Whats the most boneheaded car thing youve ever done?

Pablo

Active Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2004
I had a few good ones but a few weeks ago I think I topped them all when my primary transportation, my firebird, had a bolt break from my mechanical clutch linkage and I had to drive an hour south to San Diego to see my sister who i hadnt seen in ages.
She was in town just for a few days so I took the buick which happens to have 28x10.5 ET Drags on the back. The weather was great and off I went, I get to her hotel and hang out with her and her friends till late and then just crashed at her hotel. I get up to find that its a torrential downpour outside. I tried waiting it out but it wasnt stopping. This was a freak storm, and those of you who've been to so cal know it NEVER rains here! We had just come off 181 days consecutive of no rain.

Work for me starts at 330 pm and I had to get there. So Hey, ive driven with bald tires before ill just take it slow. I get going and boy.. DO NOT try to drive in the rain in these things. I actually at one point got confident since i had been driving on surface streets and not really slid too much i thought.. well theres the freeway im sure the cars going on it as much as they have keep the lanes drier... big mistake, i get on there and creap up on 45mph and before i know it im sliding sideways like im on ice. I saw my life flash before my eyes as i was at a 45 degree angle to traffic taking up two lanes on the 805 freeway with big rigs all around me. I promptly got off the highway after i regained control (traffic came to a stop behind me) and proceeded to turn what is normally a sub 1 hour trip to a 4 hour trip by driving on every surface street imaginable at 25-30 mph.

In retrospect I probably should have parked it but you get irrational when you are thinking you are going to be late for work and you are in a branch of the military where if you are late you may as well wish you were dead.

I definately wont be doing that again.

anyone got anything better?
 
I don't really have anything better,but lets say I know exactly what you mean.Both driving in the rain on streetslicks and being late in the military.
 
that makes the 3 of us:D , but i think it was when i had a white with black strips 67 camaro, it had a SBC 350 some headers and a nice holley 650. i raced my brother in his mustang for over 15 miles and normally i beat him but i could not catch him, until i realized that i forgot to take off the parking break:eek:
 
I have driven away & left a coffee cup on roof of the car. (that is a senior moment)

Back when I had my 65 GTO I was 16.. You all know how much energy a 16 year old has. We all have been there.
My GTO came with these huge Cragar SS deep dish wheels on on the rear & normal up front.

Some were missing studs on rear & some of the lug nuts use to loosen up a lot.
I took a school chum home & wanted to impress him.

I opened up that 389 Tripower from 1st gear & powershifted to second gear. BANG, SCRAPE! My rear wheel comes right off & goes rolling by the car as it grinds on the LADDER BAR.. That ladder bar saved us by digging into the ground & creating a huge spark shower. When the old Goat stopped a good 1/2" of the ladder bar was gone. The street had a huge gash in it for well over 200 feet.

The elementry kids walking home from school came running up to the car to say what a cool thing they just saw. As I was trying to peel my fingers off the steering wheel in shock.

Tossed those Cragers & pressed in aftermarket studs before I drove that car anyplace.

Checkout the photo & that shag rug :eek:
 

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After a sleepless night I decided to change the trailing arms on my 85 Regal at six in the morning. I took the first bolt out and it stayed up tight on its bushing. Then, while laying below it and looking up at it, I cracked the second bolt lose. K-Blam!!!! The result was a two week blackeye and a lump on the side of my head that appears to be permanent. DON'T work on your car when your groggy!!!
 
Backing into the burnout box and forgetting to put it back in drive.:eek: Luckily I was using the linelock and realized right away what was happening. Skulked up the line and ran redfaced.

Steve, we've been in more than one car that lost a wheel! Not a nice feeling when a rim passes you and it belongs on the car your in!
 
Coming to a yield and looking left to see if I can gun it. Getting on it but still looking to the left, forgot to look up at a car stopped at the Yield sign. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Is was not pretty:(
 
Originally posted by njturbo
Coming to a yield and looking left to see if I can gun it. Getting on it but still looking to the left, forgot to look up at a car stopped at the Yield sign. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Is was not pretty:(

i ALMOST did that today stoped about probely half a inch from a freakin BMW i would have been screwed lol
 
Man, the list is long, but one time at work I decided to jump my extended cab long bed chevy truck, toolboxes and all. There were these train tracks that if you went anything faster than 15 mph over, you got air. I hit them at 60 or 70, if memory serves. This was a 95 chevy 1/2 ton. It scraped the LICENSE PLATE on the ground (front!) and bottomed the hitch out. We got about 25" distance, as measured while we retrieved tools and other materials from the cornfield they landed in. I had a tank of Freon that went pretty far, can't remember. Anyone who has seen the way the license plate mounts on the bumper of a late model chevy should realize how airborn we were. It knocked the bed into the cab, not permanently, but enough to dent the cab. I still don't know why I did it. I was just like "We're gonna jump these tracks." My buddy in the passenger seat was grabbing tools and anything else floating around the cab.

Speaking of things passing you, one day at work one of my dumber employees hooked up one of our little box trailers (6'X10") to my truck while I was working on something else. We headed out, and I asked him if the trailer was all hooked up "Yup", so off we went. I noticed it felt funny pulling, like it fell off the ball and was yanking on the safety chains, but it looked good in the mirror and my truck rode like ass anyway, so I ignored it. A minute later the trailer passed me on the left side, totally level (single axle), went into the ditch where the tongue dug in, it flipped a good 2 or 3 times (70 mph) and landed sqaure on the roof, ruining about $3K worth of equipment and the trailer. I asked the dude WTF happened, and we figured it out. He not only didn't latch the ball, he hooked the safety chains to a loop of rope tied to my bumper we left there after pulling something with it. The rope was still hanging from the chains as the wheels spun in the air. I fired him too.
 
How about watching my uncle mark change the oil in his car. After draining, changing filter and replacing plug, I actually helped him hold a funnel. The oil seemed like it took forever to get back into the car down that little dipstick hole.:eek:
 
Like turbosam, with so many, where do I start?;) Had my Audi 200 Turboquattro sitting on jackstands with the front struts out when one of my customers sent his customer to me with an Astro van with a vibration. Pulled the Astro a few feet from the Audi and put the rear axle on stands. Put the van in gear, give it a little gas - walk around to the right rear just in time to see the wheel stop. Go back, put my foot on the gas (left foot on the floor), and goose it...the van climbs off the jackstands and shoves the Audi, stands and all, into the wall behind it. I'm like WTF??? Yep, sure enough, ALL WHEEL DRIVE. (Guess I missed the big ORANGE emblems on the doors). Surprisingly, the Audi was unscathed (there was a couple of tires leaning against the wall that it hit), and the Astro suffered little more than a broken grille.
 
I had the same thing happen in the burnout box. I was driving a friends Regal at a local 1/8th mile strip and backed into the waterbox. Well, I noticed when I started to do the burnout the car did not want to spin. It finally started and it was then I noticed that I forgot to put the thing back in drive!!!!! :eek:
 
A few years ago on the 4th of July me and some of my buddies were driving home from the fireworks in Philly. There's this hill called "top of the world" because it goes up real sharp then drops right off, so we were like "let's jump it." We were in my friend's 92 Taurus, and we went like 60 over the thing. We definitely got huge air then landed and went up this dirt bank and almost flipped, then swerved into traffic and almost got hit head on. The auto shut off for the fuel pump kicked in and we couldn't start the car, but that Taurus was just find minus some grass in the fender. There was slurpee all over the car because we had all been holding slurpees at the time...

One time I was wrenching near the battery (with it hooked up) and contacted the + terminal, it took a chunk out of my Craftsman and knocked me on my ass real good.
 
Had a buddy who I race with try to remove an oil filter. He is a very big dude, extremely strong and ex-world champ arm wrestler. He was pulling and pulling on this filter and couldnt' figure out why it wouldn't come loose. Turns out he had the oil filter wrench around the starter!! DOH!!

:D
 
Originally posted by Pronto


Steve, we've been in more than one car that lost a wheel! Not a nice feeling when a rim passes you and it belongs on the car your in!

That is correct Paul's 69 bird lost the wheel too..

My dad in his Chevy suburban lost the wheel on I-93 going into Boston.:rolleyes:
 
The older you get the more stories you have to tell but I will only admit to these three.

1 - Had a 66 Falcon for a first car and converted it from a straight 6 with auto trans to a 289 V-8 with a 3 speed manual on the floor. Bought the motor and trans from a friend who had rolled his 66 Mustang. It only had a two barrel on it and once I got all the bugs out of the conversion decided to convert to a four barrel Holley. Swapped out the manifold without any problems and ended up somehow losing one of the nuts that hold the carb to the manifold. No problem, just found another one. Fired up the car and the motor was now knocking! Guess where the nut went?? Ended up having to take off the head to retrieve what was left of it. Didn't appear to do any damage and the motor ran fine for years until I sold the car to my sister's boyfriend.

2- When I first started messing around with my 66 Chevelle it had a small block in it and I went to impress my friends at a keg party when I was leaving and revved the crap out of it. It backfired and promptly shut down. Couldn't get it started and had a friend tow it home with his 68 Camaro and a tow rope. Turned out the distributor was loose and moved.

3- Trying desparately to get my Buick to build some boost when I first tried racing it I tried the emergency brake routine. Had one hand on the brake release handle and the other on the shifter handle. Went to launch and realized that at least one hand has to be on the steering wheel. DOH! :eek:
 
I've done many but this one takes the cake...bought a Mazda RX7 brand new in 1980...was a youngster at the time and cocky...of course...I was living in KY at the time...small town just outside of Lexington...was driving the car home from the dealership with a freind...drinking some beers...decided to see what the car could do as far as handling...seemed to grip the road pretty good...so I turn off the highway onto this country road and proceed to get up to about 80 MPH...then the stupid part...tried taking a 90 degree turn at that speed...the rear tires break loose...car starts spinning...did a nice 360 and ended up in the front yard of someones house...luckily they weren't home...and the car didn't get damaged...my friend and I just sat there for a minute or so then started laughing...you know the type of laughing when you see your life flash before your eyes...got the car home safe and never did anything like that again...
 
Both of mine involve my old Regal. I was in the process of putting a 327 chevy into it, and my buddy Brian was helping me out with it. His dad was nice enough to let me use their garage to do everything, since it was bitter cold, and in the middle of January. Well, I had just bought my shiny new Holley carb and took it out of the box. I looked at Brian, and entirely serious, I asked him "Do you think it's OK to let this carb sit out in the cold garage?" He just stared at me and started cracking up :eek:

Second one was also in the winter, only a year or so later, would have been late '91 or real early in '92. Brian and I decided to go to the mall 'cause we were bored, and it was snowing slightly. Brian looked at my tires and said "You know your cables are showing on these things?" I said "Yeah, they're traction cables, dummy" :p . On the way back home, there's a 90 degree bend about a mile from his house. There was maybe 1" of snow on the road, nothing really. I was only going about 20 mph and slowed to around 15. I hit the brakes well before the turn, but it just kept sliding straight, there was nothing I could do.
I mid-slide, I looked over at Brian and said "You know we're gonna hit the rail, right?". He just kept looking straight ahead and said "......yup." Next thing you know *crunch*, I smacked the rail and mangled the whole front of the car. It was quiet for a few seconds, then Brian says "Traction cables, huh? " Looking back, that was hilarious :D
I wound up getting so disgusted that I got rid of the car and bought an '03 Shadow ES of all things. My dad said my Regal wound up going through the auction that he works at and only fetched a couple hundred dollars. I kick myself to this day that I didn't fix it, or at least pull the motor and trans :(
 
My best one was when I broke the throttle cable in my '77 Camaro when I tried to romp on it while doing some "test & tune" in a local industrial park with my friend Tom, and the cable snapped. We could have used a shoelace to tie the accelerator pedal to the carb linkage, but we were both wearing those fashionable (at the time) velcro-tie sneakers. The only thing we could do was leave the hood up, have Tom sit on the fender and work the throttle, while I stuck my head out the window to see, and steer and work the brakes. Man, did we get a lot of strange looks from other drivers!

I actually made it into Car Craft's "Stupid Gearhead Stories" (Sept '03, page 38, "The Human Throttle") with that story. I was kinda proud of that....I always wanted to get my car in Car Craft, and that's the closest I've gotten (so far).

:D

Steve
 
Originally posted by Black Box
My best one was when I broke the throttle cable in my '77 Camaro when I tried to romp on it while doing some "test & tune" in a local industrial park with my friend Tom, and the cable snapped. We could have used a shoelace to tie the accelerator pedal to the carb linkage, but we were both wearing those fashionable (at the time) velcro-tie sneakers. The only thing we could do was leave the hood up, have Tom sit on the fender and work the throttle, while I stuck my head out the window to see, and steer and work the brakes. Man, did we get a lot of strange looks from other drivers!

I actually made it into Car Craft's "Stupid Gearhead Stories" (Sept '03, page 38, "The Human Throttle") with that story. I was kinda proud of that....I always wanted to get my car in Car Craft, and that's the closest I've gotten (so far).

:D

Steve

OMG that has to be one of the funnyest things that i have read on this board or any for that matter :D

thanks for making me cover my desk and computer's with soda :p
 
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