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What's the stupidest thing you've ever done with your car?
I'll start, I've done so much, but the stupidest was with my 66 GTO. I went to the gas station to do my usual fill up, but this time I majorly overfilled it, maybe a couple gallons worth. I went home and parked it for a couple minutes and got out of my car and noticed premium gasoline pouring onto my driveway out of the overfill hose (Driveway is on a hill). Well, I decide to have some fun and go burn off some gasoline. I take it onto the main road leading out of my neighborhood which is a big rural straitaway. I floor it and I'm heading down the road when my hood comes flying up snapping both hood hinges and springs and it comes flying down on my passenger side fender from the re-coil. I came to a stopsign and just sat there for a couple minutes just thinking I must be dreaming. I caused myself a hood and fender replaclacement and still had gas running from the overfill hose. I've never had good luck with that hood; I accidently caught it on fire as well on one occasion.
Another stupid incident.... this wasn't my car, but a friends (What you are about to hear was not my idea, I highly discouraged it). We took his 98 Dodge Avenger to the track and strapped a bottle of Nitrous to the passenger seat and took his Mass Air flow sensor off and ran a hose from the bottle directly into the intake. He hit about 40 miles per hour then let loose the NOS and crushed all six cylinders after he pegged the rpm gage. Has to be the stupidest idea ever conceived.
So, what have you all done??
Last edited by Roadster99; 08-10-2005 at 02:58 AM..
Toss up: Welding the spider gears together in a 9 in. Ford rear end so I could have a poor man's Detroit Locker or filing the synchro teeth off from a top-loader 4 speed to make a crash box.
Another stupid incident.... this wasn't my car, but a friends (What you are about to hear was not my idea, I highly discouraged it). We took his 98 Dodge Avenger to the track and strapped a bottle of Nitrous to the passenger seat and took his Mass Air flow sensor off and ran a hose from the bottle directly into the intake. He hit about 40 miles per hour then let loose the NOS and crushed all six cylinders after he pegged the rpm gage. Has to be the stupidest idea ever conceived.
This actually required forethought on his part..... it wasn't "spur of the moment" stupid. And he never once stopped to think about it? Nothing to meter the amount of nitrous....
Speaking of stupid, in the news this morning was a report of a guy who thought he would see if the net behind the plate at Yankee Stadium would be strong enough to hold his weight and break his fall. So his three buddies watched as he jumped forty feet into the net (who's dumber here, him for jumping, or them for not stopping him???).
He jumped, the net held (though he whacked his melon pretty hard- it's okay, there was obviously nothing in it to protect!) and he got arrested. But did he ever stop to think "What if the net doesn't hold me???" He could have been seriously injured or worse, and what about the innocent fans below that he would have landed on top of?
How do people like this walk the streets, I have to ask?
Driving home stone drunk (drinking beer and mixed drinks - way over the limit!) from a party when I was 19 years old would cap the list of the stupidest things I have done with my car. I am not at all proud.
This also being the only time in my life I have ever been technically drunk and (or ever will be) that intoxicated. That I survived driving home granted I was very lucky, unfortunately the subsequent hangover hell that lasted what seemed weeks was where my luck ran out.
Story reminds me of a girl I used to know.
She was out partying one night down at Huntington Beach and was pretty drunk. She woke up the next morning at home (La Puente) and her chest was real sore. Went into the kitchen and her Mom asked what happened to her car. She hadn't a clue but the front end was smashed pretty good. Her Dad was a CHP Officer and he made her turn herself in to every P.D. between home and Huntington Beach. Lucky for her there were no reports of any hit and runs. I think that episode pretty much ended her drinking days.
Hmmmmm.....that's too long of a list from when I was younger and used to drink.
I flipped my first car (a Ford Tempo...yuk) pretty much end over end on a dirt road in Montana doing a 55-65mph powerslide(according to the police measurements).The people I was following said when they looked back I was about 5 ft off the ground upsidedown facing the other way.
Also while I was there I got to be an unwilling passenger in a Toyota truck jumping a distance of about 25-30 ft off a railroad crossing hump next to the Yellowstone River....about 50ft in front of an oncoming train.
Forgot I had the cruise control on one late night and took a 270 degree curved exit ramp sideways rally-style in my old 88 Corolla GTS.
It's a good thing I wasn't into bikes,I'd have been dead a long time by now.Thankfully I grew (and sobered) up!
'70 Monte Carlo: The previous owner had put one of the rods through the side of the block (it was a small-block 400, too! ) , so I replaced it with a rebuilt 350 crate motor. When I ran the fuel line, I tried to bend the new stuff the same way the old stuff ran, which was behind the alternator. Well, I didn't bend it quite right, so it was rubbing on the back of the alternator--more specifically, on the rubber cover over the big red hot lead. I never noticed. After a few months, I was driving one day and the whole thing just shut down--no ignition, no lights, no electrical ANYTHING. The fusible link by the battery burned through. Every time I tried to touch the ends of it together, I got sparks. So I dragged it home and had to borrow some kind of short-finder gizmo from a local mechanic... I felt pretty stupid when I finally looked behind the alternator and found the metal fuel line jammed against the hot lead where it had rubbed through the cover. There were burn marks on the fuel line where it sparked on contact. If it had burned through... jeez, I can't imagine...
(PS this was the YCITS Monte Carlo in CG23, for anyone who cares...)
Funny part was I did a similar thing about 10 years later with a '72 Cutlass... replaced the alternator and apparently left a bracket behind the alternator loose where it eventually swung over and hit the lead... no fusible link in this case, the wire insulation caught fire instead...
Oh, and there was the rug that almost caught fire in the '77 Cougar...
Dang, why do so many of these things involve fire?
Lent my '47 Buick 4 door I bought off a lot in 1957 for $90 to my brother to drive since he had torn the driveline out of his Willy on a speedshift.
Next morning he led me to where he had run it out of gas - and water - and oil-and trans fluid miraculously without damaging anything!
2nd dumbest - selling same brother a '65 Mustang for $175 (on which he still owes $137.50 thirty years later).
Well, beside wrecking my cars the first 4 years I was driving 5 times because I had a siezure problem the doctors couldn't get under control. I decided to add 3 more wrecks to that over a few more years, but these weren't my fault.
Now the stupidest thing I ever did, wasn't my idea. In my younger days, back in High School my friends and I would go hunting on the weekends. They inadvertantly would still be hung over from the night before. My friend was driving his Mom's Buick and decided to floor it and see how high we would fly going over a 5ft high railroad hump.
I don't think he ever got the rattles out of that car, and the engine blew not too long later.
I was 16 or 17 years old and I lived on an Air Force Base ( Dad was in the Air Force) and my sister wanted me to let her drive. I had a 1980 Mustang. She wasn't yet old enough. Of course I said yes she could. We were driving along on the base when a base police car was coming towards us. My sister freaked out and turned onto a dirt road that leads into the base lake without using the brakes. She was driving so good up until this point. Dust flew up everywhere and of course the MP turned around to see what was going on. My sister and I quickly switched seats and we thought we were safe. When the officer came up to the car, the first thing he asked was "who was driving the vehicle". Of course I lied and said I was, but he wasn't buying it. Then he said he just wanted the truth and he would let us go. I finally told him the truth and he let us go. Later the next week my dad had asked us if we had a good time driving by the base lake last week. News travels fast on a military base. He never said how he found out about it. I was grounded from driving for a month. My sister didn't get in any trouble, at least I don't remember her being in trouble for it. We laugh about it now!
We put some old tires on a buddy's '68 Lemans to go do burnouts. On the way back, as if leaving marks all over town wasn't enough, we decided to burn them until they popped. We did, and it was so funny, until we realized we were 3 miles from the house with a flat tire! One of us walked all the way to the house, at 2 a.m., to get my other buddy's car and bring the regular wheels back to put on the car.
A buddy and I bought a 73( I thinK) Pontiac Astre and cut the roof off. We took it out for a joyride and I was a bit aggressive pulling out and the gas pedal got stuck to the floor. (Bu the way, there was a leak in the fuel line somewhere)The car was manual so shifting to 2nd and 3rd spun the bald tires and of course when I needed to shift into 3rd we were going under a bridge and there was a police officer sitting. Luckilly he knew us and didnt' pursue. (Gotta love chirping tires in front of a police officer.) Finally my buddy dislodged the pedal. We were about 6 miles from home when we came upon a very long straight backroad. Got up to about 60 and pulled the e-brake and slid forever. Went to turn around to do it again an found that the right back tire went flat. Couldn't find a tire iron so we drove home. That tire was shredded! Doing 40 with rubber flying everywhere. We retired it after that run. I should have pics of the car after a we did a "little" more damage to it at a few partys.
the stupidest thing that i've done with my car was this one time i was barely getting off the freeway (101 hollywood) and somehow i got a flat front tire ..... i drove to an empty street, took all my tools out to remove the rim and just when i was lifting up the vehicle i forgot to put the hand brake, so i guess since the car was at an angle it bent the jack and collapsed to the ground .... luckily nothing bad happend other than a broken jack ..... but people ... if you get a flat tire ... always ALWAYS use the hand brake. ( this happened to me twice .... but i have finally learned )
Dumbest thing I ever did....running out of gas. Doesn't sound bad right? Well I was driving a 72 duster with a rebel flag painted on the trunk. Where I ran out of gas was in Pheobus VA. For those who don't know, it's the very ethnic part of Hampton VA
) , so I replaced it with a rebuilt 350 crate motor. When I ran the fuel line, I tried to bend the new stuff the same way the old stuff ran, which was behind the alternator. Well, I didn't bend it quite right, so it was rubbing on the back of the alternator--more specifically, on the rubber cover over the big red hot lead. I never noticed. After a few months, I was driving one day and the whole thing just shut down--no ignition, no lights, no electrical ANYTHING. The fusible link by the battery burned through. Every time I tried to touch the ends of it together, I got sparks. So I dragged it home and had to borrow some kind of short-finder gizmo from a local mechanic... I felt pretty stupid when I finally looked behind the alternator and found the metal fuel line jammed against the hot lead where it had rubbed through the cover. There were burn marks on the fuel line where it sparked on contact. If it had burned through... jeez, I can't imagine...
but i have finally learned )
