The dumbest mistakes you've made..

trying to break a big ass bolt loose i was using a 2 foot piece of 2" square tubing as a breaker bar and of course pulling toward myself , when the bolt broke loose i yaked myself right in the forehead. not bad enough for stitches but lots of blood.

 

Was at BigO's shop.He had one of those spring clamps.The one that when you open it and let it go, it springs shut.Opened it up an says "put your finger in there".To this day I am reminded of that.And let me tell you, it hurts like hell!!!! And he laughed.

 

Wasn't Me! ...One of my Bosses back in 1973 was inspecting a new engine we had just commisioned and started. A BIG engine,3500 HP at 500 RPM with a turbo 4 feet dia,it was a brand new GE V16 .
They had a rail running along the outside of each bank which controlled the fuel delivery so the boss gets a 3' stillson on the rail and starts to rev the engine up. Suddenly the stillson jams in the rail an he can't get it free and the engine is now running at full boost ,full revs.
we fuck about for 5 minutes turning the fuel off and even chopped the main fuel rail but the engine had started running on it's own oil....10 minutes later several hundred grand worth of engine parts exploded across 50 yards and further!
The sight of a 6 foot high flame coming out of the turbo was cool as!

 

Picking up that first little hotrod magazine back in '59.

 

watched a guy pull out a shop towel through the dist hole after a intake swap.

 

I wish I could have seen that...

 

Selling my Lyndwood FED, my '60 Fullie Vette, and my all original Anglia. O, then there was the Hot Rod '30 Rolls Limo, the TE440 Chassis Engineering FED and the one off '41 Chevy COE Panel. Almost forgot the late 40's Masaritti from the junk yard on Staten Island.

Hell, I've messed up a lot in 50 years.

 

I traded a "30 model A sedan delivery for a chromed out "63 T bird that got a full 8 mpg.

 

The bosses daughter. But it was a mistake I'd make again

 

My first wife.

 

Not enough room to list them all!

 

My LATEST really dumb move was a few weeks ago..

My 55 Lincoln needed a fuel pump, I had tried a rebuild of sorts on the mechanical pump that lasted a day. The Lincoln pumps are hard to come by so against my wishes I settled on an electric pump. I made a nice block off plate to go over the hole left when the mechanical pump was removed. This plate also doubled as the mount for the new electric pump.

I did a very clean install, connected up the hard lines nice, I was finishing up the electric install making the last connection under the dash. I had to find a good switched power source but my handy dandy circuit/continuity tester was not working right. I played around with the damn thing for a while, then figuring that the tester might be broken I decide to go straight to the battery to test it, upon viewing the battery (in the floorboard) I had put in a few days prior... it was at this moment that "I remembered" that the Lincoln used a 6 volt electrical system....... Duh!!!

I guess I should have bought a 6 volt pump,,,,, I ordered one to arrive on the following tuesday...

 

On first blush I wanted to think that it is impossible to install a cam 180* out,,, but on second thought I guess a cam can be installed 180* CAM degrees out...

Made me think for a min, I have never installed a gear drive so this statement caught me off guard.. it would be hard to install a chain on a SBF or a chevy 180 out... a person would really have to work at it..

 

A few years ago I was beating on the back drums attempting to take them off for a half hour. My wife walked out, looked at what I was doing, reached in the car, released the emergency brake, and walked back inside. Drums came right off. Dumb ass.

 

My buddies four cylinder truck would die running down the road and then mysteriously start up again a few minutes later. We thought it was a fuel delivery problem. I ran the fuel into a bucket to measure how much it pumped. We needed some comparison so I unhooked the fuel line on my then girlfriends Chevy Monza with an Iron Duke four cylinder engine. I had my friend spin the motor over while I stuck my head under the hood. Unfortunately the fuel pump is right underneith the HEI distributor. The fuel shot out of the fuel pump straight up into the underside of the HEI and a giant fireball erupted. I lost both eyebrows and all the hair on one arm. Luckily my buddies boat was in the driveway and had a fire extenguisher in it. What a mess.

Rick