Dumb things that you did.......because you didn't know any better.

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Back in the late '70's I drove a $100 rust free '61 Ford falcon from AZ to WA. The day before I left it got a hole in a piston, so backed off the valves until it would run on 5. Still smoked pretty bad, so I bought a case of 50w (24 qts in a case back then) and headed out the next day. At 50mi to the qt it left a huge trail of blue smoke, had to buy more oil to make it all the way home. When I got back I pulled it into my dad's garage and tore the in-line 6 down for a new piston/rings. Installed the new piston and went to fire it up, but it locked up solid. I had bought a piston for the 144 that I thought it was, turns out it was a 170 and the new piston was hitting the head. Not wanting to spend any more money on that engine, I pulled the head, taped off and sealed what I could, then made myself a pop-up piston using an angle grinder with the piston still in the block! Car seemed to run just fine for a couple more months until I had the sbc ready to install.

Grant
 
The dumbest thing I have ever done was about twenty five years ago, I got married for the second time. What's even worse is that I did it with out a prenup. After court I got my stuff back and the thing that pisses her off is that she pays me alimony.:rofl:I would have settled without it but she was greedy, so pay up sucker.
 
Was going to mess up another thread with this one but figured it worked just as well here.

I use to go hunting with my buddy but never packed a gun.
The only gun i have ever own was a Red Rider Daisy BB Gun, that i got when i was 8 years old.

Pulled the gun out of the cardboard packing and used it as my target.
standing 20 foot away i started plugging bb at it.
After poking 20 plus hole in the cardboard, i when up to see my work.

Hmmmmm the bb's were stuck in the cardboard.........So "brain dead" me, put the gun on one side of the cardboard and put my finger on the other side of the cardboard..........yup i pull the trigger:eek: I danced around for a minute with my finger throbbing.

Didn't break the skin but it sure was tender for a few days. Never told my mom, as she wasn't happy that dad had bought it for me in the first place.
 
dano said:
I flipped the inside brake pad on my 1990 Audi Coupe, put the metal part against the rotor. I was in a hurry. I couldn't understand why it make a horrible noise......oh......oops.
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You're not the only one who's done that ! Glad rotors are cheap online.
 
When we were in grade school I would go over to my buddies house and screw around in his dad's welding shop. We found some 12 ga buckshot shells and threw them on the bench. Then in our our dimly lit brain we figured we should clamp
them in the vice and kneel down under the vice and hit the primer with a punch and a hammer! BANG!!!! Ears rang for days...
 
Back in the 80's almost drinking age, about six of us climbed a high tension power line tower carrying a 12 pack of beer up to the top....all but one thought it was a great place to crack a beer and take in the view of corn fields for as far as the eye could see. The last guy hesitantly climbing finally convinced us all to get the **** down NOW by saying he got juiced, felt a zing. We got down. Has to be the dumbest thing I've ever done, should have known better, but was already pretty lit so....... Pretty dumb
 
I tried to drill out the back of a crankshaft to accept a 4 speed. It was a shallow undrilled 383 crank. I had a big drill bit and big 1/2 inch drill. I had to hold on with both hands.

So I got it cutting pretty good, i had my weight on it. I let go of one hand while it was running. It went a little off center when I let go of one hand and it caught a burr and whipped the drill around violently while I was still holding on with one hand.

I felt a big pop from my wrist and then it felt like my wrist was on fire. I let go and dropped the drill and I couldn't feel my hand.

Clean wrist break.
 
Rainy Day Auto said:
I tried to drill out the back of a crankshaft to accept a 4 speed. It was a shallow undrilled 383 crank. I had a big drill bit and big 1/2 inch drill. I had to hold on with both hands.

So I got it cutting pretty good, i had my weight on it. I let go of one hand while it was running. It went a little off center when I let go of one hand and it caught a burr and whipped the drill around violently while I was still holding on with one hand.

I felt a big pop from my wrist and then it felt like my wrist was on fire. I let go and dropped the drill and I couldn't feel my hand.

Clean wrist break.
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OUCH! I've had similar experiences, but never as nasty a result, at least not from a power drill.
 
Rainy Day Auto said:
I tried to drill out the back of a crankshaft to accept a 4 speed. It was a shallow undrilled 383 crank. I had a big drill bit and big 1/2 inch drill. I had to hold on with both hands.

So I got it cutting pretty good, i had my weight on it. I let go of one hand while it was running. It went a little off center when I let go of one hand and it caught a burr and whipped the drill around violently while I was still holding on with one hand.

I felt a big pop from my wrist and then it felt like my wrist was on fire. I let go and dropped the drill and I couldn't feel my hand.

Clean wrist break.
Click to expand...

That was a hard lesson learned. I've never broken my wrist or arm, but I've come CLOSE and seen someone else do it. When I worked at a local mom and pop machine shop when I was in school....and a little after, we used an OLD (like 1940s) Hand held Delta Rockwell 1/2 electric drill. One of them gear drive bad boys. It even had the screw on horizontal handle to hold onto. We used it to finish hone blocks. You had to be careful, because if you went too far down into the main cap area, the end of the hone would hang up on that part of the block. Most times, you were coming right back up anyway, so most times it let loose. But sometimes it didn't. When that happened, you better be ready to turn it loose and I mean QUICK, because you were NOT stopping that drill. Wasn't happenin. The guy I worked with broke both bones in his forearm one day doing just that. Tell you somethin funny. I was REAL stout in my chest and arms when I was young. I'm still not weak there by any means. I had that same drill hang up on me and I didn't let it go in time, but I held on. It BROKE the drive shaft to the hone right in half. Snapped it like a twig. Amos (the guy I worked with) just looked at me with his jaw on the floor. He said "Mr Rob, I ain't ever gonna piss you off" LOL! I did of course, weld the shaft back together. lol
 
On my stock '71 340 re-fresh back in 1983, was running a .484/284 hyd., changed to a DC..590" sft cam and had the piston reliefs cut .100" for ptv in my ignorance. Motor ran ok NA but reliefs were now very thin at the sides, when I put a Big Shot N20 kit on it it took 1 piston out at the side. Live and learn eh.
Having learnt a lesson, I left things as is on my 440-6pk bottom end and put a [email protected]/.650" sft cam in there which had plenty of ptv which surprised me as the 4 notches on those weren't very deep, pushed that motor to 7300rpm....once!!
 
Rainy Day Auto said:
I tried to drill out the back of a crankshaft to accept a 4 speed. .
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Got into a discussion years ago with a friend about drills. He was bragging about some "unstoppable" old drill motor. I asked him, "why on earth would you WANT a drill THAT YOU CAN NOT STOP? At NAS Miramar, we inexplicably had an old Black and Decker 5/8" drill mounted in a drill press fixture. Turned real slow and took 5 minutes to stop. Later years, working in the big parts/ industrial store in town, some weird guy ordered one of those new
 
The absolute dumbest thing I've ever done was not going directly into the trades right out of high school.
 
Ottmundr said:
The absolute dumbest thing I've ever done was not going directly into the trades right out of high school.
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I went to Vo-tech during high school. It was cool. We did 3 weeks of school and 3 weeks of Vo-tech during all 3 years of high school.

I choose machine shop since our town had a machine shop on every corner. Got a great job running a turret lathe making $8.00/hr (in 1981). I worked at Landis Tool Company making parts for cam grinders, crank grinders, and valve grinders sold to the auto industry.

Trouble is 2.5 years later the Japanese started selling much cheaper stuff and I was laid off. That's when I went active duty Air Force.

Should have taken Auto Mechanics!!!!!
 
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