I'm the first to admit that my maintinance (sp?) schedule on my mk3 Escort is pretty poor. I push my luck all the time- I top the oil up only when it gets tappety, only check the water level when it starts frequently getting too hot, that sort of thing. It's asking for trouble and I know it.
chancing your arm on the kind of stuff that might have you splutter to a halt is one thing, but stuff that can see you pirouetting off the road into a meadow when it fails is something I definately don't take a chance on.
This is is why I yogged plenty of my budget last year on a complete new/reconditioned suspension set-up, every joint, bush, arm, rod and bar from front to back is brand new/reconditioned and uprated, so I had complete peace of mind in that department.
Imagine my suprise then, at what happened when I casually tried to pull out of a junction a few miles from my house. As I was putting on a bit of lock and attempting to pull out I heard a loud 'clunk' from the front and a bit of a jolt, and lost all drive to the wheels. Game over.
I tried to roll backwards but it wouldn't budge, and as I was on a hill going forwards was out of the question.
I got out to see that the wheel had crammed itself snugly into the front wheel arch, and no amount of faffing about could encourage it to come back out.
I looked under the car and I saw what I half expected to see, the track control arm had broken in two, which had then caused the driveshaft to pop out
A brief 'boy scout' inspired repair with a washing line purchased from a nearby shop saw about an hour wasted but no progress.
Nothing else for it. Despite bieng tantalizingly close to a 'safe house' where I could stash the car in front of, since it wouldn't budge I had no choice but to call out the RAC
An hour later, the cavelry arrived.
On seeing the car he had to rescue any re-assuring friendly banter was dispensed with in favour of the familiar repetoir of rolling eyes and saying "fugging lowering kits want banning".
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for my heap, RAC man leaped into action and scrambled under the car to varify my diagnosis.
A few seconds later, a brand new RAC man emerged from under the car, one with a smiling face and a load of questions, like: "where did you get those?", "who made that?", "Isn't that a Group A crossmember?!" and finally "Why in gods name did you put all this fancy stuff on a battered 4-door?!?!".
We had found some common ground.
Getting the car onto his Hi-ab was a bit of a farce with the car bieng so low, but RAC man didn't mind anymore. The time spent dismantling bits of his Hi-ab was spent talking about his mate's old RS turbo's and stories of other interesting cars he'd picked up.
After it was loaded onto the back of his truck a form had to be filled in to assess the condition of the car prior to moving it, in case of any claims afterwards, but I waved this and we decided on writing "Owner says car is too battered to worry about" on the form.
RAC man did insist on putting 'X's on the form's profile of a car to indicate the dozen or so bullet holes down the drivers side though, saying "My boss wont believe this!"
Anyway, with the car dropped off near a friends house I walked away from it and left it there for 3 weeks before returning to fit a new track control arm by the side of the road.
No 'in progress' shots of that because it was a horrible day and a horrible dirty job, but I got it done and drove her home.
Here's the TCA that failed:
A closer, but uselessly unclear pic:
The thread apprears to have ripped straight out
What do you think caused this? Is it repairable or foobar'd??
I'm not really trusting the other side now, if it had failed at any speed it could have been rather nasty!
Cheers gang
chancing your arm on the kind of stuff that might have you splutter to a halt is one thing, but stuff that can see you pirouetting off the road into a meadow when it fails is something I definately don't take a chance on.
This is is why I yogged plenty of my budget last year on a complete new/reconditioned suspension set-up, every joint, bush, arm, rod and bar from front to back is brand new/reconditioned and uprated, so I had complete peace of mind in that department.
Imagine my suprise then, at what happened when I casually tried to pull out of a junction a few miles from my house. As I was putting on a bit of lock and attempting to pull out I heard a loud 'clunk' from the front and a bit of a jolt, and lost all drive to the wheels. Game over.
I tried to roll backwards but it wouldn't budge, and as I was on a hill going forwards was out of the question.
I got out to see that the wheel had crammed itself snugly into the front wheel arch, and no amount of faffing about could encourage it to come back out.
I looked under the car and I saw what I half expected to see, the track control arm had broken in two, which had then caused the driveshaft to pop out
A brief 'boy scout' inspired repair with a washing line purchased from a nearby shop saw about an hour wasted but no progress.
Nothing else for it. Despite bieng tantalizingly close to a 'safe house' where I could stash the car in front of, since it wouldn't budge I had no choice but to call out the RAC
An hour later, the cavelry arrived.
On seeing the car he had to rescue any re-assuring friendly banter was dispensed with in favour of the familiar repetoir of rolling eyes and saying "fugging lowering kits want banning".
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for my heap, RAC man leaped into action and scrambled under the car to varify my diagnosis.
A few seconds later, a brand new RAC man emerged from under the car, one with a smiling face and a load of questions, like: "where did you get those?", "who made that?", "Isn't that a Group A crossmember?!" and finally "Why in gods name did you put all this fancy stuff on a battered 4-door?!?!".
We had found some common ground.
Getting the car onto his Hi-ab was a bit of a farce with the car bieng so low, but RAC man didn't mind anymore. The time spent dismantling bits of his Hi-ab was spent talking about his mate's old RS turbo's and stories of other interesting cars he'd picked up.
After it was loaded onto the back of his truck a form had to be filled in to assess the condition of the car prior to moving it, in case of any claims afterwards, but I waved this and we decided on writing "Owner says car is too battered to worry about" on the form.
RAC man did insist on putting 'X's on the form's profile of a car to indicate the dozen or so bullet holes down the drivers side though, saying "My boss wont believe this!"
Anyway, with the car dropped off near a friends house I walked away from it and left it there for 3 weeks before returning to fit a new track control arm by the side of the road.
No 'in progress' shots of that because it was a horrible day and a horrible dirty job, but I got it done and drove her home.
Here's the TCA that failed:
A closer, but uselessly unclear pic:
The thread apprears to have ripped straight out
What do you think caused this? Is it repairable or foobar'd??
I'm not really trusting the other side now, if it had failed at any speed it could have been rather nasty!
Cheers gang
on gear like that I would have thought...
