panzer

Just a friendly thread. I love hearing good stories about your projects.

Cadillac

I'll tell you mine.

I started looking at this car that "just needed a few things to be perfect" and would be a good investment.



I love my stupid car and all the stuff I've improved or replaced. Drives so great.

Welcome to the forum. Nice 25th Camaro.

Keep the faith, TBI brother!!

Ward

iTrader: (1)

Mine was finding the horn button. The button on the steering wheel didn't work, I assumed it was just broken. A couple days after I got the car, a couple buddies of mine came over to look at it. One of them sat in it, and noticed a button mounted on the bottom of the dash, that I hadn't seen before. He asked "Hey, what's this do?", and I said "I dunno, push it". Well, the horn honked, and we about died laughing.

panzer

haha thats happened to me before. I was under the hood of my friends truck tryin to find a bad horn wire. And there was a button on the dash and he pushed it and scared me half to death.

gcgarner

Horn button story is hilarious. It never ceases to amaze me how people will rig stuff up.

Cadillac, I'm with you all the way. I put $5,800 into a car that was "nearly perfect" and just needed a little TLC. Well, an engine swap, rebuilt tranny, rebuilt rear end, headers, full exhaust, paint job & interior later, and I still have work to do!

mario82z28

when i first bought my car 10yrs ago it had a flex fan on it didnt know any better at the time first car and all being 15, anyway i thought id be cool and rev up the car from under the hood next i knew i was covered in blood the fan cut my hand right in 2 108 stitches 3 weeks of physical therapy works good as new funny now but not at the time

TurbomanKnight

Ouchhh doesnt sound too fun.


Well, one day I decided to wire a radio into my IROC. Sat down with the diagrams and all. Spent about and hour and a half wiring the radio only to find out there were no speakers in the car...

ad356

oops, lol.

mexicanknight

banged my forehead while sneezeing under a truck, that does count??

gcgarner

^^

It counts. But it would have counted more if you would have banged your head on a 3rd gen. LOL.

Kevman

POR15'd my arm.. Looked like a muffed up tattoo for over a month.

JohnC

iTrader: (1)

^been there done that......A little lacquer thinner right after you get it on you will get it off....


Nothing too incredibly funny has happened to me yet...

TheScaryOne

iTrader: (3)

I've POR-15'd my fingers. And I just keep doing it. I look like I've been digging around the engine bay. All. The. Time.

As for funny things.... Uhm. I put a shift kit in in a parking lot. At night. During winter. In the rain. Wearing shorts.

lordmetalz28

iTrader: (1)

how bout when i installed my new grant steering wheel, i decided to test fit the horn button with no spring and it got stuck in there. i looked at the directions and it said dont test fit horn button im a dumbass.


or how bout this morning i had my car up on jack stands to re torque the header bolts, i finshed the job went in the house and had a bagel. the night before i noticed the oil stocks where up and the barrel had rose 15bucks so i decided to top it off then and there. well i putt in an extra dollar after the nozzle clicked off, while she was smoldering in the heat the gas dripped out from my fill down my fender, damaged some brand new paint on the quater panel just below the fuel door and some on the fuel door itself. touch up paint.

Kevman

Funny part is about the POR15-ing my arm, I didn't know until an hour or so later.. I had leaned over on the tranny tunnel to grab something and put my arm down.. It was from my hand all the way to my elbow.. Looked horrible, and this was about 3 years ago, so POR15 was newer..

mexicanknight

yesterday i was adjusting my brakes and had the car in neutral, well long story short my car an over my foot, lucky for me i was wearing my safety boots with steel on them haaha

2.8RS

iTrader: (5)

I was replacing my springs about 2 weeks ago. I got to the front passenger spring and the compressor decided to let the spring go half way out. I had the strut/hub assmebly right in front of my face when it let go and hit the assembly. Thank God nothing hit me, my dad saw it happen and said that the top of the strut just about hit me square in the forehead. I got lucky on that one.

IROC212

iTrader: (1)

I had an old girlfriend who left her expensive earrings inside my car when I was in college. They vanished, she accused me of throwing them out blah blah blah. Fast forward 12 years, I rip the carpet out of the car to put down some dynamat, guess what I find. Too bad I don't have her # anymore, just to rub it in.

Brennan

i took my cluster out to fix my trip and after all the fighting and swearing to get it back in the right spot and bolting my steering wheel back in place i got out of the car and picked up a rag and found the printed circuit board ON THE BENCH another funny one was when me and dad where replacing my flex hose for the brakes i wanted to see if the hard line was clogged so i stepped on the brake and heard alot of yelling when i looked dads face was covered in brake fluidbut it was his fault cuz he volunteered to watch

72vega

iTrader: (9)

not from a restoration, but while i was diagnosing a dead cylinder on a ford aerostar van, people kept bothering me while i was pullin spark plug wires off it to find which one had little to no change on rpm, i got my hand too close to the plug wire pliers and ZAP! shocked the $#!t outta me.. lol. i was pissed about it then but its funny as hell now

panzer

Same thing happened to me just last week.

sailtexas186548

iTrader: (2)

i was taking off my calipers to paint them, and had about a 2 foot breaker bar (the guy who put um on used wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much tq ), with my head inside the wheel well, no tire on obviously, and the socket slipped off the bolt and a punched myself in the face with a combo of fist/steel pipe, then my head slammed into the inside of the wheel well. i layed on the ground for 5 min, felt like i just lost a fight lol

86WS6

iTrader: (1)

Bought an 83 Trans Am new in the fall of 1983. Around 1993 the passenger door had developed a large rust hole through the bottom and lower outer panel. What was odd is that the car was a Georgia car, a garage queen, with 20K miles on it. It had never been driven in the rain, or on a dirt road, so the rest of the car was like new. When I pulled the door panel to replace the door with a new/used door, I found a flashlight in the bottom of the door. It apparently had been left in the door from the assembly line, and the window crushed the plastic case when rolled all the way down. The batteries leaked and rotted the door out from the inside. It was more odd than funny.

TurbomanKnight

Im sorry dude but I'm laughing my *** of here.


Monday, I was troubleshooting a popping in my exhaust. I pulled the #7 spark plug wire and put a plug with a closed gap on it. Started the car up. And ZAP! Apparently I didnt close the gap all the way.

luvofjah

iTrader: (2)

I'm legally blind (no license) and building a Knight Rider replica... I've done all sorts of improvements to the car, jet hot headers, sub frame connectors, STB, bilstein's, rear suspension, sound deadening, etc...

I had the car pulled out of the garage in the driveway where I work on it...
Some 8 or 10 year old kid from the neighborhood rolls up on his bike...
"is that car fast?"
Uh, kinda...
"was it expensive?"
More and more all the time...

The Kitt scanner (with sound fx) I have has a wireless remote, so I turned it on, thinking he would get a kick out of it...

"Now it looks cheap"...

That kid hasn't been seen since

Rafael

86WS6

iTrader: (1)

I had undergone a spinal fusion and was in a body cast. I wasn't supposed to be driving. The car had a flat tire. I had it up on the jack and a lug nut stripped on the stud. I had a pair of channel-locks trying to pull the nut while turning in an attempt to get the wheel off. The plyers slipped and hit me in the nose. It broke my nose, blood everywhere, I fell over backwards, and with the cast on it was kind of like a turtle trying to get off of it's back. A neighbor stopped, helped me up, but almost dropped me because he was laughing his a** off. He hauled me to the hospital, and after X-rays, they packed my nose. To add insult to injury, the surgeon fussed at me, and the wife fussed at me, in fact everybody give me h***. I felt like I was four years old again!

Tmic87TPI

iTrader: (3)

I've got a bunch but heres the most recent one...it still pisses me off because it just happened yesterday but I think you guys will get a kick out of it.
my boss called me and told me he has a hood for me to paint as a side job, so I would be doing it at my house. well I threw the drivers seat in my car so I could pull it out of the garage, alls well so far. then I turn my key... what the h***! all my lights work but nothings cranking. since I've been working on my floor pans I have my interior ripped apart so I figured I must have disconnected some wire going to the shifter, after half an hour of looking for a wire to plug in to a port that I couldn't find on the shifter I give up and decide it must be my starter. grab the jack and stands, jack her up to see how much of a pain it will be to swap the starter out, once I see how bad it'd be I decide Im gonna try to tow it to the shop to do it on a lift so I lower my car back down. at this point Im really pissed off and just go to sit in my car. then I see a wire tucked under the carpet and suddenly remember that there was a wire going to the shifter and that was it. reconnect it and my car turns over just like nothing ever happened!

iroc_zz

One that started almost two weeks ago....

I have been trying to track down a intermittent problem on my 85 L69 iroc since last fall. It would some times laydown halfway through 2nd gear when I was on it hard like some one had shut off the fuel supply but it wasn't consistent. I had put in a new fuel filter which helped a little. Then I noticed that the fuel line was flattened a little by the pump where it bends up to go around the air pump bracket so I fixed that. No change. Ok so now I decide it's time for a new fuel pump (It's times like these that I am glad that the H.O. is a mechanical pump). I get the pump changed and start it up to check for leaks, had two, I forgot to tighten the line at the pump. I had left it loose so I could get the line at the carb back on since I had to take it off to get the line at the pump started.

The second leak was the exhaust manifold gasket on the driver's side. I thought I had heard a little leak the last time I drove it. So now since I apparently like opening the proverbial can of worms I decide to pull the manifold.

All goes good, I got the manifold off with out breaking any bolts off in the head but I did break the studs off for the y pipe. I thought that it would be easier to get new ones than to heat the nuts up to save them. After checking every local parts store and convincing each of them that it is metric and not a 3/8" stud I ended up ordering the correct studs from out of state. Since I had to order them in I also ordered new connectors for the idle mixture solenoid, O2 sensor, temp sensor, choke stat, and ignition module. Everything shows up 5 days later and were the correct ones, they even look exactly like the originals.

While I had the manifold off I thought it would be a good time to put new spark plugs in. That's when I notice what might be part of my power problem, three of the plugs on the drivers side are loose and one is about to fall out. I haven't put plugs in it for almost ten years so I have been running all this time with loose plugs It's a good thing I only drive it a few time a year. I remember that they sucked to get at so I must not have gotten them tight enough, at least there was only one on the passengers side that was loose.

Now the fun part, the #8 plug, I couldn't get to it from the top with the ac box and the AIR lines into the manifold in the way. I tried to get it from the bottom but the starter was kind of in the way so I decide to drop it. I pulled the battery cable off it but I left the solenoid wire on (it's a mini starter and that one sucked to hook up the first time). All goes well, got the plug in, put the starter back in, get it all back together. It fired up right away and all seemed good. I took it out for a test drive and the bog was gone and it has more power now.

When I got home, shut it off and tried to restart it and....click....click....click.........wtf. I got the car back into the garage and back up on stands. I tried the old tap on the starter with a hammer trick...nothing. I checked for power and grounds and everything checks out. So I pulled it completely and tested it on the floor to see if it's just the solenoid.....work's perfectly on the floor... ...soab....I put it back in thinking that I just had a lose wire, I manage to get the wires hooked back up with out a problem this time. I hooked the battery back up and......click.....click......click..... .........WTF....It was just working on the ground...............POS...pull it again....test it on the ground again.....works perfect again......(It's a good thing I wasn't having this problem with my work beater car or I would have had a nice Grand prix bonfire by this point, LOL)

After scratching my head for a while I decide to put the nut back on to simulate it being in the car. Sure enough when I tightened the battery cable nut it would short out the solenoid just enough to make it not engage the motor. So I put a nut on first to keep from over tightening it, try to put it back in, I dropped the screw for the solenoid wire a half dozen times before it went missing completely and I had to find a different one that would fit. I got the starter jamed in between the exhaust and the bellhousing 4 or 5 times, and half stripped out the battery cable nut.

Two hours of fighting with it this time I finally get it in and it actually works. But now the dust shield is hitting the flywheel from getting bent up when the starter got jammed in between the bell and the exhaust, so after pulling that 5 times I finally was able to take it for a drive.

Xophertony

Firebird guys will know my pain. when i got my 2.8 i decided to swap out the 85MPH speedo with a 140. when i pulled the old cluster i was not being as careful as i could have been and i allowed the driver sode section of the gage lens to catch on the tilt column break(the joint where it bends) i just kept pulling harder until i broke the lens. thats when i realized what was catching it. i used the one from the cluster i bought for the speedo. a "parts cluster" if you will.

"well i'll have to remember that"

fast forwards two days later. i had to pull the cluster to finalize something.. forgot to watch that side.. broke it again. got a new one from a junkyard.

"ok, i have broken two of them, i'll remember now for sure"

about a year later i pulled the dash apart for some reason. forgot about that side catching... broke the lens. it was in a place that could be covered by the trim this time. so i just left it. but then somehow i broke it again. just a tiny bit. about a half inch stretching into my vision. no big deal it's not bad and there is NO WAY i'll forget about it no right? WRONG. pulled the clustger about six months ago.. that crack now extends all the way through the speedometer. i have been keeping my eyes open for a good one in the wrecking yards...

i am on my THIRD lens now, and it's broken. soon will be the fourth. but i'll remember about that catch this time.

Sonymaster20

iTrader: (3)

Thats hilarious. That happened to me also. We purchased my 92 Rs And me and my dad were looking for the horn and couldn't find it on the wheel and then we wondered how it had passed inspection here in texas with out it. till one day me and my dad were taking out the console and my elbow hit one of the two horn buttons on the side of the airbag and it scared the $h1T out of us.. I literally fell back from holding the console hit my head on the door and landed outside the car.. after that we knew where the horn was. :-)

oxrabidus

when i bought my 86 camaro i drove it around for few days, it ran beautifully, being the first car i had ever bought on my own, felt on top of the world, even though i had to push start it all the time...but now the funny story...me and my friends were gonna go to the track one friday and we decided to meet up at wal-mart, and go from there...ony of my friends drove a 73 Cutlass Supreme with a chevy 350... we were on our way to the track and suddenly the clutch pedal just dropped, and hung from under the dash...i could not shift, my friend had to push me in his cutlass for about a half a mile with about 4 cars (my friends) with their hazerds on going 15 mph on a highway...i was so furious, i decided to give the guy the car back, (STUPID move...) about a month later i went and got the car back, no extar charge... turns out the little pin that holds the master cylinder to the cltch pedal came off, and i had to get one from GM... The funnniest thing was (Imagine this...) a red 86 Camaro (not to good conditooned), being pushed by a primered 73 Cutlass supreme...followed by a silver Honda Civic (looked nice), a nice Saturn, and a Honda Accord... all with the hazards, confused as hell, while i am furious in my car, and my friend i can see laughing in my rear view mirror... that to me is just funny as hell...
I love my car...ha ha...

fallenleader

iTrader: (2)

wow people. xophertony, BE CAREFUL. I was scared to hell removing the clusters in my Fbirds over the years, the 84 with the mechanical spedo is the worst.

Damn kids and my 13yr old son asking "whats dennis the menace".

As for my stories, lets start with my tonsilectomy a week ago then reading this topic, I almost cried in pain from laughing.

After that, the first car "87 Fbird" 1,000$ great shape "no radio, cracked steering column, blah blah blah im stupid as hell" Among everything The most noteable are my gf telling me the car was making a funny sound AFTER she burnt up my Psteering pump, 1year to find a cardone replacement for the 2.8 serpentine. Stupid me tossed the pully with the old pump 3YEARS!!! and endless harassing till I found a replacement from classicindustries? Well needless to say, it worked nice, when she ran. broke so much more working on it while it sat for those years that sadly she is on her way to being a nice soda can, shovel, and whatever else they can make "poor girl" my second car Annabelle MK2 is an 84' bird. bought it for $850 and it was and is beautiful condition, very little rust, sounds nice, stalls only when cold. blah blah blah.
Anyway shifted a little hard and was a bit noisy, ok, people neglect so many fluids I'll replace the trans fluid and add some lucas to it. After watching brown pudding plop out of it for 45minutes, I decide to start filling it with a 1/2in vinyl hose and a funnel "without lifting her" so after an elongated time of being soaked with trans fluid "my shirt ANd hair was soaked as well" Then soping it up off the driveway because it overflowed. I run and drive her "wow its nicer now, but something's wrong, still sounds wrong" Take her to Aamco in new brunswick NJ? toted as the best aamco in the country, 1,700$$$ later she's beautiful with a broken tail light "another story"...still stalling... less rust and better doors courtesy of annabelle 1. i'm smarter now I took EVERYTHING off the scrapped car.

Thanks for reading,
Sean H.

Xophertony

i had this exact same thing happen. i replaced the plastic clip from GM and figured i'd replace the brake clip too. well it's metal, and they only come in bags of five. i decided to keep the extras in the car. what do you know. SIX MONTHS later the thing breaks again, and i replace it with the metal clip from the brake pedal. all is ok.

John81

10 years ago I bought an 85 firebird, was my first car and my parents hated it (thought I would wreck it within a week). The body looked nice, engine ran fine but it needed a lot of suspension, brake and interior work. One of the major problems was the steering column. I'm sure at least some of you will know the problem I had with it, the wheel would move about 1-2 inches in any direction. Finding a good column in a junkyard was a bit of a pain but after a couple weeks I found one.


After spending about 4 hours taking apart the dash and getting ready to take the old column out I was sitting under the steering wheel (I'm 5 foot 6 and the drivers seat was removed) taking out the last bolt holding it on... sucker dropped right on my head After taking it out of the car I set it next to the new one I got from the junkyard and went to get a drink and use the restroom. Came back about 15 minutes later and started putting the new one in still steaming about getting hit on the head and making sure everything was going back together right. 2 hours later I was just putting the final screws into the dash and being quite pleased that I was almost done when I had a dreadful thought. Did I pick up the right column? I grabbed the steering wheel and gently lifted it... Practice makes perfect right? only took 2 hours total the second time lol.

fallenleader

iTrader: (2)

Yep, got hit by them before. kinda heavy.

skiwrench

After rebuilding the top end of the LG4 in my camaro, I forgot to reinstall the oil pressure switch thing by the distributor. It shot a fountain of oil all over my driveway when I started her up.

bigboy123

Well i have alot but heres one of em.

I bought my car from this guy who dropped it off and took his plates and left, he also left me with barely any gas. So being i dont have it insured, i cant run to go get it filled up, so one day i pull it out of the garage into the driveway.

Well i was doin some work on it with my friend, then we finished and it was time to pull it back into the garage, guess what? the battery was dead, so i hooked it up to my dads truck to jump it, and it started up, ran for 10 seconds, then died, I WAS OUT OF GAS.

So stupid me says to my friend ok put the cables back on, as soon as you hear the car run, take off the cables and quickly close the hood, ( i was trying to see if i could make it into my garage with the 10 seconds of run time i had). so he hooks up cables, and he says ok start it up, so as soon as i go to turn the key, the car starts rolling backwards, I HAD IT IN NEUTRAL.

So heres the funny part, my friend fell into my engine, and the hood fell on his back, but i knew he wasnt hurt, or anything, because he was laughing, so i decided to slam on the horn, and he screamed like a girl, it might have been the funniest thing ever, the horn was about 3 feet from his ears, he never saw it coming

alicat

A few years back,driving to a friends wedding,I had my wipers hooked to a metal
toggle switch as the column switch was broken.The makeshift switch was laying
on the floor,and it rolled back and shorted out on the seat runner,and blew the fusible link at the starter motor,leaving us stranded.we got there in the end,and needless to say I soon replaced the wiper switch.

BladeX10

Last week.. I was trying to loosen up a bolt on the intake manifold.. For some reason it was really torqued down big time.. I started to hang on the wrench.. The bolt came loose and i flew back.. tripped over my toolbox and face planted the side of the house with a few boxes cushioning my fall.. People around me started busting out laughing.

IROCZ28KevinZ

iTrader: (2)

on the night before my wedding my brake lamp switch broke in the middle of Kansas City, so I had to drive out of there to Smithville where I was staying with no brake lights...i look at it now it was funny that it happened on the night before my wedding lol

RK82

I had just finished changing the motor mounts in my 82 T/A I was tightening the last bolt when The wrench slipped off the bolt and I let go it went up spun a few times and nailed me right in the forehead it knocked me out cold, I laided there for probably half an hour until my girlfriend came outside to ask me something, when I didn't answer she got pissed off and went back inside.

iggy89

iTrader: (3)

I bought my car as a roller and when I put the new motor in I tried turning it over. Nothing. Spent about 30 minutes of going through everything with the wiring to make sure it was all we where just about to give up but then I remembered that new cars don't like to start out of park. Pulled the center council apart and there it was, the plug for the sifter was unplugged from the previous owner.

5678TA

heres my story.. just get done stripping the car with paint stripper.. put all the crap in a cardboard box.. its about 8pm so i wrap it up and put the box under the car and go in the house.. about an hour passes, then my neighbor comes in my house and starts screaming, "YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!" i look around and i think, this girl is crazy.. then i look outside and see smoke just pouring out of the workshop.. car caught on fire and toasted the entire back half of the car.. back glass, tires, springs, shocks, gas tank and lines, brake lines, weather stripping and a whole lot more, GONE.. took me about 3 whole days to clean up the car.. not to mention that the workshop got a nice dark coat of carbon everywhere..

Tommychu

I have a ton of stories about my camaro and some others, I swear I could write a book. The best one was when I was in high school, senior auto. I got the highest score ever in their electrical exam (which is taken from an ASE certification exam) and my first toys were early '90s chrysler minivans, so I was assigned to a 1990 dodge caravan project. It was donated to the school because it wouldn't start. Teacher wanted to sell it and he said I would get it cheap if I fixed it. Cranks fine, it's getting fuel, no spark. Teacher suggests I pop off the distributor cap. I checked for power to the coil, nothing. I spent a week of classes chasing leads and evetually pinned it to the ECU. Then I went to the junkyard, swapped the computer, and still nothing. I say whatever, not worth it, I'll work on the TR7. my best friend walks up to it, pops off the cap, it's not turning. Broken timing belt.

I get bugged about that to this day.

My brother goes to that school now, the van is still there.

FireDemonSiC

I have a funny story from a week ago.

I had just gotten my 85Z28 back from being sitting with a spun engine for 6 months and for whatever reason, within that timeframe the head unit had mysteriously stopped accepting CD's. It will eject but will not suck up a disc. So I pull it from the dash on the second night I had the car back and take it inside where I stay up for 2 hours depriving myself of valuable sleep for work the next day studying It's construction and gear mechanism in the CD loading part.

I remove the side panel from my PC and hijack some 12V DC to test hte head unit and what do you know, it sucks in CD's fine now!

So I re-assemble it, take it out to the car and put it back in the dash. Insert a CD into it and brace myself for the sound of music while it displays "PLAY --". Then hear, "click click click", and it spits the CD right back out. WTF? To make matters even worse, it now won't accept a CD again.

So the next night I spend another hour taking it back apart
and messing around with the roller/gears again. Put it back in the dash and it sucks the CD up. "Click click click", *spit*! So by this time I'm getting pissed as hell. for some reason the servo motor that brings the laser back on forth is jamming against the motor that spins the cd IE constantly moving in one direction.

So I take it back in the house a THIRD time, spend 20 minutes taking it apart and that's when I noticed 2/3 of the ribbon cable that hooks to the laser
assembly is pulled out of the socket and only hanging in by 2 or 3 pins out of about 8 or 9. I had pulled it out the very first time I took the unit apart without even noticing.

Pushed it back in and so the far the unit was still working fine when I shut off the car tonight...
----------
Another funny one was tonight when I was re-adjusting the IAC valve.

Brand new engine but still has the original pullies (soon to be replaced) which have surface rust in the grooves and not to mention it is cold out.

So I'm underneath the hood turning the IAC screw and the engine dips down to about 400 RPM. So I grab the throttle and give it a quick jerk, and it was one of those "never knew what hit him" stories.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" followed by me rocketing out from under the hood thinking their was a banshee hiding behind my radiator and going deaf for the next 30 seconds.