Hot Rods Boy! I never seen that before!

A friend in high school had a hopped up '31 Plymouth P-A coupe, homemade dual intake with two Holley single bowls, reground cam, milled head, and a non-advancing distributer.
I made up a bushed hold-down bracket to retain the dist., but fitted a choke cable to the outer body, so he could advance the dist. manually in a hot runoff...
There was a 'positive stop' bracket, so the advance couldn't exceed a total of 28 degrees full advance.
As he got used to using this 'tool', he reasoned that "More would be Better", and bent the stop to get more 'lead'. (pronounced 'leed') Second blistering 18 second pass (!) resulted in a loud banging on acceleration, then louder 'thumping'.
He had broken the center main cap, and the crank was flexing like rubber.

 

A guy in my high school had a marina blue '66 SS396 Chevelle, a tire smoker if there ever was one. At lunch one day he burned rubber until a tire popped. No spare, and the only one anyone coughed up was a Ford.

He bent the studs in until the Ford wheel would slide on enough to put lug nuts on, got it on as far as it would go and wobbled away.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But then I also drink good shine.

 

We used to do that on Demolition derby cars to get height out of the suspensions. Also welded A-arms solid to the frame. Hell of a rough ride let me tell ya! lol

 

This must have been before you were good at math. Chances are you would have taken fewer steps, and not had to get into and out of each car approximately 26 times, had you just driven one of them three miles and then walked back to get the other.

 

And it would have been quicker to do it that way and burned less gas too, not to mention the wear and tear on starters!

 

My first full time job was at a Bugatti restoration shop, were I got to work on some of the finest cars to ever travel the highways. One day a Type 40 arrived on a trailer, the owner stopped driving it since there was on oil pressure. These cars had a generator that drove off the crankshaft, looked really neat under the center of the radiator. This car was missing the generator and had a coffee can in its place. I asked the owner why it was there.............................oil leaked out the front, so he filled a coffee can with speedy dry in the hopes of stopping the leak. It worked, sort of, after packing the oil pump to the point the engine wouldn't turn over. Bob

 

Yeah but if you drive one all the way, walk 3 miles back and the other won't go, you're walkin' another 3!

 

Back in the seventy's, we would go around town and find old beater cars that you could buy for $20-$30 and get them running and have our own Demolition derby in a vacant field near the shop we hung out in. Made for a fun day of crashing into each other and drinking beer. We learned to chain the doors shut after one guy fell out of the car but he wasn't hurt so no big deal. The best part was there was a wrecking yard just down the street and he would come and tow the cars away for free when we were done.

 

OK

 

Rode to the Dirt track in Leesville LA. with a buddy driving 75 to 80 mph had
a flat left front. When we pulled the tire off he had the tie rod tied on with an old piece of inner tube. Caught a ride home with someone else!

 

Was driving a o/t... 72 Datsun 510, broke a break line, headed to my Now shop doing work on it, an had to get there to pay friends helping me, Had a 16 oz refreshment in route... One break line down an thank Budda I had vise grips, pinched the line, Yep you guessed it, Pissed in the master, Good ta go... Till winter came.... Fixed it after That!

 

I recall my dad who would find anyway he could to save a penny, had an old 55 Merc, we were about to go on vacation 500 mile one way trip, the old Merc had a bad u-joint. He took it off the day we were leaving and all was rust and powder inside the caps. Dad went over to the scrap pile in the garage found some sheet copper cut it into a strip the size to fit inside the cap and wrapped it around the u-joint bearing "peg" stuffed as much wheel bearing grease as he could into each side and pounded the caps on, we made the 1000 miles with out a hitch and I don't recall he ever replaced the u-joint for the remainder of years he owned the Merc.
Dad also taught me to break down a tire by using a bumper jack on the car and placing the tire flat on the ground jacking the weight of the car onto the bead. It worked every time, he would say $2.00 to change a tire on the rim that is highway robbery. He is 88 now and still has the same attitude.

 

On my way home from work one day, my fan belt broke on my 57 Pontiac. I'd had several brewskis and didn't care. Slammed the hood and drove it up onto the interstate. Kicked it up to 70 and the wind coming through the grill turned the fan and waterpump just enough to keep the coolant circulating enough to cool the engine...drove it all the way home with the gauge up on the third mark...3/4ths hot.
I once bought a little blue 63 Rambler American from Corncobcoupe and while driving it out in the middle of nowhere on a 2 lane hiway I lost parts of the rear ujoint...one of those funky, weird ones. I walked to a McDonalds and bought a large drink...came in a semi-hard plastic cup. By the time I'd walked back to the car the drink was gone. I sliced the cup down the side and wrapped it around the ailing U-joint...bound it all together with large zip ties and 1/2 roll of duck tape. It got me to a truck stop where I called my wife to rescue me.

 

On our out of PA and blew the running light fuse in the pickup, dead short left us with only headlights. We figured if we drove faster than everyone they did need to see our tail lights. That worked until the New York turnpike when the officer told us to park it at the next service center, it was 2 am. We bought 2 flashlights at the truck stop, taped red plastic over the lenses then duct taped them to the box, instant tail lights.
1962 Biscayne broke the transmission crossmember so we pulled up the carpet, two holes in the floor and wrapped a chain around the crossmember a 4x4 cut to length between the rocker and trans tunnel. Worked for a couple weeks until drive went in the 2 speed. Tried to backup from town to the house, only 12 miles and ended up in the ditch, on the roof.
Too many stories to remember but still alive and didn't loose my license.

 

Did you do the wiring???....

 

He could've driven the other one first.

 

Had a 63 Belair which had a frozen ball joint, which moves the drag link. Loosen off the nut , remove the taper, grease it up, put it back in with a big flat washer under it so it dosen't seat, replace nut , but not tightly, fit split pin, ready to roll.
My first car (Australian Chrysler Royal) was bought as a sort-of running (no compression on 1 cylinder) and no brakes. I was 16 and knew SFA about anything. But I did figure out that the trans mounted handbrake could be used as your brakes, as long as you don't go too fast.
Drove it like that for a couple of weeks until one of the old timers at work 'splained how the brake hydraulic system worked, and I saved up the $5 for the seal kits for the wheel cylinders.
All stupid things mentioned in this thread were not done by the authors, but by "buddies" or "A bloke I once knew......"

 

I was driving home alone late one night in an OT turbocharged car. Earlier that week I had made a liquid to air intercooler for it using a 12v RV sink pump and an Igloo ice chest. I started smelling oil smoke, so I pulled into a parking lot. Flames were licking up around the edges of the hood. I raised it, pulled out my pocket knife, and sliced open one of those brand new intercooler hoses. Then I reached inside the car and turned on the pump. I then proceeded to douse the engine like my own fireman. Managed to save the car!

(a stainless turbo oil return line had cracked)

 

When I was 17 and working at the Honda Motorcycle shop in Yakima I decided one night that I wanted my lowered 51 Merc coupe to have a gasser look so I jacked it up in he driveway and stuck some pieces of 2x4 between the coils of the springs for spacers and then took off for work in the morning. I stopped at a little gas station 7 miles from the house, borrowed his floor jack lifted the Merc up pulled the wood out, set it on the ground put the jack back, said thanks and took off to work.
I caught too much hell from my auto shop teacher if I actually did something stupid so I didn't get that carried away.
I bought a 54 Buick brush buggy from a friend for 25.00 just before my 19th birthday. It was just a chassis with a seat and the frame had been shortend to the point that you could sit in the seat and reach down and touch the back tire. Another friend hauled it home for me for a few bucks and I played around with it here on the farm while I got it running and then took off to my buddy's house where he had a cut down 30 or so Nash body that I was thinking I could stick on the frame. Made it a mile from home and going a bit too fast on the dirt road (Rocky Ford Road) I lost it, missed a cattle chute built out of rail road ties by inches so I am told and ended up taking out 100+ ft of barb wire fence, went back to a guy who was working in the corral and asked if he had a hammer so I could fix the fence and he said I had better get to the doctor because I was bleeding all over the place. Drove the buggy back home, my little brother calls mom, she get home the 2 miles in a minute and a half and hauls me to the hospital and the doc sews me up. Sold the buggy to the doc for what I paid for it.

 

back in the '70s there was a 'thing' here for river buggies. Usually a simple stripped chassis with wide wheels and discarded aircraft tires. Built high and tall and with as much horsepower as could be afforded.. Ideal for charging around our braided gravel riverbeds.
One day way up river one of the lads lost all drive The Chevy auto had lost all its trans fluid The cure was to plug the hole with a stick and fill with river water. Worked perfectly.
Unit was stripped from the buggy and offered for sale the following week.
Garpo

 

back in the 80's i got a free 52 desoto. somthin, i forget what, was missing for the gas pedal, so we put a lawn mower throttle on it and drove to town for several beers. no cops back then

 

heating front coils and rear leafs to lower a car- usually once it gets to desired height the heated spring sags some more - looks cool if you do not mind the banging of metal against metal on even small bumps in the road with next to no suspension travel

 

You must have been darn good at school when playing leap frog... LOL

 

I quit drinking moonshine over 30 years ago. I got lost on the way home after drinking at the neighbor's place. He lived directly across the lane from me.

 

1981 I drove my grandmothers 62 chevy pickup up to Gardnerville Nevada from Concord Calif. to get my 33 Fordor Body & frame which was in a ravine , deposited there by a bulldozer which tore the doors off the passenger side ,My Dad and I stuffed it into the bed of the old pickup and I left down Highway 88 at night while snow was starting to fall. about 5000 ft elevation lightly snowing , near Ham's Station the old pickup died and I coasted over onto the shoulder , popped the hood and checked for fire to the coil got a spark took the distributor cap off and found no fire to the points , disconnected the condenser had fire at the points , so I took the condenser off the Generator and put it in the distributor fired up and drove the last hundred miles > whew <Now... any car that I own with points distributor has a condenser in the glove box ---
the 33 is the one in my avatar

 

First ModelA---Had a new set of oversize pistons, (>080, I recall) no boring bar. Found 80 0ver block in wrecking yard and bought for $10.Measured pistons, they were .100 over. Model A block was worn enough to drop pistons into so away we went. Block was so tapered s bad that when pistons got close to bottom of cylinders they would not go any further. First bright idea, tow the car to break in!! Towed that damn Model A at 60 mph and all it did was wear flat spots in tires.
Second bright idea, sneak into Dad's Auto Shop and grab the cylinder hone and go to work. Went thru three sets of stones, finally got "A" to turn over and start. Ass-beating started that evening when Dad found out!
Third bright idea, as it is now about 2am in the morning, no throttle return springs--we had installed a Burns 2-pot manifold w/ 97's and linkage was pretty stiff-- so we "borrowed" friends mothers bag of rubber bands and used them as return springs. Number of bands determined the throttle spring pressure. That lasted until gas spill from our carb rebuild got on some of the rubber bands a promptly ate a couple of them!!
Fourth and best idea--tow "A" home park under the oak tree and find something else to work on!!

 

Putting in a new clutch in an OT truck, snapped 4 of 6 bolts off in the flywheel...lined the new PP up and welded it in with a 110v Arc welder...smack at the broken bolts.

Ran it that way for about 6 months and sold it, so can't vouch for longevity.

 

Dude in high school had no wiper motor. Disconnected the linkage. Rope tied to wiper arms, run through the vent wing windows in a circle across the dashboard. When raining, passenger had to grab the rope and move it left to right.