Hot Rods your scary situation in a hot rod

1955 bought my first 34 ford, was acutdown used to ride the beach to catch sea turdles, was pretty well worn, my first ride on hard road it started shimmying so much couldn't hold the wheel, only way to stop wobble was to drive w/one wheel off the road on the dirt.drove it that way long as i had it never had title or licence plate, had a sign, LICENCE APPLIED FOR, can't do that today.

 

What caused the death wobble?Were the front shocks shot?

 

I had a shimmy in my 39 Ford, and after hours of looking, I found a vertical crack in the frame right behind the steering box. We welded it and reinforced it, and it was as good as new. Because I had just bought the car, I am guessing that was the reason the previous owner sold it to me so cheaply.
BTW, I just had the stock knee action shocks, but they worked well enough for me.
Bob

 

I had a barrel valve issue that locked the throttle wide open. Does this look like it counts for this thread? Good thing the damage was able to be fixed in two weeks. Its next time out three weeks after the incident it won the yahoo cup at the hamb drags.

 

"Death Wobble", Back in the 80's on one of my motorcycles I felt that experience at about 110 MPH, scared the hell out of me and when telling fellow riders, most said to me that the cure is to let go of the handle bars and wobble will stop. Believe me, I HAD the death grip on those bars. I never tested that theory as once was enough for me as I never went past 90 MPH on that bike ever for the rest of time I owned it. I did take it back to the dealer, (brand new factory dresser) they checked it out, couldn't find anything wrong, they did say you're not suppose to go that fast, bikes are not tested at that speed to which I said BS. I did lay that bike down at about 60MPH, early spring, tight corner, sandy conditions. leaned in and Bang ! bike down, me off, grinding off hide as I slid on roadway for a long time, rotating to new positions as the pain said turn over, grind off more spots, also crushed my left foot, had a hitch in my get along for a year or so.The Insurance company paid, I added some $$$, new bike, same model, never checked it for the death wobble. The funny part of this story is my mind/body never forgot the hide removal deal,( at hospital they scrub the road rash with a plastic Brillo pad to clean dirt out) for the rest of my cycle days, rode till 2010, if that front/back tire twitched for any reason ever so minor, INSTANT BUTT PUCKER, made me chuckle many times through the years.

 

high school newspaper 1962

Hey DND,

Easter week is coming up in So Cal and elsewhere. Cruising during the vacation from school was the absolute thing to do for us seniors in high school. It was the last big, high school cruise before graduation in June. My friend and I decided that my 58 Impala had the best record against other cars cruising around and at the local, "Cherry Ave. Drags." So, we got in and headed south to “Bal Week, Balboa Week” in 1962 Newport Beach.

Merle’s Drive-In was the final destination. But, Balboa Island, the ferry ride, Newport Pier and Balboa Pier parking lots, it was all over the peninsula cruising grounds, before heading back to Merle’s on MacArthur and Coast Highway. That Balboa Peninsula, along with the Long Beach Belmont Shore Peninsula, was just made for nighttime cruising and parties. Since it has been 56 years ago, those memories still linger as we drive by those places during the current cruising days.

The 58 Impala had on the standard Friday night paraphernalia, 7 inch Bruce Slicks, the 4:56 gears, ½ full gas tank, new plugs, full solid lifter adjustments, etc. The C&O Stick Hydro was pumped and ready for some action. We even put in some washers between the exhaust cut outs bolts/caps to give the car a little more sound and power. It was ready.

We cruised all over and had a few run-ins with some hot rods and cruisers. Nothing too exciting to write home about from those empty street encounters after the dust cleared. It was a fun night in addition to the great atmosphere of the Orange County Drive-In experiences. But, it was time to head back to drag race central in Bixby Knolls. On the way home, of course we got challenged on the "Westminster Ave. dragstrip" that ran through the Seal Beach Naval Ammunition and Weapons grounds, leading into Belmont Shore. No, a 56 Chevy 2 door post challenged, but, did not come close.

Jnaki

We enjoyed our last few encounters and the trash talking in the back row of the local Bixby Knolls drive-in restaurant gathering spot. It was a fun night to remember. But, the scary thing was just a few minutes away.

After dropping off my friend at his house, he asked if I would do one more full throttle take off at the end of his street leading to the main (cross traffic) avenue ahead. (Being a brash teenager, there was no problem.) So, I lined up and was ready. I hit the throttle and took off with a roar. The Impala never sounded so good, so late at night. I was headed toward the cross street and had plenty of time to brake to a stop. Somehow, the Impala kept going at full throttle approaching the cross traffic.

Of course, slamming on the brakes to no end was slowing the car down, but it was still going forward. I reached down to pull the throttle pedal/arm back, to no avail. So, after holding down the brake pedal, grabbing the emergency brake handle with my left hand and engaging the emergency brake, I shut the ignition off. The car skidded into the first lane of the cross traffic and luckily, there was only a single car in the second lane. Screeching to a halt brought my friend running around the corner to see what happened. (Ever have a dream with both feet on both pedals pushing them down as hard as humanly possible and skidding to a halt??? That scenario was a nightly occurrence for a month afterwards. )

The car was facing in the wrong direction as the traffic. But, luckily, it was late at night and most of the normal driving cars were asleep. The driver in the other lane probably thought I was a complete idiot, but drove off without stopping. I started the Impala again and it idled normally. So, what the#$%$??? We drove back to my friend’s house and popped the hood open. The progressive linkage for the three carburetors got bent and stuck open in the full throttle mode. It was one scary situation for me and it never happened again. The next day, I took off the progressive linkage and put the stock, vacuum hose, linkage system back on the carbs. Needless to say, that progressive linkage was at the bottom of the garbage can in an instant.

The Bruce Slicks got a real workout trying to stop. But, a few miles closer to home, there was a mist falling which created an unusual episode at a neighborhood stop signal. Approaching the intersection, I was slowing down anticipating the yellow and then red. But, the mist was playing games with the Bruce Slicks. The Impala swung around in a complete circle when I applied the brakes for the yellow light. It was like I had front brakes, but no rear brakes…duh, they were slicks… By 1:00am, this part of town was a ghost town and no one was there to witness the crazy look on this tired teenager that went around in a big circle.

1958 Impala with Bruce Slicks at Lions Dragstrip (Pittman/Edwards red Willys coupe making a run)

 

I was taking my car ,the one in my avatar to the track for the first time and I had made a few low speed hits on the car. I got ready for my first wide open pass and I did my burnout and backed up and apparently there was something on track and the car hooked hard to the right in the right lane.
The front end came up like it always does and landed on top of the guardrail and the rear followed it. Then it bounced off the guardrail at a 45 degree angle across the track . I said to myself if I can just get this thing to stop everything will be fine , about that time I hit the left guard rail and bounced off and stopped .
Breaking my fiberglass tilt nose in about 6 pieces and bending the front end .
I friend at a truck shop helped me glue the front end back together and we fixed the front end and were back at the track with the car painted blue ,it was red in 2 weeks.

 

Mine is not car related . Way younger riding a 48 hand jammer . Should have kept that one 1st year of Panhead , last year of springer fork . WTH , 250.00 bike at the time. I was sitting at a train crossing , rocker clutch down, 1st gear . Watching a new load of late tin pass . All of the sudden the clutch vibrates up and away I go chugging towards a moving train , I got the old bastard turned enough to bump down beside the track and eased to over on the side . I don’t think I dropped the Deuce correctly for a month after that ! Lesson learned , never sit at a stop in gear , hand clutch or especially, trust the rocker foot clutch on worn out shaking Harley or anything as far as that goes . God has blessed us all in strange ways of getting an education in our journey through life . Always be safe as possible and use that head for something other than a bucket to hold your brain .

 

Son driving my hotrod truck for first time, me in passenger seat and a car blew through a stop sign. Boy got on the WHOA pedal and avoided collision by a few feet.

 

I was 18 and driving my '64 Olds 88 and was coming up to a stop sign, slowing from 40, no big deal. But it is a big deal when an empty beer bottle comes out from under the seat and winds up under the brake pedal. I tried to kick it out.. no good.

So I grabbed the steering wheel tight, stood on the pedal with both feet and put my entire 145 pounds to work. The bottle broke and the car stood on its nose and stopped. I came out of the seat, hit my forehead on the windshield frame, knocked myself out for a few seconds, the car stalled out fortunately.

 

That's funny--there are at least two dumbasses around-you and me. I did a similar thing only it did not involve a train but did involve a 50's VW bug. Coincidentally, the mousetrap clutch slammed shut about the same time as my revving of the motor reached peak rpm while waiting for the light to change. After the front wheel came off the ground just enough to clear the VW bumper, it decided to keep going and rode up the engine cover and broke out the little window on the back. And there it stayed.

The girl in the 60's Pontiac next to me thought it was uproariously funny as I bounced off the VW and onto the hood of her Pontiac finally making it to the ground in a heap. The bike had the decency to die on its own as the throttle was still open a bunch.

Fortunately, I got drafted a couple of months later and that cut down on doing stupid stuff.

 

Mine happened many moons ago. I was a young Marine fresh out of boot camp and on my boot leave in 1966. Was driving a buddy's 1954 Ford Convertible, three speed with a cheap transmission conversion so that it was three on the floor. Had a hot date and after the movie and burgers we headed over to do a little parking. This was in Dallas, Texas and they had this real cool make out place, White Rock Lake, we made our way to the top of this hill at a spot known as Sunset Hill.

Well nature is taken it course and it is getting hot and heavy as only 17 year olds can be, and in the middle of this one of us, don't have a clue which one, hit that stupid shifter that was about 3 feet tall, and the transmission gets knocked into neutral. Of course considering what was going on neither of us noticed that the car was moving and rolling down that hill. That was not until the moment it crashed thru the tiny little barrier and preceded right into White Rock Lake right to the top of the doors. Well that cooled things off a bit. We waded out of the lake.

That's when it really got scary, I wasn't worried about that old Ford hell it could be fixed. I was worried about Charlotte's old man. I mean I dreaded telling her father that we were anywhere close to White Rock lake much less in the damn thing.

 

In my youthful attempt to get rid of the single bullet grill on my 50 shoebox Ford, I scrounged a 51 hood and 54 Chevy grill bar. Just days after bolting this all together, i was coming from a girlfriend’s house at night and running about 70 mph when the hood flew up and laid over the roof. Scared me silly and I was lucky to miss the oncoming traffic. The next day I put the old hood back on and found a body shop to cut the half-moon shaped sheet metal and weld it in. Taught me a lesson.

 

Hood locks are a must!Like the ones on the 69 Superbee with the larger lock pins.

 

1966 My friend had just bought a 56 chevy from a guy that had been drafted. We were on the jersey turnpike 2:00 am. He says I`m going to do a flying mile. I ask what do you mean? He says when we pass the sign that says 2 miles to our exit I`m putting the gas pedal to the floor until we reach the sign that says 1 mile to our exit. I don`t know how fast we were going but we were moving right along. When got to the toll booth we paid the toll went about 20 feet and the right front wheel fell off.

 

Back in the 80s a friend and I were riding dirt motorcycles on a county limerock road, went to wheelie off of a construction cable laying completely across the road. Rev... pop wheelie... cable comes to life. Turns out it was a ten plus foot long Eastern diamondback rattler. Really. Over ten feet long. No exaggeration. We briefly chased it, then got smart.

This was in south Florida.

 

In high school I stuffed my non HAMB friendly hot rod into the tail of a drunken redneck’s pickup after he forgot how to drive. Was doing 50mph when I slammed on my brakes and impacted an instant later. Totaled his truck. Almost totaled my car. My seatbelt came in real handy. I remember seeing my steering wheel and windshield rush at me at about 50mph, then suddenly stop.

Since it was a rear ended situation, he tried to sue me for damages. He lost.

 

Also, in my rod I once lost control on some rare road ice in northern Florida. Slid up to the red light crooked and came to a stop right in front of a cop. He just wagged his finger at me.

 

Hello,

A friend and I were discussing insurance for teenagers. We were always on the “family plan.” There were 4 people and at first, one car, then two cars. Both cars were designated family cars. As soon as we each got a car, then the insurance went up accordingly. We were talking about who/what pays for damages, etc. So, that led me to this part of the sedan delivery/ muddy field story.


Back in February, I mentioned a 40 Ford Sedan Delivery in a muddy field in the “Boy, I never seen that…” thread. That was pretty descriptive of the day’s action. But, the scary part was in that muddy skidding and turning around, there is no control or “little to none” in car direction, control. Yes, there is some control when opposite steering comes into play straightening a normal skid into going straight. Since it was raining, the fields were muddy, a small stream was running across the field draining into a gully, it was ripe for some teenage action.

Yes, it was fun skidding and sliding, but there were a couple of times that when getting close to the edge of the field in an uncontrollable slide, disaster is inches away. That curb in one direction and a two foot drop off into a drainage gulley on the other made for some interesting, but car threatening situations. In all of that fun, one tends to forget where exactly the car is sliding.

Jnaki

I can imagine that scenario: “…two teenagers found inside of an old sedan delivery, upside down in a drainage ditch, covered with muddy water and materials… dead or alive…” With no seat belts during this time period, one of us (or both) could have been flipped outside.

But, as luck would have it, the 57 year old newspaper headline would have been: … “two teenagers having a great time skidding and sliding during a downpour. They were in a salmon pink, 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, all covered with mud.”

Crazy, stupid, teenager activities…memories last forever.

 

Don't know how scary, I was 14 and about half lit so it was funny at the time. Now I am older and wiser and perhaps it would rank as scary, awwwww he double hockey sticks its still funny.

Anyway my first experience with a suicide front end and the day that I found out why its called that. I had a friend that had stuffed a B/RB into a '23 T. Stock frame etc, etc. We are setting about making it right and after legit albeit homade motor mounts we decided that it really needed a suicide front end. My buddy came up with an A front end and some juice brakes on spindles. We successfully mated the spindles and brakes to the axle and I proceeded to build a plumbing pipe cross member and spring perch from steel plate and bed rails. Looked pretty good set pretty good and handled pretty good for about a block then snapped off. Luckily the axle managed to get itself under the frame rails. I think I probably made a squeaky noise as we were trying to come to a stop (with the E brake, it was all that really worked at the time). My buddy let out a string that would make a sailor blush ( of course that may have been me) and by the time we came to a stop we were laughing so hard that we were crying.

In retrospect maybe I shouldn't have used the bed rails.

 

Thanks for reminding me of a story my Dad told me happened to him many years ago. He was a salesman, one call the customer told Dad park your car at end of road, I'll take mine the rest of way, a few miles down a dirt road. They're going along in this guy's Model T when something passes them. Dad asks "What was that?". Customer says "just some darned fools wheel". They get to guy's house and car tips down...it was their wheel.

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk... Gary from Virginia

 

Years ago I'm heading to see my girlfriend in my '66 Nova looking in rearview mirror combing my hair (When I HAD hair when all at once "WHAM!" I had rear-ended a '69 Barracuda stopped at a red light, I'm going about 25 mph. The lady driver staggers out and she's drunk. We look at the damage, my radiators busted, her trunk all buckled up. She says "oh...that'll buff right out!" And drives away. I push mine over to a vacant lot and walk the next mile or so to my friends house. Obviously the Cuda driver didn't want a DUI and no injuries.

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk... Gary from Virginia

 

Now that reminds me of a white knuckle ride over the Cascades.

The Missus and I heard of a '64 Impala less motor and tranny in Tillamook, Or when we were still on Forest Grove. Its about an hour driver over the Cascades. We had a 283 and a glide from an engine swap we did and it was a chance for us to make a couple bucks. So we threw the chain in the old Merc and headed that way. We found it pretty straight old car the guy was asking 40 or 50 bucks for it. Well everything is negotiable, right? We went back and forth for a while and I ended up getting it for 5 dollars less than asking.

So there's the back story. We have chain towed a lot in the last 45 or so years. She backed the Merc up and flipped the chain at me, I hooked my end and she hooked hers. It was getting close to sundown and we were headed east, she wanted to be in the drive before dark thirty. She jumped in the merc as she hollered "Follow me" which is her language for hang onto your ass. I got no idea how fast we were going but it was a white knuckle ride all the way home, she shaved at least 10 or 15 minutes off the trip.

She was happy that it wasn't dark yet we unhooked and I kicked the pass front tire, which proceeded to fall off ( sort of). She looked and said, "What did you do?" I looked at it and said, "Well the spindle is broke" She just said, "Well off to the wrecking yard tomorrow."



Note: Mrs. Beaner is a good tow driver if you can handle it, she always tows 90 to nuthin'.

 

Another good one that happened to my brother in the late 60s, a hippie going to college.
He and some friends went over to West Virginia in one guys '61 Galaxy. Coming home after major partying they're on this twisty road, it starts to snow, my brother said he was in the back seat and fell asleep.
He wakes up , as he tells it to all this racket, the car heading straight down, trees and huge rocks flying past. He said all those stories you hear about having super human strength with adrenalin flowing are true because he said he pushed the bench seat back down to get a better view. The driver slid off a curve and they were headed down a mountain!
Luckily the car hit a ledge, everyone scrambled out, then the car flipped over going rest of the way down on it's roof.

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk... Gary from Virginia

 

North Idaho to Ft Collins Co for a Good Guys event. Went over the car with a fine tooth comb. ( My DP's 57 Star Chief ZZ4 powered "Drop Top".) Left Co headed to Rapid City, via Lusk Wy. Exited interstate and NO FRIGGIN' BRAKES!!! Cracked flare on right rear brake line. $800 flatbed ride to RC, brother in law had dinner and drinks ready when we arrived. Next morning, trip to NAPA, new line, on our way.

 

For you b.c. guys, my friend owned for a lot of years a 48 Anglia him and I built, he drove then and still does now, way too fast all the time. We were going down watch lake road outside lone butte, which is outside 100 mile house, probably closer to 80 mph, maybe 9 at nite, just around dusk, little car had a potent 355 in it, drove fantastic at hiway speeds and stopped well, but was VERY SMALL. All of a sudden the light from the road disappeared, a big black shape directly in front of us, powered on the binders hard, car trying to go sideways, and breezed past the huge shadow. Big bull moose, I bet it weighed 1200 lbs, would have killed both of us and destroyed the car as well as the moose, we stared at it as we were side by side, it stared at us, I'm sure I had poop in my pants, scared shitless.
He powered the car up, did a massive burnout and laughed as the speedo climbed back up to 80 with two more miles to go. We made it home, but that night impressed me seriously the dangers of small cars and big animals.

 

Back in 1960, a buddy of mine owned a Sunbeam Alpine, and was in the habit of driving way over the speed limit. He was driving on a dark night on a long straight stretch near Armstrong, when a full grown pig, an escapee from a nearby farm, suddenly ran out on the road. He was so close to the animal, that even though he nailed the brakes, he hit the pig hard enough that parts of the pig even took out the windshield. His nearly new car was a write off.
He was lucky in that he had his seat belt on, but he was cut from pieces of the windshield, and pretty banged up, but it was a miracle that he wasn't killed.
Bob

 

Sunbeam...Pig...Alpine...Miracle
So that's where the name Spam originated.

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk... Gary from Virginia

 

The worst was when I took a test ride in my 56 T Bird that I had purchased. I was coming down the hill and I just about had my foot to the floor and the car was not stopping. I was able to run along the side of the road and get into my driveway. I bet I remembered every prayer that I ever knew. When I checked it out I discovered one of the disc pads on the front had fallen out and the rest had been improperly installed. Lesson one do not assume anything when you purchase a car from another person. Mercuryguy