Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

ukdave2002 · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 4287 Location: South Cheshire

What have your blonde moments been?

I have been re-commissioning the Stag, it's been standing for about 12 months, when I started it I noticed that the fuel gauge wasn't registering anything; made a mental note to check the gauge and sender connections....all connections looked good, gauge had the right battery voltage...bugger must be a faulty sender... Ok it can wait.

To cut a long story short I was adjusting the carbs, when the engine stopped Shocked

The reason that the fuel gauge registered empty was because that tank had no fuel in it Embarassed

a trip to Morrisons with a 25l can cured both problems, the car started and the fuel gauge registered about 1/4 full Embarassed

So what have your own blonde moment been?

Dave

kevin2306 · Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:42 pm Post subject:

I once erected a lovely garden shed.
got it all up, roof covering on, nice door with a secure lock so..all done and locked up with the last job being the glazing,
so after finishing it all off I then realised i had out the keys safely on the ledge inside the shed Laughing

Kev

vitesse · Joined: 03 Jun 2013 Posts: 561

I did one recently on my Fiat 500 restoration. I had to buy a new rear view mirror and it also houses the interior light which is very clever. I think it was Gordon Murray designer of the McLaren F1 who took the idea and put it in one of the McLaren road cars.

Anyway the original one was plastic and someone in the past had put the wrong wattage bulb in and it had melted the casing. So I bought a new one costing nearly £50. As you all know some of these aftermarket non OEM parts always seem to have something wrong with them so I offered it up to the mounting bracket and the mounting bolt wouldn't go through the hole to put a nut on the other side. So a bit of cursing along the lines of "you would think for 50 quid they could get the bolt size the same". So out comes the electric drill to make the hole on the bracket bigger. No problems only had to make it a tiny bit bigger for it to go through. I pick up the mirror and I am looking at the mounting bolt, thinking why does it have a recess cut on each side so a spanner can fit on it? It then dawns on me that it was meant to be twisted onto the bracket, as the bracket was threaded and I have just drilled all the threads out. Oh well it is hardly noticeable with a nut on the other side instead. Embarassed

Rosco663 · Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Posts: 257 Location: South Australia

I did once along time ago which was just like the joke following. Cleanup was horendous and a spare was promptly purchased from the nearest wreckers to contain the new oil. The old Datsun was never the same after that........

"A few days ago I was having some work done at my local garage. A blonde came in and asked for a seven-hundred-ten.

We all looked at each other and another customer asked, 'What is a seven-hundred-ten?'

She replied, 'You know, the little piece in the middle of the engine, I have lost it and need a new one..'

She replied that she did not know exactly what it was, but this piece had always been there.

The mechanic gave her a piece of paper and a pen and asked her to draw what the piece looked like.

She drew a circle and in the middle of it wrote 710. He then took her over to another car which had its hood up and asked 'is there a 710 on this car?'

She pointed and said, 'Of course, its right there.'

If you're not sure what a 710 is, scroll down....."

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Rosco

Greeney in France · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 7:05 am Post subject:

I had all the door panels off the 560SE recently so I took the opportunity to grease the window runners, wax the interiors etc.
I had disconnected the battery (as always) as most f the interior was out which included the buttons that run the windows.
I have a spare small 12v battery with a few different leads for testing etc so knowing which terminals to touch to get the windows up and down so readied myself.
Lots of of greases etc come in aerosol form but I forgot about the propellent left behind in the door cavity after spraying...
Connected window block, spark ignited propellent... woof...
I singed my eyebrows Embarassed

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www.OldFrenchCars.com

We do these things not to escape life but to prevent life escaping us

peppiB · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:03 am Post subject:

About 4 years ago I changed the gearbox on the landcrab. On completion she wouldn't start. Half a day of trying all sorts, including new battery and i just couldn't get her to spark

In frustration I called out RAC. First thing he said 'is it a good earth from the gearbox?' I had forgotten to reattach the earth cable Rolling Eyes

Bitumen Boy · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:56 am Post subject:

I've had a similar one to Dave, grinding away trying to start an engine after a layup when the last dregs of petrol had evaporated away, but my best one was more recently. About 8-9 years ago the driver's window mechanism on the Herald packed up, so I had a look and found that one of the "slider" pieces had come adrift from the (very rusty) steel channel that supports the drop glass. Being short of cash at the time I bodged it back together with some fancy polyurethane glue left over from mending something else. Anyway, fast forward to this winter and the same thing happened, the glued joint had failed. The steel channel still needs replacing, but now I was short on time to do the job, so I cleaned it up, found the remains of the same glue and performed a similar act of bodgery. Now of course doing this with everything in situ precludes using any sort of clamps, so I supported the slider on a bit of scrap timber in the bottom of the door then draped some old shirts and a bit of heavy chain over the top of the glass to weigh it down, before checking it over the next day -worked fine - and then putting the door card and handles back on. It soon went funny again though - glass wouldn't drop more than a couple of inches. Opened it up again and found I'd left the piece of wood in the door bottom Embarassed

Keith D · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:16 pm Post subject:

Whenever I do anything connected with the distributer on any car of mine, I ALWAYS forget to replace the rotor button and wonder why the dammed car won't start! I've been doing this for the last 50 years! You really think I'd learn by now!

Keith

Peter_L · Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:14 pm Post subject:

I once came out of a supermarket and found my car gone. I reported it to the police and got a taxi home only to be told that it was at the garage and I had a courtesy car.

It took years to never live it down, if I was to remind the good lady that she had forgotten something.