Projects Funny stuff that happens with old cars....

It can be be one liners like daddy comments or stories and Experiences....
Just funny stuff.

I’ll start.....

I had a 1955 2nd or Task Force Chevrolet 3100.

It was a rough old truck but it ran good.
I’ll never forget it. It was sprayed a light pastel green. It looked really ‘50s or the 1980s idea of the 1950s.
I was told that shade of green came from mixing all the light colors together. Apparently you could get a good deal on this “custom color” from the shops.
They just sprayed it.
They did not clean the pine straw out of the cowl vent. Looking through the louvers the pine straw was shiny and light green like the rest of the truck.

After I while I decided to sell......I put it in the paper.
This guy called. He seemed really enthusiastic about the 55.
I’m honest so I tell him all about the truck, even the painted pine straw in cowl vent.
Suddenly in his best Warrior Alabama he goes....

“ Awwww Hay-ell!!!
That’s my old truck. It’s a piece of sh$@!”

 

The mixing paint reminds me of a story about Volkswagen just after WW2; raw materials and supplies were very scarce for producing cars in a bombed-out factory. They saved all of the leftover paint, and when they had enough to do a batch of cars, they mixed it all together and sprayed whatever color it was.

 

Age 15 got my first car. 1964 Impala SS.
While working on it a few days later my Dad decided I was old enough for him to impart a pearl of wisdom.
"If it's got tits or wheels....you're gonna have problems"

 

And cost you money.

 

When I was 16 year old, my folks took me car shopping. We found a 51 Ford Victoria. Nice one previous owner and this was in 1960. As we were making up our minds about the car, the salesman said "you won't find a better looking car, this one is slick as a gut". That got my mother tickled and took a while to settle her down so we could buy the car.

 

I had acquired a 51 Ford 4dr, just for the frame but it had 3spd od and a few other good pieces. Scavenged every thing I could, One complete dashboard complete with heater control cables, Speedo and all else, metallic brownish in color. How does one lose a dashboard? I did. I know three things: I didn't sell it; I didn't give it away; I don't know where it is.

 

I tend to find such things about a week after I broke down and replaced them.

 

My brother in law worked at a body shop. He painted his 1960 Ford pickup with a mix of left over paint, it was sort of a root beer brown and looked pretty good for a 'free' paint job.

 

I was the youngest of 5 in our family
My dad had an old 51 4 door ford, for some reason we all went fishing, me my two sisters, my 2 brothers, their girl friends and my mom and dad. It seamed like it took an hour for all of us to get into the car when we went to leave.
My oldest brother was driving and he was the last to get, right after he closed the drivers door the right rear tire blew and went flat.
We piled out of the car and my brothers changed the tire
We all got back and this time my other brother closed the passenger front door and then his foot went through the floor board. We all just howled and you just can’t make this shit up.

 

Did you manage to go fishing?

 

LOL I love the stories.

I actually fell asleep laying on the ground under my car in snow in the middle of the winter installing a transmission. I was only 16, still living at home. Must have been burning the candle at both ends. I wasn't cold. Wearing a Carhartt, late winter with quite a bit of snow on the ground but not that cold. Got the transmission bolted in and I was hooking up the rest of it. Next thing I know, my mom's out there yelling for me. Ricky! Ricky! What's going on with you?!? Come in the house, it's time for supper! I thought I was in trouble for something. (again)
But she was probably freaking out cuz she thought I was dead under the car.

 

In high school I worked in an Autobody shop.
I saved all the leftover blue paint for a year and when we had enough we gave the painter a bottle of crown Royal to paint my brother’s car with the leftover paint.
He called that colour whiskey induced blue.

He later sold the car to two army buddies that were brothers. I asked how he could sleep at night after taking money from his friends. He said he slept fine even with a stack of cash under his pillow.

The car didn’t have a working heater and the brothers would drive home from base about 4 hours each Friday to see their girlfriends and back to base Sunday, in Canada, in the winter.
They would bundle up in all their cold weather gear and drive zipped up in their sleeping bags with a brick on the gas pedal.

One day they managed to squeeze 6 big guys in the car to go for lunch and there was so much weight the doors wouldn’t open when they got to the fast food restaurant.

The poor little car was lost when they stayed too long at the beach and tide came in and washed it away.

 

My cousin and I, born two weeks after me, were next door neighbors.
She and I were buddies 'til I moved away at age 8.
She came for a visit age 16, just after I got a '53 Ford 2dr.
Eager to go riding we jumped in the 11 year old Ford,
I drove to the end of my block and did a-U-turn, to leave the neighborhood.
Those years Ford had problems with the door latch striker plates.
As I finished the turn and mashed the go pedal her butt slid against the door.
Out she goes, dumping her to the concrete her hands back and down to save butt damage.
At the same time I slam the brakes, sending the door forward, full open,
and rebounding into her unprotected face. Whammo
P.S. Took several decades but we can laugh.

 

Something similar happened to me. My truck was parked out on the street (residential) and I was laying on the floor working under the dash, with my feet out of the open door. As I was working the cat came along and sat right on my chest. Before I knew it both the cat and I were out for an hour and a half. In this case it was a perfect day outside though…

 

I was about 20 years old in 1977 and renting an upstairs room from a man and his wife. (and their little daughter) who were very much bikers and had a lot of very much biker friends. Ironically, their names were Rick and Sandy. (mine and my wife's name) And their daughter Jennifer. A lot of their friends had names like Snake and Swamp and Bear and Gopher and Goat and Indian and Booger Bob. Rick and his buddies were a bunch of big burly guys for sure. Even some of their women could probably kick most of our asses. They nicknamed me "Youngblood". I didn't hang out with them all the time, but I certainly got to know them. I lived there for a year or so. It was a trip. I could tell you stories. I'll tell you one.

I was out in the driveway, getting ready to pull the engine out of my OT Roadrunner. 383 4spd. I had the transmission out and everything disconnected and now I needed to go get an engine hoist. I went in the house to ask Rick if I could borrow his van to go rent a cherry picker. He just happened to have half a dozen of his buddies over and they were sitting around the living room drinkin' beer smokin' doobies and shootin' the breeze. In big loud voices, they were like, "Hey... Youngblood! How's it going, Youngblood?!?" I was like, "Hey guys! Hey Rick, can I borrow your van to go get a cherry picker to pull my engine?" One of the guys piped up. "SHIT, Youngblood, you don't need no fuckin' cherry picker!" I said, "Whadda ya mean?" They all laughed in unison at my innocent question. They started telling me they'd pull it out for me. I was like, "What?" They were like "Yeah, you got a chain?" "Yeah." "You got a fence post or two?" Rick verified that we did. I was like, "You guys really wanna do this?" They were like, "YUP! And when we get done, you buy the beer!"

I'll tell you guys... I would've bought a whole keg just to see this.

So here we go, two guys on one side of the car two guys on the other side. A big heave hoe and they lifted that 383 up and set it on the radiator bulkhead for about 3 seconds, took a big breath and set it down on the ground. I'll be damned.

I went and got beer.

 

In the early '90's my Dad lived in a houseboat on the Potomac in DC, and we'd go visit a couple of times each summer.... one weekend we got tangled up in some kind of parade situation and I was getting shuttled down side streets trying to get the hell out of Dodge, every time I thought I had a way out it was the wrong way... mind you, I'm driving a '69 Olds 88.... I finally saw a hole going down an onramp nobody was on. I whipped that big Olds wrong way down the ramp and did my best Rockford turn at the bottom, smoking tires, got onto the bypass and made it out of city limits fast as possible.... the wife didn't think it was too funny but my son did

 

This one happened the first time out with my 1953 Chevy, 261 I had just put the Fentons and dual exhaust on no mufflers.
I drove it from upstate NY to a hot rod show at Ralph's Diner in Worcester Mass as I parked in a guy came up to me and said "It sounds like you still have the Stovepipe 6."

I asked "Do you mean the Stovebolt 6?"

He said "No, it's a Stovepipe 6"

I just opened the hood and walked way.

 

Many years ago, when I was in high school, a buddy of mine had a Studebaker convertible. Must have been about a '51 model. He never put the top up. Didn't matter if the sun was shinning or if it was raining or even snowing! So one day I asked why he never put the top up. "I'll show you", he said and he raised the top to see only the framework with a few tatters of the remnants of the old top. "No use putting up what isn't there."

 

I can relate the story of the flimsy door locks on shoebox Fords; my Mom fell out of the passenger door of my Dad's 51 convertible when he made a fast sharp turn, only to get her foot caught by the door when it shut! I heard this story MANY times (usually when she was mad at Dad...) and she had a fierce looking scar on her ankle from it...
She SAID her backside got a fair amount of gravel rash but I had to take THAT for granted!
She didn't like convertibles for some reason....

 

Haha, when you find your dash, you can come sleuth out my missing spare oil bath air cleaner.

 

DEAL!

 

New York if course...4 of us , 2 guys ,2 gals on the bench seat in a 4 speed El Camino on a date drive from Rockaway beach to Astoria and back ...Try getting away with that today ..

 

I was a small child about 5 or 6 at the time, I really don’t remember if I did any fishing
I just remember 9 of us jambed to that old ford like sardines
I was told to duct down if they drove past a cop, too many passengers in the car!

the good ol days no seat belts

 

funny. I bought a 51 dash years ago and have never seen it again

 

had an old truck, rotten floorboards, no e-brake and a three on the tree. hit a bump and the wad of keys fell out of the switch and dropped through the hole in the floor. I could see the keys in the rear view mirror in the middle of the road. The road had enough incline that the truck would roll, I couldn't shut it off , no e-brake so I put the nose up against a telephone pole and ran back to get my keys.

 

When I was about 18 I bought my brand new second hand RHD '64 Belair to show the lads at the bowling alley. It was a bit of an oddball, as in those days most cars here were Australian, Japanese or British. One fella said that you could probably fit a dozen dead bodies in the boot (trunk). I opened the boot, and of course about four of them climbed in, shuffled around, and lied down. "How about that!" I said, as I closed the lid, the rest of the mob jumped in, and we proceeded to fang around the back streets, while going over spoon drains, speed humps, etc.
The combined weight of 13 people made the ride great fun, especially for those inside the car. I couldn't hear the names the guys in the boot called the rest of us, after I stopped and let them out, over the laughter.

 

My wife Sandy and I went to an outdoor car show years ago in my stock '51 Chevy 2dr. Enjoyed the show, leaving now, just pulling away, 1st gear, 2nd gear, just got into 3rd gear, heading down the road, a nice smooth 6 lane thoroughfare with a median. A perfect sunny day. The boombox in the back seat for music. Sandy wanted some tunes and was turned around, her left knee on the seat, her right foot on the toe board so she could puuuuush herself far enough back to mess with the boombox. Only thing was, my right foot and the gas pedal was between the toe board and her foot. Sandy wasn't a little girl and she was pressing pretty hard. I could not move my foot. And I really wanted to so I could use the brakes. Cuz even though the old 216 made for slow acceleration, we were starting to build up some velocity. And there was a gaggle of cars not that far ahead, stopped at the red traffic lights. I said, "Sandy"... she said, "Just a second." as she concentrated on what she was doing. I said, "Sandy"... she said, "Hang on hon." I didn't yell, but a little bit louder and more assertive I said, "Sandy... get your foot off my foot." She suddenly realized and lifted her foot and spun around seeing what was happening as I slowed and stopped the car. I turned and smiled at her. She looked at me like...

And we laughed pretty good about it.

 

One night while in the Army we were offloading a ship that brought us and some equipment back from this radical little island in Puerto Rico. Now this is a big ship on a big pier sticking out into the ocean, deep as shit, the ship is up against the side of this long ass pier, nothing on the other side of the pier except ocean.
The deuce and half driver backs up to the ship waiting to get loaded, the forklift driver grabs a pallet of equipment and goes to the back of the deuce n half where we are all standing, including the DRIVER.
This particular driver had a habit of killing the truck by riding the brake and letting the clutch out, yup you guessed it. Sticks pallet on back of the truck, backs up and gives the pallet a push towards the front, that push started the truck and it takes off headed right for the deep blue sea !
The driver has bright red hair, he bolts, hat falls off looking like Woody Woodpecker, for whatever reason he is chasing on the passenger side ! He runs all the way around that damn truck stiff arming the front bumper like some Heisman Trophy winner, but yet somehow gets in the driver's door and gets it stopped about 5 feet from the edge.
We're standing there in shock and awe about almost loosing a whole deuce n half to the bottom of the ocean, try explaining that one to command ! We all would laugh over the telling of this story for years to come, always a great one to tell the newbies ha ha ha ha

 

Me and Dad, mixing a color for something. Compressor was running and he asked what I thought. "Looks pink!" I said loudly and the air burst from saying pink sorta blew into his ear and he jumped, spilled a little. For the rest of his life "pink" was said with extra emphasis from that moment.

Another time, we whipped up a woodgrain base color. "Hey son, check it out..." It resembled a cantaloupe, so I sang, "Come to me my melon colored baaaa-beee..." which was another one that stuck for life. Was actually a great woodgrain base color.