Had to get a twin engine airplane to another airport for repair of the right engine throttle cable which was broken. My bright idea, run a wire from the cockpit out through the window into the cowling to the throttle, install a spring for the return. No problem.

Started the engines, taxied to the run way and took off. Once at altitude, leveled off and realized that the wind resistance on the small wire wouldn't let the throttle spring close the throttle. We were running at full throttle with no way to pull the throttle back. Oops! ! !

I started a steep climb to reduce the airspeed and the spring started to work, throttle was reduced and leveled off. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but those several minutes were extremely nerve racking!!!!

I had my dad's old 1958 19 foot Squallking out with a couple buddies of mine. Damn thing must have weighed 4 tons. Pulling out of the boat launch, the tongue of the trailer broke. Being as how three of us had to pool our money to buy $5 in gas, calling a welder was out of the question. I rumaged around on the side of the road and found an old 2x4. We jacked up the tongue at the break, put the 2x4 next to it, took the anchor line and run it around and around the 2x4 and the tongue and made us a "splint" for it. Got us home.

One of my old Snap On tool trucks had a Detriot 8.2 diesel. These motors had thier share of weird problems

one day the motor just quit. after checking everything out, I found antifreeze in the fuel tank. Drained the tank and all was well for a couple of weeks them I found more antifreeze in the fuel filters.What turned out to be the problem was the injectors passed through a coolant passage in the head and the injector tubes were leaking, the antifreeze was making its way into the fuel tank through the return line this was a rather expensive fix with downtime of the truck and all so I kinda put it off and would replace fuel filters twice a week!.....well one day, my busiest day, I forgot to change filters and the truck sputtered and was about to stall, I was close to a truck stop and pulled in, drained the radiator and filled the radiator with diesel fuel! no more swapping fluids, the diesel in the radiator would make its way to the tank and vice versa

This truck ran diesel in the radiator for 4 more years, never had to put a waterpump after that ( great lube) but the hoses needed to be replaced every 6 months. I eventually traded her in I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when that mess was discovered!

Biggus......never mind.......

Walt Disney woulda' been real proud of me I`ve been Mickey Mousin' stuff for a long time!

When I was 8 yrs old, I had a Honda QA50. Remember them little things? Well, mine was constantly in use and for some reason this thing ate throttle cables like mad,any way after messing around too many times with new t-cables, I just yanked the broken cable to the WFO position and utilized the kill button as my throttle Prettty good engineering for an 8 yr old huh?
....fire her up, knock her into gear/wheelie and away you`d go! Slow down???hit the kill button This rather simple modification worked perfectly for a couple years. One day, I had ventured down the tracks a little too far from home and ran into a group of punks getting stoned at a bridge. One punk pulled a knife on me and stole my prized QA50 .....What happened next I will remember to the day I die He fired the monster up and it took off WIDE OPEN and I think I forgot to mention the the brakes were my Keds The dickhead went flying down the tracks and it shot him off, over the bars and them drove him into the ground like a tent peg ....I ran over, grabbed by bike (those things would take/give a beating) and took off down the trail It worked good for me!

I`d run into that jerk every now and them but he never f`ked with me again.

Kurt.

I was 18 and had a 79 Corvette. I was at a stop sign about 1/2 mile away from home. I floored it spun the tires broke a yoke the right side of the car bottomed out. I ran home grabbed a floor jack and placed under right side of car and drove home. When I got home the wheels on my Dad's jack were worn away.

In my first years as a seating engineer at Ford Motor in Dearborn we were on a ride evaluation ( had to test our designs right??)

a summer intern had the responsibility to organize the ride. we had about 8 brand new explorers ( first year of production) some were executives' cars.

Ford has this road in dearborn that they pay the city to leave rough and pothollie ( urband legend maybe) but used everyday by ford testing.

so we are making high speed passes on this road recording data with our calibrated butts and my buddy gets the idea to venture off the road a little into the muck. well, the next guy goes deeper, and so on. then my buddy pulls up to this huge bog ( well deep mud puddle) and inches forward with a $hitty grin
i wave two findgers frantically as I pass trying to indicate his vehicle only has 2 wheel drive. too late. he hammers it, and is sunk.

Did I mention we ALL are in full suits with wingtip shoes
we take our shoes off, find a piece of conduit and back my truck up to his bumper. align the two bumpers and slide the conduit down the two 2" trailer ball holes on the bumpers. (his truck is sitting a little lower than mine) we pull till the conduit bends at each hole and pull him out.

the poor intern had to get all the trucks washed and back to the pilot plant and to the exectuives. we had to rinse our feet in the office bathrooms and promise not to say anything

oh, same intern backed one of the executives exploreres into a pole in the underground parking that day. bad day for him.

the good ol days.

Just think, if you had a pretzel rod, you could still be running on it!


Funny story. Someone mentioned in one of there post a windshield washer that used a bag instead of the standard bottle. I hate to admit it but:

I had a Fiat with one of these. The car came with a spare one that was unused. Of course since I was in high school I came up with a brilliant idea. What if I wired this one up as well and plumbed it below the dash??? With a toggle switch I could have liqueur on demand!!!!!! I filled it with peach schnapps and it worked like a charm. Press the button, get a shot, and no cop would ever find it! I was a god at school for a while. Well when I parked the car on a hill at a football game, I learned the lesson of a siphon. A whole bottle of peach schnapps was on the floor of my car. The smell never really came out.

I built a complete 40' Skater out of JB Weld. Called it the Sorcerer. Wonder what ever happened to that boat?

My first boat was a 14ft rowboat with a 6hp Brittish Seagull outboard. the boat had three benches for seats, the middle bench had a big comfortable seat from a John Deere tractor bolted to it. When I was out trolling I wanted to sit in the middle seat becasue it was more comfotable and made the boat ride better. So to extend my controls, I duct tapped a few old broom handles to the tiller arm and wired a few coat hangers together and looped one end around the throttle lever

Man was it a sight for sore eyes