My night with Murphy! Tell me about yours

[Norm Faustino]

Ouch! I was trying to replace the return line to the t-stat on my 78 sc and the oil drain plug was so tight that i had to put vise grips on it but I guess Murphy snuck into my garage and just as I was going to reposition the vise grips (you know whats coming dont you)they POPPED! and Jackie Channed me right in the tip of my ring finger, SONOFA %@#*&___beeep.

As I sprung to my feet to cry, I match struck my ear on the floorjack handle, AAAAHHH! after running into the house and pathing up the hematoma on finger and solarcaine on the ear, i resumed creeper duty and went in for round two.
BAAADD MISTAKE!! heres some friendly advice;
shaky injured hands make lousy holders for anything, especially tools and when coupled with a smouldering ear your attention is no longer on the task, but on trying to avoid further injury.
Anyway, as I moved from trying to loosen the drain plug to trying to remove the oil line I found that the line was just as tight as the plug and proceeded to muscle my way into a position of leverage. With giant crescent in shaky hand and flaming ear I pushed like a woman in labor. Now, I am not a big guy, but I managed to collapse the fitting into the tank and this having caused the wrench to say C-YA! forced me to "kiss the ass" of my little German fraulein. I must have had that look that babies have when they're trying to eat a balloon and it pops.
I know when I am beaten, I unplugged the radio,turned out the lights and went online where i could use only one or two digits to get the job done.
I just needed to share that, thanks guys.

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78 Super Carrera

[Wayne 962]

Collapsed the fitting, what do you mean?

Visegrips on the oil drain plug? Come on now... (right tool for the job...)



-Wayne

[joehahn]

That was actually pretty funny. My only comparable story was working on muffler bolts without goggles, rust falls in eye, demonic words in foreign tongue spurt from mouth. NOone is home to help me (or care) so I drive one-eyed down a couple blocks to my parents and daddy removed it (rust not eye) with a cue tip.

Have a good weekend all. I am leaving to go sailing. Never been before. Should be interesting.

Joe

[Jamul74]

Wayne,
I recently used a wood chisel around the taillight seal to get it to seat right. It was the "right tool at the right time". I later used that same chisel to pry off a no twist beer cap, again right tool right time

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Dan S.
1974 911 Targa

[Norm Faustino]

thanks for the boost Dan,I actually do abide by the right tool for the job philosophy but Wayne, you are missing the other half of the picture and that is, I rescued this car from a two year love affair with a dog that scratched the left side to hell and back while the owner was away so the round style drain plug was modified by the PO, therefore on some jobs I am having to use sacrificial practices and once I am finally able to easy out the damn thing I will only use whatever tool the job calls for please dont get the idea I am one of these shadetree slobs that commits sacrilage on fine German machinery No No No "not I said the fly"
Kirk out!

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78 Super Carrera

[dtw]

Was that all one sentence? There's this key called "period" below and to right of "L" that should help break that up a bit.

Uh oh, cheers flashback coming! NORM! OK, had to get that outta my system.

Don't feel bad, some nights it just isn't meant to be. First night getting ready to dismantle a 911 for restoration, we are putting it up on jackstands. I'm the poor bastard underneath locating the stands while other guy is using floorjack to position. Down it comes onto the stand. Don't ask me how; stand ratchet is only partially engaged and the weight of the car takes my finger into the ratchet. Took a year for my fingernail to grow back. Rest of the week my finger as big as my big toe and throbbing, but still had to grit my teeth and work the wrench. Yuck.

I (literally) feel your pain.

-d

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Dave
1972 911T (E motor) RSR replica project
http://members.nbci.com/dtwinters/garage/

[Norm Faustino]

that period key is the one I normally hit with the finger that got its ass kicked by the Jackie Chan vise grips......but O.K. I'll. try. harder. to. p.u.n.c.t.u.a.t.e.

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78 Super Carrera

[dtw]

Norm! I see from your profile you like Latin women. And we know you dig 911s. What could be better than Latin womem and 911s? Latin women IN 911s, of course!!!! Here's a picture of my girlfriend Lidia in my Carrera before I sold it. Looking at this picture, I continue to kick myself for ever selling that FLAWLESS car and buying my rustbucket piece of crap project car.

Low-maintenance 3.2L Euro Carrera
High-maintenance Chilanga girlfriend

Cheers!

-d





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Dave
1972 911T (E motor) RSR replica project
http://members.nbci.com/dtwinters/garage/

[Norm Faustino]

Dave! you are truly a man of Class with a taste for the finest cars and women and for this I salute you!
mister project car fixer upper...

with the guts to dispose of the shiny and mundane, you are ready to take on the rusty hulks that await your skilled hand.

mister project car fixer upper..
your the ma an.

This buds for you!

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78 Super Carrera

[Kurt B]

Oh boy I could have fun with this. Unfortunately, incompetence is the primary root of my discomfort, and if the Valahallan gods ever threw in Murphy, I think I'd be in for lost limbs!

I have good stories from the 914 days. I was so slick at troubleshooting that thing, I could have that car crap out in the left lane of a freeway, coast off to the side, and repair the wiring with my teeth.
I was also an expert at dealing with the often sticking accelerator when I went to some cheap ass carb setup. I could literally turn off the key faster than the speed of light.
Oh, and one time the clutch holder in the frame cracked, and I had no clutch (just pulled through the frame). With a pair of vice grips, I managed to pull out the heater handles, squeeze the vice grips down below, clamp the clutch tubing to the accelerator tubing to prevent slipping, hold the vice grips with my right hand(had to hold them when pushing in the clutch), and shift with my left hand.
And before that I drove down the 405 and through 5 miles of so cal traffic lights with no clutch. Turn it off at a light, put it in 2nd, start the car in second, and shift to 3rd. But since it had a troublesome starter that too could be a problem 'cause one time it might not start, so after a while, I just kept making Uturns until a light turned green. Drive 15 to 25 MPH, let em honk, time the light, and if you miss it, swing two U turns and try again.
Oh man, those were the days...


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Kurt B
1984 Carrera Cabriolet
911 Page
carrera_cabriolet@yahoo.com

[Leland Pate]

dtw...GOOD GOD WHERE DID YOU GET THAT EXHAUST SYSTEM???!
That looks awesome!


I had the all too common experiece of being under my car one night, working on adjusting the clutch cable.
I had Panteras "Planet Caravan" blaring, totally into what I was doing....in the world where I go while working on my car.
The music was so loud that I didn't hear my room mate come into the garage. He walked over to where my feet were hanging out from under the car and kicked me to get my attention. From his point of view all he heard was: " AHH!...damnit!!!....crap...ouch...SON OF A....!!!!!"

When he startled me I flinched, my head impacted the bottom of the transaxle, then whipped back to hit the creeper,...then the road grime that I had just disturbed with my forhead came down and got in my eye. I instinctivly moved my arm to block the falling debris and whacked it pretty hard on the adjusting nut, leaving a nice gash.
I laid there for a second....just totally bewhildered at what had just happened... then I heard laughter, looked over to see my room mate peeking under the car, beer in hand laughing his ass of at me.


I was pissed.

[dtw]

Lee,
That was an absolutely twisted 4" test pipe. It bolted right to the pipes from the heat exchangers, straight back through that gigantic resonator, and out a very short 4" stainless pipe at the stock valence cutout. No cat, nothing. Just loud as hell and made that 3.2 a total monster. Used to shoot four foot blue flames when shifting at redline. God I miss that pipe. I think it came from some tuner in Texas that went out of business, but I got it from this guy in my local PCA chapter whose wife made him get rid of it!

Downshifted once without matching revs on purpose- with that exhaust, it used to make the pipe go BOOM like a rifle shot. I was passing a state trooper that was parked on the side of the road. He threw his book up in the air and ducked under his dash. I almost ran off the road laughing. But I was much younger then!

Yah, back in my repo man days at the start of my '72 project, my Nextel went off while I was under the car. Head UP! Bonk! in shock back down onto the concrete- Thud! Instinctively fling arm up to rub aching head- Crack! on the $#!^%#$%!'ing jackstand.

Needless to say, I unleashed my wrath on my buddy calling me on the nextel, who after all that trouble, all he had to say was "Duuhhhhh, where are you? Whatcha doin?"

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Dave
1972 911T (E motor) RSR replica project
http://members.nbci.com/dtwinters/garage/

[Norm Faustino]

Nice car but I cant see the girl at all, how bout lets see a good one next time c'mon!

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78 Super Carrera

[fred cook]

Yes, Mr.Murphy visits us all sooner or later! Shortly after acquiring my 1980 911SC, I decided to replace the ignition switch, lock and all as the tumbler was worn to the point of no return.

Looked simple enough, disconnect the battery, drill out the two shear bolts, loosen the allen setscrew, pull off the electrical master plug, remove the old lock, and as they say in most repair manuals, "reassemble in reverse order". Yeah, right! Everything went along ok until I went to unplug the master plug from the switch, at which time all nine of the wires in the master plug started falling out of the round bakelite housing!! Not "sproing" mind you, but slowly, one at a time out they came, with yours truly saying "oh, no...don't do that, please don't do that! Guess what? Wires don't listen to people. In a few long milliseconds, the project went from piece of cake to DISASTER! To make things even more interesting, there are ten holes in the master plug (nine wires, remember?) So, for the next two hours or so I got to lay on my back wedged under the dash trying to focus on a wiring diagram and hold the nine evil wires in place. After a couple of strange results, everything got back where it started and works correctly. I think this was the cars way of telling me that I was on its turf now and it would not suffer fools lightly!!