Noob mistakes with your car

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Drache

Drache

1971 Dodge Dart Swinger
Joined
May 10, 2011
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Location
Williams Lake, BC, Canada
Really noobish mistake on my part. I only get to see my brother once a year and usually it's only for a single day, maybe two if we're lucky. So we are out crusing in the Dart and it's a nice day and we have all 4 windows down just enjoying the air.

He makes some comment about him lighting the tires up on my car and wondered if my car could. So I stop on a straight stretch of road and proceed to lay a 15 foot strip. I probably could have made it longer except for one critical problem. With all the windows down the entire car filled up with burning rubber smoke. And we're talking can't even see out the windshield amount of smoke.

So I let off the gas and we start coughing and laughing like little kids between coughs trying to wave the smoke out the windows so we could at least see. The smoke cleared just enough that I could see and so I started driving slowly figuring that would help clear out the smoke in the car.

I turn around after the smoke cleared to go see what I did and there were two cars behind me when I did the burn out. They were waiting for the cloud to disperse from the road and they were hooting and cheering (along with a few guys watching from the sawmill beside the road). I was sort of embarassed being that I never realize anyone was even around.

Anyways was some of the best fun my brother and I have had together in a long time.

So anyone else have any noobish mistakes like me leaving the windows windows wide open during a burnout? :D
 
How about driving off after doing a nice wash job on a car, including polishing up the aftermarket sunroof, then at 30mph feeling a whoosh as it lifted off (forgot to clip it in), and then watch it explode in the rearview on the street behind me. Fortunately, no cars behind, although the orange setting sun made for one pretty and spectacular view :)

Grant
 
Did you have a big tail wind?
I did lots of burnouts in my old 340 Swinger with all the the windows down and never had a problem with tire smoke filling up the interior since the smoke was behind me.
 
ocdart said:
Did you have a big tail wind?
I did lots of burnouts in my old 340 Swinger with all the the windows down and never had a problem with tire smoke filling up the interior since the smoke was behind me.
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Must have had a tail wind. All I know was the smoke started coming into the windows fast and soon enough we couldn't see a damn thing
 
My cousin performed and oil change once and didnt notice that the old oilfilter gasket stuck to the engine and just put another one on.

Few miles down the road.... KAPLOOEY! good thing it was a ford.
 
Been there...done that, with a friend's kid brother in the back seat who said muscle cars suck and tuners rule...

Did you open your trunk? It's cool to see all that smoke come pouring out...

Made him pale as a ghost...as we slide sideways, burning rubber.

Paul

Drache said:
Must have had a tail wind. All I know was the smoke started coming into the windows fast and soon enough we couldn't see a damn thing
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bigtom said:
I drove my Dart for a while with the #5 and #7 wires reversed...:sign6:
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x2 and my step brother did mine and i couldnt figure out why i could not get it in time until i started tracing wires


although that was nothing compared to my uncle putting his freshly built 340 in and forgeting to put the oil filter on and all the oil he had in the motor hit the floor after the first turn over.
 
Not really a noob mistake because I have pulled a few engines. I was wondering what was holding things up and all of a sudden POP! I forgot to unhook the throttle cable........Glad I had a spare.
 
That used to happen to me in college with my 67 Barracuda that won a "beaters" contest, except my windows were closed. The smoke came in through the rust holes in the bottom of the quarter panels...

That car looked like such a POS that when people cut me off in the ghetto in Detroit, I would honk my horn. When they checked their rear view mirror and saw my car, they changed lanes back to get out of my way...

But...my WORST noob mistake was when I came home from college to visit my dad. I filled my car with gas and started driving back to school. I get 125 miles from home and my car died and would not start up. Had it towed back home ($300) and proceeded to change the engine. Get another engine in it and try to start it.... It was out of gas!!!

From then on I use the plastic see through gas filters instead of the metal cans....

I don't know why it got such bad fuel economy to run out of gas that soon, but was an expensive way to learn that I ran out of gas.
 
Hahahahaha,

Oh the Humanity...

SO, I wanted to impress the local (yummy good looking sisters)
who lived around the corner from Me...
Me & My 'comical racing cohort' are in My 65 'S' ...
We roll up in front of the 'Ladies' house, He (aforementioned cohort)
zips around the back of the rig & douses the tires with Clorox Bleach.

ooooohhh ... we gonna get points yuppers...MAYBE GET LUCKY:headbang:

LMFAO, EXCEPT, There's this whole tighten the lug nut thing...

BUHAHAHAHA... Pops payed for the tow, ... Interestingly enough,
Pam & Christen still showed up at My B'day party a few days later.

No preverts... they came to see the car damage, & sample some of
Pops white lightning...
 
When adjusting the valves on the Scamp i used to have and the 70 Duster we just got, remembering that there are two intake valves next to each other and doing the intake and exhaust seperately, but still adjusting number 4 as a exahust valve DOH.
 
Well I went and took a picture of the black strip I left but it doesn't look as impressive in photo as it is in person :(

dsc01803va.jpg
 
Drache said:
Well I went and took a picture of the black strip I left but it doesn't look as impressive in photo as it is in person :(
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One guy I used to work with called those "tattoos". Or tattooing the street...

Nice one wheel peel...
 
friend of mine has a 65 chevelle ss with a 327 in it and we were chanign the oil in the car and he forgot to put the drain plug back in and he runs the expensive stuff ($8 a quarts expensive) and there was no catch pan underneath the car
 
My kid changed the oil in the Scout, poured all the used oil back in the 5 qt jug, cleaned everything up real nice.... Then drove back in the garage and ran over the 5 qt jug. Exploded! Walls, floors, ceiling.. Took him about 6 hours to fully clean it up..
 
When on my own with one of my first oil changes, I drained the oil, changed the filter, reinstalled the oil pan plug, and then drove off of the metal ramps with out any oil in the motor or pan. 16 or 17 seconds. No damage, was glad that I used Mobil One synthetic. That motor lived in two cars that I drove.

I decided to continue driving home after a snow changed into a real blizzard back in Hastings, Nebraska as a 17 year old closing a restaurant. I had to use the 'force' and feel my way home because 1/2 way through the drive there was a complete white out.

I hit road signs, parked cars, a fire hydrant, everything. The locals always had stories about some old couple surviving off of a half pack of Oreo's or something for seven days while trapped in their cars-I was bound and determined to make it home.

Most of the way home I could see taillights of the other motorists caught out on the main drag. I was raised on stories that Nebraska had such blizzards that farm kids would die on their way home from a blizzard in June. Nobody was injured except my back side when dad saw the car.

I had a 1977 Dodge D300 a few years back. It was a stick shift without a parking brake.
I had used my civic to hold it in place on my sloped driveway while I put the wood caulk under another car I had jacked up. The wife asked me while under the other car if she could take the civic to get something at the store. She backed out and turned, only to see (and cry out) 5800 pounds of Detroit steel rolling towards the neighbor's driveway. She sacrificed the civic's head light assembly to stop it and none of the neighbors happened to be walking out on the street, so no one got run over.

When I was 19 or 20, I was replacing the front shocks on a 1984 Buick Le Sabre. We cut the posts (nut would not turn) with a cutting wheel, and doused a resulting insulation fire with a 96 ounce gas station drink.

My buddy Jesus pulls himself out from under the jacked-up on dirt car (incidentally) RIGHT as the 96 ounce drink loosened the dirt where the car jack was holding up the front end.

Jesus nearly got crushed. Scared the crap out of me. Safety became allot more of a priority for me (which is before all of the GOD-awful Navy safety {watching people dying} training video's came later in life.)after that visual close-call!!
 
I used to have 1980 CJ-5. Great little toy. Gas leaked like crazy out of the original tank so I put in a new one. All was well when I put about 5 gallons of gas in it afterwards. Fast forward about 2 months. I only would get it out every now and then to cruise around in. I go to start it up... Nothing. Spun and spun all day long but never cranked. Put gas in the carb and it fired right up. I deemed it to be a bad fuel pump so I traded it off for my Dart. Turns out it was just out of gas...
 
Drache said:
Holy necro batman! :D
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Well, 'tis the season for Jesus to be pulling his Lazarus stunt again...

This happened almost 20 years ago. I was at the DIY auto shop on base in Millington, TN, doing an oil change on my 92 Ford Ranger. I was raising the truck up on the lift, and almost had it where I wanted it, when I noticed the truck shift. I stopped it, and lowered it some, so I could check it out. Walked all around the truck, all four tires were sitting firmly on the ramps, so I started raising it again. A couple seconds later, the whole truck shifts again, and looks like it's going to fall toward the center of the lift. I stop it, and lower it again. This time, when I walk around the truck, I shut the driver's side door. Or attempt to, anyway. It just thuds against the truck frame. I look at it, and the entire top part of the door is bent down. I hadn't noticed it, but there were bars around the outside of the lift that made up part of the frame. When I raised my truck I had left the driver's door open and the door had caught on this bar. I lowered the truck completely and managed to get the upper door frame sort-of bent back into the proper shape so it would shut completely. Luckily it was a nice day and I'd had the window down. If it had been up it would have shattered.

Believe it or not, I still have the truck.
 
First engine rebuild, 340 in a '72 Challenger(a lifetime ago). Got it all back together and couldn't it get it to fire. Cranked and cranked and cranked. nothing. Gas in the carb, nothing. Had several people smarter than me (pretty much everybody) look at it and say I must have assembled it wrong. 2 teardown and reassembles later, a good ol' boy from down street stopped by, closed the choke flap and she fired right off.. Yep, I was a dumb noob...
 
I didn't do it but the new car mgr at the dealership I work at pulled a good one!
The lot guys pushed a new Viper up from the clean up bay,as they were not to drive it. the new car mgr decided that he was going to take it for a quick spin in the lot before he brought it into the showroom.
As he blasted off, the wind caught the fiberglass hardtop and it went flying and shattered when it hit the pavement.
Now I missed the whole scene but Tom comes to the parts counter and he's white as a ghost. "How much is a hardtop for the Viper?" I looked it up and it's $2700 back in 1997. I don't know how, but he managed to get Chrysler to pay for the top. But from that point on, Vipers were pushed into the showroom from the washrack. The only person who drove one was the prep tech.
 
A week or so after I bought my car, the mean guy working at Subway with the bowtie tattoo insisted that my Charger was a '72 Corvette.

I eventually agreed.

I'm not sure if that was a mistake.
 
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