I've rode in a few "death traps" myself. The worst one probably being my 51 Chevy dump truck. After some creative electrical rigging and a carb swap I got the beast to start. Being that I live on a country road I figured what the heck and took it for a very short jaunt down the road. Those old tires had massive flat spots from sitting for so long. The whole truck wobbled real bad, the roar of the motor was deafening, and it had no brakes. I think I got it up to about 20 mph tops. Anyway I turned it around and did an inspection of the old beast. Seems that over the years the front leaf springs had nothing holding the front spring hangers to the frame. More or less gravity and good luck kept the front axle in place. I also noticed a hashed up welded drag link. The dump truck had been used on a farm for a large number of years so there was a bit of farmer engineering going on.
I bought a decent lookin' 40 chevy truck from a guy and had been drivin' it for a while(few weeks). Had a cobbled brake pedal, bunch of welded plate and flat bar. Needed some brake work. Got done and had my neice pumpin' the pedal to bleed em. Told her to hold the pedal down,then I hear an apology. WTF. The pedal was on the floor in pieces. DAMN. Got on my hands and knees, told the lord that was one more I owed him.
NOT A CAR.... but..... I bought a ski boat project that had no steering cable... Got the 350 purring in my driveway... installed a cable and took it out for a test drive... Pushed if off the trailer and floated out while trying to start it... When it finally fired up IN GEAR I was suddenly educated as to what happens when you hook up the steering backwards!!!!
. The insurance companies used to send me older cars that other shops screeeewed up for me to repair, because they said I was "really good with that old stuff..." I had an older model Nissan Z come into my shop for a look see. It was a front end collision repair, and the doors weren't fitting or shutting right. I got the car up on jack stands and rolled under it for a peak...I quickly rolled out from under it when I saw that the front frame rails-BOTH OF THEM were BRAZED ON!! NO JOKE!! The new front frame horns were overlapped and brazed...Guess it explained why the doors wouldn't open when the front end was jacked up. I told the insurance company and the owner it was totaled, and far too dangerous to drive. I even went into detailed explanation of how in a collision, the front end would fold up and possibly kill the occupants...But, the owner wouldn't listen to me, and actually drove the car out of my shop and continued to use it!!! That's just ONE of the things I saw come through the shop that made me proud to be in the auto body repair business!!! EW
OMG...he must be suicidal. Theres no cotter pin on the pitman arm! What the hell is wrong with him???? . . .
When I was in high school, I went to a trade school bodyshop class. It was actually good, I learned torch welding and metal knocking from a old pro. Anyhow, someone brought in a late 80's Escort for just a repaint. The front of the car was white, the back was black. It changed colors right in between the doors. We took a close look at it, and the damned thing was two cars that had been BRAZED together! Across the roof, and across the floor! We were a bunch of dumb high school kids, and even we couldn't believe that crap.
wish I could find that great pic of the dowel steering rod (or was it an arm?) that was posted in the HAMB eons ago. That is my all time favourite peice of crap engineering.
I built my first "rod" at 15 without much adult guidance. I found out quick that 2x4s and redi-bolt won't hold in a rear end, and also that galvanized pipe wasn't a good thing to make a longer drag link from. That chevy is just plain scary. Dam gasser fad has produced more death traps than any other fad I can think of.
Wow and just to think someone asked on here last week if this would work http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557276&highlight=gasser
My high school ride in 1971: "50 Chevy PU with the rear frame rails cut off right behind the rear end, coil springs welded to rear-end housing, only thing dragging it along was the torque tube! Drove it about a year like this!!!
I picked up a 62 Sunliner for a friend of mine a few years back. 406/4 speed. The shift linkage was backwards, I could deal with it. We got it running and tested the brakes, so far so good. It was a 10 mile ride on counry roads. We can make it. While bucking and jerking down the road we though that maybe some fresh gas would help. I hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor and did not come back up. Needless to say we made it the rest of the way with my buddy laying on the floor, pulling the brake pedal up every time I hit the brakes. Oh to be young and stupid again with great big balls.
PnBnr - my 64 still has a nasty habit of doing this! very reason I grabbed a new lap belt so my 9yr old doesnt go tuck and rolln before school! haha the hippie part was fricken great - im still laughin. thank you for that
When I was in High School one of my Buddies had a beat up old 50's VW beatle you know the kind with the small back window.(this was in the late 70's). We used to run all over with that old clunker. The funniest thing about this car was if it rained everyone would fight to sit in the back seat cause there was a huge hole in the floorboard of the passenger seat and no matter what you would do to prevent it, you were going to get splashed in the face..... Later this same car developed such a bad oil leak that whenever he would take a turn the oil would coat the back tires and the car would make an involentary Doughnut.... How did we ever survive !!!
Well, just this past Decemeber I drove home a new non-hamb project (69 Skylark) that runs and drives but the floors have been cut out. I put the stock bench seat across the tranny hump to the driver side rocker and drove that sucker home. I should say that I live less than a mile away, but when that leaky tranny fluid started burning, I was about to choke!
My second aborted project back about 10 years ago was a '48 F1. It ran with a 400 Cleveland and FMX, with a worn out worm gear in the steering box that was topped with what I swear was an Atari steering wheel. OH, and the tranny was shifted by one of those B&M T-handle shifters that was WAY out of reach from the seat with a lock out that locked up some times. I wasn't even brave enough to drive it home myself, my buddy drove it and we discovered the rod-knock and the brakes worked somewhat less than desirably. We managed to get her back to my house. And there she sat for a couple of years with occasional trips around the neighborhood. Ah memories...I miss that one.
Haha that car was on pimp my ride. It was so bad they said they couldn't do anything with it and gave him a new car. I wonder if it was the same one. When the started tearing into it, it was only welded at the door pillars and rockers the rest of the seams were liquid mailed.
When I got this... It was basically a rolling shell- no front clip, no windshield, no drivetrain, etc. I wish I had a picture of it 'before'. So anyway I ended up needing a donor car so I found a complete 1960 4-door Bel Air sedan for $700. A lady was selling it cuz her son was in prison. It had a 235 that ran and everything. Nice front clip, perfect windshield, and so on. So I had a buddy (CHAPA... Where did you go?!) come with me so we could tow it home. The BA was filthy, filled with weird things, had a gas can on the floorboard with a hose going to the carb through the firewall. It had brake pedal pressure so we decided to see if it would fire up and move... And it did! So I drove it home and Chapa followed me. The BA seriously pulled to the left, would die on me occasionally, and wouldn't go because the plunger thingy in the carb was rotten. So anyway we got it home in one piece via the back roads. NOW. In retrospect, I couldn't believe it. The brake like to the back brakes were pinched off and the passenger side brake was not working at all and it had a drum that was too narrow and only covered 1/2 the brake shoes. WTF?! So basically I made it home on one brake. The carb was a mess and cobbled together and it was amazing that it actually ran. So I ended up stripping the car and when I got the front clip off in one piece and standing up nose high, a leather bag fell out from under the battery tray... Filled with needles, spoons, a couple lighters, and all kinds of interesting looking drugs. The son was in prison and now I know why. Called the cops and they took it away after an explanation. Didn't want anybody finding THAT in my trash. There was a plastic spray bottle that someone painted on it 'Bitch Repellant', a whole pack of trading cards related to Desert Storm, a couple of St Christopher medallions; a Pete Rose baseball bat (wood) and the list goes on and on. Crazy. I couldn't get that car stripped, cut up, and out of there fast enough. At least it sure helped out the El Camino... But every time I look at the pictures of it I think of that crack Bel Air. Nasty.
When I was 18 I traded for a 1960 El Camino. It was a rust bucket from hell. Burned a qt of oil (actually burned not leaked!) for ever 25 miles. Of course the bed was long gone, the floor in the front made the flintstones car look safer. I have no idea what held the seat frames in anymore. There was cancer all the way through all the wheel wells. It had a powerglide with only it's first gear working. I would beat on that damn thing even up to highway speeds! I drove the crap out of it rain or shine for about 3,000 miles over a couple months. I primered it and sold it to a guy for $2,500 I think. I didn't hide any of the rust. It was a very complete car and was not missing any chrome or anything. Second you cranked it, it would fire up before you could even hear it turn over, that was the only good part lol.
I had a buddy with an OT Fairmont ('78?) that literally broke in half in the parking lot at high school. Eep.
I bought a 32 roadster that had a Vega box installed by a rod shop. They used industial U joints in the steering shafts. The one going in the box was smooth bore and only two set screws were holding it. They had ground the Vega shaft round so it would go in. I kept the worm shaft as a reminder that stupidity never gives up. The tie rod was too long and no tap to shorten it. Just cut it down anyway and if the ends won't screw in past one thread, cut them off too. Anybody need new tie rod ends with only two threads left on the shanks?
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