Had a '70 Superbug that the engine blew up on. Swapped in a '69 carbureted engine into it and went for a drive afterwards. A few miles down the highway, I see the front hood wiggling and dancing. Just as I was about to pull over it flys up and smashes the windshield. All the contents inside of front then immediately spray all over the highway. Not sure if that was the dumbest thing I did all day, or if running around picking up the junk from under the hood on a highway with traffic whizzing by was.

I think my finest moment came earlier this summer when I just finished working all day on my 4Runner, tossed all my tools in the back, and went for a test drive around the neighborhood. Apparently the back hatch came open at some point and I left a trail of tools in the street for about a block.

Either that or when I was in high school and decided I was going to do a poser shot with my $500 XJ flexed out on the landscaping at the entrance to our neighborhood and broke a driveshaft U-joint with my bald MT/R perched in some fresh mulch.

A couple come to mind.

About 1973, my Dad and I doing a tune up on my 1964 Pontiac Catalina. Dad played a trick on me, asking me to hold the sparkplug, in its boot, while he cranked over the engine. The only way I can describe the feeling of all that amperage traveling up my arm is what happens to Popeye’s forearm after he slams down a can of spinach.

About 1999, in my garage. A 1996 Cadillac deVille Concours. I forget what I was doing under the hood, but it was something quick and near the battery. I knew I shouldn’t have been wearing my wedding band, but my thinking was “I know this is wrong but it won’t happen to me this time.” Yes, I arced my wedding band between the positive terminal (sidepost battery) and a strut brace. I had a Murphy cabinet in the garage but it was on the other side of the car and the nose of the car too close to the wall, so had to run around the car, the Black Hills gold band glowing bright red. I got my hand and ring under cold tap water in the sink for about two minutes, then it took a while to get the badly melted ring off. Took about five months to heal.

My dad just did that in the past year with a deep-cycle marine battery. He almost lost his finger entirely.

I was up for 72 hours, then decided I would change my transmission out for a meet the next day.

Buttoned everything up, started the truck, hears this god awful noise.

Shit the truck off, looked under the truck, everything was fine.

Started the truck up again, same noise.

Popped the hood, and there was my 1/2” breaker bar with my 19mm on the end, with the crank bolt out of the crank.




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I've been doing this as a job for a long time, so there are too many to recall, but one good Oh Shit! moment would be when about 19 years ago when looking for a power steering leak on a very successful local lady realtor's nice bright red BMW convertible while she waited in the office I sprayed the entire rack and lines down with brakleen and it dripped on the old incandescent bulb plug in droplight which burst setting the car on fire. I ended up having to run over and grab a fire extinguisher to put it out. luckily there was no damage and I was able to clean it up, diagnose the leak and not tell her that I almost burned her car down.

For me one of the most embarrassing/learning moments from probably 20 years ago is when I did my first clutch job and got the disc in backwards. Ever since then, I'll use a paint marker and put a yellow dot on the PP side of the old clutch to use a s a visual reference, although by now I can tell which end goes towards the flywheel.

Hehe - Dad didn't set me up but he witnessed me not paying attention and deciding to attach a timing light to the plug wire while car was running. Only comments was "bet you won't do that again"

Yep I nearly welded a 10mm wrench to the negative post one day! Now I always throw a rag over the post I'm not working on!

I also NEVER wear any jewelry, watches, etc when I am working on cars. I've heard too many stories of people getting hurt by their jewelry catching on something, and seen too many pictures on the internet of smashed wedding bands around fingers.

Not working on a vehicle, but "working it" in a vehicle. When I was 20ish, was getting some paradise by the dashboard light in my 72 El Camino in a big corn field. We're were at it a while and I reached in the glove box for some what I thought was a tube of all purpose Vaseline, I wasn't looking, opened the tube, smeared some on her. She shrieked in agony. Turned out I grabbed a tube of tooth paste. Good thing I didn't have a tube of Loctite with me. :/)

Uh... yeah... Do not wear a wedding ring when working on cars. Or anything. Google “finger degloving”. Or don’t.

Having been wrenching on mine and family member's vehicles for 40-some years, I have a ton of stories about my brain farts and stupidity in general.

But probably the funniest one that didn't involve injury or real damage involved my '77 Fiat 124 Spyder, and this happened in the late '80s.

I had that beloved POS up for sale (with a long story behind that). The first people to look at it, after their test drive, popped the hood, and found the entire top of the engine covered in wet, very fresh oil. One of my selling points was that the oil had just been changed. Guess who had forgotten to re-install the filler cap? Fortunately the cap had fallen down into some nook, and was easily found. Also fortunately, the oil level wasn't low enough to matter.

If I recall, that person bought the car anyway, since he believed my explanation about my stupid mistake. But I had to clean up the oil, of course. This was before Simple Green, so I probably bought about a dozen spray cans of engine degreaser.

Or maybe it was four hours ago when I thought I had put both brake drums back on and put a brick on the brake pedal with the ignition on to torque my wheel spacers.

Did y'all know that drum brake wheel cylinders will cover EVERYTHING in brake fluid when they come apart?

I have 3 pretty good ones.

Installed a remote start system into a 5sp 1986 MR2. Told my ex never to leave it in gear. I left it in gear. I remote started it. It drove itself THROUGH a solid wood/metal reinforced double garage door. Of a rental house. (About 12 years ago)

Started an 87 MR2 for the first time with a supercharged motor swap on Megasquirt. Was running super rich. Exhaust had holes in it and a catalyst. Car was in the garage of a different rental... a duplex.... and on jackstands without wheels on the back. It caught fire. Whoops. Thankfully was able to get it out before it spread and no damage to the car either. (About 15 years ago). ALWAYS have a fire extinguisher available after major work and first starts.

Different 1986 MR2 (might have been a 1985, I don't remember which one... I think it was my black 86 but may have been a silver 85... both got HG jobs). Installed the HG in the dark. Turns out the gasket is perfectly symmetrical! Put everything back together and fired it up. Ran great!

Oh, the HG isnt symmetrical. There was 1 major oil port different, and the 1-2 quarts of oil on the ground taught me this. This was about 11 years ago.

I've learned since....





I don't rent anymore.