I was on a roadtrip this weekend, drove home today, and just have a fun story that others can probably relate to. And it’s also something of a shout-out to CarTalk.
I made a gas/bathroom break and pulled up to a pump next to a couple of 20 yr old/early 20s kids in an old beater F250. The hood was up and the guy was getting his girlfriend (or maybe wife - IDK they were very young) to stick her head under the hood to listen while he turned the key.
It was a dusty little crossroads kind of place that didn’t even have pumps with credit card readers that worked. (I probably shouldn’t have even put their gas in, but it was a fun and funky place). I went in to pre-pay, came back out, got my pump started and they were still tinkering and obviously very stressed out.
So I walked over and asked what it was doing or not doing. Not sure why, but he started with that he didn’t know because it was his grandpa’s truck who had died 2 days prior, and they were using it to move to his mom’s to take care of her.
Basically the symptom was a turn of the key gives power (dash lights) but no crank. So I asked if it was an automatic, which it was. I told him to pop it into N and try it. And VROOOM it went.
The looks on their faces was priceless - surprise, relief, and elation. (Probably my face too. For all of the problems it COULD have been - ? Awesome). Anyway, I gave him a quick explanation of the neutral-safety/PRNDL switch and they went happily on their way.
Not sure if I first learned of this particular thing here from the good folks of CarTalk - but there’s a good chance that I did.
My worst case, me in my 68 cougar, guy was tailing my ass, now I knew what I could do, gravel road, hairpin turn, I accelerated out of it and speed chaser ended up in the ditch.Stopped to see them getting out and took off.
Sorry to double up, my best story me and a bud on our cycles. Memorial day weekend, new tires and tubes for my trumpet. Blew out at 65 mph, rider and I both o though it was a flip flop of the tire on the rear rim when I got to 35mph or so. I had told passenger no matter what you do be consistent. So there we were 20 miles out of town. Bud with the bsa had a friend in Lexington. So some guy stops by, he says he loves English bikes, was an alderman that had a towing that owed him a few favors. They came loaded up the bike into a pickup truck they were towing and took us to my buds friends place no charge! I know I have done many things to help many people, so I felt it was nice Arma.
I had a clutch cable break at a rest stop. While I was contemplating what to do, a guy offered to help push the car out of the parking spot and give me a push start.
I drove the rest of the way home without using the clutch.
I now try to take a lesson from this and pay it forward.
Back in the mid-70s, I hit a patch of black ice, and wound-up in a ditch alongside a rural road in PA. Luckily, within a few minutes, a guy with a pickup and a tow chain came along, and pulled us out of the ditch. In the days before cell phones, we would likely have been there for a fairly long time unless that guy had helped.
I’ve driven automatics home with the TCC locked up, not much difference, just don’t stop… Not good having to rev the engine and slam it in drive and hope nothing breaks…
+1
When the clutch cable on my Karmann-Ghia snapped, I drove it several miles, to my mechanic’s shop, and the trans survived those clutch-less shifts.
On another occasion, the linkage to the carb snapped somewhere underneath the car, and I rigged-up a heavy length of string which I could pull in order to accelerate while I steered, shifted, and braked. This was another case of… good enough to get to the mechanic’s shop… but it took a LOT of coordination in order to do it.
Back in my 20’s when I use to hunt, we were coming home from a hunting trip from up state NY. It was raining all the way home. when we hit the L.I.E. it started coming down in buckets and everyone was driving slowly because at times it was hard to see more than the car ahead of us. about a half hour or so I see a guy wearing a long black coat off to the side of the road stuck and was just starring in the pouring rain at his car like he was wondering what to do. So, I pulled over to help. well, his tire was flat and he did not have a spare. So, I offered to give him a ride home. He said thankyou God sent me some angels. He gets into the vehicle, and I asked him where is home? His reply was Saint Mathews Rectory. About a week later I got a nice letter from him thanking me again.
My son in law was driving during a heavy rain storm. He passed a man walking on the side of the road without any rain gear. He thought this was odd and stopped to talk to him. It turned out that the young man was autistic and didn’t realize his situation. My SIL gave him a ride to a police station and they contacted someone familiar with autism. How did he know the young man had autism? His two younger brothers are on the spectrum and he was well familiar with the cues.
I broke my pressure plate on my Corvette. I didn’t know until later that was the problem but the clutch did not work.
I put it in 1st, pressed the clutch pedal to engage the clutch switch and cranked the starter. When it caught, drove it away. I shifted without the clutch. When approaching a light, I pulled it out of gear, stopped and shut the car off. I placed it in 1st and repeated the process the few miles to my home.
Fortunately I had learned how to drive this car without a clutch by carefully rev-matching each gear. It came in handy, Saved me a tow.
That’s a good karma story. It reminded me of the time I was in high school, and some friends and I went to a concert one night. It was a frigid winter night and heavy snow began on the way home. It was very late and we were on very dark, snowy back roads when my friend’s alternator died. It still ran for a while, but once the battery was gone that was it.
We were a good few miles from our destination and no facilities or cars in sight. So we just started walking in the cold and snow (and none of us dressed for that - a crew of punks in denim jeans and jackets).
Miraculously, some really old fossil of a guy came crawling along in some old fossil of a beater pickup and offered a ride. We all managed to pile in (I think a couple of us went into the bed). He was hilarious - heat didn’t work and he was peering through about a softball sized hole in the interior windshield frost that he refreshed with his hand to see the road ahead.
But he got us there! Freezing and wet but less so than if we had to walk the whole way. I’m sure he was an angel and that this was on an episode of the Twilight Zone.
I’ve had to do that a number of times in my early years. The hardest part was explaining to the passengers in the car we could drive home without a clutch.
A friend told me about moving from Iowa to New Mexico with his wife, about 1971; they were 19. They had a '55 Chevy. It broke down somewhere. An old mechanic in a small town fixed it. He asked him how much money they had, took $10.
Ok, in my youth I came upon a stalled car in the middle of the road. The young girl had run out of gas. Being with AAA we were told to lend assistance so I went and got her gas and got her going. She suggested I talk to her mom about a membership. She ran a cafe downtown and before I got done I had a record sale for about everything we offered. I still feel a little guilty about it since I would have done it anyway.
About ten years ago or more there was a knock at our door about 10:00. A girl said she had run out of gas and was stalled on the nearby highway. I told her I has just used the last of my gas for the mower and that I would have t go get some and I’d meet back at her car. I was a little leery about the whole thing and hid my cash but put about five gallons in so she could get home. Got the car started and then the guy in the back seat started to wake up. She was definately out of gas from the cranking requiredvto get it started. I just hope she dumped that jerk.
See, I do it any way. I seem to attract the young girls.
