Rob M
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,915
Club RR Member Number: 41
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Car Stories You Were Told. Rob M
@zeb
Club Retro Rides Member 41
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Jul 31, 2021 19:01:26 GMT
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Apologies for the awful title, couldn't think of anything snappier.
Well, this thread may die on its a**e or it may thrive, we shall see.
My story is from 1991. I went to a house to do some work and, as you do, I got talking to the lady who lived there.
For some reason, and I cannot remember why, we got on to the subject of cars.
I told her that they were my passion and then she replied with a bit of a corker.
'Oh, my brother is part of the team working on the engine for the new Escort Cosworth'.
My eyes lit up.
'Yes, and the team working on the engine are having rows with the team that has designed the body'.
'Under testing, the testers are screaming that they need more power, the engine isn't powerful enough!
'The team working with the engine are saying that it's got plenty of power, the problem lies with the team who designed the body, all that down force is killing performance!
'The body designers are adamant that the issue is not theirs, it's an engine issue, the engine needs to be more powerful.
In one conversation I got a glimpse of the infighting and 'defence of position' from departments that wanted to lay the blame for issues at the door of others.
Obviously, whatever got resolved, got resolved, the car came into the world with shattering performance and killer looks.
I always did wonder who ended up compromising.
Did they give it more power? Did they roll back on the aerodynamics?
We will never know.
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This is a story my Dad was told by his Dad when he was a little boy. My Grandad at one time worked for a car company in the 1930s whose vehicles could do 100mph. (sadly I do not recall which make of car this was). On more than one occasion, a customer who had bought said vehicle came in, claiming it would not do 100mph and demanding why not. What my Grandad would do is to calmly ask if they wouldn't mind sitting with him on a test drive and they would take the car out. Grandad was not known for his patience, and he would proceed to take the car to that speed with no trouble at all whilst the terrified passenger cowered in their seat beside him. "Nothing wrong with this car", Grandad would explain. "You just don't have the bottle!" It's a lovely story - I have no reason to doubt it, but sadly the details are missing. Must have been a bit frightening at the time doing 100mph on 1930s roads!!  |
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I used to live near an army supplies depot .
Story had it that back in the late 70s early 80s when the mod was using the mini as fleet cars etc that more than one mini was made up of from parts that they ordered and were subsequently driven out of the main gate
I know for sure that at some point after that when my old man was serving on another base that the motor pool threw all of the generic tools for working on the mini in the slip!
My old man rescued them , he had at one point a genuine bl rear beam reaming tool , hydrolastic pump , set of skeleton keys that would open most bl cars of the time and a massive box of ball joint washers
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gte86
Part of things
Posts: 611 
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A friends dad used to work at Tickford back in the good old days. He was involved in all the legendary Ford projects.
He was give the job one day of driving the RS500 Prototype to Germany to Bosch HQ for mapping. He remembers having the car easily off the clock and this was an early example that hadn't been reigned back for the public.
I can only imagine the smile he must of had
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I knew an old timer who was into Peugeot 403's in the good old days before there were speedlimits. He'd de-siamese the cylinderhead, double Webers, etc. One of his claims to fame was that he could run the speedometer out of the scale with one more gear to go. And he found out the aerodynamic effect of a sunroof ( cost a lot of top speed) He also had a couple of spectacular engine failures, one of which actually split the block and a chunk that was broke off was dragging under the car by the choke cable. Here is a pic of a random 403.  |
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Sorry for the vagueness, but I was told by an old vauxhall hand about a large saloon made by vauxhall, can't remember which one, with chronic brake pull
On getting it on the ramp and removing the front wheels, it had a disc brake on one side and a drum on the other.....
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Car Stories You Were Told. Mercdan68
@forddan68
Club Retro Rides Member 68
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Sorry for the vagueness, but I was told by an old vauxhall hand about a large saloon made by vauxhall, can't remember which one, with chronic brake pull On getting it on the ramp and removing the front wheels, it had a disc brake on one side and a drum on the other..... I’ve heard that same story…..but it was a Morris marina😁 |
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Fraud owners club member
1999 Jaguar s type
1993 ford escort
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Sorry for the vagueness, but I was told by an old vauxhall hand about a large saloon made by vauxhall, can't remember which one, with chronic brake pull On getting it on the ramp and removing the front wheels, it had a disc brake on one side and a drum on the other..... I’ve heard that same story…..but it was a Morris marina😁 It was a Marina and I personally found it. Around 74, there was a recall on Marinas for duff wheel bearings. This particular car, a 1300, had to be recovered from Hayes to North Harrow because the bearing had actually failed (on the drum side) to the point that the wheel was hanging off and actually fell off when I winched it clear of the ground on the old Harvey Frost. So I dragged it back to Stewart and Arden and got a couple of drum bearings from the stores, only to find, once i'd done the duff drum bearing, that there was a disc and caliper on the other side! Having said that, I make no claim to exclusivity, there may well have been others! I also saw an early mkIII Cortina 1300 delivered new to Norman Reeves, the main Ford dealer in Uxbridge with an engine that was completely devoid of pistons! Steve |
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Last Edit: Aug 2, 2021 21:51:06 GMT by Rich: Fixed quote, type outside of the quote script.
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Sorry for the vagueness, but I was told by an old vauxhall hand about a large saloon made by vauxhall, can't remember which one, with chronic brake pull On getting it on the ramp and removing the front wheels, it had a disc brake on one side and a drum on the other..... I’ve heard that same story…..but it was a Morris marina😁 Which makes me wonder if it's actually an urban myth? Edit- just read carledo's post, maybe not! |
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Rich
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,234
Club RR Member Number: 160
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Car Stories You Were Told. Rich
@foxmcintyre
Club Retro Rides Member 160
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I’ve heard that same story…..but it was a Morris marina😁 Which makes me wonder if it's actually an urban myth? Edit- just read carledo's post, maybe not! Probably not an urban myth at all. If parts are not available on the production line for the car specifications they are building they will stick the next available part on to keep the line moving and it should be picked up at dealer level on PDI. Can you imagine shutting down an entire production plant because the NS RHD headlamp bin is empty? 😆 I’ve heard stories of mixed solid and vented discs, left hand drive headlamps, all sorts. It does happen and there is a reason. |
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Theres a reason all right richIt's the reason we don't have a car industry any more 🙁 Anyhoo we're getting away from the point of this thread One I was told years ago about the most expensive insurance claim, be out of date now though An American in a Ford pickup broke down on a level crossing Whilst he was away looking for help, a freight train hit the pickup Most of the trucks derailed and fell into a parallel canal, where they destroyed several barges 1/3 of a mile of canal had to be drained while six cranes got to work clearing up the mess The cost was well into millions of dollars The driver lost his NCB |
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Two from my dad many years ago that stick with are both Allegro based. The being that the car was more aerodynamic in reverse which does seem obvious the second being that if it was jacked up wrong the rear windscreen would fall out. Maybe bmcnut can shed some light on the second one, like I said the first does seem obvious given the shape of the car. |
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Two from my dad many years ago that stick with are both Allegro based. The being that the car was more aerodynamic in reverse which does seem obvious the second being that if it was jacked up wrong the rear windscreen would fall out. Maybe bmcnut can shed some light on the second one, like I said the first does seem obvious given the shape of the car. I don't think there's any doubt that allegros are faster in reverse lol, and I've heard about rear screens popping out when they are jacked up due to body flex. Keeping it bl I've also heard that marinas were known to leave the factory with a drum brake one side and disc brake tother side. And series 2 maxis were rusty before they were built due to the bodyshells being stored outside for extended periods before they were assembled. |
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On the windscreen thing, a mate of a mate had one of the first Sierra 4x4's
When driving, err, spiritedly, it would crack the front screen vertically through the mirror mount. It went through 3 screens in about 6 months, until he px'ed it in
Seems the early shells weren't up to the mechanicals, and used to flex excessively
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I was told a few good ones by a former employer who had worked at Dagenham in the late 90's.
There was a complaint made by an elderly gentleman who had bought a new fiesta the previous year from his local dealership, the salesman who was leaving had sold him a 3 door despite the gentleman specifically wanting a 5 door so as a compromise. Being a salesman with nothing to lose hoe told the gentleman that he could have the 3 door today and he can have the other 2 doors fitted next year when he takes is back for it's first service.
Needless to say when the gent asked the serivce department how long it would take to get his rear doors fitted he got some funny looks!
The other one and possibly more disturbing was when the mk3/4 was being made they were passed through a dip to apply a rust preventing coating (I'm assuming some sort of galv). The problem was that after a few years these cars were rotting out, after some head scratching they found out they had't turned the thing on so the shells were being sent through the dip but because the anodes weren't given power the galv wouldn't adere to the shells!
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1966 Ford Cortina GT
2018 Ford Fiesta ST
Full time engineer, part time waffler on Youtube - see Jim_Builds
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I worked in Mitsubishi auto plant in Normal, Illinois. Lots of stories to tell!
We had a lot of techs from Japan rotate through for some weeks of experiencing life in these United States. We would get shipments of sea containers filled with goodies from home for these workers. Food and such. As we were declared an "international trade zone", things could go to and come from Japan without customs.
We watched one day in 1998 as a Mitsubishi f24 (Gallant) station wagon with V-6 and manual trans was unloaded direct from Japan.
On another occasion, Final Inspection turned a sharp corner and smeared the rear quarter panel against a bollard protecting some odd machine. A tech used a Japanese/English dictionary to identify the damage as a "smudge".
And, one more, a group of techs wanted to know how well a Honda car was welded compared to what our robots did. So, there appeared out of nowhere a Honda Civic (Later found out that they went out and rented it from Avis at the airport) and proceeded to dismantle the vehicle - counting the welds. However, when rummaging around the center console, it supposedly got turned upside down and the computer thought the thing had rolled over and deployed the air bags....don't know what came of that...
John
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Last Edit: Aug 10, 2021 2:08:15 GMT by Deleted
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norm75
Part of things
Posts: 658
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Aug 10, 2021 11:44:00 GMT
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On the windscreen thing, a mate of a mate had one of the first Sierra 4x4's When driving, err, spiritedly, it would crack the front screen vertically through the mirror mount. It went through 3 screens in about 6 months, until he px'ed it in Seems the early shells weren't up to the mechanicals, and used to flex excessively I had one, didn’t split the screen but split the bell housing. Went over a ‘yump’ in the road and the resulting landing had the car bottom out on the tarmac. |
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OGDB
Part of things
Posts: 544
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Aug 10, 2021 12:33:17 GMT
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Sorry for the vagueness, but I was told by an old vauxhall hand about a large saloon made by vauxhall, can't remember which one, with chronic brake pull On getting it on the ramp and removing the front wheels, it had a disc brake on one side and a drum on the other..... I’ve heard that same story…..but it was a Morris marina😁 Likewise, however from the Leyland plant. However I must say, I don’t doubt it! |
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,829
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Car Stories You Were Told. stealthstylz
@stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member 174
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Aug 10, 2021 14:11:08 GMT
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See loads of stuff that has been "missed" during assembly. This is my favourite, the Roberts forgot to put a circlip on one side of the gudgeon pin. Managed 110,000 miles before the belt snapped and I found it though, gave me a mild poo in pants moment when I stuck the honer in and it all jammed up and made all the loud electric buzzing noises.  |
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