You just finish up installing your intake manifold and are about to start it up and you realize that you left the towel in the lifter valley you were using to catch debris with.....OR IS THAT JUST ME? :mad:

I need to learn to slow down a bit I think :D

I don't think it's just you. I've heard of people that left it in there before. I guess you should never be in a hurry when you're working on crucial/expensive components of your car. At least for me, If I'm in a hurry, it feels more like work and then I'm just not having fun.

who, me? I would never do anything as dumb as that..... ;)

Like going thru he!! to figure out why a new engine kept dying after startup. Something to do with that pinch-off I had on the fuel line....

Like going through another he!! for a backfiring problem. about the 14th time I check the plug wires I find #5 and #7 reversed. Why didn't I see it the first 13 times?? I'll never know.

This is the true value of experience: being able to immediately recognize the same mistake as you're making it again........ :) Doesn't count if it's more than 10 years since last time though.

oh man ..never done that before.....thats sucks.. one step at a time!!!

Hey you just joined the club of kick yourself in the ASS things, we all been there or your time hasnt came yet. I was in such a happy hurry to crank it up and hear music in my ears that as i was priming the oil pump with drill it just didnt torque up fast enough and behold 7 qts, of oil on the floor forgot to install oil filter, another bid hurry not letting the air out the slicks after comming off the trailer sideways down the track. Your on the list, I know a guy running Top Fuel who did the same thing so i dont feel so bad.
Douglas

And by the way, it wasn't a paper towel, it was a folded up beach towel. :hurray:

Sometimes I wonder how I've made it this far...:noway:

And by the way, it wasn't a paper towel, it was a folded up beach towel. :hurray:

Sometimes I wonder how I've made it this far...:noway:


I heard someone do that and it jammed the engine up and when intake was removed bend over and receive kick in ass.

I installed an oil pan on a Pontiac once . Had everything buttoned up. came out from under the car and found the oil pump on the workbench. Hey! At least I hadn't lowered the car yet. The motor yes, the car no. :)

I saw a picture of what was left of the timing chain after a shirt was left in. and ran a couple of days. nothing left. Be happy you realized it right away. one of my kids was helping me change intake and he dropped a bolt down the distributor hole right before installing it luckily a mag got it out.

more than once. On my first car I realized I forgot a rag in there...Tok intake off, took it out, reassmebled. Those were the days of heavy beer drinking whenever I worked on it. ....Never could find a certain couple o wrenches and sockets...Sometime later I pulled it again to change the cam and guess what was still there? :clonk: Dropped the pan a few months later to check the bearings and found some missing harware, too. Car never missed a beat :D

Ha Ha, Yeah I bought an engine from a friend of mine and found a rag in the lifter valley. the engine had about 1,000 miles on it.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-12/913457/IM000765.jpg

dont worry I put a flex fan on a 302 backwards and threw all the blades through the hood on the interstate! (dumb ass)

I once took the wheel of my 1971 Ford Maverick and put the lug nuts on the floor next to the car. When it was time to put the wheel back on, one lug was missing. I turned that garage over for an hour or more and even accused my wife of its accidental disappearance. It was later that evening when we were visiting with friends and I was sitting down I was fumbling around with my sneakerand my fingers discovered the lug nut! I had stepped on it and my sneaker was able to conceal it away in a large hollow void in the tread pattern of the sneakers sole!...Sorry for using the F word at the top of my post.:noway:

I watched a guy at the track one time leave a rag stuffed down an intake while swapping carbs. :clonk: Even tried to start the thing...

Don't feel bad I worked at a dealer were a guy did that he left more then one though. It ended up destroying the customers motor and he lost his job

Once, I was building an engine and after it was all together, I went to my bench and saw a box. Well, I opened that box and I found a set of roller lifters. I stood there puzzled as can be, all the while wondering why the heck do I have an EXTRA set of lifters????????
Took me a few minutes to realize what I had done.

yep i left not one but three.the boss's son was talking to me and i became distracted . i had replaced the intake,torqued bolts and was trying to drop in the dist.needless to say the dist was not wanting to fit so i crawled on top of the engine to git a looksee with a flashlight. oh well, might as well take a ten minute break.well to make a short story long i took a coathanger and made some long grab hooks and was able to fish out all three rags.i was semi-proud of myself untill the boss said that i needed to remove the intake and check just to be shure.so much for that.

Doctors do this all the time. I think they even have a SOP to have two people count the number of rags, wipes etc. before the operation and then they count everything after the operation to make sure nothing was left inside!

I left a ratchet wrench under the manifold. Turned out to be a good storage place. When I found it, after about 10 years, it still had little use and no rust.

Good rule: Never use stainless steel bolts on engines. I learned how to make a lasso out of wire loop inside of a copper tube to get that one out. Magnets don't work on stainless.

Put on a used head gasket and couldn't figure why I still had two new ones. On a studded engine, that was a real pain.

Patience is always cheaper, in the long run, than the big hammer.

I have never left a rag in the there, but I almost did something as bad. I swapped out the manifold, and I always use plastic cellophane. Well I got everything put back together and I mean everything carb, linkage, ect. I was about to fire the motor when luckily my buddy, said hey, you did take the cellophane out right. DUH!!!!!, I had not, but at least it was caught before I fired the motor.

Some guys I know honed their engine in the living room with sandpaper and lots of other back woods tech. When they finished it ran suprisingly well. The thing that finally got them was the cheap screwdriver that they left in the lifter valley. The handle melted around some of the lifters. Funny stuff. Later--Mac

On my first car I realized I forgot a rag in there...Tok intake off, took it out, reassmebled.

then realized you left the rag under a valve cover :D


Those were the days of heavy beer drinking whenever I worked on it.

thats why I hide the beer from my friends until AFTER we work on something :thumbsup:

I did put my 454 together and forgot to put the oil pump drive on. Figure no big deal Id just put it in from the top. NOT. Jim

Several years ago, I was helping a friend with his 57 Chevy pickup. The intake manifold gasket was leaking and we were going to pull it and install new gaskets. The engine appeared to be virgin. Pulled the manifold and found a screwdriver! It had definitely been there MANY years---------------or, it may have even been a factory installation!

Also, I've been rebuilding 4spds for almost 40yrs for myself, friends and customers. More than once I have completely finished assembling a Muncie, got it ready to install or ship and noticed a reverse idler gear lying on the workbench (the little one that goes inside the main case)! :clonk:

I did exactly that one late night a long time ago at Texas World Speedway.
A friend wanted to try out my new Team G manifold, so we swapped it while everyone else was drinking and partying. ( and trying to help)
Next morning during hot laps, the oil pressure warning light came on (it was brand new). The oil was RED with rags that had been shredded already. We pulled the dist and swept the valley with coat hangers, and pulled the pan. The bearings showed little or no damage, so we cleaned the oil pump, the screen, and the passage to the filter, the filter bypass was blocked, luckily. I think the filter weighed about 10 pounds. Of course, new oil and filter and hurry to meet deadline for starting line, but we made it somehow, and he ran it and got 2nd or 3rd place and his wife won in the powder puff class. When he got home to Houston he changed the oil a couple of times to be safe, but no problems.
I never did get my manifold back, though. LOL

Jeff