Octania

"It was a beautiful spring day in 1972; I was 16 and cruising around with my girlfriends in my green 1971 Cutlass Supreme when we happened upon a group of cute high school boys hanging out on a corner with all their cool cars. They flagged us down and we talked for about an hour.

Before we pulled away, one of the more entertaining boys in the group says to me casually, “Did you get the winter air taken out of your tires yet?” “Uh, no,” I said. "Do I have to do that?" “Of course you do” He said … "You should change the air every season…you need to get the spring air in those tires fast or they could explode. There’s a gas station right down the street - my brother’s working there now. Just go in and ask Pete to take out the winter air and put in the spring air. He probably won’t even charge you.”

Alarmed that my tires were going to explode, I immediately pulled into the gas station down the road. Back in those days, the guys pumped your gas, checked your oil, washed your windshield and obligingly put air in your tires for free. I went inside the garage where five mechanics were working on cars and a few other guys were just hanging around talking. I found Pete and made my request.

Why was everyone laughing? This was a serious matter! I still remember that horrifying moment when I realized I’d been "punked" by a band of morons. I was pretty sure those morons were still laughing back there on the corner.

Needless to say, my green Cutlass and I became a legend in that neighborhood. And, oh yeah, I married one of those morons!

Kathy in Illinois"

http://www.rockauto.com/Newsletter/index.html

m371961

I pay extra for all season air.

oldcutlass

Back in the 70's I sent a girl to the auto parts store for a thermostat for her VW Bug. When she got there the guy behind the counter, who was new and as mechanically inclined as she was proceeded to look for one. It was both entertaining to us and the counter guys co-worker.

Back in my aircraft days, we used to send our newbeeees in search of a bucket of smoke. One enterprising young man actually came back with one, dry ice in a plastic bucket.

Lady72nRob71

The blunder section in that newsletter usually brings on a few chuckles.
40 years from now we will have a similar topic: "You paid WHAT for nitrogen to be put in your tires?"

OLD SKL 69

That's a funny story Kathy. I will have to pass that on to some of my other friends.

BTW, anyone know where I can get some blinker fluid? Mine stopped working, I must have ran out.

redoldsman

Prop wash was one of the items we used on newbies and a sky hook was the other. That was a long time ago.

Seff

Every time someone asks me for advice when their car is acting up, I tell them to check the chrome part-throttle-distributor.

Yellowstatue

X2 on the prop wash

sammy

Huh...I fess up....what is a bucket of smoke

Olds_71_442

I believe you can find those in the hardware store in the same aisle as the Board Stretchers, The Sky Hooks and the Post Holes.

Octania

To clarify:
I quoted an article from Rock Auto's newsletter, provided by a Kathy... She's not here, probably.

Among the other thing folks have a hard time finding, but the scammers ALWAYS have on hand, in good condition, ready to ship
Left hand Frammis Valve
Battery Gaskets
O-pipe for the exhaust

Then there's the left handed hammer, metric adjustable wrench...

see also

http://www.kalecoauto.com/fluids.htm

and

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/...t=82396&pp=100

Aron Nance

One of my first RJ's (real jobs" when I was just out of HS a co-worker asked me to go to another floor to get a box stretcher (worked in the mail room). Fortunately, I didn't fall for it; however, I did try it on the next new guy, and he was gong all over the building looking for it! Funny!

Sampson

I was too smart to fall for that sky hook thing. When they sent me to get one I went Snipe hunting instead.

navvet

In the Navy we would send guys out to get B.I.R.D or a G.U.L.L they would come back saying they could not find one.We made a sailor stand on the bow of the ship and grab the mail off the mail bouy!!! But spring air is a great one

joe_padavano

Well, I don't know about the bucket-sized containers, but you can get readily get a jar of replacement smoke from British car repro houses.

lucas-smoke.jpg

69442C

Joe, you beat me to it. I work with a guy who is into sports cars and the comment made at times when a Lucas electrical system isn't working is for the person to check to see if all the smoke is still in the wires. If not, it needs to be replaced.

Back in high school I worked in the shop at a gas station and we would prank the new gas pumper kids. We would tell them to grab one of the Styrofoam coffee cups and put a little gas in it because we needed it to prime a carb. The gas would melt the cup and most caught on quickly that we were messing with them. One kid went through 8 cups before he realized we were all rolling on the floor watching him try to figure it out.

Lady72nRob71

Here is one of my fav's from a few years ago...

It was 1972 in Arizona (hot) and I had recently received a “promotion” that required me to wear a shirt and tie. My carpool partner and I were on the way home one evening in my 1960 Dodge pickup when the fuel pump went out. We were miles from any type of repair capability, plus as you can guess, not in proper car repair attire. The old Dodge was black and white two-tone and affectionately named “Sanford” from the TV series because most of the time it looked just like Sanford’s truck with all the junk in the back. The truck had a cowl vent for fresh air which was operated via a lever inside the cab. With no air conditioning in Southern Arizona, this was a critical creature comfort and turned out to be the saving grace of the situation.

Careful not to muss my new dress clothes (HaHa) I was able to pull off the rubber gas line from the carburetor and using a piece of garden hose from the junk in the back I attached it to the carb and then ran it out the edge of the hood and into the cab via the cowl fresh air vent hole. My buddy and I used the same garden hose to siphon gas from the tank into some soda pop bottles. We fashioned a small funnel from a cardboard milk carton and while I drove, he poured the gas from the bottles into the hose letting gravity take it into the carb. Any reasonable person watching this would have thought it a Three Stooges outtake with only two of the Stooges.

Not elegant or even safe (we spilled a lot of gas in the process) but it worked! Going slow, we were able to make it the few miles to my carpool partner's house where we later installed a new fuel pump. Talk about crazy! We have laughed at this event for many years and our wives still just shake their heads wondering how we are still alive or at least not burned beyond recognition.

Ron in Texas

oldcutlass

Absolutely the first thing we all learned in electronics class (by the way when I went to school for electronics they were still teaching tube technology and a mini computor was the size of a dumpster) is.... all electrical and electronic components are made out of smoke, when they break apart and the smoke comes out, they no longer function.

Octania

The other day at work we had a similar incident

We have motors that run on up to 480V AC, using a variable frequency drive:

http://www.hitachi-america.us/ice/in..._drives/wj200/

Installer wired input & output reversed- which when done previously resulted in a live programmable unit, it just would not run the motor...

Why we use the same color wires for in & out is beyond me. Anyhow...

When the 480 was applied it blew all 3 480V line fuses in the tester, and made a bang in the controller. I got to autopsy the controller. No obvious black marks or bad smells like the last one killed by a motor coil short... Application of 1-phase variable voltage to each pair of input lines up to 240V gave no sign of life. Application of 480V 3 phase also provided no entertainment. I had to cut the top circuit board off in order to get at the lower board, then it was obvious.

Blew the tops right off 2 of the chips on the board, IC's about 10-20mm square.

We don't have a smoke pump to put the smoke back in, and the factory does not offer a jar of smoke like the Lucas stuff seen above, so it's a write off I guess.

mike's88

I prefer to send the newbie for a nitrogen blanket

ROBZ442

I used to send guys after fallopian tubing. That usually netted interesting results.

61reoldsman

Man this reminds me of the all the stuff we used to get our apprentices to go get in the restaurants and hotels I used to work in.... how about.." go get the 500lb bag of marshmallows' or "go chop a bag of flour "or '' go get the lobster gun !"..priceless confusing looks on their faces.