Just Another Day in the Life of a Car Guy...

[Heo]

I got a few stories The one including a 66 Galaxie a serialkiller looking guy  with a dead cow
In his van i believe i have told here before.
Well, same friend with the galaxie found a 71 Thunderbird. T-bird owner accepted to trade even
for the friends german ford Granada .......Granada was a pile......so was the T- bird
Well we set of in a snowstorm....strange that is always a snowstorm when you go after a car.
Anyway we got the T-turd, started the trip home, first redlight it dies. Flywheel is missing a lot
of the cogs, me running out twisting the fan to find fresh cogs. It starts, run to the midle of the
intersection and dies twisting the fan.....Oh no empty battery .....i stop a taxi ask if he can jumpstart us
It starts run 100 meters out of gas we can se a filling station problem is, walk along the road it is
probably half a mile ,as the birds flies it is 50 yards through the snow. So we chose the shortcut
through the snow we got gas but shoes full of snow. Back at the turd, stop another car for a jumpstart
now it runs, we drive to the filling station fill her up buy a battery and start our way home. First the fan dies
so no heating in the car exept for the exhaustsystem that ends under my feets somwhere  then the car dies me twisting the fan restarting every  other mile untill we came out of the town so it got dark. In the dark i can see sparks between the coil and fuelline
Twist the coil out of the way problem fixad, now it runs. By now my feets feel like solid wet ice, pushing on through
the snowstorm on slick summer tires, the mighty thunderjet roaring unmuffled to me through the rusty floor, we hit a
mega bump in the road and the fan came to life now we got heating and defrost so we can actual se the road ,life is god

[cjshaker]

LOL...Heo, I was going to say "Where's Heo when you have the perfect thread for him?"

[Heo]

LOL...Heo, I was going to say "Where's Heo when you have the perfect thread for him?"

Well Doug i got stories to have this thread run for atleast a couple of months but thougt i let
others make their voices heard once in a while. But if you want to hear them just tell  me

[GerryP]

LOL...Heo, I was going to say "Where's Heo when you have the perfect thread for him?"

I'd like to have Heo as a neighbor.  Always willing to lean on the fence and spin you a yarn.

[turbohunter]

66 Galaxie a serialkiller
Anyway we got the T-turd,
 ,life is god

I’m rolling Heo.
I want you for a neighbor also.

[WConley]

I’m rolling Heo.
I want you for a neighbor also.

Add me to the list of interested neighbors!

[SSdynosaur]

Heo, you are one of the best "natural" storytellers ever!

[TomP]

I've had a lot of unfortunate breakdowns too. Things like busting the caps off an 8" rear end and still making it 20 miles home with the pinion just barely grabbing  (and breaking off) teeth on the ring gear which was scraping a trough in the back of the housing.
Same car (200 six,with nitrous 65 Falcon convert) broke the flexplate at the dragstrip in Seattle. I drove the 140 miles home with the engine freewheeling for several seconds then catching with a crunch. I found if I kept a steady load on it it was fine, but can't coast or it comes undone, so I used the parking brake on downhill areas. I get to the border and the thing revs and sits there making grinding noises. I got out and pushed and the border guard came out of the booth and helped! When i sat in to steer it over to the side it caught and i made it home. Just a small lip of sheetmetal otherwise the 5" diameter section bolted to the crank was perfectly smooth and spinning inside the rest of the outer flexplate. A bunch of metal shrapnel in the belhousing.

 I broke the right rear leaf spring front perch off my early Bronco off roading 40 miles away and had to drive home completely across the city with the left front tire off the ground.

I've had to replace electric fuel pumps on the side of the road in my V8 Pinto (in Seattle's ghetto area!) and V8 Ranger. In both cases covered in gas near the start of long hot day of driving.

Broke a valvespring and dropped a valve in my ramptruck's 428. Then the towtruck driver never mentioned the huge increase in resistance when the tranny seized third gear onto the mainshaft and spun the engine over at 4000rpm for fifteen miles with the valve cover and rocker shaft laying on the floor.
 Same truck broke all three u-joints at once racing it at the track. It's a custom length two piece driveshaft and pulled one of the loops open for the bearing caps and took a chunk off the pinion yoke. I called a classified ad for a guy parting out old trucks and had him deliver a driveshaft to me at the track. Right length but a scrawny 2" diameter thing with smaller U-joints. I walked a mile or so to the parts store to get adapter U-Joints and filed the burr off the yoke so the Ujoint would fit and made it home. Spent all day and cost a hundred bucks but towing it home would have cost more hundreds.

[Heo]

In 91 i got a virus infection in my brain and was hospitaliced for several weeks
Was close to dying the first week, got medicine and nourishment intravenously
hallucinated and saw visions. Saw a man in working clothes  ride a bicycle past my bed
a couple a times a day. A maroon 60s
Dodge polara was a reacuring hallucination
Anyway  when i got better i got a friend  to take my car to the hospital i was feeling
just fine but got to take medication intravenously every third hour. Between that i was
free to go outside and go for a walk or......no no not drive around in my car.
One sunday i got an acute cravings for pancakes, i figured when the bottle is empty
I jump in the car drive home let the wife make pancakes drive back and get a new bottle
a Little delayed but.....So of i go,about halfway home i see a big cloud of smoke in the rearwiev
mirror check the dash  just as the oilpressure drops. One of the hoses to the oilcooler had
popped of, a pressed hose, i have 3 compressed air fitting in the trunk with hoseclamps on and
the biggest Bacho monkeywrench about 2 feet long the clamps are for a screwdriver ....I find a coin that
fit the clamp twist it with the monkeywrench, manage to fix the hose,find a oiljug in the trunk with 0.5
liter oil get oilpressure. Now I'm covered in black wasteoil from a dieselengine drives to a gasstation
buy oil and a screwdriver the guy behind the counter looks att my needle for the intravenous and the
by now black gause and ex white hospital shirt . I go home ,wife not happy with my escape i get my
pancakes takes a shower and try to wash away the oil manage to go from pitchblack to light grey
Go back to hospital much to late, The  headnurse chew me out  where have you been you are 3 hours late
we thought something hapened to you then she sees my grey arm shes about to explode
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE    Ohhhhh that...I helped a Lady that had car trouble down by the park
when i vent for a walk

[WConley]

You're killing me Heo!  That was funny 

[Dr Mabuse]

My tale of woe ...

In 1982, I got laid-off from my railroad job in Michigan, and went to stay with my brother while collecting unemployment benefits in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had been looking for a job, to no avail.

After 6 months, with benefits running out, I rented a small U-Haul trailer, and headed back to Michigan, pulling it with my 1979 F-150 4x4. I had special ordered it new, and it only had 40,000 miles on it.

On I-70, about 7 hours out from Nevada, and a short distance from Green River Utah, the engine quit. There was a hole in the side of the block, by the distributer casting bulge.

I made a sign, with "Send Help", and a wrecker from Green River took me to the S & S Garage & Diesel, a shop that was owned and run by the mayor (a good omen to me).

They started pulling the engine the next morning. Cores for a 300 I6 were in short supply, and they were charging (a huge at the time) $750. They told me they could get a short block from Salt Lake City the next day.

I did not have a charge card at the time, so I called my dad, and he gave me his card number. To save me some money, the mayor/owner said they had a city truck that they could pull the engine from, and use to get me home. He said an employee had driven the truck without an air filter, but it would get me home (where I had a 428 I could install).

They finished the swap the next day, and the rebuilt 300 I6 for their city truck showed up. It had a patch welded on the block, in the exact same place where my block had a hole! I didn't get a core credit for my block. I had taken good care of the truck, being my first (and last) new vehicle purchase. The cylinder walls still had hone marks, and there were no ridges on them.

Mr. Mayor was correct - their engine did get me home, but not without some added expense. After leaving Green River, I stopped at the next exit to check the oil. There was NONE on the dip stick! Green River is at 4,000 feet in a dry, windy, dusty desert. I surmised the rings and cylinder walls had been blasted by sand intake.

The "good" news? K-Mart and Walmart had oil on sale that weekend. It took me 40 quarts to get home!

[frnkeore]

That's a good one and I have a similar story.

In 1985, I took my F100, 240-6, on vacation, 700 miles away. Every thing went fine until about 150 miles, coming home. I noticed a little smoke and checked the oil. It was a qt down. Put a qt in and at the next stop, it was 3 qt down and smoking pretty bad. I still had 300 mi to go. I then put 4 qt, to replace the missing 3 qt. The next 150 mi's ate that up, plus more, the oil light came on. I put 6 qt in and got 2 extra. I had to use all 8 qt to get the last 150 mi. Huge smoke out the back.

It was Labor Day week and hot! I didn't have A/C in the truck so, running with windows down and I had to roll them up for the last 200 mi's, because there was so much blow by, that the smoke was coming up the steering column, choking me so, I had to roll the windows up. But, I made it home!

I ordered a short block and pulled the engine, the next week and it had 1 broken ring land on one piston and 2 broken ring lands on another.

But, it wasn't over, my wife to be car was a Honda Civic, after pulling the engine on Fri night and driving home, the timing belt broke on the Honda. So, then I had to barrow one of my mom's cars, tow the Honda and fix it, before getting back on the truck. Got it all done, between Fri at 5pm and Sun night.

NOT Fun!

[wayne]

First burn out in dads 1960 rambler wagon wheel hopped and shoved fan through rad.It had a closed drive shaft broke both engine mounts dad was super pissed but never did know how i did it.