• Hello there guest and Welcome to The #1 Classic Mustang forum!
    To gain full access you must Register. Registration is free and it takes only a few moments to complete.
    Already a member? Login here then!

Bad ideas that seemed so good

J

johnpro

Active Member
Ever have those really good ideas, that once implemented turn out to be half-thought out, really bad ideas?

Today we're looking at SacBill's sLime, to see why it's not getting fuel to the carb. I come up with the brilliant idea to use a tape measure as a dip stick to make sure there is actually fuel in the tank before going any further. All works well until we go to pull it out, and the little clip on the end of the tape measure is catching on everything under the sun, and we have a REAL hard time getting it back out.

The basic idea was good, but the implementation was horrible!

What other really good ideas have you had that ended up being really bad ideas?
 
Well, there was this one time at band camp......................
 
I've had my share of a few, but because I have enough sense to run most of my ambitious car-related ideas past fellow SF'ers and especially SAC69, I've been talked out of making some BIG mistakes. Consult, consult, consult.

I learned to stop using wire nuts for electrical work on my car. Vibrations almost always cause them to loosen at just the wrong time. Now I crimp everything.

Also, after I have a few drinks, I seem to believe that tequila shots will make everything more fun. At that moment, I never remember that the following day will start with a major hangover or worse!
 
Half of everything I do with my friends is a bad idea in retrospect:p

Like...

Taking a '75 K1500 with 35" mud terrains out in 2 feet of snow to follow an 80's CJ on a booze cruise through the woods. Jeep cruises on the hard pack, the heavy chevy cuts through to the powder and gets stuck every 50 feet. I hated that truck for most of that drive.

Or taking a shit ton of illegal fireworks with us up to our annual New Year's drinking trip to a ranch in Nor Cal. Us + drinking + explosives = bad idea, lol. By the end of the night, we had lit someone on fire (he was fine), shot several morters past a couple people, and landed quite a few plastic-housed jumping firework deals on the frozen pond, which we had to fetch the next morning.

Or drinking while on said frozen pond. BTW, frozen means 3-5" of ice on top of the pond, not frozen solid.

Or building a 440-powered '70 Challenger for our legally blind friend (still in progress, but it'll be scary).

Or building a towering bonfire in my buddy's backyard during college so we could roast a pig in the ground. Fire dpt showed up for that one...

Or my now ex-girlfriend. That had bad idea written all over it.
 
Made a $140 good/bad idea last month.

Had a few extra minutes out at the farm and decided to fire up the tractor and mow around a couple of pallets of steel that I have next to the fence line. I decided to back the 7 foot mower between two of the pallets and forgot that there was a stack of electric fence posts laying on the ground between them. They came shooting out of the front of the mower and one of the flew right in to one of the rear tires. Glad it was the tire and not me.

Cost me $140 for a new tube and repair (not counting my labor and fuel to be it to ge the tire to town and back).

Lesson learned, do not mow in reverse.
 
Unfortunately, I've had several:

On a prior '65, I had to disconnect the exhaust at one header collector to remove the toploader. Hey, why not start up the car and enjoy one open header? It was fine for 1/2 second until the throwout bearing was literally spit out the trans bellhousing hole and bent up the 3 pressure plate arms in the process. I had loosened the throwout bearing arm to remove the trans and it flopped into the spinning pressure plate.

On the '69 (my first automatic equipped Mustang), I was adjusting the timing and carb not long after buying it. With auto's the car must be in gear when adjusting timing so, not wanting to bother SWMBO (or rather not wanting her to bother me), I chock the rt rr wheel, engage the e-brake and adjust the timing and carb with the car in drive. It works well until I pull the throttle linkage open to "goose" the engine like we all do after an adjustment. The right rear tire starts to peel out and the left front of the car lifts up as I'm leaning into the engine. Nice, I almost caused my own car to kill me.
 
"SAC69" said:
Unfortunately, I've had several:

On a prior '65, I had to disconnect the exhaust at one header collector to remove the toploader. Hey, why not start up the car and enjoy one open header? It was fine for 1/2 second until the throwout bearing was literally spit out the trans bellhousing hole and bent up the 3 pressure plate arms in the process. I had loosened the throwout bearing arm to remove the trans and it flopped into the spinning pressure plate.

On the '69 (my first automatic equipped Mustang), I was adjusting the timing and carb not long after buying it. With auto's the car must be in gear when adjusting timing so, not wanting to bother SWMBO (or rather not wanting her to bother me), I chock the rt rr wheel, engage the e-brake and adjust the timing and carb with the car in drive. It works well until I pull the throttle linkage open to "goose" the engine like we all do after an adjustment. The right rear tire starts to peel out and the left front of the car lifts up as I'm leaning into the engine. Nice, I almost caused my own car to kill me.
Click to expand...
wow!!!! I bet that cost you a clean pair of shorts!!!!
 
My daughter talked me into buying a Mustang on fathers day of '04. My life has been going south ever since then...........
 
"johnpro" said:
Ever have those really good ideas, that once implemented turn out to be half-thought out, really bad ideas?

What other really good ideas have you had that ended up being really bad ideas?
Click to expand...

When this guy comes up to me and says "Hi, My name is Craig"..... :naug :boo
 
Ever have those really good ideas, that once implemented turn out to be half-thought out, really bad ideas?
Click to expand...

Yes, but I've tried to erase from memory all of them.....

The most recent that I can recall though involved relocating the outlet port on a cross-flow radiator to directly below the inlet port above it on the passenger side of the radiators side tank. This served no purpose other than to allow hot water to enter the side tank and immediately exit through the re-located hole below it. I couldn't figure out why the radiator was not cooling the engine..... heck, after I re-located the lower outlet, water didn't even need to flow through the radiator, it just flowed through the side tank!

What a dumb idea.... and it kicked my ass for at least a month trying to figure out the engines cooling problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top