Dumbest thing I ever did
11-25-2013, 08:17 AM
#21
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
The dumbest thing I've ever done by a long shot had to be back in the mid '90s to my first car, an '89 Taurus. I was 16 mind you. A group of friends distracted me and I had wondered off for the afternoon in the middle of an oil change. Upon return in the evening I had forgotten that earlier I inserted the oil drain plug and lowered the car but not yet had filled it back up with oil. Took off in the car and not 10 miles later I was on the side of the road scratching my head why the engine had suddenly seized up. Thank God it was a Ford... 
02-18-2014, 10:57 AM
#22
Le Mans Master
The t-shirt reminded me of what I did quite a while ago on my '69 Z28.
I was changing intake manifolds and I used a towel in the lifter valley to catch the gasket residue from cleaning the head ports. Well, I forgot to take out the towel. I remembered it after I had the intake on, so I had to pull the intake again and remove the towel. At least I didn't hurt anything but my pride. So embarrassing.
Stuff happens to all of us.
I was changing intake manifolds and I used a towel in the lifter valley to catch the gasket residue from cleaning the head ports. Well, I forgot to take out the towel. I remembered it after I had the intake on, so I had to pull the intake again and remove the towel. At least I didn't hurt anything but my pride. So embarrassing.
Stuff happens to all of us.
02-18-2014, 11:07 AM
#23
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
The t-shirt reminded me of what I did quite a while ago on my '69 Z28.
I was changing intake manifolds and I used a towel in the lifter valley to catch the gasket residue from cleaning the head ports. Well, I forgot to take out the towel. I remembered it after I had the intake on, so I had to pull the intake again and remove the towel. At least I didn't hurt anything but my pride. So embarrassing.
Stuff happens to all of us.
I was changing intake manifolds and I used a towel in the lifter valley to catch the gasket residue from cleaning the head ports. Well, I forgot to take out the towel. I remembered it after I had the intake on, so I had to pull the intake again and remove the towel. At least I didn't hurt anything but my pride. So embarrassing.
Stuff happens to all of us.
02-19-2014, 09:19 AM
#25
Race Director
I've had many blonde moments and still do but a couple more memorable have been, after changing fromm road race tires to street ties in my garage, took the car for a ride. At a street light my a-type brain kicks in when some kid in a stang throws a couple of revs my way, so I roll down the window and tell him and his car has bad-*** his cars sounds, how good it looks etc.... nail it at the and go about a 1/4 mi and the car start shaking,(beat the stang) pull over and realize I never even tightened the lug nuts, all were hand tight. They had walked almost completley off the studs, called my wife and she brought my star wrench to me. Once on a road course my brakes weren't working properly, got the car onto jack stands at the track, tires off, rotors off, took all the calipers apart, after checking everything(i thought) i packed the car up and went home. Three days later Im poking around and find a 1" long obolong hole in the brake booster hose. The hose was rubbing on the header air tube pipe. A quick wrape of electrical tape would have fixed that at the track. My first attempt at drag racing was blondish as well, light goes from yellow to green,I get out fine, shift from 1-2, car shuts down, I end up with a 15.8, I get extremely pissed because I just bought the car 4 or 5 days before, paid cash, and was ready to light it on fire. Fellow racer came over and asked me if I had turned off the taction control, I was like what? whats that? 
02-19-2014, 09:39 AM
#26
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
I've had many blonde moments and still do but a couple more memorable have been, after changing fromm road race tires to street ties in my garage, took the car for a ride. At a street light my a-type brain kicks in when some kid in a stang throws a couple of revs my way, so I roll down the window and tell him and his car has bad-*** his cars sounds, how good it looks etc.... nail it at the and go about a 1/4 mi and the car start shaking,(beat the stang) pull over and realize I never even tightened the lug nuts, all were hand tight. They had walked almost completley off the studs, called my wife and she brought my star wrench to me. Once on a road course my brakes weren't working properly, got the car onto jack stands at the track, tires off, rotors off, took all the calipers apart, after checking everything(i thought) i packed the car up and went home. Three days later Im poking around and find a 1" long obolong hole in the brake booster hose. The hose was rubbing on the header air tube pipe. A quick wrape of electrical tape would have fixed that at the track. My first attempt at drag racing was blondish as well, light goes from yellow to green,I get out fine, shift from 1-2, car shuts down, I end up with a 15.8, I get extremely pissed because I just bought the car 4 or 5 days before, paid cash, and was ready to light it on fire. Fellow racer came over and asked me if I had turned off the taction control, I was like what? whats that?
02-19-2014, 11:54 AM
#27
Drifting
02-21-2014, 09:08 AM
#28
Drifting
Member Since: Nov 2008
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I think I got you guys all beat...because my blonde moment (great term btw) was intentional.
I had to tow an empty dual axle U Haul trailer about 40 miles to pick up a piano and furniture we bought for our new house. I buy a hitch and ball at Autozone...unassembled...and bring it home to mount on my Durango. I don't have a wrench big enough to mount the ball so I hand tighten it to the hitch actually thinking it would hold.
Take a wild guess what happened on the highway doing 60 mph.
I had to tow an empty dual axle U Haul trailer about 40 miles to pick up a piano and furniture we bought for our new house. I buy a hitch and ball at Autozone...unassembled...and bring it home to mount on my Durango. I don't have a wrench big enough to mount the ball so I hand tighten it to the hitch actually thinking it would hold.
Take a wild guess what happened on the highway doing 60 mph.
02-21-2014, 10:12 AM
#29
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
I think I got you guys all beat...because my blonde moment (great term btw) was intentional.
I had to tow an empty dual axle U Haul trailer about 40 miles to pick up a piano and furniture we bought for our new house. I buy a hitch and ball at Autozone...unassembled...and bring it home to mount on my Durango. I don't have a wrench big enough to mount the ball so I hand tighten it to the hitch actually thinking it would hold.
Take a wild guess what happened on the highway doing 60 mph.
I had to tow an empty dual axle U Haul trailer about 40 miles to pick up a piano and furniture we bought for our new house. I buy a hitch and ball at Autozone...unassembled...and bring it home to mount on my Durango. I don't have a wrench big enough to mount the ball so I hand tighten it to the hitch actually thinking it would hold.
Take a wild guess what happened on the highway doing 60 mph.
02-21-2014, 11:32 AM
#30
Drifting
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02-21-2014, 02:15 PM
#31
Pro
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installed inter cooler on my Grand Prix GTP..... it was a bit of a job. Ex wife yelling at me every five minutes because I was working on the car not standing there listen to her dumb *** stories. anyways with all that nagging I forgot to change the oil... even though I saw the oil was contaminated with anitfreeze from pulling the intake manifold off when I replaced the OIL pressure sensor. oil had a greenish tint to it. Oh I need to change the oil before i start her back up.......more nagging so it never happened, so car is back together. I turn up the boost to about 15psi everything is running great. 2 weeks later KAPOW spun a bearing MOTHER FUC###
02-21-2014, 02:24 PM
#32
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
installed inter cooler on my Grand Prix GTP..... it was a bit of a job. Ex wife yelling at me every five minutes because I was working on the car not standing there listen to her dumb *** stories. anyways with all that nagging I forgot to change the oil... even though I saw the oil was contaminated with anitfreeze from pulling the intake manifold off when I replaced the OIL pressure sensor. oil had a greenish tint to it. Oh I need to change the oil before i start her back up.......more nagging so it never happened, so car is back together. I turn up the boost to about 15psi everything is running great. 2 weeks later KAPOW spun a bearing MOTHER FUC###
03-02-2014, 11:30 PM
#33
Instructor
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Grey T-Shirt moment
Way back in 1971 I was running C/Gas with a big block Rat Motor. When I was working on it I covered the open valley with a brand new shop rag. Forgot about it when the mill got put together. It turned into cotton in a big hurry. Pressure dropped fast and I killed it just in time. Had to tear it down completely and flush all the passages. WOW what a kick in the head. Now I'm getting kinda old and the oops are more common. I just drive my C 5 now. Put a KD Cold Air Kit in it and cat back Billy Boats. Just cruise with it now. I sure do miss the drag strip. I worked at the Nuke plant across the road from the drag strip many years after I quit but the urge is still in my blood. Turned my head every time I drove by.
03-03-2014, 10:01 AM
#34
Drifting
I did something boneheaded last month. I was trying to complete a cam swap, starting at 10PM LOL. I worked through the night.
Well, as I was timing the cam, I realized I was turning the crank over with the rocker arms still on.
If I didn't have giant valve reliefs from my forged pistons, I would have bent a valve for sure.
This is why you don't do cam swaps on no sleep. I did a compression test just to be sure and all was well.
Well, as I was timing the cam, I realized I was turning the crank over with the rocker arms still on.
If I didn't have giant valve reliefs from my forged pistons, I would have bent a valve for sure.
This is why you don't do cam swaps on no sleep. I did a compression test just to be sure and all was well.
03-03-2014, 10:02 AM
#35
Drifting
03-04-2014, 01:18 PM
#36
Safety Car
Great stories, guys. Good thing is we are all still alive to tell them... b/c sometimes, they don't end up that way. (no offense to those who have had a real unfortunate accident).
Mine was back in '94, after blowing up an engine in my supercharged 5.0 Mustang. Had it rebuilt, and I was installing it. Got a new hi-po balancer (good idea, given the extra tension on the crank from the blower). The motor was externally balanced (most Fords of the time were), so the machine shop had installed the balancer once in an effort to balance the assembly. Fast forward... while I'm putting the engine in, and installing the balancer, it didn't want to seat all the way. Torque wrench at 90lbs... balancer not seating. I'm like, screw it, I'll just keep torqueing... "yeah, its starting to seat now!". And you can figure out the rest. All of a sudden the threads in the crank give out, and the bolt was stripped too. Ugh! ended up heli-coiling the crank, which was a lot of fun. There I am drilling the snout of my brand new crank. That engine ended up running really well, though.
Mine was back in '94, after blowing up an engine in my supercharged 5.0 Mustang. Had it rebuilt, and I was installing it. Got a new hi-po balancer (good idea, given the extra tension on the crank from the blower). The motor was externally balanced (most Fords of the time were), so the machine shop had installed the balancer once in an effort to balance the assembly. Fast forward... while I'm putting the engine in, and installing the balancer, it didn't want to seat all the way. Torque wrench at 90lbs... balancer not seating. I'm like, screw it, I'll just keep torqueing... "yeah, its starting to seat now!". And you can figure out the rest.
All of a sudden the threads in the crank give out, and the bolt was stripped too. Ugh! ended up heli-coiling the crank, which was a lot of fun. There I am drilling the snout of my brand new crank. That engine ended up running really well, though.