Say What?
The staff speaks and you listen. It's that simple. This month's question is: What's the funniest thing that ever happened to you while wrenchin'?
Mike: A few years ago while grinding on the frame of my Toyota, I lit my T-shirt on fire. The sparks from my Makita angle grinder were hitting me right in the gut. I didn't notice it, and after about five minutes of straight grinding, the sparks burned a perfect 8-inch circle in my shirt and singed off most of the hair on my belly. I smelled like barbecued dog. The hair grew back, but the shirt was toast. Occasionally, I rock that shirt around the shop just for laughs.
CALIN: Well, it wasn't me, but this is one funny story. My dad and his friend Dale were underneath a Chevy dualie swapping out the transmission. Right about the time they were bench-pressing the TH400 back into place and really straining, one of them (who shall remain nameless) farted. Well, that got them both laughing, making it impossible to line up the trans to get the bellhousing bolts in. To make matters worse, once the aroma of the air biscuit hit their noses it was all over: They both scurried out from under the truck muttering things like "Oh my god" and "What did you eat?" Needless to say, the transmission didn't get installed on that try, but once the air cleared everything went as planned.
KEVIN: While cleaning up the engine compartment on my '62 GMC for a tech story in this issue, I stumbled across probably two or three rolls of electrical tape stuck around a wire harness. I was simply removing a dual battery system on my truck when it dawned on me that these wires must have been taped together by someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It took at least 20 minutes to unravel the many layers of tape that bound just two wires together. I figure this must have been done a long time ago since I discovered some outdated cloth tape near the center. Nevertheless, it was a ridiculous amount of tape.
ANDY: This story is pretty embarrassing and I hate to admit it, but here goes. I had just picked up my '54 Pontiac and only had it about a month. It's my first old-car project, so I am kind of new to how things work on it. Anyway, I decide I should do a brake system overhaul and get things working properly. First things first, the wheels need to come off, so I jack up the car, bust out the lug-nut wrench, and go to town. I start cranking on the passenger-side wheels and the lug nuts won't budge. I'm pulling like crazy on the socket wrench, and still they won't loosen up. So I squirt some WD-40 on the nut and slip a length of steel pipe over the handle of the wrench for some leverage and keep cranking on the bolt. A half-hour goes by and I'm pissed, sweating, and smell like WD-40. WTF! It's righty-tighty, lefty- loosey, isn't it? Yeah, right. Not on this old car. My neighbor comes over to see what all the yelling is about and says, "Don't you see the 'L' embossed on the end of the stud? It stands for lefthand thread."
Sport Truck Slang Term O' The Month
#143: sano (sa?n-o) adj. A term used to describe quality fabrication, customization, or modification of a sport truck. This slang term became popular in the '80s and describes work that is so clean that it's "sanitary."