What have you done that's STUPID?

[CrashTestDummy]

And here's another classic dirt bike act of stupidity (also at White Salmon)...

Me and the two guys previously mentioned where banging away at each other all morning one day. I was on the YZ490, Don rode a 1984 Maico 250 Spider, and our buddy Bob rode a 1978 RM250. Despite the differences, we all led at various times (usually by having more balls than brains).

So at one point Don's leading, Bob's in the middle and I'm bringing up the rear and gaining on them. But I know the trail narrows and there's no place to pass up ahead, so I figure I gotta do something quick, right?

Then I see my chance. An old, unused logging road that angles off to the right a little. For some reason I was sure this road would intersect again with the trail we were on (despite never having taken this route before), so I planned to rip down it and come out ahead of at least Bob.

The traction was great that day.

I pinned the throttle and was definitely pulling even with Bob (I could see him in my peripheral vision to the left). The last thing I thought before the incident was, "Great trail, I wonder why nobody else uses it?"

Then the trail literally vanished at a 30-degree drop off! I didn't even have time to hit the brakes! The next thing I know I'm watching big tree stumps and logging slash pass beneath me as I fly through the air! Holy crap, I'm gonna die today!

Unbelievably, I landed smoothly among the stumps, somehow missing every one of them and manged to anchor the beast without hitting so much as a sapling (well, maybe a few saplings). And then I just sat there trembling for a while and tried to envision how I was gonna ride out of this mess. I did eventually get back to the main road, but it took a while. And of course my buddies were laughing their butts off.

More recently, I bent the blade on my Sawzall doing some tree trimming and, knowing better, grabbed the blade with bare fingers in order to straighten it. D'oh!


Fred B.

 

[29desoto]

(blush) thank you , fans!

That is classic! Least it wasn't metric. I'm not into tats, but maybe a full 1/2 wrench burn would be cool.... seriously.



Dude!!! That is scary. That's not stupid, that just plain sucks.

...least the wife beater made it through OK.

And since I posted, here's another:

I was having spark problems on my 300I6. Pulled a plug and checked for spark. Nothin. Pulled the distributor cap and checked out things there. Nothin. Check the coil. BINGO! Broke lead wire. Easy fix. Put it all back together. Get in, turn the key, fires right off. BIG FIREBALL shoots out in front of me!!! Another one before I get it shut off. Run and get extinguisher. Put fire out. Put #5 plug back in.

Actually the tattoo only shows when I get out of a hot shower. You guys will never know, ladies may apply, pictures required!

And looking at the burn today (it's about ten years old now) it was a half and nine sixteenths wrench.

And just today, I found a minor gas leak in my emergency power generator. I kinda live on the dead end of the power line, and it goes out a lot.

Fixed the drip, stuck float. Thought I would crank it over and let it run to clean it out. Did not feel right, so I checked the oil. Gas/oil mix came POURING out the oil check tube. If that thing had started and backfired, the wrench tattoo would have been a very minor problem.

Thankfully, God seems to have a soft spot for idiots.

 

[29desoto]

Uhhhh....

I did a fun one last week.

I tried to make a flat washer out of a thick 1" lock washer. I V'd the ends at the split, put the washer in a vise, clamped it flat, and then tacked the end.

I then decided to lay it on the work bench and finish welding it up.

As soon as the arc started, my tack came loose and washer took off across the maitenance departmen at work like it had been shot out of a gun.

That would have left a mark if it would have come my direction.

This must be a really, really low budget shop, turning lock washers into flat washers! Gimme an address, I'll send a dime!![cl

 

[29desoto]

I knew it had to come up

I have the kind of garage door that has two coiled springs, one on each side, which serve to lift the door when you push the button on the opener, or lift the door handle. A cable is used to actually pull the door up when the spring is activated. My cables were getting frayed and hanging up on some pulleys. I went to replace the cables by removing the cables so I could take them to the store and be sure to get the correct length and diameter cable. Finally got them all undone and coiled up to go to the store. Then I went to open the garage door so I could get my car out...Do you have any idea how heavy a 16 foot wide steel garage door is?? I dont know the weight, but that biotch is one heavy MF. I had to restring the cables to get the door open to get my car out, and then did it all over again. Practice makes perfect...

Not quite the same as Rat'l but them garage doors and their springs are trouble. I broke one spring, and they wanted $75 to come out and put it in, plus parts. Like $12 for the spring. Nutz sez I. I can turn a wrench with the best of them.

Let me finish with just a couple of words. The wifes 89 Jaguar XJS was in the garage. This picture is right after I replaced the hood (don't EVEN ASK!), and painted it.

 

[Reverend D]

I've done my fair share of dumb stuff, burns, cuts scrapes etc. But the story (true) I have is one that I shall remember to the day I die. Buddies car is down so I drop by to pick him up, we work the same job, same place etc. On the way being young, we tune up for the day passing a little doob on the way to work.

We cut through the ghetto neighborhood to shave a little time off our commute. And we're headed down the street and see the start of some commotion across from a park which you wouldn't want to hang out at. We stop because all of this is starting to take place in front of us about 200 feet away. We see a guy in his driveway with the hood up in his robe under the hood of a 68 4 door coronet obviously working on it.

Just as we're approaching we see the car with the driver door open and hood up bolt backwards out of the driveway so I proceed to stop figuring someone is inside and will stop the car. Ummm, negative there breaker, nobody in the car. It's wheels crank fully to the right as it comes down the driveway so the car is now going backwards counter clockwise at a fast idle I'm assuming with a automatic in reverse.

As it swings by the park across the street it clips a sign which it pulls out of the ground and rips the door off the car which falls in the street as its headed around in circles. By this time my buddy and I are both tuned real well and laughing HARD. It proceeds to circle again, running over the sign it pulled up and then running over the door as it continues in circles. By this time the whole neighborhood is outside in robes watching, the garbage men on the route are kicking back watching laughing visibly. As they watch this poor sucker watch his car going in circles, running over his door continually.

He finally comes out of the garage with a 2x4 about 6 feet long and proceeds to get in the middle of the circle of his still circling car and attempts to whack at the distributor to knock off a wire or the cap or anything that will stop the darn thing.

By this time I'm almost chocking I'm laughing so hard, buddies rolled out laughing when he finally manages to knock off the cap and the old mopor finally rolls to a stop. We're going to be late, so we cautiously drive around the car in the street and weave past his car door still laying in the street and head to work hardly managing to stop laughing the whole ride to work.

The next day his car's still down so we take the same route, and there on the driveway is a 68 coronet with a door missing with a for sale sign on it... Of course laughter continued when we thought about the previous day. I swear this is true on my life and just one of those things that you don't see very often but your glad you had the opportunity to. Felt bad for the poor dude really, ghetto house, ghetto car and it does that to him. Anyway, thats probably one of the funnier things I've witnessed.

Regards,

D.

 

[CR55]

I was waitng for a load of roof trusses to finish framing a house I was building. The guy shows up with them attached to the normal trailer that dumps half of them off to the side. I try to guide him back into the lot, but as he's easing into the drop area he turns the wheel of his truck to the left just before he's all the way in place. Now the rig is kind of V-shaped. He unhooks the chains and lets the drivers side load fall. As it's falling it hits the top of the drivers door that he left open and yep, you guessed it, off comes the whole door!..His response was, "man, I hate when that happens"! Seems it had happened once before. Long drive back without the door in place too![cl...CR

 

[Rat'l Trap]

I owned a house that needed a new roof, so two of my wife's brothers volunteered to help me do the job. One brother in law is the oldest of 11 kids, the other is about 5 years younger. The older is a know-it-all, and was barking orders to us for hours. I almost bit my tongue off... After about half a day of working in the heat, big bro said something to little bro that set off little bro. Comments were made by both, tension meter is going into the red zone, and all of a sudden little bro rips off his tool belt and says "F* this, I'm outa here." and throws the tool belt off the roof, clear across the (small) front yard right through the passenger window in his own car. Glass everywhere. Of course big bro is laffin' his butt off, and I nearly got in the middle of a fight right there on the walkboard.
Hitting that car window with the random throw of the toolbelt was like hitting a halfcourt buzzer beater. Un F-ing believable. But funny as hell![ddd

 

[HOT40ROD]

i have one that happen someone else but involved my property.


At the time my property was on a at the bottom of a hill. One day I was setting in the sun room watching tv and I heard a noise out side. As I look out the widow I see a roof of a car go by.

I get up to see what is going on and find the pine tree in my front yard moved down. the flower bed looks like a bumb went off in it and the side of my shed is missing. So I walk to the rear of the property and there is a car setting in the middle of the stream and the front end looks like it hit a wall.

So I ran down to make sure the driver was ok. As I get closer I can see the drive setting in the car with both hands on the wheel and steering out the windshield. As I get to the car he had a look on his face as if he seen a ghost.

I made sure he was ok and got him out of the car and ask him what happen. He said that his car stalled at the top of the hill and someone told him that he could take the car out of gear and cost it down the hill and when it gets up to 35 mph he could drop it in gear and the car would start and he could drive away. Which he tried.

The only problem was it had power steering and power brakes.

After everything was taken care of I drove up the hill. As I was driving back down I could see were he hit about 6 trees before he got to my property. It must have looked like a ping pong ball coming down the road. All I can say it was one hell of a ride.

 

[RoddingRon]

Well....This one is stupid, but it should have killed me, except for the good Lord watching over me....so it falls into the stupid catagory. Labor day weekend 09 I was off work for three whole days so I was picking at stuff on the Studebaker all weekend. I had the car up on ramps several times doing little things here and there amd always had the wheels blocked. Taking the precautions we all should take....except Labor Day Monday. I wanted to make one quick adjustment, and ran the car up on the ramps. All most as soon as I got under the car I bumped the trans lever, and the car came down on top of me. As low as the car is in the front it should have crushed me, but because God was looking over me the front of the car pinned this fat old man at his skinniest spot (across the hips). Knocked a couple teeth out when I came face to face with the oil pan (literally). So here I am in shock about what just happened and realizing that my fat old arse ain't getting out without some one's help....problem is, no ones around and my cell phone is laying in the house. Well I can breathe and I can yell......so I decided I was going do both. About ten minutes later I hear "where are you?" coming in my direction. The neighbors were out grilling and heard my yells.

He went back to his house and got his jack. He wasn't sure where to jack the car up at, so I told him to slide the jack under and I would postion it so it would lift properly....he asked me if I was sure. I laughed and said I sure as heck didn't want this thing coming down on me again, so I was going to make darn sure it was at a good spot to pick up the car. As the car started being lifted, I started realizing that God answered my prayers and I was darn lucky.....STUPID, but darn lucky. When I finally was able to get out from under the car, the neighbor and his friend stuck around to make sure I was ok, so we started talking cars...and drank a beer together. When they knew I was going to be ok they headed back to their bar-b-que.

On the positive side (my glass is always half full).....I will never ever be that stupid again to crawl under a car with out the proper safety precautions, and as for the lost teeth...I needed dentures anyway, so it was two less extractions I had to pay for.

In the pic below you can see where I was stuck. Don't be stupid guys and gals...Be safe!

 

[allis327]

About a month ago I tried to slide under my buddies ratrod (in a hurry) to measure his tranny. Ended up sliding right into the turnout off of his header and had to get 8 staples in the top of my head. I have a really long list of dumb things but at least my life is not boring

 

[ravedodger]

Not mine:

My stepfather and I went to lunch with his old fellas car club a few years ago. When we were done, one of the guys decided he wanted come over to the house to talk and look at cars for a bit. So we're hanging out, still drinking a beer in the shop looking over the running engine of the 31 Ford when the guy looks right at the turning plastic fan and runs three fingers into it full on. He didn't loose any, but the red car got a little redder. He got a few stitches. We still call the guy "Fingers".

 

[Sam_Fear]

Wow! This thread is really growing legs.

At a friends house, another guy (didn't know him) had his new CRX on a floor jack with the front wheel off. Had it pretty high up too. He says "watch this", walks over to the jack and the car drops - BAM! Right on the rotor. We all just look at it for a minute quietly then I just kinda left. Guess it dropped off the jack? Never did find out what he wanted us to watch?

 

[junker39]

When I was about 15, we had a '41 Chevy that we drove around the property and an occasional illegal trip to the store. One day, the left front tire was flat and I decided to put on another old tire. Not having the right jack, I got the bumber jack out of my brothers Fairlane. It seemed to fit alright. Just about the time tire started coming off the ground, the "lights" went out. I don't know how long I was out but the car was back at rest and the jack was laying on the ground and I had a golf ball sized knot on the top of my head. I guess that last click I got out of the jack, told it to come off the bumper. I'm glad they sell cheap floor jacks now.
And the following didn't happen to me but I knew the guy. He had a '64 Corvair and decided to rotate the tires and change the oil. Well, he used four bumper jacks, got the tires off, then crawled under to change the oil. His brother said he heard screaming outside and went to check it out. The only thing that saved the guy was when the Corvair leaned over and fell off the jacks, the left side landed on one of the rear tires he's just taken off, leaving him just enough room to not be smuched flat. I think that guy went into politics.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

I think that guy went into politics.

Bwhahaha!


Fred B.

 

[rockabillyrat]

When I painting the frame of my first truck I built a few years ago my buddy told me to try POR-15. He had painted his with a brush and it looked great. So after cleaning the frame all up I got it all dry and ready for paint. The can said to wear gloves and to not get on your skin. Well it was late and I had no gloves so I said what the hell its just paint right???? Well after 4 hours of painting my hands and arms were covered in POR-15. It was like 3am and I had to work in the a.m. so I went to take a shower. Well it took an hour to SCRUB that off my hands and arms. I was a red bloody mess after that. POR-15 and great stuff are the worst things to scrub off your hands. I should have waited to get some gloves.

 

[PA41]

Wow! This thread is really growing legs.

At a friends house, another guy (didn't know him) had his new CRX on a floor jack with the front wheel off. Had it pretty high up too. He says "watch this", walks over to the jack and the car drops - BAM! Right on the rotor. We all just look at it for a minute quietly then I just kinda left. Guess it dropped off the jack? Never did find out what he wanted us to watch?

Ahh--The dreaded rednecks last words "watch this".. Been there done that--many times.

The first I can remember was when I was 16 in my 59 Ford GalaXy. Sitting at a stop sign with my sweety at my side-- I turned to her and said those awfull words--reved up the 312, and slid my foot off the clutch. The car didn't move an inch--there was a small explosion--Broke the transmission in HALF!!! Oil and gears laying under the beater--had to call a tow truck.. (I eventually put a total of 6 trannies in that car)

After about a week of "watch this" from my sweety--I found me another gal..

Life is hard..

PA41

 

[BigIrish]

Drove my '50 plymouth to breakfast, then back to the house, everything fine. Went to fire it up for another ride and it would start but immediately stall. Did this over and over. Crap, must be gunk in the carb plugging a jet right? Pulled the carb, rebuilt it (happened to have a kit already). Put it back on, now it won't start at all [S.

Turns out it was out of gas, just happened to run out as I pulled in the driveway from breakfast! It was starting on the little bit of gas that was left in the carb bowl that fed the accelerator pump. Man did I feel like an idiot.

 

[Davidhud29]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do3xsS9HHv0

 

[kzoldman]

When I was disassembling an Explorer for the parts I have for the Rat I decided to give my son a lesson about the dangers of working around air bags. I took the air bag off the steering wheel and laid it out in the yard, bag side down. We then ran some wires back into the garage and hooked them to a battery charger. I can not explain how loud it was or how high it went but when it did come down it was only a couple of feet from the wife's new car. I thanked the Lord and swore my son to secrecy.

 

[Sam_Fear]

You taught your son several valuable lessons about being a man that day!