Technical Large learning curve

Awhile ago I was talking to a guy at work who had just bought an old muscle car, and was telling me his kids couldn't figure out how to open the windows because they had never seen a manual window crank before.

 

I had a friend back in the '90s that got rear ended. He was in his Saturn (new at the time) and it was just a bump at the intersection. his bag went off when he was getting out of the car and hit him in the side of the face, fractured a vertebrae in his neck. His whole take on it was, well I got a new bumper cover and a major lawsuit out of the deal.

There is a down hill sweeper on Noland that gets a lot of the fellas.

There was a kid in my old neighborhood that went from a front drive Honda to a rear drive Cougar ( yea I know OT) that nearly killed him about 3 times before his mom approached me about driving lessons. I guess its really hard to drive a rear drive car if all you have ever driven is a front drive. I know it wasn't a HP thing, it just had the low performance 302 and an auto-magic.

here is one thing that I have noticed a front drive car is point and shoot and whichever way your tires are pointed that's the way you are going. A rear drive car behaves altogether different, ad a little torque to those rear wheels and you can get yourself in trouble real quick. The upside to a rear drive car without antilock is that you can drift one or set up a brake slide really easy. Either of those can get you out of trouble if you learn how to use them.

on a side note:
One of the two wrecks I have ever had with a passenger in the car was t boned by a tow truck going the wrong way down a one way street, that was racing to an accident. It was my own fault I didn't look both ways when the light turned green. my daughter was in the pass eat and not belted in (she was an adult) and didn't get a scratch. I on the other hand was belted in and got a fractured elbow. Not the belts fault the car got hit on my side.

 

Oh yea, this is true.

 

MY CARS WITH POWER BRAKE BOOSTERS HAVE A PROBLEM OF THE BOOSTER RELAXING THRU STORAGE MONTHS AND WILL GIVE ME A WAKE UP CALL FIRST TIME OUT UNTIL I PUMP HARD 8-10 TIMES. AFTER 50 YEARS OF DRIVING OLD BOMBS I STIL PUT THE TRANNY IN NEUTRAL AT A STOP LIGHT!!!

CRAB LOUIE

 

I'm told that the reason for Driver's Ed changing from turning the steering wheel hand over hand to the shuffle motion is that if the air bag goes off you don't punch yourself in the face with your arms.

Recalling starting my old truck with the hot cam and power brakes. The vacuum canister had enough for one stop, then I was on my own. It is kinda counterintuitive to rev the engine to stop but after awhile it becomes one of those things that are automatic.

I also remember being taught to always have an out in case the engine quit; the same sort of thing that my flight instructor told me. Most folks just buzz down the road with no thought as to where they would go or what to do if there were any type of problem.

A couple of weeks ago in the snow a gal slid through a red light and then just sat there in the middle of the intersection. I guess that she thought everyone else could stop? Sigh.

 

Man, after reading all these posts I realize I am out of the club once again. My "old truck" isnt nearly as old as the rest apparently.. Some of you guys have hand crank wipers? Choke levers? Points? I wasnt around to have to deal with that and honestly its kind of a lost art to be able to even perform those tasks. I can drive with the best of them though, but I'll go back to reading threads instead of trying to join in, haha...

 

Best way I put it to my friends who are not into cars:

You DRIVE new cars, you OPERATE old cars

 

I'll add one thing that I would call an "unlearning" curve:
It used to be that I could fix anything that went wrong on my old cars.
Now with modern computers on 4 wheels, I can't figure out a damned thing when they mess up. I have to hit the internet and research for hours and compare computer readout data. Can't do that on the side of the road.

 

LOL on a trip to Calif in the wife's late model I asked her is she wanted me to drive and she said, "nope but you can sit here and monitor it for a while."

While I am thinking about it old style vacuum operated cruise control or about any pre computer cruise control was or is dangerous. Sometimes it sticks on, so if it is something that you happen to have and use be prepared to stick it in neutral and kill it.

 

In my car the parking brake would hang up on me so I carried a peice of 2x4 with me for parking other than at home. We had a sloped gravel driveway so I cut a little notch in the driveway with a hoe. I'd just park it with the front tires in it.

 

LOL I had plenty of cars that used a rock for an E brake over the years, there is an art to getting one parked on a hill if you don't have a buddy along for the ride.

 

Hah,my learning "curve" is all straight line nowadays

 

I sold that car to a friend at work. He got the car and the parking space as a package deal , since it was the only one with a divot to park the RF tire in so it wouldn't roll away.

 

Brick with a rope tied thru it!

 

LMFAO that's classic.

I had an old chebby once that I bought in the winter and didn't want to slide under it for any length of time. I didn't check the E brake and should have noticed the rock in the floor board, but alas I didn't. My parking spot where I was working was on a hill and I got to where I could pull forward enough to lay the rock down and back up to it and still be in my spot. The boss walked up one day when I was parking and asked me what in the devil I was doing so I told him. He told me that evening that he needed me to work overtime on a little project so I said I would, he said open the big bay door and pretty quick he came rolling up in my chebby.

Does anyone remember when human resources was personnel? Real people working for and living with real people. that is one part of these old cars that it would do us well to remember.

 

Iam 54,Have had an old something since I was 15. Its hard to explain to someone that is new to the old car or bike thing what its like to "feel" driving something old or built from scratch.I dont care if someone gave me a new caddy,Id rather take a ride in my 47Olds.Its just that certain thing about it.My best times are just going for a quick blow the dust off ride on back roads to clear the head.Every bump and squeak,no radio,ac etc.
Drivers ed classes should be in a 56 chevy without power anything.If you can handle that then we start in the new whatever.This is why passing on our love for this stuff is so important.Listen to an old cabinet radio or a vinyl record,go for a ride in the back seat of an old car(without belts)
Its too bad the youngins these days dont seem to care where we came from.The learning curve is well worth the trip

 

Best statement in this whole thread.

 

Yeah not saying they don't, to be fair I hit a deer with that same car and as soon as I was stopped I was out of that car so fast I got caught in the seat belt and ended up crawling lol.

One to man times hearing about people hitting something, taking a breath, and then the bag going off.

 

Sure you can...all you gotta do is buy the diagnostic tool that reads codes and plug it in when you have a problem...it will talk to the comp and then shoot you a code and tell you what needs fixed.

 

Airbag thing. They're teaching the kids to keep their hands and arms off to the side so that if the airbag deploys it doesn't break an arm or shove a hand in to a face.

 

Thanks, I taught my granddaughter to drive after she took Driver's ed. they didn't have any in car training, mostly they had how to pass the test for your learners permit and how not to get pregnant or an STD. I guess that was mostly for back seat driving.

Anyway she asked me how come they told her different about where to put your hands or navigate a corner. I couldn't answer her, and she just learned to drive the way that I do.

 

Am i the only person who would remove the air bag fuse if i owned a new car?? I mean those things are pricy and i havent heard a lot of good about them, mostly people popping them in minor fender benders

 

No shit? I learn something new every day, never heard that one before.

 

I had to remove the choke from my roadster because it was interfering with my tri power linkage. So to start the car I have to remove the air cleaner, give 2 squirts of gas, cover the carb with my hand almos all the way while reaching around the windshield to barely reach and turn the key. Fortunately the car fires right up every time but I have to use one hand as the choke and the other to feather the throttle for about 5 minutes before it will idle on its own. Pretty funny. I also have grown accustomed to using my hand as a sun visor quite a bit as my hats tend to blow off and sunglasses don't always do the trick.

 

One thing I swear by, for sloppy-handling cars with rear wheel drive: If you enter a curve and you're too fast to get around, you can stay out of the ditch by NOT locking up your brakes, but instead feeding more gas and hoping that the drive wheels dig in and keep you on the line.

Front drivers feel funny after spending time with RWD. There's less drama with front wheel drive, but also less fun, unless you're a 9/10ths rally driver.

 

I do recall having to use a starter pedal on a manual shift vehicle. It was funny at the time because I was 18 and everyone else was older than me and not one of them could figure it out. I still reach for the missing column shift more often than I care to admit to. And with the seat jacked up so that my hand can just fit between my head and the head liner, I still can't see the trunk or anything forward of the windshield washer things on the hood. Not to mention the horrible exterior mirrors on cars these days. The curved ones throw off your depth perception, and the one with the cut out for seeing further to the left is just too damned small. And then there is the E brake mounted in the inner A pillar, with it's horrid angle. I totally lost the brakes on a Silverado and had to limp along using the e brake and a stationary clip to hold the release thing open. Thank someone that i learned to drive in 64!

 

Might warn folks about burning out the points by sitting with the car off and the key on -

 

The dimmer switch SHOULD be on the floor !!!
Lord only knows where the headlight switch and
the windshield wiper switch is or how they function
in these new cars !!!

 

That works but goes against natural instinct without the training/practice to become reactive instinct. The brain says ohhhh oh too fast slow down. Backseat drivers say the same thing and freak out when they hear the throttle open up. Your chassis needs to be right or you just get into the ditch quicker lmao

 

Yep Way too much crap on the wheel and turnsignal switches.