Bone Head Moves !

[Gregor 4,846]

I think we should have a forum topic dedicated to Bone Head Moves! Everybody makes them. Whether working on our tractors, our house, driving, whatever. Might as well share them and give others a laugh, that might be have a sour day. Might pick them up for a bit. Here is my "Bone Head Move"  for the day.

I have been waiting on parts for another Lawn Boy motor. They arrived yesterday. After disassembling the K-181, and running some errands, I decided to finish the rebuild on it. Got it all back together, mounted it on my temporary stand, hooked a fuel tank, and started cranking. Nope  Won't go. This is unusual for me as I don't often have troubles after a rebuild. Checked for spark, got spark. Try with a little starting fluid, pops right off. Hmmm....not getting gas. Loosen the carb bowl a bit, just to make sure it's getting there from the tank. Yep, I can see it running out on the floor. I can see it, but I can't smell it. This motor happens to be from 1964. It runs on 16-1 gas/oil ratio, rather than 32-1 of newer mowers. . I don't have many of these, so I just have a little gas mixed up in a milk jug, for these older motors. There in lies the problem. I also have some Purple Power cleaner and water mixed up in a milk jug for my sonic cleaner. Ya know what? That stuff won't burn. And you can take THAT to the bank!  Purple Power and water look remarkably like gas and Lawn Boy oil mixed together. After cleaning everything thoroughly, and replacing fuel filter, it runs just fine. A guy my age should not make Bone Head Moves like this, but it happens all too often.

Share your Bone Head Move. Someone might need a .

[SylvanLakeWH 25,494]

Great idea and excellent one to start!!!

 

Just last week...

 

Changed leaking fuel shut off valve on my C 105... went in perfect. No leaks. Started right up. Then died. What?!?! Oh... fuel line should, perhaps, be reconnected to new valve... pump fuel bulb, Go to start...nothin’... oh, duh... perhaps new  fuel SHUT OFF valve should be turned on...

 

 

Runs great now...

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 67,309]

I'd say my most recent bonehead move would be the last time I started our nearly new Ariens snowblower. 

 

I've been known more times than I would care to admit to become 38% past flusticated after I realize that I did not turn the gas on.

 

Well, I checked the ignition switch. I checked the gas coming in. I pressed the primer bulb recommended amount of times. Pulled on the rope. A few times. after about the third pull I began to become suspicious that I was doing something stupid but of course it's the machines fault. NOT MINE.

So I pressed the primer bulb more. I double checked that I was in the correct position for choke. I was. I moved the throttle back and forth to be sure that it was engaging. It was.

Pulled a few more times. Cough. Cough cough. Die.

So I pressed the primer bulb more. And then I went back and double checked my triple checks which I had already quadruple checked.

And I pulled on it a few more times. run run run dum dum dum dum down down. Die.

 

$#@_&-/@#)$&(_$#

 

You might say that I was beginning to become headed towards that point of flustication because I had put good money into this thing not too long ago and it was failing to start and obviously that's the machines fault. NOT MINE.

 

 

What did we learn from this?

 

It may have possibly been my fault that I had it on low idle and not high speed. 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

Speaking of mixing up plastic jugs and substances looking the same...

 

Empty windshield washer bottles come in handy for making up 50/50 mix of DexCool antifreeze.

 

They also come in handy as 'portable urinals' for the garage.

 

Guess what I did MORE THAN one time?  (you don't lose points if you guess wrong!  In fact, you can't guess wrong!)

 

BUT... I have never once pizzed directly into the radiator!

Edited March 10, 2021 by Jeff-C175

[Gregor 4,846]

8 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

 

BUT... I have never once pizzed directly into the radiator!

I'm no chemist, but it just might work !

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

12 minutes ago, Gregor said:

I'm no chemist, but it just might work !

 

I can tell you that beer does... in a pinch.  At least long enough to get to the next bar!

[JoeM 7,871]

Or when you are trying to get the generator started, and you are pulling your guts out............ then the wife walks by and asks what is the little red switch for? 

You don't know how bad I wanted to say that is the ejection button!

[Zeek 2,286]

I once had a neighbor that was a Bone Head. Fortunately he moved . . . 

[JCM 9,130]

Boy @Zeek   I'm still laughing 5 minutes after reading your response. We could use a guy like you at the Meet n Greet in September, I am sure you would know some of the guy's and you surely would fit right in. Oh and by the way, we have no neighbors.   

[ebinmaine 67,309]

43 minutes ago, Zeek said:

I once had a neighbor that was a Bone Head. Fortunately he moved . . . 

Probably... To Maine....

[JCM 9,130]

3 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Probably... To Maine....

HAHAHAHAHAHA,  What am I going to do about you.             Forget it, don't answer that.

[DennisThornton 4,769]

This thread might break the Internet!  That's just if I get started!

[ebinmaine 67,309]

24 minutes ago, JCM said:

HAHAHAHAHAHA,  What am I going to do about you.             Forget it, don't answer that.

It's a long list to fixing the Bear my friend

[953 nut 55,099]

At the end of daylight-savings time last fall I set all the clocks ahead one hour.   Since everything was shut down it didn't make much difference at the time.               Guess I was practicing for this coming weekend.

[JCM 9,130]

It would seem we should have heard from @WHX24 , @Achto  and  @pullstart  by now. There is not enough room on this thread for my list of BHM.

[DennisThornton 4,769]

Considering available bandwidth, storage, typing speed and other restraints, perhaps a more appropriate thread title:

  "Today's Bone Head Moves"?  Or, "This Morning's BHMs"?

[Achto 27,509]

28 minutes ago, JCM said:

It would seem we should have heard from @WHX24 , @Achto  and  @pullstart 

 

There is just sooo much to choose from.

 

Lets see, about 6yrs ago I answered an add from some  in Princeton WI looking for an idle pulley for a Suburban. Then a couple years later that and I fed beer to some  who was wearing shorts & work boots, after he wandered into our camp at the big show.

 

Naw! Those were actually both good events.

 

Don't you worry, I'll narrow down some thing for real.  Might have to sleep on it in order to pick the right one.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Achto

[Stepney 2,325]

Well..

I wish I could talk about life here in the machine shop I work at, but cant say much due to being aircraft related..

 

Just finished 'overhaul' of my 1951 Farmall Cub engine, it's been in a nice heated garage throughout the whole ordeal. Finally decided last weekend to get her back to the property she belongs on.

Hydraulic pump on the F-Cub is a rather poor design, and has a literal O ring for an input shaft seal. No matter what I did, it weeped.. into the oil pan..
So it got a healthy dose of 30wt and that sorted the leak .. mostly. Won't hurt anything at least.

Still 6v, cause it always worked fine..

Drove it onto the trailer no trouble, and hauled it off to my grandparents place..

It was 11* outside.. 45 minute ride.

Climbing onto the seat I accidentally grabbed the lever for the hydro lift and moved it. It's quite sensitive and even when in good shape they lug the engine a bit.

Nice tight rebuilt motor + 30wt in the hydraulics, trying to move the lift, below freezing, with a 6 volt starter.. You can imagine how well this went.

Got tired of smelling burnt insulation and decided to just pop start it.. off the trailer.

Those cubs fall to earth right quick when there's nothing holding them up.. did get it rolling fast enough to fire up though. 

 

Some years ago when i first bought my '85 Ford, I had the top of the 4 speed pulled apart to change the oil. Tremec never installed a drain plug on my model..

Had the front spindles apart at the same time and was waiting on bearings. Truck was up on stands. Friend dropped by and wanted to hear it run. Let my foot off the clutch and forgot it was in gear on account of the tranny being apart.. again with the gravity?

Had a '74 Ford LGT tractor and I think Eric was lucky enough to see the aftermath of it's adventure. 
Grabbed the mail for my grandfather from the top of the hill, and started down. Jumped out of gear so I let it roll a moment before remembering it had no brakes. Plowed it through the back wall of the garage and into the basement. 

 

1913 Associacted 1 3/4hp hit and miss.

Smelt an awful funny burning smell and shut off the spark, but it kept on running. Just had it apart.

A smoldering shop rag was still in the bore, and it seems somehow it actually was running like that. 

 

1928 Model A Ford pickup truck I was working on for a family friend. Not entirely my screwup..

No spark. Tore the distributor apart, all 4 parts of it.. filed points, no fire. New condenser, no fire. Tear apart the security wire to the switch, I have power. Or ground as it was, positive ground and all.

Take the cap and body off and turn the engine over with a plug hooked right to the coil, good fire.

Throw some little piece of wood out of the bottom of the distributor..

Reassemble, nothing. Went round and round with it for a whole afternoon.

Turns out the housing was warped and the little piece of wood Farma Brown put in there served to keep clearance between the points and the rotor. 

..Still in there and serving admirably.

 

1921 Evinrude ELTO, belonged to a friend. Called a 'knuckle buster' due to the open flywheel and starter knob that spun around at the top. I had never run one. No throttle, only a fuel mixer and spark advance with throws in either direction. No reverser or clutch. All you had to do was set the timer forward or back, and flip it over compression.

Do make note of the decal being wrong, and that if started quickly, your boat may jump back onto the trailer in a scalded hurry..

 

1926 Maytag gas washing machine.

Was showing her off at a show, kicked it over and it sounded odd, but was running. Close enough for the very engine that taught so many little children to curse.. Went to demonstrate the wringer after washing a few towels. Put it in gear and tried over and over to thread the cloth into the rollers. Took a moment before I realized it was working backwards. 
Timing had drifted and it fired off in reverse somehow. Had no way to pull the flywheel on sight, and after attempting several times further to start it the right way, I gave up and belted the whole unit to my WH Electro 12 that was also present.

That Kohler idles a lot faster than the Maytag runs wide open, you know..

Finally gave up and left it static display. Made enough of a fool of myself. 

 

 

Working with the old iron I mess with so often makes for some pretty easy opportunities. 

[WHX?? 48,795]

41 minutes ago, Achto said:

 

There is just sooo much to choose from.

 

Lets see, about 6yrs ago I answered an add from some  in Princeton WI looking for an idle pulley for a Suburban. 

 

[Gregor 4,846]

11 hours ago, Zeek said:

I once had a neighbor that was a Bone Head. Fortunately he moved . . . 

I have a feeling there is more to this story, that some of us don't know.

[Pullstart 62,803]

9 hours ago, WHX24 said:

 

Not sure why... but I could easily imagine these two  acting out this skit...

 

 

[953 nut 55,099]

There is one from my high school days that would qualify here. I had a 1956 DeSoto and was giving it a tune-up, the dual point distributor is located at the rear of the engine so I was laying across the engine replacing the points. Lighting wasn't all that great in the school's auto shop and I asked another kid to shine a light between the hood and cowl so I could see. He was a bit vertically challenged (short) and couldn't reach far enough to get the light where I needed it. He jumped up on the fender and leaned across the hood with the light in hand. At this point the hood came down on top of me and had the other kid's arm pinched between the hood and cowl so he couldn't move. The shop teacher heard the commotion and came over, he was laughing so hard he could hardly talk. He called all the other students over so they could have a good laugh at our expense too. 

[Pullstart 62,803]

I have so many, it’s hard to think of them all.. but that’s the fun part of life most times!

 

Speaking of shop, I was in high school wood shop for my freshman and sophomore years, then was old enough to travel to auto shop at a nearby school.  In wood shop, I had the retractable air hose reeled out as far as you would wisely pull a wind up car back in the day (way too far) and on a retract mode it slipped out of my hand.  Big long air hose flying through the shop, with about a 10 foot lead on it so us short kids can reach it, it flew right into a bank of 8 foot lights and shattered every tube.  Luckily it was end of class and the rest of my classmates were at the door to leave as the shards came falling to the shop desks...  

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

4 minutes ago, 953 nut said:

arm pinched between the hood and cowl so he couldn't move.

 

That reminds me of one too...  We were remodeling our home about 35 years ago.  MAJOR remodeling.  We should have moved to a hotel but we were young and decided to 'rough it out'.  One evening my wife commented that the ONLY room that hadn't been affected by the renovation was the downstairs bathroom which we had done separately a couple years prior.

 

So... I was doing the plumbing in the new upstairs bathroom which naturally is directly above the downstairs one.  There was no subfloor down yet so I had plywood scraps across the floor joists.  I should have tacked them down.  Unbeknownst to me, one of the scraps had slipped off the edge of the joist such that when I stepped on it, the edge went down, my leg went through the sheetrock ceiling of the previously unaffected downstairs bathroom, and the other edge of the plywood scrap came up such that my leg was pinched between the joist and the plywood.  Of course when I put my weight on the plywood to try and pull my leg out, that weight only pinched my leg harder!  I was STUCK!  Everything I tried only got me more stucker.  Like quicksand.

 

My wife wasn't home, not due back for another half hour.  Back then, no cell phones.  Soon I heard her car in the driveway... she came into the house, had to pee, so headed straight for the bathroom downstairs first thing, only to see my leg hanging out of the ceiling.

 

Before even asking "Are you all right?", she said "Well... so much for this room being the only one untouched!"

 

Moral of the story:  Don't trust your cat-like instincts.  Tack down temporary flooring when working on an open floor!

[Pullstart 62,803]

I experienced another air hose mess in shop class, but fast forward to my senior year.  Second year of auto shop, third teacher by then (I don’t think I drove them away... just circumstances).  It was class demonstration time and one of the hanging retractable hoses let out had somehow developed a hole but the entire wing of shops used the same compressed air system.  The hose was doing the classic firehouse snake whip and the brand new teacher (first or second week of his career brand new!) tried to catch it.  His front tooth caught it in front of 15-ish high school kids!  Busted up, missing a tooth and bloody, somehow he caught it and was able to hold it until someone found a shut off.