[chevelle_ss_dood]

This one takes the cake.... I bought a chevelle. :thumbsup:

 

[dude67]

Ok,
This is not really car related, but mechanical. I was in the service in 1986. Fort Hood,Texas. The firing range. The solenoid that fires a M240 co-axil machine gun off a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The trigger soleniod was inop for my Bradley, so I had to remove another one from another track in my platoon. I would have thought that a gun backed down off the range would have been downloaded. So I go to this track that has been backed off the firing line. While I'm looking down at the belt of 7.62 ammo in the machine gun loaded! I removed the solenoid only to find that the soleniod was the only thing stopping the bolt from firing. 300 rounds down range. The battalion commander (Lietenant Colonel) ) and the battalion sargent major where diving behined other tracks for cover. I just popped my head out the hatch and said " OH my God". Luckly no one was hurt.

 

[BlackBetty]

dude 67!!!! LMBO!

 

[MJRIBEIRO]

Not car related - but this Christmas eve I was assembling a baseball pitch-back net for my son. The instructions were so bad that I soon found I couldn't trust them. Parts were marked differently and had been changed from the time of the printing. There was one item I never quite understood until I was finished. The said that you should assemble the net in the garage or outside. One I had finished the assmebly in my basement I figured out why - I built a 'ship in the bottle' - it was even too large to make it through our 48" wide basement door! HoHoHo!

 

[charbilly2001]

I was under a properly supported car sitting on the garage floor. I had a lit torch in my hand with the hose laying across my lap. The hose was binding and limiting my hand movement so I grabbed the hose and gave it a flip to reposition it so I could get to my target with the torch. When I flipped the hose with one hand it caused my other hand to jerk and the tip of the torch went into my right nostril. I, of course, removed the tip of the torch from my nose very quickly but not before blackening the first layer of skin and of course there was NO nose hair in that nostril for a time.

Oddly enough it didn't really hurt much but it sure scared the hell out of me.

Looked really ugly in the mirror for a couple of weeks. Got VERY tired of explaining it to every customer that walked in the door.

 

[BlackBetty]

LMAO....CharBilly........IS that how you got your name???

 

[1970SS502]

Well, I hate to admit this but here goes...I was coming home from a local car show and my buddy was pacing me in his '56 Bel Air and I got throttle happy. I slapped it into second and ran away from the Bel Air. I immediately heard this horrible knocking/tapping sound but was less than a block from my house so I eased off the gas and decided to try to get home. I just wanted to get it in the garage and shut it down. I turn right into my garage and see the wife’s SUV sitting there on her side but it makes it harder to park my car. Anyway, I am watching her car so I don’t hit it and reaching down to shut my car off as soon as I park when I realize I just wedged my passenger side up against the garage door frame. Flattened the passenger side from the door handle (which is really strong, it ripped a chunk of the frame out but stayed faithfully attached to the door) back to the rear wheel well. I can tell you with 100% honesty that a standard toilet plunger (properly washed!) really does work on dents of this nature. I got most of the dent to pop back out and a lot of rubbing compound/buffing cleaned up most of it but it’s still an eyesore. It’s at the body/paint shop now and of course they couldn’t promise the blend to be invisible (current paint is 9 years old) so the whole car is getting repainted. The knocking sound was from a loose rocker arm.

 

[RedSS454]

Mine aren't quite as good as some of these, but here goes.


Had car nosed into my garage. Had an old home stereo sitting on top of a cardboard box of zip-bags. Thing had been there for about 2 years. Get the car back from the body shop, wearing it's 4 coats of Viper Red on it's all new sheet metal. Snows out, and the moisture gets to the box. Box collapses, causing the stereo to fall onto the hood (right in the black stripe). Paint job = less then a month old.

Went to a carshow, and after it was over went to put a folding lawn-chair in the trunk (ya know, the ones with the metal legs). Well the plug that goes into that leg was gone, and the leg went in between the deck lid and the trunk. Paint job: 10 months old.

When I first got the car, I went to pull one of the valve covers to check the head numbers. Of course, I picked the passanger side head, so I wouldn't have to fight with the master cylinder. Get it all loostened up, and as I'm taking it off, hit the back of the alternator post. Ground it and short it out. The sheilding on the wire went up in flames. Grabbed an extinguisher and put it out. New wire and all was well. Realized the next day that the extinguisher was 35 years old. Ordered 4 the next day from Granger.

Thought I had her in neutral, and went to start the car. Wasn't in neutral, and my foot wasn't on the clutch. Put a nice dent in the back garage wall. God bless metal bumpers. Last time I took it for granted that it wasn't in gear.

Put the new motor and was real excited to fire it up. Get behind the wheel and pump it a few times. Hit the key and watch the tach run up to 4500 in a New York second. Forgot to put the return spring on. Didn't hurt anything, though.

I've got more, but that's enough for now.

Chris

 

[Tex66]

I always get a kick out this when I think about it. Ok so we spent a saturday removing the body of my chevelle off the frame. Well we have the body pulled off and rolled the chassis back into the shop. Well I still had the entire drivetrain still attachted to the frame. Well, my uncle gets the cool idea of firing the engine one last time before removing it. I was all for it since it hadn't been fired in a couple months, plus I knew this would be the last time I got to hear her purr. So we prime the carb and my dad touches the ignition wires...alittle backfire as a small flame jumped out of the carb...no problems we'll try it again. So my uncle holds a gallon container of gas above the carb (hooked up to the fuel lines) and I grab the throttle linkage so I can give it some gas. Well, I'm leaning in pretty close so I can get a good grip on the linkage. So my dad tries again, touching the ignition wires together. It turns and turns until it finally fires. Well not a half second later this liquid just EXPLODED out of the engine covering me from head to toe. I was temporarly blinded as I hit the ground running thinking it had been like gasoline or something. When my Dad finally killed the engine I wiped my eyes clean and realized that I was covered in oil. When we had removed the body I had disconnected the oil pressure sending unit from the block to the dash and had forgotten to plug the hole up. Needless to say when we fired the engine it blew oil like a gyser all over the shop. What was worse was the fact that my dad's harley davidson was parked right by the chassis. After he found out I was ok, he yelled for me to get the hose and some terry clothes, when he realized it was covering his motorcyle! It was blast! Literally! lol Oil does not taste good BTW lol


One non-bone headed thing we did...put the rear axles up on jack stands. After we fired the engine after plugging the hole, we realized the tranny was also in drive. It wouldn't have been fun chasing a chassis down the drive-way! lol

 

[charbilly2001]

LMAO....CharBilly........IS that how you got your name???

Nope. Bill Charette is the name. Hence charbilly however the connection is pretty close. It was a moment I'll never forget.

 

[Nor Cal Chevelle]

When I was about 10-12 years old, I noticed that the engine on my Grandfather's 1950 Chevrolet farm truck was filthy with dirt, grease and other gunk. Thought I would do him a favor and clean it. Unfortunately the only "engine cleaner" handy was a can of gasoline. Let me tell you that it does a great job of disolving gunk but it does not dry real fast. After a few minutes I started the engine and there was a substantial fire. Luckily, the only real damage was that a lot of the underhood wiring had to be replaced.

 

[DrOlds]

DrOLDS.Tell your friend I feel his pain.Been there done that.These real world events can remind others to triple check before getting under the car.27 years later and still wrenching daily for a living.Knock on wood.:thumbsup:

I can vouch for that heres one of my screw ups.
I am a mechanic for the transit system in boston ma
and I went out to tow a bus that the rear brakes froze up
( dead of winter cold day )
I crawled under the bus as usual after it aired up, but for got to put my wooden block between the frame and rear axle housing ( air bag suspension)
the rear air bag blew on the left inner rear and the body of the bus dropped down luckily I was in a open area and hence dident get crushed....
I never forgot to block a front or rear axle again!!!!!

 

[P J Moran]

To ask for the most bonehead thing would take a great deal of research.

But, this happened just last night...

I was trying to fix my noisy windshield wipers on my '74, and decided I had to pull the entire dash out to get to them. Two hours later, dash out, pieces everywhere, coupla things broken, I realized that the motor and mechanism are in the cowl... :clonk:

 

[DrOlds]

Yikes That Hurts!!!!

 

[72 malibu]

Well, not working on a car but..I was 16, just got through w/ my job at the local golf course reasturant. It was a nice summer night. It was 9:15 pm, and I had just got my liscense. So I come home from work, 2min. away. I was drivig my moms '84 Plymouth Horizon(yeah baby!) and open the garage door only to find 2-3 bikes in the way.I put the car in P and get out to move the bikes. So in all my wisdom I sit back in the car, but, with the door open and my legs hanging out, like I sat in the seat sideways.Well I put her in D and hey , wait, the car lunges foward. I start to panic immeadtly and try to hit the brake pedal with my hand, still sitting sideways! I got to the pedal with my hand, just couldn't push it quick enough! I smacked into the garage wall. I also wacked my face on the steering wheel when the car hit the wall, with my hand on the brake. I get out and looked at what just happened. I only see that I cracked a wooden tobbagian(sp?) up against the wall. So I go inside and my younger brother is just standing there and looks at me and says"you are in deep s&*t!"I turn and look in the living room, the couch is pushed out three feet from the wall! I hit a stud and pushed it three feet into the living room. My parants were not home (thank God!) . I left and came back the next night! They took it well, I had to pay the contractor the $450.00 to fix it all. So , my greatest bonehead move, brought up at every family event from then on.

 

[BlackBetty]

Lmao 72!

 

[70 Gold Nugget]

BigFred66...you are hilarious...and somewhat dangerous as well...

I had a Firebird with GTO 400 Ram Air engine bad boy car...had some squeaking coming from fan belt...hummm better double check see if it is coming from fan belt...it sure is...get the belt dressing got to get in there close...WHAP says the unstoppable fan...dang my finger was hurting...didn't lose it fortunately...keep your hands away from running fan...

 

[Camino69]

Lol,, ok ive got 2 big ones, that fit into the what was i thinking group.
First, i was around 18 or so, And needed some gas to prime my carb,
So i proceed to lay on my back, and syphon directly off the gas tank line of my 67 firebird. So, Are you visualizing it yet? lol
One hard suck on the end of hose,,, And i got a face full of gas, up my nose, down my throat, in my eyes, i swallowed a good amount of it.
I Flew(litterally,never felt my feet touch the floor) inside half blind, not able to breathe,and stuck my head upside down under the water faucet.
Ohh man did it burn. my mom called 911 to see if i was gonna die or something,, luckily, all that happened is, i permenatly fried my left sinus cavity, coulda been alot worse. (Not proud of that moment)

Second is equally bad,

So im driving around in my 72 chevelle, no hood on it, as i just put eng in and am fine tuning it.
I notice a little flame on the posative battery cable, Right above the battery..
So what do i do?
I jump out, and start blowing on the fire, trying to put it out, with my face 3 inches from battery.
Well, luckily it hit me,, "What the hell am i doing?"
I turned, and ran as fast as i could to get to shelter, as soon as i turned, KAABOOM!!!!,,Battery exploded like a grenade, i got under cover just intime to hear the acid pouring down like rain all over the eng, and street.
I was litteraly 2 seconds away from blowing my face or head off.
Its moments like that, that really make u stop and think before you Do!!
Ive gotten better with age and experience,,lol (God i hope)

 

[72 malibu]

Damn CAMINO69...you are lucky you moved! Dude, your sinus is still screwed up? WOW,lMAO for sure...makes you wonder how we all made it this far.
Hear is another ...just got done under the hood of the 'vell and my friend stopped by, so we go out for a spin...the guy in the car next to me starts pointing at my car, I am like "WTF". Well 2 seconds later smoke is billowing out from under the hood! Pull over, pop the hood, smoke everywhere. I left a rag under there! It was half on fire on the header! I grabbed it -out - but the bushing on the control arm was on fire! I pulled my shirt off and smothered it, and yes it was on the side the gas line come up through. # 2 on my list.

 

[32551]

Tip: Never squeeze a dry-rotted rubber fuel line, particularly with a full tank of gas, unless you have a replacement hose, clamps, and tools at the ready! I spent two hours with my finger pressed up against the hard line waiting for my wife to get home so that I could send her to the auto parts store!

:noway: that was great. did you tell her what you were doing.lol