I would like to start a thread of brilliant technical quotes (sarcasm) or situations of humour.

If you know a quote or know someone who has done something at rocket scientist level please share.

I mention this because I just read this one...

"I'm wondering if the front left brake locks up first because the shorter distance from the MC. Less pressure loss through the tubing".

And this Guy is actually assembling his own kit car, help us.

and secondly, a 16 year old son of one of my customers some years ago landed himself in hospital after actually using a cigarette lighter to see how much fuel was in his motorcycle petrol tank his face actually looked like this smiley some weeks later when I saw him

I saw that on TV - Luigi the unbelievable.

Spotted on another forum.
"Is the car front wheel drive?"
"No, it's back wheel drive."

And.

"I love it when the rally cars do the Hungarian Toss."
"I think you mean the Scandavian Flick."

More when I think of them.

"Now that the car is twin carburettored, what more if we added a fuel injection system".
"Wow! we manage to do 4 bar of boost, how interesting" before discovering the wastegate was jammed shut. Thankfully is was a super strong Toyota diesel engine (no intercooler). Then after that "no wonder the temperature gauge was going up as fast as the speedo".

I have heard lots of silly stuff.

This could be a good thread. I don't have anything for recall right now, but what really irritated me in the Pixel movie,"Cars," was that all the cars leaned into the turns. This in a highly researched movie. Even a close up of Doc Hudson coming to a sliding stop with opposite lock and the car leaning the wrong way.
My brother and I played with our Dinky toys and we would have friends over who would lean their cars over the wrong way in turns.At least in the movie, all the wheels stayed on the ground.

My Wife; Hi Anna (her best friend), we will buy a new car!

Anna; which one?

MW: The station wagon

Anna: station wagon is great offers lot of space and is good for children too, but there is a problem with it

MW: what problem?

Anna; Well, my friend Ninna used to have one and she always struggled going uphill, station wagon is underpowered. how many cubic centimetes does it have?

MW; Oh, I dont know I think 95

Anna; 95! thats way to low. How many horsepower does it have?

MW; I think 1800

Anna; thats better, although cubic centimeters might be the problem. How many liters does it have.

MW; Liters? of what fuel? I dont know I guess 50

Anna; No, no how many liters the engine has

MW; I do not understand, you mean mileage per liter

Anna; No I mean how much liter the engine has space inside. You know the space in the engine

MW; Space for what?

Anan; I dont know for that stuff that goes into it

MW; Antifreeze?

-------------------------------------------------------

This exact conversation really happened I witnessed it

At a servo driving my old VW beetle, back in the days of driveway service.

Me: "And could you top up the radiator."

Kid on the pump, looking cunning: "You can't fool me, I known the engine's in the back."

(Absolutely true.)

When wanting a spare part in the motor industry around Melbourne (Oz) the long standing joke answer to the question "what kind of car"? is....

A red one!

I hope your wife doesn't read this forum.

"Aerodynamics are for people who can not build good engines." - Enzo Ferrari

Junior Johnson the NASCAR great driver to a TV commentator on the cause of his crash... "I got a little bit behind on my stear'in"...

ZOOOM

And I thought Enzo knew everything

A roadside assistance man explained to my wife why he couldn't fix her car immediately - " It's got one of those Constant Philosophy Transmissions"

"What does this 710 thing do?"

I was regarded with distrust and not a little dislike by a fellow mech. once when I tried to explain the priciple behind a ventilated brake rotor, and that, no, they didn't scoop up air at the periphery and force it to the centre, and both front discs would have to be taken off again and swopped left for right...

put 710 77345 into any desk calculator and turn it upside down - amaze the Kids!

Reminds me of a recent MS F1 Ferrari with the front rain tires put on the rims the wrong way. It was determined that it was intentional. The story and pictures are on this forum somewhere.

Farnk Costin when talking about car aerodynamics and cooling said 'suck is always better than blow'

Depends which comes first.

When asked about his cars' lack of effective brakes Ettore Bugatti said:

"I make my cars to go, not to stop."

Unrelated, but one I've always liked.

"To a small boy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Me and a couple of friends/relatives were talking about superchargers and turbochargers, little did I know someone who has just started to get into cars was sharply listening without asking any questions. Later, I saw him leaning over the bonnet of his car bragging to his friends over the phone his car was supercharged intercooled. I had suspicions, I went over and let it be known his car was not supercharged and he replied "Of course its supercharged, can't you see it, it is right there in front of you" pointing at the belt driven radiator fan.

The guy selling parts at the Chevy dealer told me that the position of the caliper is for anti dive and anti squat.

Is there a reason they rotate their best designers through the parts desk?

Anyone else remember BMW of North America's probably late '70s 1000cc boxer Superbike that fed the calipers' tangential torque loads through struts from the front calipers up to the triple trees as a type of mechanical anti-dive? The engineer responsible was Udo Gietl or something like that.

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Anyhoo... maybe parts boy was thinking of that!

<edit> found a little photo online let's see if it hotlinks:



http://www.motohistory.net/images/GietlBMWSuspension.jpg

Reminds me of "5th coilover" used on the rear of speedway sedans for anti-squat. Torque in the live rear axle is resisted via a cantilever, then up through a coilover into the chassis. But we digress desmo. Perhaps you should shift these two posts to the anti-dive thread.

Try mid 70's - The Yamaha dealer I started my apprenticeship with sold kits for MX bikes of which I fitted a couple and Steven Gall used one on his bike that won the Mr Motocross titles (consider that the Oz MX title). I seem to remember a few road racers had them too before Suzuki came out with the hydraulic bypass type, apply the front brake and it merely increased compression dampning by shutting off an oriface.

No words needed ....

You must tell us the story behind this one!!!!

I don't recall who said this quote, but it's stuck with me:

Interviewer: What are you thinking about during a crash?
Rally driver: Well, mainly I'm just holding on through the bumps and the bangs, and once everything stops, I count to ten.
Interviewer: ??? Count to ten? What's that for?
Rally driver: Oh, you see, in case we are still in the air!..

Reminds me of (roughly, this is from memory, and simplified to boot):

Interviewer: What was that crash like?
Driver: Well, it was like I got bumped, and then slid down onto the infield, and I guess one of the wheels dug in. Then it was grass, sky, grass, sky, grass, sky....I was just hoping it would end on sky."
Interviewer: So you talking about what you were seeing through the windshield then?

Well at least they took time to balance it as can be seen at 8 o'clock and 1 o'clock.

VTG, VGT?

I'm beginning to grasp the theory. Restricted discharge so turbo spools up quickly at low engine speed, then larger discharge for lower back-pressure once the "supplementary vanes" fly off. (Supplementary vanes reusable after you shake them out of the muffler.)

Hey Bill, I don't suppose you have an "after" photo?

0553

7180W

Somebody help. I can't find the "W" on my calculator.

I don't always have my day

You can turn your keyboard around and look for the 'M'.

The new alliance between Gazprom (russian natural gas supplier) and Nigeria is to be called NIGAZ

Maybe as a product placement/brand identification exercise they could sponsor the dog in the remake of the Dam Busters?

I spent some time selling aftermarket automotive parts a few years ago and one of my favorite calls went like this:

Customer: I'd like to buy some intercooler oil.
Me: Really?
Customer: Yeah-I didn't know that I needed it, but my buddy and I were working on his car last weekend and he had oil in his intercooler so I need some for mine.
Me: So your buddy blew up his engine, huh?
Customer: How'd you know??

In my youf I made the classic statement in the pub [ while discussing the merits of various musical instruments ] : " you can't beat a drum "

Nothing like blowing your own trumpet, ey?

'twer not meant to be , my good sir [ tugs forelock and shuffles off ]

bit like the pub comment re the drum ---- but then I was too pissed to realise what I had said , and wandered why everyone at the table were laughing

And just today on the subject of flipping a diff over (no change in drive rotation direction) .....

I'd also be concerned with the pinion shaft bearings. In the normal position, the pinion shaft "pushes" on the ring gear and the reaction on the pinion shaft tries to push it out the front of the diff. As a result, the tapered bearing nearest the ring gear is larger to handle the thrust load. If you flip it, the pinion shaft is now "pulling" on the ring gear, the ring gear is trying to suck the pinion shaft in and the smaller front tapered bearing is now supporting a thrust load it was not designed to handle.

I just remembered one. I was driving my 2000 Camry and pulling out of a driveway when all of a sudden the engine started missing and vibrating like crazy. Took it to the stealership, hoping for a sludge claim.

They dropped the oil pan, and there were some pieces of piston down there.

Service writer:

"It must have happened on the intake stroke so the piston was moving down, that's how it ended up in the oil pan."

I was in a rover dealership with my then girlfriend (now wife) who was buying a Rover 200. He was trying to upsell suggesting they had a 216 in stock rather than the 214 she was after, He pointed out the 1.6 engine had sixteen valves over the 1.4 8valve. She asked what that meant, he ‘ummed’ and could only add that it had eight more valves! Amazing!

More parts = More to go right

A number of years ago when I ran a shop, we leafleted cars with a $9.95 oil change flyer. We would also do an inspection of the car; the idea being to drum up some business. Generally it worked out for both us and the customers.

A young lady brought in her VW cabrio and asked if we could what it needed to pass state inpection as well as changing the oil. She did mention it had a taiI light out. The car was not well maintained and needed many things fixed, but I didn't find anything terrible until I checked the rear brakes and found the drum (and attached wheel) were about to fall off the car. Grasping the bottom of the wheel, it could be moved laterally a good 4-5".

I called the young lady and told her about the problem to which she replied "can you please just fix the tail light?" I said "okay, but you can't drive the car this way." She said, "I just want to pass inspection." I pointed out that it wouldn't with the wheel falling off. She was insistent, so I suggested she come down to see the problem in person.

She did, and again asked me to fix the tail light, and said she didn't want to fix the wheel. I declined to fix the light at that point and told her there was no charge for the oil change and she would need to call a tow truck. She got quite upset and insisted that she would drive it away. After much back and forth, I refused to take it off the lift until she had a tow truck.

She ended up calling the police. (I was stealing her car). When the officer arrived, I explained the situation. He looked at the wheel and told the girl " You can't drive this car until it is inspected," and promply put a red tag on car indicating it was unsafe to drive.

Wow. We used to just make a really strongly worded warning and make them sign it, roughly akin to discharging yourself from a hospital against doctor's orders.

You can't be too hard of a sell with these people. There is a strong undercurrent of mistrust toward mechanics in the culture (in the USA anyway). Unfortunately it's not at all unfounded.