The first 616 I rebuilt I left the two main oil gallery plugs out, couldn't figure why the oil pressure wouldn't come up:o

years ago in my dads shop we had an early 70's buick electra in it had those wheel covers that looked like spoked chrome wheels.well my dad had it on the hoist and started taking the lug nuts off.man he hammered on those things,said my god whos the bufoon that tightened these on.thats when i told him to take the wheel cover off.what got me was he didn't break any of those fake nuts off.

I like Catmandoo's story best of all. My dad and I laugh often talking about doing stupid stuff in the old days. How many here have cut sawhorses in half?

Not long ago, zzzip right through the beveled 2x6 "saw horse top" DOH, I think about every time I'm carrying them, one is heaver because?? Oh yah....It has a 2x4 scabbed on underneath:D

I have not cut sawhorses in half but I have cut more than one electric cord in two.

THAT is the real reason they came up with cordless stuff!

Tom W

Well, about a quarter century ago, I installed a salvage-yard Fintail Kuhlmeister AC unit in my '61 Ponton 180. Back then R12 was cheap and unregulated, and many add-on AC systems used barbed fittings with clamp-on hoses, but my salvage-yard compressor only came with a high-pressure fitting attached to a short chunk of factory crimp-on hose. Not having the correct barb fitting, I cut off the hose and collar, then carefully ground some shallow grooves in the fitting to give the new clamp-on hose something to 'bite' onto.
First warm day that AC was really cranking as I pulled away from a traffic light. Then there was a loud bang, as if someone had fired a shotgun under my hood, and the front of my car was enveloped in a large white cloud. I held my breath as some of the cloud forced it's way through various openings in my firewall into my front seat area.
Then I installed the correct fitting!

Happy Motoring, Mark

Well, now that we've all done dumb things, here's mine!:D While working on my Benz and putting it back together after a valve adjustment, I assembled the linkages to the throttle incorrectly. I had the throotle stuck at wide open and after what I thought was carefully checking everything out to make sure I hadn't "missed" anything, I got in and cranked 'er up and put 'er into drive.

Well, fortunately I was out in the back yard, but only half out of my carport when it took off like a rocket! Man she loved that valve adjustment!:D Before I could stop it it went through the back yard gate, which was closed, and out into the desert with the rear wheels spinning in the dirt and going through the cactuses and creosote bushes at about 60.:eek: Now before I could shut it down, I went through a soft sand gulley and went airborne over the other side, but I turned the wheel hard while in the sand and shut it off and put it in neutral.:o

It took me a bit to figure out what went wrong and while the gate was "open", the horses got out and, oh well, I just went out on Stormy and rounded up the other two!:(:D

Back when I had my old 200D, for some reason, I decided to take off the oil fill cap while the engine was running. It seems the timing chain was directly under the opening on that engine. It painted a stripe of black oil about 6 inches wide and 20 feet high on the side of the house. :eek:

That's a good one Knight.
It beats anything I've ever done, well maybe. 20 some odd years ago while I still had my 67 Cadillac, I was adjusting the idle and timing on the car in the garage. I set the parking brake and put the car in drive while it was running. It seemed to be holding until I set the idle and wham! It got away from me and crashed partway through the garage wall.:o The only thing that kept the car completely going through was the low concrete stem wall the back wall of the garage was built on. The car actually suffered no damage but the garage wall cost a few $1000 to rebuild.:eek:

Fortunately, creosote bushes and small cactuses are soft so no damage happened to my benz!:D Sure did get the neighbors up to see what was going on though!:o Felt a bit like doin' the Dukes of Hazard when I came out the other side of the gully-wash though!:D

dang
 

These are getting better and better. Dukes O' Hazzard, working on a car while it's in drive with brake set, maybe someone will post one where he's under the hood with his wife driving it down the street. "Hold the throttle right there honey....." Bet we get a "forgot-to-reinstall-the-oil-pan-drain-plug-story"

oh, oil drain plg? so common its not worth telling.....dumping about the fourth quart in when I noticed the oil running around my feet....

I am pretty sure I have done this more than once....not lately though.

Course I have filled my truck with gasoline (its a diesel) twice in two years though.....that wastes a half day draining out and refillng with diesel.

Tom W

Just as I was just about finished buttoning everything up after replacing the leaking gasket between the turbo and the manifold on my old RX7, I managed to drop a small nut down into the impeller. With that car, you practically have to disassemble everything on one side of the engine to get the turbo off, and I had visions of another 3 hours work to get it out. As I was going through every Anglo-Saxon expression I knew, my wife calmly suggested I use the shop vac to suck out the bit of hardware. A minute later, the nut was safely in the shop vac, and life was back to normal.

OldPokey's got a smart wife.

I was having difficulty getting my hands on/around the power steering fluid filter to remove it, so I decided to use a screwdriver, stick it at an angle through one of the holes, and lift slowly up to take the filter out with it.

Dummy me used a screwdriver with a removable bit. next thing I know i've dropped a screwdriver bit right down into the power steering pump reservoir, and halfway down the hole at the bottom. FINALLY got it fished out with a magnet.

Also managed to bend some sheet metal and crunch some chrome with the spare tire jack, but that's another story. The most damage I've ever done to the car other than sliding off the road... the most damage I ever did with good intentions, was that spare tire changing problem.