Automotive confessional

[Barry Wolk]

What's is the worst thing you've ever done to a car?

I was 15 and knew everything, didn't you? My parents went away for the weekend. While they were gone I decided to service mom's '63 Tempest. The technology was odd to me because it had half a Pontiac 389 under the hood, a "rope" driveshaft that led to a transaxle driving the rear wheels.

When my folks got back my mother packed the three of us up to go to the swim club 15 miles away. The car started making noise about 3/4 of the way there and mom kept driving it. As she parked it you could hear that gawdawful sound of metal that has gotten way too hot. It sure smelled, but we didn't think much of it. I knew I had done something wrong, but didn't know what.

We swam for a few hours, had lunch and headed home. Packed the car up and it starts just fine, but it won't move an inch. My uncle owned a service station. I had worked for him doing oil changes, but never encountered a Tempest. My uncle comes out with his tow truck, lifts the car up and determines that the differential is locked up solid. By this time my father had arrived to take us home. I asked if I could ride back with Uncle Milt. It was then that I confessed what I had done. He told me he had figured it out already and that he was covering my ass.

As he checked the fluids he found that I had drained the differential and overfilled the transmission, or so he told me. He had connections at salvage yards and was able to get a transaxle that he was able to swap into the car for $300, but only charged them $200. He kept my secret, but made me work off the other $100.00. It was worth it.

[R Walling]

I was helping my friend start his Pontiac and I determined that it was flooded. Well too much fuel sounds to me that did not have enough oxygen to burn it... so I fed pure oxygen into the carb to clear it out.

The explosion took out the gaskets on the oil pan, valve covers and valley cover leaving all covers with enough room to slip a cat inside the engine!

I never did find the oil cap!

[R W Burgess]

.........The explosion took out the gaskets on the oil pan, valve covers and valley cover leaving all covers with enough room to slip a cat inside the engine!

I never did find the oil cap!

Why do I try...you guys are too good. I guess the worse I did was change the oil on my Dad's new '65 Impala just before a trip to check out my new college choice. Luckily for me, 2 hours out I noticed the oil pressure gauge fluxuating on the LOW side.

I found a garage close by and the mechanic saw the oil running out of the cartridge filter. After taking the remnants of the oil filter gasket out of the slot, it was fixed. Never changed oil again after that without running an ice pick all the way around the mounting slot.

Live and learn.

Wayne

[Restorer32]

Heading somewhere with Dad in his '71 Caddy, out in the country, no houses nearby. We notice heavy white smoke coming from under the hood and stop to investigate. Pop the hood and notice that tranny fluid is being pumped out the dipstick tube and onto the exhaust manifold. The engine bursts into flame and of course we had no fire extinguisher, no water, not much of anything except a gallon of antifreeze in the trunk. Dad, "does antifreeze burn?" Son, "I'm sure it does but it will probably put out the fire". Dad, "give it a shot, nothing to lose at this point". You can guess the rest of the story. We hid the empty antifreeze container from the firemen who eventually showed up and doused the smoldering remains of the car.

[CarlLaFong]

I had to look it up because I was skeptical. Ethylene glycol IS flammable. Who knew?

[trimacar]

Well, how about an embarrassing thing you've done?

I had a good friend in Baton Rouge, the late B.B. Crump. He had a very nice collection, about 50 full Classics, from Auburn to Packard to Stutz to Pierce.

We went out for a drive one day in his then-owned 35 Duesenberg convertible (it later went to the late Bill Lassiter in Florida). When we got back to his house, he parked the car on his circular driveway in front of his beautiful home. Opening the hood, I asked him "Hey, Mr. Crump, what's this ON/OFF lever for?" I don't know, he replied turn it and see what happens, while I look in the owner's manual. I turned it, and a minute later he had found it in the manual. "Turn it back turn it back" he exclaimed. Turns out it was the oil drain lever. Looking under his car, on his nice pretty driveway, I saw about 4 or 5 quarts of oil slowly spreading out..........ummmm, sorry, Mr. C.

[Barry Wolk]

Great stories. No need to be just dumb stories. Mine was dumb and embarrassing.

[Shop Rat]

Not me but Bill.

In his college days he built a racecar from a '55 or '56 (sorry he can't remember for sure ) Ford Crown Victoria.

First he jammed it head-on into the wall one night. He didn't know until they X-Rayed him for the Air Force that he had cracked his right hip joint because he had his foot on the brake when it hit the wall. He just knew his hip hurt some.

Then one night he rolled it down the track. :eek: From what he said there were two things left intact.....him and the rollcage. He got out of racing from then until we got the Legends racecar.

Oh, the song "Tell Laura I Love Her" was playing on his tow vehicle's radio BOTH times he wrecked as he was driving into the pits.

Want to see those little, tiny hairs stand up on his neck?? Just play that song.

[Restorer32]

I did a few embarrassing things IN cars in my younger days but we won't get into that ...

[Barry Wolk]

The operative word in the OP is "to". But we did get busted 100 yards from our house steaming up the windows of our Pacer when we were in our mid-20s. The Pacer was embarrassing enough.

[Bhigdog]

I took a perfectly good 54 Victoria and made a "hot rod" out of it..................Bob

[Guest Skyking]

In 1955 my parents bought a brand new Buick. I was nine years old and wanted to see my father change his tires. I propped 2 nails under the front tires. One on each side.........:confused: Boy, was he mad! :mad: My younger brother squealed...........

[Restorer32]

Dad was in the tire business and advertised at the local Drive In Movie and of course he had a whole book of passes that I would help myself to, along with his '64 Caddy. One night at the drive in with my girlfriend it became so foggy that you couldn't see the screen. The proprietor offered everyone their money back. Strangely, almost no one left.

[Guest Skyking]

Dad was in the tire business and advertised at the local Drive In Movie and of course he had a whole book of passes that I would help myself to, along with his '64 Caddy. One night at the drive in with my girlfriend it became so foggy that you couldn't see the screen. The proprietor offered everyone their money back. Strangely, almost no one left.

It's funny, my windows used to get foggy at the drive-ins also......

Those were the days...........

[Guest Skyking]

It's a wonder your brother didn't grow up an only child. But then, he probably would have squealed on your dad. Then again......

We became the best of friends........ He's been living in Florida for the past 17 years. Don't get to see him much

[Guest ken bogren]

I'm fond of telling folks that I shouldn't be allowed to own a wrench. It's amazing what a little ignorance seasoned with just a tad of "I can do it!" can accomplish.

Needless to say the list is far to long to post here, but.....

I'd did once (in 1970) pay a real mechanic $795.00 to "finish" changing spark plugs in a 68 Javilin six.

Use your imaginations to figure out why.

Oh yeah, and while we're on the subject, anyone got a guess as to why my mechanic continues to give me tools for my birthday, and Chrismas?

Edited July 24, 2010 by ken bogren (see edit history)

[Jim Bollman]

Back to the confessional side, I also have lots of embarrassing and stupid moments.

I was only the willing accomplies to this not the main perpetrator. For a couple of summers (end of High School begininning of College) I was crew for a fellow doing a few demolition derbies. We found an absolutely perfect low milage 1951 Chrysler Imperial, owned by a little old lady that had stop driving some years before. We bought it for $50 and began preparing to destroy it. This would have been around 1966 so I'll use that as a partial defense since it was just a used car then. But it was perfect, paint was even still shinny.

In was the best demo car we ever put on the field as far as taking a licking. We got jammed up in the first heat and got flagged. Its radiator pushed into the fan and was leaking badly. We figured what do we have to loose, we cut the fan belt so the fan would not dig in any deeper, filled the radiator and put it in the consolation heat. Won the heat, not a drop of water was in the radiator or engine, it should have melted down but it just kept running.

[Barry Wolk]

Pacer was huge compared to the RX-7 and TR-6. I'm only 6'5". The Pacer was awesome for a tall person. The doors were huge and it had tons of headroom. It was actually a really good car.

[keiser31]

I sold my 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner for $1.00.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Made fender skirts out of door panels. For My BICYCLE!! From the front doors from a 1938 Buick. I don't remember why Dad did not beat me. That was in about 1953.

[Guest amberlmansfield]

Oh where to start? I guess from the beginning.

Back when I got my little '93 Toyota pickup (stick and very first car, mind you) I only had my permit. Mother dearest tells me the gas is on the right, clutch is in the middle and brake is on the left. See the problem here? Only having illegally (without a license) driven her automatic minivan at that point, all I could do was listen to her. I managed to start the car because she told be to keep my feet on brake and clutch. Then she tells me to take my feet off of the pedals gradually and move forward. When the truck started sputtering out she stood there screaming BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE meanwhile, I'm stomping the clutch because of her wrong directions. The truck dented and half-knocked down the garage door when it lurched forward. As if that wasn't enough, she told me to try again and back the car up. It went okay until her poor driving lesson had me stomping the clutch again and I jumped the car into the side of the house. With a wooden flat bed on the Toyota, the wood took out a decent chunk length-wise along the house. Double whoops. Did we say a word? Nope. Did my dad find out? He noticed about a month later. What did we say? "Huh... I wonder how that happened..."

To top it off, I did my first oil change on that truck. It went so well I forgot about the oil pan and ran it over in the garage and spilled every last drop. I'm still talking about my 1993 Toyota pickup with a wooden bed. My father hates 'rice burners' and almost any non-classic American muscle. Did I tell him the Toyota he wants me to junk trashed his garage? (well, again?) No. Not even to this day. What he doesn't know won't hurt him and I cleaned it up good enough.

[Booreatta]

And to think that the power of advertising that a VW bug will float. I have the answer to that question as I tried it with my girlfriends new 63 bug. The outcome was not pretty. She was no longer my girlfriend either. Oh such is life, and that was a good VW too

[Guest billybird]

I was working under the dash of a Flathead Ford one time. Later that day on my way to a friends house, I began to hear a faint click under the hood. I noticed the oil pressure guage read zero. As the click turned into a knock I assumed while working under the dash that I must have broke a wire off the guage although I never stopped to confirm that. { assume is another word for don't care}. By this time there is a sound similar to a weave room in a sheeting mill followed by BAM! Slid the rear wheels. Turns out an oil filter line had ruptured pumping out all the oil as I rode. When we put the engine on a stand to look at it ; it sounded like change in your pocket. Burned up the crank, four valves, four pistons, three connecting rods, broke the cam into three pieces and knocked three holes in the oil pan. Believe it or not, the block survived,we rebuilt it, put it back in the car and ran it for 10 more years!

[Dick380185]

When I was 4 or 5 years old (early 1950's), my dad had a tan 1941 Plymouth Convertible. We lived on a hill, and rather than pulling into the driveway, Dad just parked on the street in front of the house facing uphill. He went into the house for something, and left me in the car unattended. I was just staring at that pistol-grip handle that was just begging to be squeezed! Well, it turned out to be the emergency brake, and even though I was a skinny weakling as a kid, apparently I was strong enough to release it! What I never could understand was why I wasn't strong enough to steer it nor could I get it to stop by pushing on the brake pedal. I ended up drifting backwards into a telephone pole on the opposite side of the street. I was scared sh*tless and can't remember anything else about it. I imagine I got a whoopin' for it.

[Guest prs519]

Had a 40 Ford fordor in Junior high school (late sixties), my first car. Thought I was

pretty slick, had it painted up lookin real nice. Ran out of gas at an intersection in

a small town and flagged down my friend who happened by in his father's pickup.

"how bout a tow on home?", said I. In less time than it takes to tell, I was underneath

with a chain hooked up. It seems I was sweating a few bullets -- maybe registration or insurance lapsed or something. So, away we went. In the geographical center of the street

the ol 40 started protesting, locking up more less with tires screeching...yupper the dimwit

had hooked to the center of the tierod, and the right tire was wanting to go right at the same time the left one was a wanting to go left. Experience is such a bitter teacher. I quickly unhooked the tie rod and by means of armstrong and kicking the tires as we went ahead, I was able to get out of the intersection and go home and straighten the tie rod.

[sambarn]

So... I have been working on my late father's Marmon sixteen, one of 392 built and in good working shape but hadn't run in a couple of years. same ol same ol - recharge batttery, drain tank, carb and fuel lines, refill, oil change, filter clean, read owners and shop manuals, get totally prepped. and finally comes the day to crank it.....nothing, battery still weak - not pulling the fuel from the tank to the engine down that 20' frame. using a hand vacuum fuel pump I draw fuel up to the carb through the stainless fuel line, set the charger to crank step on the button and vroom!!!! scared me so bad that after nearly jumped out of my skin - bumped the choke lever and phumpf, engine died. So hours later running and idling well after a bath and final walkthrough It's time for the test drive. I delicately click the vehicle in first, ease off the clutch and drive off -shifts great brakes great tons of power out on the two lane country road - horn works, wipers work, and then a little stutter then a big stutter and power down to engine dead again. hit the button (remember the charger) and nothing. Decide to roll backwards (downhill) to a driveway but first have to wait for the tractor pulling a giant trailer of hay to pass by and shower me and the 16 with dust and hay. after my sneezing fit I roll the car into the driveway just down the road (7000 lbs of Indiana Steel) and park it in a stranger's driveway. I call my son who we've left at the house with the truck and he comes to get us. while waiting, the 16, with a poorly set parking brake and also foolishly left in reverse, begins to roll slowly backwards ending with the luggage rack tearing the bumper off the driveway owners car and stopping before doing any other damage. The first day I have driven an icon of American Automobilia and I wreck it. A tow truck, a buddy in paint and body and a very forgiving woman (The driveway owner) and I have the car in the garage - fuel issue not yet diagnosed and just a little less skip in my step when I talk about working on the cars but no damage at all to the sixteen (7000 pounds of Indiana steel). I guess the confessional thing appealled to my guilt so thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

[Barry Wolk]

This thread is rather cathartic, isn't it?

[Restorer32]

True Confessions