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

In the excitement of having my jeep in the driveway before i even had my license a couple years ago, I thought the coolest thing that i could do was to clean it any chance i got. I powerwashed the paint off the wheels...
 
I've put two of the four XJs I've had belly up: The first time attempting to do a reverse 180 at 20mph after going down a narrow gravel road and having to back up 100' to get out; The second time doing 80 on an entrance ramp and merging before the dotted lines, fishtailing on the loose debris, looking at the right guardrail, overcorrecting to avoid it, then when the tires decide they want to grip I roll over twice on the passenger side(luckily the second rollover got me over the left guardrail and into the grassy median). The towing guys didn't believe me it would start up once they got it back on its feet. At least now I have a good engine for a stroker, a spare ax15, and a spare 8.25".
 
Stupidest thing that i've ever done.......Fit 7 people including myself in my Jeep and went down the highway for about 50 miles at the beach. My buddy's Honda broke down in Wilmington last summer and it was about 3am. I started to take as many people as I could legally fit back to the beach house, drop them off and come back for the others. Get about halfway back to the house and one of my friends says "do you have the key to the house??".........son of a...!

Turned around to go back and get the key and decided what the heck, its 3am, nobody's on the roads, whats two more gonna hurt. Piled them in and took off down the road. Needless to say it was about 4-4:30 by the time we got back, and I passed literally 4 cops watching for speeders/idiots on the way back. And my Jeep was loaded down with all the people, plus no tinted windows at the time which meant you could see in extremely easily.

How I didn't get one hell of a ticket that night/morning, I have no clue....but i'll never do that again.

The odd thing about it, the Jeep drove very well......nice and smooth, I couldn't believe it.
 
well one of the stupidest things i've ever done was while working in the warehouse of the carpet company where my friend work, it was a light job day and we had nothing better to do so the boss before he left told us to change the lights bulbs that were out in this tall old warehouse. The lights were the long fluorescent tubes, and the only ladder was an old wooden one that shatter with my "large" self being on it, so i told my friend to get the forklift, put a pallet on it and drive me around to change the bulbs... i got every one done but one and it was in a narrow squeeze for the fork lift so my friend squeezed into the spot i began to change the bulb sending my thumb through the bulb, my friend freeked out and killed the forklift and because of all the boxes on either side he could not get out, he crawled out through the back and got me a rag for my hand and got it restarted 10 min later, the boss was not too happy with this one... not to mention the forklift jousting (thats another story)
 
I would say the dumbest thing I've done with a vehicle would be sinking the Chevy Blazer I had in college. Me and a friend moved into a duplex that had three hot chicks in the next unit, and he came up with the idea to go to the local river beach for a picnic (and see them in bikinis), which they surprisingly went along with. We could see some 4x4s doing light crossings down a little ways, so I figured hey I've got a truck lets do that!

Of course, the other guys were crossing at the shallow point. I on the other hand crossed at the deep point... Actually floated a little ways across and almost made it, but then hit a boulder with a tire which stopped my forward momentum, and slowly started sinking. The water was over the hood but not to the roof line, so we paid a guy $40 to get his backhoe and pull me out, then I had him drag me along the road in gear to blow water out of the engine.

She started up, and after about 20 minutes was running pretty much normal, and ran fine until I got rid of her. The bigger problem was that I had broken a kingpin so the front passenger wheel was always at an angle like "\" instead of "|". I didn't have the money to fix it so I got rid of her, and saw her on the lot fixed up a couple of weeks later.

That was the last off-road vehicle I owned up until this beater XJ that I just inherited. It's what my baby brother learned to drive on, and it's got some stories too (ie, losing the driveshaft on a powerline trail).
 
Yes, wheeling with two or more vehicles is best. Although I have to admit I've wheeled alone, and still do sometimes.

Once I was stuck for 6 hours. With some chick on the first date....she thought it was fun though, hah.
 
The stupidest thing with a car I ever did was when I was 16 with my first car. A 77 Nova. The oil idiot light came on one day so I decided I should add a quart of oil. Add a quart of oil light was still on. Repeated this step 4 times. It was night time so I couldn't/didn't think to check the dipstick. Basically I drove around for a few weeks with 10 quarts of oil in mt car. My dad asked me why my car was leaking so I told him what I did. Apparently some wires were crossed and I really didn't need any oil.

Other stupid things: One of my senior pranks was to die our school's pool red with $400 of red Kool Aid that I stold from Safeway (I was working there so it wasn't that hard) Not only was the pool water red but it died the sides of the pool red also. Janitors were not to happy. We also took everything out of our Principals office except a chair and put it in the Gym. Him, being an old Marine, refuse to accept defeat left his stuff in the Gym and just used a chair in his office for the rest of the week. There was also the time that we locked the teachers parking lot gates with big ass chains and stold all of the bolt cutters from the Janitors room.
Good Times
 
I introduced my new girlfriend to my family as my ex-girlfriends name this past Sunday. That was awkward.

Other than that, this past Saturday before discovering a cracked head I changed my valve cover gasket. I saw 55 in/lbs but in my mind read 55 ft/lbs. Luckly the bolt I broke left enough for me to weasle it out of the head.

Also, went splashing through puddles on a road with constuction signs. The splashing was apparently through water sitting on a freshly oiled road. That truck always had oil stains after that.

I went to a new mudding spot before my Jeep had lift/tires. They said "make sure you follow somebody, there are some deep holes out here. There's one which as stuck a truck with 38's.". Well, I saw a hole that didn't look too bad so I went for it solo - the reason it didn't look too bad was because it was "the" hole and had leaves all over it since nobody was stupid enough to attempt it. It took hours to recover and a few parts to fix the Jeep afterwards.

Those are just the top few on my brain right now, but believe me - I'm frequently stupid.
 
i've forgotten to tighten lugnuts hundreds of times on my own jeep and once i did it on a customer's car. it was an 05 volvo with those stupid studs instead of nuts. that night the woman was driving and the wheel came off, bang $3000 for parts. lucky our head mechanic could do the labor for free. oh, did i mention it was my first day on the job?
 
forgot to put the snap ring on the output shaft on my t/case
 
When I first bought my XJ, a lot of the electrical components didn't work (turn signal, ac, etc...) Through the process of replacing blown fuses and what not, I noticed it was missing the switch for the ABS system. I was already at Advance so I ordered one, Freaking thing costed 30 or 40 bucks! After putting it in I realized it was a really loose fit... Still didn't ring a bell until months later while I was messing around in the engine bay and I couldn't find an ABS pump... Finally realized, I DON"T HAVE ABS :doh:
 
How dumb is driving up onto the berm of a RR track and getting to the point where the berm faded to nothing under the right front wheel?

That took another XJ, a big tow rope, and a lot of nerve for me to keep from tipping it into the swamp under the RR as I pulled it hard to the right and drove down into the muck..,
 
when i was first learning my way around, i would guess 13 or 14 yrs old. i changed the atf on someones car, i forget what kind of car it was. but anyways it had a drainplug on the tranny. so when i was done draining the oil and adding a few fresh quarts to the tranny and firing it up to check the level. i wondered why the atf was so high on the stick and the rig was making a bunch of noise. who woulda guessed the oil pan has a drain plug too.
 
I worked at a firestone service center when i was 18. All of the hoses from the oil pumps and tranny fluid pumps look the same so on my first oil change I filled the engine with tranny fluid, one of the other guys caught it though. Also on a busy day I was doing an oil change on a ford explorer I put almost 5 quarts and checked the dipstick, nothing, so i put another 1/2 quart and still nothing on the dipstick. I put a little over 6 quarts and still nothing. I looked down and saw a puddle of oil coming out from under the truck. I forgot to put the drain plug back in.
 
Blaine B. said:
I'm confused,

You drained the engine oil, but didn't drain the trans oil and overfilled the trans?
Click to expand...


yeah, i meant to drain the tranny and did the oil instead. i didnt know any better. it hasnt happened since. one of those learning experiences.
 
For the longest time I could hear my wheel vibrating a lot, vibrating turning one way and not so much then other. Online diagnosed it as a bearing hub. Bought one and stalled on installing it, didn't have time. It only got worse and worse. Went out for a drive to get an axle socket so I could change it and then started driving home. It got terrible on the way back, it felt like the front wheel was flopping all over. Pulled in the driveway and parked in the garage and I went to take the wheel off. My work was cut out for me because I was missing three studs and the remaining 2 nuts were loose.
 
drove my parents 74 dart on a frozen lake in maryland and made it.years later in my mind i thought i had just had a dream about it than i ran into the guy25 yrs later that was with me and he said u remember that time you... i said o.m.g. i really did that? what a dumbass!! bought a ford escort (i kno dumb by itself) only had 60,000 for 125.00 hadent been started for 2 years float on carb was stuck open and flooded the cyls w/ fuel removed plugs and wires and layed them off to the side figured id turn it over to shoot the gas out well it worked however i neglected to pull the coil wire ignited the fuel as it was exiting the engine , plug wires grounded out, which shot about 9 feet in the air to the front of the garage and gutter of the peoples house where i bought it so i rip my shirt off and start beating out the fire. lady comes out i guess after hearing me beating on the garage door." everything ok"? i said yea as my work shirtwas still smouldering on the ground could have been the most expensive 125.00 car ever Oh and never play frisbee baseball in winter hard plastic flying at you than hit with bat = plastic slivers in face ouch
 
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