oil spills, parts falling off, things that go KABOOM

[Jim Ratto]

Rebuilt the 1835 in my xwifes car and had her drive it to work for a couple day . So after a couple days I drain the oil and adjust the valves. Then start the thing up and walk to rear of car while idleing, and then look down while its running for a few and see the new oil unopened.

nice one.

Ever see knuckle marks in the top of a real 36hp shroud?

Couple more, few from me, then others I've seen...
Wheel story: mid 1990's, was processing beer like air, along with my roommates. Had day off, figured I reset camber on rear wheels by turning bars and spring plates against one another, and shim up stock Z bar, all the while nursing a beer. Finish job, set car on ground, roll it back and forth to see where it sits,... seems like it's limping to one side.... better go drive it. Take off from my house, get around corner, this is about same time elementary school is getting out, I hear this metallic knocking sound and then bang, car falls, and my LR wheel goes flying by me, rolling and bouncing down the street, straight for a line of little kids crossing on their way home from school
I think my heart stopped.
Not because of car, but because I saw that wheel honing in right on those kids.... I think every muscle in my body flinched.
Luckily it laid down on its side before it got near them.
In the mean time the wheel had ripped off my LR fender, LH running board and somehow gnarled the decklid too.
I never touch beer if I'm doing ANYTHING to the car.... since that day, without exception.
Another time, yeah a drain plug story. Right around same time as the wheel story... but no beer involved, just stupidity.
brand new motor, still breaking it in on blue label Kendall 30W Non Detergent. Only place I knew of in Bay Area that had it was my work, which was 25 miles away. Night before I bought 8qts as I was leaving, to do first oil change in my 2276 at home next day. I should mention that "home" was a house my friends and I were renting from some property management company, and they were already sore with us for all the VW's hanging around, the noise, cars jacked up in the air every day...etc. One of the neighbors called the city and complained, claiming we were running a business in a residential area.  
Anyway, get up, go warm car up to get oil up to temp to dump it. Bring car home, drain oil, go change CD in changer or something, then start pouring new Kendall in...  glug glug glug... pour 5 or 6 quarts in, then notice this girl walking her bulldog down the street.... cute girl, weird dog... for some reason, she changes her course from my side of street to the other, (And I can't see why, as I am standing behind Bug, which is ass end first in driveway), whatever, she's probably the one that called the city.... bitch. Anyway, check dipstick after 5-6 quarts.... and it's DRY. WTF?
I freeze in horror and frustration.... I know why she crossed the street! Peek under car, no fu**ing drain plug.... the 5 or 6 quarts had gone straight in drian pan, overflowed, and made a nice oil slick about 3 feet wide all the way to the gutter. So now, not only did I just throw away 30$+ in unobtanium oil, but I had just created about an hour's work cleaning this fricking mess up. Then, afterwards, having to drive to BH (25 miles each way, no in rush hour traffic) on my day off, for oil....    

[Peter]

forgot to tighten wheel bolts,
set my engine on fire,
forgot to clamp the battery and the clamp touched the + while driving => almost set my car on fire again..
more things that i erased from my memory

[Rasser]

Then there is of course the classic all time favorite forgetting the stack covers endless cranking......   Is this whatcha mean Jim?

At SCC 2008 there were a Norwegian doing the exact same thing. When he finally realized it and got the covers of, the car just spit fuel out all over the place!!!

Perhaps he want´s to join in an report himself, before i do!    ??

[Wünderwolff]

First and only time I lost a wheel was when setting the brakes of my then notchback. I had a friend do it for me and I was helping out. I thought he fastened the lugnuts and he thought I did. See what is coming up next ... 

We went for a quick spin around the block testing the brakes, we did a bit of main road at 90km/h and then headed back to his home. Just before turning into his street, we heard Glok,Glok, Glok,... What the hell could that be, and before we knew in the last turn we were on three wheels and a brakedrum. The wheel slid in the wheelwell without doing damage.

Years later, I changed to a Puma front beam, fnished just in time before a first ride with my Girlfriend. I drove all the way through town, and when almost there I again heard Glok, Glok, Glok, ... I hit the brakes before I could think twice, gut fealing. Tightened the lugnuts and of we went, try to explain near dead to your girl 

I always doublecheck now after working the wheels.

[Diederick/DVK]

i'm glad to read i'm not the only one having gone through the wheel bolt thing.
luckily it was after just 50 meters :-p

[Wünderwolff]

And on the topic of near death in the company of the girlfriend. How about driving all the way through town with her on the back, tight bends and everything, on my GT380 suzuki caferacer with the steering lock engaged. Only to almost fall flat on my face while U-turning to park it.

Crappy Suzuki engineering made for a steering lock wich when engaged had the front wheel facing forward. Very easy to forget. I still have to hear that remark from time to time  

[j-f]

It seems that everybody forget at least one time to torque their wheels bolts...   It happens me 4 times... at least.
The second time I ran my new engine in the bug, I was overtaking  another car, check the rear view mirror and see a huge smoke beside me   Well, I've  learn that an head cover gasket should be change more often...

The worst I remember, the first weeks I earn my bug, I was totally discovering mechanics. So I decide to put front disc brakes. Try to bleed the brakes. Impossible... After hours, I call a friend and explain the problem. I discover that the bleed plugs have a direction...
So, after bleed the brakes, I go for a test run an explode a disc bearing. I put one of the bearing in the wrong direction.  

And I have many others I try to forget...

[Mike Lawless]

I wonder how many VW Bug owners have hit a large pot hole in the road, only to have the battery break through the already rusted floorpan, and fall on the street. Ever run over your own battery?

I can't quite remember where this was just a few years ago, maybe Vegas, maybe Phoenix...
There was a lowered bug going the opposite way that we were going on the road, and just when it got right beside us, it must have hit a pot hole. This was followed by the bolt on oil sump spinning off out from under the car and down the road along with a trail of oil.

I shouldn't have, but I laughed. I can be such an ass sometimes.

[flatfire]

When I built my first engine I overlapped the oil control rings. The 1776 ran great except the oil was passing out of the exhaust

Our first encounter to Drag racing in Scotland, we had a simple red and green light.  I had been thrashing the bug all day long. The gearbox felt like it was stirring soup.
I went through the red light as there was no stage and pre stage reversed back slightly. I started reving the engine and thankfully the man sitting next to me was Russell and he mentioned that I was still in reverse. There was a load of people sittng on haystacks right behind us. Not good.
What drag racing with a passenger, thank God.

I had my ball joints pressed out by a professional and reinstalled. I put the beam back together and couldn't understand why the beetle looked like a gasser instead of a cal looker like before. Always make sure the notch on the joint is going the right way. 

The joys of being young. 25 years ago and installing sway away adjusters on my bug. Happy days

[iowa mark]

Here's another one from antique days. I had just enough time to stop by the shop and change the oil in the bug before my date. Dumped the oil, cleaned the screen and reinstalled it all without getting all gooey. Grabbed the first oil can and stuck the spout in it, tipped it up into the oil fill tower, spun it around to vertical and headed over to the bench for a rag. Now, for all the kids out there, oil used to come in a can rather than a plastic jug. The way to transfer it to the engine was with a spout that poked a hole in the lid of the can and sealed against the top. Unless there isn't a seal. Then it just dumps the whole works all over the top of the motor and headers and leaves  you short a quart of oil as you clean everything up for the next hour, causing you to be late, and since there were no cell phones back then, she doesn't hear from you and goes out with "the girls", who help her decide that the guy with the red Mustang is a lot better catch than that Bozo with the bug. Damn, she had nice tits too.

[Sam K]

Way back when I was 16 or 17 and my bug had a dual port with a stock carb on, it had some kind of wierd miss. I thought it was an intake leak so I was sparying carb cleaner (liberally) over all the possible places trying to find it. When I sprayed it on the passengers side intake boot area the entire engine erupted in a ball of fire. Turns out that the taiwanese plug wires I had installed were sparking between each other under the alternator stand. I lost my eyebrows but I learned an important lesson that day.

[Neil Davies]

This thread could have been written for me!

Wheel bolts? Done that one - my brother set of with bright shiny new Empi 5's and lasted all of 2 miles before one of the front ones took the drivers wing off...
Stuff in the intake? Yep, one of the lock nuts from the freshly installed dellorto filters dropped straight through the carb and into the head - fortunately at tickover instead of the 90mph motorway blast a couple of minutes earlier! That lead to me trying to get the head off without taking the motor out of the car (I thought there would be enough room in a Karmann Ghia!), which lead to me spilling the contents of the sump all over the garage floor when the pushrod tubes fell out... I did end up taking the motor out and doing it properly with new 1641 P&Cs (well, the old 1584 ones were dished for lower compression... ), but re-installing the motor wasn't without its problems - I pushed the car forward off the axle stands, with the back wheels off!
What else? Running out of fuel half way up the dragstrip in the quarter finals, of course not taking the stack covers off, cross threading the aluminium filler cap onto the aluminium filler neck on my race car fuel tank, meaning that I had to hacksaw it off, lonce ost a lashcap in a burnout by forgetting the rev limiter and floating the valves, only adjusted up one back brake so launched off the handbrake diagonally at the tree... Any more?

[Sarge]

This thread could have been written for me!

Wheel bolts? Done that one - my brother set of with bright shiny new Empi 5's and lasted all of 2 miles before one of the front ones took the drivers wing off...
Stuff in the intake? Yep, one of the lock nuts from the freshly installed dellorto filters dropped straight through the carb and into the head - fortunately at tickover instead of the 90mph motorway blast a couple of minutes earlier! That lead to me trying to get the head off without taking the motor out of the car (I thought there would be enough room in a Karmann Ghia!), which lead to me spilling the contents of the sump all over the garage floor when the pushrod tubes fell out... I did end up taking the motor out and doing it properly with new 1641 P&Cs (well, the old 1584 ones were dished for lower compression... ), but re-installing the motor wasn't without its problems - I pushed the car forward off the axle stands, with the back wheels off!
What else? Running out of fuel half way up the dragstrip in the quarter finals, of course not taking the stack covers off, cross threading the aluminium filler cap onto the aluminium filler neck on my race car fuel tank, meaning that I had to hacksaw it off, lonce ost a lashcap in a burnout by forgetting the rev limiter and floating the valves, only adjusted up one back brake so launched off the handbrake diagonally at the tree... Any more?

MY HERO!!!!!  Now I don't have to write my shit up.... you've pretty much covered everything! (the oil spill was priceless )

[Rick Sadler]

Parts falling off

In 1974 when I purchased my first bug (1967) the first thing I did (day after I bought the car) was buy a set of 'Chromies" with Porsche "nipple caps". I installed the wheels but left the hup caps off since it was still at stock ride height. The following day I drove the car to my friends home in Huntington Beach so he could lower the front, He did the "pull the leaf spring method" until we achieved the desired height. I think he got it where I liked on the third try. Threw the hubcaps on the car to see how it looked and I was pumped. Jumped in the car and took off with my buddy running after me and me just waving to him on my Cal-Look high. Made it about a block and a half away when the passenger wheel took off and ran across the intersection in front of me. Scuffed up my new hubap and tweaked my fender, but I really felt like an ass. My friend pulled up right behind my car as I was retieving the wheel, laughing hysterically.

Things that go KABOOM

In 1979 I was driving my Father's 1972 Datsun truck. He had loaned it to me to tow my Ascot Car (this plays into the story). I had the truck at work and made a lunch run to Del Taco (about 4 blocks away) I knew the truck was low on gas, but I thought I could make it anyway. I was wrong and the truck would'nt start. The closest gas station was about a mile away so I make the trip back to work and picked up a can of gas (we had a stuska dyno). Walked back to Del Taco emptied the can into the tank and started to crank the truck over but the carb was dry and the mechanical fuel pump wasn't up to the task. As i continue to crank the engine the battery is now starting to lose power. If I only would have saved some gas to prime the carb. Just then it hits me I have most of my stuff for my Ascot Car in the the back camper shell including a 1 gallon can of Nitromethane. I take the small cap off the can and pour about a quater cap full into the carb, jump into to fire it up and it starts but only for a second. So I dump a half cap in next with pretty much the same results only the battery is almost dead. So one of the Del Taco patrons offers to jump start the truck. I put a full cap in and hook up the cables to start it and KABOOM the entire right side of the block exploded sending parts everywhere including a freeze plug the broke the glass at the 7-11 store next to the Del Taco. My ears rang for about 3 days.

[Jim Ratto]

So one of the Del Taco patrons offers to jump start the truck. I put a full cap in and hook up the cables to start it and KABOOM the entire right side of the block exploded sending parts everywhere including a freeze plug the broke the glass at the 7-11 store next to the Del Taco. My ears rang for about 3 days.

I think we have a winner in the KABOOM contest.


Holy crap!

[Neil Davies]

MY HERO!!!!!  Now I don't have to write my shit up.... you've pretty much covered everything! (the oil spill was priceless )

Hey Sarge, I got plenty more... How about personal injury ones? I found out that you CAN stop a 240volt 4 1/2" angle grinder with the t-shirt you are wearing... and also that welding in only shorts is not a good idea!

[alex d]

I'll just say that using a hammer in confined spaces can be risky for your head!

[Chuck Fryer]

I'll admit this:

That air bellows between the body and the engine on a type 3 engine is very important!

[flatfire]

So one of the Del Taco patrons offers to jump start the truck. I put a full cap in and hook up the cables to start it and KABOOM the entire right side of the block exploded sending parts everywhere including a freeze plug the broke the glass at the 7-11 store next to the Del Taco. My ears rang for about 3 days.

I think we have a winner in the KABOOM contest.


Holy crap!

Totally agree I have been laughing for ages at that story.

[Christoph]

MY HERO!!!!!  Now I don't have to write my shit up.... you've pretty much covered everything! (the oil spill was priceless )

Hey Sarge, I got plenty more... How about personal injury ones? I found out that you CAN stop a 240volt 4 1/2" angle grinder with the t-shirt you are wearing... and also that welding in only shorts is not a good idea!

you can also stop the angle grinder with its cable and the bursting cable can hit you like a whip 

[nlvtinman]

Oh, when I was about 17, a buddy and I put a junk yard transmission into his '57 bus. It was easy...until we discovered -too late- that reduction gears make flipping the ring gear necessary.
But damn was it fun to drive that bus looking out the back window, shifting into all 4 Reverse gears!

[Sam K]

That reminds me of the time a guy I worked with bought a corvair engined sandrail/buggy thing that had not been finished. The engine was installed but not hookeup to anything. We spent a couple days mounting and plumbing a fuel system and hooking up a throttle and all the electrical stuff. The first time he drove it, though, we discovered that corvair engines spin the opposite way of a VW engine and he had four gears in reverse as well. 

[larry mck]

I heard of people doing all these things and a good friend of mine has done most of these, wheels falling off, pouring oil through the engine. But the best one was leaving the deep sump nuts finger tight and oiling up the Der Renn Kafer pits at Sacramento Bug O Rama. Like I said it wasn't me but a guy I've known my whole life.

[Mike Lawless]

I heard of people doing all these things and a good friend of mine has done most of these, wheels falling off, pouring oil through the engine. But the best one was leaving the deep sump nuts finger tight and oiling up the Der Renn Kafer pits at Sacramento Bug O Rama. Like I said it wasn't me but a guy I've known my whole life.

Oh yeah Larry!
"I knew a guy once....Not me, you understand, but I guy I knew. Yeah. That's the ticket. A guy I knew..."

Like we haven't heard THAT one before!

[Cornpanzer]

Ahhh, you guys are lightweights.  I think I can top all of these dumbass moves (except perhaps Sadler) 

Had my fan shroud off one time.  As you may know, to get a shroud from over the oil cooler on a sedan, you need to take the decklid and hinge brackets off.  Looking for pesky oil leak at the time, I start the engine and free rev it for a few minutes to be sure that the oil cooler wasnt leaking and then re-installed shroud.

Go to install the hinge brackets and I am missing the left side "nut plate" that slides into the slot beneath the intake vents on the rear cowl.  Hmmmm, not on the floor....not on the trans case....nowehere?!?!?!  Ahh, screw it - must be on the engine beneath the shroud.  Easy fix, go to the shed and find another...bolt everything together...call it a day. 

Drove the car for more than a week - couple street races - numerous 7000RPM speed shifts.  Coincidently during one of my frequent passes on the street, the pressure plate took a dump.  Nuts, have to pull the engine. 

Pull off right hand IDA and Skat-Trak....everything okie dokie.  Pull off left hand IDA and Skat-Trak and EGADS!!!!  What is that in the intake port?  Yup, laying in the bowl of the intake port is the missing nut plate.  It seems that during one of those free-revs, it had vibrated out and was easily ingested by the IDA.  It had been riding around on the back of the intake valve like a cowboy on a buckling bronco for more than a week.  Small enough to go through the venturies, but too big to wedge the valve it simply polished all the carbon off of the valve and lightly gouged the port wall.  Still have the same heads on teh car and probably the same valve. 

Still makes me shudder thinking about what could have happened. 

[Cornpanzer]

Next couple were both caused by a sticking oil bypass plunger that took me a while to figure out.

I was at a local show about eight years ago.  It was pretty cool out - probably high 50's / low 60s.  Down the row from me was an older guy who had a clean black oval window that had been a regular winner at the shows in the mid 90's.  He was some kind of high powered businessman and had tons of money in the car.  He was always a bit of a snob with us when we were younger, talking down to us and crap.  For years, he had the bad ass motor of the region....I think it was a 1914 with Dellortos or some such.  Well, now the Cornpanzers had been formed and we were all sporting big IDA motors which was total craziness to most Midwesterners. 

So, at some point, Mr. Businessman is showing somebody his engine and decides to fire it up and rev it for the guy.  He's down there reving this stock stroke, low compression, twin-QP thing and I'm like, "Ha, let me show you how its done".   So I hop in my 67, give it roughly 3.6 seconds of warm up time and start free-revving the piss out of it.  Ahhh, the sound of wide open IDA's, compression, straight cut gears, Magnaflow exhaust ...and some kid yelling something about oil spraying from underneath....huh?

Never seen it done before and never seen it done since.  So much oil pressure it actually pulled the threads out of an Oberg filter, spread it open like a PB&J sandwich and emptied about three quarts of 20/50 Castrol all over the field! 

Yep, I showed him allright! 

[Cornpanzer]

Again, before I figured out my sticking bypass plug issue.

I get a call from Dave Cormack one afternoon.  He says, "Hey, I'm in Ohio about an hour away - can I come visit?"

So Dave shows up and we go driving around town in the 67.  At one point I stand on the car and as I shift into fourth, I look in the mirror and see nothing but smoke.  "Crap"...I shut it down and coast into the local Shell station.  Lifting the decklid, I watch a sheet of oil run down the inside of the lid and out the corners, completely douching my fenders and tail-lights while at the same time filling the back stacks of my IDA's.  There is a black stripe going down the road from the direction we had just come from which ended at the back of my VW.  Beneath the car was whatever was left of the 7 quarts that I had left home with.  Odd thing was that the oil pressure light had never turned on. 

Get looking closer and we notice the pressure sender dangling by its wires, no longer attatched to the engine.  A combination of the high oil pressure and vibration had caused my old school EMPI sender to break in half leaving the bung in the case and the rest hanging by the wires.  Since it was no longer grounded to the case, the light never turned on.   

We walk into the station where the attendant is reading a romance novel.  I tell him that I spilled some oil and without looking at me, he steps into the shop and returns with coffee cup of kitty litter.  I look at the cup, "sorry brother, that aint going to do it" 

So while we cleaned up, I phoned my wife and guided her through the garage until she found my spare oil sender.  She brought us the sender and some oil and we buttoned everything up and drove home.  James Bond would have been proud of the smokescreen we created as all that oil passed through the Webers'.

I thought I had dodged a bullet until a week later I spun a rod bearing.  That pricy little EMPI trinket cost  me a crank and rods.    For the next year, every time the car sat in the sun, a little stream of oil would dribble out of the bottom of the tail-lights.  Worst of all, I had the Hot VW's magazine guy with me for this episode and if you know Dave, he likes to tell stories.  I provided hime with enough material for a couple years!