Blackie?
Wanting to get to more pages, and please hijack this thread anytime, why? Dumb thrill seeking I suppose. How about some classic sayings over the years. To keep it car related while a guy working on anything on a car is so bad,
“He could break an anvil with a rubber mallet!”
True Story. I Worked A Car Dealer, Once Three Times… We Had A Mechanic Who Said…
A good cross-thread is better than a lock-washer (I think he was serious!).
This shop (Volkswagen) had some mechanics that didn’t own any metric tools. When they got in a tight spot while working, they’d ask to borrow one from a co-worker.
Also, when working on a customer’s car, this mechanic would ask the price of a part he requested. If it was under a few bucks, he say, “You’d better give me two… I always screw the first one up!” (Either he actually did screw them up or he was supplying his toolbox with extra parts for week-end jobs at home.)
CSA
The other forums I habituate all have at least one thread that’s considered “uhijackable.” The posters are allowed wide lattitude, and they can be quite interesting. Kind of “free range” thinking.
That’s a true “Cat back” exhaust system, I’d say.
“A good cross-thread is better than a lock-washer”
Only a true hack would say that
“This shop (Volkswagen) had some mechanics that didn’t own any metric tools”
Some guys have no shame . . .
Regarding screwed up machine threads I can repeat this story. A farmer dropped by one weekend and wanted to know why he couldn’t stab the manual trans back into a Nissan pickup. Neither farmer nor adult son had a clue what a clutch alignment tool was so he offered to pay me to come over and stab it for them; nothing more.
Lined it right up, the trans went right in, and as I’m looking around in the scattered debris for the 10 MM nuts that go on the bottom 2 studs sticking through the bellhousing the guy says I have them right here.
I look up and see that he’s sticking two 3/8 NC nuts onto metric threads.
About the time I make the comment that those nuts are not metric he starts whaling on them with a hammer and beats them into place while peening the studs down over the nuts.
When asked what he planned to do if those had to come back off he said he didn’t think they would ever need to.
At that point I got my money and left while feeling a bit embarassed to have my name attached to that mess…
That debacle was not the only mechanical mess those two were involved in. He was complaining once about 2 grand for a ring/pinion gear (parts only) for a Case tractor and when I mentioned pinion pre-load, backlash, and so on he had no clue and wouldn’t have cared anyway.
Couple of years later a new tractor was needed.
Or using a 20 pound sledge to remove the top loader shifter from the trans in their 2 ton wheat truck…
Or using a late 70s Datsun 4 cylinder pickup to try and pull a combine out of axle deep mud; frying the Datsun in the process and not considering the tractor sitting beside the combine that could have been used instead…
Three Stooges in overalls…
Great thread, I learned something I didn’t know about Studebakers, enjoyed donut tales. I think a good local donut shop will blow any large chain into the weeds. If in the Buffalo NY area try Paula’s Donuts on Sheridan Drive.
I do have a tale of spinning a vehicle on black ice. In 1985 I was driving for Transcon coming East on I-70 near Circleville Ohio. Dry sunny winter day, I was pulling two 27 foot trailers with a conventional cab Freightliner . Suddenly my steering wheel felt funny, I looked in my mirror and saw my trailers were getting out of line. I pulled down on my trailer brake just a little and my worst fears were confirmed. All the wheels on my trailer had stopped turning the second I touched the brake. My CB just about jumped off the dash with drivers behind me wanting to know what I was doing, but I was too busy to answer.
My trailer were trying to pass me on the right. I had given up on trying to avoid an accident or even staying on the road, I was just trying to keep from being crushed by my own trailers. As the trailers were coming around on the right I kept steering left, gently with my fingertips. This started everything spinning faster to my left. The speed of my spin straightened out my trailers behind me and I centered the steering wheel just as I hit 360 degrees and rolled onto dry road.
I pulled onto the shoulder and walked around the rig looking for damage or cut air lines. No damage, nothing at all. I didn’t know the two Eastbound lanes of the interstate were wide enough to spin a set of pups.
There is a saying among truckers that to have a broad span of years without an accident you have to be both good AND lucky. That day, I was lucky’
The big chain donut shops around here,are kinda like pulling teeth when you attempt to use the drive through,besides,donuts are an investment now(very seldom indulge anymore)(hate to take out a loan to eat fast food-just seen the 30 oz Coke advertised this morning,guess it kinda fits the quarter pound lump)
I have a similar tale to Oldtimer’s.
I was returning home from a long trip. 3 am, I-94, mid Michigan, late Feb, in light rain. I’m driving my company car - a 5 speed 5.0L Mustang (Yes, that was my company car!) I spy flashing lights up ahead and back off the throttle… The whole car shakes because the rear tires broke loose.
I give it some throttle to maintain the speed, then slowly reduce the speed. Every time I down shift, the car shudders - and I’m pretty good at double clutching! I finally reach first gear and am doing about 20 mph, when the pavement visibly changes and the traction is back. Back up in speed I go, but less than before. The pavement changes again - and the bad traction is back - and it is back down to 20 mph. And shortly after, the pavement changes back again.
Best I can figure was the pavement was grabbing the water and allowing it to freeze, but change the pavement and the water drains off. Never had a problem the rest of the trip.
The lesson I learned from driving on unpredictable black ice was that the worst thing you could do was try to slow down. Even taking your foot off the gas could send you flying into the bushes. I did find pushing in the clutch, or putting the automatic transmission into neutral, was helpful and then just coast and hope for the best. Which sometimes happened, and sometimes not.
@oldtimer11 that is a story. Sure in a hurry to get a bud to his wedding from gorham IL to St Louis, did 3 360’s finally regained control, never left the pavement but thankfully no oncoming traffic, quit speeding and 35mph worked the rest of the way in my 68 cougar xr7 with wide back tires. Florida black ice is another thing, on a cycle especially, a light rain and the oil would rise to the surface causing a similar condition to black ice. One learned early on a cycle to not ride down the middle of a lane. Probably less of a problem these days, but old habits (no not a nun) ride hard!
The funny thing about back ice (a fairly recent term to me, for half my life we called it glare ice).
We get relatively little of it in Western NY. Anyplace the roads are salted as heavily as here, there is plenty of salt left on the roads between storms so I doesn’t form. As wentweest said, about the only thing you can do is disconnect the engine from the road by clutching or putting an automatic in neutral. Clutching is even better than shifting a manual into neutral because you don’t have the friction of the transmission dragging at your wheels.
It is amazing what ultra low frictions can occur. One day I was headed North on I-81 about 30 miles South of the NY line and it was raining hard, and getting colder, much colder. My mirror brackets and CB antenna were coated with thick ice but I could still hear and feel the water spraying up from the road.
Suddenly a split second of silence and cars on both sides of the expressway turned into strobe lights, flashing headlights, taillights,headlights etc. as they spun. The whole road had flashed to ice an had become so slippery it seemed like another state of matter. A car ahead of me slid down into the median and just flowed over the guard rail without slowing. The only thing that helped me was there were snowbanks on the side of the road now crusted with ice but I had a good load on and managed to get the right wheels over and brake through the ice. I managed to get off at the next exit and left the rig on the right side of the ramp. There was a motel at the exit and I had to crawl up to it on my hands and knees.
Remember, if you are driving in the winter and suddenly everything gets really quiet, silence isn’t always golden.
Over correction is one of the worst things one can do,when a system developes an uncontrollable oscillation,I used to take a 2wd drive truck out in the snow and purposely speed the drive wheels to an indicated 80+ mph,it was sort of amazing the kinetic energy a spinning wheel can store as far as traction is concerned,I learned to be very careful during periods of snow and ice.
Hijack, you can do it too! Does the following story change how you would react to a run out into traffic kid you hit? I would still stop.
Cliff notes version
Kid runs into traffic, van driver hits kid, gets out to tend to hit child, relative shoots and kills van driver and also a teenager rushing to the scene to help. Child driver and teen helper and child all dead now.
The accidental death of a 2-year-old boy in Milwaukee on Sunday triggered a violent chain of events, eventually claiming the lives of three more people.
It all started with a birthday party that little Damani Terry was attending. During the family gathering, he dashed out into the street and was struck and killed by a GMC van, according to Milwaukee police.
The distraught driver, Archie Brown Jr., 40, immediately stopped and got out to tend to the boy. But it was too late, police said. Damani was dead.
Damani’s alarmed family came running, including his older brother, 15-year-old Rasheed Chiles, police said. That was not the end of the situation.
Soon, two more people would also die: the driver and the teen were both felled by bullets fired by the same man, police said.
That man, identified as Ricky Ricardo Chiles III, was located late Wednesday at a Chicago-area hotel.
He committed suicide as authorities closed in with a warrant for his arrest, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn told reporters.
“Chicago police and United States Marshals Service entered the hotel room, whereupon Mr. Chiles took his own life with his firearm,” the police chief said Thursday.
An accidental death, a fatal retaliation rips apart two families
Grandmother: ‘The worst day I ever lived’