Like many of you I’m sure, part of my morning routine is getting up, having a cup of coffee, and hitting the Interwebs to find out what’s going on in the world. One of my stops on the ol’ Information Superhighway is Facebook. A few months back, they added a feature that tells you what happened on that day in years past, and the History nut in me finds it an interesting study in looking at my own personal online legacy. And since I’m a car guy, every once in a while, I’m reminded of something completely ridiculous that happened to one of my cars. Case in point: what I posted 3 years ago on March 30, 2013 in relation to my poor 1979 Trans Am was both stupidly mind boggling and hilarious. First, let me back up a little bit and tell you a little history on this car.
Way back in 2002, I needed to find a new daily driver to replace a 1989 Nissan Maxima that got cracked up on my way to college in March. I had been looking for months for something interesting to buy, and week after week of flipping through the Want Ad and calling on countless cars proved to be fruitless. I was driving my dad’s spare truck around in the meantime, and I kinda just gave up for a while in the hope I’d find anything decent. One morning at the end of June, my uncle called and said that he saw a 1979 Trans Am for sale on his morning errands. He told me where it was, and I flew over to see the car. While it was far from perfect, it was a running, driving 1979 Trans Am with the WS6 handling package, and it was in my price range! This was a car I’ve wanted since I was about 5 years old, and I had to have it, even though the seller was extremely questionable, I threw caution to the wind and bought it. This car has been with me ever since, and it’s had plenty of “Are you effing serious???” moments, but the one that popped up three years ago today was probably the funniest.
When a guy selling a car is wearing a teal mesh tank top and talking about how the car will do burnouts for days, you should probably run full tilt in the opposite direction. I’m speaking from experience here.
Back in 2007, the car’s original “corporate” Oldsmobile 403 engine decided to start leaking oil from the head mating surface on the rear passenger side. I had already done a freshening up of the engine a couple years prior, having to replace the crank, cam, and other parts due to a particularly bad rod knock, and I promised myself back then that if the 403 ever had to come back out, then it wasn’t going back in. I just wasn’t a fan of the 403, and mine had been a pain since I got the car. I had been amassing parts to build a Ponti-Mutt V8 to put in its place since around 2004. These parts included a 1974 short block I got for free from a local Pontiac guy (thanks Scott!) that was weather seized, the 1968 Pontiac 350 nodular crank and rods in that block, and a set of 1971 GTO #96 heads from a local junkyard’s “private reserve”. I wanted to make around 400hp, so I dropped it off to Dana Hard over at Custom Automotive Machine, or CAMCO, in Weymouth, MA, and he did a great job cleaning up the thing and getting it ready for prime time.
Oooh, shiny! If only it still looked that clean. You can’t have nice things if you live in New England.
It took me a while to get the engine sorted out, in the car, and running well, and then life got in the way. I go engaged to my long time girlfriend, we bought a house, and then we got married. And then, like an idiot, I bought another project car that further distracted me. My Trans Am became one of those “Not for sale! I’m gonna restore it someday!” cars that I had to fend off potential suitors from. Back in 2012, my friends started giving me a hard time about not driving it, so they came down to my place and we had a “dude’s day” to wrench on it and get it back on the road. After doing some tuning, we did some test runs on some country roads to work out some tuning bugs. After one of those runs, the car was running a little funny, and blue smoke was coming out of the driver’s side tail pipe. I feared for the worst, and was defeated and frustrated, so it went into moth balls again while I turned my attention to my other project. That brings us to March 30th, 2013, when I decided to finally look at what happened.
Cars don’t like to sit, especially in New England. That once pretty engine looked gross, and those once-shiny chrome valve covers were getting pitted and rusty.
One of the thoughts I had going through my head was that I had floated or broken a valve, since those test runs included some high RPM antics. At the very least I was looking at pulling a head and having it fixed, so I pulled the valve cover. This is the sight I was greeted with:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
When I built the engine, I installed some Harland Sharp 1.65 roller rockers. I must have missed locking one of them down, and this is the result. The plug was wet with oil, and the valve was just sitting there closed, getting oil sprayed in there! Oh, but it gets better…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Part 2!
No joke, this is what I saw when I pulled the intake and valley pan. When the arm fell off, the lifter said “I’m going to keep lifting until I can’t lift anymore” and just popped out of the lifter bore. This obviously could have been catastrophic, but it was a simple matter of popping it back in and tightening the stupid nut the right way to correct the issue. And then, of course, I had to make this meme and post it up on Facebook:
This car has had its moments over the years, but none of them made me go to my knees on the ground laughing hysterically like this one. When this popped up on my feed again three years later, I just nearly spit out my coffee!
What’s the biggest “ARE YOU KIDDING ME???” moment you’ve had with your ride? Let us know below!
My good mate Mick the Spanner was taking a break from welding up the wings of an ancient Morris Minor station wagon when he smelt burning. He looked down and realised he was still holding the gas welding torch and it had just set his pants on fire. He doused the flames before he was seriously burnt but by then the flames had spread to the wooden parts of the body and the whole car and garage went up in smoke’
Needless to say he didn’t get paid for that job..
True story. 25 years ago. Hard burnout in my 468 powered Chevy altered went WAY over the rev limiter. Car sputtered then a bad miss.Track guys later hand me my #6 intake valve they saw shoot out of the headers. Fact. in the teardown found 5 piston tops dinged up but all the other valve seats and valves went untouched…#6 intake vale was only snapped off at the stem,not smashed or bent up. Somehow passed A 2.19 valve thru 10 holes ,5 exhaust holes of 1.92 size. Scary science!
As someone who has had a lock come loose on its own volition …. put me down as “not a fan” anymore I simply use the old crush style nuts and if they are a bit loose, replace them.
as for fails… never. 😀
Finished a head gasket job on my carbed 302 Ford, and couldn’t get it started. I’d done two engine swaps plus head gaskets previously on the same car, so I was pretty confident in my knowledge of the job.
Wouldn’t start after I got done.
Checked everything multiple times, then paid for a tow, plus shop rates to be reminded that the distributor rotates the other direction. Just needed the plug wires swapped around to the correct firing order.
Been there. Done that. Only was a 390 Ford and I didn’t drive the car until I figured it out a couple weeks later.
Same as above but an Olds 350 and figured it out at 5am the next day.
I had a close call a couple of years earlier. I had bought a new short block, and after finishing the install and filling the oil, fired it up. I had re-used the flat tappet cam from the previous engine, being careful to keep the lifters with each of their respective lobes, but figured I better do a break-in run for the first 10 minutes or so: run the engine at 1500-3500 rpm, then shut it down to dump the oil.
Only thing, I hadn’t put any coolant in it. I don’t know whether it was that or the timing being off, but the headers were cherry red by the time I shut it off. I realized what happened after about 5 minutes, so I just shut it down, packed up, and did the oil change about an hour later when it had cooled down some.
The next morning, I came out, filled the cooling system and took it for a 5 mile test run. It seemed fine. It was a Saturday morning in Gainesville, FL, and I needed to be in western North Carolina on Monday morning. I packed the car, and broke in the engine on my way. It ran great.
After a week, I noticed there was coolant seeping around the head bolts. I had called ARP to ask what they recommended for sealant on the lower row, and had used Locktite brand (NOT threadlocker).
Whether from the heat from no coolant, or the failure of the product to hold, I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to trust the head gaskets if I pulled the bolts to reseal them, so I had to change the head gaskets. Luckily, I hadn’t done any worse damage to the engine.
Same thing happened to me the first time in replaced the cap on my Olds 350. Took hours to realize what I did!
I rebuilt the motor in my truck,while breaking the cam in it died and the oil was grey.I forgot to make sure it had enough gas and forgot to tighten the intake,so after changing oil and putting in 2 gallons of 2 cycle gas is was running again but a little smokey.Thank you Chris for saving my butt!!!
one comes to mind – had a driveline vibration – and a very bad flu.. pulled up the driveway, pissed off with the vibration I jacked the diff juust enough that the back wheels were maybe 1/2″ off the ground, then I’m laying on the ground with my head under the car and my hand on the accelerator trying to hit the vibration spot while looking at the tailshaft…I remember thinking `what IS that wind I can feel on the back of my neck’? turned my head to see that the rapidly spinning tyre was just brushing my hair, and was about 1/2″ from my face….if I had’ve moved any distance at all backward I would have been pat between the wheel and the ground at around 50 mph….
* spat that should read, not pat
1.). ’77 scout 196″ 4-cyl. Won’t start. Trouble shoot. Fail. Procrastinate. Troubleshoot. Fail. Re-think. Procrastinate. Troubleshoot. Fail. Replace ignition. Uhh, the whole system. Piece by piece. Troubleshoot. Fail. After 3 weeks of this, I popped the cap on the new distributor. DUH. FORGOT THE ROTOR. It fired right up.
2.). Diving home from Loring ME LSR event in the ’56 pickup. 11th hour of a 12-hr drive, NO RADIO. No overdrive, and 4.10’s. Just coming into the city limits of Boston, we hit a pothole the size of Rhode Island, only deeper. So hard the freaking HORN RELAY stuck. Now we’re (me & the gf–future wife) driving along through some rough neighborhoods and the horn is blaring constantly. I thought we were gonna get shot. Finally pulled over and cut the ground
Brought my car out of a long term slumber. I parked it due to an ignition issue I did not want to deal with. Finally decided it was time so put in a new dizzy and late model electronic ignition. Rewired everything, new plugs. Started the car, it fired off but ran like crap. Could not for the life of me figure out WTF was wrong….then….I realized I routed all the plug wires wrong. Fired up first try after I put them in the right spot and ran sweetly….
Accidentally installed a marine cam in small block chev , would spin over hard and then kick back and try to run in reverse . Jet boat buddy figured it out .
Had a few beers putting the bottom end on my 377 together. Missed the lube on #3 did bolts. Yup . Spun on fire up, took out the wind age tray in my brand new pan too……. Dumbass
The timing chain on my 2005 300C broke on a road trip, about 800 miles from home. Interference engine, so valves were toast. Had to get the car shipped home for about $1000 plus rent a car to finish the vacation. Rebuilt the engine when we got back – replaced two pistons due to dings from the valve contact.
Got it running again and ran great. About 1000 miles later, noticed blue smoke out the tailpipes on acceleration and it started misfiring. Pulled the plugs and one cylinder was covered with oil. Pulled the head – the wrist pin on one of the new pistons came loose and gouged the block.
Pulled it back out, had it sleeved, re-rebuilt it, and fired it up again. Ran great for a couple minutes then started misfiring. Shut it down, checked things out, tried starting it again and it wouldn’t crank – was mechanically bound.
Intake valve seats on TWO cylinders on the opposite cylinder bank popped out. One broke apart and mangled a piston and the head, but somehow didn’t scratch the cylinder. Pulled it apart again (this time left it in the car – just dropped the pan), got a new head and sent both heads out for new valve seats. Machinist said 6 of the intake seats were loose between the original, undamaged head and the replacement head (thanks, Chrysler).
Finally got it back together and it’s got about 3k miles on it now – but what an expensive vacation that turned out to be.
Similar look, but engine running fine. Did an intake manifold swap on a 400 SBC (high rise to dual plane) to lower carb height
In valley of engine is a bent pushrod. All 16 rods are in and working fine, but another bent one sitting there.
Ring previous owner, find out that it happened years prior when he was setting valve clearances running with rocker covers off. Bent pushrod and it dropped into valley, so he just grabbed a spare and put it in – no worries.
I just recently bought a 99 Mustang GT (mustang #13 for me over the years). As i do with all new, used car purchases, i change all the fluids.
This particular mustang has a T45 manual trans which holds 3.3 quarts of fluid.
In prep for draining the trans fluid, i pulled the Fill port plug. Immediately trans fluid starts coming out. Luckily i had a 7 quart capacitu drain pan near by. I drained 5 1/2 quarts of fluid out of the Fill port on that trans.
In total, the previous idiots (this eas only one of a long list of WTF moments with this car) had put in over 2 gallons of fluid in the trans.
It was a good WTF moment and laugh.