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Following on from cjhillman thread on fear of breakdown, I started thinking about times I've driven stuff that I really shouldn't have. Back in the eighties a mate mate had a 3 litre Capri, which later became mine. He was offered another as a spares car by a work colleague, which was in North London, so we went to have a look. It was a complete rotbox, the wings were flapping loose, the rear suspension was collapsing and the big ends knocked like there was someone in the bell housing with s sledgehammer trying to get out. With the bravado of someone in their early 20'a, I said ' oh it'll be fine, I'll drive it back to park Street, a journey of about 15 miles. Halfway back the Police passed us, twice Both officers stared, and then burst out laughing. They never even pulled us! We made it back ok, but that was it's last trip Not sure we'd have been laughing about it nowadays!
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My ex-wife's matte black Mk2 Escort van, about ten miles on a rural road at night with no lights whatsoever due to an electrical fault. She and my dad were following in a Hilux. Apparently I was driving a lot faster than I thought I was.
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Drove my mk3 escort for a couple of days manually holding full beam on until I got paid and could replace the indicator arm (common mk3 fault iirc)
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Dec 15, 2021 12:19:20 GMT
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Bought a Citroen GS for £100 to keep me mobile whilst my 2CV was off the road having its gearbox rebuilt. Three semi-slick tyres, one working headlight, manic clutch slip, exhaust clag on startup that meant work carpark grew a number of mysterious vertical black lines on the wall (it 'drew' them as the hydropneumatics lifted the car), handbrake would auto-release on occasion (found it parked neatly in the middle of the cul-de-sac one morning), *lots* of rust (did a big shop, got home, opened boot, shopping magically disappeared - on closer inspection, one side of boot basically opened into the wheelarch). Oh, and a cracked front numberplate.
Ran it for about two months and 2000 miles (don't ask me about 2CV gearboxes) until drove past a panda car sitting in a layby which instantly pulled out, blues on. One very polite PC engaged me in conversation while the other walked round the car emitting various sighs and tutting noises. Considered myself stunningly lucky to escape with "There's one or two little issues with this car that I feel sure you'll be sorting before we see you again, eh sir?".
Sold it for £80. Still the most comfortable and cost-effective car I've ever had.
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drdick
Part of things
Posts: 359
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Dec 15, 2021 13:11:08 GMT
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I don't know if this counts but as a student a friend and I bought a mk3 Capri which was complete except for the engine and gearbox. I towed him on a rope from High Wycombe to Uxbridge with my Maestro. He had no feel on the brakes and the first thing we did was go down a very long steep hill in Wycombe. I thought it was ok because I could feel him holding me back on the Capri brakes but when we got home he defintely rated the whole experience as a 0/10......
This was 25 years ago, I doubt we'd make it these days without a pull....
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tofufi
South West
Posts: 1,454
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Dec 15, 2021 13:29:40 GMT
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I don't know if this counts but as a student a friend and I bought a mk3 Capri which was complete except for the engine and gearbox. I towed him on a rope from High Wycombe to Uxbridge with my Maestro. He had no feel on the brakes and the first thing we did was go down a very long steep hill in Wycombe. I thought it was ok because I could feel him holding me back on the Capri brakes but when we got home he defintely rated the whole experience as a 0/10...... On the rare occasions I have to tow or be towed these days, I have a phone call with the other driver so we can shout instructions at each other. Makes it a little easier - I wouldn't want to tow without to be honest. I don't think we should be celebrating driving cars that weren't roadworthy, but a long time ago a friend bought a VW T2 on eBay. He wasn't able to drive it home, so I offered. We inspected the vehicle, but didn't test drive it. It was only at 5PM, in mid-winter, at the end of the street, that I found it had essentially no brakes other than the handbrake. 100 miles to get home with minimal braking in the cold and dark, including M25 rush hour, isn't something I'd want to repeat. On getting it home, we found it had no brake fluid as 3 brake slave cylinders were in need of replacement.
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Dec 15, 2021 13:52:10 GMT
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Wasn't means to be a celebration tofufi, but we've all done some pretty stupid things in the past, I wouldn't condone half the things I've done. Older and wiser maybe? Anyway if reading this thread means that one person thinks twice before doing something stupid like me, and doesn't do it, then I'll call that a win!
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,592
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Dec 15, 2021 15:07:07 GMT
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Someone I know, once drove a Ford Anglia in torrential rain without any windscreen wipers. His arguement was that it didn't matter because the car was also missing its windscreen . . . . .
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thomfr
Part of things
Trying to assemble the Duett again..
Posts: 641
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Dec 15, 2021 15:17:16 GMT
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Bought around 1991 a 1982 Alfa Giulietta 2.0ltr running on LPG (the Alfetta with a very little trunk basicly) for doing a track course to get my acing licence. It was very rusty and it had 2 months APK (Dutch MOT) left. Attended the training at Zandvoort succesfully and came home with my national A race licence (later had more that 10 years international C). However beside the ocasional backfire caused by the LPG system (threw the pancake airfilter of the Impco gas supplier with a bang) Just stop put on the clamps again or if they got lost again some steel wire and running further again). However, the engine was running fine (using a litre of oil every 1000Km. or so) but the body was bad. So for the MOT some fierce welding was needed and a bit of a corrupt control station and I was driving again with a fresh 12 months of health.
The Alfa was abused for many trips (always warming up gently but after that full trottle) but became worse and worse with loosing the driver side electric window system (never forget the face of the clerk while driving backwards in the McDrive with a mate due to the fact the other side window did not open) and other electrics where dying including a nice under dash fire while the rear demister was on...
At the end of that year (aprox 15000Km. further the body was official dead and the engine was pulled out for a friends USA Alfa Spider which had a dead engine. This Spider is still driving around with this engine with only a head revision in recent years and some new seals but still the original bottom end.
A car bought for a week used which served perfectly for 14 month and in total for 150 pounds or so.
Thom
(have to look up a picture..)
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73' Alfa Giulia Super 64' Volvo Duett 65' Volvo Duett 67' Volvo Amazon 123GT 09' Ford Focus 1.8 06' Citroen C4 Exclusive
71' Benelli Motorella 65' Cyrus Speciaal
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys
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Paul
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,907
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Dec 15, 2021 15:21:34 GMT
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I've had a couple of questionable drives, although nothing life-threateningly dangerous.
When I was a younger man I once picked up a Volkswagen Beetle with the ropiest of ropey MOTs...it was bleeding oil in a dramatic, smokescreeny type of way, the ground was visible from the back seat through the gloopy waxoyl hiding the rot, and had no speedometer at all, despite the fact I had 200 miles to get home in it. The clutch was also well on the way out.
Using some form of logic I just parked behind a lorry in the slow lane of the M1 and got home remarkably easily truth be told...
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Last Edit: Dec 15, 2021 18:21:28 GMT by Paul
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samg40
Part of things
Posts: 70
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Dec 15, 2021 16:05:06 GMT
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A friend of mine bought a car minus the engine as it had been used in another project from a guy in Dagenham. He rang me up and asked me to give him a hand bringing it back. This involved leaving Sheffield around 5 or 6 am, I forget now, driving to Dagneham with all the necessary bits in the back of our car and putting them in the new one. We got there and were greeted with the sight of the empty engine bay and proceeded to install, engine, gearbox, radiator, engine wiring loom, connect driveshafts etc. Oh this was mid December, by the time we had finished in the dark the water on the roof from the earlier rain had formed into ice, I had to drive it back all the way up to Sheffield, once on the motorway, he rang me and asked why I was going so slowly and my answer was it was as fast as I was prepared to go. The car felt quite ropey to drive with some dodgy feeling brakes and wayward steering. He'd also day insured it to get it back and as we returned home somewhere between 1-2 am I think the insurance had actually run out by the time we got back. There was a ford we traversed at some point I recall also for some reason which now escapes me. When he started to go over it later that week he realised that the caliper bolts were only on finger tight along with a load of other dodgy stuff.
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Dec 15, 2021 16:21:56 GMT
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Not so many cars spring to mind (although there will be some) but hundreds of vans & lorries when I was a truck fitter. It usually began as a breakdown, you’d go out, not be able to do a ‘proper fix’ & bodge it to get it back to the yard. Very often the driver would refuse to drive it, so you’d give him your breakdown van to follow you in ‘his’ truck. One comes to mind, an 8 wheeler tipper with a knackered wheel bearing on N/S 2nd steer. Jacked it up, took both 2nd steer wheels off, let the axle hang on the leaf springs & drive it back as a 6 wheeler 😀
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Paul Y
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,948
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Dec 15, 2021 16:22:43 GMT
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My parents mk4 cortina. My father asked me to take it for its MOT - this was probably somewhere around 89-92ish time period. Picked it up, pulled the seatbelt and thought 'that feels odd' - pulled it a bit harder and could see the carpet on the sill moving, pulled it a lot harder and the inertia reel was now dangling halfway up the B pillar along with a large section of the carefully sculptured filler, chicken wire and news paper sill. Factory. Drove it to the MOT station - why I really don't know - who put it up on a 2 post lift as it needed the exhaust replacing. Again. Why? As the lift went up there was a very audible 'crunch' at which point I saw sense and told the bloke not too bother. When it was back on the ground the doors wouldn't open and there was a definite 'Bow' to the roof. Managed to get the door open but then couldn't close it so used the seat belt to keep it closed whilst I drove it back to my parents. P.
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Dec 15, 2021 16:56:47 GMT
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I ran a family hand me down from my wife's side, it was a fairly decent looking mk3 Golf GTi 2.slow it was very well spec'd, full leather, a/c and sunroof, all the options.... Her uncle met us in Worcester where swmbos gran lived and I drove it back, it performed flawlessly. Chucked it in for an MOT as it only had a short ticket and it bombed like a Lancaster near a dam, the floor was barely attached, it looked like it had been parked in the sea not just at his house in Lyme Regis. Ran it until the original ticket ran out and swiftly moved it on as a "project".
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jmsheahan
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 682
Club RR Member Number: 121
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Dec 15, 2021 17:21:24 GMT
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A few spring to mind, some I'm not prepared to disclose on a public forum My first beetle snapped its clutch cable. Limped it home effectively bump starting it out of junctions with a mate shouting 'clear' or 'not clear' approaching anywhere I may need to stop, rev matching and avoiding as much traffic as I could. Sketchy! An old 306 got a wiper blade caught in the pouring rain. The force was enough to blow the motor. I let the rain subside a little but running late, weather still curse word down, I donned the sunnies and went full Ace Ventura head out the window. Luckily only about 5 miles from home
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Last Edit: Dec 15, 2021 17:25:51 GMT by jmsheahan
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Dec 15, 2021 18:04:53 GMT
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Another one I did was as follows. Went out to a Merc 310D van that had broken down. The rose joints on part of the throttle linkage had given up, fell off & disappeared down the road somewhere. My breakdown van was the same. I took mine off, got him on his way. Cable tied mine at about 75% throttle & just kept dipping the clutch at junctions etc
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Roach
Part of things
Posts: 717
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Dec 15, 2021 18:18:34 GMT
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This…. I won’t go into why I shouldn’t have been driving it, as I’m not very proud of 19 year old me…. Let’s just say there was nothing wrong with the car.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:55:19 GMT
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This…. I won’t go into why I shouldn’t have been driving it, as I’m not very proud of 19 year old me…. Let’s just say there was nothing wrong with the car. I was a passenger in amk3 Granada Ghia that I'd rented for a'mate' on the basis that I worked for the rental company, and I was going to a leaving do where copious amounts of beer was drunk, so he was to collect me so I wouldn't d&d. Suffice to say he couldn't handle a 2.9 v6 at night on back roads. It ended up looking very similar to that. Lucky I was drunk, didn't hurt a bit , until the following day.....[br
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Dec 15, 2021 19:34:29 GMT
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Oooh I could fill the thread with my stupidity and lack of mechanical sympathy! I can partly blame the latter on my days working in the oil industry where it wasn’t frowned upon to tie a rope around the throttle and shove a fire hose (untreated sea water) into the coolant header of an overheating engine if it meant the lights stayed on. On a commute home the coolant header tank blew out on a BMW 330ci I was driving after getting stuck in traffic on a hot day. I stopped and surveyed the wreckage at the side of the busy A road in a crapy bit of town. Rather than be stuck at the side of the road I decided to drive a further 5 miles to the nearest train station and dumped the car there. It was running hot before the header blew out as it turned out the electric fan wasn’t working, it was so hot by the time it was left you could smell “hot car smell” it from the opposite platform while I waited for the train home. Took the train back a few weeks later with some tools and a new header tank, fitted it in the car park, filled the header with the big milk tankard of water I took and drove home. The car wasn’t any worse for wear after that ordeal and I ran it a few more months before swapping it. Years later I was 2 weeks into ownership of a Saab 9-3 that had 165k miles on the clock and no service history. It had developed a squeal that morning but 10miles from work the squeal stopped but the heater also went cold. I guessed the aux belt had snapped so carried on (was downhill for a couple of miles). High temp came on a little later so I stopped after clearing the traffic. I couldn’t see an aux belt or where the water pump was so thought I’d just press on as it was running ok otherwise. I got to work ok and looked into the possible causes at lunch, I suspected the water pump had seized by then. Turns out the water pump is run off the timing belt so I got the car recovered to my local garage. The garage said it was the closest they ever seen an engine come to total destruction! The seized water pump had heated the timing belt so much that it melted an idler pulley until all that the belt was running on was the rear most rim of that pulley. The belt tensioner was completely out of travel and the timing belt slipped off the remaining pulleys without the use of any tools... I still drive that car to this day and it just passed another mot this afternoon! I went looking for some photographic evidence, found this one but this was the 330's dash after a completely different break down were I drove 26miles with no aux belt.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:54:06 GMT
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Driving down the steep hill at Egham in a JU250 van with a forklift chassis sliding about in the back it was necessary to slam the brakes on to avoid an incident The chassis slid forward and pushed the tilting drivers seat forward squashing me up against the steering wheel, fortunately i was much thinner then so not much damage done.
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