Silly pranks

[cp1969]

In high school, a non-mechanically inclined friend asked me to install some "glass-pack" mufflers on his beloved '55 Chevy.

He was oh-so-proud, and vain, about this car that I just couldn't pass up this opportunity. I installed the mufflers, all right. But first, I brazed grease zerks into them near the inlets.

Every so often, I would lube his mufflers, creating huge clouds of embarrasing blue smoke. Smoking episodes mysteriously came and went with the owner in a near panic to find out what was wrong with his baby.

He was a good guy. He could take a joke as well as dish them out.

 

[cp1969]

Another thing we did lots of times, especially to individuals who knew very little about automobiles, but were proud of the one he/she had, was to stretch a 12" to 18" piece of bicycle inner tube over the end of the tailpipe. It certainly makes for a funny sounding exhaust.

Showed that one to my kids. They loved it. We did that (almost like the scene out of Animal House, only twenty years before it) to a '55 Pontiac that we put in a Labor Day parade. Had the crowd screaming with laughter.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I installed the mufflers, all right. But first, I brazed grease zerks into them near the inlets.

Hey, I thought they were there to lube the muffler bearings!

 

[Bird]

Fifty plus years ago, the fireworks stands had a fun gadget. I don't remember a name and have no idea whether anyone still makes them or not, but I guess you'd call it a firecracker with two wires instead of a normal fuse. You attached one wire to a spark plug on a car and the other wire to a ground. When someone started that car, there was a long screeching whistle, a loud explosion, and smoke would billow out from under the hood. The first time I ever saw one was when Dad put one on our '48 Olds because he knew Mother would be driving it later that day. She failed to see the humor in it.

 

[hitekcountry]

And then there was the prank that someone tried to pull on me that I didn't fall for.

In college on a day that I only had morning classes, I went to leave and I found a note on my car. It read "meet me at the (name of the cafe on the corner) for lunch, Your Secret Admirer."

Now my instant reaction to that wasn't the image of some lovely female sitting alone in the corner anxiously waiting for me, but the image of two or three guys waiting to get a good laugh as they see me searching for the secret admirer. I wasn't going to fall for that one. I tossed the note and went home.

But ..... then on the other hand you don't suppose...... Na!!

 

[EastTnFarmboy]

Fifty plus years ago, the fireworks stands had a fun gadget. I don't remember a name and have no idea whether anyone still makes them or not, but I guess you'd call it a firecracker with two wires instead of a normal fuse. You attached one wire to a spark plug on a car and the other wire to a ground. When someone started that car, there was a long screeching whistle, a loud explosion, and smoke would billow out from under the hood. The first time I ever saw one was when Dad put one on our '48 Olds because he knew Mother would be driving it later that day. She failed to see the humor in it.

Ya' think!

 

[EastTnFarmboy]

In college there was a dorm floor above a floor where classrooms were located. Some guys filled a 39 gallon trash can with water and leaned it up against a dorm room door. The doors opened into the room, so they knocked on the door and scampered away. When the poor unsuspecting soul opened the door, he experienced quite a rush...of water of course. That water had to go somewhere...into the classroom below.

Although I didn't see it personally, I heard stories of someone rigging up a car battery attached to one of the door handles. When the person opened the door, I guess it was like grabbing hold of an electric fence. What a way to start your day!

 

[Bird]

My first car was a 1946 Chevrolet when I was a sophomore in high school. The first day I had it and drove it to school a friend told me, that afternoon, that he saw a couple of the seniors with the hood up on my car and learned that they had pulled the coil wire out of the distributor, inserted a cigarette filter, then put the wire back. So I promptly removed the cigarette filter after school. If a friend hadn't seen what happened and warned me, there's no telling when I would have found that problem. And I learned that one of the seniors had a 1952 Chevrolet and our keys were the same.

 

[cyberknight]

And another payback I did.

I had a friend of mine and his girl friend living in my house while we were redoing an old place they had bought. We had to knock down a building that was very old and beyond dirty. Well we spent a weekend and got er done and we were black from the dust and bat poop that was in the atic. His girlfriend was pulling little stunts on me all day just to annoy me. We get back to my place and I am the first to get a shower and cleaned up after a hard days work..
Now my payback. She goes into take her shower. I goto my main water shutoffs and wait. I hear the shower come on and wait till i think she is all soaped up with shampoo and all. Then I shut the hot water off. The scream and all the cursing was unbelievable. Then I shut all the water off. She came out of the shower with a towel around her, yelling , and it looked like someone dumped a bucket of mud on her. My timeing was pefect. I thought she was going to kill me. It took me a good half hour to stop laughing so i could turn the water back on. She stills remember's that stunt very well.

Glenn

 

[EastTnFarmboy]

Growing up in Missouri, I knew of some boys who would take a lady's purse and attach super heavy fishing line to the handle. They lived out in the country so they would find a place to hide in the woods or a thicket next to one of the paved roads. They would put the purse in the road and then wait. Of course, someone would come trucking down the road and see the purse as they passed by it. Before the person could get their vehicle stopped, the boys would pull the purse into their hiding place and remain deathly still. As far as I know, they never were found. I bet there were some confused and aggravated drivers though.

 

[EastTnFarmboy]

My little brother is 17 years my junior. When he was about 10 or 11 he was really getting into hunting, fishing and so on. I found an old bottle of lady's perfume in one of my grandmother's cabinets one day. I think it was Avon, and it was in a bottle that was shaped like some kind of an animal. (And it STUNK really bad.)

That year at Christmas, I wrapped it up and gave it to him on Christmas morning. When he looked at me puzzled, I excitedly explained to him that it was scent attractant and he should use it when he went deer hunting to improve his chances of success. Some other family members, who had been let in on the secret, reinforced the suggestion and really played it up. He did eventually figure it out, of course, but it took him a while! It was hilarious. You know that an 11 year old just had to "try it out" before he actually went hunting. Oh how he stunk!!!

I still kid him about it when it's deer season. I will ask him if he needs me to pick up some scents for him the next time I go to town!

 

[Travelover]

Between high school and college I worked in a tool rental place. We had a lot of time and an endless amount of equipment to play pranks with.

One item that we rented was a 2" discharge electric submersible pump. I found that if you put one of these in a 5 gallon bucket of water, it would empty it in seconds - all over anyone nearby. We used to hide these strategically and plug them in at the "best" possible moment.

One day I found that I couldn't pick up my metal lunch box. I thought the guys had put bricks in it to get me back . No, they had used a power staple gun to put 100 or more staples through the bottom and into the work bench!

We also found that if you locked the trigger on a belt sander and coiled an extension cord just right, they would go like slot cars in the parking lot. We raced them and even experimented with the right grit for maximum acceleration. This ended when we escalated to floor drum sanders and found they had some major high speed handing problems.

 

[ragkar]

My dad told me how he and his friends would attach a fishing line to someone's screen door. Then they would hide and pull on the string causing the door to bang.

 

[Travelover]

Between high school and college I worked in a tool rental place. We had a lot of time and an endless amount of equipment to play pranks with.......

Another prank that we pulled was to put a bottle jack under other guy's rear truck axle, real close to the tire and lift it just enough to barely clear the ground. They'd go crazy trying to figure out why it wouldn't go any where.

Of course there was the ever popular "rocks in the hub cap" trick.........

 

[Bird]

Instead of a bottle jack, it was customary to used two coke cases. Some of you may be too young to remember when Cokes came 24 to a case and the cases were wood. Turned on their side under the axle, one on each side, they were just about the right height to hold the tires barely off the gound. And one I never saw, but heard worked well, was to put a large piece of watermelon rind under each rear wheel.

 

[Tororider]

Hitekcountry,
My aunt tells a story about having a crush on a guy in college. One day she left a note of his car, asking him to meet her in a local cafe, never did come, she was heartbroken and longs for him to this day.

You don't think? Naw.

 

[hitekcountry]

Hitekcountry,
My aunt tells a story about having a crush on a guy in college. One day she left a note of his car, asking him to meet her in a local cafe, never did come, she was heartbroken and longs for him to this day.

You don't think? Naw.

ROFLMAO!!!

 

[cityfarma]

I once worked as a tech in a software company. One of the programmers used to complain about small noises from his PC. One day he had his (ground floor) window open so we decided to put a hand held two way radio outside his window. The transmiter was then put next to a signal generator and the audio frequency varied. I was in an office nearby and fed back what was happening. As he approached the window, the sound was stopped. The confused look on his face was worth the effort. He did not catch on and this was good as I used to refer to him as "the axe murderer" because of his disposition.

Cityfarma

 

[motepoc]

A fellow mechanic and I had the oportunity to fool around with a female engineer (no not that way). She came into the shop and borrowed our strobe light so that she could check the speed on some motors in the area. She did this on a machine that was right outside our shop door window. We found the circuit breaker that went to the outlets out on the machine, inside the shop on the wall right next to the door. She plugged the light in and got it going and then held it up to the roll on the motor. We then cut the breaker off. She would take it down, check the switch and the plug in, and it still didn't work. She bumped it on the side, and as soon as she did, it started working again. She would put it back up to try to read the speed, but again, it would go out. She did this for about ten minutes, and then brought it back in the shop and told us it didn't work. We have never told her any different. We were smarter than that.

 

[RobertN]

I thought I was funny once... My wife and son might disagree, but, hey, funny, corny, it's the same

A buddy of mine wanted to go look at trucks. I drove him to a dealer. I was bored waiting for him, so I went to all the 4x4's and put the transfer cases in neutral. Then watched a couple salesmen, including the one with my buddy, try to drive off the lot... They eventually figured it out, but only after looking under the hood, under the truck, shifting the regular shifter in and out of gear...

Another prank that we pulled was to put a bottle jack under other guy's rear truck axle, real close to the tire and lift it just enough to barely clear the ground. They'd go crazy trying to figure out why it wouldn't go any where.

Of course there was the ever popular "rocks in the hub cap" trick.........