Dumb-a%$ Award

[egsols]

When I was 16 I was tuning up my 73 Pontiac Parisienne. Replaced plugs, air filter, etc.

Was going to set up points, timing and decided to check idle speed first.

Specs said to adjust idle speed while in drive with parking brake on and wheels chocked.

Didn't have wheel chocks but did have a parking brake that worked.

Start it up, put on parking brake, put in drive, open hood.

Hook up tach and lean over to check idle, its idling a little high, oh yeah the chokes on. (Should have let it warm up first) Well, good thing about those old bimetallic chokes and linkages, all you got do if give the gas a quick blast and choke should go off, right?

So I gives it a quick shot, using the linkage, remember I'm on the left side of the car, leaning over the fender head under the hood. Not such a good idea to gun it with it in drive. The car lurches forward, pins my right arm in the hood hinge, front wheel runs over my feet and the car proceeds to drag me across my mother's parking lot before running out of steam after about 40 feet.

My first reaction was to check my surroundings for any possible witnesses, only thing seriously damaged that day was my pride.

[saddle up]

ANOTHER DUMB A&& award,

Is it bright and shiney? Something that you can put on your mantle with pride?
Well I gotta put this one in. Had a 71 Ford Galaxy 500. It was truly a bad ass car.
Going down the street one day, I ran out of gas. Or so I thought. Had a 1\4 tank of gas. Well being in Portland Or ,It rains forever, not a lot but it is constant. So some of the roads look like NASCAR with a 10/15 or more slope. Well I was going down the road and she stops. Well, I get out and pull a fuel line off, and I ain't getting nothing. There is an auto parts store right around the corner. So I order a fuel pump, put it in with my feet sticking out on the street, everybody yelling at me, I'm yelling back. Come to find out that the new fuel pump wasn't worth a sh** either as the angle of the street was F^&*%$#( me). I put in 5 dollars of gas and she fires right up asking me why did I bad mouth her????

[egleaves]

@ BrianB

I'v heard stories about people running themselves over with their own car, but I never really understood how they could manage it. Thanks for clearing that up!

[olebiker]

When I was a kid I had a Renault R8. It had a pushbutton electric transmission with no park. It also didn't have a working parking brake. I became the local entertainment living in the mountains and chasing that car with a hunk of firewood trying to chock the wheels. Ya really had to be fast or it would go over the wood. Then the real fun would start. Somebody said to me a while ago do I miss my youth..........

[Jerry]

swapped lines

Putting the head on my XJ, had the choke line hooked to the carbs and the throttle cable hooked to the choke mechanism....

Took me 10 - 15 minutes to get them swapped around correctly, but still can't believe I reversed the cables. Did notice it before I tried firing the bike.

[Bigfoot]

This one happened to me fairly recently. 85 Nissan 300ZX. Was parked on slight slope at the top of a hill. I had set the parking brake but apparently not well enough. Was sitting in my clients office working on his computer and looked out the window just in time to see my car taking off down the hill. It went down the hill, across a service road, jumped a curb and hit the side of a building. Ended up with a decent crowd of onlookers from the building my car hit. Had to get someone to help pull it off of the curb since it was stuck.

Another time, was working on a 1979 porsche 924. I could not get it to fire up so I would give it a good shot of ether, run around the door jump in and try to start it and then repeat. 3 or 4 times of doing this, I get a pretty good backfire, peak through the crack between the hood and see flames. Had a nice little BBQ going on top of the engine. Made a mad rush to the kitchen to grab the fire extinguisher. I learned several things from this little episode.
1 - keep an extinguisher in the garage, especially when working with highly flamable substances like ether.
2. Make sure that extinguisher is not a dry chemical extinguisher. They work but what a mess to clean up.
3. Check to see if the reason the engine won't run is because of a broken fuel injection line that is flooding the top of the block with gasoline.

[Ken Talbot]

Re: swapped lines

Originally posted by Jerry
had the choke line hooked to the carbs and the throttle cable hooked to the choke

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! That kind of stuff starts happening, it is time to put down the wrenches, step away from the bike, and go in and have a relaxing cool one. Order is important, i.e. , do not have the cool one first...

[Bigge_al]

Dumb a$$ award

When I was 20 my ws leaking tranmisson fluid so after a ride home from college I stopped of at a gas station to drop off some friends and check the fluid while they were inside I started the car and reached thru the rolled down window to put the car in Neutral but put in in reverse after being drug threw the parking lot with the front tire sitting on my left foot I left a blood trail for about 20yds. Was on crutches for weeks.

[ScottsXS]

did the brakes on my old mustang.....the whole nine yards.....calipers rotors drums shoes wheel cylinders and lines. finished her up went for a quik test ride. she was stick so i didnt realize i forgot to put brake fluid in for about 2 blocks. its not fun figuring out how dumb you are till your doing 50 mph with no brakes at all

[slow mo]

look out

when i was a kid;;sixties;; i tool my pontiac to have the brakes done at a local garage,, whrn they were finished the guy says jump in moe she,s all done,,so away i went put the car in reverse and shot across 4 lanes which were unoccupied lucky for me,, turns out i had new brakes but not ajusted up,,ride safe slow mo!!

[Ivan]

Man I could write an entire encyclopedia on my dumb ass attempts.

When I first started wrenching cages, I had to work on a Dodge minivan, it was old, the first year they ever had minivans, and this one had a stick shift. Yeah, the first year Caravans had a manual option. I needed to bump the starter, and reached in through the window, tripped the key and she fired right off, in first gear, one step ahead of me, due to air hoses, trouble light cords and mostly me still thinking WTF! It puttered across the entire length of the shop, probably 120 feet, and I just couldn't catch up. It finally crashed into a solvent tank, splashing solvent all over. It must have touched the catalytic converter since the whole damn thing went up in flames.

Most of my other DA attacks have involved lots of alcohol and peer pressure. Once in high school, I was dared to steal my dad's spray plane and fly it around the water tower, and a couple other stupid stunts. When its dark, you begin to realize that old spray planes have minimum instruments and because they are primarily flown in the day, most of the lighting is allowed to go without repair. Since the strip was on private land, there were no marking lights, and I had no landing lights. I could have taken off sober, but I am glad I am drunk, since I would have never been able to get back down with out lots of liquid courage. I don't know if pops ever found out about that or not...

Oh, and if you are going to dive drunk, make sure there is someone sober enough to direct you to your own car, and not the local mountie's rig. I think the only reason I didn't get charged is because he was too embarrassed to write a report that he let a drunken 17 year old get in the car and drive off while he was in the c-store buying coffee and flirting with the clerk. I did do the right thing and drive straight home and went straight to bed. That was about a 5 mile walk for him though....

[Bigfoot]

Ivan, once again you have me LMAO. Great stories.

[latexeses]

Man alive... This is good stuff. ROFLMAO.

Good stuff Ivan.. I don't think there are very many of us who haven't walked around to "bump" the engine before we checked to see if it was out of gear...

Did the same thing with a 68 4x4 International Scout. Reached in and hit the key. Yaaahoo! Dove through the open window (was in college and heck of a lot thinner) and slapped it out of gear. Of course it was rolling backwards toward the street now but my legs are sticking out the driver window. Reached down and put my hand on the brake. Couldn't reach the key with my free hand to shut the damned thing off. At that point I started laughing so hard I was useless. After I got composed I did a quick hand switch and shut it down...Lucky for me, as far as I know, no one I know witnessed the show.

[Ivan]

Ivan, once again you have me LMAO. Great stories.

Most of the rest are still classified due to international security....

Here's one that wasn't actually me...

A buddy of mine and I decided to take a road (drinking) trip to Denver from our small podunk town in Nebraska, since all three of the girls there knew our tricks, and were getting terribly expensive to take on dates. We simply needed some fresh meat. We found our way in to some bar and ended up hooking up with a couple college girls who were concerned enough with our well being in the "big city" to invite us to stay at their place for the night. When we got to their apartment, they asked if we wanted to get mellow, and we are never ones to turn down hospitality. One of the girls disappeared for a minute and came back carrying a lawn and garden bag full of the "good stuff". They were so proud that they scored 60 lbs of the stuff for less than a grand. When she opened the bag, a very familiar aroma filled the room....

It was alfalfa hay. The same stuff you feed cattle, and buy for dollars per ton.

[Guy_b_g]

get mellow

This is along those lines...

Back in the late '70s I worked at a State Hosp in Oregon, and lived in the dorms.

One evening I sat getting really stoned in my apartment...and heard some voices in a conversation, so I went to the dayroom to visit with whoever was out there..and couldn't find anyone, so I went back to my apartment. A few minutes later I heard voices again, and again went looking for company...no one there...

Now I was sitting in my room and hearing voices...starting to get concerned about auditory hallucinations..and finally went out to the dayroom one more time. I looked through the glass walls of the dayroom and could see no one outside either. Finally I stepped thru the door to the courtyard and as I did...something came crashing down thru the tree next to the door screeming...S%^&!....I about peed my pants. It was a very drunk buddy of mine who had climbed onto the roof with another friend to watch the sunset and get drunk...he landed about 3 feet from me and broke his arm in the fall.

I ended up having to drive him to the ER..

Not sure who gets the award in this one..my buddy or me..