stupid stuff we have done, and survived...

In a commercial district in a close by city, a buddy of mine owned a motorcycle shop. A friend of his stopped by one day and dropped off a bunch of home-made 1/4 sticks. We built a cannon of sorts and thinking we did not want to hurt anyone or get in trouble, we aimed it straight up into the air. After lighting a 1/4 stick, we would drop a motorcycle piston down the cannon and watch it go out of sight, straight up.
After about four of these, it hit us, where in the hell are these things landing?
Needless to say, we stopped and never did find out where they ended up.

 

Last winter I was in my garage cutting the rain gutter off my truck with theseat sitting next to it on the garage floor. When I started welding the cab up I noticed a funny glow coming from under my helmet. As I raised my helmet I noticed my nearly perfect seat ablaze.
Well learnig at a young age that getting excited usually leads to more of an accident. I calmly climbed down off the truck a walked over and grabbed my fire exteguisher. Walked over and pushed the handle down. Not even noticing that i didn't have a pin in it.
As you can guess, i've had more dust come out my ass on a good burrito day than did with that extenguisher.
So now I get excited. The flames are hitting the ceiling, (which is also the floor for my bonus room)and that foam rubber makes the blackest smoke i've ever seen, so i freak. I reach down grab the end of the seat and proceed to get it unstuck and manover it through the piles of crap and parts that litter my garage. Luckily I make it outside, by now the flames are nine foot high and bright as day.
Thinking I'm in the clear letting it burn while I unpack a hose and put it out with the spickit, I realize that smoke is billowing out of my garage still and its the middle of the night. Not to mention I have the noseiest neighbors ever.
Luckily I got it put out and cleaned up before the wife got home, and before any firemen were called.
Turns out my dad used my extenguisher and forgot to tell me. Weird.

 

I think I just spit milk out my nose!

 

So I was all excited to fire up the freshly rebuilt motor I had just put in the truck... but this and that had happened, no spark, ran the battery down. Fast forward a bit and I'm leaned over the motor remotely running the starter and moving the distributor around. It catches! hooray! KA-WHAM! Whoosh BOOM FWAP FWAP FWAP! What the?! GAAAAAAAA!

In about a nanosecond the battery charger, a test light, and a trouble light got sucked into the fan. I think the battery charger flew past my head, the missile that was the test light was never found (!) and the trouble light chord got ripped and wrapped.

I used up a lot of luck that day... its a shame, I could have made much better use of it.

 

1) My first car was a 65 Rambler and it had a latch you could open from the inside of the trunk. Halloween of 1979, I was 16 and myself and four or five of my buddies dressed up as Arabs - bedsheets, towels on our heads, sunglasses, etc. One of my goofball friends was in the trunk with a toy gun that looked like a .50 calibre machine gun, complete with an ammo belt. He would pop up when we were stopped at a red light and scare the shit out of whoever was behind us. This worked real well until the Brinks truck pulled up behind us. Don jumped up, the Brinks guys hit the floor, and we got the hell out of there..........

2) Another buddy had a 71 Challenger with a real wild 383 in it. He knocked the pin out of the speed so the needle wouldn't bottom out just to see how fast it really would go. It had the 150 mph speedo. I went for a ride with him after that and the speedo needle was pointing straight down....... Three days later one back tire seperated and was left on the ground like a truck retread. Someone was watching over me that time.

3) Not me, but another friend of mine, "Jimmy the Mad Bomber", had a problem with a nest full of magpies. He took a 18" long piece of thick wall black steel pipe and welded it to a foot square 3/16 plate. He tapped a hole for a spark plug, and then put about 5-6" of his homemade powder in it. He set it on the ground directly under the nest. He filled the pipe to the brim with gravel, ran a wire forty feet away to his quonset and sat and waited. When the birds came back, he touched the wire to a battery and -- not 'boom', not 'ka-boom', but 'KA-FUCKING-BOOM', blew the shit out of the tree, no trace of the birds, split the pipe in half and drove the plate about 4" into the ground. The gravel put dents 1/4" deep in the quonset. Good thing he wasn't outside watching..... Scary thing was he used to get his ideas from Wile E.Coyote.

 

ive been married twice and divorced twice...that was pretty scarey

 

Been there, done that, and married again..before I turned 30!
Not only that, I've done everything in all the posts since my first post-must be the lucky 11/7 b-day

 

Ah yes, the friend with the cartoons running in his head all the time. I worked with a guy that wasn't all there. Too many lead paint chips in his past. He made what he called a "Qucik charger" for 12v batteries. All it consited of was a 110v extension cord with one end cut off and clips butt connected on. If he had ever plugged that thing in and tried it out I dread to think what would have happened.

 

When I worked in the alignment shop, I was bending the rear axle on a K-car to gain camber. Well it wasn't much of an axle, an upside down u with a steel rod inside. I had a piece of 3/8" plate between the axle and the jack and chains holding both sides in place. Then BANG, the car jumps the plate shoots out and hits me in the left eyebrow. I'm thinking my face is split it hurt so bad. Turns out I get 4 stitches in the eyebrow and advil for a couple days. Morale of the story, don't always do what the Bossman says, let him show you.

 

Set her '55 Super's back seat on fire. Somehow I'm still alive.

 

I remember a few years ago when I had my 1920 dodge bucket. All my friends Always wanted to cruise in it, so we would squeeze 3 or 4 us idiots in it. One night with 4 of us in this sardine can, a ricer pulled along side with all attitude. One of my buddies said lightem up. Quick shifting the a/t, 80+ mph someone kicked the shifter into park. during the 4 or 5 360 spins we did I saw my whole life flash before my eyes. Now days Ive learned to keep my foot is very light!

 

Back in the day when gas stations actually did mechanical work in the bays I was just finishing up a tune-up and setting the idle in gear and while standing in front of the car with e-brake on gave the throttle a quick wrap to make sure the idle returned properly the car lunged forward knocking me into the wall. Needless to say from then on the cars where on the hoist with the wheels off the ground.

One more i remembered was at the same station we hired a kid for co-op out of high school and being the jokers we were we wanted to test the kids skills so we replaced the coil wire with vacuum line and ask the kid to find the problem. After some time and alot of cranking the engine he found the problem replaced the coil wire and proceeded to start the car but when he did all the raw fuel backfired and broke the window in the bay door and split the muffler. I quess the joke was on use.

 

My Dad showd me how to set the idle on Caddys and Olds with the Hydramatic by putting them in Drive and adjusting the idle speed by putting your foot under the front wheel and adjusting it down till the car wasn't pushing against your foot anymore. With a Hydro, with the idle set properly, it quits pulling at all... Just don't do it with ANY JOKERS around! and don't "goose the gas"

I think the stupidest thing I ever did was, (decades ago,) absent-mindedly leave an open end wrench on a mill after tightening a collet and turn the mill on...
Somehow it missed me, flying right past my ear and shoulder and landed under a table about 40 feet away without hitting any of the 30 people in the machine shop.

 

Man, this thread just got better and better. Figured I'd better contribute a few, just to get them off my chest.

If you ever work at an indoor pool, and it's like 20 below outside. and the pilot happens to go out on the gas heater, and the boss happens to ask you to go down and re light it after work, and you happen to have NO knowledge of gas, and you happen to have a lighter, DON'T do what I did. nuff said. btw... eyebrows do grow back bushier after being burnt off.

Here's a good suggestion for anybody changing batteries on OLD cars, hmm something most of us have done a few dozen times I'm sure. Make sure you use an insulated wrench when you are prying on those old bolts. The stainless strip on top of the fender of a 60 caddy is very well grounded. Ouch

E.R. Trip # *&^#$%, when working on the brakes, with a vehicle up on a scissor type jack, use jack stands. It really hurts when it rolls off the jack, really really bad.

Ok.. last one, since it's recent. If you happen to think you can fix the windows on a 60 caddy, more power to ya. I decided that since I'd had some help fixing the front driver and passenger side windows on my caddy sedan, I'd try to do the same on the rear. Took off the door panel, carefully removed the handles, disconnected the window switch, disconnected the power to the power window, removed the waterproofing paper, carefully unbolted the window frame (frame is attached to the glass on this one), and proceded to pull it out of the door. (Yeah Success). Moved the window up to my 3rd floor appartment. Proceded to undo the screws holding the frame to the glass. Carefully and gently pried all four sides of frame from the glass, keeping most of the old welting in place. ( I had planned on replacing the welting and using weatherstrip seal to solve a h20 leaking problem). So.. looks like success is nearly here. Proceed to clean up the chrome, strip all the old junky glue from the insides. Get up, get a cold one to enjoy this moment. Finish cold one, put in trash can.. Walk back to middle of living room. Trip over baby block, land with hand at corner of glass, shatter glass all over.
So...... how does one avoid such accidents? Clean up your work space.. even if its NOT a garage.

ok.. nuff of my stupidity, somebody elses turn.

 

When I was younger I lived in an apartment, so I had to work on my cars at my folks place.Late one night I was changing a water pump out on my El Camino. I had removed all the bolts but couldn't get it loose. I tried everything. Finally I got a piece of rope slipped it in behind, braced my feet against the front bumper and pulled with all my might. Suddenly the rope broke sending me through the back door garage (I mean through it) knocking out the support post of the tool shed behind and colapsing the whole thing down on top of me. My dad woke up came running out and removed a truck load of shovels, rakes and shed parts to get me out. The next day I found out that I had overlooked the two bottom bolts on the water pump.

 

My first jalopy I built when I was about 15 had a 371 olds with a Ford pickup tranny. The ring gear had slipped so I had to bump start it. I would come home from school and use the 66 chevy shortbed to pull start it by myself. It had a towbar and I would hook it up, put it in third gear and soon as she fired I popped the cheb in nuetral and jumped out, reached in and popped the jalopy in nuetral. This worked well for a long time until one day I think I flooded the 371 and tied the gas pedal part way down. You can see where this is going but fortunately it died again after a couple miles down the gravel road. It was a wild ride with my mind racing faster than that old J2. I put a hydramatic in not long after that.

 

how about the time i parked my 57 chevy 2dr in a crotch of a 150 YO Oak tree a while street racing a camaro-launched off of a STEEP banked curve,
Damn! I had the -astard too !

or the time I got my 340 Duster up on the 2 drivers side wheels crossing the missisippi river bridge thought I would show off to my later wife by hitting the Bike ramp and riding it across on the pass side wheels ,took it too fast and got up in the air on that side almost lost the GF over that one, she said I was F--king NUTS! she married me later anyway

or the time I wrecked my 51 chevy strt axled gasser after hitting a dip in the road at 130 MPH again street racing & stopped a tree right in front of my cousins house , A district court JUDGE! Yep ,a DUI and a FIRM speech from him at the next 10 family gatherings

Pabst Blue Ribbon, fast cars and youth can be a dangerous combination

I don't drink and i ain't young anymore

one more - wingin the 427 in my impala one day to check throttle response , I had one of those green bladed fiberglass fans on it , the motor hit 6 Grand and i heard a "TING" + something hit my era , when i put my hand up there i was bleeding , I shut her down and saw that one fan blade had disintegrated and parts of it had hit my ear ,I bust up every one i get my hands on now , I'm STILL missin a pc of that ear

 

one spring on the first nice day when I was about 19 I got my car out of winter storage and was dead set on firing it up, problem was the starter was bad on it at the time, it went out the last fall and I just decided to park it and get a new one in spring. so I had my dad pull me with his truck so i could pop start it. That all went fine and it was idling in the driveway. I just couldnt wait to drive it so I hopped in and took off down the 2 mile dirt road for a quick spin. About a mile up the road it starts to sputter and im thinking " crap I cant let it die, I dont have a starter. just then it dies and I have enough momentum to pop start it again and it starts back up and then dies immediatly. As soon as it died again I see gray black smoke pour out from under the hood right in front of the windshield, then the paint in the center of the hood starts smoking and bubbled up. so I shut it down and skid to a stop, open the hood and half the firewall is in flames along with the whole air cleaner and the 2 4 6 8 plug wires. So i spin the air cleaner nut off and grab the air cleaner and chuck it in the ditch, burnt the crap out of my hand. Its still burning so I had the bright idea to throw dirt on it, got dirt all over in the carb and top of the engine, I finally took off my t shirt and smothered the firewall and plug wires. Got it out and then sat there for 10 minutes making sure it was out before the 1 mile walk of shame back to get my dad to tow me home lol, turns out the fuel line between the filter and the carb was rotted and cracked from sitting all winter. I had to rewire the engine compartment and rebuild the carb. lucky my car didnt burn down lol

 

Thanks for bringing this thread back up! I've read some funny stuff on here but some of this is hysterical. Of course, I'VE never done anything stupid like you guys, (that I will admit to) but here are some experiences with some other Brainiacs:

I worked with a character who had just bought this old, POS Impala from the "we tote the note" car lot down the street, and drove it proudly back to work on his lunch hour. A couple of us were standing around snickering and watching him clean out under the seats when we heard him shout "Hey, there's a gun under here"! followed by a loud BOOOOM!!
As he was pushing and pulling on the Ruger 357's handle he forgot to keep his finger off the trigger. Blew a nice hole through the trunk lid! Luckily, we were standing by the side.

Then there was another work comrade, who after a night of heavy imbibing, resulting in total inibreation, passed out while sitting at a traffic light. When he felt someone shaking his shoulder, he came to and quickly punched the offender square in the face, breaking his nose!! Unfortunately for him, the Orlando city policeman who had set behind him through four light changes wasn't amused, and proceded to drag his ass out through the open car window and bounce his head off his official nightstick multiple times.

 

Last year, I'm an older guy, I did the brakes on my truck, new master, new pads up front, needed more brake fluid to bleed with, grabbed what looked like brake fluid from the shelf. Same bottle, same colour, I was tired, just wanted to get done, you guessed it, power steering fluid. Next morning, very hard pedal, nothing worked, you got it, new master, new anti lock valve setup, new calipers, new wheel cylinders, hard expensive lesson learned. When you're older, tired means stop, finish tomorrow, read bottle first before using.

 

So we all go to the drags on Saturdays and run our junk.I had bought my Buddy's totaled 65 SS 365 hp 327 impala and pulled the engine to put in my 57 belair as the 283 was gettin tired.I get off work Friday and work late into the night swapping engines.Get the new in and ready to fire but it wont, so got spark but no squirt of fuel in front carb,pull fuel line to see if pump is working hold line over carb and reach down with screwdriver to jump starter spins a few times and big pump of fuel sprays all over engine backfires and.....FIRE! I am looking for a rag to smother it with and mom comes out the kitchen door into the shop sees the fire grabs a canister of flour and dumps it in both carbs putting out the 4 foot high flames.I was tired and mindless from lack of sleep gave up and went to bed.Car looked like shit burnt wires and flour everywhere.about 11:30 next morning my Buddy's wake me up car is cleaned up and running good to my great surprise.Off to to races and I make the quarter finals,car wont turn over in the staging lane and i am pissed throw my helmet and just generally make a fool of myself.Was a little less upset when they handed me 300$ check and starter wire was fixed so I could drive home.Hell rent was 42$ a month then for my 2 BR house.Always went home to work on my junk because dad had a killer shop back then.

 

In the mid eighties I was workin; in a pretty big Volvo dealership. One morning I was way up underneath a 240 dash, prolly replacin a blower motor, I think, when I heard a really loud WOOSH kinda noise, followed by low volume sorta crackling
As I crawled out from under the dash and looked out the driver;s window in time to see the dude in the next bay runnin; out from under the 245 wagon he’d been changin the fuel filter on and there was a stream of burning fuel shootin on ta the floor and formin’ burnin puddle that was getting; bigger by the second.
I jumped up and; ran to my tool box and grabbed a pair of needle nosed vise grips with the idea that I could stop the fuel flow by clamping the line- but the burning puddle had gotten so big I couldn’t approach the car without grabbing onto the rear valance with one hand and leaning over to clamp the line with the other.
Every time I grabbed the valance below the rear bumper I got electrocuted buy the power running; to the incandescent drop light (with the broken bulb) that had started the fire.
I finally managed to clamp the line n' stop the fuel flow just as a dude ran over with an extinguisher and sprayed the whole burning mess, and me in the process.
Now that I think on it some, it'a amazing that I made it through the seventies and eighties at all.

 

It was 1967 or 1968 I was 22 yrs old and going home from work in my 1967 Buick GS with a 4spd and cheater slicks. I had a habit of punching it on the entrance ramp to the freeway. Well one rainy nite I was almost at the end of the ramp and I was booking, just then the right front tire hit a puddle of water. The car fishtail to the right I tried to correct and panicked. I don't remember how many times I turned the steering wheel the right and the left. I finally brought the cat to a stop in the middle of the freeway at right angle to the flow of traffic with the driver’s door facing traffic. I had stalled the motor and I was franticly trying to start the engine a get the hell out of there. Thank the Lord, all the traffic came to a stop. Well when I got home I had a shot of "Jack" to calm down. I guess it was not my time. That's one, I have a few more to tell or not!

 

Going from Main Street to Mean Street in business. And living life.

 

not as funny as some but a few years ago working on the brakes on my 29 RPU chassis i leaned over the disconected master cyl, put my hand out to support myself right on to the brake pedal, down to the floor it goes and into my eyes a straight jet of brake fluid...boy did that smart for a few hours
batteries are always good for a loud bang and plenty of mess...had one on charge on the work bench at work, forgot all about it untill I started welding next to it....battery acid takes quite a while to drip off the ceiling. and last one again with a battery, had an old golf cart we used at work for carting tools around (36 acres) it used to have a small motorcycle battery but that died and we put in an old car one. It wouldn't fit in the original place so it was zip tied in the foot well. Working on a fence line with a grinder one day had to shoot back to the workshop for more tools, came back and parked beside where I was working. Fired up the grinder and.... BOOM..... no more battery

 

Back in the late 60's I was working on a line crew in the Sierras. We were heading up the hill on a dirt road in an old Dodge 4X4 crew cab. The Foreman was road hunting and had a 94 30-30 in cab with the barrel pointed toward the floorboard and on half cock. Firearms in Co vehicles were a big no-no--could get you fired. Gun goes off, bullet hit the frame and took out the radiator. We couldn't hear for most of the day. He got someone to come replace the radiator out of his pocket--don't know how much it cost but only the crew ever knew. Have never forgotten this one and have seen 94's go off on half cock since.

 

Early on I used to teach welding at a high school. One day I had to go to teacher meetings. Should have skipped. Walked into the shop the next morning and saw sunlight hitting the big welding bench. Funny, never had seen that before. Walked over, looked up and the was a nice round hole in the roof, clear thru to daylight- just the size of my can of coffee. turns out that when kids aren't supervised well they come up with the darndest ideas.....M80s and actyelene in a gallon can on the edge of a steel bench equal hole in roof. Found the can about 200 feet away. At least I think it was a can....

 

ever used an air gun to spin up a bearing sitting on a screwdriver?....when they come off the end and hit the floor boy you better duck cause they go like a bullet ....ask me how that hole got in the shed roof

 

Well back in high school a good buddy of mine got to making "fire crackers" he called them... I thought they were more like bombs.. I'm talking big around as a pop can and about as long... So one day there's a bunch of us in the back of a pickup truck coming back from voc. school... He pulled his newest and largest so called firecracker out to show us.. and for some unknown reason I leaned over and lit it with my cigarette.. you should have saw his eyes.. I think they were as big as the fire cracker was.. well all he could do was throw it.. unfortunately for the gas attendant that was pumping gas at the gas station that we were passing at that exact time, it hit the ground and bounced about ten feet in behind him when it went off... It was ungodly loud and put off a fire ball that was atleast 5 feet round.... to this day I still feel sorry for the way that poor bastard jumped plum over the trunk of that car.... I swear I don't think he touch it at all... luckily for all of us, that's all that happened...

Then there was that one time me and the same good buddy was screwing around with an old CO2 car.. except we kinda lifted a rocket engine from shop class.. you know the kind you use for model rockets... well for some reason we thought it'd be cool if we taped two M80's to the top of the car and wick them to go off just as the rocket engine burnt out... that would have been cool if it actually worked that way.. but it didn't.. the M80's kinda went off premature and took the rocket engine with it.. all about 20 feet from where we were standing... wow what a loud boom... the car disintegrated, all but one of the axles.. we later found it stuck in the side of a wooden building not far from the explosion... luckily we were back sitting on my porch before the law started circling...

 

I crashed a go-kart that was way too small for me (I'm 6'6") at 30+ mph without a helmet, seat belt, etc... I hit a curb and did a half-front flip and the whole works landed on my head, back and shoulder. I may have gotten some drain bamage but that is yet to be determined... I walked away with a couple scratches and an exhaust pipe reminder on the inside of my arm. It could have been much, much worse.

Stupid.