Art & Inspiration We have all heard the "What's that noise?" question

Bought new an OT early 70's Ranchero. Had a loud " thunk " when turning a corner. Dealer
worked on locating the noise , without success, for almost a year. Needed to pull a trailer,
added the hitch and air shocks, noise went away. Went back to the hitch installer and recovered
the original shocks, turns out one of the shocks had a partially sticking valve. Upon extension
of the shock, the valve released with a " thunk ".

 

Old flathead Fords made all kinds of noises. I learned long ago to just ignore them.

 

A girl I had a crush on in high school ask me if I would look at her 55 Ford and see if I could find out what's making a noise, she said it only happened when she was speeding up or slowing down and she went on to say she had never heard the sound but it only started when the weather got warm and she had the windows down.

It didn't take long to figure out her problem, walking beside the passenger side I could tell the noise was coming from the rear of the car and I told her to stop, I got a screwdriver and popped the hubcap and a lug nut fell on the ground, she had 3 lug nut's that were tight, the other one was about to come off.

 

It must feel good to have potentially saved a life...................

 

Sometimes you gotta work in the jail chasing that noise.

 

I really didn't give it any thought, what did get my goat is my brother was with me and he ask her for a date.

 

How did he go....???

 

When I was working, someone would come into the workshop with the "When I turn the XYZ machine on , it makes a noise" story, so we would get the bloke to do his best imitation of the noise, while we would take the piss out of him while making up our own noises. "It goes kinda Clunk-buzz- Clunk" "You mean Clank - whizz - Clank?" "No, Clunk, Clunk!" This would go on for a while, until they worked out we was just "Playin with their minds"!. It's a pity we didn't have cameras or You Tube in those days!

 

I always liked the smartass writeups in the aircraft logbooks. Every fault gets written up, and then corrective action taken. Somebody compiled a list of the good 'uns.

Fault: "#3 Engine missing". Corrective action: "Engine found after brief search."

OK, maybe ya had to be there.

 

Used to do maintenance work at a company that did a lot of carbon fiber and kevlar weaving. Some of the looms were pretty ancient and noisy to begin with. Had one operator who kept complaining about a funny noise, so a couple of us had her run it while we looked and listened. In our shift report we wrote, "Operator complaining about a funny noise. Determined that funny noise was coming from the operator". That one didn't go over so well...

 

We had just returned home from our trip to Novi, Michigan to attend the '54 Ford Club of America nationals the week before and we were coming home from a cruise-in with our oldest granddaughter, I was clicking along at about 55 mph on a back road when a bunch of cone headed bicycles came out of a side road completely ignoring the stop sign, I slammed on brakes and came to a complete stop to avoid hitting several of them.

After I calmed down and cranked the wagon back up we proceeding but now there was a bumping sound on acceleration and a thud when I let off, the sound was similar in all 5 gears, I eased home at about 35 mph and kept the car in 3rd most of the way home.

I didn't fool with the car when I got home but bright and early Sunday morning i was out in the garage trying to figure out what was going on, I was thinking it might be drive shaft related or the universal joints but after removing the drive shaft and checking the U joints they were snug and no play to be found, then I wondered if it could be a motor mount, I checked them and found no problem there, I thought it might be some related to the transmission but I really didn't know and I decided to call my friend Chris that builds transmissions.

He came by the house a few days later and I took him for a ride in the car and he said he didn't know but it might be coming from the transmission, so we loaded it up on his ramp truck and he took the car to his shop.

His shop is in Greenville and he called me approximately an hour after he had left my house, I ask him what he forgot and he told me the car is fixed, my reply was "BS" and he said it's fixed no sh!t.

He went to say he put the car on his lift, the type that has 4 arms instead of a ramp on ether side and as the car was going up the rear axle move, he went on to explain the spring mounts that I had attached to the rear axle were loose, he said when I welded the mounts to the axle they were just tack welded, but he had just finished welding them up.

What it boil down to was I had driven this car over 4 thousand miles since it was finished and after learning this I remembered tacking them in place and just forgot to finish welding them in place, fortunately they were strong tack welds to hold up the Michigan's interstates, much less the highway here in South Carolina.

After I got the wagon back from Chris I went from one end of the car checking welds, nut's and bolt's making sure everything was tight. HRP

 

Holy shit........you win.
I am happy that it didn't go the other way. You could have lost...... big time.....

 

You bet, that experience has taught me a valuable lesson, never tack weld a part and think I will finish that project later. HRP

 

...if you guys wear adjustable hearing aids, crank em up when you fire up yer hot rod, you won't believe the noises you'll hear...

 

. . . And then that sick feeling of paranoia sets in.

 

Many years ago I worked in my cousin's shop on the weekends to pick up some extra dough. Client brings in a car (can't remember make but GM), says engine made a noise and quit running. It was locked up, so I pulled the pan and found it full of broken lifters. Craziest failure I've ever seen. Must have been one heck of a noise.

Joe

 

Years ago one of our club members was a NSRA safety inspector and he talked a few of us into helping him when we were in Knoxville,Tennessee.

It was not unusual to find things that could potentially cause a problem and endanger the lives of the occupants, loose bolts and carter pins missing and such but the scariest thing that really stands out in my mind is the time when a guy from Ohio pulls in and Larry is looking over his T bucket and calls the young guy over and ask him to look at his steering link, it was the type that uses a conventional tie rod end, that in itself was not the problem but there was no carter pin nor the nut,just bare threads sticking up.

The guy had just driven 380 miles and he said he was working on the car the night before he left home and said he didn't notice anything wrong, it's amazing with all the roads being as rough as they are he drove that far missing the carter pin and nut, it appeared the nut was never installed.

The poor guy was really shocked when he realized what could have happened. HRP

 

A neighbor had a C-10 farm truck making a noise and I heard it when he pulled in at my shop, O ask what it was and he didn't have any idea.
the faster the truck went the faster the sound, I put the truck on the lift and within a few minutes O found a cloths hanger wrapped around the drive shaft.

 

When I was a little kid, we watched a TV show called "Davey and Goliath", a kind of Claymation cartoon, about a kid and his dog.

I don't remember any of the episodes or anything about it really, EXCEPT, the one time he was in the lead and all set to win a Soapbox Derby race in his car, but he had forgotten to install a "carter pin" and the front wheel fell off. Be Careful out there!

 

Carpet and pedals can be some really scary shit. A year or 2 back in my daily driver honda, I was leaving the school parking lot and all of a sudden the car was flooring it down the street! Was doing like 55 in a 20, Brakes didn't help, only spun tires. I Slammed her in neutral and turned off the key in the middle of the road. Turned out the floor mat jammed the gas pedal down. I was too panicked to notice at the time. Really felt dumb afterwards.

 

Not a noise, but a smell ...

I live in Florida and in the spring I would leave the windows in my OT daily driver down about an inch. The truck had the rain shields which made it great to keep the windows vented and the interior cool. I got in one day and had a brief whiff of fish. Looked around, didn't see anything. Figured a gecko had died in there somehow.

Next day ... same thing, a bit stronger. Still did not find anything.
The same story for about the next four days, except it was starting to reek in there.

Finally figured it out. I used to keep a pack of beef jerky in the pocket in the passenger door. A dead frog about half as big as my fist was petrified to the outside of the bag. Guess he jumped in there because he could smell a snack. Just couldn't get to it, so maybe he was just being very patient.

 

The strangest one I have had was the Coleman Coupe. The noise coming from the motor sounded like it was wherever you listened. It turned out to be a loose valve seat flopping around on the valve. End result!!

 

I've heard of Carter's Pills, but.......

Is this a regional thing?

 

We call them cotter pins, so I thought it was an American thing.
Maybe an accent issue or
Maybe just the spell check on HRP’s computer……..

 

Heard them called both carter pins and cotter pins. Knew what they were talking about when I heard it. Lots of words sound similar in Southern speak. Probably why you folks north of the Mason Dixon line say we talk funny!

 

I’ve been hearing a rumbling noise from the rear of my avatar since I got it a year ago. Never changes and only hear it when moving. Local mechanic finally determined it is the left rear coil over shock. Imagine my shock when I saw the price of a replacement Heidts shock.

 

OT 79 F-150 w/ 351M. Driving along about 55 headed to work, and a fairly loud ticking sound starts. Pull off into a parking lot and it's obvious the frequency changes with engine speed. Leave it idling and pop the hood. Can tell the noise is coming from under the driver's side valve cover, so I suspect a rocker arm or something valve related. Anyway, definitely time to call a rollback and get it hauled home,so I cut the switch and as the engine coasts down it suddenly stops with a loud clunk.

Get it home and pull the valve cover. Valve spring has broken and the stem is way further down than it oughta be. Engine is locked up solid. Pull the head and see that the clunk noise was when the engine slowed enough to let the valve drop such that the piston folded it up and drove the valve head thru the combustion chamber.

Engine will turn now with a breaker bar, but I see the piston with the mangled top is about 3/8" down in the hole at TDC. Guess I'll need a con rod along with a piston and cylinder head. No big deal since used 351Ms are plentiful and cheap. Then as I roll the crank on around I see there's a vertical crack in the bore about 2" long. Now, I need an engine.

My dad mentioned he'd seen an ad in a weekly paper he subscribed to advertising rebuilt 400M long blocks for $500. Called them up, in Ohio I think it was, and the man there said they'd bought about 600 of these engines as excess inventory from Ford's rebuilder, thus the cheap price. And they got good freight rates, so he could ship it for $45. Figured it was worth taking a chance, and when it arrived it was exactly as described right down to the last nut and bolt. Put about 130K miles on that engine and it still ran great when I sold the truck several years later.

 

Hello,

We have had our share of odd noises coming from somewhere in our hot rods and customs. Sometimes it necessitated a thorough clean out and disassembly of a panel or two. The original Flathead powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery had plenty of noises coming from everywhere. But, that was part of our hot rod adventures.

Nothing to stop our journeys, as it was freedom to drive where and when. Most of the time, we were in a talking/bantering way and to top it off, a hollow chamber behind us amplifying all sorts of noises. What was not to like about a cool ride(s) in a old hot rod, day or night? What noises?

But, to create some chaos as a teenagers, one of our funny tricks was to put in a small BB inside of girl’s family sedan hubcaps, when we knew she was the main driver for the evening. With a car load of teenage girls, how could they hear the noise of a couple of small BB’s rolling around inside of the hubcaps? It did happen and despite the constant barrage of laughter and gossip, those girls did hear some awful noises coming from the car.

Before the cruising/hanging out started at the local drive-in restaurant parking lots, we all went to the local high school varsity games, football and basketball. Then, when the games were over, a direct drive to our teen center for some music, dancing, multiple pool table games, food, and other teenage stuff. That is where we came up with various plans for the rest of the evening.

When the girls would come into the neighborhood gas station in our cruising grounds and we happen to be there visiting our friend on his Friday-Saturday shift, it was funny, but a fun situation. Going for a ride with them to have them quietly listening to some sounds coming from the front of the car. what a cool situation was that, all chuckling under our breaths.

Jnaki

To us, it was a mystery as to how those small BBs got in there. To the girls, we were the mechanical geniuses that could solve any hot rod or family car problems. Ha !!! Some notoriety was always a good thing as a teenager.

The usual answer to the question of who serviced your car last, always answered the problem. It shied away from those rascal teenage boys back at the teen center coming up with all sorts of plans. YRMV

 

My Gran'dad used to say "If it rattles, the part hasn't fallen off yet..."