Share your crazy Gearhead stories!!!!

[Stoopy]

After comparing the P-47 to my Aunt's old 1969 Chrysler New Yorker in a recent thread, and receiving some cool responses from other users with their own automotive anecdotes about old cars and their experiences, it dawned on me that maybe we could use a good ol' fashioned car thread 'round here - particularly considering that many of us are of an age where we grew up around classic old iron (I learned to drive in the mid-70's when cool second hand muscle cars were dirt cheap, and roads were fairly empty of traffic).  Not to imply that any younger folks here may have their own ripping tales to tell, would love to hear 'em!

 

So if you've ever used a set of vice grips as a gear shifter or window crank, a screwdriver as an ignition key (looking at you, @JimTM), or a length of rope as a workaround for a burned out windshield wiper motor, or owned a seemingly haunted self-repairing car, or have any other automotive sins to confess, you get the idea and this thread is for you!  I'll start...

 

An early lesson about Torque and stored energy:

 

My family was a Ford family, and I learned to drive in my Mom's '67 Thunderbird with the 390 V8.  This was in the mid-70's and we lived on the High Desert in Southern California where there's an endless supply of long, straight roads.  After dropping my high school girlfriend off at her house late one night, I was feeling rowdy as I crested the top of a large hill with a long, VERY steep downhill grade, and I had the sudden brilliant idea to floor it to see what would happen - I was totally unprepared for the effect of gravity pulling downward on 4,400 lbs of raw Detroit iron combined with what felt like an equivalent amount of instant torque from that mighty FE motor.  The speedo literally jumped to the end of the dial and I halfway expected to see the radio knobs pull off and fly backward to embed themselves in the backseat.  At the bottom of the hill the suspension bottomed out hard and then she rebounded back up and just floated there in the air for a second or two while I was watching fence posts flash by in the headlights with the speedo buried.  Fortunately, some amount of her faux aerodynamics must have played a role and she came down straight, and the power disc brakes had their work cut out for them in getting all that mass slowed back down.  Driving that car never felt the same after that, most likely due to the permanent crease that my butt cheeks bit into the seat cushion. 

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[JimTM]

Wha? Me? Huh?  

 

OK, back in the 80s, I had to get somewhere in a hurry. So, one stormy night, a friend wired up a high-tension electrical cable from the town clock tower to the street so that the flux...

 

About the only "gearhead" experience I had of note was helping to build the fuselage of a BD-5 in high school. So, I guess that makes me an airhead.  

[Stoopy]

1 minute ago, JimTM said:

About the only "gearhead" experience I had of note was helping to build the fuselage of a BD-5 in high school. So, I guess that makes me an airhead.  

 

The mini-jet?  That's actually pretty dang cool....

 

[JimTM]

1 minute ago, =[TIA]=Stoopy said:

 

The mini-jet?  That's actually pretty dang cool....

 

 

No, the original prop version. 

[Pict]

Good idea for a thread, I'm almost surprised it never happened before now. I was tempted to add something of my own to it when I saw the headline, but once I saw 390 V8 I couldn't resist.

 

I'm a little younger than you, but just a little and fast cars and the insurance for them was still cheap as chips, when compared to recent years. I grew up in a remote part of Scotland, so muscle cars weren't common, nor were long stretches of straight road that is to say there weren't any  

 

Anyhow I was 16 and had had dreams of owing a Mustang for a few years when I met this Texan in Glasgow who had had his '67 289 flown over to Scotland for free by Pan-Am, who his sister worked for. It was in beautiful original condition and when he decide to sell it I bought it immediately. That was my 1st car the fun I had with it never lasted but a couple of months when a drunk guy hit me head on while I was sitting at a junction.

 

The Mustang bug was in though and I found another near London and went the length of the UK to buy it. It was a '69 390 GT 4 speed, not as original as my '67, it had wild yellow paint job with blacked out bits something like a Boss 302. But it ran like a clock and it had massive torque & power on tap.

 

I was just 17 when I bought it and had that car for 7 years, I never crashed it, yet drove to limits and beyond on roads that had very few straights and many single tracks with the occasional passing place. It was massive fun and my mates who still live there still talk about it to this day. I could write for hours about it, how I tweaked it, Hurst race gate full reverse lock out shiftier, Ekland dual point straight mechanical advance dizzy, alloy flywheel, 427 oil adapter and so on. But the one little story that relates to yours is worth telling...

 

When people got in the car they had a habit of putting music cassettes on the dash. I used to say, "you don't want to put stuff there" waiting for the inevitable "why not?" Then I'd hit the gas and watch my unwitting passenger get all his tapes in his face hard and fast  

 

I was just a kid having a ball, zero regrets and many great memories.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Pict