now why would he put 5 l of oil in it?

 

Nothin' too serious, but I did an oil change on my truck, and dropped in 6 quarts in the motor but I forgot to put the drainplug back in. It was all over my creeper.

 

well the idiot, told my sister, that it need oil, and " I told him that it took like 5.0L of oil to fill it, but that was when i was chaning the oil a few months ago."
and she belive the idiot and pur 5.0 L of oil( it 4.5 litters)
and the truck would not start, so i check, A LOT of OIL!!!!!
I THINK THE TRUCK is sick, i am going to pull the start plugs tomorrow\
( The truck is 1994 4.3L (Vortec) Bravada)
The driver side plugs are bi#th to get to.

 

After extensive work and a long day I decided to push it and try to finish up that night rather than leave things where they were til the next day.

Well I got things back on the truck and proceded to lower it off the jack. Due to my fatigue I wasn't paying attention to where my knee was. Fortunately for me the bumper did as it's name implies. It bumped my knee out of the way as the truck came down. Had my knee been just another couple of inches under the vehicle the day was have ended at the Emergency Room. As it was all I got was a slight bruise, a rush of adrenaline and a lesson(s) learned. Which was:

If you are tired stop and come back when rested. Don't rush - plan better. If you find yourself getting confused or short tempered go do something else. Go away before you or the vehicle suffers or both.

Reg

 

Ok I really hate to admit this one but it doesn't look like I'm the only idiot out there: Couldn't get my 97 chevy to start, decided to check for fuel pressure, removed schrader valve from fuel rail, turn key fuel shoots out this is a good sign right? Decide to check for spark, pull spark plug carefully set it on manifold where I can see it from the cab of the truck. Jump in turn key, found out I had great spark, motor catches fire I jump out to put fire out, forgot to turn key off realize raw fuel is still pumping out missing schrader valve, turn key off, pull off shirt to try to smother flames, flip burning plastic on bare arms and chest, dance around like a heathen as I barbeque my truck. Finally my girlfriend gets out of her truck and douses the flames with a jug of water. Tells me I'm done working on the truck tonight and takes me home. She never did look at me the same after that night.

 

Had a friend apply some sort of v-belt dressing from a tube while the engine was running. Needless to say he wrapped his fingers between the belt and pulley. And I didn't feel his pain.

 

There is a famous master craftsman named Paul White who has scratch built 15 airplanes and hand built a mini jet engine that turns at 500,000 rpm. He has a sign hanging in his shop that says " Dont get in a hurry". There are so many times that I wish I had kept that in mind and it would have saved me many a mistake. Like the other day when I was using the drill press I was too lazy and in a hurry to clamp the piece of work down. The bit jammed and 10 pounds of metal went flying into the wall-coulda been my stomach.

 

I have almost matching cuts on the palms of my hands from grabbing metal that was sharp or I was pulling on with out wearing gloves... all I have to do now is look at my palms so they can remind me to put my gloves back on.

 

I have done many bonehead things, some of which my friends will never let me live down. Maybe I shouldn't mention them in that case

Years ago I assembled my first Dodge BB engine for an old pickup, and because of the shape of the oil pan I was able to have the engine balanced on my workbench, on the oil pan. No, no, this is not where the bonehead-ness occured since I had the engine crane attached to the intake bolts, even though there was some slack in the chain.

Around this time, I learned how to braze aluminum, for making an intake for this motor since I needed something very strange and custom. Anyway, to get the engine off my bench, and put it somewhere else other than the floor, I decided to practice brazing aluminum and make an engine stand - a square base, with four uprights tied to the engine mounts and the bell housing, and tons of triangulation all over the place. Why? Because I used hacked off tubing off aluminum beach chairs I was supposed to throw out a long time ago. I figured tubing is tubing, and if I triangulated the stand enough, all would be good. So, I constructed the thing, swung the engine off the workbench and above the homemade engine stand, and carefully lowered the big block dodge onto the stand. Amazingly enough, it held, and I was very satisfied. In fact, the engine sat on the aluminum stand for about three weeks. Then, it was time to lift the engine off the stand, and put it into the 75 pickup. I reattached the chain to the intake bolt holes, and on the last bolt as I torqued it, I heard this unnerving slow creak, and the engine started to turn. So I jumped back, it continued to twist a few degrees, then very suddenly the whole thing collapsed and dropped to the floor with a loud crash. The oil pan smashed in, and split like a banana, and fell over on its side with a loud crash. While it was minor damage and only to the tinware (valve cover that hit the garage floor, certainly the oil pan and the pickup tube), cleaning up 7 quarts of fresh oil off the garage floor was the pits. Kitty litter and a shopvac, but still, unpleasant. Then getting the very twisted stand off the engine was a real pain. I ended up cutting most of it off with a sawzall just to get better access to the bolts on the engine mounts.

That was probably my worst offense of boneheadedness.

A more recent example was with a pair of 460 heads. I snapped two exhaust manifold studs on one of the heads, luckily outside of the head but vice grips and heating it just wasn't freeing it up. So, I took a piece of flat steel, drilled an appropriate sized hole, and hammered it over one of the mangled studs, then mig welded the flat to the top of the stud. Took a while to get decent penetration on the weld since the cast iron head acted like a big heat sink. Anyway, finally I got the flat stuck on the stud, I turn off the mig welder, and without thinking, I take my gloves off and grab the far end of the metal flat.

SSSssssssssstttttttt.

Ow, that hurt. A lot.

The last bonehead thing I'll share (so you all don't think I'm a complete ****) was my backing my 93 crewcab into one of my garage bays, so I could work on it inside, out of the rain. I backed it in half way, and was very sure I'd clear the top of the garage door frame with the roof of the truck. I measured twice before backing in, and it absolutely would fit. So, I backed up slowly. And, I didn't take into consideration the large glass outside light hanging down from the eve, one above each garage bay, that hung down 6" lower than the top of the garage door frame.

So, the garage light got wedged between the back of the cab top, and the garage frame. It squished like warm butter, leaving broken glass everywhere. I was lucky in that I didn't damage the roof of my truck, as I stopped once I heard the crunch. But, it was a $130 light and I had installed them the week before, so explaining this to the Mrs. was an unpleasant experience.

But oh well, right? Sometimes the best intentions and best ideas, turn out to be the absolute worst!

 

just a few....

Forgot 2 undo the battery b4 removing a starter. On the bright side, I leared 2 weld with wrenches that day!

Replaced 6 litres of anti-freeze with 6 litres of bug wash. (Semi-truck) Bugwash has anti-freeze in it right?

Had a forklift cell blow up in my face. Was trying 2 charge it, didn't have a solid connection so jiggled the cable and a spark jumped! Not the only time I "did" acid at that job.

Tried jacking a truck up on the oil pan. (I was young)

Needed a drop of oil 4 oil-change so I reached 4 the gun hanging from the ceiling and squeezed the trigger. Trigger gets stuck on and I'm showered in 3 litres. (Not young)

 

Noticed I was out of windshield washer fluid, filled and it and went down the street and it dawned on me that the lid said "COOLANT" - turned around, drained it and put in coolant. No problem, but the boneheaded part was I told my wife what I'd done!

 

I'll let you guys figure this one out on your own. Did you know that after an intake is in the blast cabinet you are sposed to clean it before instaling it and starting the new motor......

 

I took that same class...with screwdrivers

 

I have had plenty of close calls. Serious close calls (not all garage related), I must have a guardian angel looking after me or I would be missing body parts or even be dead (a step away from falling 16 stories).

I was checking my timing on my I6, which is down under the intake and means reaching over and behind the power steering pump. As I'm messing with it, I get the feeling to look down. . .I see my T-shirt is flapping on top of the power steering pulley. I jump up and away, and realize my left hand was resting on the fan shroud, with my fingers hanging off the edge. I don't know how close they were, but there isn't a whole lot of room in there for fingers.

I was changing the radiator out of my truck, and had to remove the tranny cooler lines. The top one came out easy enough, the bottom line was frozen inside the coupler. I had to cut the line, and jerry rig some rubber hose over it and clamp it it down. I was really mad at this point, but I got it on, filled the radiator, checked for leaks and jumped in my truck to start her up. I hear this awful squealing noise, and sure enough, the top line is hanging there, spraying tranny fluid all over the fan and shroud, blowing it all over the engine bay, on my belts, on me, the hood. . .I was so mad I couldn't see straight, but did manage to shut her down

 

man! this is funny! and i have done some stupid things before,
i used in the windshield fluid in the coolent bottle, had to drain the fluid.