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

Yeah, we all know they are never truly finished, but -what was the first thing that broke after your rod / kustom was legally roadworthy, and how long after did it take?

My first was not technically a breakage; more of an oversight / not paying attention. Re-ran my mechanical speedo cable due to a cable drive gear correction a bit too close to (read ON) the exhaust and melted it. My first true breakage happened about three years after my coupe hit the road; drivers window in Knoxville, due to a gas station parking lot where it looked like they were doing mortar target practice. Didn't notice it till we got back to the hotel and rolled up the window. Hey, if you drive' em, things are gonna happen!

 

I had a strut rod nut and bushing come off at about 700 miles. This was after putting the car together, driving around the block, and heading out on a 1500 mile trip. Learned the hard way that the factory used LOCKnuts there. Held it together with a ratchet strap while I drove around trying to find a 9/16 fine thread nut...

 

Inline electric fuel pump failed (fairly common failure), then broke the passenger window due to a binding mechanism coupled with overly tight felts.

 

Rear axle bearings…i had drained oil during build…added what little oil i had and completely forgot about it….first ride out as soon as i got going down the highway i heard a bad noise….
Obviously why my neighbor,,,also a car builder told me “dont go far with a fresh build”

 

1. Not after a fresh build but a few years after building it for a trouble free daily driver (My 51Tudor) I was showing off to some cute females walking to the tennis tournament and spooled it up too tight and blew the bottom end out of my 347 after I hit second gear Good thing I was around the corner from my house so I didn’t have to walk far so I could get my trailer and haul it back home. Yeah they were impressed
2. Just put a cam in my small motor Ford and after cranking it the thing made one heck of a squealing noise after breaking it in. I had a gear drive in it too and think that it was hitting something on the timing cover because by the time I made it around the block it had quit and was never heard from again

 

No problems, other than the brand new mechanical S-W water temp gauge wouldn't read over 140 degrees. The stuffed bulkhead port wouldn't allow the new bulb and fitting to go through, so had to punch another hole in the firewall for it. Kind of funny, I thought about this problem when I started to add things to the port. Will I be able to replace this if it goes bad? Nope

 

Hub cap departed wheel 100 yards from home. Ya just have to laugh.

 

Saginaw 4-speed in a 64 Impala SS. Was missing when I bought the car and I bought one from a local junkyard. Installed it and soon discovered it had broken teeth. I never inspected it. Lesson learned.
It probably was the one that came out of the car as the yard was near where the car came from

 

I had a hot wire under the dash come loose which sparked a couple times before I moved it out the way. The worst part was it cooked my Pertronix module instantly. Luckily I was only a couple miles from home.

 

Where to start... I bought a lot of older traditional parts for my build and refurbed/rebuilt a lot of them before installing but once I started using my car they all mostly had some sort of issue where I ended up replacing them. with newer parts. Mostly steering and brake stuff.

 

Three weeks on the road and meeting a tractor trailer unit I just glimpse a 3-4 in bolt get kicked up and it takes out my brand new windshield.

 

I got my 46 running and the new temp gauge wasn't working, luckily it was warrantied. On my first real road test, the starter died when I stopped at a friend's house. He towed me home, and back in the garage we found the water pump was also leaking.

 

My 30 V8 A Sport Coupe has been a problem child but finally got about everything straightened out. Had 160 miles 0n it and 2nd gear synchronizer failed on the 41 pickup trans so had to pull the rearend to pull the trans. Around 800 miles the pinion bearing failed, sheared the axle key and twisted the axle, my fault since the rake ran the torque tube down towards the transmission the rearend grease ran forward and ran the bearing dry. Hard to see but the axle key is crooked in relation to the axle and I didn't notice this until I tried to put the brake drum back on and had to pull the rearend and replace the axle. Replaced the pinion bearing and axle and built a new trans mount that raised the trans 1" which cured that problem but created several clearance problems I had to fix. The final result is worth it in my opinion.

 

With my '51 F-1, I forgot to put the retaining clip on the pivot pin that connected the brake pedal to the Master Cylinder push rod. Ran into town (13 mi) to put the first full tank of gas in it. On the way back home, the pin finally fell out coming up to a T-Intersection, and the brake pedal fell to the floor. Thankfully, I was able to just start down shifting and banging the gears got it slowed enough to turn the corner. No traffic, definitely helped. Cleaned my shorts out, popped the pin back in and drove the last mile home.

On my '62 Merc, I failed a front wheel bearing within the first few hundred miles when a piece of the new rotor casting broke off and was eaten by the bearing.

 

I had a self-destructing power steering pump pulley. Unfolded itself like a peeling onion. Never seen anything like it.

 

1981 , finished my fully rebuilt and repowered pride and joy 1947 anglia/pop . Maiden drive 1 1/2 miles maybe a few minutes from home , wondering how a burn out would go? It didn’t go well, first attempt ended in sudden silence and lack of forward motion as an axle broke. Found a neighbouring farmer to call my dad to tow me home and explain what happened.

 

My bank account !

 

The Holley electric fuel pump failed 10 miles into my first drive with the wife. It got towed home and called a guy I knew at Holley to see if I might have done anything wrong during installation. He confirmed that I had done everything correctly and would send me a new pump. I said that it was out of warranty because I had purchased it early in the build a couple of years before. He argued that he was sending me a new pump because a new pump should last lots more than ten miles even if it wasn't used quickly. That was in 2019 and the replacement he sent is still happily noisy and delivering fuel some 40k miles later! Thanks Shane!

 

I took a 130 mile trip in my heavy chopped and channeled 30 model A sedan. When I got there I smelled gas. The Aluminum tank was cracked about 4" up on one of the corner welds. Unbolted the tank to gain access and went to an auto parts place and bought a JB weld putty stick and a spare gas can. Stuck it on the crack like a large piece of gum. Made it back home 130 miles with no leaks.

 

Ya beat me to it!

Dave

 

The gas gauge, or so it seemed. I never saw one move toward empty that fast.

 

What is this "finished ride" thing you speak of!!!

 

Hence “Finished” in quotes….!

 

I had done a 4 month thrash in 1973 to get my bought early in 73 48 Chev pickup ready to go to the 73 Street rod Nationals in Tulsa. Taking a Brush painted 75 dollar beater to a decently painted truck with a new roll and pleat seat in it and a set of Camaro rally wheels on it.
This was a down to the wire thrash with my buddy painting the truck just days before Tulsa and another friend doing the seat about 2 nights before. Sometime in that week I changed it from the stock three speed and closed drive to open drive and a 61 Chev car rear with a lot of brackets cut off.
We left McGregor Tx at about 9 am on Thursday headed to Tulsa and fought gold paint in the fuel filter and carb from Hillsboro until we were well north of Dallas, Right in the middle of the Red River the coil decided that although it worked great for going to work and running around for months it was tired. stalled and testing beside the road when Bob Davis the F100 guy who taught at TSTI in waco pulled up and happened to have a spare coil. Running good, away we went only to have the yoke on the driveshaft weld it's self to the tail shaft of the trans just before the Marietta OK exit. Pulled off the highway and into the Texaco where we borrowed a jack and pulled the transmission and the guy working there told us about a little wrecking yard a few blocks away. Got there and the gent with the yard said he only had a core trans with a bad gear but the tail shaft was good, paid him for it and he handed us a wheel bearing grease tub with a little grease in it and in about 30 minutes we had tail shafts swapped and closed the gate and locked it as the owner asked and were headed back to the gas station where our wives were. stabbed the trans, put the yoke that I had behind the seat in and filled it with gear oil and off to no more problems for the weekend except headed south on Sunday my wife got the bottoms of her feet sunburned as she laid in the seat with her feet out the window.
That was 50 years ago last summer and the first dash plaque I ever got for going to an event.

Bob saved my bacon that day.

 

TH700 on a 57 truck. Completely fried... now i know how important the TV cable is

Dumped the radiator water out of a Model A banger on its first run. ... learning curve on the inherent water pump cavitation issues

All got me home...... and thats the main thing.

 

MSD distributor rotor on the avatar. Arc'd out THROUGH the centre of the rotor, burning the crap out of it. Left me stranded an hour from home. Repaired, try again. Blew the rotor again, this time two hours from home.

Lots of research on rotor phasing, even bought the adjustable rotor. Came to realise that the problem was the nice, neat plug leads I had made up. First one I had ever made (number 1 cylinder) I butchered, but it still worked. Turns out it had massive resistance, even though the other seven were OK. The poor distributor would try to fire to number one, see the high resistance, and figure it was easier to fire through the guts of the rotor to the distributor shaft.

Made up a new plug lead, and problem solved.

Cheers,
Harv

 

I had a steering U joint come loose once... that was fun coming to a stop on the street with no steering.

 

First thing that broke was the darn oil sending line to the gauge! I shouldn't have trusted the crappy plastic line, but figured I'd replace it after I had some miles of breakin on it. But it didn't make it 100 miles, and simply turned limp like a noodle and popped out of the fitting! The result was instant gusher of oil pumped all over the engine bay, and down one side of the car. An easy fix to replace with quality line, but days of cleaning to get all the oil gone. And I still find traces here or there if I am underneath doing something.

 

Electric fuel pump, cracked window, speedometer. Nothing is made to last I guess.

 

Glass fuel filter on the car to the left. Blew apart while I was driving. I don't use those anymore. Could have been a bad night.