merlin
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 posted on 24/3/02 at 08:03 PM |
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Funnies or just pure stupidity!
Anyone had any incidents to share to brighten up the site? How about this for starters...
sitting in the car, adjusting the height of the steering column to clear my lanky legs when the car starts rolling across the workshop!!!No probs,
foot automatically punches for the brake pedal...no pedal (no pedalbox, no calipers fitted anyway!)OK, pulled the handbrake rapidly...no cable
attached yet! Underpants changing colour quicker than a set of staging lights at SantaPod I had to ride it out...
Thankfully no-one saw the car with it's frantic looking 'driver' flying across the workshop coming to rest in a pile of road cones piled in the
corner!
Come on, there must be some other idiots out there..... 
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chrisg
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 posted on 24/3/02 at 11:13 PM |
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Ok, here goes!
Back in the mists of time, when I was doing my chassis, I had a garage clearout which basically consisted of sweeping all the cr*p (oily rags mostly)
down to the end of the garage, in front of the doors (remember that, it will be important later)
Obviously being the worlds best welder, my welds didn’t need much tidying with grinder. Anyway, about an hour into the “grinderthon” I looked up to
find that the sparks were landing on the oily rags, and, to put it bluntly, the only way out of the garage was a f*ck*ng inferno.
I was slightly perturbed by this.
Screaming like a little girl brought my next door neighbour on his white charger, with a fire extinguisher.
Lessons learned:-
1. Get a fire extinguisher (quite important)
2. No car (not even a Locost) is worth being barbied
3. Tidy the garage once in a while (properly)
4. Life is not a rehersal, enjoy NOW.
(And come to Le Mans with us Bob)
Cheers
Chris
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stephen_gusterson
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| posted on 25/3/02 at 08:35 PM |
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Not exactly funny, but last easter a stray spark got under my eye protection and went into my eye (from a grinder). I didnt realise until a few days,
but then it got real painful and i had to have anasthetic in my eyes and a thing like a crochet hook was used to pick the rust outa my eye. Not as bad
as it sounds.
My kids asked me how far into the build I was, and wer calculating how many other phyiscal injuries I was gonna get before the build completes!
Nice to know someone cares 
ATB
Steve
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theconrodkid
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| posted on 26/3/02 at 08:35 PM |
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It had been pointed out to me that my steering rack was a tad high thought nothing of it till i tried to fit a pair of front wing stays i stole from
Merlin,wouldnt fit.
looking at Tonys car i discovered i had put the front hubs on the wrong sides! what a plonker! 
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 9/4/02 at 08:05 AM |
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Ho hum...
After smiling knowingly at the silly mistakes listed here, I went and did one myself last night.
My car's rolling around on 2 front wheels now (plus a trolley on the back), so I wheeled it forward and put the back axle up on a workmate to get it
ready for installation - brake pipes, etc.
This is my first try at making and fitting brake pipes, so I read the books, bent the tubes nicely, put the nuts on and flared the tubes beautifully.
Nipped up all the nuts, stepped back to admire my really neat workmanship... and realised that I'd laid the pipes straight across where the
suspension links should go...
Doh!
David
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James
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| posted on 9/4/02 at 11:11 AM |
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Whilst tidying the garage I knocked over the precariously placed box that had my ex-motorcycle front indicators in. Manage to not only smash the bulbs
but crack the plastic lens too!
And I was so pleased I'd got them for such a bargain too...
James
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James
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| posted on 3/5/02 at 11:09 AM |
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Glad to say I've got another one for the list!
Was doing a bit of angle grinding- from which the sparks were hitting the side of a the work bench so I moved it round so that they were instead
directed at the nice empty space I'd cleared at the end of which was a spare (unused) toilet, cystern(sp?) and pedestal. Being ceramic I wasn't too
bothered about the sparks hitting them...
That is until I decided to move them the other day and realised that a bunch of the sparks had welded themselves all over the seat, cystern, pedestal
etc!
Doh!
But, as I told my father (who wanted them for the bathroom he's building) atleast if we do use them it means you get free exfoliation of the arse
when you sit on the bog!
James
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Liam
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| posted on 3/5/02 at 11:50 AM |
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Me and a mate were stripping my donor Sierra outside the garage where it lived. To make access easier, we were chopping up the car at the same time.
Our chosen tools were two petrol disc cutters I borrowed from work.
We were almost done and decided to roll the back half up-side-down to remove the rear axle. Being sensible types, we decided we ought to remove the
fuel tank before getting really happy with the disc cutters. The tow bar was in the way of the fuel tank bolts, and somehow I decided that cutting
off the tow bar with the disc cutter would be a good idea.
About half way through I realised one of the wheels was on fire, so me and my mate swiftly abandoned ship. I legged it 50yds to the nearby motor
factors and bought a fire extinguisher. By the time I got back (about 30 seconds) the flames had grown somewhat. Dissappointingly, 10 quid of fire
extinguisher only served to blow some of the flames out of the way temporarily.
So I gave up and ran to a conveniently placed phone box and dialled 999. As I was on the phone, the fuel tank popped in a reasonably impressive ball
of flames, and by now we had a 15ft high inferno billowing thick black rubber smoke all over someones nice new Landrover and various washing lines.
We had quite an audience by then as well.
The fire brigade arrived and promptly saved the day. I thought I was gonna be bollocked big time and fined but they were totally cool and thought it
was quite funny. Two of them weren't firemen at all, they were firebabes, and I fell in love.
Overall, a very cool experience indeed. Seems that there was a breather on the top of the fuel tank, and when we rolled the car over, a load of fuel
had spewed out of the breather into the wheel arch, which didn't mix too well with red hot shards of tow bar.
The moral of that story is that a small fire extinguisher can't put out a flaming car, so dont waste a tenner - be grateful that our taxes provide
big red engines and nice people that are well up to the job, and will do it for free.
Liam
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JohnFol
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| posted on 3/5/02 at 12:14 PM |
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I once had an Allegro, but not a torque wrench. I replaced the front bearings but had to guess the torque settings. Result? well after a long drive .
. . where the brake disk had begun to wobble . .. and had pushed the brake pads back a looong way . . . came to stop and there was nothing there. A
few pumps later and all was well.
Also stuck in traffic once and decided to re-stick the sole of a peeling shoe back on with super glue. Traffic moved, but had finger stuck to shoe.
One last one from last month (which you can complete yourself). On way back from visiting scrap yards I turn to a friend and say "Fancy a beer". We
go for a beer via a short cut I use regularly. On approaching the ford, I turn and say to the same friend, "It's a bit deeper than usual. Feeling
lucky? .. . "
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