A word to the wise.

[86SILVERADO]

When instaling motor in vehicle, among other things, do not forget to tighten all spark plugs. LOL

I was trying to figure out why my truck bogged down everytime I tried to take off (this is the 67 which now has the 350 from the 1/2 ton) I adjusted and re-adjusted the carb and timing even began to wonder if the cam might need to be replaced (this is partially a warning about the whole jumping to conclusions thing which is a pet peeve of mine and the cause of more engine tear downs than actual mechanical problems IMHO) when I happened to look down on the passenger side bank as the truck was running, and still missing considerably, and noticed #'s 6 and 8 spark plugs doing a litttle dance for me and hanging on by a thread or two (Get it?) LOL.

I have thought of writing a book or something, like the "Tales of the Absent Minded Mechanic"

It's a good thing I don't do this for a living.

[Oborny71]

Its all the little things that count, and these are often overlooked. Can be real frusterating at times, and you feel like a complete idiot when you find out what it was. its all about the details

[Blue Beard]

Know the grief........I've done the same thing..........

[86SILVERADO]

Glad to know I'm not alone.

Speaking of fun little things that have happened to me during this engine swap. I had to remove the dipstick tube for various reasons. Of course I broke it off. since I don't have an engine stand I tipped the motor up on its end to get the pan off. When the pan came off the little bit of oil that was left in the pan drained out onto the flywheel. I mopped most of it up and didn't think much about it. I drove what was left of the dipstick out and since it was about 2 a.m I left it and went back in the house. Next morning I put the pan back on tipped the motor up and saw that the pressure plate was soaked in oil and so of course was my brand new clutch disk. Aparrently what was left of the oil had made its way down the dowel pin hole in the crank and completely saturated my clutch disk with oil. 70 bucks down the drain. That could have paid for my engine stand.

[Blue Beard]

I took the oil pressure line off to work on the truck once...........like a dummy, forgot to hook it back up.....

Talk about a mess under the hood and all over the garage.........

[86SILVERADO]

LOL....did that the first time I put this same motor in the half ton...You want to edit the book for me?LOL

Alright........ on to the Pats game!!!

[Huck]

Oh this is too easy:
short out the battery to the rad support with wrist watch--
short out the starter while attempting to install exhaust--
forget to install the pilot bearing while installing transmission--
forget to tighten wheel lug nuts thereby loosing pass rear wheel--
rebuild transmission instead of simply adjusting linkage--
drop wing nut down the carb--

Oh, I could go on for hours~~~~

[shuttermutt]

Heh, speaking of all-time idiot moves. I remember when I was 16 or 17, my old man was trying to sell a green flatbed truck (a 67 if I recall). I was the only one home when these two, ummm... "special" guys came to have a look. The truck wouldn't start without a little priming.

I grabbed a metal can with some gas, put a touch down the carb, and told the guy to try and start it. For some reason, he wouldn't let it crank for more than a second or so. Frustrated, I asked him to step out of the cab and let me give it a try.

He yielded the keys, I got in and cranked it and it hit, but didn't fire. I asked the other guy to put a little more gas in the carb. He did so, but when he sat the can down, he put it on the battery.

Sparks flew, strange noises were heard, and I yelled at him to move the can. Fortunately, he was smart enough to knock the can off before anything bad could happen. They didn't buy the truck, but to this day I can't work near a battery and not think of those idiots and that gas can.

[knucklebuster]

I left my camaro sitting over night at alocal store because I couldn't get the damn thing to start back when I came out the store.This was after fooling with it for about 30 min.Went back next day,after about an hour and a half I figured it out.........didn't have it all the way in park!!!!!My ol man gave me hell fer bout a week after that one.

[whitesswj]

about a month ago i thought that i had jumped a tooth on my 68 250 I6 - i heard "backfiring" - all of a sudden when i first started it up. No power loss and NO trouble starting, checked the timing - way off. I began to tear apart. My stepdad asked me if it was for a fact backfiring? Said i wasn't sure. I then checked the bottom of my breather top and it was still mirror shiny as that chrome piece should be, therfore, no backfireing. sure enough the dots lined up. twisted distributor and burned up points along witht he bad need of a tune up. 3 weeks later. the only problem i have now is the fact that my engine is clean after replacing all of the gaskets and putting a "speedy sleve" on my balancer and no choke cable.

Check the little things, fouled plugs, rotor, rotor cap, distributor, then tear apart!

[whitesswj]

or wait there is one more - at work today there was a lot going on and I was doing an oil change. I was done (mind you this is a new job) or so i thought. I then asked one of the other guys to starter up! They didn't have time and I was out of patience (I'm sure you can tell where this is going). So I got out from under this 94 S10 and started it up. It kept knocking and the guage got up. No psi yet. I checked for leaks, None. then remebered that there is no way for it to have any when there is no oil in the motor. That 2.2 ran for a total of 20 seconds but when i realized that it had no oil I was sure that it had been 3 mins!

Put the right oil filter on with only one gasket, put the plug in it and be sure there is oil in the motor before you start it up!!

[86SILVERADO]

Thanks for making me feel better guys. Of course the Pats winning helps to.

[gonebad2]

Once sat there and watched a guy put together a set of custom spark plug wires. He cut them to length, slid the boots on and crimped the terminals on. But he never stripped a small piece of insulation off to expose the core wire to the terminal before he crimped them. I let him know when he was on plug wire #8.

[Longhorn Man]

I've done the spark plug thing on my first car, a 68 Cougar.
Another one I learned on this car is to chock the wheels when it is on the ramps.
The shifter was real sloppy, the guy i bought it off of told me it needed some new bushings. The shifter was so bad I could pull it out of park without pushing the button. (C-4 with a floor shifter...all stock) Just pull that laver off the the side while pulling it back and it would pop out of park.
So here I am, a scrawney 100 pound kid, under this car up on the yard sale ramps I bought that morning. I am laying on my skate board since I didn't have a creeper and refused to get my brand new jeans and Metalica T-shirt (also bought that morning) dirty. I see an arm sticking down to the tranny, and reached up to grab it saying to myself "this must be the shifter." All of a sudden, it moved as I wiggled it back and forth....but it moved forward...as the car started to move backwards.
I was able to get off the skate board, and I grabbed the bellhousing of the tranny trying to slow this huge car down as it started to actually roll down the ramps. (remember i was a scrawney 100 pound 16 year old.)
I was looking right at this big bolt on the bottom of the engine (oil pan drain plug) coming down twards my face as the car refused to stop. I couldn't understand why I couldn't stop it. I turned my head on its side as the drain plug came down on me, cutting my cheek a little.
The car was really starting to move now. (at least from where I was looking it was hauling ass anyways) Now it is off the ramps, rolling in the fairly level driveway, but it is only 5 or so feet from the street...all i could think about was my new T-shirt and Jeans.
As the rear tires were going up the crest of the street, and the rear tires had not hit the gutter yet. i quickly rolled out and was nearly hit by the front tire. I jumped up cussing up a storm grease all over my face and hands, shirt shreaded in the backs from the not so smooth driveway, and I had not realized it yet, but I was bleeding too. Both on my face, and my back was all scratched up too.
The only thing that made this wores, was the POS wouldn't start (Hmmm, might have been the loose spark plugs and the junk holley carb that leaked more gas than it fed the engine) So there I am, my butt 1/2 exposed, my back and face bleeding, and I am trying to push this tank into the driveway.
This was also the day i realized my parking brake wasn't worth squat.

I was OK though, just minor cuts and a seriouse damaged ego...I was seen by some friends pushing the car and bleeding all over the trunk lid as I was pushing.
They had diareah of the mouth and the whole friggen school knew before the next day.

[gonebad2]

Longhornman, you are one lucky guy. A buddy of mine died two days after we graduated from high school because a car fell on him. IMPORTANT TIP FOR EVERYONE.....Never trust a jackstand when it is placed on nothing but a dirt surface. That was how my friend died. He was under his car and the jackstand sank in the dirt, causing it to tip and the car came down on top of him. I know it is a common sence thing but I thought I would throw it out as a reminder.

[Longhorn Man]

I learned alot with that car...like controlling my temper.
I'll make this one short.
Hood was removed just becouse I thoguht it looked cool and plus I could detail (for lack of a more acurate term) the underside of the hood. I had a can of flat black spray paint sitting on the roof in the center.
A friend comes by with my brand new Holley carb to replace the sprinkler I had bolted to my intake.
I kept dropping bolts all over the place. After dropping one in the carb a few times I got really p!ssed off and thres the screwdriver over the car.
Yup, you guessed it. Right into the full can of paint.
Yup, it jumped up, sprayed all over the place including the windshield, all my new chrome I had installed on the engine the day before, all over my still healing face (see first story), in my eyes, all over the place.
You'd be amazed at exactly how much one can of paint can actually cover.
Oh, one more set of new clothes ruined, but this time I was also wearing a (almost new) lether jacket.


That car almost found its self in the creek that day.



Gone bad, you are absolutly right. There is no reason that i am still here...there has been plenty of times that i should have been killed, but for some reason, I alsay come out pretty much OK, never even broke a bone. (yet...knock on woodgrain)
I've had to replace the tranny in my old honda in a parking lot in a terible storm (liek 5 inches of rain in one afternoon/evening) I had 2 sizzor jacks, a bottle jack, and a cinder block. Oh, I was laying in 2 inches of water too.
That car came down into the water...I had just crawled out from under it not even 5 seconds before it happened.

Had a $50 Monza in High School. No brakes...just the parking brake. Drove it for about 8 months. Had it to 95 MPH on the freeway, dove it to work in Columbus rush hr, and school every day.
Not one incident.

We won't even get into my little fire hobby as a young teen. Like I said, I should be dead. (I am much more carefull in almost every aspect these days.)

[1969 GMC]

when i was changing my truck's oil and checking lube in the tranny/transfer, i (d'oh) accidentally pulled the drain plug on the transfer case instead of the fill plug. well, i did find out that i was about 1/2 quart low...but thats because my mouth, t shirt, hair, and carhartt coat absorbed that 1/2 quart of 90w

[busterwivell]

I've always had cars that I put in car shows. We were moving around Memorial Day one year, and I was supposed to have the car in the MDA show. We were temporarily in a small duplex with no garage. Got up early, washed it, waxed it and went to fire it up. Turned over but would not fire. Went to Pep Boys, got points, condenser, rotor, going to be late for show......Wife comes out and asked if I reset the Kill Switch! Duh, I'm the only one that thing ever foiled!

[86SILVERADO]

I recently moved and was loading up the trunk of my volvo with stuff from my shop and I put a box of spray cans in the trunk one was a can of PB with the cap off. I closed the trunk lid and when I got to the new place I opened the trunk and the lid had pressed down on the nozzle of the can and emptied the entire (pretty much brand new) can of PB into the trunk of the volvo. It went through the carpet and soaked into that tar/rubber trunk liner stuff. It turned it into this slimy mess that I had to scrape out with a putty knife. I couldn't drive the car for a couple weeks because of the smell. Gettin a kick out of all these stupid a$$ stories. Except for the jack stand ones. They always give me the willies. Makes me think of how I only put the old tires under there about 50% of the time and only on the side where they are not going to get in my way, etc. Not to mention the cheap pair of jack stands that I still use even though the pin has sheared off in them and I can't lock them with the lever anymore.......Maybe I'll go out today and by myself a new set and an engine stand to.....

[casey]

get this blunder, set the timing, but for got to tightin the distributer hold down, closed the hood and cranked it,backfire, then nothing, tried a couple of times, though maybe I flooded it so I'll just sit and wait for a minute, as I'm gazing out the windshield, I couldn't help but notice the paint bubbling on the hood @#!$%#. heres one thats kinda car related, this is back in the day when being enviromently friend was un heard of, I pulled the pan plug and was draining my oil in the sand, when I hear the wife yell, I'm sending Shawna out to play watch her, so here comes our 2 yr old daughter with her new snow suit on, turn my back for a second and splat falls back into the oil, I turned and looked and she was doing oil angles in the oil, don't need to tell you what the wife did, man I would rather took a finger of in the fan believe me, still hearing about that one

[chevypete396]

At 17 years old I once spent two hours in a gas station parking lot trying to figure out why my '70 Scout wouldn't move in any forward gear or reverse. All the while thinking, "Its like the darn thing is in neutral or something” It turned out the transfer case was in neutral. Probably the dumbest I have ever felt... Chevy Pete.

[chevypete396]

Speaking of jack stand stories...

When my brother and I moved from Vegas to Reno we rented a U-Haul after it was full (Completely full) and we were ready to start the trek we noticed one of the rear tires on the U-Haul had gone flat. Like broke the bead off the tire flat. Realizing the we were screwed we called the 1800 number and cried, “Help!!! Please don’t make us unload this U-Haul” they sent a mechanic out with a new tire and tools. This scrawny guy showed up wasted with a bottle jack tire iron and spare. He did not head our caution about the jack rating or the unsteady gravel driveway and lifted this heavy enormous truck and crawled underneath to remove the inside wheel. I saw it coming long before he did and was ready for it. The jack slipped and then the truck slipped and went all the way to the ground. Thank God I had my hand on his ankle microseconds after the truck flinched. I jerked his assets out of there as hard as I could and probably saved his life. The whole thing barely even registered to this guy. He just said, “Thanks man that was close, I am going to have to call Frank and see if he has a bigger jack.”

[jcueckert13]

i bought a 89 caprice with a cop interseptor in it and i shorted out the starter. after replacing the starter i hook up the wires and the damn thing has no power coming from the battery. after two months of cleaning the terminals and tracing wires i realize that i forgot to hook up the battery cable to the stater.

o well at least my father cant say anything about my stupidity. about a year ago he drove out of the gas station with the filler nozel still in his blazer

[D-Money]

And I thought I was the only one that made a 15 minute job a few hours. Many of these stories sound like mind. I guess we can all relate.

[Longhorn Man]

Hee's one that I've read on here, and a kid at the shop just did this morning.
Installed a new carb, (76 f-250 (or would it be F-200?) 4X4 inline 6 with a 4 speed) looked for the fuel line port, but couldn't find it. There was a 3/8 fitting from the top of the carb aimed downward... hell, lets plug it in here and see what it does.
Oops..that was the bowl vent.
I laughed my @ss off on that one, the only reason i found it so funny was he spent 10 min looking for the threaded hole, but it was right in front of him the whole time.
Would you believe it tried to start?