Quote:
Originally Posted by evilokc
I honestly had no idea.
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I wrote in post #2689: "...this crap happens to us all the time." There will be years of boredom, and then something like this will happen:
You should have been there the day I was tuning my '78 Plymouth Horizon. The car was idling in the garage. I had set the e-brake, and had put the car in drive as I prepared to set the idle, then burped the RPMs up to about 1200 as I fiddled with the carb. The brake released (say "SPROINGGGGG!!!), the car lurched forward with my body hung over the fender, and the front tire caught the edge of my oil catch pan that was sitting in front of the front tire. That soaked my pants and that side of the garage with five quarts of used oil. The car continued forward, crushed the legs of the parts washer that was in front of it full on, dumped three gallons of solvent into the oil on the floor, and drove what was left of the parts washer into the drywall. True story. The only thing that was missing was fire, or it would have been an Allstate commercial.
Speaking of fire, then there was the day I had just rebuilt the tripower on my '55 chevy. I got into the car and fired her up. I was in the same garage as I had been in the paragraph above, with my '85 Astro van directly behind me, in the drive on jacks. No escape. As the car's idle settled down I could have sworn I smelled a little more gas then usual. Then, WHOOOOOOMMMMMM!!! The back carb float had stuck and had dumped about a quart of petrol onto the intake manifold, over the bellhousing and headers, and onto the floor. It lit off. The wife was mowing the grass, and said a huge ball of flame licked one time at the Astro van. As I thought about it later, I realized the '55's fan had blown the fireball in that direction. She ran into the house and dialed 911. I killed the key, grabbed the extinguisher in the corner, hit the flames low, then high, then low. The fire went out, leaving black soot all over the firewall, inside the hood, and generally all over the garage. A few minutes later the fire trucks showed up. Shock was just starting to set in, but I remember one of the firemen saying, "Nice save!"