Never Be Afraid
 

"What’s the worst that can happen? It’ll cost you more money to fix what you screwed up? Hey, it’s only money."

https://dragracingedge.com/the-blog/never-be-afraid/

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Can identify mightily, at 16 and with no mechanically inclined adults in the family my Buddy and I set in to install a “hotter” cam on my 59 Vette. Comedy of errors but just before I was about to go back in and advance the cam to where it should be I was wrecked by an uninsured driver. Bought a front clip but the body shop kept stringing me along until finally offering to buy the car from me so I could get a car for college (67 SS396/325 Chevelle, a very nice car BTW).

Thanks John, lots of memories stirred by this story, not all good but hey, that’s how many of us learned. We weren’t all fortunate enough to be raised by gearheads.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

In my youth I had a No Post 1955 Chevy Belair without an engine and trans.
I had an acquaintance with a 1958 Chrysler, with a 392 Hemi and Torqueflite. My friends and I around 16 years old. So the acquaintance says I can have the engine and trans if I get it out of his yard. So with a steel Bohack shopping cart that I modified to accept the Hemi, I wheel this monster home. The trans comes later.
Once home my friends and I figure out how to wire the battery to the ignition , strap a One Gallon gas can to the shopping cart, stuff the garden hose into the engine and we're ready to fire this Bad Boy up!
Now this is a Dual Quad, Dual Point Chrysler engine with spark wires that go through the valve covers just like the AA/FD Dragsters have. We're all set and by the grace of God we get it running. Collectively, we all brought something to the table and worked on what we knew. So now with the exhaust head pipes cut about 6" to 12" from the exhaust manifolds, this thing makes a hell of a racket. We all take turns revving to engine up , each one revving it higher then the last. Now my friend Bob grabs the make shift throttle linkage and yanks it almost all the way back to WOT.
The Hemi now jumps out of the shopping cart , spinning in mid air as four , scared to death teenagers scatter like mice.
The engine comes to rest on the ground upside down and suffocating itself. for about a half an hour we all stood in disbelief over what we did.
To this day, fourty seven years later I am soooo glad none of us were killed that day.
We cleaned up that mess, and my father asked what the hell happened to his lawn in the very spot the Hemi came to rest. If I would have told him - I probably wouldn't be writing this post today. That's probably why I chose to race a Chevrolet Stocker instead of a Chrysler. Have a Happy Thanksgiving to all that read this - we all have something to be thankfull for.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

2 short stories. 31 ford with, I think, a 48 Merc flathead with 2-2s and a 3 speed. I was 15 and the owner was 16. Needed a tune-up. Distributor had 2 caps 4 wires each. We tore it apart not really checking where the wires went. Don't know how many combinations are possible but I think we tried them all before we got them on right.

Second one was a 65 GTO that a buddy had. We were in high school and for some reason we had the engine out and apart. We kept track of the rod caps but not the mains. It was so tight the starter wouldn't turn it over. What do we do? Tow it and let the clutch out. We got it to start and had to do that a few times but it ended up loose enough to start with the starter and still wonder today how it was able to run and keep the mains in it. He had the car for another year and it was running when he climbed a tree with it.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Me and my 16 year old buddy bought a 39 Buick coupe with a 50 Olds 303 engine & Hydramatic trans it less the carb. We spent our $50 on the car so we had no money to buy a 2 barrel carb for it. Doing some pioneering work on fuel injection I came up with the bright idea of borrowing my Moms enema bottle for gas and dug up an old turkey baster for the fuel injector. We decided we could see how it ran and then save up or sell something to buy a carb. He sat inside and spun it over while I handled the fuel injection. It fired right up and revved up then back fired and caught the whole works on fire when it burned all the hair off my arm and singed my hair causing me to drop the baster which further stirred the fire up. We put it out with some rags that were by the car. Thus ended my pioneering work with FI and I decided to let Mr Hilborn handle it in the future. My Mom was none to happy with the gas in the enema bottle and we had to buy here a new one. Ill see your stupid and raise you

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

I was 16 or 17. I had a 68 Chevelle 327, 4speed. I installed an LT-1 intake and 780 Holley, in my parents garage. I get it started, but its flooding pretty bad, and the timing is late, so naturally I keep reving it up to clear it out. It backfires and BOOM the valve cover gets blown right off the motor, misses me and hits the wall. I`m shaking like a leaf when my mother opens the door and asks if I`m alright. I can only nod as she looks around once and goes back inside. Scared the crap out of me.
MJ

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

And that my friends would make a great title for a new thread.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Holy **** where do I begin?

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Never afraid, but stupid wrong more than a few times but never catastrophic.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

As a youngster i decided to check the oil in the lawnmower while it was running!
lesson learned.

lesson #2
I wanted to be a car customizer, my first car a mustang II, had a dent in the quarter, so i went to pep boys bought a gallon of bondo and mixed the hardener right into the can.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

A chain fall hung from a chain wrapped around two 2 x 4's sitting on the garage door rails won't support a 55 Chevy 235 and Powerglide.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

My cousin and I in preparation for a Mini-bike race with a neighbor thought it be good idea to replace the spark plug and oil. So we walked down to the store and bought a Champion plug but I had this brilliant idea to buy a can of STP thinking that would be the speed secret of the day. Good enough for Richard Petty, good enough for us.
So we drained the oil and replaced it with the STP.
How do you think went? Not so good as the engine failed to start until one of the older guys in the neighborhood saw the can of STP asked a few questions, called us few names and told us to drain it and refill it with oil.
We won the race and a lesson learned.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

I remember changing a motor in a very small garage in dead winter. Half car was sticking out of garage . No heat. My buddy was helping. I'm laying under car wiring up starter and he makes the smart *** comment. Why didn't you wait til tomorrow. It's suppose to be 10 degrees warmer. It was -14 when he said that. lol

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

And, how is it that you came to know this, Marty??? :-)

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Christmas Eve 1973 - pulling motor from my 55 Bel Air in my Mom's garage. The 2 x 4s broke, hit me on the way down and knocked me out.
I don't know how long I lay there.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

So its Summer in the mid-seventies and to me that meant Englishtown and class runoffs -something I wouldn't miss for the world .Friday afternoon I made it to the semis in class but that run had its problems for sure .Can you imagine me with a stick? Yep , I was then racing my trusty '73 Ventura with a 4 speed and during that semi run I managed to miss third gear so I put 'er in high and cruised to a win .

That night while at the campfire with friends ( yes, we camped outside ) the guys were asking what I had in mind for the class final runoff the next morning .I had nothing as a spare trans wasn't something I carried or could afford .One of them stood up and said he had the answer and soon a couple of them were gone .Three hours later they returned and unloaded a shiny four speed and announced lets get it up in the air .The next morning things went as planned and I won class .I never did find out exactly where that trans came from but they headed toward New York when they left . All the names I've left out on purpose but I'm sure none were afraid ...........

Re: Never Be Afraid or be very afraid
 

1965 -The good old VW bug, I purchased a Holley 500cfm 2 barrel carb, couldn't change the intake with out removing the generator(single port heads). Thought it would be easier to do if I removed the engine, out it comes, well now me might as well put a headers on it, but wait lets spilt the case and put a crane 3/4 race cam( what ever that is?) Got it all back together with only a few parts still on the ground. Fired it up, adjusted carb and timing. Did anyone re-adjust the valves? Off to the track LVD, took the fan belt off for more power. Ran mid 16's I think. Than the noise oh lord! Drove back home just as I got in the driveway boom. Didn't tighten the flywheel bolt to 300ft lbs. new crank etc, fun fun, I think we rebuilt it and blew it up at less 3 more times.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

I have been saying for the last ten or so years, I should have been taking notes and writing about our racing encounters. Having race for 50+ years with the likes of Big Joe Teuton and the Southland group, The Thriller(my cousin),Rudy and Ross Laris, and Craig Bourgeois, I could write a novel that could give War and Peace a run for the money. Many funny **** and a few illegal.

The first chapter would have opened with our trip to the Gators in 1973. A year out of high school we were going to watch with 3 of us in a new Vega (painted pearl white with flames) and two in a 57 ford fairlane yellow w/black trim and a 427 big block ford. Well after 100 miles the 57 had to stop for fuel imagine that. We are in Biloxi on Hwy 90 (I 10 was not finished at the time) leaving the gas station at about midnight the 57 broke the rear end. I suggested that we leave it at the station, jump into the vega (five people) and worry about it on the way home. Well the owner ,drinking heavily, would not hear of it so we left him and his friend in Biloxi. Eight hours later we arrived at the gators walking thru the rows of cars in the parking lot. Damn if we don't see the 57 a few rows ahead of us.
Hardly anything was said about it but I hope they pulled that driveshaft out of that car before the owner tried to put it in drive.

Greg

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

I was15 years old and had a 64 chevy pickup decided to do a tune up so I put in the points set put the dwell meter on started up set the dwell ran great! but I wanted to put so neat wires and cap on (colored) pulled the wires and cap, reinstalled per the Motor Manual and it would not start, backfired and I am wondering what the hell I did wrong. looked at the book checked and rechecked still did not run. after a couple of very frustrating days i walked up the street to talk to a older guy that worked at one of the dealerships and the first thing he asked was where was number one/ I went HUUUU, WHAT? then he explain that someone may have have the distributor out and they wire it to work, meaning number one can be anywhere on the cap. My young brain had a hard time wrapping around that but he explained what I need to do. I went home found top dead center on number one, pulled the distributor reinstalled, wired per the Motor Manual, worked like a charm. Was a valuable lesson I have never forgot.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

As a teenager in 1977, I drove a 70 Maverick. Car wouldnt start and I discovered the neutral safety switch was bad. The switch was located above the steering column. I found that by pushing the brake pedal up againt the lower dash, the pedal would stay out of the way for the repair. I was so proud that I fixed the car and drove up the driveway towards my parents garage honking the horn in my proud "I fixed it" moment.
I forgot to push the brake pedal back down. My parents got a new garage door that year...
Larry

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

I had a similiar experience. I had a 69 Impala when I was 16 or 17; I was in auto shop in school at the time. Anyway, I tuned up the 350. Plugs wires, cap rotor, points, condenser. No start, popped out the carb. Checked everything. My shop teacher (who sold me the beauty), was also flummoxed, to the point that he came to the house after school one day. He found it; someone had put the distributor in 180 out and "fixed" it by butchering the rotor so that the square peg fit in the round hole! So, I had put the new rotor in and, bingo, 180* out! My teacher was a used car guy who flipped the Impala to me and had no idea what the buddy he had gotten it from did to it.
Although that's where I learned what an out of time distributor sounded like, I learned more about shady car guys that day. (turned out, the Imp was a 300 hp 350, and the heads were swiped and replaced with whatever Chevy heads were cheap. I'm not a Chevy guy and don't remember.) The car did run smooth as glass though, until I seized it in cold weather running straight 30w. But that's another story.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

The long straight limb on the apple tree wouldn't hold up the Hemi, so we sured it up with 2"x4"s. got it just high enough and had to let some air out of the tires , tough to push but got it in!

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Geez Marty , I wish I knew you then!

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

My first car. 55 Chevy 210 Hardtop. put a 327 and 3 speed. Kept breaking trans. Put a 4 speed in and starting breaking spider gears from wheel hop. Bought a set of slapper bars and had to elongate hole. While under car with grinder I had metal get into my eye. I was 16 and dad took me to emergency room and they numbed the eye and drilled out metal.

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Stories... What else have we got!

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Johnny - Guys our age don't have much racing left but have plenty of stories .......

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Come on man... Whaddya mean "not much racing left?"

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

These stories bring back so many memories of my youth, that I had to reply. My Dad and I started drag racing when I was 14 years old(1968).
We'd been racing his drive to work '66 chevelle, and he didn't want to risk a failure and have no work transportation. We bought a 1960 Impala w/ a 305 horse 348 "W" engine and a powerglide. We brought it home and the only place to pull the engine was in the back yard under the big Maple tree that was strong enough to hold the 1,1/2 ton chain fall and the engine/ transmission. We were able to maneuver the engine out of the car and down to the ground, but how to get the engine into the garage which was 125 feet away. My 1st attempt at brilliance(I've had many failures since) was to remove the tranny and mount the engine on the engine stand. Fine, but it won't roll across the grass. I got 2 4x8 Plywood boards and rolled the stand onto 1, move the board, roll again, move the board. You all get the idea. It's now in the garage and I'm learning how to build a Jr. stock eliminator engine. Cool? Well it was if I knew than that the pistons have to go in a certain order, because the cylinder is the combustion chamber and there are valve reliefs that are staggered to match the valve in the heads. I installed the pistons wrong, and although the engine fired up and ran, it bent a couple of intake valves when they hit the piston tops. So imagine the whole process of board moving, installing, running, and then repeating it to re-build the engine again. My father was none to pleased. I never did that again, even after pulling the engine each fall to "freshen" it. To quote the late Dan Fogelburg: "Lessons learned are like bridges burned, you only need to cross them but once".

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and remember why we celebrate the day.
God Bless,
Walt

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Don't know about you but I'm sure I won't be racing ten years or less from now .

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Ever see anybody accidentally put a Chrysler V8 rotor in a Ford?

Re: Never Be Afraid
 

Bingo,180 out!