I am gonna presume this is a "I got one up on ya" thread.

Here is my most stupid.

When I was 14 My dad let me buy Granpa's old 39 Ford businessman's coupe. Along with it we go his scrapped 39 Sedan. Many of the parts were interchangable but the coupe was the coolest and mostly together. After some time, we had a running car and I began practicing drving it at the age of 15. Went to back up one time and before the car stopped, I tried to put it in Forward gear. BANG!

Okay, that was a mistake but, not the story here.


It took three months to get the main ckluster gear for that tranny. (the one in th esedan was already toasted) and I began the task of pulling the tranny off the back of the engine.
Dad's instructions;
"Take off the one lateral cross frame leaf spring assy. Only don't remove the retainer bolt"

I did exactly as he said but the springs would not drop off the frame. So I removed the one bolt that seemed to be holdingit up to the chasis.
SSSSSSproungggggggg!

Okay that must be the retainer bolt.

That was a mistake but, not the story here.


Next I removed the torque tube, unbolted the universal joint and rolled the rear wheel assy back out of the way.
Disconneted the linkages for the clutch and other stuff and began unbolting the bell housing from the back of that honking huge Flathead V/8 engine.
Now, I had no idea what the tranny weighed but I was young and strong and invincible. Besides, is was sitting on two mounts right there on the frame. I would solve the lifting issue once I got the thing loose and could see if I was able to pick it up. Right?

Yeah, right !

That was a mistake but, it is not the story here.


I was backing out all of the bolts. But one, on the top of the housing, just wasn't easy to reach. I could get a wrench on it but could hardly turn it without running into something. Besides, once I got things loose, I would need to have have two hands to push up on the tranny.


So I went in to get Dad to help me with "that last bolt"


He comes out of the house annoyed that I interupted his nap. But that's his job right?

So I am laying under the engine and tranny of this old Ford. He looks into the engine bay and I am loosening that last bolt. Suddenly I feel something grab or land on my ankles. I'm screaming in pain and realize the car is moving sidesways.


Only it wasn't, I was.

Dad had just grabbed my ankle and yanked my butt out from under the car as the engine and tranny literaly fell to the ground.

Seems the tranny was actually the back engine mounts of that set up. When I removed the bell housing bolts, it just separated into two parts and it went down. Straight for my noggin'.

And all that had saved my head from being crushed as I unbolted everythiing was that one stubborn bolt. That and my Dad's quick assessment of my stupidity.



That was a mistake. Big! Huge actually! And that is my big mistake story!


And for the record so was the tranny. Big! It took two of us to lift it back in after the rebuild.