The dumbest mistakes you've made..

I just got done spending days trying to track down why my Blazer wouldn't start. I traced wires, installed a bypass push button starter switch, new batt conections, batt charged up, and still just got nothing when I hit the key. I put a new selenoid(sp) on it....still nothing. So I go down & buy a new starter, put it in & with a big 'ol dumbass grin I hit the key again & NOTHING. Thouroughly pissed I shut the shop door on it, swearing under my breath that I was going to push the thing into the creek.

This morning an idea came to me. I pulled the batt out of my Toyota 4x4 and swapped it in. Hit the key & the thing fired right up! I got to looking and the positive post on the old batt was all glazed over looking. Bad contact! In my frustration trying to figure it out I'd totally overlooked the obvious!

So that got me thinking.... whats you're most dumbass automotive moment? How many have done the same thing, wasting days at a time overlooking the total obvious?

Later- John

 

I stuck a new cam and lifters in my 283, had it all back together, primed the oil, stabbed the Distributor perfectly, hit the starter and it would not fire a lick. Looked and looked . Then it dawned on me.....hook up the connector to the HEI. Duh....started right up.

 

That implies that I need to rate them all. That could take a while.

 

I used to work at a general repair shop. We were a full service place, did everything from tires and exhaust to motor and tranny swaps. Well we had a project we had taken on from a customer that was a 65 mustang. It was my project, and it was just a cost plus kinda deal, so I was able to work on it while it was slow, and just keep track of my time. Well we pulled the motor to freshen it up, and clean up the engine bay. After we put it back into place the owner decided on a new intake/carb, and some valve covers, etc...

I was working on it one day, and was dry fitting the brand new carb onto the motor and checking things like linkage, fuel lines, etc... Wouldn't you know something came up that pulled me away from it. Could have been an alignment or one of about a hundered other things. I guess when I went back to the mustang, I started bolting things down and finishing the job. The customer was there when we fired it off for the first time. Motor sounded strong, but had a dead miss. We checked everything. Had spark, compression, carb was set up well enough for an initial break in. After about thirty minutes of 3 of use kinda scratchying our heads, and running it for a little while, the customer asks us "whats that red fuzzy stuff coming out of the exhaust?"

Guess who had forgotten to take the rags out of the new intake before bolting it down? So I got to pull the intake on my own time and buy a new set of gaskets. I got a good ribbing over that one for quite some time.

There was a rag wrapped around two of the intake valves. Grabbed a pair of pliers and yanked them out. Ran ALOT better after that!

 

Another one from the same shop. Was not me but was pretty funny. Another tech there was still pretty green but was not afraid to learn and did what he could.

One day he has pulled a late 80's van into the bay next to me for an oil change. He racks it up and drains the oil, drops it down and I keep hearing him cuss about burning his arm trying to get to the dipstick and oil filler. He keeps asking me where the filler is. I am elbow deep into a motor myself at the time, so I can not walk over there and show him, but tell him its got to be in there.

After a few more minutes of cussing and struggling with it he asks me if its ok to fill the crank case through the dipstick. I respond that its going to take some time, but it will not hurt anything. About 5 minutes later he drops a long string of words that I will not repeat here. I instantly knew what he had done!

It seems that in his rush, he had grapped the tranny dipstick and started filling the tranny with motor oil. Thank god he realized it before he fired that motor with a dry oil pan.

Turns out the customer was in a pinch on time, and specifically asked if we could have her out the door in 30 mins. Three of us got under there and did the fasted tranny pan gasket and fluid flush I have ever seen.

That lady got a free tranny flush with her oil change and never knew the difference.

 

had a coil go bad on an hei once in an el camino. we kept dumpin gas in thinking the carb had gone bad, or had a clogged filter. it was dark and on the side of a busy highway and when we finally figure it out we have completely flooded the motor. one of my buddies gets the bright idea to pull all the plugs and bump it over once or twice to push all the fuel out of the spark plug holes. my other buddy has the bright idea to leave the wires hanging down so we can put the firing order back quickly and get off the highway. i had the bright idea to let them do it while i replaced the coil. well the coils in about the same time the plugs are all pulled and we set to cranking it over.

i am sitting in the cab and can see the wires sparking....then it hits me about the same time it hit the raw fuel spilling out. spark and fuel make fire. one huge fireball later there were three skinny little white boys beatin the engine with the tee shirts we just ripped off. no shirts on the side of the highway hoping it doesnt explode.

thats probably the dumbest thing i have ever done.

 

Try pressing coil spings in the front with a floor jack with no engine or trans in it............. IDIOT!!! The car heaved up off the jack stands like a big dinosaur, shook, and fell to the ground.

 

I replaced the transfer case in my dakota, but left in the bad u joints (young and dumb at the time) and about three weeks later, I craked the case housing, and had to replace it AGAIN, and replace the U-Joints... woulda been better to just do it right away... but no, that would have been toooo simple...

 

My blower motor and wipers quit on my Malibu during an ice storm. Picture me with a string attached to my wiper arms and a stick to push the arms the other way. Went to the junkyard to buy both and still didn't work. Fgured it out finally that the Ground potential was missing. That year Malibu (1981) had a mixture of Aluminum and Copper wiring and wiring would snap on its own.

 

New motor in a car, everything checked, checked again, torqued to spec, distributor set at the right degrees. Check for fuel leaks (electric pump) make sure the firing order is correct.

Bump the starter, everything looks good, all the belts tight, no fuel anywhere. Ok let's go.. and nothing, engine turns over but not running.

Spend a while with 3 of us looking at it and we couldn't figure it out.. everything looked right. Take the distributor cap off, the rotor spins and everything seems right. Check for spark from the coil, compression, fuel in the cylinders everything seem to be right.

Took three of us a while to figure out that we put the wrong rotor in, from another engine that fit on the same shaft, but was a little shorter, so it didn't touch the cap.

 

Married Wife # 1

 

I once took a piss after eating a grilled jalapeno on a dare while on a date.



I think she heard me hollering all the way from the Applebee's bathroom. When I got back to the table, I was crying - it felt like there was a match under my junk!

And I was sober.

~Jason

 

I soudns like we all have made similar mistakes, but they may not be the dumbest I have made. I am only willing to admit to a few. Like fergusonic, I forget to hook up the HEI batt wire to the distributor. I converted a points distributor to an HEI type. When I had finished and wrapped the wiring in tape and the flexile plastic conduit I tried starting it and nothing. Figuring I had done something wrong I ripped apart everythign to search for the reason. After verifying everything was correct I still could not figure out why it would not start. I think it was my Dad who asked if I checked the fuse. And sur enough it turned out to be a burnt fuse. The fuse was good before I started before the upgrade. Looks like I burnt it out during some of the tests. One time while changing brakes, I put everything together, put the mags back on with the mag lock nuts, which can be a pain in the ass, to remmeber that I did not bolt the caliper back on the the spindle. Luckily I had only did it to one side. I had a friend drain what he thought was th oil pan in his import, when the fluid came out red he immediately knew he had drained the tranny.

 

Thats funny!At Performance World every year we buy cajun alligator pepperonis....I pissed fire for a week!!!

 

I pulled the top end apart on the 327 in my '55 Chev trying to find the "Tapping" noise that "Had to Be" in the valve train............try a broken spring on the mechanical fuel pump !!!!

 

This 'un is a real believe it or not! I am in the shop making an intake and carb change on my bomb when the wife yells out the house door that I have a phone call, and dinner is ready. So, I lay some shop rags and an old towel over the valley, and call it a night. Next day, I install the intake, hook everything up, and it starts up with no problem. Take the car out to see how the new stuff is gonna perform, and it has no power, bogs, and dies at half throttle.
To make a long fustrating story short, I finally, after tearing apart and checking everything else, removed the new intake. Got to looking at the ports in the heads and found several partially filled with acorns! Evedentily, a squirrel had gotten under the rags and used the ports for a food storage facility while the intake was off for those few hours. A little time with the shop vac and reassembly and things worked great.
Sure felt like a world class dumbass for not finding the squirrel stash the first time.

 

Usually I work by myself so nobody really knows the serious depth of my dumbness. filling an engine with oil pooling around my feet, drain plug? The best was after in stalling a rebuilt 727 in my old 4x4 power wagon, I could'nt get the trans to engage, I don't know how many times I had the pan off, hours went by, I tried everything. I was sitting in the drivers seat getting ready to pull the trans when I looked over and saw the transfer case in neutral, I shifted it into 2H and guess what?

 

The bad part of it all was that I had just finished boasting how the pepper wasn't hot at all, and how I might eat another! I found out realquick how wrong I was!

I whined, drank like a gallon of milk, ate some bread, and when the heat went down I headed to the bathroom, when the aforementioned incident occurred! LOL!

It was real stupid...

~Jason

 

my dumbest mistake hasn't happen yet..but the day isn't over.

1939fiat

 

Welding on the left side frame of a 63 Nova. I forgot I had taken the gas filler tube off. I was inside the wheelwell with a welding helmet on facing the hole. It sounded like a jet. In less than a second my fingers swelled up like sausages, my neck was burned, my arm was burned but it almost completely burned off a tattoo on my bicep. If I didn't have a welding helmet on...

 

I rolled a motor over on the stand to install the pan. When it tuned over I heard a bunch of clattering. It would have been wise to make sure that the pushrods and rockers were installed. All the lifters fell out. All I had to do was pull the intake but I felt pretty stupid.

One of my "friends" tried to replace a valvespring on his ProMod (big ass springs) with a 2x4 as a compressor. He slipped, never found the spring, never made it down the track.

I broke the tip of the shaft on my telescopic mirror. I tried to tack it back on with my mig bare handed. The metal was so thin thin that the entire thing was almost white hot instantly. I cried.

I'll catch hell for this one AGAIN on thursday. I recently helped a friend rebuild a motor in my shop. I'm suppose to be the experienced person in this equation. He knows enough for me to think I can trust him that the crank is std. and never been turned. So I never mic'd it. The damned thing sounded like every valve was out of adjustment.

Same incident, we pulled the motor and replaced the mains and rods with the proper bearings without pulling the heads. Use your imagination. It work pretty well an very fast. Still very stupid.

A guy on another forum used an electric drill to punch a hole in his tank to drain the last bit of fuel. Now the entire truck is the definition of flat black.

 

how about waking up every morning.

you yanks can't handle the japolino. ha ha ha.

 

+1
dave

 

Pulled the doghouse off of my truck- which had a 1971 400 SB in it. Thinking it wouldn't rain anytime soon (in phoenix), I went on vacation for a week out of town- accidentally leaving the air cleaner removed and failing to check the weather.

When I pulled the motor down for an overhaul two months ago-- Five of the eight cylinders had standing water in them almost up to the valves, and pistons were frozen in the bores. I almost threw up when i saw it.

The motor was otherwise original and in such good shape that my machinist said I could have "practically gone with a hone job and standard rings".
1700 dollars later I have a 406 with hypereutectic pistons. Not all bad I guess, but what a stupid mistake.

 

sold my pick up this afternoon...


now i "have" to search for another toy!

 

This one really takes the cake, a couple of years a go I took my 40 Ford down to a buddies shop for exhaust, on an open trailer. He cant take it right away so he says unhook the trailer and leave it at the end of the driveway, After a couple of hours a delivery truck comes up and cant get in so I have to move the trailer. So I hook up thinking I only have to move it about 10 feet no sense in safety chains or ball safety lock. I then go up the incline of the driveway across the "notice I said incline" causing the rear of the truck to dip and off goes the trailer I jump out of the truck and ran and caught up to the slow moving trailer never thinking what am I going to do when I catch up to it as I did and could do nothing but watch it hit a steel pole with the 40s deck lid and rear bumper. THe good part is least it didnt hit a pedestrian and I dont move a trailer without checking all the safety euipment. Why did you make me think of this again?

 

I've grounded myself while turning the dizzy with my hand on top of the coil plug to set the timing on (no lies...) 3 separte cars.

Oh yeah, all were race cars running MSD 6 or 7 series CD ignitions. 70,000+ volts at serious amperage. dropped me to my knees all 3 times. the 7 series HVC coil left my arm tingly for a week.

When MSD says don't touch it. They really mean, DON'T TOUCH IT!

 

i cant get into it here..its O/T..but i sure learned alot from it

 

Spent a week screwing around with the automatic security system ,because the thing would't crank. Assumed ,as the manual said the ignition ;kill' switch was the problem.

After a lot of testing and "bypassing fuses ,etc." someone reminded me to check the
basics !!!!!. DUHHH, strap rotted off the starter, Oh Boy

 

Years ago I decided that I wanted a gear drive. I put the thing in and buttoned the front back up and realized I was 180 out. Two tries later (WTF !$^!!*%, I was 18 and just learning) I had the bright idea of trying to crank it without the timing cover on just to make sure. That sucker fired off and chunked the idler out across the shop in the process. Not one of my brighter ideas.