Stupid things you did when you were young thread

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moper

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Ok, as a result of a Q&A discussion... I'll start with what I said there: I've used bolts in place of fuses (melted 1/2 the entire under dash harness. Ran a stock '71 318 with a stock intake, adaptor, ans 750 Holley with single exh anda Sonic Turbo muffler. Painted valve covers with "chrome" paint. Made a shield to deflect all the leaking oil around the crossover pipe instead of fixing the leak. Shocked myself blind for 30 seconds because I sweatted and touched the coil on a Jacobs energy Team.. (also included hand/fingers going into cooling fan)

So what did you all do, whether as dumb young ignorants (like I was) or just being stupid? Gotta be some stuff.
 
I used cheap hardware store bolts on the rear u-joint. Made it through one race. Shifted into 2nd on the way back & sheared the heads off of all the bolts. Bent my shortened driveshaft & had to be towed home. But, I did win the race. My 273 beat the other guys 290 powered Javelin. He had headers, I had gears.

Another time a friend had his Chevelle on a trailer to take it to the drag strip. Pulled away from his dad's shop, got about half a block away, hit a bump & the trailer came off of the hitch ball. No safety chains & he'd forgot to latch the coupler. Being 17 & never having taken any physics, I yelled "I'll get it!" jumped out of the passenger side door of the truck and grabbed the tire rack on the trailer trying to stop it. About yanked my arm out of it's socket!

Around 1980 or so, a friend of mine bought a non-running 69 Formula S Barracuda with a 4 speed out of somebodies driveway for $50. As I remember, the car was in pretty good shape. Started parting it out. He used the 4 speed stuff to convert his 67 273/automatic fastback Barracuda. Had the shell sitting in his mom's back yard. City threatened to have a local salvage yard haul it off. We pulled all that we could off of it. Tried getting the front & rear glass but cracked them both. Figured we weren't going to let the salvage yard get anything worthwile for free so we jumped up & down on the roof to cave it in before they hauled it off. I think we beat up the quarter panels too.
 
I also did the 1/4" bolt fuse trick, luckily no melted wiring harnesses. I did the "chrome" paint thing also.

Here is the stupid thing that will beat all.

When I was 15 I was working on a rototiller and while it was idling the belt was flopping up and down pretty good. For whatever reason I touched my index finger to the underside of the belt to stop the flopping, well the friction of the belt against my finger instantly pulled my finger in between the belt and pulley. My finger made a full pass around the pulley in between the belt and pulley. I instantly grabbed my hand with my other "smart" hand and was afraid to look. After a moment I decided to look around on the ground first, well no finger there... time to check the hand. I slowly peeled back my "smart" hand and there was all my fingers, thank god. It left a burn from the belt on the under side of my finger and two grooves on the top of my finger from the pulley. Thank god the belt was that loose. To this day when I see a loose fan belt flopping it gives me chills to think of what could have happened.

Yea, I know, what a dumb ***.

Chuck
 
My first car, a 71 6 banger Gremlin. Wrong battery in it with no tie downs. Cut across a service station lot and over a speed bump. Dumped battery into the fan and the car shut down. Stuck my leg out the drivers door and proceeded to foot push the car back over the bump. Far side of the lot was my goal but I passed a little too close to the cement pump island. It caught the lower corner of the drivers door and nearly ripped it off the car. New door , new battery, new fan. Bad day
 
When I was 17 I had a 72 Charger with the floor mount shifter... the linkage began giving me problems so after some shade tree engineering I had this rod sticking thru the floor as a shifter for a couple months!
It was my only set of wheels while in High School with no money! My friends still give me Sh#t about it to this day!

This same Charger began giving me problems with the neutral "safe" switch. A ground problem would not allow it to start in neutral so I had to cross/jump the relay switch sometimes... Well... I was standing in front of it one day when it began acting up...Pissed off I jumped out and did not realize while moving the shifter that I had the trans in "Drive"... It fired up and pin me between the front bumper and my friends little Geo... All I could think to do is yank out the coil Wire... a few spark plug wires came out along with it LOL!

Jason
1971 Dart
 
I think most everyone learns about 'lectrcity the hard way. But the lesson I'll NEVER forget was "structural repair using sheetmetal." To this day, I always overbuild stuff, to the detriment of weight savings.

Thought I was a pretty advanced young little shade tree nmechanic because Dad had extensive shop facilities and garage space including of course welding equipment of all kinds he was only too happy to let me use, until another incident. More on that later...

So one of the neighbor's "gives" me a '69 Mustang coupe that was creating too deep a hole in the backyard, where it had been rusting into for about five years. Among many other issues which I eventualy "mostly" repaired, was a completely gone RF shock tower. Looked like pretty much all just sheet metal around there to me, so I patched it up - with WAY too thin stock and no bracing whatsoever. Of course, rather than test the repair at all, I just started driving it. Sure enough, about three weeks later I slammed on the brakes going about 40mph, the repair collapsed, RF tired folded back and I went spinning across three lanes of traffic off onto the shoulder, just missing a pole. Fortunately the only real casualty was my pride.

Even Dad was not above giving me worthless old cars, probably more for the entertainment value than anything else. One Honda Civic had given us good service up to the point winter road salt had all but destroyed it. "No problem," says I, and proceeded to weld away with the oxy-acetylene and all the scrap sheet metal I could find. Things were going well until I was re-joining a lower fender area near the firewall, when the "fire" portion of that wall took on a whole new meaning for me. I heard a strange popping noise, stripped off the goggles and looked up to see a large orange glow under the windshield! A couple minutes and two empty fire extinguishers later, flames were starting to lick out under the windows on both sides of the car. It wouldn't be long until the garage went up with it. Fortunately Dad heard the commotion, ran down there, fired up the tractor that was sitting nearby and yelled for me to hook up the log chain. We got it dragged out of there and extinguished with a garden hose before the tank blew. I wasn't allowed to weld insisde anymore after that. Go figure.
 
First car.
63 Chevy Impala Convertible. (Not junk but not perfect either)
Started the car up to take my younger brother a ride.
I revved it up and heard a grinding sound.
I had only had the car for a couple of hours and assumed it was a "gremlin" of some sort. We took a short ride. When I went to take another ride, I turned the key and nothing happened.
That's when I found out that the first time out, when I started the car, the key didn't "spring back" by it'self, and the grinding I heard was the started STILL ENGAGED. . . . Looked like someone had put the armature in a blender.

Backing up really fast in Mom's positraction Studebaker, and then dropping the tranny in drive so we could see the TWO black marks on the pavement. Third time was the charm......Had to back the car all the way home. . . then pretend something else happened.

Yes you can use the car tonight , but DO NOT GO INTO TOWN!! Three hours later (me and my brother) we're in TOWN, and the starter goes out. Had to bum a ride home, and then tell Mom and Dad where the car was..... Seemed like a big deal at the time, but I don't even remember them yelling . . . now.

Drag racing . . . . . . on gravel roads.

Hey you dummies! USE TIN FOIL FOR FUSES!!!

Ma nd my sister were running from a pissed off guy (?) on a two lane country road. Big dangerous curve ahead (a school friend was killed there) My Buick LeSabre 350 4 BBL does a 180 degree spin in the middle of the road and the guy behind me comes around the curve and almost hits me head on as I fly back past him going the opposite direction. . . SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF US!!! No idea how it happened.
I would STILL like to have seen the look on that guys face!!!
 
Got amrried and had kids, Opps, worng thread. LOL

Cut up an Ebody rallye dash to put autometer guages in it, Screwed a cheap tach to a perfect dash pad, junked a 67 formula s with a complete running 273, 4bbl, 4 speed and 8-3/4 rear.
 
The dumbest thing I did was when I was about 18. I was working on putting a new engine in my '70 mustang and the water pump pulley wouldn't line up with the crank pulley. I decided that it would be ok to space it out with spacers. They all weren't the same size and the very first time I took it out and hammered on it, the water pump shaft broke off and the fan and pulley, which were still bolted to the snout of the water pump shaft came up and put a big dent in the hood, went through 2 of the 3 rows of the radiator and last but not least, went down and cut both transmission lines. All this happened when I was around 5000 rpm's and with the tranny lines cut, it went into neutral at this RPM, with my foot to the floor. I had a solid lifter cam in it and of course no rev limiter, because I didn't think it would be needed yet. Bent every single valve in it. It was already running pretty warm being a new engine and by the time I got it pulled over, all of the water/antifreeze was gone when the radiator got trashed. That being the case, when I pulled the heads, the #1 and #2 pistons (front 2 on pass. side of a Ford) had started melting and left melted aluminum all down the cylinders. I have to say, reading the Captain Kirk tread about his early car days sure reminds me of things I did when I was younger.:violent1:

One other thing, I didn't do, but my cousin did, was pretty funny. He had an early 80's Chevy truck, jacked up. He was doing neutral drops and broke the rear u-joint on the rear driveshaft. He went to the auto parts store and got a new u-joint. They convinced him that it would be ok to tie up the rear driveshaft with bailing wire and lock in the front axle to get him home. Needless to say, that driveshaft came loose and started flying around under the truck. Broke the tailshaft housing off the transfer case and beat the hell out of everything else. Just thought I'd share this one too, because It's one of my favorites.:drunken:
 
Given the topic, I could be here typing for days...

Put a J.C. Whitney "Barefoot Accelerator Pedal" on my '70 340 Duster when I was 16. First time I floored it leaving the house the throttle stuck wide open and the car started fish-tailing and eventually swapped ends with me. The car ended up in my neighbor's front yard right next to the house - lucky to not have ended up INSIDE their house...

At 18 I drilled a 4.5" bolt pattern onto a set of 4" 8.75" axles. Had no way to spline the holes to make the studs lock but I pressed them in anyway. Lasted a couple of weeks before everything came undone. Got passed on the road by one of the 15" X 10" Cragar S/S wheels that I just had to have on the car and that had prompted me to undertake this hair-brained operation in the first place...and couldn't get the other one off because the studs just turned in the axle flange when I tried to back the lug nuts off...destroyed the wheels and axles by the time all was said & done...and my driver's side quarter was slightly modified from its factory appearance...

Helped a buddy build a 396 BBC that same year. Had never been inside anything but a 340 & a 383. Never even considered trying to find a home for that little nylon bushing that came in the overhaul gasket set. His brand new 402 lasted 11 days before the oil pump shaft dislodged itself and he wiped out the bottom end...

I also lost part of my thumb that year while cleaning & oiling the chain on my KZ1000 Z1-R. We lived on a dirt road so this operation was done frequently. At some point I figured out that I could speed things up by doing this with it up on the center stand, idling in first gear. While wiping the excess oil from the bottom of the chain my rag was snatched out of my hand and hung up in the chain/sprocket. Being a clear-minded, forward-thinking, 18 year old rocket scientist I immediately grabbed the rag to yank it out. Instead I was yanked into the chain, and my thumb went around the spocket and hung up on top as my wrist/arm wedged against the shock. I pulled back so hard I smashed the back of my head on the concrete. I never blacked out, but I was definitely DAZED. I was also the new, proud owner of 4.5 digits on my right hand. That was November of 1980. To this day I am more cautious around moving parts than anyone I know...

Sorry so long winded - like I stated, I could be here for days!!!

Ray
 
So, I was 17 and had just traded my 77 Olds Cutlass Salon for a 70 Ranchero with a 351C...

The Ranchero was a LOT faster than my Olds was, so I was instantly propelled into True motor head status at my high school. One day, I was changing the oil...I had just dropped all of the oil out of the car, replaced the plug and had changed the filter and put the new filter in the car.

A couple of "Car Guy" buddies stopped by and wanted to check out my new ride...It had holes in the glasspacks, so it was fairly loud. I proudly sat in the drivers seat and fired it up. It sounded great, but had a strange ticking sound. I let it idle for about 30 seconds or so before the sinking feeling came over me that I had not put any oil back into it. I quickly shut it off, and acted like nothing had happened.

My buddies left and I quickly poured oil in the car (Hoping that would help)...and then fired it up. It ran as it always had...so I did not hurt anything that was not already hurt.

I wrecked that car while racing my buddies girlfriend in her 68 Firebird...more on that later. Yes, I won, but had to "rub it in" and win...a LOT. I will save that for another thread.

Thanks,
OldMoparsRule
 
My buddy and I were big nerds back in the day. We were Star Wars obsessed! Toys R Us had a huge 15X20ft. Star Wars banner outside of their store. Late one night my buddy and I showed up to take the banner. I drove right next to the building and my buddy climbed onto the roof of my car to try and get closer to the banner. We had a long set of branch cutters, but they weren't quite long enough. I told him to get off the roof and I would try. Now I was a 320lbs football player at the time, not a scrawn by any means. I was up there cutting the ropes attached to the banner when my buddy yelled "cop". So I jumped off the roof jumped into the car and we sped away, with my shoes on the roof, and him with the giant branch cutter hanging out the window. Needless to say, we didn't get the banner, but I did end up doing $1100 worth of damage to the roof of my dads car...whoops. It was a 1992 Chevy Corsica by the way..so I really don't feel so bad about it now.

My dad always says "Someday, we will know the real story behind the roof".
 
Against my parent's wishes I went out & bought a brand new 1976 Kawasaki 900 LTD for about $3500 when I was 18. At the time it was said to be the quickest production bike there was. I had just finished paying off the brand new Suzuki GT380 I had bought about 4 months ago & felt I had to have something bigger. I picked it up on a Saturday & spent the day I riding with a friend. About midnight we stopped in a parking lot to talk to another friend. When we pulled out of the lot I apparently didn't get the kickstand all of the way up & it dropped back down. I passed my friend in his car in the left lane & when I pulled in front of him the bike shifted to the left a bit & the kickstand caught the ground at about 40 mph. Best I could figure from looking at the damage, the bike flipped upside down & landed on the handlebars & instruments, then drug me about a quarter of a block down the road. I remember that I was desperately trying to stand the bike back up the whole time. I wasn't hurt but I spent almost 4 months waiting for the parts from Japan to fix the bike. By then, Kawasaki had come out with the KZ1000 which was quicker than the 900. I had just over 100 miles on the bike when I wrecked it. That bike was bad luck. I dumped it & wrecked it so many times that by 1979 I just parked it & bought a Harley. Drug it around when I moved several times & sold it for $600 in 1992. It had a bit over 7000 miles on it then.
 
:cussing: My first car was a '67 Camaro with a 327 and a powerglide. For years I thought I was a dedicated Chevy man till one day when I needed Chevy the most, Chevy let me down HARD!
:headbang: The flip side was after knowing Chevy's, I couldn't go to Ford, that's when my life changed FOREVER! I BECAME THE MOPAR MAN I AM TODAY!
 
I bought a used 2.2 Charger and of course decided it needed a nice bath. Drove to the nearest car wash and spent a few $$ cleaning it up nice. Since they sold the land on the exit side to the new "Superstore", they locked the forward drive out doors so I had to back out. I opened the door behind me and there were cars lined up behind. Showing off, I got in, slammed her into reverse, swerved past the first in line no problem, but by the third car, my passenger door swung open and caught someones front bumper ripping the door completely forward and exploding the door glass all over my hood. I drove home holding the inside passenger door handle because the door was "slightly" folded...

Same car. It had an aftermarket sunroof, mirrored on both sides. After washing the car down, my buddy calls and says everyones heading to Kildonan Park for the evening. I hop in and head down one of the major roads. I hit about 40 when I feel my hair stand up. Looking westward through the rearview I see the sunroof flipping over and over, flashing bright orange in the setting sun until it explodes into a million orange glowing pieces on the road behind me. Forgot to bolt it in.... Looked like something out of 2001 A Space Odyssey lol

Grant
 
Sold my 2-dr 318 V8 69 Plymouth Sport Sat for $300 in the 80's, man I miss that old rust bucket. It was a color between a lite gray & light green shade, oh well I
still have photos to remember her by...
The dumbest I ever did: let my 67 GTX sit in a damp gagage & mold up for several years. After paying the "stupid tax" spending money getting her running again, she is back on the roads.Won't do that again.
 
Please keep in mind that I was real young when I did this stuff! Well, lets see.....

Wired a friends heads in to the dimmer switch because the headlight switch itself was bad. He was back 5 minutes later with a car full of smoke. Oh well, he needed a new switch anyway and everyone got a good laugh at my expense. lol!

A buddy and I took his girfriends '67 Mustang out for a joyride @ 120 mph on a major street late at night. I couldn't stop for the light (which came up way faster than I thought) and just cranked the wheel left at 90 mph. We broadslided for what seemed like half a block before the car responded and turned.......into a parking lot with half a donut and right into a parking space right between the lines. We laughed for 10 minutes, but I could've killed ten people with that stunt. Stupid, but even though we live 1000 miles from each other, we're still friends and we still laugh about it on the once a year drunk phone call we give each other.

I was building a CB1100F engine for a paying customer when he just happened to stop by. I chocked a 2x4 under the lower motor mount and turned to BS with him. We were talking for about 5 minutes when the 2x4 slipped and $3000 worth of engine fell to the floor, breaking off the rear mount. You should have seen the expression on my face. I ate that job. He got free new cases and I knocked 25% the labor. Ouch.

There's more but I'm running out time and starting to feel sick to my stomach. lol!
 
in 1985 $7,500 was too much for a curious yellow 71 hemi cuda.
i thought i knew every thing. guess not.
 
A couple of us decided to change the oil in a 56 Merc with a 312 y block and 3 2's. Neat car alot of noise and very slow. A storm was coming so we pulled it in his fathers garage, dumped the oil and started to refill the motor when my Mom called for dinner and the storm hit. I left Richie and Phil with the droplight and ran through the lighnting and rain to my house...when the bolt hit the house with the power line to the garage...lit the place up like a flashbulb. Those 2 staggered out covered in the drain oil they landed in ..they haven't been right since.
I also screwed up my 60 chev's new motor. Decided it needed a few more degrees timing, it's hard to get much out of a 235 six cyl. Didn't notice the distrubter wasn't fully seated, no oil from the pump. It did run a little better...not for long. I can still rebuild one of those things in my sleep!
 
In the late 70's or early 80's there was a used car lot where I lived that was owned by the same people that owned one of the salvage yards. In the showroom they had a blue (B7?) Road Runner. New paint, missing one piece of trim for the rear window (they said it was on order), don't remember whether it was an auto or standard trans, & it had a Hemi. The underside of the car looked like it hadn't even been cleaned, like it had just been driven in off the street. They were asking whatever the collector car price guides listed for a completely restored car, in better than showroom new condition. I think it was $10,000. I figured the car wasn't in perfect condition, plus since they owned a salvage yard, it could've even been pieced together from 2 or more cars. The price was too high. If I had bought it I could probably sell it now & retire! (Of course, I would've probably blown the motor hot-rodding the piss out of it on the way home!)
 
In the late 70's or early 80's there was a used car lot where I lived that was owned by the same people that owned one of the salvage yards. In the showroom they had a blue (B7?) Road Runner. New paint, missing one piece of trim for the rear window (they said it was on order), don't remember whether it was an auto or standard trans, & it had a Hemi. The underside of the car looked like it hadn't even been cleaned, like it had just been driven in off the street. They were asking whatever the collector car price guides listed for a completely restored car, in better than showroom new condition. I think it was $10,000. I figured the car wasn't in perfect condition, plus since they owned a salvage yard, it could've even been pieced together from 2 or more cars. The price was too high. If I had bought it I could probably sell it now & retire! (Of course, I would've probably blown the motor hot-rodding the piss out of it on the way home!)

ouch!! :violent1:I know the feeling.:sad1:
 
When I was a young boy!! about 12 I was disking an old strawberry field
with an old Johnny popper with compression releases on it and was driving it with the brake partially on. And had a cheep old pair of tennis shoes on and stepped on the round brake as I was climbing off and melted my shoe and burnt the bottom of my foot badly.
Learning the hard way to release the brake before putting it in gear and letting the hand clutch out.:cussing:.

As I got older, I have learned to put fresh rope "not rotten" on my boat before I unload it in the lake !! :scratch:eek:r you will go swimming for it.:sad1:
This happened to me March 31 of this year.:violent1:
 
1) Sold my 69 and 1/2, 440-6 ,4spd., Dana, Super Bee. At the time it was the smart thing to do! Funny how 25 years will change a SMART thing into a DUMB thing! Lol!
2) Everything I did from 13-19.........:lol:
 
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