on my 1st car i painted the steel wheels black with a spray can.....without taking them off the car.....LOL, by brakes squealed for a week!

It's not something I did but, my friend's parents used his nitro fuel as windshield wiper fluid. It doesn't work quite as good as the regular stuff.

I started mine once while the radio was off. It stalled on me, and I must have brushed the Rx switch while restarting it. It went screaming off at half throttle, bounced off a few trees, plowed through a chain-link, then all I could do was hold it until it stalled on it's own again because the body I had at the time was too tight to reach the fuel lines...and the tires were about the size of dinnerplates...somehow that engine survived that okay. It fired up just fine the next day.

Since then I've made it a habit to waggle the controls before I grab the pull start, just to be sure there's actually a response from it.

I suppose I could pull another D'oh from the last time I ran it. I have an electronic failsafe, which trips about 9001 times per tank, but I don't run a throttle return spring. Fitting one to a CEN MT2 is a bit of a bother and I couldn't be assed. Well, last time I drove it, I was out on the street in front of my house doing speed runs. I jerked it wide open from a dead stop, the OS .18 screamed to life, and that was the last time the CEN has been under my control. That sudden jolt of acceleration dislodged the connector that attaches the batteries to the receiver. All I could do was scream "RUNAWAY!", as I had a friend there with me and didn't feel like driving anyone to the ER with a busted ankle on top of a full throttle runaway, and wait for the shower of parts as a 40-45MPH missile hurtled down the street. I got lucky, though, and it just went into a ditch and overturned itself near where I was, so I could pounce on it and hold it in place. I was running without a shell so I had no trouble pinching the fuel line before the OS overheated itself.

Amazingly, neither runaway actually broke anything. Though, the second one did annihilate the clutch shoes, they're worn down to 50% or so of what they should be.

Glad this is carrying on nicely

I know I have done lots of other retarded things. Just cant think of them all at the moment. I can think of a couple now:

- Put the differentials in backwards in my old t-maxx. Who hasnt done that though? lol

- Ran my old rustler with a pro .15 through a water puddle on accident. Darn thing went wide open straight down the road, and hit a pile of wood. Amazingly, nothing was hurt. I killed the engine, and then the receiver was fine after it dried out. lol

- One of my other Recent dumb things... Read that I could use traxxas Revo 17mm hub adapters on my MGT by "slightly" dremeling the nub off the back side of the hub to fit closer to the bearing carrier so that the pin hold would line up. Little did I know that meant leaving a paper thing wall of aluminum behind the pin hole, as well as slightly drilling the axle hole in the hub out more, and also STILL having to wedge the grub screw in. I broke a grub screw pin first trip out and I know it would just keep doing it. They looked great, but it was a $22 mistake and so I have HPI E-Savage 17mm hex adapters/nuts ordered now which should be a direct fit. Live and learn i guess.

Eric

I bought a smart-fly sport plus with a regulator attached to it for my giant scale p-47 last year. Well i just had to check to make sure it was regulating the Lipo batteries down to the 6 volts it said (and yes it did). but when I was checking it with the meter I some how slipped with the needles and I shorted out the Unit. I had a brand new unit that was not in my hands for more then 2 days and I had to send it in for a 25 dollar repair. 10 POINTS on my part.

OUCH !!!! thats some darn expensive washer fluid!!
Well, if I started listing all the dumb things ive done it would put rcu into overload. but......my personal best,
With my real dirt track hobby car back around "82" I had to pull the transmission for repair, anyway after I got it all back together
I mashed the clutch pedal and nothing happened....after hours of going over all I could think of I looked on my workbench and saw.........
A throwout bearing!!!!! So guess what ? Do it all over again[:@] Ever heard the ole sayin "Hast makes Waste"

We must all remember......
To become old and wise, we must first be young and foolish!

I do something dumb every day. If you don't believe me ask my wife.

Personally, I've never done anything dumb, stupid, boneheaded or idiotic....
And you cannot prove otherwise
And, even if you can, I'll deny it and blame it on my evil twin
So There!!!

Got married and expected to be able to stay in the hobby...not married anymore and now own 10 Turbine Jets

I put my Gearbox in backwards and did'nt notice untill it was in a big heap :s

Not today yet. But the day is still young!

finished a J-3 Cub for a friend that wanted it to be a brushless instead of glow. It was close to done when I got it from him, but the electronics weren't installed. I installed all the electronics and finished what was left of the build. I decided to check the servos and center everything while the plane was on a table in my livingroom. Plugged in a lipo like an idiot with the motor plugged into the ESC and the throttle servo was reversed. The plane took off, sliced my forearm 6 times with the propeller and hit a wall. Bandaged up my arm, fixed the plane, and drove it to my friends house. Lesson learned. Happy I only had 6 cuts....

Oh yeah, since this is a land based thread, I have ran into myself numerous times with my MGT 8.0. Thought I broke my shin once.

I thought I'd play it safe and buy a failsafe for my nitro car- need to protect my investment, right? Well, driving around without the body on warming the car up, a twig in the parking lot caught the failsafe, yanking out the throttle servo wire.

So, buying a failsafe caused my car to take off at full throttle and crash into a fence. Exactly what I had bought the damn thing to AVOID.

can imagine it working as a great de-icer in winter
hit the wipers and light a cigarette lighter near the window and instantly de-iced

Probably the most stupid was buying a traxxas nitro sport and expecting it to work right. Next would be walking across soe ice with a running nitro, of course I fell pressed the gas while I was falling. When I stood up my car was probably hitting 40,000 RPMs and spinning around on the ice. I realised that all the batteries had fallen out of the transmitter. I caught the car and not able to take the body off I put my finger over the exhaust pipe. Because it was running rich in the cold weather it sprayed nitro out of the connection between the header and the connecter all over my face and in my eye. That was a great day.</p>

I decided to check the seal on a fuel tank(that still had some fuel in it) by blowing into the line and having the other line pinched. I blew into the wrong line and somehow with the magic of physics I had a mouth full of fuel[:'(]

speaking of runaway, in more detail (as i posted earlier) i was running my new used ravager, for those of you that dont know, 1/8 buggies are very fast, and VERY heavy, anyway, all i could afford at the time was it ARTR, so it was a bunch of junk gear like Frankenstein servos (hitec and futaba in harmony) and a OLD traxxas RX and TX i had accumulated.

i just wanted to get-r running, the traxxas RX did not fit the tray, so i hot glued it in place, and duct-taped the TX. well out running my frankenstein, i hit a bump at half throttle, the crystal fell out (and i already knew this would happen sooner or later) it then took off through the street, up a drive way, barely missing a garage door, through a few yards almost clipping a mailbox and some bricks, then it jumped up to the street and seriously missed a parked car doing 35mph in mid air by 3 inches, i then took my coat threw it down, it flipped, i then put my finger over the pipe, burning my finger, i couldn't take anymore and removed it, but it revved back up, i then used (and burned) my thumb.

so in the end, that was the last ride for a year untill i got my job

ive also had run-aways due to crap ball ends.

I thought I'd try drifting since my Evo+ came with a set of pvc drift tires and drifted it into the sewer on my street. Thank God it was clogged up with leaves so we opened it and I fished it out with a hanger.

my son put water in the fuel tank of a jato. its not his fault i wanted to have water to put out a fire. should have labeled the jar.

I have another I forgot about. One day in winter I was too slow getting my Savage started and the engine got cold and then flooded. I brought it back inside to warm up, removed the glowplug and cranked it over with the Roto-start to clear the excess fuel. Silly me looked down the glow-plug hole while cranking and got fuel in my eyes, forehead, hair and more hit the ceiling.

Major flushing of eyes with water was the start. The finish was re-painting the ceiling as the pink fuel stained into the ceiling paint and couldn't be scrubbed off.

stupidest thing I've done... rc related? that has to be not putting a screw on the throttle servo horn when i was adjusting it. as you can guess, it came off and went screaming full throttle so i steered it into a wall so i could stop the engine.

not rc related? i win this one, i stabbed myself in the top of my head with a broken gulf club...

R/C'ers are a great bunch (what ever your preference). Take care guys. I am back to my roots.............Airplanes............ to see what's happening there..............Enjoyed your ................................misfortunes :O)..................... (heh, heh)
Bye for now.
tigreguy

Those pipes get pretty hot! So is the nitro that comes out of the pipe.