When I was 14 my friends and myself were in our "Explosives" club meeting in my yard, I called them to order on my huge surplus Army PA sustem whick could be hearfd for blocks.
we decided to help one of thr guys dads clear his rotting Dock so he can build a new one before his new boat was delivered. his dad expected our help would be in the form of muscle but we checked invetory and found a good supply of chemstry was to ba had.
so each of us began making his own version of small pipe bomb.
we used empty steel cylinders and nicrome wite for ign. embeded it and sealed top with wax then fiberglass resin.
we had 6 different units consisting of at least 5 pounds of pure Sodium metal, 8 pounds of pure Magnesium powder, very fine alum powder, organic carbon,10 pounds of potassium Nitrate,Pure sulpher, Chlorine powder 5 lbs.. it was all put in different proportions in each cyl and the cul was wrapped with a few pounds of lead sheet and sealed.. we also bade a few baby size cyl bombs for later play.
went to the house no one at home,great. buried each unit about 10 feet apart along the dock and canal and ran the wires to the front of the house. we sat in the garage and i stuck the wires on a car battery for each and a push button on the second wite.
its go time. we were also doing a little smoking to keep from being bored.
I push button 1 . nothing for a minute we start toward yard. KABOOM! 1,KABOOM!2 1KABOOM!3 1KABOOM! 4 so on the entire yard was engulfed in a fireball of bright green and silver from the chlorine and mag. wood and dirt flying everywhere. and all the alum siding and windows blown off the back of his house and most of the neighbors.
the dock was totally gone as was most of the dirt from under it and it blocked 1/2 the canal and covered boats from the other side of the canal.
and oh yea the neighbors poodle somehow was blown across the canal and on the otherside unharmed but all black and dirty.
wood was floting everywhere and loads of dead fish from the shrapnell.
the fireball died down and the house trim was burning we hosed it down and it went out.
total toast was the theme of that day
and 2 of us ended up with pieces of steel embedded in us for many years after
this is just a generalization it looked like the end of the world back there.
The police bomb special taskforce came and interview each of us and wanted to know who was teaching us these tactics went on for 4 hrs .
boy oh boy were we punished. I was grounded for 4 months confined to the house for the summer also.
of courese we coutinued right where we left off with after school shows every week.
ps his dad spent 5k to fix up everything

My (former) best friend and I used to do a lot of dumb things in High School.

1. I remember going to McDonalds once and bursting out laughing when he mooned the glass with everyone inside looking. (No kids in there by the way)

2. Once we thought it would be cool to ride a push mower down a really big hill with a paved road on it. We later found out that no matter how hard you try, you can't make a push mower steer just a little to the right just by shifting your weight. Nor by grabbing the spinning wheel. You just have to hit the ditch with your freshly tire imprinted hand.

3. Had an old go kart and a good 6 foot hill at the end of my drive way. "Hey, lets get your truck and push you up the hill and see how hi you jump" Turns out a 4 cylinder Ranger is only good for a 3 foot jump. It wasn't until we got bold with my 440 charger that he jumped 5 feet and coasted 100 before he stopped. His eyes were like
I forgot to mention that there was some sort of flower planting enclosure there with 4 2x4s as post. There was probably only 3 inches of clearance on either side of the wheels.
No pressure.....

4. Then once in an astro van we thought it would be cool to exit the side door and come back in on the driver side window, after ryding on the roof for a while.. Man it's windy at 40 mph.

5. We also figured out that you could use those election signs that pollute the roadsides at election time as some cool land skis. Just hang on to the b pillar on said van. Man those sparks are bright....

6.Also learned not to have burnout contest in the parking lot 200 feet from the school. Authority figures hate that. Especially doughnuts.

7. On school spirit week, we thought it would be a good Idea to make 2 "I'm with stupid" shirts for the twins day. What we didn't plan on was the number of teachers that get mad at you when you go to the front of the class and stand beside them with afforementioned shirts on. Whoops!

8.Don't drive a car missing it's driver door when your neghbor 2 houses down has some freshly neutered dovermans. They can run fast, and if you don't fall out, they can probably jump in.

9. 4 spare tires and no jack are worthless. You sure can fit a lot of stuff in a 63 buick, jack notwithstanding. That was an exciting trip. (please see above stupid tidbit)

10. A junk 87 CRX can and will jump 5 feet at a 45mph roll. The car will hold up fine, except for the front bumper and core support. They will adapt to the crash position.

11. Rusty mufflers don't make it 2 jumps. Man thats a loud ricer.

12. Do not snatch an e brake at 65 mph and attempt one of those cool 180s. That always turns into 3 cool 180s, and will infuriate dates.

13. Same with tidbit number one.

Y'all are AWESOME !! It's almost like Tim Allen and Jeff Foxworthy were cloned together!!

I did more dumb and dangerous stuff than I'll ever admit to. One thing I did that wasn't particularly dangerous but was definately dumb was stay awake for a whole weekend. I was 18 or 19 and my parents were out of town for the weekend. Party time, right? Well I partied friday night and worked all day Saturday, partied Saturday night and worked all day Sunday. Sunday night I had a "real date" with a "hot girl" at the local drive in movie. After about an hour we jump into the back seat for more room and guess what I did ? Yup, I took about a 2 hour nap! Boy was she totally unimpressed! Thats the last time I saw her and the last time I stayed awake for 72 hours.

here's my motor themed stupidest thing, (waaay to many unmotor things to list!!!) I was building my SWEET 347 stroker for my 77 Bronco, and whilst putting it together and sipping (yeah right) beers, it came time for the fuel pump eccentric, timing cover, etc. Oh wait, I am running an electric fuel pump, I'll just leave the eccentric out. Yep, left the hold down bolt for it out too, and sure enough, lasted long enough to get about 11 miles in on the Behind The Rocks trail in Moab, and WHAM!!!! cam came right out the front of the motor and SEVERE carnage insued. Hey, I saved the carb and Jacobs ignition!!!

I'm gonna have to go with the time I tried to pul a stump out of the front lawn with my gold 71 fury III. 50 ft. chain, 25ft of slack, and one hell of a holeshot.

Then there was the time we took a similar car to a fly-in lake in Canada....


2tons

Okay my turn.

Back in 1983 I owned a 74 Challenger that I bought from a co-worker for $40.00 it was a beater I drove in the winter. Anyway it was about 65% rust could not put anything into the trunk because if you took a turn anything that was in the trunk would fall out the sides because they were rusted away. Anyway you get the picture. This car had only one redeeming quality a 318 that could lay down 50feet of rubber and smoke. I worked at a grocery store that had some other shops in it in the same strip mall and one of the stores in the mall used those plastic shopping carts. One evening we get out of work from the grocery store late and all the stores in the mall were closed. My buddy and I hop in the challenger and we started home. Driving through the empty parking lot was a lone plastic shopping cart sitting there all by itself. Well I point the Chally at the cart and get up a nice head of steam and at about 60 mph I nail this cart dead on. Well all we saw after that was an explosion of plastic and metal. Slow down and circle back around and all that was left of the cart was the metal frame all twisted and bent and plastic bits everywhere in a 30ft radius of impact. My buddy thought I was going to play chicken with the cart and nearly crapped his pants when we nailed this cart at 60mph.

Needless to say for weeks after there were several dead shopping carts left in the parking lot until the store that owned them started doing a better job of collecting there carts at the end of the day.

Also those carts did absolutley no damage to my challenger, not that you could tell anyway but thats a testament to old iron.

You people are hilarious! OMG - the bombs, airplanes.!?

One painful events tends to stand out in my life:

A bunch of college buddies were at my house in NH at Xmas break. We get a big aircraft innertube out of the garage from my stepdad's days as a mechanic. We wicked over-inflate it and all 8 of us can fit on it. We get going down the farmer's big hill next to our house pretty fast when we learned you can't brake or steer if your feet can't touch the ground, but if you sit up and try...you fall off. Did I mention the farmer uses this hill for grazing, and it's strewn with rocks? The three who fell off were the lucky ones.. Five remaining drunks head towards the bottom of the hill with the road just beyond. Luckliy the farmer has removed the electric fence for the winter, but we still hit a metal post which does nothing to stop the tube, but gashes it rather permanently with us still on it. We bounce into the ditch and skid across the road at like 300mph on a now completely FLAT innertube and slam first into the curb... then the stone fence on the other side...... ow.

The Body Count: 1 dead innertube, Jason lost all hearing in his left ear and ruptured his spleen (removed), 2 broken noses, 1 broken ankle, a broken wrist, cracked collar bone, 1 dislocated shoulder (me ), & numerous cuts stitched shut (3 stitches in my knee, 1 on my head).

Worst part: Sobering up and seeing the sun rise after 5 hours in the emergency room.

The best part: 7 friends for life. We still go camping in NH, Jason & his wife just had their first baby, Ron has two kids, Tom has 5, etc, etc.

I'll add one more just because it is documented with such a great picture. This is what happens when you work on your 8 3/4 differential on your wife's glass patio table.

Happened here over a year ago and I STILL Howl every time I see it!

A few years ago my father in law asked me to drive him into town to run some errends. I took the wheel of his extremely pampered 80's something Chevy pickup. The grocery store and hardware store went great, all that was left was the post office. I didn't realize that the brackets for his big towing mirrors stuck out way past the mirrors (he had the heads swung in towards the truck) When I pulled up to the mailbox I hooked the mirror bracket on the mailbox and caved the whole door in!

A friend of mine's house had an abandonded well. One day, a few of us kids decide to see if we can get a nice boom by pouring some gas down this 3 inch pipe into the old well. One gallon down the hole, a lit pack of matches....nothing. Must need more gas...so another gallon goes in....nothing. 2 more gallons go down, then the pack of matches...nothing...until about 10 seconds later when we hear this low rumbling sound, followed by a very loud boom, followed by about a 30 foot high flame out of the pipe and the entire ground within a 50 ft radius of the pipe lifts what seemed a ft or so! Pretty awesome sight....we spent about 3 hrs trying to fix that side lawn to hide the damage.

I got another recent one.
I found a junk 10 gallon water tank and was going to use it for air 30psi for filling tires.
I know they take around 40-50 psi normally with water.
so i cleaned it up stood it on its end and put some air fittings on it with a mini regulator and gauge.
I connected the air line to my house supply (135psi) and expeted it to fill to 30 and stop. nope bad regulator I snagged from work.
at 50 the tank sides bulged it started to shake and I ran like hell around the house my dog at my heels.
then suddenly BOOM!!!!!.
my ears hurt. I looked back and the tank was on its way to the moon with a 100 feet vapor trail from the ground. on the grass was a 12" steel circle which was the bottom end left.
air hose tore.
I never saw wehre the tank and parts landed it was waaaay far away but hope it was not on someone.
note to self check freebie regulators first.
now I only use x propane and disposable helium tanks for air tanks.

remember the old roadrunner cartoons(Thats a stupid question on this site) Well remember when the roadrunner would buzz down the road with the cayote on his tail and that fire left on the road behind him,well me and a friend around age 12 tried that with a can of gas thinking wed wait till a car would drive by and then lght the gas and it would chase the car well the car went by and we were trying to light the gas but couldnt get it started the car is long gone so the next one comes along and i guess he saw what we were doing,It was the school principal and I dont need to say any more except I wont do to my kid what my dad did to me!!

This should go in the Best Of Moparts. It's been a long time since I've laughed til I cried like this.

I did so many stupid things in my youth that I should have been dead many times.

But here is a more recent one. I had a block machined and was doing the assembly myself. Pistons and crank were in and I was looking over the paperwork I got from the machine shop. I didn't see anything about a sonic test. Since it was .060 over, I had ordered a sonic test. I called the machine shop and he said he must have forgot to tell me, there was a couple of thin spots at the bottom of a couple of cylinders. So I should probably short fill the block to be on the safe side. Well crap! It was already finish honed and assembled. I was running short on time, so we decided I would measure each bore in 12 locations, add block fill to 1/3 full, then re-measure after it was set up to decide if it needed to be torn down and re honed. So to keep the motor clean while I filled it, I wrapped shrink wrap round and round it, then just poked little holes in the shrink wrap where I could pour the hard block in thru the coolant holes in the deck. Looks good, ought to work, so I mixed up the hard block and started to pour. I checked the depth with a welding rod "dip stick" and it wasen't too deep. So I poured a bit more and checked it again. Still not as deep as I would expect. I step back and take a look.... Oh son of a @#%$&, I forgot to put the frost plugs in! The hardblock is running out the frost plug holes and filling up between the shrink wrap and the outside of the block, and some of it was getting under the pan rail and starting to fill up inside the crank case! So I franticly cut the shrink wrap off the bottom and sides, install the frost plugs, and start trying to clean everything before the stuff hardens into concrete. What a stupid mess! I was kicking myself for a week over that one. But surprisingly, everything turned out good, no chuncks of concrete were ever found floating around the motor and it didn't have to be re-honed.

I left mt truck idleing in the driveway and took the Bee to work one day. At about 4:30 my neighbor calls me and tells me his wife wants to know why my truck has been running in the driveway all day. Traded it in soon after

My most recent happened about an hour ago.

I worked on my TA engine the other night and when I worked on it I put a large cushioned packing/moving blanket on the air cleaner and valve covers to put wrenches and so forth on.

Beautiful night for a short cruise and asked the next door neighbor if he wanted to go. We go out to some back roads and I pull over to switch drivers. The neighbor is now driving doing rather well. He told me he hasn't driven an older car in years. He is getting on the 4 speed pretty good, but something is not quite smelling right. We are almost home and it is starting to stink. He pulls it in the driveway and shuts it down. I get out, pop the hood and the blanket is down on the exhaust manifold and is starting to smolder. can't believe it didn't go up or get caught in the belts. Sure I can laugh now, but I almost had a bonfire TA. I'm such a knucklehead.

Rick.