50 replies to this topic

[Keith Novak]

On the old site, there was a long dead thread I found of the stupidest mistakes people have made in their garages. There was some seriously funny stuff in there. Being the silly season for many of us, I thought it would be a good opportunity for a thread other than parity and to resurrect that one. I'll start...

About 12 years ago, I had a Honda CRX that blew it's trans. My GF at the time was kind enough to let me replace it in her garage that was mostly kept from falling over by the stack of wood on the leaning side.

All went mostly well until I had to figure out how to get me under the car and the transmission in place to fit the bolts. I had few tools and no money and figured as a young naive engineer would...how would ancient engineers do this? So I slid the trans in from below, threw some rope over the ceiling joists, wrapped it around the transmission, stuck a broomstick into the looped rope and twisted it to raise the transmission with a second rope keeping the trans from spinning. Genius!!! Worked like a charm. Kind of...

I got the transmission to about the right height. I wedged the broomstick against one of the few studs holding up the wall and crawled under the car to fit the trans. When I lifted the trans to fit it into place though, I realized the flaw in my plan. Once I took the tension off the wound up rope I heard, WHAM WHAM WHAM as the broomstick came unwedged from where I stuck it against the wall stud and started spinning like a helicopter blade slamming into the hood of the car while the transmission lowered itself onto my chest.

Fortunately I was strong and lucky enough at the time to bench press the trans into position and get a bolt in so that I could get myself out from under the car long enough to catch my breath, notice the big dents in the hood and kick myself in the ass.

Reflecting on my, "How would the ancient engineers do it?" thought from earlier, I figure they squashed a lot of people lifting big rocks before they got it right.

[Keith Novak]

We all make mistakes...what's yours?

[Danny Steyn]

LOL :-) Great story Keith

[Jim Boemler]

A story to remember next time I step onto a Boeing plane...

[Keith Novak]

Oh come on! I've put the spark plugs wires in to make sure no crud went into the motor the next day when I fired it up only to hear POP POP POP POP the next day when I've tried to fire it up, and then thought "How the hell could it blow all the wires off the plugs?!?! Oh...I probably should have installed the plugs.

People have lit fires gutting door panels over a pile of solvent soaked rags and any number of other things. I'm relatively sure dumb mistakes didn't die out a couple of years ago. (And we do have a robust check process to make sure no planes fall out of the sky because I sometimes follow the ready fire aim process.)

[Mike Colangelo]

Back in the day, I owned a '68 AMC AMX. This was the original two seat version which was derived from the Javelin but not a Javelin like the later AMXes. It was a fast car. It was very fast for a 17 year old on a very tight budget. I bought the car from some shady used car dealership. I got my tires from the local wrecking yard and usually they were the same size but rarely all the same make. I did my own brake work and the car braked mostly in a straight line. Drum brakes on all 4 corners!

The car had an open rear diff so my obligatory high school burn outs were only one long streak of black rubber. Only the rich kids had posi-traction back then! I grew up on the mean streets of central suburban Connecticut so this was the best I could do. ;-)

Anyhoo, like most American cars of that era, this one wasn't all that reliable. In fact, it got to the point where I figured that it was a good idea to have a small steel toolbox full of a variety of wrenches, hammers, screw drivers, duct tape, rosary beads, etc. in the trunk along with a copy of the Chilton's manual. I used them on a regular basis.

Back when it was new in the late 60s, members of the automotive press had dubbed the AMX as the "poor mans Corvette". The car handled well, at least as far as what I was used to back then. What I was used to back then was a POS 1978 Buick Skylark (truly the low point of anything to come out of Detroit). But I digress.

Anyway, as expected, I drove the car in a spirited fashion. One day I was really working it along a twisty section of road in my hometown. At a certain point I started hearing, BANG-BANG-BANG... coming from the back of the car. I thought, "What the heck is that"? Remember the toolbox in the trunk? Well, I forgot it was back there. During all the fun and excitement, it was bouncing around in the back of the trunk and denting anything in its path. Most notable were the small dents sticking OUT of the rear quarter panels from where the corners of the tool box slammed into the inside of them. Oops.

Lesson learned: If you're going to put tools or any hard, heavy object that has the potential to do damage, in your trunk or any where in the vehicle, make sure it's well secured. I know, duh.

Like Keith, I'm also a Boeing engineer. :-)

P.S., I wish I still had that car!

[dstevens]

We all make mistakes...what's yours?

You mean besides getting addicted to racing in the first place?...

[Jim Creighton]

We always fueled the cars before we left for the race track. With 3 or 4 prod cars running, it was just one less thing that needed attention early AM. And back then, you could not go into Daytona until 7AM. So, we got everyone's car ready to go and I asked my crew Chief if my FP midget was ready. He said the wheels had been torqued and tires pressures set. Thus, I jumped in the car and headed out for qualifying. Well, the first hot lap coming off the banking I heard a loud thump from the rear and then a lot of rattling. However, it went away until I went around the hairpin and it did it again. The car was running great out on the banking and seemed to be really hugging in the turns. However, that banging and rattling persisted the entire session. Well, when I got back to our garage stall, the crew got ready to jack up the cars to get them off the hot tires. No one could find the two floor jacks or the jack stands. Yep, you guessed it. Two steel floor jacks and 8 jack stands had made 7 laps of qualifying at Daytona. The only real damage was to the top of the fuel cell and a tail light was missing its wires.

[Ron Alan]

To protect the innocent(guilty really) i wont mention any names...but on the same lines as the above post, someone in our region raced with a full fuel jug in the trunk

[Glenn]

To protect the innocent(guilty really) i wont mention any names...but on the same lines as the above post, someone in our region raced with a full fuel jug in the trunk

PIntos do it all the time.............

[wreckerboy]

Reflecting on my, "How would the ancient engineers do it?" thought from earlier, I figure they squashed a lot of people lifting big rocks before they got it right.

Actually, slave labor figured into their planning Big Time, they just considered them "consumables" and budgeted accordingly.

[Blake Thompson]

When I first started pulling cars apart I had a small spill of gasoline on the floor, maybe like a quart worth. i thought, ah hell, how far could it go and decided the quickest way to get rid of it was to burn it off. I hit it with the torch and it lit nicely as expected. Then it immediately ignited the oil clinging to the bottom of the parts car I was working on. Luckily it was snowing outside and I was able to put it out. One of the reasons I am not keen on using a gas-axe to dismantle a car :-x

[Blake Thompson]

To protect the innocent(guilty really) i wont mention any names...but on the same lines as the above post, someone in our region raced with a full fuel jug in the trunk

I ran a national at Gingerman years ago and forgot to take a jackstand out of my trunk. The qualifying session got red flagged so while we sat on grid i pulled the stand out of the trunk. Sadly, my lap times were about .5s slower without the jackstand? 0_o

[svvs]

Double dipping at Watkins Glen in SM and SM2/SSM.

In the SM race I banged a wheel really hard on lap one. Bent it and had a wicked vibration going. Didn't really have time before my next race, so I just drove it to grid for the SM2/SSM race.

Now for that race I was third on the grid. This was a very new experience for me, and the highest I've ever qualified. It caught a lot of people, including myself by surprise.

I"m holding my own on lap one, and all of a sudden I can't push the gas down all the way.....there is a helmet adapter cord under the pedals (I wasn't running my radio but left the cord in there...stupid).

I spend the next two laps trying to get the thing out from under my feet. reaching for it with my left foot, trying to get my hand on it.....finally get it and throw it into the passenger foot well and only lose two spots while doing so. OK I figure, time to get back to work.

What I didn't realize is that about 20 seconds later.....the wicked vibration shook an eyeball vent out and it was now under my feet. I didn't realize this until I went for the brakes in turn one of WGI......Kind of a fast turn in miata terms......slowing down while going downhill and coming from fourth gear down to third.....and the pedal goes no where.

The eyeball vent was under the brake pedal and I'm still doing 100ish mph as brake markers are wizzing by.

Eff, Eff, Eff, you can save this. Eff, Eff, Eff.......somehow got the eyeball vent out and go "I can make this!". Nope. Was going too fast, brakes, downshift at too high of an RPM and a bad blip with everything going on........slid the car and just barely avoided destroying the car on the inside wall. Totally destroyed any track position I had.

The only thing that made me feel better was the fact I didn't wreck my car. I was later serving beverages in impound trying to explain to people what happened to me. All in a good weekend.

[Ernie Jr.]

In the middle of a SM race I was in 3rd and the eyeball vent we taped to the hole in the NACA duct to direct air flow fell out and went under my pedals. I came out of a hairpin guess what?? No gas!! Came in to a high speed turn... no brakes. Up shifting 3rd to 4th... no clutch. I ended up losing 3rd after the no brakes accident and finished 4th.

[Doug007]

Sounds like eyeball vents are cursed!

[Keith Novak]

I haven't had anything trapped under my pedals, but I did get the shoelace on my right foot caught on my brake pedal once. I spent half a lap trying to yank it free without loosing too much speed but it wouldn't budge. I made it around a fast carousel type sweeper without problems so I figured I'd just drive it like that. The next corner was the start of 2 switch backs at the bottom of a long steep hill and when I tried to brake, I don't even know what happened but my foot seemed tied to both pedals. The engine revved up, the brakes locked, and I was heading for trees at speed.

I managed to stop the car on an emergency run-out between the trees, and after several violent tugs ripped the shoelace apart and bruised my knee on the wheel. Now I make sure the laces are tucked in or kept short.

[RussMcB]

I enjoyed this older thread (especially picturing the spinning broomstick), so I thought I'd revive it and add my not-all-that-interesting dumb mistake.

 

One night in the garage before doing some grinding I started to put on my safety glasses and poked myself in the eye.

 

I know.  Kinda lame.

 

Okay, here's another one.  Happened recently.  Extremely embarrassing.  In a rush to get someplace one night, I drove my truck out the driveway and around 3 corners before I realized the trailer was connected.  OMG, what a mess.  I had a motorcycle parked in it.  Nothing was strapped down.  I knocked over my mail box.  The unsecured rear door came open and dragged.  I was pretty lucky.  The bike didn't get hurt.  I have a white scrape on the side of the trailer from the mail box.

[Rob Burgoon]

DUI confessions, setup assistance, mazdaracers.com is here to help!

[FTodaro]

Can I tell on someone else, coming home from the track, i and a buddy of mine stopped for dinner, had a few pops before we went our sperate ways and he had let the tail gate down on his pickup, drove most of the way home 100 + miles. His tool box and other stuff was purched on the rear of the gate. Not me, honest.