed the tire iron and jumped out. Latching the hood open, I found the solenoid on the right (passenger) side of the engine, and dropped the tire iron over the two biggest posts. As expected, it started right up. Then it took off down one of the largest, busiest streets in Bakersfield, entangling me under the hood in the process. With my ass hanging out the side I was running, crab-like, to keep my legs from being dragged under the wheels of the errant Chevette.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably no more than 30 feet) I pulled myself free and tried to open the passenger door, but (per company policy) it was locked. I debated breaking the window, but decided instead to run around to the drivers side where the window was open. I reached in and grabbed the steering wheel, managing to steer it around a stopped car and through an intersection, but the car was still moving at a pretty good pace and needed to be stopped, so I dove headlong through the window opening. With my ass now dangling out the left side of the car, I tried repeatedly to shift it into park. Of course, that doesn't work in a car that's already moving. "Reverse" did work, however, stalling the engine. Bystanders on both sides of the street cheered when I finally got it stopped (in the opposite lanes of traffic with the hood still up) about 200 feet from where it all started.

The problem that morning wasn't in the starter, it was in ME. I was used to driving a stick shift, and when I parked that morning, I had left the transmission in "D" which of course prevented the engine from starting. In my case, the car had a safety switch, and it had tried to do it's job.

 

Well,some may not find it that interesting.....A year or so ago i striped a 71' bug down painted it up electric lime-it was nice....put on a $500 baja kit and some of those HID lights,mind you on this car i didn skimp $$$$ I was gunna drive it and be proud of it...anyway i was loading it on a trailer to haul into town and get help puting the front glass in(i was having hell) the trailer of choice for that day was my single axle 16 foot tilt trailer.WELL !!! i got the car up and centered(i thought).I was walking up front to put a strap up front as always "front then rear then tighten= re tighten" well as i reached up to hook the strap around the cars front beam,the car rolled back the rear tires came off the trailer and just as the front came off the front heavy trailer slammed down and leveled out taking that $500 baja kit- you know the fiberglass one ? and the nice HID's with it...i mean ripped it all off OFF anyway thats the worst i have had happen....YET !!