What's the stupidest thing you ever did that you would admit to?

[cygnus58]

:dunce: Last year I changed oil and when installing the new filter, as i screwed it on it became tight what seemed early. I continued to torque it as tight as I could by hand, added the 6 quarts, and ran the engine for a minute.
I locked the doors and went inside with a good feeling about the transfusion of life blood my engine had just received.
The next day, I proceeded as usual, dropped off the son at school, went to Sheetz for my coffee, and drove to the next town on my way to work.
Something, I don't know what, told me to pull over and pop the hood.
Oil was pouring (well at this point, trickling) out from the bottom of the filter!!
I knew the nearest place to get oil was at the ACE hardware a few blocks away. Started her up, and quickly got there.
Before I went in I removed the filter in their parking lot and found the culprit.
The old gasket came off the old filter, and was pinched under the new at one side.
I had just driven 12 miles, idled 10 minutes, and lost over 5 quarts of oil.
I believe the gods were looking down on my old Jeep that day.
Never heard a knock, tap, or any other sound of anger from the old girl.
When I returned home, I discovered a trail of oil all the way up town, and followed it to the school, and to Sheetz.
Moral of the story - I will never assume the gasket would remain on the old filter again.
This was clearly an extreme oversight on my part.
My uncle claims part of the less than ugly outcome was because he SLick50'd the engine before I bought it from him.
I dunno.

 

[fishfighter]

My son did that to his about 2 weeks ago.Lucky I always told him to run it and check for any oil leaks.My biggest dumb out was towing a 6500lb boat with no breaks on the trailer with my 92 2wd.

 

[KarlVP]

You do lube the gasket before installing the new one right?

And my most dumbass moment?

One day, after doing some work on my front end, I forgot to torque my lugnuts down. As I was making a left into my neighborhood, my wheel came off. But the torque of the rear suspension, kept the front axle from hitting the ground for a few moments. I saw my wheel going down the road away from me, and I was thinking to myself, "someone is a real dumbass and they forgot to put thier lugnuts on.... Wait a minute.... That's MY wheel". Then the front end smacked into the ground. All 5 wheel studs had been sheared off.

 

[Blue XJ]

stupidest thing? - lift my jeep and take it offroad

 

[cygnus58]

Yes , i do lube it.
Just thought i'd mention after reading some Fram, and SLick50 posts, the filter that shite out it's gasket was a Fram, and I replaced it with same.
I have a new sending unit, and my pressure is 60lbs cold, and 40 lbs, hot at idle.
Even though this sounds good, I am gonna find another filter and change oil again real soon.
I did add (time to flame me) Slick50 to this change.
I will simply buy a good Valvoline oil, and other filter next change...
KarlVP, that is one funny story. Only time I had that happen was 25 years ago, had a '65 Comet, and someone loosened some lug nuts on the left rear. (jealous ex-boyfriend i suspected). My tire came off, wedged into the wheel well, and i was looking at some constellations that night from the angle I was left sitting at.

 

[cygnus58]

"someone is a real dumbass and they forgot to put thier lugnuts on.... Wait a minute.... That's MY wheel"

that is frickin hilarious...

 

[SeansBlueXJ]

stupidest thing? - lift my jeep and take it offroad

Amen....

 

[MudDawg]

I had one of my dragbikes on the test table and after I had reassembled the top end, I decided to run test it and do a couple of heat cycles to bed the new rings.....OK...so I go thu my checklist...Gas ON, Nitrous arming switch OFF....Aux fuel pump OFF.....At this point I will stop to tell about the unitized controlled module...sort of a delay box, ignition system, nitrous controller, two step, rev limiter, auto shift......WELL I cranked the engine....sounded sweet, had the aroma of C30 in the air....so after the motor warmed up....I gave the throttle a few blips....the crispness of a 15 to 1 four cylinder with lightened everything is unreal....Now refer back to "auto shift" and my checklist....that didn't include BLEED AIR FROM AIR TANK... (pneumatically operated shifter)....I whacked the throttle HARD....and there is a terrific WHAM.....immediately followed by the sensation of warm oil on me and a terrible silence....

When I whacked the throttle that final time...the engine reached shift point....and the auto shifter did it's job.....shifted the tranny from neutral to 2nd gear at the preset shiftpoint of 10,200 rpm...I took off the carbs, and the rest of the bolt-on stuff, pulled the engine out of the frame (it was literally in pieces) and uncermoniously dumped the remains (worth about 6 Grand prior to the little brainfart) in the scrap pile....True story

 

[dizzymac]

I USED to run my buddies cab company, all our cabs were ex-police cruisers, Ford,Crown Vics w/ the 4.6 Intercepters. I used to love giving the kids in their 5.0's a run for the money. If they missed a shift or smoked them too much or just didn't keep 'em tuned you could occasionally beat them. Nothing like being beat by a cab.
So there I am sitting at a light one day and, a young man in a 5.0 pulls up beside me, nothing special, black with black wheels, actually looked kind of $hitty. The light changes.....I mash the gas....toast the "Stang".....woo-hooo...no fair...State-eys aren't supposed to drive Mustangs.
He let me slide, after telling how much of Dumb A$$ I was....lol

 

[cygnus58]

black with black wheels. nothing special at the time, but hindsight, eh?

 

[dizzymac]

OH YEAH !!!!

 

[eyesac]

I put the a Head Gasket on backwards on one side of a 302. If ya ever done it, you know how lame it is.

 

[2000bluexj]

working at a gas station back in highschool pumping gas, customer wanted me to check the oil. so i checked the oil, it was low, so i added a quart, shut the hood collected the money and told him thank you and have a nice day. about 30 minutes later he comes back in his other car. hes yelling about this and that cause he has oil all over his driveway at home. im like okay, and youre telling me this why? well, cause you forgot to put the oil cap back on, take out the funnel, and the emty oil quart, not to mention put the dipstick back in. OOOPS...... i think it was real busy at the time and i just wasnt thinking.

 

[cygnus58]

Another classic..thanks 2000bluexj,

 

[beakie]

orginal post... ditto. did the same thing about 2 months ago, luckily I run it after changing the oil so when I checked the level and thought to myself 'seems rather low after 4L' then my buddy drew my attention to the 4L of oil on the floor of the shop... 'Oh, you have to make sure the old gasket comes off the old filter... ok I can do that'
Needless to say that won't happen again will it.

 

[cygnus58]

I had a '70 Dart Swinger 340, and the rear end went out. I was 17, and dumb enough to go alone to a local salvage yard. The guy sold me 2.76 gears out of like a New Yorker or something.
IWith some finess on the clutch, I got like 65 out of first, 85 out of second.
It was fun pulling onto the freeway. Top end of 140 downhill with my 2 year younger sister who trusted me like an Indy driver. She was a fool and I was an idiot. The Dart started to get pretty damn light on it's feet.

 

[sandman]

Yeap, I did the double filter gasket thinger too. First, you have to understand that at the time (almost a year ago) I was still in high school and had just started working with the AYES program at a local dealership (one of the techs there is my mentor, he kinda shows me what to do, teaches me stuff) I was at work, it was near the end of the day, and I did an oil change on a sweet blue chevy 1500 (fram filter, of course) and I never knew the thing could come off the filter. We didn't get finished with what we were doing, but the oil change was done, so we let it set there and would work on it the next day.

Went back the next day and saw a huge pile of floor dry spread all over the place. I walked in and was thinking, "damn, someone must have screwed up bad". It just dripped overnight till it was a sea of oil. I felt bummed out cuz not only did I screw up, my buddy had to take care of the mess I made while I was at school. Luckily though, I learned my lesson and just last month when I changed mine, my piece of shit ph16 did the same thing and I spotted it. SO CHECK EVERY TIME


SO, besides me doing that, the second stupidest thing I've done was listen to my dad (like a good little boy should) and put roofing tar on my old Jeeps floor after I took the carpet out (I did want to do bedliner, but somehow he talked me into that). It looked nice when it was done (being applied), but of course it never really dried. My feet would always get stuck to the damn floor and I'd track shit everywhere. And you could tell after I had been out in the woods cause there a bunch of live bugs stuck to it. But, I got off easy because a few days later it got demolished. I just wish I could have been there when the insurance folks came to look at it!

Ahhh, good times!

 

[88xjchief]

Helping an old friend of mine do a oil change on his honda we put the used oil bucket in front of the ramp when we were finished. He drove the car off and shot the ramp at the oil and 5 qts went all over his freshly new driveway. Now I make shure there are no fluids near any moving vehicle.

 

[lazarus]

oh do i have a few good ones! I was 18 and doing a tune up on a buddies baja s-10 with the 4.3l. he took off all the wires and i couldnt for the life of me figure out the firing order.( i now know its stamped on manifold) so we put all new plugs, cap & rotor and wires on it. then we did the oil filter air filter and oil. went to start it up and BANG misfire and BANG again. turned it off. looked at the valve covers and we had backfired into the cover pushing them off the head so badly that we had to remove them and beat them straight again to work. then we notice the oil all over the floor, apparently i had not paid attention to the old filter, it had the seal still attached to the block. that was a really long night getting his truck back together. sucked then but now i laugh my ass off everytime i think about it!

 

[Shorty]

I put the a Head Gasket on backwards on one side of a 302. If ya ever done it, you know how lame it is.

you mean the gaskets that say "FRONT" on them??

been there and done it too-- fresh rebuild of a "virgin" 289 "A" code in a '66 Mustang with less than 30,000 miles! Fully restored and I got to start all over again-- runs kinda hot without that one coolant passage open, huh?

dee,dee,dee!
--Shorty

P.S. I'm even dumber than most, 'cuz it was like the seventh one I'd done for this guy in two years-- you'd think I'd have learned by then!:explosion