Technical What was the first thing that broke on your "finished" ride?

Does a loose nut behind the steering wheel count?

 

It wasn’t anywhere near finished, but after a serious round of updates on my BBC powered ‘33 Ford 5W coupe I took it to Lions. I mounted the new M&H slicks, pulled off the mufflers and headed to the staging lanes. At the green I let go of the clutch and BANG. My newly installed 4:11 posi Corvette rear end was pointing at the headliner. I mounted the center on a pair of round tube crossmembers that did not have sufficient wall thickness. The front one buckled and the brackets tried to peel off of the rear one. I had seriously underestimated the loads that the center section would produce with the slicks and more gear. My old buddy Mike Hubbard came to the rescue with his tow truck.

 

On a cruise one night I pulled up at the lights amongst about 30 Harleys. One of them sounded "off", but when they pulled away. I could hear that the "off sounding" Harley noise was actually my engine. When I pulled over I could see coolant pissing out under the radiator. The pulley on the waterpump had cracked around the mounting bolts, so the pulley got wobbly and chewed a nice big hole in the radiator. I had to get it towed home, and while I was waiting for the truck, I got busy and fitted a gizmo that I made which is mounted to the front end and drops a handy "tow point " about 5" lower than the front end. It is the only way to pull it up onto the truck without damaging the grille shell. I had made it and stashed it in the trunk, hoping it would never be used, but it worked as intended.

 

Engine...400 sbc doesnt like to sing over 5000 rpm....

 

OH! So many...Which finished car?
The 1st "fast" off topic car I built, broke the crankshaft after a night of "street racing". The motor was probably in the car about 2 months. It was fun, but the next motor was better and even more fun. That car created a very long list of broken parts. I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with how I drove it. LOL!
The coupe in my Avtar had a small fire under the hood about 3 weeks after that picture was taken! I was back home, we went to a cruise night. I cranked the wheels pretty tight getting out of a parking spot as we were leaving, the left front tire rubbed against the inner fender a bit (it had done that before, no problem) but that night the positive battery cable shorted out! Apparently, every time that tire rubbed the inner fender, it was squeezing the battery cable between the inner fender and a battery box brace. That night it finally broke through the cable's insolation and shorted out against the battery box brace. I turned the car off when we noticed the smoke, but it kept burning. The small fire burned through the hood release cable. I had to climb under the front of the car to get the hood open. While I was climbing under it, the starter started cranking, the manual trans was in gear (the car was on a slight hill), so the car started to move. Just as the left front tire was starting to squeeze my left leg between the street and the tire, someone pulled my legs free, and I managed to get the hood open, disconnect the negative cable, and put the fire out with the fire extinguisher I had in the car. There were probably 100 people around to witness the escapade. The fire crisped the positive battery cable and a couple other wires, it also melted a hole in the battery, and of course burned the hood release cable in to two pieces. I had to call to get the car towed the 5 or 6 blocks back home. The tow company had a roll back in the area so they picked me up pretty quickly (probably helped that I did a lot of business with them). I rode home with the tow truck while the car on the roll back. There were some bystanders that cheered as the car with the number on the side, that had caught on fire, was hauled past them on the roll back, near where they were standing. I got a good laugh out of that, despite the pain in my leg. The simple fact that it happened 6 blocks from home when 3 weeks before it was 1600 miles from home, was really a blessing. When the cable got replaced, it was re-routed. The car had been on the road for 5 years, and had logged around 50,000 miles. It was the only time the car did not get us home.

 

Traction!

 

Mine on the Ford was a close call on the maiden voyage of 40 or so miles. Shortly into the journey, I discovered that the 3-4 shift plate was likely installed upside down. No biggie, it went 1st, 2nd and then 4th.

The next day I put a jack under it to see what was what. As the LR wheel left the ground I saw it move. All 5 lugs were LOOSE. It could have been real bad. No explanation why.. the wheel and studs were all good. I did go around and torque them all after that.

 

Just the roof.

 

RPU: radiator mount, self fabricated. Hit a massive pothole. Happy that was the only thing that failed. Maybe 2000 miles of driving.

Also had an early failure on the cheap speedway battery disconnect. They’re crap.

 

The original pedals in my 40 sedan build seemed tight so I didn't re-bush them. I painted them and installed them in the car. Hit them with the grease gun right before the first drive and the new grease pushed out all the ancient rock-hard grease that was apparently keeping slop out of the pedals. The clutch pedal was so sloppy it probably had an inch of side to side travel. I was so pissed! What a rookie mistake.

And, I ran the exhaust right by it so I'd have to cut the exhaust to get it out to fix it! So what to do? I sold the car... haha

 

Back in the late 80’s, when I got my roadster on the road, I made the “break-in or break-down” run from Memphis to Frog Follies in Evansville. Half way there I lost the long hold down bolt for the Hurst style motor mount to frame bracket. Fortunately the biscuit stayed in place and I had a couple of giant tie wraps that held it together for the rest of the trip.
On the way home the “trick” braided throttle cable pulled loose from its billet end and I made it home with a piece of cord run from the carb, through the windshield and hand operated for the last 20 or so miles.

 

What happened? HRP

 

I think I didn't pull the headliner tight enough.

And a tree fell on it in the driveway. Crushed the cowl, so I think a roof swap is out. I picked up a new body, but the wind is still sucked out of my sails.

 

1951 ford F1 with 350 chevy and a toploader. Short pipes no mufflers yet. So not exactly “finnished”. Had a few short drives and all seemed good. Took it for a run down the hwy and it was sweet until I went to down shift and it sounded like rocks in a grinder. Lesson 1 check the oil in the trans. I got the toploader at a swapmeet and it seemed ok. I never opened it up but I did add some oil after I had installed it. Problem was I did not drain the water out first. That thing looked nasty inside. Chunks of rusty parts.

 

My Right Foot !

 

When I built the last car (glass 27 T Roadster) I disassembled the engine that came with it (garden variety SBC), new rings, bearings (.001 over std) and a new flat tappet cam/lifters, the same as what I had used successfully in the 53 Stude. It fired up and ran great, we drove it just a little sorting it out but then a lifter started making noise, after the second lift started tapping I was pretty sure I had a flat cam even though I followed the startup procedure just like the 53 Stude. They warrantied the cam but I upgraded to a roller (which was what I should have done and put in new bearings after cleaning the engine well and adding a new oil pump. Put it together and it's great, then the temp gauge went to non operative status...so a new SW temp gauge.
On Thanksgiving I was giving rides to the kids and ran out of gas...then the darn thing didn't want to run at all Just got through going through the carburetor and today (60 degrees here in SW Iowa for a few minutes) and it's running the best it ever has. And now it's winter

 

A front wheel bearing, I finished my 40 Willys coupe a week before I went to the Spec Pond RR in MA put on by the MSRA (I think) it was about 1973. I designed the front disk brakes and had them on and off a dozen times. On the way home to LI the car started pulling to the left on I-95 I pulled over, jacked up the front end and discovered the bearing was toast. I neglected to pack it full of grease after working on it all that time. Lesson learned.

Pat

 

1940 Ford sedan delivery 327 powered
(what is missing?)

Hello,


We spent a lot of time searching for a necessary hot rod project. We knew what we wanted in a finished daily driver. Something to show case our involvement in hot rods, motorcycles and the photography business. What we really wanted was a station wagon, but at the time, our parents had a station wagon and not… “young people.” Ha!

We originally wanted a magnetic sign, that we could put on or take off at any time. The sedan delivery was our daily driver, but the sign painted on the side would be a little too much. So, we were at a cross roads. Yes, the sign for more advertising business, but no, due to us wanting to be left alone… yikes! The magnetic sign was for tax purposes, but the tax prep person said the law mentioned a permanent painted on sign to get credits.

So, we drove it as is, a fine running, very cool due to A/C and nice power on the highways.
different experimental film, not Kodak Ektachrome 35mm slides.

Frequent trips to our mom’s house up the coast of So Cal were our timely weekend drives.

Jnaki

But, the one thing was that with our 20 something attitude, we were usually slow and methodical about just, everything. Specific, is more like it. So, our sedan delivery had to be clean and polished whenever we drove it anywhere. Photo shoots, road trips up/down the So Cal coastlines, friend’s houses and of course, shopping when the necessity arrived.

We approached each thing with the usual caution and preparedness. But, as we all know, being in a hurry does things that usually do not happen in more “normal” times. I had spent the early morning washing and cleaning our sedan delivery so we would arrive at our mom’s house in our cool (A/C) hot rod.

Our mom never actually got over my Flathead sedan delivery during our teenage years and it was the space inside that was questionable. Two bucket seats were for two people. Which was fine for us as a couple. But what about a third wheel?

I was just finishing the final prep work and knew the coastal drive up to our mom’s house would take about an hour + depending on traffic. So, as the old saying goes: “Time was of the essence…” that just made me move faster to finish and get on the road.

What happened in the next few minutes will stay with me until doomsday. Usually during these times we were low key, living a simple life, our whole story could easily be one of a slow way to enjoy being alone as a couple, could go anywhere we wanted, do anything we planned and enjoy the So Cal casual lifestyle on the beach. But, this one moment happened and it was the most unusual thing.


Note: I raised the hood to get the last of the moisture off of the motor compartment. The hood louvers had allowed some to drip inside and get things wet during the last detailing round. So, I grabbed the hood latch as I did a million times and lifted it normally. All of a sudden, the hood raised half way to the high point, snapped and the hood came crashing down, instantly.

The latch handle snapped off and now the hood was shut, but not accessible to lift. So, as the time was ticking away, I grabbed a vise grip plier and was able to lift it up to finish. Then as we drove to our mom’s Long Beach house, the broken latch was holding the hood securely closed.

Note 2: Luckily, about a few blocks away from our old Westside of Long Beach house, a great store was on the corner of the streets, just after we turned into the neighborhood. The Ford Parts Obsolete Store was a treasure trove of great stuff. So, of course, we got a NOS replacement for the broken hood latch.

Lessons learned… it is not worth the hectic problems of being in a hurry as all things require planning and time... to get things right. YRMV

 

Another, my 1st HAMB friendly car was a 35 Dodge 2 door sedan. I bought it as a pile of rust with a good title, so it was an on, off and back on build thing.
When I opened my welding shop, I started work there during the evenings, after my real day job. My Supervisor at the real job knew what I was doing, he even altered my work hours so I could get to the shop at a better starting time. I took the 35, which was little more then a rolling chassis with the body shell attached, to the shop so I had something to occupy my time while I was waiting for customers to walk in. The building I was working out of was a 30 x 40 building with a 24' wide industrial garage door, and I was working evenings. The open garage door faced the drive in entrance to the local UPS store. I opened my shop in July. Me working on that old sedan in that lighted shop seemed like a magnet to attract guys that were curious to see who was building that car, and what it was.
I was picking up work, and was gaining a lot of ground on my 35. It was to the point there were some guys that would show up once a week to check on the 35's progress, and progress was being made every week.
One night I was looking through my Street Rodder mag when I ran across the ad for the Back To The 50s in MN. It was in June the next year, but at the rate the car was progressing, my wife and I both thought it would be surely done by then, and it sounded like a lot of fun. We signed up and registered the car that did not yet even run, had no glass, wiring, or brakes. In hind sight, it was pretty bold move. When I had welding work to do, the car got slid over into the 3rd stall. About mid September, my shop got busy, time on the 35 nearly stopped. By the end of the year, I had to take the 35 home, I needed the space for customer cars. Mind you I was still working a full time 8 hour a day job with 2 hours commute time, on top of the work at the shop that was now nearing 6 hours a day. I was going nonstop nearly 18 hours a day, but it was OK because the real job was super busy as well. That was about to change.
At the real job, their slow time is Jan and Feb, and it got really slow then. Pushing a broom over the same clean floor for 8 hours a day, hurry back to my shop and bust my butt for 6-8 more hours. That 4 hours of sleep a night was catching up with me. I was scheduling work at the shop nearly a month in advance.
My wife and I came to the conclusion in early Jan I needed to quit my real job and do the welding shop full time. My Supervisor at the real job was very nice about the entire deal. He left me go with his blessings, and told me that if it didn't work out, and I closed my shop, I could come back without any issues.
Full time at my shop (with still working the evening hours) got me caught up by about mid March. About that time, I got the info about the Back To The 50s car show we had the 35 entered into. Back To the 50s was going to be a 400 mile one way test drive. I hadn't even looked at the 35 since mid Sept. The now free evenings was devoted to getting the 35 together. We made a plan. I would do shop work during the day, when my wife got off work, she would pick our 9 yo son up when he got off the School Bus, and the two of them would bring supper to the shop, then hang around and "help" on the car until he had to go home and go to bed. I would be home around 10:30 pm.
We were making progress on the 35 again, I found things my wife could help with, and our son was really into it, so he actually was helping as well. Another strange thing happened, some of those guys that were checking on the the 35s progress when I first open were showing up at least one night a week and helping me out! Good thing, time was running out fast! Exactly 1 month from the show date, the car 1st moved under its own power, that was back out of the garage, turn around, and back back into the garage. 2 weeks before the car went to the glass shop and the new guy there cut and installed his 1st windshield and rear glass, there was no rear quarter glass, nor any door glass. Those last two weeks turned into really long hours on the 35, shop work was put off a bit, but most customers were as involved with the project as I was, or at least knew what was going on. Most of those long hours were on the 35 those last couple of weeks.
We were planning on leaving for MN on Thursday morning. Wednesday morning was the 1st time I actually drove the car any distance, and that was only about a 1/4 mile round trip. One of our local fast food stores has a cruise in that Wed evening. The plan was to drive the car home (about 10 miles) then drive the car back to the shop and check everything, hit the cruise night, then go home and pack up. Our son was staying with friends.

Things were working out OK until I got about 1/2 way home. I was just leaving a traffic light when the top of the radiator split wide open! The car had no hood, I watched the top tank split until the windshield was covered with antifreeze, and remains of a mouse nest! It was probably the first time the car ever reached operating temp. Fortunately, my wife was following me. I pulled the car to the side of the street and parked it, joined her in her car, and we went to my house to pick out another radiator from my pile of parts. Then she ran me back to the car and I changed the radiator right there along the side of the street. I had brought water along with me from home. With the radiator changed, we went directly to the fast food cruise in. The car was a huge hit in some primer, some new metal, and mostly rusty metal. We left there and I drove the 35 back to the shop, checked a few things, then drove it home. That radiator didn't have a mouse nest in it! We loaded the car the next morning and headed to MN. We made it a few miles when the power steering started spitting PS fluid back on the windshield. We stopped and got a large bottle of PS fluid, and cleaned the windshield. We had to stop and refill and reclean the windshield 2 more times before we got to the Interstate, then it just quit spitting the PS fluid out. I had to assume it must have had some moister or something in it causing to to spit out, once it stopped spitting, we never had that problem again. I drove until we got to the interstate then handed the keys to my wife, gave her instructions on how to drive the car and crawled into the passenger seat and fell a sleep.
There is more to this story, the adventure was not complete. I'll pick it back up tomorrow night, or Sunday night.

 

The emergency brake wouldn't hold the car. I adjusted the cables and it made no difference and assumed that it as a poor design and let it go. Later upon pulling out the transmission for an update, noticed that the coupler from the brake lever to the two cables wasn't screwed in.

 

'39 trans locked up!

 

I had my Model A all together and had made some short trips. We set out to drive to the WAAAM car show in Hood River, OR, about a two hour drive. I just got into Portland and the car seemed to be making more engine noise. I went around a corner and it sounded like open headers. Stopped to check and one exhaust pipe had seperated from the headers. The bolts were still there, but all the nuts were gone. I don't know which of my helpers put that together (but I shortly realized I don't have any helpers). Eased it back home.

 

On my '39 it was the new Stewart Warner speedometers odometer, stopped at 200 miles.

 

Early 90's I put together a big block/muncie/4.10 Nova
I tore the rear upper shock mounts out of the body within an hour. . . . .
And in the 57 the pumpkin exploded first on a 1-2 shift.
Do I see a pattern here?

 

Nothing, mainly due to the fact I never finished anything

 

The left rear motor mount in the '56 after the first hole shot. Found what I thought was a decent quality replacement and through bolted through the rubber with two 3/8" bolt's. If that doesn't last, I have one that has been stripped of all rubber, boxed and welded back together. But that's the last resort!

 

So picking up on my story of my 35 Dodge's first road trip.

Need to back up just a bit. In the rush to get the car drivable, I bought a mid 80s Chrysler 5th Ave (this was in 94) that was a fairly low mile donor the was rusted nearly in 1/2 but ran great. Something from the 5th Ave just didn't work on the 35 (like the radiator, the one out of the 5th Ave was 4" too wide). One of my helpers donated a speedometer, a nice 160 mph one. The trans came out of a car with 2:76 gears, but the 35 had 3:55 gears. The speedo wasn't very accurate, but I didn't know that until my trip home the night before we were leaving for MN. I came to the conclusion that when the speedo said I was driving 100 mph, it was really 70ish, or so... We also discovered as were were heading towards the Interstate that if I drove much faster the the speedo reading 100 mph, the motor was pushing oil out of someplace, and of course, it was landing on the passenger side windshield. We really had no idea if the gas gauge was close, or what kind of mph the car was getting, or even if I was getting the gas tank full. The interstate was around 70 miles from home. Those first 70 miles was interesting, and I was dead tired! We filled up the car just before we hit the interstate and just before we changed drivers.

The instructions to my wife were pretty simple. Don't drive faster then then when the speedo says you are doing 100 mph, and wake me up in 2 hours, or if anything doesn't feel right. Stay on this road until you wake me up, or you get to this point. I was probably sleeping before we hit the Interstate.
I woke up about an hour and a half later. I couldn't see through the oil cover passenger side windshield. I looked over at my wife and she is motoring along like a race car driver, looking straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel. I'm running things through my head for those few minutes after you wake up and I noticed that she is passing everyone on the Interstate. I stretched my neck out to see the speedo needle in the 135-140 mph range. Guess that explains the oil on the windshield. Now I'm wondering how much oil we have lost, and then I'm wondering how much gas we have left. I am relieved to see the oil pressure gauge is reading somewhere around 60psi.

I suggest maybe we should stop at the next gas station, which was only a couple miles up the road, which we did.

The motor was only down a quart and a half (6 quart pan), and we still had like 3 gallons of gas left...

The entire right side of the motor was covered with oil, but it looked like it was blowing the oil out of the oil breather, after I mopped most of the quart and a half off the motor, firewall, windshield and about 1/2 the car. Gassed up, oil full, something to eat and drink, and I thought we were ready to hit the road again. I was sort of looking forward to seeing how the car actually drove, according to my wife, it was great.
As soon as I pulled away from the gas pump, I knew something wasn't quite right, so I quickly pulled into a parking spot and took a look under the rear end. I could see daylight between the rear axle and the leaf springs, on both sides! Good thing I packed tools. I had to tighten all 4 U bolts the held the rear end in place. Since they never loosened up again after that, I have to assume they never got tightened in the 1st place. Oops! Of course now I get to worry about what else may not have gotten tightened, in addition to the oil problem, and that strange power steering thing earlier. Fortunately, Driving under the speedo reading of 100 mph improved the oil consumption and improved mpg. Nothing else was loose either. The oil issue turned out to be a plugged breather for the oil, it kept building up pressure in the crankcase.

It was a pretty neat weekend, until it started to rain. I did screw a couple pieces of plastic over the quarter windows before we left for MN, but there was no glass in the doors. We covered the tops of the doors with garbage bags while the car was parked, but it did get a bit damp while we were driving around though.
We had a new list of "improvements" we had to make every week for a while, but by the end of that 1st summer, the car turned out to be a very reliable and was great fun for me, my wife, and our son. The first 5 summers put an average of 10,000 miles a year on it. I replaced the 35 with a 54 Dodge pickup and sold the sedan a couple year later. We put just over 77,000 miles on the old ride.
Still have a before and after pic of the 35.

 

Pride

 

Broke the right axle when I went racing at the strip. Still drove home as the Detroit Locker didn't care, little hairy having to correct steering if you accelerated too hard, made it home ok. Next week I broke the left, same difference [fun] as the right.

 

Latest 32. Aldan coilovers lost their gas and most of the fluid on the maiden voyage to the ROC.