(not so) Funny Story

[88Toy]

Reading Chris' post regarding engine noises reminded me of an incident that happened to a good friend.

One Christmas several years ago, my friend (I'll call him Tom) received a new, Sears Best induction timing light from Santa. This was a big deal to Tom, being a fledgling DIY mechanic and he wanted to try it out immediately. So in the cold of a late December morning, he took that brand new timing light out to give it a try. He brushed the snow off the hood of his car, raised the hood and proceeded to connect the timing light in strict accordance to the supplied instruction booklet. That done, Tom went around to the driver's seat and turned the key to the start position. Being a perfectly good car with a well tuned engine, that engine fired right up into high idle. After a few seconds, as Tom described it, all hell broke loose. The fan sucked the power leads in and pulled everything loose with it. By the time he got the engine shut down, that shiny new timing light took out the fan, shroud, water pump and radiator, not to mention that timing light itself. All on an engine without a problem in the first place.

Thanks for the giggles, Tom!

[Chris]

How many of us can identify with that?

[The StRanger]

Been there, Done that !!

[Rick]

with things other than vehicles too!!!! Its not broke so lets fix it.....lol

[jayson44]

I know of a story about a guy, let's call him "Jake", who had a cj5 with the iron duke 4cyl engine. it started having intermittent cut-out issues. his buddy who had a shop suggested that it was the old distributor and that upgrading it to a DUI system would be "almost" as much money as doing a v8 swap. 3 months and lots of cash later, he went to fire up his chevy 305. what do you know...intermittent cut outs!

turned out that the power wire to the distributor was shorting. replacing it fixed the original issue. so...instead of replacing a shorted wire, we replaced the engine.

and by "we", I mean "Jake"...

J.

[otisdog]

[94ToyBear]

that's when you grab a Cold one !

[SubAlpine]

hey man, no poking fun. yet

[xaza]

So once this guy I knew, we'll call him Cliff. Pulled the transmission and t-case to replace a leaking water pump. Talk about the hard way to get to the pump, still had this block of steel in the way.

[Squshiee1]

A trickle charger offers similar results but the charger still made it!

[ILuvtheMountains]

I accidentally drained the transmission thefirst time I changed oil in the Taco. I didn't think it would be a big deal but it turns out that you can't just add tranny fluid with this truck. I had to have it towed to the dealership where I was charged$15 per quart for new fluid. And labor to pump it in. 5 quarts if I remember right. The worst part was that I ended up having the dealership do the oil change, which was what I wanted to avoid.

[Squshiee1]

I did the same thing on the rodeo. I drained the trans fluid and started my search for a dipstick, or filler tube; I couldn't find one. So I took a look at my manual... you have to pump fluid into the trans from the check plug, while it is running. So I bought myself a hand pump and pumped 4 quarts into the trans and 1 quart on the ground. The lesson of the story, read before you start a project, even the small ones.

[Hypoid]

I'll play!

A friend brought his Jeep to me because it was making a noise from the front of the engine. As I stood in front of the running engine, I put the stethoscope in my ears and the probe got whacked by the fan. It took about four days for my left ear to get back to "normal." I now understand why most pictures of automotive stethoscopes in use, show the ear pieces directly on front of the ear.