Lets hear your funny car repair stories?

[Little6pack]

Got my 68 GTO in 1978 for the large sum of $350-
It was a tad rough with 82k on the clock.

The ENDURA bumper was pushed in on the passenger side about 2 inches.
I decide to use the telephone pole & chain to yank it out as the neigbors are all watching.
1st pull out it comes 2 inch beyond.. So I put the bumper against the pole & lay on the gas. BOOM in again.. I took me like 10 tries till it was set just right.

 

[gn85]

Careful with electricity...

This is a story that I heard. I'm not sure if it's an urban legend or something that was passed down.

Bubba was working on his car (any car will do) because he had a problem with the engine. For some reason, the engine would not run so he did like we all would do and tried the basics. Gas, air, spark and compression. First he checked the gas and all was well. Then he took a spark plug out, stuck the super hi-tech compression gauge (his finger) in the hole and turned over the engine. Had compression. So, he decided to check the spark. Since one of the spark plug wires was already off, he held a screwdriver in the wire and held it close to an exhaust header... but not close enough. Seeing as Bubba was a little large he had to really lean over to reach the exhaust header but he managed. Anyways.... his friend cranked over the engine, spark surged through the wire, up Bubba's arm and was searching for a ground. The zipper in Bubba's pants made for the perfect metal to metal contact with the fender. I will let everyone imagine WHAT part of the body the spark had to go through to get to his zipper.

Y'all be careful out there...

 

[Brian Mc]

Don't currently own a funny car, wish i did so I could race John Force! Tom just sold his Camaro funny car for 15,000 without motor or trans.

 

[machinegun]

How about 2 stories from my younger days.

First one

We needed the points to stay in second place so we worked all day and night for a week to get the car ready. At about 9:00 friday evening we load up, and drive all night long to the track we were racing at. We got there early because the tow vehicle ran so well this time and got pretty good gas mileage. Wonder what we did there. We go eat, get some sleep go to the track and start to prep. Open the trailer and no car. No wonder we went faster and got better gas mileage. All that and we did not even get th points for showing up because we had no car with us.

Second One.

Installing a gauge set in my first car, crhysler newport. Good car bought cheap and ran and looked good considering. I install the gauge set as per the instructions. (Back when I actually read those things). I start the car and no leaks. I get out of the car, close the door and shortly after I see smoke. The plastic tubing had melted and was shooting oil all over. I go to shut down the car, door locked. (Learned valuable lesson, always roll down drivers side window before working on car) Oil shooting all over running out. Doors are locked cant stop the car so I came up with a great idea. Pull the coil wire car will stop right? grabbed end of coil wire and pulled. Coil fires through my body sends me across the driveway. car stops and catches fire. I can not move to get extinguisher. luckily officer comes by and puts out fire. I get checked out by the paramedics and finally start to be able to talk and move again. Moral of story, leave a window down and do not yank on the coil wire while car is running.

Hope you like them.

 

[Rollin]

I was putting the finishing touches on my 305 to 454 swap into a 78 Elcamino. I ran the valves the night before and did not want to break in the cam in the early a.m. with open headers. So I saved it for the next day after I got off work. Anyway I get home and all is good, the wife says my bro-inlaw was there early waited for me and left so I thought nothing of it... mistake!
Anyway I topped off all fluids again just in case and set up the fan. I hit the key after a hard crank it started barely and was backfiring thru the carb big time, after messing with it and it not responding, I thought well maybe I was a tooth off and re-stabbed the distributor. In the mean time my wife comes out after hearing it attempt to run bringing with her a quart of tea for me. I jump back in drivers seat all giddy an tell her "get ready it's gonna be loud." Well I crank it and kaboom! it shoots a dripping fire ball out of the Holley 800 dp..... it was at this time she panics and tosses the entire contents of tea at the motor! Next thing I know there's liquid fire dripping everywhere and we looked like the stooges bumping into each other<Lol>. I smothered the flames with my always present damp towel and rolled the car back off the flames to put them out. Little did I know my boneheaded bro in-law shows up at noon and re-runs the valves 180 degrees out ... In hindsight I knew should have locked it up as he's the real Tim "The Toolman" Taylor. To this day I refuse to work on anything with him as he'll always find a way to: destroy, destruct, get hurt and/or hurt you.
The first time I let him help me was back in 1991. I was putting headers in/on my old Camaro it was a 4spd small block car. I went to the parts store to get new plugs as he had broken most of them, only to come back to find 3 nice brand new hammer dimples in each of my brand new Chevrolet Valve covers. THEN, after I got the headers installed without the aid of a Ball peen hammer I'm half way home only to have what sounded like a rod come out the side of the block. Come to find out he neglected to tighten the spark plugs on his side and #8 was ejected as I hammered it climbing a hill, still have the burn scars from that one.

I'm sure some of ya'll can relate

 

[fitz3820]

The 3 wheeled Omnirizon.

I changed the clutch on my brothers 80's K-car Omnirizon thingy and as I re-installed the clutch linkage he "did everything else"

On the way home to Albany (2 hour ride) he ignored the ever increasing vibrations until the passenger side front wheel came off! The tire bounced a few times and went into a huge river!

I guess nobody tightened the lug nuts more than finger tight.

The car lived for a few more months until it threw a rod on the New York thruway and burned to the ground.

Mark F.

87 GN 11.9@115

 

[myclone]

Machinegun,

I have to say the ¡§forgetting the car¡¨ one had me ROFLMAO!!! I thought I was the only one that had forgotten everything at one time or another going to the track but I have yet to forget the car. I guess having an open car trailer helps for me or I prolly would have forgotten it by now. ƒº

I have many war stories but the one that my fellow car buds like to remind me about is when I was installing the braided line for the FP gauge sending unit on the fuel rail of the sy.

It was early spring ~3yrs ago and a little warm so I backed the sy out of the garage so I could enjoy some warm weather while tinkering after being cooped up all winter. I had removed the shrader valve from the fuel rail for the install of the braided line going to the FP sender. A couple of buds stopped by to hang out and BS since it was nice out.

When I pulled the shrader valve I got maybe a cup full of gas that spilled out on the intake but I figured Id sop it up later before I fired the truck up. I didn¡¦t notice that the sleave of my flannel shirt that wasn¡¦t buttoned had managed to sop up the gas for me while I was working. When I attempted to connect the braided steel line going to the FP gauge I managed to touch the stud on the back of the alt with the end and since the braded line snaked around the brake lines going to the anti lock it made for a nice ground. The resulting sparks ignited the gas that was puddled on the intake and also ignited my shirt sleave. I didn¡¦t even notice I was on fire I just knew my truck was now in flames.

Without explaining my house/garage layout in detail I¡¦ll just say that to get to the water hose that was around the house as quick as possible I had to hurdle the banister on the deck, sprint across the deck, hurdle the banister on the other side, and finally round the corner to where the water hose and hose reel were located. Also keep in mind Im 6¡¦3¡¨/ 250+ and wearing VERY non athletic steel toe work boots so it took a feat of super human ability to hurdle the banister once let alone 3 more times counting the trip back to the now burning truck.

Unkown to me one of my buds had noticed that I was on fire and realized that I hadn¡¦t noticed. He ran in the garage to grab an old blanket I kept next to the shop rag pile to throw around me when I sprinted off for the water hose. During this time I¡¦d grabbed the water hose and was returning at full stride with the hose, now ripped off the side of the house hose reel, and the shear panic that my Syclone was going up in flames.

As I hurdled the banister for the last time at full steam he turned the corner out of the garage holding the blanket out in both hands to throw over me. I was in mid hurdle so I had NO way of changing direction, stopping, or any other maneuver. Needless to say when my oversized/fear of my truck burning to the ground self collided with his ~6¡¦/ maybe130lbs he was no match for my momentum. I completely ran over top of the poor guy and was so set on saving the truck I never even slowed.

I knocked the poor guy unconscious and by the time I got the truck put out and then turned the hose on my now MUCH in flames arm he was just coming to. To this day the guy will not come around or speak to me for that matter.

So, I now have an extinguisher mounted in the garage for just such situations and to my bud¡K.. Doug, for the umpteenmillionth time I¡¦m sorry bro.

 

[BJM]

Why won't it start?

Working on a friend's Monte Carlo during university. Don't remember why but we had just stuck the HEI distributor back in and were trying to fiddle the timing around to get it running. We cranked and cranked but not even a cough. Our garage was directly below my parents bedroom and it was pretty late. Finally noticed that we had forgotten to plug in the HEI power plug. With my head next to the carburetor, my buddy hits the starter one more time.......BOOM.....fireball comes out the carb, I go flying out backwards into the wall behind me, the unburned fuel in the muffler explodes and the muffler is no more, all in an enclosed space. My buddy thinks he has killed me. I can't hear. My parents think a bomb has gone off in the garage. The car just sat there and idled nicely, except for the noise from the now destroyed exhaust.

 

[Shane]

While searching the forum for some tech info, this one came up and I thought I would ressurect a dead thread.

My Powermaster on my 87 gave out on me, so after a trip to the Buick dealership with my 2 week GN Owner self, I noted that the PM was like $1400. I said, screw it I'll do the vac brakes. Did the Vac brakes, everything was fine until about six months later.

Turns out that the Master Cylinder I had pulled came with a loose bolt that eventually wiggled itself loose. I came out from work one morning to go home, and put the car in Reverse.....

The car was moving with my foot on the brake. That bolt had let most of the fluid out of the master cylinder.


Just wanting to go home (14 hour graveyard shift), I asked my friend to follow me to the next Stewarts where I could get some brake fluid and then to follow me home. We started on our way home when the guy in front of me locked up his brakes for a turn.

It was either hit him or go off into a field, so I went into the field. He stopped traffic (after laughing his ass off), and I tried to crawl back up the hill onto the road. It wasn't gonna happen.

I tried to get a moving start on it, and again just spun out in the mud. I said SCREW IT! Locked up the E Brake and Staged up.

Did a nice muddy burnout in some farmer's field and hit that hill going about 60......

Only to catch air and land on the complete other side of the road in another ditch.

Eventually I got the car out of that ditch, and got some brake fluid to get the car home.

The moral of the story: Always check your vital fluids.

 

[cool 84]

I was working on the car one night with most of the neighbors outside. I didn't bleed off the FP before disconnecting the fuel line from the rail. A ton of fuel came out at first and continued to seep out for a while. It covered the motor and made it's way down the driveway into the gutter. Thinking nothing of it, I continued to work on the car until I hit the fuel line back into the alternator. It caught the car, driveway, and gutter on fire. My neighbors watched like I was crazy as I tried to put the fire out with a hose. I almost gave up and called 911. As I would get one section out, another would light. If I would've had insurance on it at the time, I probably would've let it burn.

One thing we did in highschool, although not a mistake, it was pretty funny to some, pissed others off pretty bad. My friend had a 1982 Subaru wagon, total POS. We would sometimes take my younger sister to school and occasionally pull over right before we got there and dump transmission fluid all over the catalytic convertor so the car was smoking good when we pulled up to her school. After a while, the smoke wasn't enough anymore and we caught the car on fire so we decided we needed something better. I ended up drilling a hole in the exhaust just before the catalytic convertor, running a metal line to it and connecting the other end to the windshield wiper reservoir which was filled with tranny fluid. Anytime we hit the button for the wiper fluid, it would inject trans fluid inside the exhaust.

It worked better than I could've imagined. Going down the freeway at night we could almost make the headlights behind us disappear completely. Going down city streets and residential neighborhoods, we could bring traffic to a stop. We used to always hit it in the McDonalds drivethrough right before we were leaving and rev the heck out of it. The cars behind us would just sit there. After driving several blocks away you could see the smoke cloud marking where McDonalds was. Only problem was it got stuck one time while at a redlight, I don't know if it was siphoning out or what. The redlight and the whole intersection was no longer visible and we waited a while and then drove through, hoping we stayed on the road. I would never do it again for obvious reasont but we had a lot of laughs back then.

 

[SilverSleeper]

Buddy and I were working on his Cutlass in his mothers garage. He had just put in a new trans, with a reverse manual valvebody. Of course, he went to start it and it ended up being in reverse. Not being safety conscious enough to hook up a neutral safety switch, the whole thing went backwards. THROUGH the closed garage door!!!
Sad thing is, that car to this day doesnt have a safety swtich. He did it again not too long after the first time, this time plowing into the toolbox at the front of the stall (DUH)!

I almost had a car land on me once. I dont have, or ever had, a real garage. Its one of those vinyl over tube frame thingys. So the floor is basically mud, clay, and some stone.
I dont even remember what i was doing to it, (probably exhaust) and had it up on jackstands. While I was wrenching, I keep noticing how I wish I had more room. Soon enough I realized that the whole car was sinking in the mud! I looked back and one of the stands is starting to tilt to the side. I got out just in time to put the jack back under to catch it as it fell off the stands.

 

[wlaukaitis]

No story but I love making the visuals in my pee-sized brain!
Like some 6' dude gazelling across his deck to get a water hose and then yanking it off the house.

Speaking of which <<myclone>> I am sorry you friend doesn't speak to you anymore...Maybe you should approach him?

 

[denn454]

you mean like the time my door got stuck shut and wouldnt' open no matter how hard i hit it, or pulled from the outside?

i was ready to take a pry bar to it just to get it open, then realized the door was locked.