stupid stuff we have done, and survived...

That's funny, reminds me of a guy I worked with at a chrome shop, he had an ugly blackened fingernail and he decided that he could belt sand it down and buff it out to look like new. He had a hard time describing how badly it burned. Same guy lost his eyebrows temporarily when he was trying to re-light a 55 gallon drum full of garbage and a spraypaint can exploded in his face. There was a round impression where the paint can hit the 55 gallon drum, like something from a cartoon.

That story with the oxygen bottle is my favorite so far, un-freakin'believable

 

Besides get married?

I had a 1980 Datsun 210 (yes - I know) that had a fender ripped off in an accident. While driving with one headlight I got pulled over. The cop asked me to come around to the front of my car, then asked me, "Do you know you only have one headlight?" "OH MY GOD!!!! Those bastards stole my headlight!!!!!" i screeched in my best sissy girl voice and then said, "Uh, yeah... I know..." in a snide voice. He wasn"t amused. ONe hour later and handcuff marks on my wrist he let me out of the cruiser with about 7 citations. I now know the value of "Yes sir. No sir. I'm very sorry, sir."

Same car a few months later - I had to change out the clutch. Of course at 23 years old I know everything so I begin. I remove the starter and let it hang on the battery cable. No problem until I bumped it, it welded itself to something, and thick clouds of white smoke began pouring off the now red hot battery cable. I yelled to my co-worker as I pried the hot starter off its new mounting point. Hot insulation dripping onmy arms I look outf rom under the car to see him at his tool box pondering which set of side cutters woiuld be appropriate for the job. I instructed him in a less than calm and rational voice (the wiring harness is going up in smoke at this point), "GRAB A FUCKING PAIR AND CUT SOMETHING!!!!" He did. When the smoke cleared I spent the next 4 hours rewiring the car with all blue wire and butt connectors. I couldn't belive it actually ran when I was done.

Then there was the time I snuck into my girlfriend;s house on New Year's Eve and it was 20 below zero. The rest involves going out he window in my undies. Maybe if you buy me a beer I'll tell you that one....

How about getting shot with salt for buck-shot after building a 12' penis out of snow in some girl's yard... More beers here!!!

 

The acetalene story reminded me of a good one. Someone I know used to leak acetalene and oxygen into empty metal ended quart oil cans, then ignite it. They progressed to milk jugs and then the ultimate, a garbage bag!!! It blew all the windows out of the shop, police AND the fire co. showed up. They couldn't hear for a few days after.

 

I was just out of high school in the Navy building a '39 Ford Coupe w/SBC (1965). I was home one weekend and my brother said to plumb the brakes. So I went and bought the preflared hardline and plumbed. Bled the brakes and all was good. My brother towed the car to Island Dragway and ran it. After a couple of passes the brakes went completely. He looked at the rear. Dumb and inexperienced me did NOT use flexline from the hardline to the rear end, hardline all the way! Luckily I did put on emergency brakes.

 

I hit a opossum with my 34 Ford last night. I swerved and he swerved the same way thank the lord he didn't hit my original grille.

 

In my youth about 45 or so years ago. we would race trains with autos. Mostly stolen autos. The object was to see how close the train would come to you. I lost or got tied several times. you know back bumpers knocked off or 1/4 panels bashed in. After a while this got boreing so we would take off every other spark plug wire that way the car would barley run, I got tied real bad in a 57 plymouth . I got carried about3/8 of a mile down the tracks. we stoped that night. we had heat from the local cops the rail road inspectors the fbi and our parents. Of course we we good little boys and knew nothing.

 

Yeah, we done that too.......not with the garbage bags.

Hypothetically.......if you take a piece of exhaust/muffler pipe about 3' long, (or DOM, whatever) smash it flat with the pipe bender on one end, or a hammer if you don't have a Huth pipe bender handy, then take the torch and blow a small hole about 4" up from the bottom, lay it down and set the cutting torch mixture as you would normally to cut, then put the tip flat on something steel or the concrete real quick to snuff it out , put the now raw gas mixture up to the hole and fill the tube for about 5 seconds.(your mileage may vary)......then pull it away and re-light it, then touch it back to the hole.....KABOOOOM, I gaurantee you won't be ready for how forking loud it is....

So, logically the next step is to weld 2 legs on it so it sets up like a mortar, get in somebodys' car and get some tennis balls, then swedge the mouth of the pipe up to where the tennis ball will just fit down in.....repeat steps above and watch the tennis ball hit about 1000ft.......so then you figure it really scrubbed off some speed because it was light.....so you get the grease gun and put a grease needle tip on it......poke a small hole and pump the tennis ball full of grease, put about 7 seconds worth of gas in it........it goes into orbit. Good thing there wasn't a SR71 Blackbird cruising over at 85,000 feet.


Edit: I forgot the part that these might have went waaaay back into the neighborhood that was across the road from the shop doors......there was nothing in the paper the next day about 3lb.grease bombs so......

.

 

Back in my drag racing days in Louisville, KY, I had a 75 Chevy crew cab truck, with a 454 and turbo400 trans. It was late after racing on a Sat night, and driving home from the track. Just about to get on the freeway and this guy pulls up along side and says (trying to paraphrase exactly in his thick accent) "Ther's fiar comin out under your truck!" About that time my buddy looks out the side window and sees orange flames reflecting off the ground. Truck was actually running fine and we did not notice anything until the guy said the fire. Pulled to the side of the road, shut the engine off and opened the hood. The flames were down low on the trans. Apparently the vent on top of the trans was puking fluid and it had caught fire. Of course we did not have an extinguisher, so we sacrificed a couple beers to pour down the back of the engine and we got the fire out.

Let it cool down some, checked the level and it was only about 1 quart low, so we set off and did not have any problems then or any time after that.

 

I have one more NOT ME but some one I know. This person drag races so he learns if you heat the mother or large filler bottle of nitrous oxide it will fill the daughter or small bottle with more of the gas. He them took his rosebud heating torch and started heating the large bottle. You guessed it the large bottle got so hot it exploded, totaled his race car . knocked his shop off the foundation broke neighbors windows and now he only has about 25 percent of his hearing. He also made it impossible to get a large bottle of nitrous from the welding supply shop. He also pissed of the local police ,fire department and had a visit from the feds with the ATF. now when anybody gives him a hard time he turns off his hearing aid and walks away. At least in this case STUPIT was PAINFUL...

 

Oh man, where do I begin........it was crazy stuff.....like you say "lucky to be alive!"


good idea on the garbage bag. We always used 2-liters.......hmmmm

My buddy and I (about 12) where going through a phase where we liked to play with gasoline. We had caught the pond on fire, just like the one episode on McGyver (sp?) but that's another whole story. We were making bombs with it, but that too is another whole story.

Anyway, we were listening to Gun N' Roses and getting our camp set up. We had a fire pit and a big log but no smaller stuff to get it going....yep you know where I"m going! We were to lazy to gather some kindlin but had plenty of energy to walk all the way back to his house to get his 2 1/2 gallon can. Full, mind you. We rolled the log into the fire pit and poured on the whole 2 1/2 gallons of gas (big bucks by todays standards). But this isn't the best part. Being the very intelligent fella that I am, I thought it would be advantageous to "let it soak in." Momma never told me about evaporation and vapor. So, we sat banging our heads to Appetite for Destruction for about 15 minutes or so. I said, "LIght the fire, Scott." Well, he wouldn't do it, so my great level of intelligence came through once again. "Gimme those, I'll do it!" Scott was standing about 5 feet behind me and I knelt over to light the match, drop it and run. As soon as that match sparked, all I can remember is hearing Scott screaming, me turning around to see Scott and all I could see were flames. I was completely surrounded. But, it happened VERY quickly and all we got was singed eye-brows and hair...we stunk! After the excitemet had settled and our fear turned to laughing, some of my family- 1/4 mile away- came running and screaming. Scott and I were down in a little valley that had a tree top canopy. When they came, they said, "We thought we would find your bodies laying there. I was cutting grass and looked up to see this ball of fire arising from the trees.....like a big mushroom cloud."

Man, we were lucky (lucky dad didn't find out)......I honestly learned my lesson about that one.....except when we started making bombs......not fire crackers, bombs......

You couldn't get by with that stuff today, especially after 9-11......

.....or the time 150 on a 900 Ninja; shorts, tshirt, sandles, no helmet, no license, no insurance, no tags and cords coming from the bald tires.......how stupid! I'm just glad God didn't remove all stupid people from the earth then, I would have been first in line!

or the time......or the time when......or that one time when it snowed, school was closed and my buddy drove the 4-wheeler around the street while we just hung onto the racks while he drug our bodies around....chloride tastes nasty!

 

Hypothetically - it's possible to calcuate a low trajectory and shoot at commuters with said tennis ball cannon. The ball *might* make a reaaly big noise whappin' the side of a car; the driver *probably* would be scared shitless and lock it up.

Of course, this is all hypothetical.

 

OK I'll give in....I was part of this...the part that advised it wouldn't work A couple years back my neighbor was having a big cookout in the fall like always. One of his buddies brought some FIREWORKS...I should clarify...the big ariel bombs...you know...the ones at the commercial shows that make a huge fuckin bang and a big flash of light? So needless to say the dumbshit doesn't have a launcher so they make one out of 2x6 pine lumber about 3 foot tall . Mind you they haven't even started drinkin yet. I'm tellin them there is no way in hell this thing will fly up out of there and who knows what way it will go if it makes it out. So several hours later the beer is flowing and they procede to light it and run. It EXPLODES in the wooden box sending shrapnel everywhere. I'm about 60 ft away and another guy gets hit by a piece of it that is about 2 feet long and knocks him on his ass. A piece of wood actually DENTED the chain link fence about 10 feet away...you know how hard it is to dent that shit? Of course everyone calls them a bunch of fuckin idiots...they were.....so they buried the next one and everybody within 300 feet got a dirt shower....

 

Substitute "golf ball" for tennis ball and "baseball bat" for home-made mortar and I can testify that no, it is no longer hypothetical. It's actual... but don't ask me how I know.

 

Uhm, why didn't I get invited to this cookout? You know I'd have brought some beer...

 

It's due to come up again in couple weeks too......always some crazy shit

 

Be real thankful you didn't have to look for another one

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4575019175&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

 

Since someone else mentioned the extralegal stuff...

Trib and I went out on a midnight auto run - he needed fresh doors for his ride; I was on the hunt for engine parts. We'd cased our marks in advance; gettin' to Trib's doors involved runnin' thru a cornfield late at night.

Trib was about 20' ahead of me when I hear this gargling noise.

'What happened?' I asked.

Trib couldn't talk for several moments. When he did -it was really hoarse.

'uhhh...ahh...I hit something with my neck - I'm okay...I think.'

'gimme the damned flashlight'. I flick it on his throat.

There was a gash across the width of his windpipe; it was open a good inch or so. Windpipes are grayish, BTW.

'Fuck.' We gotta do something.

Go back into town where there's a midnight diner; I go in and ask for Band-aids. Counter geek gives me a handful while Trib ducks into the bathroom. He looked like hell on wheels - blood all down the front of his shirt and all.

We spend the next half-hour rebuilding his throat with frickin' band-aids. Damned thing needed at least two dozen stitches, but he never got it fixed. Guess the patch up job was good; besides, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to 'splain that he'd clotheslined himself stealin' car parts.

And...yes. After Trib was patched up, we went back and got the fuckin' doors.

 

niice.

 

im seeing pictures in my mind of a nasa rocket sled roaring down the track, that tank must have been great after the shock wore off

 

I don't want to give out too many details,but the battery is not a good place to set your air cleaner ......EVER

 

That goes for torque wrenches too.. Again, don't ask me how I know.

 

It was the night before BTTF and i had my T bucket out for a spin around the block, went down an old road you can get away with going fast on, so of course i dropped that powerglide into first gear and let her buck, i held her in first to about 90 mph, and WHAMO, the plexi-glas temporary winsheild hit me in the hand and the neck, luckily i put my hand up very fast and deflected it from my face, it cut up my rist bad and cut my neck and chin decent, i slammed them fuckin brakes so hard and just pulled over and sat there for a moment thinking of how stupid that was, no more temorary w/s in my cars!!

JEFF

 

Yeah I know that trick too.I named my torque wrench DEDERDANG because thats the noise it made after I threw it off the battery.

 

In high school I took my 68 Chevelle, gutted the interior, cut most of the floor out, mounted the sbc inside the car, bolted the trans directly to the rear end, welded the rear end up solid. Then cut the roof off so it looked like a targa porche type roof, It had a fiberglass front end, radiator mounted at an angle where the engine was once, pvc tubing brought the water to the back. Moved all the steering to the back seat area, and drove that puppy to school. Istill remember the look on the police mans face the first time I was pulled over in it. The thing was extremly dangerous, would wheel stand at the slightest goose of the throttle. It was the ultimate in weight transfer. Needed to add another brake pedal to control the direction. Joined the Army, came home on leave, pulled the engine and put it in a friends car, and had the chevelle crushed at the bone yard while I watched, it was too hairy for anyone to have...........................Then when I was younger and watchin the dukes of hazzard, I was inpired to build a moon shine still. So I got some of my grandmothers canning jars, some small coiled copper tubing from my grandfather, and built what Ithought was a moonshine still.........in my bedroom....I was warming the mash up that first time via and electric hot plate, while it was cookin I walked out to see what my mother and step dd where watching, and as I sat between them, that sucker blew up in my room, I still remember the look on my mothers face this time.........Turns out, I did not know what the hell I was doing. And was cooking mashed up apples and bannanas.yes bannanas...........the bannanas oily base plugged my copper tubing, built up pressure and blew.It actually shook the house......and I was told I needed a pressure relief valve in the system..My grandfather after told me he had an idea of what I was up too, and wished I would have asked him, he would have given me some pointers...........Their was glass imbedded in all four walls of my bedroom.....and every year after that you had to repaint the ceiling because of the splattered mash on the ceiling would bleed through....................Then their was the time I built a flame thrower, inspired by the movie ghostbusters when I was young. Made a back frame out of 1/2"opper tubuing to mount the tanks, the actual flame thrower was all copper tubing, and was ignited by an cox 049 glow plug and an nine volt battery and switch...........Its only bad point was I did not put handles of some sort to hold the dam thing. And the first time I lit it, it got so frickin hot I had to drop it and run, problem was, that I made the flexible tube that fed it from the tank short, and as I ran it was right behind me.............................geesh my mother should have put me away...And their is much more I could tell you, but I have bored you long enough, this is the most I have ever typed and it sucks............Littleman

 

I friend and I made an electric chair... I wasnt the guinea pig..

He didnt die, nuff said....

 

some years ago while financially restructuring the household ( laid off) it was winter and the battery in the truck was packing it in so I roots around by the shed and finds and old but good looking maintenance free job and gave it a shake and it sounded a bit low on fluids so I put the battery charger on it anyways to see if it would take some sort of charge and sure enough a bit later it would light up a 12 volt dash light so I then hauled the battery out of the truck so I could steal some acid from it to top up this other one but being maintenance free it was sealed so I break out an electric drill and proceed to drill some holes in the top and about the 3rd one it exploded like a bomb!
I went tearing in the house to have the wife look me over to see if everything on my head was still intact

I could tell how I tatooed my chin and neck with a muzzle loader but thats not car related

 

you lost me at '68 CHEVELLE.and then again at Targa.

 

LMAO at these....

I could also tell about accidentally hitting this guy in the forehead with a lawn Jart from about 30 feet, but that would be me being the center of attention and isn't car related either.....



.

 

Okay, ya'll can call me king stupid ass for this one! We were trying out the Fifth wheel on her maiden voyage. We set up at a camp site not too far away from home, for safety/security purposes. I settin' up the camper, the wife is settin' up the site, and my 10 month old son is smilin' away in his pack and play in the sunshine. I turn on the propane and go inside to try out the stove...no flame. I go back over to the 11 gallon propane tank, "what's this? it smell like propane!" the next few seconds go by and replay in my mind in super slow motion. I pull a lighter out of my pocket and check for a leak with the light from the flame! (Brilliant) Immediately 3 to 4 foot flames shoot out almost singeing off my eyebrows. I panic and slam the weak ass aluminum door shut thinking I can cut off the oxygen long enought to extinguish the flame. My wife looks at me and sees the look opn my face "What's wrong?" "Water! Gimme some water!" "What?" "Gimme some fuckin' water!" "Why?" she say's. Just then a brave camping neighbor comes bounding up and askes "Is that the propane?!?!" "Yeah!" I reply... the guy turns and runs the other way!!!! The wife finally give me some water and I dowse out the flames and turn off the propane, disconnected the tank and dragged it about 150 feet away. The tank was still smoking 30 minutes later! I trembled all night until I got shitfaced and laughed my ass off. I must have cheated death by a matter of milliseconds. Now I only roll with soapy water. Funny thing is the first thing that popped into my mind was my late fathers face calling me a Dumbass.