Bubba was in my engine compartment!

[69vettester]

He wasnt totally buck wild there but D..mn I cant figgure out how someone could have done some of this, and all of it was just simple little maintenance things?
heres the list to date..

1. excellent Morosso plug wires..Not fitted (Crimped) correctly, some were actually damaged,
2. Blown header gasket on passenger side, wrong bolts, only one bolt had a flat on it, the rest werent even clamping :confused
3. 1 Gooseneck mount bolt had stripped the threads out of the aluminum manifold. the bolt was gobbed with a permanent loctite of somesort and reinserted :eek

This may be the entire list (Im hoping) and for all I know, may have all been done in one mad bubba afternoon episode,
The entire rest of the car has had obvious and excellent proffesional care in its restoration.

anyhoo Just thought I'd share these puzzling things with all you on the forum..

Cheers and beers..
Tom

 

[Eric]

:gap Woooohooo! Yeh buddy!

 

[Bullitt]

YEEEEEEEEHAW!!!

I think the same guy attacked my engine wiring harness. There's electrical tape all over the place. I'm guessing he used two rolls left over from his usual repairs. A couple of years ago, I once saw an old Lincoln with chains holding the front bumper on. Guess 'ol Bubba really gets around!--Bullitt

 

[Ken]

Hey, don't knock the tape. It certainly comes in handy in emergencies: Bubba Was Here! :L

_BroKen

 

[Bullitt]

Ahhhhhh, yes. Now I see the light. I thought that the black tape was for holding on the fuel bowls to a carburetor or in place of a v-belt. I guess you learn something wrong everyday! :L --Bullitt

 

[69vettester]

Ken your tape setup brings to mind a very savvy and ancient wisdom..
"any port in a storm" eh!!

 

[Ken]

You got THAT right!

_Ken

 

[sscam69]

Man i feel your pain

My 79 L-82 was stripped strickly for racing


All kind of wires cut all over the place. Heck i am still trying to figure what some of them still connect to.

By the way i am wondering what a particular wire does, its got a black connection piece with the two tabs perpendicular to each other. The wires connected to the tabs are pink with a white stripe, and i think green or blue ( color has faded with the heat) with a white stripe.

And thats the engine bay, i have not even messed with the interior. Like if they were cutting through a jungle or something.
I kid you not that is a hand full of wires that have been cut that i have bunched together to sort out later. I have been able to piece a few pieces to the puzzel.

1. The lighter wire has been cut, cant find it, i read in a manual it was orange but there are 3 orange wires that are loose :confused

2. I took out the glove box and found the speaker wire, tugged on it and found it had been cut!

3. Fuel light comes on when tank is actually full, gauge seems to be reading right.

4. Occasionaly i will hear a buzzer

5. Clock don't work

6. Horn won't work

I don't know what the rest of the stuff is for, i will post a pic as soon as i can. Its a real nightmare. LOL i wanted to buy a radar detector but since the lighter is not working does not do me any good.

 

[Eric]

Yaw cin call me Bubba!

I must admit to a really dumb thing I did about 6 years ago. I was replacing the valve covers on my little Z-24, you know, aluminum intake and valve covers. It was the first time I had ever touched anything aluminum and had never seen valve cover gaskets like these, they were rubber. Anyhoo, I get the back one on and all is well. I get the bottom bolts on the front one and I have one bolt left, the top center one. I didn't have a torque wrench (first mistake) but wasn't too worried until I felt all of the pressure behind the ratchet give way :eek. It gets worse - before removing the valve cover to see the damage, I take the other car to Trak Auto and buy a rethread kit, thinking the bolt is going in the same kind of hole as my previous V-8 cars - WRONG. I get home and take off the valve cover and find that the bolt goes into a little half moon shaped extention of the intake manifold, only that little half moon extention is no longer attached to the intake, it's sitting next to the valves in two pieces. I swear I litterally was on my knees in the parking lot, thought I was going to . In my attempt to save a few bucks, i had just cost myself several hundred. As an interim fix (this is where Bubba comes in) I took a c-clamp I used for furniture building and rigged it across the lip of the valve cover and the plenum bolt to keep the valve cover tight so I could drive the car until I could afford to fix it. I ended up not driving it til it was fixed but that c-clamp looked really strange under the hood.

Now I didn't say a word to Kelly until I got finished but she felt so sorry for me, she didn't get the least bit upset.:love

 

[69MyWay]

There is a little Bubba in all of us. However, I think Bubba has a twin brother. One is named McGuyver (did I spell his name right-popular 80s television guy), and the other is just Bubba.

The difference is, McGuyver Bubba comes up with crazy on the spot ways of making a temporary fix that saves the day. Later, he/she goes back and puts everything right.

Bubba Bubba, makes the quick fix, takes a good look and says, "that will hold it--at least until I sell it".

Both of them are genius. Think about it, we have all seen some pretty bad Bubba stuff, but the scary part is that most of it works!

 

[Bullitt]

Bubbas everywhere

Back in '96, I was looking for another muscle car. I ran into an ad for a '70 Buick GSX, so I went to go see it. The bucket seats were recovered in gray duct tape, but the foam was still visible. The trunk had a good view of the road and some beer cans. Instead of a torque bar holding the engine to the frame, he replaced it with a tie-down. The guy kept snarling, "ya gotta drive it." I turned the key and it roared to life. He jumped in and yelled, "Rev her to 1500 to keep it runnin'. Whenever you come to a stop do the same or she'll die!" After a bit of a run, I put my foot down on an open road. "Don't go too far, the brakes ain't worth a damn," Bubba said. I lifted off the gas and of course, the Buick soon stalled. When we got back to his house, the radiator burped coolant all over the place. I shook his hand and told him thanks for his time. I wonder if he ever sold that thing. Nah, probably died in it. :L --Bullitt

 

[69vettester]

Who could top this Bubbaness?

Har..this is fun , I have to explain.
Im by no means an ACE, in fact before seeing that stripped manifold number in my engine,I was wondering if I wasnt Bubba:J
Now I know where Im at , thanks chris..
Im mcguiver bubba..no doubt about it , Ive made about every engine mistake there is , some "very costly" (see below :crazy )
Sometimes Im reluctant, but I always end up going back and picking up the pieces. Otherwise I cant sleep :z

My first major engine work was a 235 straight six in a early 60;s apache 16? pickup. I had a new shortblock upside down in front of me putting on the oil pan. I neglected to pivot the oil pickup down into the well and after installing the motor and starting it with no oil pressure , it got worse. Then I decided because it was a brand new shortblock, that something must have crawled into the manual oil pressure line, cause the truck had been sitting in the bushes for a few months, with the motor out:eek
I need a break on this though, I was a teenager , and poor and the cost to fix the new shortblock was devistating , but I did it
Tom
cheers and beers

 

[TopDown94]

McGyver Bubba!!!

Ok.....while we are telling Bubba Repair stories....I got one. This really happened to me many years ago. I was in my early 20's. Im out for a drive in my 69 Vette Convertible. (Awsome Car). Im tooling along in the country back roads....top down. When all of a sudden all hell breaks loose under my car. BAD NEWS. U-Joint goes out. Some how the clip and cap came off of two opposing sides. Loose as a $10 who?e. Here I am....WHite as snow.....broke down.....and what I soon realized was an all Black populated area. This old Black couple comes out to see what is "troubling the white boy" as they put it. I got the car jacked up on one side....to see my dismay. He axe what the prollem is under there? I tell what is up. Says to his snuff sniffing wife....."Naomi.....run get me 5...maybe 6....of them old square nails and a couple of the Jax Caps.....Im going....OH LAWDY !!! This is aint good.....Well.....bout an hour later......lots of hammering.....me and him get the square nails sized just right....and punch them into place actually centering the u-joint where its supposed to be....Lord knows how.....then we fit and hammer the "Jax Beer Caps" into place to keep it all together. Beleive it or not.....I actually got back to the house....very slowly.....17 miles. FOLKS......that was true....AMERICAN INGUINITY.....and pretty smarl fella to boot. IT NEVER VIBRATED!


RIKO



And by the way....I did return about two weeks later and gave him 10 bucks for "hepping me".