What stupid mistake have you made today?

[davids2toys]

Originally Posted by DanEC

I was working on my car today which I normally keep on a set of Harbor Freight dollies I bought when I was building it.




I rolled it out and reached in from the outside and turned the key to start it and it fired up but was making a weird rumbling sound. I blipped the throttle a couple times with no change and glanced in the cockpit and noticed the transmission appeared to be in first and the speedometer was running at 5 - 10 mph. I thought what the heck - reached in and shut the motor off, pushed the stick into neutral and re-started it and everything sounded normal. The parking brake wasn't on either so I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I noticed a little pile of rubber at the back end of the rear dollies and realized the car had been running in gear on the dollies like it was on a chassis dyno.

Fortunately, other that a bit of rubbed off paint on the dollies where the tires were slightly in contact - no damage done. Stupid mistake but I'm impressed the car didn't climb off the dollies and that the rollers on them kept up with the tires.

You're lucky you don't own my Harbor freight cheaper dollies. I have no rollers on mine, just a cradle with 4 little wheels. You would have shot that thing right out and then would proceed to cause a lot of damage to something!
I have done plenty of stupid things (still doing a few today actually). One of the things I can think of right off the bat is not using jack stands and going under a car!!! STUPID!!!!
OK, so back in the late 70's, I was visiting my mother. She lived on a steep hill on the end of a cul de sac. The street was curbed. I needed to adjust something under my Camaro or do some sort of maintenance, actually, I think it was an oil change. So I just put the front end up on the curb, put the car in park, did not apply the E-brake or it did not work (I don't remember) and crawled underneath the car and started working. Can you guess what happened next???

[DanEC]

Shooting out behind the car is exactly what I would have expected. I've been pretty pleased with these Harbor Freight dollies. I was so happy that they were content to just sit there and roll with the tires, that I took them out in the driveway Wed and washed them off, touched up the couple worn paint areas and lubed them up.

But, still kicking myself for leaving it in gear as it could have done some damage. I usually kick it out of gear when I put it on the dollies. I remember doing something around it the day before and noticing it appeared to be in gear - but then promptly forgot to do something about it. Age creeping up on me I guess. Must remember to always double check my work.

[cycleguy55]

My accelerator pedal felt a bit stiffer than normal, like it was binding a bit, so I just pressed a bit harder. Big mistake - the Morse push/pull cable jammed and I was accelerating hard to the end of the cul de sac I live on. I quickly turned the key off, got hard on the brakes and got it stopped with about 50 feet to spare.

I rolled it home and replaced the push/pull cable, and I'm now nearly finished replacing the whole assembly with a completely different accelerator pedal and a PULL cable.