Wrecked the Diamond T IN the garage.

Brian,man I am so sorry that happened,,all the hard work getting the trck ready to hit the road and in one minute disaster.

Thank God you were not hurt physically,,mentally I know your a wreck.

I would never be so crass as to say that will buff out,the shame of it all is you have to do it the second time before you really get to enjoy the truck.

Good luck,,If I were in your area I would be happy to lend a hand. HRP

 

I had something like this happen a few years ago I was starting the car from engine compartment and the gennie shifter neutral safety switch had gotten stuck. Turned it on it sat for a few seconds and rolled onto my steel toe boot as I jumped out of the way into the back of my Henry J and smashed the deck lid and then into the garage door. It messed up grille on shoebox, front fender and deck lid of HJ. I was happy to get away with having to fix metal and re buff my boots. It just missed getting me from being pinned in between.

 

Brian,
I would be interested to see your end result or solution on the LOKAR issue as I have the same problem. You don't see or hear of many of them with the brake switch system failing, but it does happen and I have a hitch ball through the back gate fence board to prove it.

Sorry about your truck, these things do happen unfortunately. My wife always asks " didn't you just do that?" and my response is, " Yes, but if I don't do it again, I won't have anything to do"

Hang in there, head up. Its a GORGEOUS truck with a dent!

 

Glad to hear you are okay.

I was debating using the neutral safety on my Lokar setup, no way now. I'm not happy with my set up either. The linkage is flimsy going from the floor mount to the shift arm on my 727.

Did i miss something? Could you use the transmission neutral safety switch?

 

Just be sure to add "find out what happened to the ****ing NSS switch" to your to do list...

At least there was something THERE to stop it. Not many people have a crash post inside the garage.

 

Honestly, I don't recall whether that trans, a 4L60E, even has a nss on the side of the case. I don't remember one, but it's been 2 years since I looked at the shift linkage.
That's a thought, I'll crawl under it tomorrow and check.

Brian

 

Brian, sorry about the truck. Glad you weren't hurt. Chin up and knock those dents out. You have a month to make it pretty again. Get to work. Best of luck. Jim

 

If this is the WORST thing that happens today.....it's still a pretty good day.



(it could have been much much worse)

 

Ain't that the way it goes, I feel your pain.

 

Sorry about your fortune. I rarely start my car from the outside and when I do, I push a tire forward to verify it's in park.

When I first built my T, I used a Lokar shiifter. The neutral safety switch rarely worked right. Out of all the stuff I had to replace after my accident, tossing that shifter was a real pleasure. It's crap.

 

OOOH no Brian , that sucks !!!

Depends on who did the harness, the 4l60e has a starter relay arm/ signal wire that is supposed to be your neutral safety switch back up double redundant fail safe. It's easy to bypass this double redundant system & it's also just as easy to incorporate it in a transplant.

 

Brian that sucks. I know the sick feeling you get in your gut after stuff like that happens. I've made similar mistakes and had similar trouble with neutral safety switches. Good news is the grill is OK. That would have been a lot harder to fix.

Let us know how well Hagerty comes through for you. I've had them for 10 years but never filed a claim. I've heard they are real good, let us know if that's true.

 

Glad you're OK. The damage isn't really too bad in relation to other stuff. But... you're a member of H.A.M.B. dammit, quit crying and fix that thing! LOL

 

That kinda stuff happened to me three times.

In the early 80's, I built a ridiculous '67 Barracuda for road course action. The very night I finished it, I parked it out near the street on my driveway. It had a manual trans, and the idiot inside of me forgot to set the parking brake. Came outside the next morning and found it gone. As I was about to call the cops, I saw something shiny in the woods downhill from my house. Guess what it was? Yep, my shiny newly built 'Cuda wrapped around a tree. I think I vomited for hours and was sick about it for a week.

In '96 I restored my '61 BMW motorcycle to factory perfect specs (the one in my "OT Stuff in my photo album). It was perfect in every way, and had a very rare factory touring tank. I didn't even have a chance to ride it, when another project bike I had sitting next to it decided to fall over onto it, knocking it off it's center stand. The tank fell into the cylinder head of another bike sitting next to it and crushed the rare tank and damaged the other bike's cylinder head.

When I finished up my '55 truck (the one in my photo album), a week later my son's girlfriend backed into it with her SUV. Crumpled the NOS rear fender and bent a new bedside. This time, I just laughed.

Now I just build shitboxes so i don't have to worry about this stuff. And go figure, nothing has happened to those. Knocking wood. LOL.

I feel your pain, bro. Gotta just foul off those curveballs and keep swinging.

 

Beautiful truck with a booboo- it will be right again. You are ok and do excellent work,
and the parts damaged are not the worst one to fix/replace. Keep your chin up and keep
on building and motivating us less talented folks! Jim

 

funny... ive had 2 of these aftermarket shifters... and hated both of them.. neither ever stayed in adjustment..

add this event to the reason I dont need another aftermarket shifter..

 

I did the wiring, using only the donor trucks underhood fuse panel. The trans harness I modified, as I used the 4L60 rather than the 4L80E the engine had on it originally. If there's a switch on the trans, I'll figure out how to incorporate it. In any event, the Lokar switch is getting tossed!

I'm feeling a little better tonight, it's only sheet metal and paint. Nothing compared to the loss some people suffered in the past couple of days in Boston.

I told my wife (who was VERY upset about it) that I'm going to look at it as if I bought an easily repairable total, and my insurance company is going to pay me to fix it. It'll be OK.

Thanks everybody for the kind words and support. Love the HAMB!

Brian

 

I'm sorry to see this happen. You put a lot of work into the truck.

 

I have seen this type of thing happen MANY times. Three of them with less lucky people two of those times there was a person between a truck and a tool box once between a door jam and a hoist. Gotta pay attention, this is a dangerous game... be careful children.

 

Look at it this way
You have a Diamond T ......
I only wish I had one .......

 

It could have been a lot worse. Just think your mother in law could have been checking the radiator. Did I say worse or better ?
Get back at it, you obviously know your trade !
Al

 

That'll buff out...

 

Damn, made me cringe just reading this! As said, could have been much worse.

 

Damn I'm sorry to hear that! I also had a similar deal with a Gennie Shifter neutral safety switch years ago. Glad to hear your not hurt and the Chris/Craft is okay.

 

So sorry to hear this....Very nice truck...Glad you are ok.

Good luck
Eric

 

sorry to hear....maybe this will make you feel a little better.....

had been running mostly V/8 Stude trucks with the standard key switch start....

well you know I get an early truck - 1949 2 1/2 tonner with the factory stuff

well after getting it running pretty good and sitting in front of the garage

well you know the starter switch is under the clutch pedal....and

well you know the one day I go to start it I forget to check the shifter

well you know...it was in gear and what happen when it started and I released the clutch pedal...

yes it tore thru the garage door bending the hood and pushing the Cuda up into the garage but lucky it did not smash it's grille in it...got the bumper though....my buds always remind me.....

 

"well you know the starter switch is under the clutch pedal....and..."

 

Thankful you are OK . You could have been crushed .
You have a lot of hours of labor in your truck . It can be fixed . It sucks but it can be fixed.

 

Too bad it happened but the important part is that you were not injured !!! Good luck on the repairs.

 

Sorry to hear about this, I love your truck and that especially sucks when you were Soooo close! I did the same thing on my corvette, but destroyed the drivers door (with nice original paint) on my garage door frame as I tried to jump in to hit the brakes!
If it was easy, ANYONE could do this.