Hi all, I was recently at the PIR meet and talking with Flyin'Eye about my old 68 Nova I had years ago and the crappy fate that followed shortly after it was painted. He thought it was pretty funny, so I got to thinking about posting a topic: I thought it might be fun reading the worst thing that ever happened while working on your ride. Caught on fire, someone ripped it off, rolled down a hill, got in an accident, you get the idea. Im still a rookie and Im not sure if a post with this topic has been done already. If not, it could be cool to hear the stories!
I had put mt '59 dodge in the street so that I could pull my pontiac into the garage for an oil change before driving home for the weekend. After I got done and was going to put the dodge back into the garage for the night, I was successful in backing up so that I could pull back into the driveway, but when I put her into drive nothing happended..... my trans was STUCK in neutral and I was in the middle of the street at 2am. Ok, so I sat there for a minute thinking, what the HELL am I going to do? I'm the only one home, it's summer and none of my friends are living in town this summer. I get to thinking that this car didn't seem so heavy the last time I pushed it.... but I didn't think about the OTHER 3 people I had helping. So I get out and try to push her back to the side of the street. Now, you have to understand that our street is NOT level and so I'm trying to push this HUGE car by myself and it starts rolling BACKWARDS! Now I'm starting to freak out because I'm tried and totally annoyed by the whole situation.... why couldn't I have left well enough alone and leave the car in the street.... At this point I realize that Rick, one of my roommates, '55 chevy is completely in the path of my car that is slowing backing up at an angle across the street so I climb in and yank the hand brake and move Rick's car out of the way. I then continued to ATTEMPT to move the dodge to the side of the street and she continues to back up to the wrong side of the street. About 20 minutes later I decide that all is lost with the car IN the neighbors lawn on the wrong side of the street. The next day I got help from another neighbor with a truck to get my car back into the driveway... I felt like the biggest dumbass a day later when I realized that had I stopped and thought a minute while I was in panic mode I would have checked my fluid... my trans leaks and it was pretty dry which was why she wouldn't move. I know, this isn't really a horror story or anything, but I felt bad having my car in the neighbors lawn... you can still see the skid marks in the grass where I tried to push it off the lawn too. ooops! ~Melissa
Yea those dry trannys can be a stumper sometimes! Neutral? what the hell?! haha! Been there! So I guess I should tell you all the story I told Flyin'Eye a few days back. My first car ever was a '68 Nova, I was into muscle cars. Except this one was Captain P.O.S. with rust in every panel and an inline 6. $350 and it was mine! I replaced all the panels, doors and fabbed in quarter panels, decked it and put in an electronic silinoid. I had buckets, wrapped in custom interior with bowties embroidered on the backs and seats and on the back bench. I shaved it of all side chrome and did all the body work myself. took me about two years to do it all cause I was the rookie of the year. Well it was finally primed gray and ready for paint. I took it too a local place a step above Maaco and those outfits. 3 coats of deep metallic blue pearlesant(sp) and 2 coats of clear. For my first car to be completed inside and out I was very stoked! I lettered it "Blue Meanie" and pinstriped it myself in light baby blue. It was my first try at it and it went on pretty well. The night that the bag of SHIT hit the fan, it was raining and just a few days before Christmas. I was pulling into my bank, and some loser was trying to exit turning left, and was all the way over on my side of the driveway. I had to stop with the ass of my car out in the street while I waited for him to back up out of my way. Then BANG ZOOM! nailed in the ass. hit me so hard it shot my car over the curb and into the grass. It broke my seat back in a permanate 'lazy-boy' position. I got out and told her to park it. It was raining hard and she didnt want to get out of her car. I said you better give me some info and stay her for the cops. i got just a bit of info from her before she started slamming the door on my legs saying "I need to go, get out of my way!!" She slammed the door and ripped out of there with the nose of her jalopy dragging on the ground. The info I got was this: No insurance, California drivers licence, and...heres the juicy part...she worked at 'BINGO-MANIA' she hit me on the passenger taillight, screwed my trunk, quarterpanel and bent my exhaust up into my linkage, and needless to say, ruined my Christmas.
A few years ago I was washing my '59 in the driveway in prep for a local cruise/show. Had the doors wide open to wipe water out of the jambs and to clean dash inside windshield etc. I had pulled my wife's car into the street so as to have plenty of room and not get her car wet. She's leaving for shopping or sumpthin' so she backs in to turn around.....I thought surely she would stop in time........ bam!...passenger door folded 180' to the front. I didn't say a word. Managed to close the door...quit cleaning, didn't dry it didn't put down the top, went to the show, got drunk....She ran away from home to her brother's house about 80 miles away...called later and asked if she could come home, I said "Yeah, it's just a car-it can be fixed." Still have her, still have the car and the car is fixed.
Grab a tissue before you continue, some know the story, some don't. Was the second worst thing to ever happen in my life, the first being a boyfriend dying in his sleep at the age of 42. Anywho, Memorial Day, May 2000, I'm cruzn across country in my perfect 47 Chevy convert that actually had paint, top and interior. I'm at the Grand Canyon and I notice my power steering is acting funny. I check the fluid, seems to be fine. I continue toward GC Village. By the time I get there I've got no power steering. I pulled into the place where the ranger trucks get fixed. Pop the hood and pull out the little dipstick. The fluid is brownish, kind of thick and doesn't smell good. One of the guys in the shop says the fluids not returning and probley just plugged up. He says he can fix it. I hang out watching him for a bit then they close the whole shop for lunch. They make me leave and told me to come back in a couple of hours. I come back to find him just finsihing putting hte pump back together. He tells me he replace a spring inside. I said ok, not knowing any better. (GM pump, Mustang rack, you get the picture) He puts the pump back on, and starts filling it while the car is running, I'm standing there watching of course along with most of the shop. He keeps opening up pints of PS fluid and pouring them in, one after another, after another. All of a sudden the boot explodes on the rack and pinion. Holy smokes, my brand new, 200 miles before I left home, mustand rack and pinion. I was pissed, plus being a girl, I started to cry. I certainly could have driven my car without power steering but now I'm stuck. What assholes. So I make the decision that I'm towing my car to Flagstaff to be fixed by a proper shop. My car is loaded on a flatbed for the 88 mile ride to Flagstaff. It's loaded on nose end pointed backward cuz thats the way it was facing in the shop. I never gave it any thought. As we're cruzn down the road the drivers door pops open and swings around and smashes into the front fender, tear up not only the door and fender extension but the front fender and alittle of the hood. Now I'm really in tears!! Finally get to a shop in Flagstaff. It takes a couple of days to get the parts and get my car running. I do make it to San Berdo in time for the start of HRM's power tour, which is where I was headed. I did the tour with the door smashed, using the passager door to enter and exit. Got home without any other incidents. Called Hagerty, my insurance company, they told me to take it anywhere that made me happy to get fixed. $5,700 worth of damages. Fast foward a few weeks, car finally fixed and painted. I'm suppose to pick it up on a Monday morning, the painter was going to rub it out over the weekend. Friday nite lighting hit the building and burned to the ground. Not only were there hot rods inside, including mine, but a couple of very expensive dragsters, and some vintage bikes. 5 business along the main drag were completely distroyed that nite. Words can't describe what it feels like to see your car burnt up like that. Still brings tears to my eyes. My car burnt because of a wrong spring that was changed out of my power steering pump. Before after
I've been lucky, only a few minor things - Bottom end seizes on my Pre-tuner era VW Rabbit but I was only 1/4 mile from work, coasted into parking lot. - Dash caught fire on my 64 Greenbrier while illegally dumping trash in somebody elses dumpster. - Burned clutch down to rivets on a busy street going uphill, car starts rolling backwards, I back it into someones driveway to avoid getting rear-ended in a grand way. P.S. I was working PT delivering sandwiches at the time.
Damn Denise, that's about the worst car-related story I've heard that didn't actually involve anyone dying. How many times have you been towed from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff?
If anyone ever owns or might own a '64-'72 GM a-body ('64 El Camino), never ever EVER back the car up, ass end going to the right, uphill. Here's why: We have one garage attatched to the house, then another un the backyard, perpindicular to the other garages driveway. Well, the back yard slopes down into the alley, and so do the driveways. I had been driving past the garage, then backing the car up into it for a few weeks, since the garage was finished. Well, drove home from school one day, car is all good, a few weeks after I'd flamed it (see my avitar). I start backing her up into the driveway, then something goes wrong and the car don't moove all that well anymore. I try going some more, then hear a "pfffwoooooosh." Oh shit, my fucking tire has gone flat. Well, lets go have a look. DAMN! The lower control arm on the right side had CRACKED and broken OFF around the ball joint. My car is lying on the ground, tire flat, wedged up into the fender. On top of that, its stuck in the middle of the alley, and its trash day so all the big trucks are coming. We had to jack the front end up with a rolling floor jack, start the car up, move it back a few feet at a time, then start over. Made a nice big gash in the new driveway. Oh yeah, same thing happened a few years earlier when it was my dad's car. Live and learn!
Denise, remind me not to travel too far from home with you. You seem to have the worst luck out on the road. I tried to burn up my '39 Chevy sedan when I wired some gauges wrong. I didn't know squat about cars so a buddy wired the car for me. Later, I wanted to hook up the lights inside the gauges (there weren't any!). I connected wires to the mounting studs. I thought they were the positive and negative posts. Ya should seen the smoke roll when I pulled out the headlight switch! I yanked on the wires, burning my hand (hot wire and melting plastic), the igntion shorted, starter kicked in and I'm running around like an idiot holding my burnt hand. I finally disconnected the battery. I'm not sure which was more painful, my hand or calling my buddy to come and rewire the car.
this was a few years ago. i was out street racing in a less then high class area, but i must add there was some serious racing going on out there for a long long time. So i'm pretty well done for the nioght at about 2am and i've got my old man with me so it's about time to head for home. at that time the car was running high 11's so it had a pretty serious 355 in it but anyways went ripping out of the parking area on a decent pass for the old man who's riding with me... hit second at around 7200 rpm and then seconds later all hell breaks loose. All my warning lights are pissed car dies and were coasting in a bad part of town in the wee hours of the morn. so we coast into this gas station adn realize,,, wow my dads with me so whos gonna bring up the truck/trailer and were like 30 miles from home. so call mom to come get dad so he can go back home and get the rig. meanwhile i'm sitting ther e with the car with all the borthers rolling in from the area saying nice car;;; so ya i was scared anyways we get it home well after the sun has now rose into the sky ended up it dropped a valve and we all know how much fun that ends up being but is was a good excuse to buy my cnc ported pro-1 aluminums!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! could have been a lot worse but that's my story
I had just purchased my car and didn't realize it had a crazy bump steer problem. I spun it out on the freeway going about 65, and came to rest on the shoulder. I can't beileve I didn't hit anything, or anyone, let alone flip the bitch over. That would have sucked being as it's a convertible with no seatbelts. A cop rolls by about 5 minutes later to see what happened. He looked at the skidmarks and said on one point I was going competely backwards. No ticket, not nothin. AAA pulled it out of the weeds and drove me 99 miles home (I get 100 miles free with AAA plus). Needless to say it could have been a whole lot worse, but thank got it wasn't. Crapped my pants and learned a lesson on bump steer all at once.
i hada nice 55 chevy.i parked it on the street one night because i didnt feel like taking it to the garage.about 2:00 in the moring my next door neighbor is banging on my window and says to get outside and look at your car.we walked out there and it looked like someone had taken a grenade and threw it in the trunk!it was hit so hard that one of the side spears was in my neighbors yard across the street!and it was a hit and run.a day later the cops had found his s10 which no one could believe was even movable , parked around the corner in his brother in laws garage. come to find out he was deadbeat out of this world.with no insurance or license.he dissapeared after that , but i was on the hunt. i had people all over town helping me look for him.id hear a story about him living here ot there.and id sit and wait for him.i was gonna give him the beating of a lifetime.he finally turned up in a town about 40 miles from here driving a truck for a living!!!i swear to god,how did he get a job like that? anyway i had to hire a lawyer and dock his wages and his boss just paid me off. i still havent handed him ass ..................YET !haha
Another time I forget about cause I try to block it from my memory is when I owned a '74 Blazer 4x4. It was lifted, big tires and what-not. I was coming back from camping one weekend and the transfercase was vibrating and making crappy sounds. We limped back to town and called some shops the next day. Word of advice, never take anything to any shop where the business name starts with A-1. This was A-1 Transmissions in Portland. I told him the symptoms and he said to call back in a few to see what they found. I called back and he said, "oh yea, theres defenatly some metal deposits in the pan..." I said the pan?? theres no pan on a transfercase! did you pull the tranny pan? Oh yea, he said. He put that back together and rebuilt the transfercase like I wanted. I drove back to my house and it was vibrating just as bad if not worse. I took it back and he looked under there. Theres 4 bolts that hold the t-case up and 3 were so loose the nut was about to fall off the end of the bolt. I said i wanted to talk with the mechanic that worked on it. they said sorry, he got fired the other day for smokin reefer on the job. They tightened it up and was on my way. same thing, shakin like a bitch. Brought it back again. This time he said we wont touch it untill you have your drivelines balanced. I knew that wasnt the problem, but I could understand his reasoning. Had em balanced and brought em back. He said "hey, while were replacing the seals in the t-case for the yokes, do you want the seals replaced in the front and rear diffy for no charge to make up for all the time. I said that sounds fair, go ahead. Well this is when I learned my lesson about crush sleeves. Most of you know a crush sleeve can only be used/crushed once on the pinion, and if you do any work back there you need a brand new crushsleeve, that requires an ungodly amount of pressure to crush correctly. They re-crushed the crush sleeve which grenaded my rearend about a week later. I went back with my brother and two friends pissed as hell and told him that he was gonna buy my rearend. he laughed and said "you cant prove anything, get out!" Pretty cool place huh?
OK, I had a 59 galaxie. I was like 18 or 19. I was working on it in the rain, trying to get the rebuilt holley i just put on to run right. Well, needless to say at this point, the igntion was f'd up so i had to start it under the hood. Well i got her runnin and closed the hood to take her for a spin. She ran good around the block, so i goose her a bit as i come back around the corner....Well vrrrrooom the f'n throttle sticks, so i throw it into neutral and coast up the driveway. THen I slam her in park and reach down to pop the hood (as the thing screams at what sounded like 8,000rpm! (fe ford). Well when i reach down to open the hood the cable comes off in my hand. SHIT!!!! I tried a few wires under the dash, but I only had the car a few days so i really didn't know much about it. FUCK i am sweatin now, thinkin my motor is gonna blow. So i peel the freekin hood corner (reverse opening hood) by the cowl with a prybar like a sardine can.reach in get the trunk open and shut her off! SHIT my hood was a mess. So i get to pokin around the firewall and find that there is a plug right under the latch that can be poked out with your finger to release the hood in emergency. ARRRRRRRRRRGH fonzi
Man I've got a few of these stories. I can't pass up telling about at least one of them. I bought a 70 Impala back in high school. Good running old car. Just a beater. I was out driving around in a field looking for some car parts. It was a pasture type grass field in Nebrakasa. I get a bunch of grass caught up around the engine and it catches on fire. So we are hauling ass out out the field so it doesn't burn down the whole country side. I get back out onto the road and pop the hood. at that time the radiator hose burns through and wets down the motor. I thought I was home free. The grease on the engine was still burning. I was with my cousin. We knew there was no stopping it. We ran up the hill the car was cover in flames. The gas tank exploded and the windows melted out. It go soo hot the there wasn't anything aluminum, rubber or cloth left on the car. RIP. We walked a couple of miles home. By that time someone had called the Fire Dept. The worse thing was it was Thanksgiving and the Volunteer firemen were really pissed to come out there about 45 minutes too late and miss Thanksgiving dinner.
Driving home from the paint and body shop, my beautiful shiney 53 Belair got rear-ended by an idiot on a cell phone. It was pretty for a good half an hour, and right back to the shop. This was my worst, but Denise has got me still weeping...pass the kleenex.
I wish I only had one bad thing story, but I've been around a while and have many. Here is a pair, recent one, Hip, Primemover and Myself were at Gene Winfeild's shop and Pattrick was about to weld His gas tank, I needed to walk past Pat and said "halt" I got past and said "carry on" , I heard the zzisss of the mig and then Ka-Boom, the blast was so strong I knew Pat was dead, I had My back to Him and was feeling the back of My head and neck to see if I was hit, I was hoping that Hip did not get hit cause He had been standing right there also, I turned around, and to My supprise Pat was alive and wobble'in around, I said "You o-kay"? Pat said "I'm o-kay" and fell down, Hip had to grab Him to keep He from banging His head, the gas tank was ablaze and right next to it was an oxy actlyene torch, I ran into the paint booth, Gene said " what was that"? I said " Pat Blew Himself up welding a gas tank"! Gene said " is the fire out"? No I replyed I need a blanket, Gene and I threw the blanket over the tank , fire out. Pat on the other hand was pretty messed up, He could not see from the flash, and would not go to the hospital, Gene said " if He does not want to go We can't make Him, and He has no insurance", well I could have made Him go and should have, the next day nobody was picking up the phone over there so I drove over, right out front was Pat working on a Merc and He was just fine, He was very lucky. Now from the past, a long time ago when I was a kid I had a 55 Chevy, it was super straight and in primer, I tryed all forms of multi carb set-ups and one day I had a crossram on the thing( Hi-po 327 w/ stick and 355 posi)the manifold was warped or cracked or something, and it was allowing gasoline to get into My oil, I drained the oil into a bucket and dipped a rolled up page on the paper into it, yep smelled heavy of gas, My buddy Bones says "could that oil have burned up inside the pan and maybee have caught Your motor on fire"? I said "lets see if it will light up", We were standing 5 feet away from the bucket when the paper lit up , well the #$%&^ing bucket lit up next( must have been the fumes), and it was sitting right next to the drivers rear of the car, I had a bucket of water handy and grabbed it and threw, just as it was about to leave My hands I thought Oh shit its an oil fire, I tryed to throw the water away from the fire, but would'nt ya know direct hit, that caused an eruption of fire that quickly got out of hand, the ground was on fire and so was the drivers rear tire, I picked up a fire extinguisher and it provided a 4 second blast, Bones and I had to put out the fire by throwing dirt at it, the fire had gotten so hot it burned the solder off My filler tube, like I said that 55 had been straght but sure was'nt after that. Agghhh fire bad. Von Doc
hey Doc you really have bad luck with fire, remind me not to do so many stupid things with you. Remember when we almost burnt down the Mojave desert? That time with patrick I didnt know whether to shit my pants, go see how you were or run away.
Prime, Honest to God the desert fire in the wrecking yard out on Backus rd almost became a life altering ( and ruining) experience, if We had not gotten the fire out when We did that mother would have ripped thru the desert, what with all that dry brush and all, I would be living in Mexico right now and be "El Docfranknstein", that was a close one. And that Gene/Patt explosion, shit I just knew Patt had to be dead, as hard as that blast hit Me in the back I knew He was dead, He was one lucky cat that night, must have used up 4 of His 9 lives on that one. Von Doc
My first ride was a 64 Ford Ranchero. It was a hard to find deluxe model with all the trim, and had been in my family for about 12 years. I worked on it all through high school. It was in black primer with some blue pinstripe flames running down the hood and roof and some striping on the b-pillars and tailgate, had blue metallic metal inside and I had a set of chrome smoothies with blackwalls on it. All I had left on the body was some rust in the rear wheelwells. When I went out of state for school, I left it at home. On a down week, I came home and brought my roommate and I couldn't wait to drive my car. Middle of that week, we were out one night and I just pulled out from putting gas in it and was at a red light. The light turned green and I took off, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BAMM!!!! I'm suddenly in a flat spin going through the intersection. We come to a stop on the other side, facing back the way we came from. A dumbass in a Honda thought he could make it through the light, instead he hit my car centered in the back of the doorjamb on the passenger side. It pushed it in about a foot, buckled the back cab wall, bed floor, and dash, pinched the trans tunnel, knocked the gas tank out of the car, puncturing the tank and spilling the gas I just bought into the street, split the quarter panel off from the rocker, and folded the rocker over flat. My roommate had to go to the hospital to get stitches in his head and arm (no door panels, broken glass, head hit b-pillar), he hasn't been back to Texas since then, claims we tried to kill him! I later found out that the kid had come over to me but didn't have the balls to say sorry or anything, probably better, cause I probably would have gone to jail if I knew who's ass to kick. Any way totaled it out, but I got enough out of it to buy 2 Falcon hardtops, 64 and a 65. It was a little consolation to see his Honda pugnosed in the intersection.
Twenty some years ago I sold my V-8 Vega to my brother Dan. He lived 300 miles away, and decided to tailer it home. Of course the move required going through a mountain pass at midnight in late December. We were all there, but I was driving my brother John's pickup, pulling the tailer with Dan's Vega on it. Hit a patch of ice, spun sideways and shoved the front of the pickup into one of those concrete median barriers. I'll never forget watching that Vega past us. The Vega and trailer both came out basically unscathed. And John forgave me the damage to the pickup once I bought it from him... They both still speak to me.
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