Technical Do parts ever fall off your hot rod?

I've lost a muffler off the exhaust pipe a couple of times

 

Lol...worst thing I lost was a rear foot peg (and mount) that someone had cobble welded on my frame heading down the highway at Sturgis one year. Several bikes behind me had to dodge the bouncing chunk of steel. A buddy actually stopped and picked it up for me. I had no idea it even fell off.

 

Lake pipes and fender skirts. Such is the life of the custom enthusiast. All that scraping eventually takes a toll.

 

I've had a few car related things like this.

I had an OT muscle car with a black vinyl top that was getting old and starting to come apart. I had already tried to hold it down with some black colored 3" wide tape, but eventually it let go one day driving through the neighborhood, and I had to pull over and rip the entire mess off.

And even longer ago, back when I was still driving my dad's old VW bug (before I rolled it...) I was out partying with the guys one Friday night and we thought we'd take the bug off-roading, and we ended up ripping the muffler off of it. We stopped and wedged it back into position and I sliced open a couple of beer cans (wonder where I got those..) and we wrapped those around the pipes to connect it to the muffler so I could drive it back home without waking the folks.

I used to drive a service truck, an F800 Ford, with a good sized diamond plate covered work bench on the back, probably at least 20 - 24 inches wide, I had a vice mounted back there and it was a very handy bench to have. Every once in a while I'd forget and leave something laying back there, and I was amazed how things would ride back there just fine. Even a Coke in a disposable paper cup from a fast food place would sit back there and ride just fine, never fall off, even driving on the freeway. I'd get home, or back to the shop, and walk around the back of the truck after parking and find whatever I left there still sitting right where I left it.

 

My wife had the gas tank fall out of her '62 Dodge Lancer. Strap broke and it just fell straight down on the road.
I was bring home my '40 Plymouth sedan and forgot to put a strap over the hood. It flew off and landed in a farmers field. Some people behind me saw it happen and picked it up. Waved me down and gave it back to me. They ended up being car people too.....since then they have bought a couple project cars off me. lol

 

Yep, 1938 Plymouth coupe. Lost the left rear wheel doing 70 mph. Tank scraped open and caught the sparks from the drum. Burnt to the groud right in front of me.

 

A buddy was going to bike week in Daytona and was towing a trailer with the bikes on it. A wheel comes off the trailer so he pulls over and stops. He gets out and starts to walk back and a Van stops and someone jumps out and picks up the wheel. Just as he is thinking what a nice guy the Van drove by and never stopped.

 

Lost several wrenches and sockets that I left laying on a fender or bumper. Lost a muffler or two. Lost a spare tire off a semi trailer, bounced out of the rack. Guys in a pickup grabbed it and kept going. Lost one of the ramps off my car trailer, was with a buddy letting him use it. We heard it as soon as it came off and stopped and picked it up. He hadn't tightened the ratchet straps I put on them.

 

If you read post #31, we're talking the same old trashed International tow truck. We had an alcoholic mechanic at the yard that maintained our junk. He put a Chevy 235 in the old cornbinder and had to re-do the driveline. Cut it
right in half and welded both pieces together. Vibrated something awful. Used to vibrate the bolts holding the shift cover loose. One day I went to downshift into 3rd and the whole cover lifted right off the transmission.
Another time he had done a brake job including master cylinder overhaul. Floor mounted pedal was somehow connected to the M/C. Flying off the Harbor freeway at about 50 I went to brake and the pedal was laying on the floor. Luckily L.A. traffic wasn't so bad in 1960. No harm, no foul.

 

Working on Uncles 48 Chevy coupe. Closed hood and went for a test ride. It is amazing the sound a 9/16 combo wrench makes when it falls, bounces under the car, and goes through the gas tank.

 

Nothing ever falls off. I built my hot rod to survive multiple Drag Week events, to be as reliable as possible. Every single nut and bolt is either lock-tighted, safety wired, jam nutted, or nylock nutted. I did have a fitting in the cooling system loosen up, because I never expected that to happen. So no precaution had been taken. But that has been dealt with.

 

Dropped the guts of a Saginaw 4 speed all over a parking lot

 

Hello,

We all learn from our mistakes. Being the youngest brother, I had to be the one to do the dirty work, if I wanted to get rides to various places in my brother’s two cars in succession. The 51 Oldsmobile two door sedan and later on in 1957, a new 58 Impala. So, when my brother got a set of straight down tubes and header flange caps for the Oldsmobile, it was my job to get the cap open. I had to crawl and reach under to open the nuts with a wrench, remove one nut and bolt, swing over the cap and tighten the other nut to keep it open.

It was not bad, but when he lowered the car in front and back, now, it was cramped quarters and sometimes we had to rollup on a driveway slope to crawl under, well, it was still me crawling. The caps were attached to the original downtube and the reverse was just as much of a hassle as opening them up. Not only that, but it was hot, so I had to use a rag to move and tighten everything.

As young as I was, I began to think how it could be easier to do the job. By the time my brother bought his 58 Impala, I had it figured it out. He also got the similar straight down tubes welded in place and since the 58 Impala was not lowered as much as the 51 Oldsmobile, crawling and reaching the caps was ok.

The sound of open down exhaust pipes made everything sound excellent, but talking inside of the car was nearly impossible, even with the windows rolled up. I used to meet my brother at the timing slip area of the orange tower and we would drive back to our portion of the pits. The 348 motor was loud. But, it was the dragstrip and was an acceptable thing.

The drawing shows the addition of a set of dual pipe chrome scavenger pipes, custom made to fit the originally installed down tub exhaust cut out pipes. They worked for a while and looked unusual underneath the 58 impala, but, the sound was off and did not sound like a high performance motor. Plus, driving around with them on the streets , they were the first thing that hit anything on the street surface, as they were low to the ground.

Eventually, they were banned from the dragstrip as several racers used them. They were deemed not factory stock and the protest held due to the cost, plus not being on factory parts shelves. But, we lost some of the nuts and bolts and that caused some “motor revolution” raising to keep the motor somewhat quiet while stopping for a light or cruising by a black and white car. So, I offered my solution.

The down tube end caps would have a slit cut into one of the nut/bolt holes. The nut was now permanently attached to the cap with a wingnut. When the wingnuts were loosened, the cap easily slid out and over to open the exhaust opening. The wing nut was easier to tighten and keep in place. Even a small rock could tighten the wing… So, it was a miracle, but my brother put me in charge of the modification and it worked well as planned.

Before we started using blue Loc-Tite, several of the wing nuts came loose and fell off, creating a jiggling metal on metal sound. The cap was loose and one remaining wing nut was keeping the whole thing from falling completely off.

Jnaki

It was a long loud drive home from the OC Beach area back to our Westside of Long Beach home with loud open exhaust cut out pipes. But, the sound was music to our teenage hot rod/drag race ears... YES!

 

I had the windows open at an outdoor car show and strangely enough my ashtray door opened and the insert "fell out" when I wasn't around. I don't know where it "rolled" to but it was never found.

I close my windows and lock my doors now.

 

It flew off the car in front of me so technically it didn't fall off my car. But back in the '70s my boss had a contract to shuttle CA Dept of Forestry fire fighters around central CA. On one fire response I was driving a 15 passenger van and my boss was ahead of me in a 20 passenger model. He had a roof rack on the top and it separated a freeway speed and flew for some distance. I drove under it as it sailed along at about 20' elevation. I watched in the rear view as it nose dived into the freeway behind me but in front of the 3rd van in our caravan. The boss didn't know it happened and it was rendered to toothpick and kindling status so I didn't even slow down. Exciting stuff for a few moments.

When I was sprint kart racing in the '80s I had a race at Santa Maria. We red loc-tite secured everything. My clutch started engaging at 9k rpm and we set the expansion pipe and gearing combo to hit the end of the longest straight at 14k rpm. At the end of the straight on a practice lap the crankshaft broke and I watched the clutch take off like a rabbit. Looked for that thing for about an hour and never found it.

 

On the maiden voyage with my Ford, we gassed it up and drove around 30 miles around town and even at highway speeds. The next day I had to jack up the rear to look at something... ALL of the RR lug nuts were loose.

Glad the wheel was not damaged. If it made any sound, it was drowned out by no exhaust. From there went around and checked, torqued all the lug nuts.

 

We learn from our mistakes?

 

When I first got my dad's cabriolet back on the road I took it to the weekly cruise night with my son riding shotgun. Dad had put screw on Moon discs on it and he got a little carried away putting them on and egged out the holes a bit. As we are pulling in the parking lot we hear a funny tin sound and here the passenger rear Moon disc had came off and was slowly rolling past the car. The car is channeled pretty low so my son just reached his arm over door and grabbed the disc as it rolled by.

 

I had my pitman arm and tie rod fall off my 40 Ford P/U after driving all over town, right as I pulled in my driveway. I was shocked it happened and thrilled it happened in the driveway.

 

I've always been very conscientious about how stuff gets attached... my "If it were an airplane would you do it like that?" mentality has paid off over the years.
However... back when I was a young lad, I had an experience with a large part flying off my car;
I had a '58 Bel-Air with a 327, 3-speed manual trans from a 'Vette and a 4.56 posi rear end. It was a beast off the line. I cut the re-enforcements out of the hood for weight reduction and installed hood pins, you know, the Cal Custom thingys... Yeah, you know where this is going...
I noticed I was late picking my girl friend up from high school, and in my haste forgot to put the lock pins in. So I hit Rte. 53 North, wind up second gear and as I glanced at the tach, I saw something out of the corner of my eye... what the heck was that? I look in the rear view mirror, and there's my hood (that had just shot straight up in the air and over the top of the car) doing endo-s down the road and into the ditch without hitting any one or anything, thank goodness! No harm, no foul, no hood.

 

In 1966, we just got my 365 Cadillac powered ‘50 Chevy running and took it for a test drive. As I jumped on it in second gear the hood started to lift from the back as it was only held down by the hood latch. Opps, forgot that! As I slowed the hood lifted off and as I looked in the mirror for where it landed and it came down with the corner of it crashing through the windshield only to be stopped by the windshield division bar. A torrent of glass showered me as the hood catapulted over the car. I managed to stop and my friend who was following ran up expecting a horror scene. Aside from a few scrapes I was ok. The car was full of glass and the roof was mangled, all accented by the windshield division bar bent into an “L”shape, which probably saved my life.

 

Blew a freeze plug out of my hemi. That's about it.

 

Not that I can think of, sure there were some, growing up I helped Dad with his Midget racer, fixed my bicycles and made wooden down hill racers (lost some skin crashing in that deal) always taking stuff apart and reassembling so as kid I had some experience from early on putting things together. A lifetime Tool & Die Maker/Pattern Maker, Race Car owner/driver/builder and a lifetime car hobbyist I got the handle on this subject. Now if we talk about towing/trailer stories I have a few from my no maintenance program that are pretty spectacular.

 

I was just out of High School and racing a Chevelle on all the local tracks. We were doing something under the hood and our race was called.My pit man shut the hood and I jumped in and off we went. My car was pretty fast and I was wining the race and the hood flew up blocking the windshield. Needless to say I did not win the race and my Buddy the pit man reached in his pocket and found the hood pins! He said he thought about walking south till his Hat floated! LOL Gary

 

I have a fellow club member that had a aluminum flex fan come apart at speed and one blade went through the radiator and the other blade went through the hood. HRP

 

is that a supercharger pulley?

 

Looks like a harmonic balancer with a lower blower belt pulley on it...

 

I once flung a really nice 53 ford hubcap into oblivion never to be found again...
Also lost a guide 682-c marker light on the toll way one time. Luckily traffic was light so was able to run across the road to retrieve the housing although the glass was in a million pieces. I learn my lessons the hard way it seems

 

This is where it used to be just a minute before,

 

In the 80's I had just finished doin an all steel 40 Willys coupe. Had been drivin for about 6 weeks with out the hood. Finally got the hood painted and was bringing it home , wrapped in a blanket and strapped down in the bed of my 72 Ranchero- Running up the 55 freeway in Orange county -- Yep -- look in the rear view mirror just about the time it fly's out. Watch it fly and flip a few time and then when it lands on the ground a big ole Peterbuilt made it as flat as a pancake, just kept driving. Only piece of fiberglass on the whole car was a $200 hood for the next 3 years.