"What in the world?!" Post your encounters of the stupid kind!

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PanGasket

PanGasket

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What is some of the craziest crap you have run into on your car? Like what idiocy have you come to find? Just post some of the in general stupid crap you have found done to your car.

The best one I have found on my car yet is that instead of removing the plastic headlight bezels in a reasonable manner on my '72 Dart Swinger by unscrewing it, they drilled off the heads of the screws and broke the plastic off of the broken screws. Now they are just stuck in that little metal clip:angry7:
Someone out there probably has that pair of messed up '72 bezels and is saying "now why the hell would anyone do that! they screw out!"

I'm sure you old timers have some good stories about this:toothy10:
 
On an MG Midget I once had, someone left a wrench on a brake line and instead of removing it, they torched half of it off and left the other half just hanging there.
 
Any time I see screws holding trim in place that aren't factory-installed screws !!!

A friend's grandfather -- total Kadiddlehopper -- drilled a **** gang of holes in the windshield and backlight trim of his 1966 Charger and drove a butt load of screws into the holes , in order to take care of weather stripping leaks !!!!! Torqued the fuc* out of 'em !!!

In southern California , we see lots of cases where a certain ethnic group will put tin foil in the fuse box , in place of an expensive (HA!) fuse !!!!

Some impatient idiot former neighbour of mine painted the chrome ( bumpers , trim , everything ! ) on his '66 Coronet with "chrome" paint , thereby making the car look like a giant toy !!
Of course , all these chromed parts needed were a good triple-ought steel wool workout , followed by some chrome polish , and they would've looked just fine .

idiots .
 
Years ago, at an auction, I bought a '66 Barracuda with a 440 in it and found that the engine had a homemade front motor plate to mount it. OK.....even though it looked crude, I could live with it until I noticed that it wasn't bolted down to anything! It was just sitting on the frame rails! The car still had manual 9" drum brakes and a 7 1/4 too! I was too scared to even drive it around the block!
 
I just remembered another one....Not really a stupid story....pretty smart actually. A guy called me to see if I wanted to buy his car. I told him I didn't have time to go see it or pick it up so he said he would drive it by for me to look at. He pulls into my driveway and the car sounds good. I ask him what is wrong with the car and why does he wants to sell it. He says it's just an extra car his kid had before he moved away and it had been sitting for a couple of years and the fuel pump went bad and he didn't want to sink any more money into it, etc. OK......how did you get it down here if the fuel pump went bad.....I ask. Well, what he did was route the fuel line through the windshield washer pump!.....a foot pump type! I about died laughing. We went for a test drive and he was pumping the washer pump and using the other pedals....looked like he was playing an organ!
 
cudamark said:
I just remembered another one....Not really a stupid story....pretty smart actually. A guy called me to see if I wanted to buy his car. I told him I didn't have time to go see it or pick it up so he said he would drive it by for me to look at. He pulls into my driveway and the car sounds good. I ask him what is wrong with the car and why does he wants to sell it. He says it's just an extra car his kid had before he moved away and it had been sitting for a couple of years and the fuel pump went bad and he didn't want to sink any more money into it, etc. OK......how did you get it down here if the fuel pump went bad.....I ask. Well, what he did was route the fuel line through the windshield washer pump!.....a foot pump type! I about died laughing. We went for a test drive and he was pumping the washer pump and using the other pedals....looked like he was playing an organ!
Click to expand...

Now that is hilarious.
 
I like the old squeegie out the window to remove snow while driving.Get the dang wiper motor fixed!
 
Back when we were kids a friend of mine had an air mattress that had an open seam on the edge. He tried to staple it back together. I kid you not, staples in an air mattress!
 
I once had a 75 Newport that had "manual wipers" ...... due to broken bushing on the back of the wiper motor. It was a screen door spring going from passenger wiper to the antenna and a rawhide shoelace from the driver wiper in through the window
 
Honda Accord came into the tire store I was the alignment man at years ago. Guy gets out and says to the head sales man,"Yeah mah, I needs sum rims yo". So they got um all picked out and the tire boys got the car in the air and the salesman was comin back to the alignment rack sayin, "man you gotta come see this". On the left front, there was NO rotor, NO caliper and the brake hose was clamped off with vise grips. They told the guy about it and he says, "Naw mah, it bes stoppin good. Jus put da wheels on it, yo." I'm tellin ya, they're out there like that drivin down the road everyday folks. lol
 
We caught a guy at the drag strip with this old Dodge truck 318 stone cold stock.In the seat next to him was a nos bottle after a little while he was under the hood working so I had to go look.He was running a cooper line thru the firewall and sticking into the top of carb.He would not listen to reason so we had to turn him in to tech
 
When I got my Valiant it had all different kinds of aftermarket & homemade locks on the hood,trunk lid, and gas cap. The person also tried to put a push button ignition switch in the car hacking all the wires under the dash. Another thing was a half as rigging of a kill switch. They wired a pull chain light socket, glueing it to a hole in the fire wall, and running the chain through a hole they cut in the dash. Something went wrong with the wiring and melted the battery terminal wires. (wish I got pictures of all the rigging)

Also it was side swiped, ripping the quarter panal about 6 inches. Instead of having it welded up, they just put some dumb-dumb glue (silicon sealant) to fill the rip.
 

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Helped a friend with a 1968 RS/SS Camaro resto... anyways.. EVERY panel on the car was rusted through... I mean every.... except.. for whatever reason the trunk pan which had ZERO rust. It just had a big hole cut in the pan so someone could get access to the fuel sending unit...... NIIIIICE....

-RPM
 
LH23H2R said:
Some impatient idiot former neighbour of mine painted the chrome ( bumpers , trim , everything ! ) on his '66 Coronet with "chrome" paint , thereby making the car look like a giant toy !!/QUOTE]

This reminded me of one time (not at band camp) in the very early '70s when I was in J&N Speed Center in Whittier, CA, and a young guy came in to return a can of mag wheel paint he'd bought.
Why you ask?
"Because", he said, "I painted my stock wheels and they still don't look like mags."
He was serious too! Seriously too dumb to be out on his own.
Click to expand...
 
Cars??? Trucks?? wait til you get as old as I and you spend half the day looking for your car keys :)
 
Bought a 68 fury form a guy, used a regular 120V light switch for something (damn it has been 30 years ago)
 
We bought a car once, and found a nice big paper bag full of weed in it =P~=P~. Was worth WAY more than the old car......to me, anyway.:toothy10:
 
cudamark said:
I just remembered another one....Not really a stupid story....pretty smart actually. A guy called me to see if I wanted to buy his car. I told him I didn't have time to go see it or pick it up so he said he would drive it by for me to look at. He pulls into my driveway and the car sounds good. I ask him what is wrong with the car and why does he wants to sell it. He says it's just an extra car his kid had before he moved away and it had been sitting for a couple of years and the fuel pump went bad and he didn't want to sink any more money into it, etc. OK......how did you get it down here if the fuel pump went bad.....I ask. Well, what he did was route the fuel line through the windshield washer pump!.....a foot pump type! I about died laughing. We went for a test drive and he was pumping the washer pump and using the other pedals....looked like he was playing an organ!
Click to expand...
I could almost envision this.....so did you buy it?
 
Let's see... I traded a big block SWinger for a dana 60 and a few trinkets because I was pissed about it overheating after I did a cam swap... 383, auto, 4.10 8 3/4, fresh blue paint, ralleys... So my buddy took it. He then proceeded to remove the field mouse carcass from the radiator outlet...lol. We're still good friends and the car, which was going to be scrapped when I got it for free (blown /6) was saved and completely redone a few years later. I've also used the mechanic's rule here in CT and had 3 cars towed off the premises because they were unsafe for the road and the owners drove them in. Then there's the customers truck i refused to test drive after I put a transmission in it and realized the brakes were totally gone. There are more deathboxes that are less than 10 years old aroud than old cars with severe safety issues.
 
ocdart said:
LH23H2R said:
Some impatient idiot former neighbour of mine painted the chrome ( bumpers , trim , everything ! ) on his '66 Coronet with "chrome" paint , thereby making the car look like a giant toy !!/QUOTE]

This reminded me of one time (not at band camp) in the very early '70s when I was in J&N Speed Center in Whittier, CA, and a young guy came in to return a can of mag wheel paint he'd bought.
Why you ask?
"Because", he said, "I painted my stock wheels and they still don't look like mags."
He was serious too! Seriously too dumb to be out on his own.
Click to expand...

I remember J&N !! Can't recall where they were located exactly , but I do remember that shop !

I grew up in West Whittier ( near Norwalk Bl and Whittier Bl , around the corner from Ricker Motors AMC !! ) ; lived there from 1970 - 2002 .

So , where was J&N located ? You've piqued my interest and have catalysed my memory !
Click to expand...
 
I remember 2 stories. I was stopped a t a friends gas station about 11 pm. He was about to close when a big Caddie (it was the 60's) came in and stopped at the diesel pump. Two of the drunkest guys get out and want 2 dollars worth of diesel fuel. Billy explains their car won't run on it but they insist and it is late. He pumped it in and we shut down the pumps and lights and locked up. They did drive off and we passed them about a mile down the road..dead in the water! The other was a ricer that detailed his engine compartment..a Mitsibushi 4 banger. It had a new battery and would not even turn over. It took a few minutes before we realized he painted the battery terminals, that paint was a great insulater..Cool color too.
 
Once bought a slant six driver with a freshly transplanted engine, which seemed to carry less oil pressure every day. Switching oil viscosity had no effect. Finally, after 2 weeks of 10 psi at cruise and ZERO at idle, it started knocking. After swapping engines, an autopsy of the expired engine revealed:
1) somebody had swapped oil pans
2) obvious welding of three holes in oil pan
3) some genius wanted to be sure it didn't leak, sooooooo
4) a half inch thick layer of BONDO INSIDE the oil pan
5) heat and submersion in oil dissolves said BONDO
6) oil pump pickup clogged to the extent that you couldn't see light through it:angry7:
 
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