I was helping my buddy change his oil in his 4 banger S-10 it was up on a lift about 6 feet. Stupidest setup I've ever seen, the oil filter was on the passenger side about half way up the engine. Its the same engine they use in the cavaliers which are front wheel drive so its located perfectly for them. Well from the way it looked up there it was gonna run all over the crossmeber and make a mess, so we're like here goes nothing. I position myself behind the crossmember looking up trying to watch so he doesn't screw up and he's towards the front of the truck unscrewing the filter. All the sudden I notice this little useless half metal pipe thing on the side of the engine. So I proceed to look closer and all the sudden I see oil running down it straight at my eyeball. I felt like Neo in the Matrix dodging bullets. It was a close one. They had put the track there to catch the oil and deflect it back so that it wouldn't go on the crossmember. But damn how was anyone without experience on that setup supposed to know that....

 

About a month ago I was installing my front supension so the whole car was in the air. After 10 hours of working I was so glad that I could finally put it back on the ground. So I removed all the tools from underneath and begin to let it down with the jack. Let just say that I forgot to remove a bottle jack that I had underneath and just my luck it was positioned right underneath the oil pan. Yep it bent my pan. Luckly I didn't damage the pickup. I got lucky

 

I was changing my waterpump a few years ago. As soo as i got the pump on(went with an eletric pump) my roommate calls me in the smoke a cigerette with her. Well I go inside and wash off my hands first. Im sitting there on the coach smoking when i notice a grease spot on my arm. And here is where i turn stupid.

1.) Fire hot. I've known this for awhile
2.) Fire is not a cleaning utensil

But for some reason the idea to clean the grease off of my arm with my lighter popped into my head. And my hand carried out hat command. Once the fire touch my skin, my mind returned to normal and I remember that fire was hot, and it wasn't a cleaning utensil. I jumped and looked around to see if anyone saw me. Unfortunely my roommate did. And she asked why i did that. And I couldn't think of the reason.

 

I think the oil in the eye part was the lesson for future experiences.

 

A couple of weekends ago, I decided to go to the track to see how my car would do after a tune up. Well, I bought some chrome ZR1's for daily driving, and on my old silver ZR1's are some bald *** nittos DR's. Anyhow, I jacked up the rear end to put them on the back. I put them on no problem, went inside to wash my hands, and get ready to go. I hop in my car, start it up, put it reverse, but to no movement. I heard this clanking noise so I immedately turned off my engine. I opend my door and peered underneith my car to find that my car was still jacked up in the back. Did I mention that I had already removed the chalks from up front? *slaps forehead*

 

in a rush to get my car out for the first time in 6 months, i totaly neglected to torque any of the lug nuts, good thing i noticed this right after i pulled the car off the trailer.

 

The dumbest thing I do while working on cars is telling friends I'm not going to charge them for labor or the use of my shop.... then at the end of the day all my beer is gone along with the brake parts cleaner,oil, rags,contents of the hardware bins,wrenches,sockets & whatever else is in sight.

& they usually leave with the lights still on & the heat cranked up to 90

 

yes, the same thing happens to me. I need to start charging my friends for service.

 

I've done stupid before too.

I had most of the top end tore apart on the Z doing heads, cam and headers. Anyway car was tore apart for like 3 months because when I do stuff like that I get **** and this needs to be painted or I want to replace that before I put it back together blah blah blah.

So here I am car was almost complete a few **** piddly things needed to be done. Me and a few friends were standing around talking and they started checking out the stereo. So I'm like hey hold on I'll turn it on. Let me hook the battery up, all the while forgetting I hadn't hooked up the starter yet. Well when I had taken the starter out to put the headers in the + wire kept getting in my way so I looped it around the tranny cooler line. So I start to hook the battery up and I here pss pss pss and I know exactly what I'm hearing but I could not get that stupid side mounting post off quick enough and burnt a pin hole in the tranny cooler line yeah that really sucked try going to a dealer and buying one of them all it is is a roll of tubing and the fittings, you flare, you bend. So now I own a set of craftsman ratcheting wrenches a pipe bender and a tube flarer all because of my that. hmm thats one way to get tools you would never go out and outright buy...lol

Z~

 

Using an aerosal spray paint can indoors. The smell gets everywhere, not to mention makes you a little dizzy...

If anyone ever does this make sure and remove any signs of paint immediately, unless you want the smell of paint stripper included in the bunch.

My friend put my A4 in 2nd at about 80 mph, and I've got 3.23s... Luckily the only thing that happened was screeching tires and ~6k rpms, I suppose, my tranny is the only thing that doesn't give me trouble...

 

2 "boneheaded" items come to mind......

I had just finished rebuilding and installing my 408 big block in my 70SS Chevelle; started her up for a break in period and about 5 minutes in had a hellacious fire in the engine bay; luckily I had a bucket of water in the garage and was able to put it out; turns out the plastic line I used for the oil pressure gauge was too close to the headers and melted causing fresh oil to drip on the headers. DOAH!

I was adding rear end suspension goodies to my 86 IROC and was tightening one of the bolts with a socket wrench (pulling towards me) when it broke loose and whacked me in the forehead; I still have a scar to prove it.....

stop laughing

 

i was compressing struts at work and turned around while I was working the compressor bam spring nailed me in my shoulder. Always attach the safety catch people. my shoulder was in felt like a pissed off ape hit me twice.

 

I set my clocks an hour back instead of an hour ahead Saturday night. Thing is that some of my clocks automatically adjust to daylight savings, so when I woke up I had half the clocks saying one thing and the other half saying the other. I thought the clocks that were displaying the right time were wrong and went about my day until I was suppose to meet my buddy at the track at 9:30 in the morning. He called me and said “When are you leaving” I said “At 9:00” that was at 9:30, I thought it was 8:30. He will never let me forget this one!

 

I did my water-pump replacement this past week...so I drained all of the coolant out of the radiator then went to remove the knock sensor and/or drain plug from the block...couldn't get either one...so I just decided "well, if I just drain the lowest coolant hoses from the block that should be good enough to get it out of the water-pump at least..." or so I thought...so I went and took off the water pump(luckily I had a towel over the Opti), and it was this like water-fall that lasted for about 10-20 seconds...and just as I had done that, my reaction was "Oh crap" and right as I opened my mouth to say crap a drop of coolant that was coming from a slow dripping inlet in the radiator(lower drivers side) fell right on my tongue...hopped up as quick as I could cuz my lip was numb from where it had rolled off of and was in the kitchen hosing down my mouth for 2 minutes...came back and there was coolant everywhere...just finished my installation of water-pump on Sunday and Opti is good and everything(even though the towel was saturated through when I had gotten back)...

Oh yeah and I had a small leak that I thought was the radiator drain plug but turned out to be the return( ) hose on the lower passenger side that was leaking down eventually got to the plug and made the appearance of coming out of the hole...I destroyed the head of the drain plug trying to tighten it down and then realizing that it wasn't the problem and then taking it out...got a new one and wrapped it with Teflon Tape...tightened up the clamp on the hose and everything is groovey now

Sorry for the long post...once I get going on the typing the fun just doesn't stop.

~Kevin

 

Mistake I made but fixed it before starting car. Resealing intake manifold and everything was back together, but noticed one of the rubber covers where the fuel lines connect was missing, looked everywhere could not find, couldnt sleep that night thinking about it. woke up at 3 in the morning and removed intake, found the rubber cover sitting in the #7 intake port of the head. Musta knocked it off when installing intake.