Murphy's Law - Tell us your story

[Labradorian]

Don't know if there is a topic out there like this one but I did do a search and nothing came up.

Ever do a job or project and right from the beginning what was going to go wrong went wrong.
Or ever try to do an upgrade on something and you actually made the situation worse?

Tell us your story


The only thing I can think of right now is regarding my ATV. I snorkeled the clutch housing for the deep water crossings but never snorkeled the air box.
I went through every water hole imaginable and never got any water in the engine/airbox. Did this for years without an issue. last year I decided to add the airbox snorkel kit and low and behold the first water hole i went into water went into airbox and into engine. I guess the snorkel kit was not sealed as good as I thought. I should of well left it alone, i had to take the cylinder head off the engine and discovered that the pistion rings were squeezed into the piston slots and stuck so i had no compression. replaced the rings and she is back up and running again.

Sometimes one needs to leave well enough alone.

tell us your storys of Murphy's law or I should of left well enough alone.

cheers

 

[KRB52]

We were renting a house several years ago. Only one bathroom and we noticed that the floor around the toilet was pretty soft and the wood was rotten. We got permission from the landlord (out of state) to redo it and take the cost of materials off the rent. Several months later, after the wood was no good, it's time to do the floor. We got more wood (two sheets of plywood and two of thin luan for the underlay.) I started working on tearing up the "bad" parts about 10 am Saturday morning. The more I pulled up and looked at the subfloor, the more rotted areas I found. I finally finished the floor so you could walk on it, with the toilet back in place (did I mention that there was only one bathroom and the kids were about 6 and 7 years old?) at about 2 am Sunday. I hooked the vanity back up later Sunday morning (after sleep.) For only having a rough idea of what I needed to do, the floor didn't come out too bad.

 

[WVBrady]

When I worked as an electrical engineer for the local power company, one of my jobs was to check the fusing jobs that were sent in from the various divisions by the planning engineers.

On one, I recommended to the planning engineer that we put a fuse on a short tap off the main line. After the job had been done a few months, I saw on the trouble report that we had a fault on that line that was not cleared properly. I called him up and said I thought that we had agreed to fuse that tap. He chuckled and said that he had specified it, but construction thought that they knew better and didn't put it up. They annealed (ruined) the main line all the way back to the substation.

On another job that I was checking, I noticed that on a previous job they had replaced the substation transformer with a larger one that allowed more fault current that one of the reclosers on a close-in tap could not handle. I called the planning engineer to tell him that and he chuckled and said that he had just gotten off the phone with a construction foreman who informed him that they had a fault just that morning on that tap and burned up the recloser.

When I was a kid working on my grandfather's farm, I was going to use the horse drawn rake to rake up some hay when I noticed that the bolt holding on the seat was worn almost through. When I told him about it, he said: "That bolt has held for me for forty years". When I reached back and pulled the lever to lift the tines, the seat gave way and I fell back off the rake. Fortunately, the old horse was calm and just stopped. If I had pulled on the reins as I fell, he could have back the tines back over me. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that it happened to me instead of my nearly 80 year old grandfather.

 

[Labradorian]

When I worked as an electrical engineer for the local power company, one of my jobs was to check the fusing jobs that were sent in from the various divisions by the planning engineers.

On one, I recommended to the planning engineer that we put a fuse on a short tap off the main line. After the job had been done a few months, I saw on the trouble report that we had a fault on that line that was not cleared properly. I called him up and said I thought that we had agreed to fuse that tap. He chuckled and said that he had specified it, but construction thought that they knew better and didn't put it up. They annealed (ruined) the main line all the way back to the substation.

On another job that I was checking, I noticed that on a previous job they had replaced the substation transformer with a larger one that allowed more fault current that one of the reclosers on a close-in tap could not handle. I called the planning engineer to tell him that and he chuckled and said that he had just gotten off the phone with a construction foreman who informed him that they had a fault just that morning on that tap and burned up the recloser.

When I was a kid working on my grandfather's farm, I was going to use the horse drawn rake to rake up some hay when I noticed that the bolt holding on the seat was worn almost through. When I told him about it, he said: "That bolt has held for me for forty years". When I reached back and pulled the lever to lift the tines, the seat gave way and I fell back off the rake. Fortunately, the old horse was calm and just stopped. If I had pulled on the reins as I fell, he could have back the tines back over me. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that it happened to me instead of my nearly 80 year old grandfather.

i can relate to your electrical stories as Im a Electrical designer. What frustrated me to no end is when the electrician or someone in the field takes my wiring diagram i created and decides to wire it their own way......then calls me and wonders why they keep blowing fuses. In my design I had 2 small pumps each fed from their own fuse. The field electrician decided to wire both pumps to just one of the fuses without increasing its size. They had the wiring diagram with them in the field too when trying to trouble shoot. This particular job was a pain in the but from beginning to end.

cheers

 

[58Yeoman]

A couple years ago, I'd taken a week off work to install a new vanity, one piece sink/top and re-do the shower plumbing, which shared the wall with the right side of the vanity. It's a 60" vanity in a slightly smaller space, which meant that I had to sand down quite a bit of each end to make it fit. I had to pull two electrical outlets to give me room to slide/set it in. The caulking job was the best that I'd ever done, and it all looked great.

Fast forward to this year, when the overhead light was being changed (it's mounted on a dropped part of the ceiling above the vanity). I couldn't get one screw out, so I sat on the vanity to better work on it. Then I heard the crack. My wife said that she really didn't like the vanity top after I'd put it in, but it had taken so long, that she didn't say anything about it. We've bought a new top, but it's still in the box, waiting for more time off. I hate doing jobs over.

 

[bigpokie]

Being a Murphy, I find this topic to be very offensive and off color !


Buuuuut since it is so true....

Me and a friend pulled the engine/****** in my wife's 95 civic cause we thought the crank broke. After we pull it out and is hanging in the air, I notice the crank pulley just kind of wobbling there. FML ! The pulley itself broke, and could have been replaced through the wheel well and from under the car.

The same job, after we got it all back together. Everything was fine no extra parts or anything. Start it up the hear the loudest ticking/clunking. After a hour and few more start and stops. It was the gravel shield on the tranjy hitting the torque converter bolts. Easy fix. But racked the brain.

 

[Kevin54]

I think in my case, it was Murphy's "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"

I was building my family room on. I laid everything out and had it square. I had the footers poured, and things were ready for the block layer. I had already snapped the chalk lines for the block. The block layer came, checked things, and told me I was off. Maybe I was but I didn't think so. I work with metal and very close tolerances, but I let him have his way. Damn if he didn't resnap the lines, moved them about a 1/2" on one side. It screwed up my one wall by 1/2". The block layer was off.

Once the foundation was up, I had already built the walls in the garage. I had to alter the one wall because things were now 1/2" long on my part. But we got the walls up. Another evening, a friend stopped over and we set the trusses. Got that all done, and everything was good. On a Saturday, we had a few over to sheet the roof and tie things into the house. My boss from the shop, who is the biggest ****** intellectual (******* know-it-all) you would ever know was also here helping. He's on the roof giving me dimensions and I'm cutting rafters down below. I get the rafters cut, and now for the sheeting. He's giving me dimensions, and we get to the last two small sheets, and he has a hell of a time nailing them down. He finally gets them nailed, we clean up and have a cookout. We also had the felt on too.

After everyone has left, I go inside and look, and my so smart of a boss, nailed 6 rafters, 3/side, on backwards. I remembered earlier that my boss told me I cut them wrong, and I questioned him. He put the rafters on the opposite side of the ridge beam, so the rafters were sitting on the knife edge instead of flat to the roof.

The next day, I took off work to get the drip edge up. I have the drip edge laying on the roof, there is a slight breeze blowing, and I hear a crash. I look around and my ladder is gone. The damn thing blew down. Normally there are 20 people an hour that drive by that we know. So I'm sitting on the roof, watching the road, and not one car drives by. My truck is at the gable side of the house, so I can't jump in the bed. When I was a kid, we used to jump off of roofs all the time. Well ****, I look over the edge, and it's a lot further than I remember as as kid. Finally I just nut up and walk off the edge, right into a bunch of mud. Now I'm pissed. I wash up, throw the ladder back on the roof, get up, a breeze blows and my drip edge starts to go off the roof. I run to grab it, and hear a crash. ******* me, I didn't tie the ladder down, and the damn thing blew right off the roof again, leaving me stranded for the second time in 90 minutes. Back off the roof and back into the mud. And the second time jumping off of a roof in that amount of time, hurts!!!!!!

So by now the roofs on, the outside is completed, and it's time for drywall. I hire a guy to drywall just the ceiling as he has everything as far as the drywall jack, plus his wife that worked at the shop says that he has worked for some high end people, so I ask him if he can texture it also. With working at the shop, working overtime, then working on the house and around the house, I never paid attention to the fact that he ran the drywall on the ceiling the wrong way. He ran it with the trusses instead of across the trusses. I get the rest of the drywall up and finished sanded. All that is left is the ceiling. I am working while he's working on the house. I came home to the biggest *********** of a mess that there was. A drunken monkey would have done a better job of texturing. I am on the phone pitching a *****, and he tells me that he will fix everything. Oh Holy ****!!!!! This guy had to be hammered when he did the fix. For one, the drywall is rran the wrong way. He taped, mudded, and stomped in one day, he repaired it the next day by stomping the 200 places that he had missed prior. I told him that he had one hour to get my money back to me or we go to court. He stops and just walks right on in the house. I should have shot him as an intruder. He gives me my money back and leaves. About a week later, I am going to scrape the ceiling. I squirt it with water but nothing is happening. I call the guy and asked him what the hell he did to the ceiling that I can't scrape it. Instead of using topping compound, he used joint compound. Joint compound is not a true white, and will dry sort of yellow, so he thins it with white paint. Once paints mixed with it, it doesn't scrape off. So I get a 5 gallon bucket of topping, a real nappy roller, thin it down some, and just start rolling to hide his screwup. We lived with that ****** looking, drooping ceiling in our brand new family room for over 15 years. Last year, I had my drywall guy come in, fir things down, and put up a proper textured ceiling, although we had a knockdown texture. It matches the rest of the house, but just not as pronounced, and it is nice and flat.

 

[over40pirate]

BIL's Suburban, 4x4 with a 350, needed a new motor.
I picked up a rebuilt short block, pair of heads, oil pump and gasket set from a place that sells rebuilt motors.

Took bearing caps off to check clearances, and took the cam out to check the bearings.
They never changed the cam bearings!
Returned it and got another short block.
This one checked out ok, as far as I checked.
Installed it, started up and smoked a lot. Ran a few minutes and still smoked a lot.
Shut off and ate lunch.
Tried to restart and seemed like the battery was weak.
Charged battery. Re started and the motor started knocking like you wouldn't believe.
Before telling what the problem was, which required replacing the motor, lets get votes, on what the problem was.
Ideas?

 

[Gizmosity]

My uncle has a small high end body/paint shop. I worked for him every spare hour I had when I was going to school.

One day he got some hot deal on a 66 Mustang Fastback and drug it to the shop for a 'shop car'. Sweet looking car, just needed a bit of love, some wheels/tires and some fresh paint, quick flip for righteous cash. Right.

This car fought us all winter. New rear quarters, engine gremlins, lost parts, you name it.

Got it all put back together in a sleepless week-long push so we could take off and hit a three day Mustang cruise near Seattle. On our way, we stopped just out of town at a friends shop to gloat about getting the shop car done and enjoying actually having a done car to go to a show in, he never seems to get a shop car done, lots of digs/jokes...........we dumped the ****** in his driveway and had to call for a rollback to drag it home.

Several weeks later we took best in show at an All Mustang Show with a 'For Sale' card in the windshield. SOLD.

 

[Throbbin Rods]

Had a 99 Suburban with a 5.0 and it had been rebuilt but the intake gaskets were leaking. Pulled it apart on a day that I ended up with a vicious migraine halfway through the job, squinting, cussing, puking etc. Got it back together and decided to flush the heater core because I wasn't happy with the amount of heat it put out. Clamped and unhooked the heater hoses, hooked a couple of short ones to the stems, went and got the hose, reached in side the engine bay and hooked the hose to it. Nothing coming out the other side of the core. Still nothing. Hmmm. ****! - I had the water running into the rubber hose from the valve cover to the air cleaner I had just changed the oil that day! Drained the oil, filled with new oil. Ran 20 minutes, drained and filled with new oil again. Then I flushed the danged heater core. I have been fixing cars since I was 12 and never had such a cluster of a day. Went to bed, puked a couple of times then slept off the rest of the migraine.

 

[Throbbin Rods]

BIL's Suburban, 4x4 with a 350, needed a new motor.
I picked up a rebuilt short block, pair of heads, oil pump and gasket set from a place that sells rebuilt motors.

Took bearing caps off to check clearances, and took the cam out to check the bearings.
They never changed the cam bearings!
Returned it and got another short block.
This one checked out ok, as far as I checked.
Installed it, started up and smoked a lot. Ran a few minutes and still smoked a lot.
Shut off and ate lunch.
Tried to restart and seemed like the battery was weak.
Charged battery. Re started and the motor started knocking like you wouldn't believe.
Before telling what the problem was, which required replacing the motor, lets get votes, on what the problem was.
Ideas?

No oil in the motor?

 

[97CV]

Been working on my garage build since April of this year.

3 month delay on my concrete.

Guy is calling to schedule me this coming week...for the only two days this week it's going to rain.

 

[hippie2cams]

wrist pin

 

[Kevin54]

BIL's Suburban, 4x4 with a 350, needed a new motor.
I picked up a rebuilt short block, pair of heads, oil pump and gasket set from a place that sells rebuilt motors.

Took bearing caps off to check clearances, and took the cam out to check the bearings.
They never changed the cam bearings!
Returned it and got another short block.
This one checked out ok, as far as I checked.
Installed it, started up and smoked a lot. Ran a few minutes and still smoked a lot.
Shut off and ate lunch.
Tried to restart and seemed like the battery was weak.
Charged battery. Re started and the motor started knocking like you wouldn't believe.
Before telling what the problem was, which required replacing the motor, lets get votes, on what the problem was.
Ideas?

Ring gaps all lines up? Valves hammering on the pistons? Way too much oil?

 

[jeff000]

i can relate to your electrical stories as Im a Electrical designer. What frustrated me to no end is when the electrician or someone in the field takes my wiring diagram i created and decides to wire it their own way......then calls me and wonders why they keep blowing fuses. In my design I had 2 small pumps each fed from their own fuse. The field electrician decided to wire both pumps to just one of the fuses without increasing its size. They had the wiring diagram with them in the field too when trying to trouble shoot. This particular job was a pain in the but from beginning to end.

cheers

As a field electrician that is now doing a lot of the designing and project management. I often times feel like Electrical engineers (engineers in general) and the designers need to work in the field, or at least build up what they design every now and then. I change things all the time, but would never double up the pumps on a fuse.

EVERY! site I go to that is a "Oh the engineer said it is easy, just do this or that" has been a nightmare.


Friday I was out in the field for a simple wiring change in a panel, switching the negative instead of the positive (long story), moving a few wires around and changing some labels. Run out of labels with one left to print.... really. start taking the old stuff out, and find out whoever put the panel together cracked almost all the WDU 2.5 terminals and just used electrical tape on them... go to my truck for replacements and am one short... really.
Almost done wiring it up when I am one farrel short.... REALLY!.

Whole day was like that, putting up some drywall in my basement, putting the last screw in and my last battery dies with it sticking out 3/16" still.

 

[Labradorian]

I hear ya. I often will call an electrician for advice on how to do what I want to do. They usually recipricate by calling me and asking me if it is ok to wire or do it this way and I respect their experience and usually say yes. I also have work with engineers as im a middle man. I have some field experience and designing something I try to pretend im in the field trying to do it my self. Its all. Team effort. When im not sure like I said I will call one of our electricians and they respect that.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Sounds like my motorhome story.

Bought this early 70's motorhome, used an Olds 455 for power. Supposedly good shape. Got it about 100 miles and it started coming apart - brakes to motor to ****** to fuel pump. Numerous on the road fixes later, got it home. Motor was weak and blowing oil, smoke and ran hot, so I figure time for a new one. Tried to go back after the seller, who had his lawyer contact me and threaten me for defamation.

So I figured, well, WTF, I'll just put a new motor in this pig. Was going to crate motor it ($3400) and this "friend" of my brother who "built big block race motors" would give me a deal...

Ended up costing me about 7 grand (and a few months), got it broken in, took it on its first trip, Bay Area to Nevada... and 150 miles it started getting *hot* and smoking. Wheezed it to Reno, got some 50 Wt in it, and barely made it home.

Turns out the "race motor driver" didn't bother to check the block when he had it apart. Turns out the block was warped, and he didn't think to have it line bored. Cylinders were scored - well, some of those pistons *looked* OK. Put this aftermarket manifold on it (when the old one was fine) and then had to shoehorn this aftermarket carb (jetted wrong) and worthless air cleaner on it to fit the tunnel. Leaked air like a sieve.

Took it back to the putz to have him redo his major F*** up. Got it back (8 months later), got 3 miles up the road, and the electrics (where his flunkee had wired it up wrong) got hot and caught fire. Didn't do *too* much damage, but what was was bad - brake lines, water lines, electrical supply, etc.

They *eventually* made it right (only took them 2 years!) and then they tried to charge me for their f*** up, because it was "taking up shop space". Grrrr.....

To this day I have been a faithful tent camper. And if someone says "Hey, I can do this for you and save you some money" I run, but only after fighting the urge to either slap them or shoot them... and every time I think about an RV, all my other half has to say is "Brunhilde" (the nickname of our unused now $14K 40 year old motorhome) and I'm *quite* cured of the folly.

 

[My Old Tools]

There I was, minding my own business. I was single, had a big shop, lots of toys...uh tools to use, land, pond, two or three dive trips a year to the islands. Then I meet this long haired, long legged, smart mouth, hot as hell female. Ten years later I'm married, need permission to buy toys...uh tools, lots of honey do's, but the house is clean and the bed is warm. Oh, and I just built a new shop.

 

[mike91lx]

Recently had to pull the motor out of my camry. Everything went perfectly, was thinking how about I didn't run into a single snag through a whole thing then 30 seconds later snapped every bolt off the exhaust manifold

 

[jeff000]

I hear ya. I often will call an electrician for advice on how to do what I want to do. They usually recipricate by calling me and asking me if it is ok to wire or do it this way and I respect their experience and usually say yes. I also have work with engineers as im a middle man. I have some field experience and designing something I try to pretend im in the field trying to do it my self. Its all. Team effort. When im not sure like I said I will call one of our electricians and they respect that.

You're the rare one for sure.
I have been in the field with an engineer and designer on the phone telling them that what they made won't fit where it needs to go, and them just saying it will fit..... NO it won't fit, that is why I am out in the middle of nowhere calling you on a sat phone with a helicopter pilot waiting for me. Those are the kind I had always been working with up till very recently.

 

[FireTurtle]

My wife decided that we needed to update much f the lighting in our old house. I was thrilled when light after light I pulled down had no box behind it. Every light I removed just had just a hole knocked through the sheet rock with a hammer that the wires were pulled through. Retrofitting those boxes are a PITA. Right before we sold the house she wanted me to do two more & I said NO. If it wasn't right, I didn't want to find out the hard way that I was going to have to fix it since I already had a 2-3 page punch list of honey do's so we could sell & move.
I also had to replace the floor, because the waterheater died & they foundation in the garage sloped back into the house instead of towards the garage door. In the process of that discovered there was a slow leak from the washer & dryer. Had to replace all the bathroom faucets & shower valves right before we moved. The sink disposal also died right before a buyer came to look at the house.
That house was cursed. If it wasn't, I sure cursed at it a lot...

 

[Boiler]

Different kind of story: riding my bike home to the dorm at night.

Hit something, probably doing 20mph, and flew over the handlebars. Landed on the top of my head and wound up laying on my back. As soon as I stopped I groaned "oh fu...BOING! The boing was the bike, landing tire first square in my face. After collecting myself I found the bike and got on for the ride home. I was bleeding good here and there and very punchy. I stood on the pedal to take off and apparently the chain was off, and my foot zinged around and I fell over. Lying in the road a second time, I contemplated laying there, waiting for a car to come by and finish the job.

 

[over40pirate]

No guesses were close.
When they did a valve job on the heads, they braxed up a small crack, visible when the intake valve is removed. Only problem, was they only crazed 1/2 the crack.

Cranking the motor sucked water into a cylinder or 2 and when it started those cylinders hydrolocked, and bent the rods, which were hitting the next rod, on every revolution.

Hello motor man. I need a 3rd engine.

 

[wnstwolf]

After many Mustang and Camaro resurrections I got tired of dealing with rust. One of my bucket list cars was always to do a Cobra replica. This dream became a reality in 2000 and I had a goal to finish the car to allow me and my new bride to drive away from our wedding day in it..

Wedding was in June and the cars maiden voyage was in May. It took about two years to complete the build as I changed just about every aspect of the car as I went along. I was so proud of the build and how the car came out that I was almost afraid of going out for a drive in it. Well the day came and my wife to be and I went out for a shakedown drive.

Things could not have gone any better. Car tracked great, power was out of this world and the looks by all those that drove by were enough to realize I did something right. After almost 60 miles we are about a mile away from home at a light and between the light and home was an ice cream stand. My wife says let’s stop and top off the great day. You got it.. Almost at that exact moment a nasty sound came out of the engine bay and puff of oily smoke came out of the side pipe..

The dual quad air cleaner was held in place by two short threaded rods and a pinch nut that held it in place to the carb. Air cleaner goes over it and then 2wing nuts hold it in place. Well after an hour of driving and vibrations the pinch nut came unpinched and fell into the front carb down into number 1 cylinder and managed to create enough of an issue that the cylinder wall cracked. This all happened in about 30 seconds.

Had to tow the car home. I still have that engine on a stand to someday rebuild and put into a hot rod. Very very sad first voyage. At that point I knew I had picked the right girl to marry as she allowed me to order up a second 427w and get in in the car prior to the wedding. I also spent $.05 on lock nuts and loaded them up with locktite red and also hit it with a tack weld!!!!

 

[Labradorian]

Good stories guys

I thought of another.....

About a year ago Wife and I bought a 28ft travel trailer from a place about 1.5hr drive from our home. The way it works is once you have paid for the trailer, they get it set up for you and then schedule an "orientation day" where you come pick up your trailer and they give you a run down of how everything works.

Well I took a day off work so I could drive down to get camper, I work for the government so just getting a day off involves paperwork, yada yada......

I drive a 2008 Toyota tundra and up until that day never had an issue with it. So the day cames to jump in the truck and drive in to get camper. Fire up the truck and the engine light comes on. Im thinkin, WTF?, bad timing. I plug in my code reader and pull the code. it says something about vacuum pressure or something, can' remember. So I call the dealer and ask them what it means and can I drive my truck like this?, he says its drivable but i can't TOW anything lol. He said the issue was part of a recall that I never got. The part that should of been replaced under this recall failed the day I was going to get my trailer and put the computer in LIMP mode, driveable but no power. Of all Days! SO I still drive the hour and half to do orientation with camper, go home without camper, drop off truck at dealer for recall fix and had to drive back the following Saturday to pick up camper, they don't do orientations on weekends.
cheers

 

[48RON54]

You're the rare one for sure.
I have been in the field with an engineer and designer on the phone telling them that what they made won't fit where it needs to go, and them just saying it will fit..... NO it won't fit, that is why I am out in the middle of nowhere calling you on a sat phone with a helicopter pilot waiting for me. Those are the kind I had always been working with up till very recently.

I feel your pain. I work for a very small company ( maybe 20 people or so between 4 locations) and I am in management. All the senior management are engineers. I bang my head against a wall quite frequently.

 

[rdn2blazer]

Ok, I got the story to end all stories. This is a VERY painful memory but thank god noone was hurt.

My very good buddy who is a classic car and street rod fabricator and electrical genius, and who is THE. MOST. PARTICULAR. Person when it comes to keeping a car absolutely perfect to the point of it being OCD is insane. He never needs any help, and never askes for help. I offer to help do whatever all the time as he helps me all the time. He helps EVERYBODY, ALL the time. I will machine stuff for him when he needs it. Or any help I can give I do, but it's never working on anything, it's helping him in other ways like lending tools or whatever if it's something machine shop related.

Anyways, now to the painful stuff. So at the time this incident happened he owned a brand new 2011 brand new Chevy 2500 HD crew cab longbed 4x4 pickup with ALL the bells and whistles. He wanted to level lift it up front but was doing it right, with quality components. We were at his street rod shop and he finally says, 'You want to help lift my truck? I happily said "SURE! would live to". He says 'Grab that Snap On floor jack with the soft pad and jack the front of the truck up for stands.

So I grab it and get down to position it under a crossmember. I look and see a couple few under it. Never jacked the particular truck up before. So I ask, "Hay Nick, Which crossmember do you use to get this thing up with? Near one looks thin". He said, "Use the one directly back from that one, I know which one you're talking about". So I push the jack back to the next crossmember and proceed to jack it up. I placed the yellow urathane soft pad exactly on center, put some pressure on it, chalked the wheels before hand and started jacking slowely.

The handle of the jack was actually under the truck so jacking it was a pain in the ****. I had to pull from the ground laying on my back first, then once it had some good pressure on it I had to stand but reach under but stand for leverage. Truck was jacking up fine. I even looked a couple times shortly after starting to see if things were ok, it was. I jacked and jacked until the truck seemed high enough. I shout to my buddy, "Is that high enough?". He was doing other things while I was getting it jacked and ready, but was right there in the area.

He see's it and says, "Give it another pump". I give it just one more pump and......BOOOOM!!! the truck slipps off the jack and slams to the ground WITH the jack still at full height!!!!! It lands directly on the transmission cast aluminum pan and exploded it!!! ****** oil proceeds to pour all over the rod shops floor in short order!!! Ohh the horror!!! We quickly access everyone is ok, contain the oil, then access what the F HAPPENED!!!

Turns out I had everything going against me I didn't even know about. After this happened he tells me, "I guess I should have told you to use the OTHER jack as that Snap On one doesn't roll worth a **** under load". When I was jacking it and checking it the first couple times, it was still too low to really tell if it was rolling as it rised. SO I kept jacking. Also, The Urathane soft pad he wanted me to use is slick as snot from previous use. And I had no idea Chevy started spraying black oil grease type **** on their frames for years so the frame was already greasy and slick from this ****.

It eventually coats over with road dirt I guess, but will always remain greasy. Looks fine undisturbed, but if you touch it its slick as snot. So the jack didn't roll as I jacked, the slick pad on the greasy crossmember just slipped right off and the truck hammered down on the ******. BRUTAL!!! It the end we got the job done. My buddy would not let me pay for the ****** pan that cost to the tune of $675 bucks!!! It didn't hurt the ****** at all thank god. But the guilt I felt was sooooooo horrible. Asking for a long time offering help, begging to let help if he needed it. He finally lets me actually help him and I put a floor jack through his ******!!! KILL ME. KILL ME NOW.

We're still friends lol. Have been for over 20 years. I NEVER offer to help him anymore, even though of course I would. He traded that truck off shortly after for a Ford. He knows I have skills and I'm no idiot, it was just a accident. But one that should not have happened in my mind. He KNEW I was sooo depressed over that for a week or two. Live and learn.

 

[BrownEnterprises]

Drove a 70 Impala for a while, my first car. Come out one evening to go cruise. Car won't start, no click..no anything. Wierd..So I pop the hood and check over wires and such. See the positive cable coming from the starter got up against the exhaust manifold and melted it. No big deal. Walk the 6 or so blocks to Oreilly's, and pick up a cable. My car is sitting in the driveway, which angles down. I didn't have chocks and was leary about jacking this behemoth up. So I instead crammed myself uder it, proceeded to fight the cable of the starter. Put the other one on, trying to find the route it went, think I got it..good..done. Car fires right up and I pull around to the back of our shop to get a coke from the fridge. Car is idling for like 10 min while I fart around. Mom calls me so I cut it off. Go back out, dead. WTF!! Pop the hood..I didn't route it right. Walk BACK to oreilly's. Nother cable. Go back, and this time I could jack it up. Replaced it CORRECTLY this time. Go to put the end on the battery, *ucker won't go down on the battery post. Damnit. Go get small hammer, tapping it down. Haha gotcha! Battery post FALLS INTO THE BATTERY!! At this point I'm exhausted, covered in dirt, oil and stickers. It's a hot day too..Texans know the kind. So I take the battery, WALK BACK to oreilly's battery in hand. Get new battery. Take very good care to actually use a flat-head to open up the end of the cable.Slide it on. Done. I ended up waiting for my Dad to get home and just stayed in with him and drank beer all night.

 

[dadsEH]

Just finished a respray in the engine bay on a buddies show car, fresh painted engine to match, all chrome and shiny like! We drop in the engine being ever so carefull not to scratch anything, spent 2 nights fitting up the ancillaries and finally lift the front of the vehicle off the jack stands to lower it onto the deck. Pulled out the stands and for some reason the car rolls a couple of inches forward and the whole thing drops off the jack .!!

Yep, the jack went straight up into the sump about 3 inches!
3weeks work gone in a flash, we cried over a slab of beer .