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Stupid things you only did once....
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helowrench
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

67 Shane wrote:
not VW related but I didnt unplug the stove and trusted the breaker to be off when replacing the element this weekend. 220 volts and my God it hurt. Im lucky Im not dead. I will only do that ONCE I dont think I can live through it twice. Now if only that hair will grow back.....

I came to post this. Nice to know I am not alone in the 'standing in. The kitchen looking around waiting for vision to clear, what the hell just bit me, did anyone else see that, wow that spark was bright' category.
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pondoras box
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're not alone at all, I had the spark jump from my chin to the frame of the stove. I could actually see it when it happened. My son who was very young and didn't know how bad it could have been looked at me wide eyed and said "Dad that was cool, do it again!".

It took over a year for that spot on my chin to get 5 o'clock shadow again.

Did this one last weekend, I was doing some welding to the frame of my bus and didn't realize that I had left a blue paper shop towel on the floor, it caught on fire right under my foot and melted my shoelaces before I saw the flames.
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helowrench
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

pondoras box wrote:


Did this one last weekend, I was doing some welding to the frame of my bus and didn't realize that I had left a blue paper shop towel on the floor, it caught on fire right under my foot and melted my shoelaces before I saw the flames.


yep,
I usually smell the fire before I see it if the helmet is down.
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alaskadan
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Drove an old ford van home after fuel pump quit. Stuck a paper cup on the stud sticking out of the carb , poked a couple small holes in the bottom aka jets, and kept pouring a little gas in the cup as I drove. Shocked
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jlm_photo
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not VW related but what the heck... Bought a new house a couple years ago and while working on a new roof for the well pump house found a wire in the ground that seemingly lead to nowhere. Told my father to snip that thing off at the ground. He did. Melted a really great pair of wire cutters. What may have been worse is the wire always had exposed ends. We had been moving it out of our way all day. Lucky neither of us were killed.
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lazwoj
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well its kind of stupid but, on a friends weeding there was a trampoline. And nobody dared to do a somersault, well I was drunk so why not. Result: 3 stitches above my eye. Yeah dont mix jumping hight with a lot of alcohol.
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shortride
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Post on this thread. Razz
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daisy71
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was following my father in his mustang and I felt a bad vibration, turns out I forgot to tighten the lug bolts last time I took the rear drivers side wheel off, I popped the hub cap off and 2 lug bolts fell out and the other 2 were close to falling out Embarassed luckily I was close behind Mr mustang and he went home and got me a jack and 4 way Razz
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kevhum
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 6:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not vw related but,Had A model t for a while.The spark plugs sit in A round trough.I was running it one day and when I was looking at the engine I noticed Water around one of the plugs.I took A rag and screwdriver and attempted to soak the water up.Talk about shocking!
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Stuartzickefoose
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

See sig line...
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wythac
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stupid #1: Used digital caliper from hardware store to measure journals when I couldnt be bothered to retrieve my good ones that I had loaned out to a friend rebuilding HIS motor.

Stupid #2: Install standard bearings in a motor with journals cut .010 under, based on info from Stupid #1.

Stupid #3: When experiencing low oil pressure, tear motor apart, find the wrong "smoking gun", reassemble using the same logic from #1 and #2 above, achieving same results.

Rectified on my third rebuild/install by my friends at my local shop using good calipers to make proper measurements. Did not know until then that good calipers could also be used to apply egg to my face.

I guess technically I did it twice, so maybe it doesnt count here....
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enjoyther1de
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looking up while lowering the slider of a 30' extension ladder not paying attention and running out of wall and dropping the ladder in front of the whole job site. Embarassed
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awreed
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hand tightening the main bearing nuts on my first engine build. Was thoroughly confused when oil started spitting out the split in the case above the pulley. Pulled the motor and stripped down to the short block. Three of the six main bearing nuts and washers were gone and the other 3 I could loosen by hand. Lucky the case halves didn't just pull apart in the middle of a drive.
Never gonna do that again. ALWAYS TORQUE YOUR NUTS AND BOLTS TO THE REQUIRED SPECS!!!
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Singerdude
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Years ago, before I got into air cooled stuff, I was doing motocross. Tired of the cold in Quebec, Canada, I decided to go ride in Florida during the winter. In prep, I took EVERYTHING off the bike, down to the bare frame (that I washed with a toothbrush in my bathtub!!!). I put new bearings everywhere, wheels, linkage, swing-arm, new chain, sprockets, exhaust, cables.... The works...

I had just bought a brand new domestic brand torque wrench at my local auto superstore (it was on sale). I was extremely anal in bolting everything back to specs, double-ckecking everything. A smile of smugness accompanying every "click" from the wrench. I was so proud of me, as I've been known to half-ass it sometimes and just torque stuff by feel Embarassed So I put my all-shinny, super smooth rolling bike in the trailer and 20 something hours later I was in Daytonna.

I got on the track the next day and as I started rolling, I checked the air in my tires like 3 times with different gauges. It felt like both tires were flat but the gauges were all clear. I got on the track, thinking that maybe I had the "new track jitters" or I was tired from the drive and my feeling was off. As I got air on the first jump, my bike felt like a snake between my legs, all loose and wiggly. So I pulled over and rode back to the pits and a fellow rider, from Quebec also, started inspecting my bike. "You lucky sonnofabitch!!!" He said as he started unbolting my wheels with his fingers only... Turned out I had a faulty torque wrench and evrything was not much tighter than "fingertight"... I could have lost a wheel mid-air and broke my neck right there...

So the stupid thing I only did once: buying an on-sale, cheap-a$$ store brand torque wrench.
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caloldschool
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

First one is not VW related but plenty stupid..

Several years ago my partner and I were both standing on ladders while nailing a piece of 1 x 6 facia board about 12' long along the edge of a roof of a house. It had quite a bow in it, and as it was at one point just out of my reach, I reached up with my framing hammer and while placing the claw of it on the board I was with both hands over my head pulling down on it with all my might to take the bow out of it while my partner nailed it (You know where this is going). Of course my hammer slipped off the board and I knocked myself out while placing a hellacious gash with the claw in my forehead. When I came to, my partner and the homeowner's wife were loading me into the front seat of my partners pickup for a trip to the emergency room. It must have been quite a spectacle cuz he's still laughing about it.

More recently, I had saved my nickels and dimes and finally bought a new gene berg shifter I'd been wanting for my 64 sedan. Before having a chance to install it, I had probably looked at it just to admire it no less than five times over the next day or so while it was still in the box. It was like a work of art and absolutely perfect in every way. Just the other day, before pulling the old shifter out, I loaded up the ball of the new shifter with grease and had set it on the workbench while I yanked the old shifter out. I had the side door of my garage which is just adjacent to the edge of my workbench propped open. It had gotten pretty breezy out and when I was crawling into the car to unbolt the old one I heard the door slam shut from the wind. It had jarred the bench enough to knock my new shifter off the end of it and right down onto the concrete floor. After a few choice words, every one I could think of and a "why 'me'...!!??", I picked it up and looked at it and thoroughly. I'm one for attention to detail and having things as close to perfect as can be, making the fact that this could happen all the more heart wrenching. Incredibly the only mark on it was a very small indentation on the tip of the base. I installed it and it works flawlessly. It's one beefy shifter.
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Da TOW'D
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I had a Eurovan on the hoist just finishing off changing out the winter tires when a couple of my friends showed up at closing time with cold beer and new stories.
I left the torque wrench and socket hanging from the top lug bolt on the front wheel to remind me to finish torqueing the lug bolts in the morning.

Next day I went out and remembered about torqueing the lug bolts so I lowered the EV to the ground so the wheels would not spin.

Just about to the ground I heard a very loud snap and parts spinning around the floor. The wrench handle was lower than the tire rubber. So it had most of the weight of the van on it
I ordered a new Warren and Brown 200ft.lb torque wrench from Australia that day and it took just about 3 weeks to arrive.
I had the original one since 1978
I'll not do that again--I hope
cheers
Hank
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thevinster
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I am the son of the man telling this story so it will be from his point of view as he tells it to me. Enjoy!

It was probly about 1986 and I was at an import car store and they had a bulletin board and on it was a 3 by 5 post it and in very bad English and borderline illegible hand writing the note said " pleads motor 36 horsepower" attached was a phone number from Mexico I called it the guy didn't speak English so we got our neighbor who spoke Spanish to talk to him. He gave us directions. So me and some friends hopped in my old Volkswagen bus and drove for two hours straight to Mexico on a hunch that this guy actually had an okrasa. I wasn't allowed to bring the bus across the border, so at this point most people would quit and go back home. Not me and my friends. We were determined to find out if this was real. So we got out and started to walk. We walked two miles uphill in the summertime heat. And in the backyard of this house was a frame and pan of a Volkswagen Beetle with an very dirty okrasa motor on it! Me and my friends pulled the engine from the chassis and bought it for 100 bucks. Realizing we couldn't carry it back to the border we came up with a plan. We noticed his son had a skateboard, so we bought it for five bucks and placed the motor on it and pushed the motor two miles through the streets of Nogales with our belts tying it down to the skateboard. We pushed it across the border and made it through customs after answering a metric ton of questions, most of which were "are actually you insane?" And "why are you doing this?". After that we put the motor in the bus and drove back home where I completely disassembled it and found it had an okrasa 69 millimeter crank. As well as a cam. We cleaned everything put it back together in mint condition and it sat on my shelf for 15 years until I traded it with a friend for a jukebox and some rare vw parts. That friend sold the motor on eBay about 6 months ago. So that's the okrasa motor story, hope you enjoyed!
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EverettB Premium Member
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 10:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool story, thanks!
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cartoonmonkey
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:22 am    Post subject: Re: Stupid things you only did once.... Reply with quote

Put off servicing the latch / rails on my 76 Type 2. Slammed the door so hard one day, I pulled it right off the rails, chipping the paint in one small thumbnail sized bite in the process. @$!@#! Luckily I live near a VW shop that was open President's Day, with nothing going on. The shop guy sternly reprimanded me. "First, never slam the door. Close it gently, and always use both hands!"

Second stupid thing I've done in just a week: Travel with an unbolted cabinet / stove, gone around a corner and had the entire thing crash to the floor. (unharmed mostly) No pic of that brilliant move.

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Blue Baron
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2021 2:15 am    Post subject: Re: Stupid things you only did once.... Reply with quote

Okay, it's my turn.

Back in the day, my dad managed an auto department, and when the store closed down, he brought home some leftover VW accessories, including a bypass oil filter kit. It was the type that runs off the oil pressure switch, and is plumbed back into the engine through a hollow stud in the generator pedestal. I decided to install it on my engine, and it looked pretty slick with the orange Fram filter sticking out between the pulleys.

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One day I was driving and the oil pressure light came on. I stopped to check the engine, and it was covered in oil. Turns out tension from the oil line caused the rinky-dink attachment that screwed into the case to crack the case right at 12 o'clock where the fitting screws in. I lost a perfectly good engine.

Moral of the story: The hole in the case for the oil pressure switch is for the oil pressure switch only! Shame on you
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