Stupid people and vehicles

[Thumpin455]

Its a 4.3, you know 3/4 of a 350. It wouldn't run at all. I've found so many screw ups on this thing and its costing me dearly. I should have told him a much larger bullshit tax than I did. He said he had the plenum off a while back and had to epoxy an injector in, so I'm not touching that. A shop in town told him they scoped it and found a cracked piston. No cracks in the slugs that I have found, the short block looks OK despite the sludge in it. The shops around here are known for bullshit like this, charging people for shit that doesn't need done, and then adding on what the real problem is. I have way too much time in this thing, and most of it is fixing idiot clean up.

[Scott Liggett]

A buddy lost all oil pressure after changing out intake and carb on his 350. We pulled the pan and red shop rags wrapped around crank and rods melted like wax. Thats when he remembered he forgot to remove the shop rags out of the lifter valley when he cleaned the old gaskets off and put new intake on. What a mess.

[Beagle]

Loren reminded me of a great moment in my life. There was an edger that sat in the shop I worked at for what seemed like about a year AFTER I started... not sure how long it had been before. I finally got sick of tripping over it and it's parts bucket and asked what the story was on it. The head mechanic didn't know what was wrong with it, so it was called "junk"... well, I'm bored and sick of looking at it so I put it back together and put gas in it. Vroom. Boss was impressed. Called the guy and they came and paid for the work, which was like 15.00 since all I did was put it back together with a couple of new gaskets, and took it home. Brought it back again the next week - broke again! Boss not impressed. I put some gas in it, vroom. No charge... boss was impressed I kept a straight face. Years before Slingblade... "Ain't got no gasoline in it" haha. Too bad that movie wasn't out, I would have asked for french fried potaters and mustard biscuits.

I helped a neighbor pull the top end off a 350 because of a air filter wing nut. He says, what's the worst that could happen if we didn't? I had a two stroke piston from work with a needle bearing shoved through the crown and showed it to him. After the requisite "shiiiit" he started reaching for wrenches.

When you look at a some 500 pounds of mass in the engine bay and don't know any better, the concept of thousandths of an inch clearance just doesn't sink in. Every kid should have to put together something more sophisticated than a flathead Briggs and Stratton before getting out of grade school, if for no other reason than to have an exposure to it and get even the smallest grasp on what's happening in there. Maybe even stick all the puzzle pieces back in a multi gear manual transmission. Real eye openers! Nevermind, I still need folks to work at Taco Bell.