Here goes - this one really brought back memories. It's funny now, but...
When I was in high school, we were able to attend a special off site auto
mechanics half day class twice a week. Well, when I had gotten through half
of the curriculum, I thought I could work on any thing on a car. (Being a
teenager helps fuel this line of thought!). After all hadn't I rebuilt a
carburator (never worked after the rebuild, but I'm sure that was a
fluke!)? Anyway, my friends' parents station wagon was making tapping type
noises when it ran (just like lifters out of adjustment). I offered to fix
this for my friend and make a few brownie points with his parents. It's
probably a good time to admit that nowhere so far in the course curiculum
had we gotten anywhere near adjusting valves. But what the heck, I had the
book and I could fix anything anyway!
He decided to bring it over a few hours before his dinner (I wouldn't take
someone like me too long to do a small job like that!). Well, when I got
done with his dad's station wagon, (things had gone from bad to worse and
he was already an hour late for dinner) it barely ran and huffed aand
chugged so bad, I didn't think he would ever make it back to his house only
about a mile away. As it turned out, I had taken out three of his cylinders
and made the rest barely work. If his dad hadn't gotten it to his mechanic
the very next day, he would have done some permanent damage. By the way, it
turns out that there was something making the noise in his automatic
transmission. It wasn't even the lifters! His dad never really spoke to me
very much after that.
Then there was the time I was in a hurry to get my Jensen Healey off the
car trailer at my storage space. The chain to lower it was not long enough,
so I decided to line it up perfectly straight and let it rip down the
center of the aisle between two buildings. Well halfway down the wheels
turned and the car rammed (it's amazing how much speed a car can pick up
coming off a trailer) into one of the buildings taking out a gutter and
putting a dent into a perfect rust free rear fender.
At 01:39 AM 1/3/98 -0800, you wrote:
>I have been contemplating the stupidest thing that I done. There has been
>so much that it is hard to pick. How about removing the hood release cable
>and then closing the hood on the TR7 with the fresh air intake in place.
>Lots more where that came from. BUT the worst I think was the TR7 valve
>adjustment episode. I had removed the cam sprocket to re-adjust an
>incompetent machine shops attempt. My valves rattled bad. After measuring
>the gap, removing the chain and sprocket and cam, it began to rain. I
>removed the shims and closed the hood. While measuring the shims I was
>asked by someone what I was doing. I proceeded to tell them about the
>machine shop and the clattering valves. Then I was going to let him listen
>for himself. Somehow I had forgotten that the cam and shims were on the
>bench. Needless to say it did not start. I broke the timing cover, chain,
>lower sprocket and both chain guides. Not to mention the bent valves.
>
>Well at least I knew where not to bring the head for the second valve job.
>It went in and no clattering this time. Hell of a way to adjust valves
>though.
>
>John
>
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