I realized today I did something dumb. I went out my front door and was gonna run my buggy some with my wife's stampede. Got the starter box out, put the buggy on it, got it primed by spinning it over, and went to start it. The starter box wouldnt turn it over. It was contacting the flywheel fine, but the engine wouldnt turn over. So I messed with it and rolled the flywheel with my finger and couldnt get it to turn over doing that either.

So I thought maybe something internal let loose. I didnt know how it could have just sitting in the house, but I pulled it off the buggy and took it apart. When i got into it, i found a really short piece of wire in the crankcase jammed between the rod and the crankcase.

It took me a minute, and then... WHAT AN IDIOT!!! [:@] I had cut a very short piece of wire off the brake linkage when I was working on it the other day because it was hitting the fuel tank. I didnt have the air filter on it, and the carb was open some to get the linkage where i needed to get it cut. I never found the wire, and apparently it went right down into the carb of the HPI S-.25 engine.

Moral of the story is pay attention to the small things. I got the engine back together and it seems to be running perfect, so no harm yet. Its been a tough engine, so im hoping to get some more use out of it.

Eric

i have been working and accidently cut a servos's wires.
accidently shorted some batteries
once i tried to oil a brushed motor, but used the wrong type of oil. sucker started smoking really bad after a couple of minutes!
i have put a 8x4 prop on a brushless inrunner that was meant to push a EDF. fried that motor in about 3 minutes!
im sure there is more things. screws that never got put back....screws that ended up in a gear mesh

LOL, sounds like a good story. Actually when I recently ran my Stampede VXL through some sand, I would shake it around and heard sand swishing around. I THOUGHT I traced it back to the transmission. I get so scared, I had the whole thing in pieces and then only to find that the sand was swishing around in the back-rear tire. I was frustrated, but also relieved.

I bought a Traxxas.... for racing.....

I constantly try to start my Nitro without the glow-driver connected. Usually not the initial run, but if it stalls I forget to use the glow-starter during the re-start attempt. Usually happens when someone is watching [&o]

ive done that as well. i always manage to crash when someone is watching as well[:@]

i bought a redat thinking it would last

i jumped a pan car once.  off a makeshift ramp made of wet leaves

Bought a Brama 10b
think that beats cerealkilla024 or scoobs92 for doing a dumb thing

but it doesn't beat me then?........LOLOLOL

not really been there done that on you
I've also forgot to prime an engine once and was like DAMN WHY ISN'T IT STARTING.

Brama loses all the way around though. Upgrade ability, price point, speed, and durability.
I think the cheapest Exceed probably has better parts support, upgrades, and durability than the Brama.

a redcat slam! i once traded for a heng long mad truck. that truck makes redcats look like high-end stuff.

its henglong only thing they make decent are their tanks
rest is junk for the most part, had a sub from them worked great out of water for testing put it in water went down and never came back up.

I accidentally full throttled when Ialready crashed into a wall and broke a servo saver.

Alright.....so we're having a "who did the dumbest thing contest" and my forgetting the glow-driver isn't the worst one. I guess turning left when meaning to turn right doesn't win? What about hitting myself in the ankle when comng in for a temperature check?

OK....I'll try a product.....Last year I bought a 1/16 nitro buggy....a VTX-MB1....all blinged out with aluminum and can only be used on smooth surfaces...I actually like it, but it isn`t a very good RC.

Bought a rear muffler for my Savage and not only wasn`t it anything like a tuned pipe, it was a pain to prime the engine as you had to plug off two stingers.

Wait.......another blunder......was playing with head shims, couldn't get heat up in the engine, and kept revving it to try to build heat. Of course the crank pin broke......

Drove 5 miles to a parking lot to run my on-road car and once there, realized I forgot to bring fuel.

Dropped a shock o-ring into one of many boxes of junk under my 3-wall surround workbench and spent 3 hours looking before finding it

Reached to adjust the mixture on my airboat and cut two fingers to the bone with the spinning propellor

Didn't practise enough turning in circles, so fell to ground from getting dizzy while my U-control was in the air.....bad crash

Went up on the roof to retrieve a plane and then was too scared to get down. Had to wait about 2 hours before someone came home and braced the ladder for me.

And for my grand finale....the dumbest thing I ever did (although not RC related).....sit on a donkey without a saddle. Might as well have sat on a razor blade....pointy backbone those animals have...

Launch my FG into the air like a boss. Then destroying its 100$ body. Did that one today......

Well, well, well!
I got on to your thread looking for glow/spark conversion, pushed a button and ............POOF!........I found myself reading some pretty hilarious stuff. Most entertaining! It gave me a chuckle to say the least. I am a ...................winged warrior I guess you might say, you know, you guys are on the ground and I am punching holes in the sky.
It seems that we all do some pretty dumb stuff in these R\C sports we take up. The dumbist.................most dumb............stupidest thing I ever did was at a MAAC sanctioned event I took this young lads brand new trainer off for him to teach him how to fly andin front of a large group of people (of course) and a friend yells "pull your antenna up!!", well I took my eyes off the plane momentarily and reached for the antenna and in the process my right thumb pushed the right stick forward and over. The resulting' full bore' crash was quite spectacular actuallyas the plane disappeared behind a huge roll of hay you only saw a part fly up here, a part there. The plane being an ARF turned to powder but the motor seemed okay and one wervo was twitching like mad. What could I say? I told his dad Iwould give him a new kit (I had one in the basement) but that the boy would have to put it together. Igave him the new arf but never did see that kid again..........oh well..............
enjoyed your stuff guys, reading it gave me renewed zest for my search. I feel like I am now not alone in the "Dah" department.

Carry on guys. I'll check in once in a while for more chuckles next time I need a lift! <span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS">:O)</span>
tigreguy

Spent a winter thinking I was going to learn to fly 3d heli's. $2000, 4 heli's later I took it up had about 2 min of air time then the gyro went crazy and slam..

I once built a pack and soldered two cells in a loop by accident. Matched pack, ruined.

I also tried to stop a flywheel with my finger when I was younger, lost some fingerprints on that one.

I've hid my four brand new lipos from myself lately for my heli and 3 planes

i also agreed to buy my wife a savannah cat (cool but very hard on the drywall in a new home)

did a back flip with a evader and landed it, did it again and landed on upside down breaking shock towers.

hit i pipe sticking out of the ground with my 9.5- destroying the whole front end

put glade oil in nitro- smelled like fresh laundry

left a ghetto rigged bump start on my 1/1 truck and forgot it, killing the battery

ran outside in the snow with unprotected radio gear, glitched it, dried it off and went out again and did the same thing

bought a trinity next

had a runaway by using a busted up traxxas rec that lost the crystal WOT- got to burn my hand turning it off.

spent money in this hobby.

Doing a backflip and broke a shock tower

I didn't put thread lock for the 2 rear toe in links screws, this was the mini Revo, I was gunning it full throttle and one of the screw backed it self out and the rear toe link pop out, luckily enough there wasn't any damage at all except the missing screw and a heart attack[:'(].

Probably not related to RC but I used to have a scooter with disc brakes on, didn't know what the heck I was doing back then spraying WD-40 on it, going to an intersection and "WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH MY BRAKES!!" Lesson learned.

haha , that makes me remember when i had a scooter, went in a motocross track and bent the front fork. had to drive 30mins on the side of the road at 5mph to get back home.

something dumb i did r/c related was when i first started in the hobby.
i had a hpi firestorm and the throttle servo twitched. i still ran it and it when straight into a curb. 120$ to fix. (at that time i didnt know there was rc parts on ebay)

another dumb thing i did, was to buy all my parts at my LHS, its about 30$ more expensive there than on ebay.

I trusted my lipo charging bag!