Bud’s ass takes a beating and keeps on trucking… No ass jokes, please… well, just a few. 🙂
As I write these comics with Bud getting hurt or causing havoc I realize what a total klutz I must have been (and still am). I do not work on cars as they generally blow up after I’ve worked on them. But truly, once I was installing a wiper delay (from Heathkit!) into the silly little 1973 Toyota my Father bought me to drive to work my senior year in high school (1975!). So I’m on my back with the front seats reclined as far back as they could go with my feet are all the way against the back window as my head is crammed under the dash installing this kit and cutting really suspicious looking wires. Once done, I confidently turned on the wipers and engaged the delay. My headlights started flashing. The manager of the Heathkit store insisted that was impossible, but there sat my little Corolla with headlights flashing. I eventually figured which wires had been crossed and all was well, but that explains my history in electronics perfectly. Never worked first time was my motto.
Roxy Music song titles you asked for and Roxy Music song titles you get! This is from 1975. I only heard 30 seconds of it on iTunes and it’s more of a break up song of sorts I think, but Bud’s ass burning is a fitting place for this song!
We stripped down a mates RD200LC one time, I mean took EVERYTHING off, engine in bits all round my dads garage, with the good idea of ‘decoking’ it. After we had put it all back together again, we looked at the pile of nuts, bolts, washers, O rings etc and thought ‘it’ll never go again’ The battery had died, so the electric start was out and we commenced bumping it down the road. This is the point where it became obvious that we had put the throttle slider things in the carbs back in upside down and with a banshee scream, the now full throttle RD screams off down the road on its back wheel with my mate desperately hanging on and tring to pull the clutch in. He got it back under control in the end and we rectified the problem and ran fine afterwards. Obviously Yamaha’s didnt need all the nuts, bolts, washers and O rings that we left out after all
NOTE: Moving the original comment from 7 Aug 2009 to where it belongs now that the software has updated.
Re: Nurke – Man, what a hilarious site to behold! And all those excess parts you left out made all it the lighter! Genius!
Reminds me of time I had built a custom LED light circuit for a model of the Jupiter 2 from Lost In Space. An engineer friend of mine said “the lights rotate in the wrong direction” to which I simply decided I could switch polarity on the power supply and fix that issue. No, I burned the whole thing up and blew about 20 hours of work down the drain. Hey, it works in the movies!
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Weren’t ripped jeans all the rage in the 70’s? Maybe he was just a trendsetter.
Bud and I are anything but trend setters… trust me. 🙂
B.E.B. is a sex-addict coming clean (ahahahahaha).
Once rebuilt an SU carb from my Mini (real mini, not a BMW “passing”) using only the Morris Workshop Manual’s exploded diagram, and had a small, yellow rubber band left over when I was done.. Stripped it down and did it over. Still had a small, yellow rubber band left over. I installed the carb and everything worked fine, so I tossed the rubber band behind the front bumbper and forgot it.
Couple of years later I’m parking the car in a carpark prior to some Christmas lunchtime boozing (UK standard behaviour) and I hear “hissss hissss hissss” from under the bonnet (US: hood). I had by then fitted a one-piece fibreglass front end that flipped forward, so I undogged it and threw it open to expose the engine, There, from the clear vantage afforded me by the new flip-front, I could see petrol (US: gas) drip-drip-dripping from the carb jet assembly to the red-hot exhaust manifold, where it was vapourising nicely.
I puased for a moment while my brain locked at the imminent imolation prospect this offered and my feet, caught between the equally strong desires to engage and fix the problem and to run as far and fas as I could before it all went ‘kablooey!” did a little, complicated jig all on their own, all the whlie accompanied by a sort of panicked gibbering from Mr Mouth.
Once I had regained voluntary control of my feet, mouth and bowels I realised I had finally found where that bloody rubber band belonged, so I dug out the tools from the boot (US: trunk), pulled off the jet, retreived the small, yellow seal from where it had been sitting for the last 10 thousand miles or so and re-installed it.
Then I went for drink. Lots and lots of drink.
NOTE: Moving the original comment from 7 Aug 2009 to where it belongs now that the software has updated.
RE: roxysteve – Sounded like you were Barney (UK for in trouble). ?
I envision some cartoon caricature of you, hips turned 180 degrees & your feet doing 200MPH all the while your face staring wide-eyed at the dripping gas. Great story, and indeed, you’re lucky both you and your mini were in one piece after that.
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ouchies.
That’s right, I said it.
I wonder if you’ll ever run out of 70’s songs for your titles. I love that extra effort you put in, it usually results in more comments for you, discussing 70’s music!
NOTE: Moving the original comment from 7 Aug 2009 to where it belongs now that the software has updated.
RE: dgriff13 – Or today where we talk about exploding cars… ?
Yes, the 70s, where we liked our cars as fast as our women and our songs were about finding sex, having sex or missing sex. Name just about any 70s tune, and you’ll find sex in there somewhere. Well, good 70s songs…
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Byron, you da man! Although I, like you, am first & foremost a dyed-in-the-wool rocker, groups like Roxy Music were always guilty listening pleasures that my other rocker pals could never understand – thanks for indulging roxysteve & mine’s suggestion for a Roxy title! I’m envious of even the lack of proficiency mechanical stories… What I don’t know about mechanics, electronics, etc., would fill vollumes. Unless it’s installing new heads or mounting hardware on my drum kits, when it comes to nuts, bolts & wiring, I’m a total git! (US: useless)
NOTE: Moving the original comment from 7 Aug 2009 to where it belongs now that the software has updated.
Unclemac – Your welcome! I am aim to please. I still get a lot of weird looks from gear heads when they start talking “shop” on engines & crap like that and I just stand there with a blank look on my face. Yeah, but can they play Boston’s “Long Time” on bass while drinking a pint? Nope…
I’ll have to come over to jolly ol’ England someday for some real chips and ale!
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Oh, man! That made me think back on all the stuff I was into years ago. I used to have this old ’63 Sears Silvertone amp and had trouble with one of the cones. So I bought a replacement, brought it home, and while I was taking it out of the car I put my thumb through the BRAND NEW ONE! Luckily, I was able to repair it with some black fingernail polish and soldered it into the cabinet.
That’s how it always goes with these types of projects for me too. You get skilled at improvising at how to fix the things we screw up at we try to fix the original problem. 🙂
Soldering work really burns my ass…
When I soldered I often burned my hair… it was a lot longer then…
Well, that is an occupational hazard for us (former) long-haired folks who use a soldering gun. My hair was too curly to hang too low, but I did singe a few hair follicles in my day.