True Confessions, Join In

A couple of weeks ago, I jumped in my maintainer and turned the key to the start position, but nothing happened. Couldn’t figure it out, batteries were up, but nothing was happening when I turned the key to the start position. Finally jumped the solenoid with a piece of wire, and it fired right up! Now to figure out why! I started tracing wires, safety switches, etc. I finally went to the parts book and started looking at wiring diagrams, parts, etc and noted that there was a start switch. It took a couple of seconds for the gray matter to kick in, but I finally remembered that there was a separate start button on the side of the cowling for the dash that actually was the START button. I crawled back in and hit the button and the old girl fired to life! Course it might have helped if I had had snow to push this winter to keep me refreshed. :>)

The other one was back when I was a lot younger. I pulled my prize car into the shop to do an oil change/tune up. Of course the first thing I did was drop the oil, and then I proceeded to pull the plugs, distributor cap, points, etc. I got the tune up almost done and got called away to do something else. I got back to the car, hooked up the timing light, jumped in and fired it up. I got out and started walking to the front of the car when I saw the drain plug lying on the floor! Yup, you guessed it; I forgot to put oil in it! :<( I shut it off, finished the oil change and crossed my fingers. No serious damage was done. The engine is taking a sabbatical right now, but had about 280,000 miles on the crank and it was still standard size.

On my first real restoration job, I was ready to reattach the engine/flywheel to the bell housing. Never having done this before, it would have been prudent to ask a couple of my neighbors for some assistance. Did I do that? Nahhh....I can figure this out, right? Long story short: I didn't realize that the splines on the drive shaft weren't lined up with those of the clutch plate. If you put enough torque on those bolts, something's gonna give. Yep, I've got a seriously cracked C-113 block sitting in a storage shed as a reminder of being stupid and not asking for help.

Second confession has to do with an older hobby of bicycle racing. I had a very cool custom Italian bike that I would put on a car roof rack...one of those where you take the front wheel off, then anchor the front fork down along with the rear wheel. Well, that's a great setup IF YOU REMEMBER TO TAKE THE BIKE OFF THE CAR BEFORE DRIVING INTO THE GARAGE. Bike #1 was toast. The reason why I say "Bike #1" is that six months later I did the same thing with the replacement bike! After that, I decided that I wasn't smart enough to have a nice bike, so I gave up riding for eight years. (I now only carry my bike on a rear-mounted rack.)

Just last night, I did another one... I was welding up a frame for a BBQ grill, and I had two legs of one length, and two legs of another length with holes drilled in the ends for a shaft that would be used by two wheels. Even after double checking what I was doing, I ended up welding the legs on in completely the wrong order...gotta cut it apart and start over this weekend. Ug.

Jeez, this posting ended up being awfully depressing...think I'm going to bed. Blech.

- David

My H I have run her out once and have forgotten to turn on the in line valve 3 times.
You know I have run a few cars out of gas and its funny how a farmall runs out. They just run great then just cut out and wont start back up.
Every time I get fooled its a electrical problem.
At least a car will sputter a little before she goes.
My 460's the same just off. No worning no nothing just stops.
Now after more time spent trouble shooting Than I will admit to here in public. I 1st check the gas tank now.

Funny part is wives will blame this on old age, we did just as stipid tricks at 30. Back then, with a house full of kids she just never noticed.

One day 30 years ago, my dad sent word from field he wanted me to ride back of baler for some minor adjustments. He was baling near my house, thus I parked my old binder pickup 20' behind our car. Marg. came out of house, our own 3 kids, 3 neighbors kids and her mother who was a back seat driver. She promptly backed into the old binder,and that was my fault.

He decided to get rifle and fire shot to scare these thievs off. He aimed to have bullet hit ground about 20' from them. Problem, he slipped as he fired, bullet went through back fender of the car, through the fuel tank and he lost all his gas anyhow. Lucky, no fire and no one go hurt. I understand that ended gas stealing at his place.

casey in SD

Jeff