Every winter I put my car down for some kind of upgrade, and usually that means the engine comes out and/or apart. This year I was in such a hurry to go driving, I forgot to pressure test the coolant system before taking it out for a spin.
For whatever stupid reason, I put all the hoses where they go and even snugged them up a little but didn't really tighten them. They held coolant while it was sitting still in the garage. I took it out for a test drive early this spring and was blasting down the road when all of a sudden, I see white smoke pouring out from behind the car, then the car started running really rough.
I was convinced it was transmission fluid because last year I had a leak caused by a hole in the trans case. I had repaired the trans over the winter with JB weld but I was sure it just didn't hold up.
I drove the car all the way back home, with a blown a head gasket. It was down for another month as I had to have .004 shaved off the head to make it flat. I just got it running again last week, although it still needs some minor tweaking to the rocker arms. I did find out the temperature gauge works though. It normally runs so cold I thought the gauge was broken.
Yes we do f&(k up!