I love hearing peoples stories about strange things that break or happen to cars almost as much as people love telling them. and if youve been dealing with cars for any time im sure you have at least 1. here is one of mine. Driving back from the coast to portland with my girlfreind in my 64 nova wagon. its a nice drive kinda curvy cruisn at about 50 around a long corner when the front end starts shaking i thought good thing i brought a spare for once. as im slowing down to pull over its getting worse like thats not a flat maybe a wheel bearing? the car feels like its gonna fall apart.i get stoped go look at the driver front wheel it was sitting at about a 45 is oh **** an a arm? i pull of the hubcap and see the center of the steel wheel had riped! around the center between all but 2 of the lugnuts that where still in place! luckily i was able to bend the wheel backenough to replace it.
when some lugnuts get loose the wheel starts moving back and forth and there is a lot of force acting on it
Here's an excerpt from my latest book: "Accidents & Incidents..." due for release about May, '09...this is one of those "How'd that break" stories...!!! THE WYOMING INCIDENT (redux) This 'incident' first appeared in my 3rd book: “Fast Cars, 4-speeds and Fist-fights” in the story ***le “Dumb Luck” rewritten and reworded for this book. May, 2005. My bro, Dan, and I drove to Casper, Wyoming, 280 miles north of Denver for their Memorial Day rod run/event and our first time up there. Dan took his ’64 Super Sport we’d built for him a few years earlier and I drove the radical, chopped ’57 Chevy. We left Friday morning, 110 miles later, lunch in Cheyenne…130 miles on, I hear grinding…sounded like a rear wheel bearing. Bad news: I’ve seen the axles shear off at speed…wheel and tire exits the wheel well, causes a severe accident. I radioed Dan, via the CB’s we use and slowed to attempt the remaining 40 miles to Casper. Over an hour later, we made Casper and called our friend, Rick Thurston, told him of our problem. He had both rear wheel bearings delivered to his shop and we were on his hoist Saturday morn. That close call wasn’t bad…at least I had warning…and the bearing held up til we got to Rick’s shop. It was fixed while Rick and crew were doing NSRA safety inspections. The rest of the weekend was great. We stayed Sunday nite, the 6-hour road trip back home would be Monday…Memorial Day. My brother is never without a map…“there’s a two-lane west of Casper, let’s take a scenic route home.” OK…I’m always up for a scenic tour…over Rattlesnake Hills, thru the Shirley Mountains and into the town of Medicine Bow. Then to Laramie, grab a two-lane “shortcut” south…60 miles of scenic mountain road, curves, cliffs, red rocks and evergreens. We’d catch Interstate 25 at Ft. Collins, ColoRODo and run the remaining 55 miles to home on four-lane. It was uneventful until I motored down the I-25 on-ramp. Memorial Day, remember? I-25’s loaded, it’s the first holiday weekend of the year and it’s Monday…everyone’s in a hurry to get home! Dan led, I followed. One hour to home…I’m tired…worst time in an automobile…attention span’s short, getting home is high on the list. Dan punched his ‘64 up to 85 mph…merged with traffic. I clutched the 4-speed into third, nailed the accelerator and eased behind a pickup pulling a boat, running, according to my speedometer - 90 mph. When I go thru a town, I turn off the stereo…don’t know why, I just do. So, here I am, hurrying down the highway, keeping up with traffic and not even thinking of turning the stereo back on…I’m glad it was off. Noise…don’t recognize it. Growling, then rumbling. I lift my foot from the accelerator. First thing I think is a new rear wheel bearing is defective. I grabbed the CB mic, radio Dan, “Got a problem, gonna slow.” The ‘57 starts vibrating. I don’t panic or hit the brakes but visualized wheel/tire leaving the car, launching it, and I, into the center lane of traffic, causing a multi-car pile up of great proportions and possibly killing someone…me, not excluded! The back end of the car started bouncing wildly, shaking almost uncontrollably, it was harder than hell to hold onto. I aimed for the shoulder. Aiming, at 60 mph, is the best I can do. The gyrations worsen…road’s shoulder coming fast. I shifted down to third, try to keep the rear of the car from coming around. Forty mph, skid onto the shoulder, try to avoid roadway markers. Naw, trample them if necessary. Tap the brakes, the ‘57’s rear continues to bounce. Horrendous bouncing. Good thing my seat belt is on. Pull into second gear, deduce now it’s not wheel bearings -- tire coming off the rim! Car slows, bouncing slows. My heart doesn’t. Ease the car to a halt, shut it off, unbuckle the seat belt, open the door and fall out, shaking. That was close. Too damned close in that traffic. By then, Dan had backed up. He and I check the rear of the car to see…nothing! Tires and wheels are where they’re supposed to be and both hold air. What the hell? Look under the car…nothing. Grab a screwdriver, remove p***enger’s side hubcap…two lug nuts fall out, then four. Hmmmmmmmmm, the lug nuts haven’t worked loose, it’s the studs -- sheared off at the axle. Broken…the lug nuts were still attached. Four of ‘em broken…one lug nut/stud holds the wheel/tire on, wouldn’t have lasted much longer either. Check the other side, it’s OK, fronts too. I’d just escaped a major holiday accident. Why? I didn’t care at that point. I thanked my God just the same…and my guardian angel. I get out the floor jack and instructed Dan to drive back into Ft. Collins, need to buy studs/lug nuts at the only auto parts store open . I pounded out what’s left of the studs while he’s gone. By the time I’m done, he’s back, I slip new studs into place, pull them into the axle with washers, lug nuts and lug wrench, put the wheel back on, tighten the nuts and let the car down. The first block I stayed on the shoulder, not exactly sure that solved the problem…it did, so we drove on for home, at 50 mph, in rain, and avoiding a major hail-storm just north of Denver that we would have driven right into because we had broken down. Would you call it dumb luck? I don’t anymore. Over the years I’ve become convinced it’s more than that…I believe someone unseen rides with me…a guardian angel…and believe me when I tell you I didn’t believe in such things way back when I first started driving. Perhaps you don’t believe in such things, maybe you do…either way, it’s OK. I do, now, yet I don’t know who it is or why they keep me safe…and how else can I explain the fact that both Dan and I have gotten out of nearly every close encounter we’ve ever had and are still here, to tell these stories? I can’t, at least, I believe in it and that’s what is important to me! R-
How often do you guys re-torque your wheels? A day after the 1st drive after the re-install of an aluminum wheel works well for me. Amazing as well how often I have to re-torque the steel spokers on my enclosed tandem axle car trailer. Enjenjo noted a while back that the tight corners and side thrust of the wheels when turning corners tends to loosen them up fairly fast. Every 1000 miles works for my trailer if it's in fairly constant use.
Friends of ours had a master rod break in a big Pratt & Whitney radial engine in a '30's era Spartan airplane. Nothing exited the crankcase or the cylinders, but he told me when they finally got the engine apart, one cyl. had two rods jammed into it, and the rest of 'em were twisted like pretzels. No warning, no vibration, no nothing, just an instant of vibration, and then he was staring at the prop stalled at about 2 oclock at 3500 feet. He said it was VERY quiet in the cabin on the way down, had two fellow pilots aboard. Sat it down in a bean field about 10 miles from their home.
I always re torque the wheels after the first drive and all the lugnuts were still tight so i still dont know why it happened.
One day when I was driving my 54 Dodge pickup with the Volare clip I stopped by a friends shop to get something. After leaving, I hit one of those small pot holes in the road that give you that little jolt, you know the ones you don't see until you can't miss it? About 10 feet past the hole, the right front of the truck drops to the ground, luckly I was only moving about 10 mph. Since the truck sat low in the front to begin with there was no way to see what happened. Just so happened another friend was going by with his employers tow truck. We loaded up my truck and took it back home and set it on jack stands. The right lower ball joint broke, must have been the jolt from the pot hole, but the ball part wasn't what broke. The nut and threads of the ball joint had broken off the stud. The broken off end, nut, treads, and cotter key still intacked, was wedged between the spindle and the disc brake splash pan. Even with lots of years of seeing broken ball joints on dirt track race cars, I'd never seen one break where that one did. I kept it around for a few years, but it got lost in the last move. If anything strange has happened, I think its happened to me. Gene
Macaroni-- I had the same thing happen to me in a v8 S10 on Highway 6 coming from the End of the World meet in Long Beach. I just had a set of tires put on by Less Schwab------go figure----- they said to bad. The tire on the right front completely came off and totaled an old Land Cruiser. We had to bend and beat that Land Cruisers front end around so we could drive to a place to get cell service. Never use them again, shouldn't have used them the day before.
Les Schwab ran into my show car while working on it. Candy paint and all. They said they would take care of everything. The next day they said sue us!!!Or go after the employee that hit you!!! They had my car and said they would take care of it. Their employee ran into it on their property on company time, their employee was running to get parts for them on their time. They should have paid me off and if they wanted to sue their own employee, then they should have, not me. I eneded up 1 1/2 years later having my own insurance settle with me for 1/3 of what a candy paint job would cost. I ended up going with a stock color and still had to come up with thousands of dollars!!!! THANKS LES SCHWAB!!!!!!!!! Now I just use them to fix flats for free and eat their popcorn. I have alot of flats to fix and popcorn to eat to get even!!!
I had a '77 Trans Am many years ago with a pontiac 400. It always had a slight tick that you could only hear durring hard de-celeration. Someone told me it was the timing chain [streched] slaping against the side of the cover... Made sense, so I replaced it... Nope, that wasn't it. Next came a cam and lifters. Still ticking... It wasn't loud, just annoying. Finally replaced it with a 455 and stuck the 400 into a corner of the garage. A couple years later, I picked up a mid 70's ventura with a bad pontiac 350 for cheap. Pulled the pan on the 400, and removed the rod and main caps one at a time to see if the elusive tick was a spun/bad bearing... Nope, everything looked fine. Bolted it back together with a new oil pump and installed it. Ran just fine, but it still ticked. Allright, I'm a little pissed... Finally figured it was a wrist pin going bad, but back then pontiac motors were cheap and plenatifull, so I figured I'd just drive it till it poped. Put about 15k miles on the ventura over a couple years untill it got side-swiped and totaled... Motor still ran fine, and it was sweet with that cam, so I pulled the 400 once again and chucked it back into the corner of the garage. It sat there untill about 5 years ago when a friend needed a real pontiac motor, and I offered it up as a rebuildable core. He comes over to dis-***emble it. Pulled the motor 100% apart and we couldn't find a damn thing wrong with it... Valvetrain, pistons, bearings,,, everything looked good untill he [we] removed the very last piece from the engine..... Lifted the crank out and it came apart in 2 pieces! It had a spiral crack across one of the mains, and the pieces fit together perfectly... You couldn't even see the crack when we pieced it back together and sat it back in the block..... Just amazing! I had put about 25k miles on a motor with a crank broke clean in half!!! What's more, it was a ~45k motor... Quite possible it was a defective crank from the factory, and had cracked when it was nearly new! My friend ordered a rebuilt crank [with bearings], slaped it back together with rings and gaskets, and bolted it into his '69 GTO... It's still running great to this day!
20 years ago i owned a brittish van called a leyland 15. im comin down a hill when the rightside rear wheel comes off, dumps the van down in the right rear with a bang and as im coming to a stop, watch wheel and tyre go flying past me, cross the road, up onto the footpath, then striaght past a shopfront and back out onto the road. took almost two blocks before it stopped without hitting anything. as im walking down to get it, the reality of how much damaged it could have caused set in and i figured i was having a lucky day! wheel bolted striaght bak on and away i went.
Not dangerous, but strange... Driving my old Hillman Minx with its souped up 4 banger one day and all hell breaks loose under the hood. BANG BANG BANG BANG... I pull up and try to find the problem but can't see anything for a while, then I notice the No.4 spark plug lead is hanging loose. I go to put it back on the plug... No plug! I'd only replaced the plugs that morning, and I must have forgotten to tighten up the last one. After a long drive it had worked loose and dropped out, but the lead had stayed close to the hole and was still firing on the compression stroke, igniting the air-fuel mix as it spewed out of the bore. Luckily I still had the old plugs in the boot, so I screwed one in and away we went. Cheers, Glen.
i was giving it a bit once, in peak hour, then i come up to a red light, hit the brakes and the car started pulling, i had to fight the steering wheel to try and weave between some cars, i had hardly any steering, there was tyre smoke everywere, i restled it into a auto parts store carpark, got out and the lower control arm had come of, front wheel on the drivers side was tucked up under the gaurd with about 1/2" clearance from ripping the gaurd apart, i found my missing parts on the road up the highway, jacked it up and put it all back together, got it home, pulled the arm back of to straighten it and put it back together. I was pretty proud of how casually i still weaved through these cars and got into the driveway with almost no stearing and a tyre being dragged since it was completely unexpected but it was kind of embarrasing in such a stand out car.
I'm going to write myself a note to double and triple check every nut and bolt I can touch once my project truck gets finished in the next few months. Before and after the first few drives. Very interesting yet eerie stories. glad all of you ended up okay. we all know many don't.
As a rule fellas, you should retorque any lug nut to factory specs at 25 miles after wheel replacement. We did this for years at the store and actually had the customers sign a statement requiring them to return to have it done. If we had one loose rim each year, that was a lot! And we always took care of the customer regardless. Our little store installed around 13000 tires a year so one loose wheel wasn't too bad. Lots of folks have a tendacy to overtighten lug nuts which is just as bad as a loose lug nut. Stretches the stud and pulls the threads. Custom rims are another area of confusion as well. Most go down to 85 foot lbs but it can change if the stud is larger. All tire stores have a torque chart for reference. They can tell you what is correct. Even to this day I don't go out of town on a extended road trip without my torque wrench. On my RV I do 25, 100, and a 1000 mile retorque. Duallies are known for having retorque issues.
When we stilled lived out in the country, my brother had a set of snow tires put on his Cordoba down in the city. Drove home no problem until he got about a mile from home and then when he let off or braked there was this rattling sound. He figured whatever it was was toast anyway so he drove the rest of the way. We jacked up the rear and the wheels were flopping! The tire knob's impact gun was f'd or he just didn't tighten the nuts. 10 wheel studs, 2 rims and 2 brake drums later, we had it working again. He took the parts to the tire shop and the guy offered him $10.00 off his next set of tires. I am quite surprised he didn't put the guy in the hospital, but he just walked away and we never used that tire guy again. He wasn't in business much longer anyway.
Another good one from my brother. Same Cordoba, he gets a flat on the way home from town. He puts his spare on but it's a little snug going. Driving away a bit of a grinding noise from the wheel he just put on, no biggie, maybe touching the caliper, should make it home. A mile or two up the road BOOOOMM!!! the spare tire exploded! So we learned something, older rims with the really deep groove in the center do not work on mopar 11" rotor disc brake cars. The rim built up so much heat from rubbing on the caliper that the tire blew up. The caliper and rim were blue where they were in contact with eachother. Things I learned from my brother . . .
The Jalopy Journal
