Funny/dangerous mechanical mistakes

[Hasbeen]

We have all made them, so come on fellers, what was yours.
My current TR7 was built out of a couple of derelicts, bought for $1200 the pair. One, an ex rally car had dings in every panel, but was rust free, apart from the engine. The head was in the boot, & the engine rusted solid.

I got the engine in the other running, sort of, but the clutch with the hydraulics working did not disengage, & it was so rusty I was not sure we would get it onto the trailer, with out it collapsing.

Nine months later I had one assembled car with the best of both, & a few other bits, almost ready for paint & to run. Both fuel pumps were shot, so on the big day I fitted a new one, & went for the first start.

It started fairly easily, but in a few seconds my son, about 16 at the time was yelling to shut it down. The overflow/breather pipes on the SUs float bowl tops were squirting out petrol like mini fire hoses, & running out of the carby throats from the overflowing main jets. Lucky it is a cross flow, with the exhaust on the other side.

With some research I discovered the pump sold as a replacement in Oz is a generic pump, for use on a range of English cars. It has a longer pump arm, & comes with a couple of spacers. These pack the pump off the engine block. The further off the lower the pressure. I had 4+ PSI overpowering the float needle & seat dramatically.

I found the spacers, & installed the thinner one. Success, no more fuel fire hose, but the thing was running like a bucket of bolts & the carby throats were wet with fuel.

Standing at the door keeping it running with throttle I had my son lift the carb pistons a little to find out how rich it was. On about his 3Rd lift of the front carb piston the thing backfired through that carb, simultaneously blowing, & igniting the petrol in the throat onto my sons arm, & the all over the fender.

I was quite disappointed to see my son more concerned with putting out the fire on his arm, than the car. It was only a little petrol, & the fire quickly exhausted it, but the boy did have one totally hairless arm for a while.

It required the thick spacer, plus 3 thicknesses of writing pad cardboard back to bring the fuel pressure down to the SUs required 2 PSI.

This was about the only time I was glad of my fading eyesight. I need bright light to see things well, so do this type of work out no the grass beside the shed, rather than in the shed. Thus the fuel from the earlier flooding had time & open air to disperse, before the cars flame throwing trick.

[Cobber]

I had an old Chrysler Valiant Ute (pickup) it had a 318 cu/in (5.2 litre) V8 it had a buggered starter relay, to start it I'd just short across the terminals of the relay.

Dad borrowed it one day, he was at the shops, and couldn't restart it as it kept stalling, Bernie the local real estate agent offered to help, he was all dressed up in his best dirt flogging suit, so the plan was that Dad would get him to put his foot on the throttle, whilst Dad shorted the relay terminals with a screwdriver.

As the ute was my work truck it was pretty filthy inside and out, Bernie didn't want to get in so he stood with the door open and his left foot on the throttle pedal.

Unfortunately the reason the ute kept stalling was that it wasn't in neutral, it was in reverse!
Dad shorts the relay, the ute starts in reverse, the reverse motion of the ute pushes Bernie backwards which in turn causes him to push the throttle pedal harder......the whole lot now flys up the street with Bernie doing a pretty good impression of a pogo stick wedged against the open door of the ute.... he managed to jump in and hit the brakes before any serious damage was done! So much for Bernie's nice clean suit.

[Hasbeen]

The 1968 Sandown F1 Gold Star race was a series of catastrophes for Scuderia Veloce.

First we drove down in one of the 327 Monaros we were thrashing as hard as possible to try to find any weaknesses before Bathurst. A rock went through the windscreen at about Goulburn. It was a cold night, & at 100 MILES/hour, the [legal then] speed we needed to do to get to Melbourne in the time available, the others could not see into the wind. I had my crash hat & visor, so had to drive.

The transporter was late after a wheel problems, so only they gave me the car after half the Friday private practice had gone. They asked me to do a few slow laps on a new engine, & I was bedding in new brakes. The pads in those days had to be brought up to full temperature when they would fade, then allowed to cool to be ready to use.

The mirror locks had been undone for some reason, so the mirrors were hanging down, giving me no rear view. Leo & KB were both out turning fast laps, so I drove around the inside of the circuit so as not to get in their way. With no mirrors I could not see them coming, & no flagies for private practice.

At the end of the short straight which was pit straight in the 60s I blipped the throttle going back to second, & suddenly had near full throttle. With faded brake pads the thing accelerated across the track, & shoved the first 4Ft under the safety fence, taking one wheel off.

Inspection showed that the outer throttle cable came out of the end fitting recess, & sat on the end of it, giving me about 3/4 throttle, far too much power for the fading brakes to handle.

The boys had the thing rebuilt by Sunday morning, & I was allowed a few laps practice early in the morning. I found 3Rd & 4Th gears were wrong & the boys changed them before the race.

I can't remember much of the race, but after about 15 laps I found myself leading, with Glen Scott in the 1500 my closest rival. The race was mine to loose.

Well we managed it. A few laps later I was blacked flagged, the top of my transaxle was on fire. It was oil fumes from the gearbox breather which had ignited on the hot exhaust.

In the Hewland box the pinion is the main shaft. When they changed the gear ratios one leg of the split pin that secures the pinion nut had broken off. With no spares to hand the mechanic had used the now one legged split pin thinking it would do. It didn't. The second leg broke off, the pin fell out, the nut came partly undone, allowing the pinion to move around some.

The extra heat generated by the now badly meshed pinion on the crown wheel caused high heat, vaporising oil, the fumes of which ignited on the exhaust.

The joys of motor racing. But for a split pin I would have been back in the lead of the Gold star.

We left the 327 with the General, & flew back to Sydney. This was just as well, it would have been a pretty miserable bunch spending 8 hours driving back to Sydney. It is kind of funny now, but at the time we weren't laughing.

[dursleyman]

I was under the TR7 using a grinder to cut off some rounded axle link bolt heads so I could fix a rusty fuel tank. Part way through I noticed soemthing dripping and then realised it was fuel leaking from the tank.

The grinding stopped pretty quickly!

[busheytrader]

Soon after converting to V8, but awaiting the 3.08 ratio change, I took it out on a deserted straight country road nearby and floored it.

There was a very shallow hump back bridge in the road.

It’s the only time all 4 wheels left the road.