I'll preface this by saying if you cant laugh at yourself, you can't laugh at anything. That being said, I am in the process of swapping motors because I got mine hot the other day. I
was bummed out but luckily I had another one that came on my Mirage when I bought it. I'm going through the processes to check it out because to the beast of my knowledge it was running but just turned off about 4 years ago and didn't know anything more. I lubed the cylinders, I checked the spark. I rigged some fuel to it to lube the case and finally decided to just see if it would pop before I pulled the carbs and thermostats and so on. It wouldn't kick off on it's own so I sparingly used some either and it finally hit. After that I got some premix in a spray bottle but it still didn't want to run but would pop every now and then. I decided that I needed to be able to give it some throttle so with my solenoid jumper wire on the right and my throttle linkage on th left I was almost hugging the back of the motor. I spun it over, gave it a little throttle, and low and behold it hit. I was so excited because it hit that it didn't dawn on me why I had felt a little shock in my forearm. I immediately jumped it again but this time noticed the shock a little more. It started and at this point I'm happy it came to life after so many years but wondering why the block is giving me a tingle. That's when I step back and realize that I never connected the spark plug wires on the left side which turns out what was making it so hard to start. I started laughing partly at my own obliviousness and also because if the damn thing started on three cylinders, it should be great on all 6. Went over it once more, buttoned up all the loose ends (aka plug wires) and gave it a go one more time. It popped off, idled smoothly, and was happy until it sucked the 10oz's of fuel that I had rigged dry. Ive had a crappy week and needed a laugh but the moral of the story is that you never know what will come along and make you feel better even if it's your own rookie mistake.