Whats the scariest thing youve seen on a rod?

I remember a post on that car when the guy was building it. I think he was asking for advice. Apparently he didn't take any of it. Looks like the rear has clamped on track arms with the same trailer ball attachment in the front too.

 

I can't really see any point in actually going through with it.

It wasn't "cheap", or easy. Probably won't work too well, and is dangerous. Its unique...yeah...but in an useless way.

Actually wouldn't be too bad if the rear end was attached decently and it just had a straight axle up front.

 

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

 

call me crazy, but I wanna see more

 

this RAt~Rod my be scary to you but is cool to me and it must be a blast to drive . and as far as the hitch being opposite, in retrospect they are not this RAT is 4wd and the loud on the hitch would be correct.

 

looks like he would at least put a safety pin in the hitch to keep it from coming undone! Must have built it for his mother-in-law!

 

Having had a trailer ball break, I call this scary, as should anyone with half a brain. There is a reason the factories do not use such commonly available components.

The load will be cyclical, and far greater than a trailer. Plus there is no way to tell if he used 2" or 1 7/8" balls. Neither can we tell what those balls are rated at, there ARE lower rated hitch balls, these can AND DO break.

And, finally, whatever the hell is wrong with building a SAFE car?? Why the urge to build an UNSAFE car???

Cosmo

 

I think a big part of trailer hitch engineering is the fact that there is tongue weight. I have to think that there wouldn't be much tongue weight on those hitches as used for suspension pivots.

I don't know if I'd be worried as much about stregnth as I'd be concerned with the "accuracy" of locating suspension components with such sloppily fitting parts. And what changes as you drive down the road? Caster, wheelbase, etc...

 

that must squeek like a bugger, needs greese fitting on top on the hitches, i`d love to take it for a run up the mountain behind my house.

 

Look at it this way. If you break down all you have to do is unbolt the arm from the axle, turn it the other way and bolt it fast again. Then just back your truck up and hook it to the hitch and your on your way home.

 

Trailer hitch ball - with the load from the top AND GOING DOWN - fine - but when you touch the fn brake pedal the loads reverse - so it will be pulling up - with nothing but a clasp to hold it -

What is the ball welded to ...? how is it tied into the chassis..?

Sweet.

 

I feel dumber for having followed that link.

 

Good point !! They have yearly inspections of motor vehicles in New York State.

 

Was the elcaminao Blue?

Just wondering!

 

Btt

 

"Btt"

Why would you bump this thread?

 

Its scary.

 

A guy driving a low budget T-bucket using a pair of Vice Grips for a steering wheel.

 

I was working on the Motor Show In Melbourne about 10-12 years ago .When the HArley Davidson F150 was new.The first 1 here in OZ ,it was only half way through the conversion ,and thats how it drove in of the transporter.turn the wheel & the wheels went the other way.The bloke driving it said they were waiting for parts.

Back onto the subject at hand. A mate asked me to help him wire up his 52 CHEV pick up.He was making it hard for me everystep of the way.Half way through it I spit the dummy.And tell himto finish it himself.Come home from work the next day,his nearly finished.But he runs power for the fuel pump across the patrol tank.That was it .Even bigger dummy spit & I kicked him out.
He put a SBC in it & didnt want to cut anything for the waterpump to fit.The front end was the dodgeyiest thing.I never saw it drive.But I heard from friends he had it moving.But nobody dared to look.Were booth roadies & deal with electricity all day with different voltages & hundres of different lines.So when he told me he was confused by the elec,I had to laugh.
His now moved up north to Queensland & bothering somebody else

 

A few I've seen -

'50s era stock car '37 Ford. Roll cage of 1" tubing, looks like it's water pipe. Neat welds but damn, I wouldn't want to get nailed while driving it.

Another old stock car a buddy has that was raced not that long ago - I remember seeing the car run the mile track at the NYS Fairgrounds - it's center steer with a section of the shaft turned at like a 45' angle with two U-joints on the ends of it. A real bitch to steer the damned thing even with no motor in the car, can't imagine what would happen if someone spun in front of you during a race.

A '57 Chevy stock car he has has a cage made of what looks like iron water pipe that's not as wide as the body and is all ugly booger welds, too. Car looks like it might be a 210 2dr hardtop though, so it makes a lot of restorers cry.

'72 Pontiac beater car, frame had rotted before I got it. I drove it about six-eight months with a 455 with the rear frame rails patched up with 1/4 plate with ugly booger welds the entire length from the rear axle to the bumper brackets - eventually the frame rotted all the way to the top and the rear bumper sagged down like 6 inches. Fortunately just a 2-bbl motor, so I couldn't hammer it and rip the rearend right out of it. I replaced it about a month after the frame split with another '72 Pontiac.

'84 Buick beater car, given away free as a deathtrap because the brakes didn't work. Well, yeah, if you run a parts store line diagonally across under the car that has standard fittings, running into metric fittings and nothing to hold it up, the car doesn't stop very well. When I fixed it, I ran the lines where they were supposed to go, but used ready-made sections from the parts store - so I ended up with a gap about 6" and a piece of line like 12" which I used a bender to form a loop in so it would be the right length. Car lasted about a year that way, no problems..... Well, I ran one of the rotors so long when I took it off it had worn through into the fins and it kept leaking fluid because the caliper piston was out too far, but they were cheap to replace. It was a free car and it sort of became an experiment to see how little money I could spend on it before it died. I only parked it because I replaced it with something else, though, it still ran right up to the day I pulled parts off to junk it.


When I was a teen we used to take my parent's '84 Buick Electra and tow stuff using one of those U-haul clamp-on bar hitches on the bumper. Once even a 3/4 ton 4x4 plow truck. For those not familiar, these are the cars that had an inner bumper piece made of aluminum, that often has corroded and fallen apart and the entire bumper falls off the car. I even had a '79 Buick that happened to, about the same time. Sometimes I wonder how I lived this long.

 

Recently I've seen a car with 2 inch long standoffs between the tie rod ends and the steering arms.

Also, I know a guy that has a chain blower drive!

 

I saw one of these at the nats in Louisville in a car that was channeled to death. The builder had taken the effort to put a floor in under it but not a tunnel over it. Wow, I don't take pictures of cars I don't like but I do wish I had a photo to contribute to this thread. I read this thread when it was new and got a pretty good laugh then.

 

Those fitting look big enough to cover a 'real' steering shaft.
Could you have been 'had'?

 

This is the way my '62 Chevy truck looked when I got it. Needless to say, I undid a BUNCH of the redneck engineering on this thing before it went on the road...



Here's a chunk of rubber hose, with a SPIGOT attached to the fuel return..



The bed had ONE bolt holding it down...



Self explanatory...



Why didn't this truck burn to the ground long ago???



Speaker wire used for electrical....and WRAPPED AROUND THE STEERING SHAFT!!!



Of course, all these problems (and a thousand more) have been rectified since then. No way in hell I would drive that on the street like that. Oh, and here's a great way to block off any unnecessary holes where a gauge may have fallen out...



Being a redneck should be painful!

 

this thread should be how not to fix your hotrod!!!

 

I love all the stuff on that truck! Anyway, long before rat rods were cool, I talked to a guy about my age (1981- he was about 20 then) in Phoenix, Az who had a homebuilt T bucket he was cruising in. We struck up a converstaion and while looking his car over (at nite mind you) I noticed both his front radius rods and rear ladder bars were made from RE-BAR! You know, the stuff contractors use to reinforce concrete slabs? Well he had managed to weld it together and then bolted it to his T! I often wonder if he's still alive...

 

Three scary things;
#1 The ignorant lady taking pictures of her grandson at a car show. this big ol' bag repeatedly lifted the young boy up and stood him up on show car fenders before taking his picture. she wouldnt stop till we called the cops...
#2 I used to drive a 48 Pirsch firetruck, which had origional 1948 stock brakes, which the boss refused to see the importance of checking or servicing. The boss met a guy at church who just got out of rehab who convinced him he could do all the bodywork, and repaint the truck outside of the halfway house where he was staying. The boss could never pass up a bargin like that as he was the cheapest f-'r you could ever meet. Needless to say the boss left town and within hours, the rehab guy got liqured up and took all his halfway house buddies out for a ride in this non power brake or steering firetruck. Luckily a concrete embankment stopped him before he killed anyone. The Pirsch wasn't as lucky. I am glad to say this guy did not get to pass go and went straight back to jail....
#3 a guy who lived a few houses down the street was loading up his super stock dodge to take it to the track. (union grove?) While driving it on the trailor the ONLY carb spring broke and he launched this dodge across the street THROUGH another neighbors garage. Unfortunatly the garage owner was in the garage with his brothers, and the dodge took one of the brothers through the garage with him!!!!!
He was killed.....Moral of the story, even those little details can kill. It only takes a second. stay safe everybody. have fun, enjoy life, but try not to kill anyone else. You may just ruin their day.

 

I have seen and repaired quite a few c1, c2 and c3 vettes with only a bolt through the floor (which is only thin fiberglass) holding the seatbelt and seat tracks.

 

Why? It's good to be different for diversity's sake, but why? This thing should be made out of Legos, not an actual vehicle!