Features How far have you walked after breaking down?

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man that sucks !! about 8 years ago, my 55 just quit running and would not restart.
it turned over fine, but would not run at all...not even an attempt to fire.
of corse, i was in the middle of no where @ midnight with out a flashlight.
so, i walked home (about 5 miles). i rode my bike (bicycle) back to the car
and tried to start it...it fired right up ! the problem which i found later was that someone put a cap off a bottle of heat in the gas tank. i am thinking that the cap was getting sucked against the main pickup in the tank. it took awhile for me to find it.

 

I went to a rock concert in Brisbane last year, and went from here by train to the city. Rather than leave my good ride at the station in the dark, I borrowed the daughter's old 1988 Hyundai and left it at the station.

Concert was awesome, got back to the station about 1.30am. Hyundai's got a bloody flat tyre, so I pull out the spare, and it's still flat from a puncture she got 6 months previously, and promised me she'd got fixed.

Couldn't ring the house, in enough shit as it was for going to a heavy metal concert at my age, so I walked home. 10 miles in the dark at that hour ain't funny. A bunch of drunk kids in a car decided to throw stuff at me, so I ignored them, I didn't want them to decide to stop.

Good exercise though, took me hours!

Cheers, Glen.

 

my cousin and i walked about 1/2 mile then some other rodders stoped and picked us up and took us to a freinds were we could get a ride and tools. thanks to those who stop and lend a hand.......Jones

 

Earlier this month I bought a '73 Duster and drove it back from LA to Atlanta, partly along Rt. 66, and through the Mojave Desert. The float for the gas tank sending unit must have had a small leak, because the readings were getting less and less accurate, and I could tell the float was getting heavy. No problem, I'll just do the math. 12 miles per gallon X 16 gallon tank = 192 miles between gas stops.
That works out just dandy, provided you have a 16 gallon tank. The tank in the Duster turned out to be less than that, and I got to walk 5 miles to a gas station in the Mojave Desert.
The last half mile, someone stopped and drove me the rest of the way, and then drove me back to the car.

-Brad

 

When I was a kid in the late 50's and early 60's and learning about cars and mechanics,I was always broken down. There were no cell phones. I probably walked the equivalent of twice around the globe.

 

Fuel pump went out on my 67 firebird standing me and my buddy 10 miles from a phone in 100 degree heat. I have never seen so many road kills in my life that day. The smell kinda made it easy to spot them too!

 

well, locked up two motors (stupid kid then) and blew a transmission after not putting in fluid the night i installed my third motor. the night i blew my motor in the 52 it was snowing, obviously no heater or wipers or seatbelts or doors that stayed shut, so.. in a t shirt me and friends left the car overnight and walked a few miles in snow to the next exit when we were picked up. im keeping a skateboard in the trunk of every car from now on, since i live in florida now.

 

when i was in the army in the late 70s we broke down in clarksville tenn.in my 68 roadrunner and had to hump it back to the post at fort campbell about 12 to 15 miles ..

 

A few years back 57JoeFoMoPar and I were going to Lead East in my old black 50 Merc, and en route on 287 North I noticed a few sparks by the brake pedal linkage. Well, I wired teh car in a rush to neaten it up "someday". Someday never came, and somehow the ignition feed ended up down there. Shorted out, we coasted over to the side, LUCKILY near the entrance to a DPW yard...so we just backed the car in there safely away from the road. Got out and the irony was we could hear the 50's music blasting from Lead East. Sweet. We were that close.

I took out my toolbox and extra set of points so that I could fit my beer cooler in. Fool. We sat there for a few hours throwing tall grass blades into a creek trying to get them to stick straight up like a Mark Twain novel. My dad came with points and tools and we got on our way.

 

Somewhat different but in the same vein.

I was riding my Harley Davidson and it died. It is almost midnight. No cell phones in 1973.
I pushed that heavy bike ... 5 miles home. I was afraid to leave it. I only had liability insurance on it.

Thankfully I was 25 years old and in real good shape.

 

ive been to fort jackson , i would not have left it either

 

Not broken down, but when we lived in West Virginia and only had one car, I was hitch-hiking home from my part time job. Once off the main road, there wasn't much traffic, but a car was coming which I recognized as MY WIFE. I jumped up and down, waved my arms and she drove right past me!! She says she never saw me! Twelve (12) miles to home. I was a lot younger and,yes, we'll still married. She just doesn't recognize people when she drives-and we have two cars now.

 

At the time I was a single parent with a newborn and trying to do everything on the cheap. I was at my friends salvage yard working all day on a falcon wagon trying to resurect it after being stored for umpteen years. Got it running nice and decent. Got the lights working and the battery charging(which wasn't easy). Loaded my tools and parts in the back and headed off at 7:30pm for my 150 mile trip home. Floated nice and comfy for 50 miles and then it felt like I got rearended when the rear self-destructed. Immediately regretted the "I don't need a cell phone enough to have another bill" logic. Walked about 11-12 miles on the side of a rural highway getting honked at till I got to a pay phone(which is strange that you hardly see them anywhere now) and had to call my mother to wake up the baby and rescue me at what was now 11pm.
Felt like a moron.

 

I have a idea I will beat most people at this game. Vehicle move from Grid****** to Grid****** around 250km across central Australia. The 110 Landrover shattered a Transfer case but no worries. On the radio to HQ and guess what? No assets available for a recovery! Secure vehicle, grab gat(Rifle) and pack and walk the rest....................180km!
Bastards sent a helicopter to recover the vehicle later.
Doc.

 

It does suck... I walked about 7 miles of road on I-25 in the Colorado Mountains trying to get to Raton New Mexico.. That Sucked, it was a Bad Fuel pump....

 

4.5 miles, that skateboard in the trunk isnt just a fashion statement

 

I was out 4 Wheeling in 1973 in a cool ass small Bronco. I stalled it going up a hill and when we hit the key, it wouldn't turn over, just clicked. We tried the old hit the starter routine - nothing. Had a big ol Warn winch on it so I winched it up the hill and onto flat ground. Fiddled around with a bunch of stuff - still nothing. Since we were out in the middle of no where (which is now Top of The World in Laguna for you So Cal folks) we decided to walk and winch it out. Six miles of pound in a stake, winch 50 ft, move the stake, repeat. It took hours. Got it to a paved downhill road and tried to bump start it. Popped the clutch at about 20 in 2nd gear and it just locked up and went sideways. Called my bud's mom and her boyfriend came to rescue us in is new Jag. He towed us up to about 35 and again I popped the clutch, just about stopped that Jag when it locked up again. He towed us home.
Now here's the best part - after all that walking and winching, easily six hours worth, and the tow home, we decide the motor must have seized. We start tearing the 302 apart and off comes the manifold, the heads etc. Still won't turn over with a big breaker bar and socket on the crank nut. I drop the starter out and as I go to push myself out from under the hood of this lifted beast I lean on the breaker bar, it turns freely and I smack my head on the opposite fender. Turns out the starter had seized up with the Bendix out and was locking up the whole damn thing.
If we'd only known, we could have yanked the starter and drove home!

 

I had a '67 GMC van that I got stuck on top of Mingus Mountain outside of Cottonwood, AZ. The dog and I walked 17 miles down the mountain. I had to carry the dog the last 2 blocks. She probably ran around an extra few miles. The next day at the grocery store, I had to use the motorized shopping cart.

 

I hear that. My sisters car broke down on the way to a show one night, so her and I just busted out our longboards and skated the 2km's to the nearest station and got our frinds to grab us on their way past.

 

Rearend out on my '71 chevy truck. Rode 87 miles on a bicycle from Sears($290), in the middle of the night on january 1, 1992. Frost on my knuckles when I got home at 2 am.

Retrieved the next day my truck and the amount for the bike since it was a piece of crap! Still have the reciept.

 

One small (very small) advantage to being an old fart is people feel sorry and offer you a ride. Never had to walk more than a 1/4 mile yet.

 

All these posts and no mention of the "Shank's Mare". It sucks when we lose the cool old ways to say things.

Last time I had to walk home, cell phones weren't invented. Come to think of it, neither were skateboards, except for the ones made from a 2x4 and my sister's metal wheeled skate. And that was more of a scooter, with an apple crate nailed on the front with an empty tuna can for a headlight.

 

15 hard fought miles. Me and two friends broke down in the middle of nowhere and had to hoof it back to town at about 2 in the morning. This was before the day's of cell phones. Sun was coming up when we finally got there.

 

Broke down up on a back road (we were '4wheelin) in Kodiak, AK - about 22 miles from main road, and it was 34 miles on main road to nearest phone. My pal "Steve" walked all the way to the Coast Guard base...over fifty miles....nary a vehicle on the main road (not unusual for 10pm on a weekday.

 

I pushed my motorcycle 1/2 mile down a busy freeway once after running out of gas. I was too embarrased to even take my helmet off!

 

Me and a buddy hoofed 12 miles of gravel in pre-cellphone days, after pushing the 4500 lb car a half mile to a hidden spot (car didn't fit the area and we weren't taking chances). Last mile we were walking down the centerline of a (finally!) paved road and the first car we'd seen in 3 hours was a cop. Who was not only kind enough to give us a ride, but cool enough to have zepplin jamming when we hopped in.

 

well i guess i had better find some wood, i have never been left stranded. now my wife on the other hand has been, shes broking the PS bracket on my regal race car, took the front pump out on the trans on her aerostar, blew the convertor up in the grand am, hopefully she is done destroying things

thank god i own a tow truck

 

In the early 1980's there was a Pro Rally that ran out of Elsinore CA. I wasn't racing that weekend and was asked to run "Lead" car. The lead car runs the course just before the first racer to make sure the course is clear and that the timing and scoring people are in place for each stage. We decided to bring out my 1970 English Ford Escort Rally car to use for this. It is done at race speed, just minutes before the first car.
The night before the rally we were running the course to make sure that the route book was correct and to familiarize ourselves with the course. Up in the mountains near the Lookout, the Escort quit running. Seems we got some bad gas. We had to hoof it down the mountain sometime after midnight, about 10 miles. No one really driving around Elsinore at that time. When we got into town we called and woke up a cab driver to to take us to the casino that was headquarters for the event. We then had to go tow the car back. Finally got back at about 7:00am and we had just a couple hours sleep before the start. We ended up borrowing a K/5 Blazer to run the event and it was such a pig we nearly got run over by Kiwi Rod Millen in a factory 4wd Mazda RX7.
Ahhh, good times.

 

I've pushed my car about a mile before, and done some really rediculios fixes, but never left one behind, yet, knock on wood