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My name is Dean and I suffer from Mad Car Disease.

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Dean, welcome to the forum. Sounds as if you're of the generation to save LBC's from oblivion. Yer Da musta listened to the advice of CSN: "Teach Your Children Well"!!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif Now you're passing it forward. wOOt-wOOt!!!

Even if Adam chooses some other thang to pursue sometime down the road, he's got some invaluable lessons to add to his "toolkit" for life. Good on ya!
 
Well thanks Dr.!

I have to voice my admiration to anyone who has a '78 Alfa as a daily driver- you are wired for adventure my friend! I have a good friend with a '74 GTV and we joke about how both British and Italian cars operate on a total loss oiling system. Mine leaks it, his burns it.

I briefly owned a Fiat 600 project and I spent a good portion of my misspent youth goofing around with Lambrettas and Vespas- does that count? I've gotten to where I can rewire a Midget in my sleep, but ancient Vespa electrics continue to baffle me... all that grounding and ungrounding to make things work or not work. I hope it's not the same with the Italian cars!

My kid is cursed- it's not just the mechanical devices with decidedly dodgy engineering that loom in his world, but he's also been raised to be an S.F. Giants fan. Between these two, women will have nothing on them- he will have learned everything he'll ever know about heartbreak long before his first serious relationship... ;-)
 
Too true.

This Spider is my first drop-top Alfa, acquired in '98. Three GTV's as past daily drivers, near continuously since '75. Of the two I'd have a GTV over this lump any day. Seems the Italian engineers haven't the knack of the British for designing in the proper oil & water leaks. BORING!

The Alfas are as reliable as house bricks. The REAL feat was driving the Lotus Elan as a daily for over a decade. When that's mentioned amongst LBC brethren, unless there are witnesses present I'm accused of an outright lie. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
Yeah, Doc, but you don't explain how many days in those ten years you actually <u>drove</u> the Elan, do you? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
Jeff
 
Hee hee!

I guess the punch line is "So I guess you took the bus a lot" But I admire your noble masochism for using an Elan as a regular road car!

I never approached 10 years, but I had a Triumph Herald as my daily driver that must have had a particularly troubled childhood.

Aside from doors that would regularly fly open at inopportune moments (usually when cornering, and yes, she was structurally sound- well, as structurally sound as they were when new, which isn't sayin' a whole lot...) I had the pressed-on hub from the new water pump (godbless BAP-GEON) demount itself and launch the cooling fan through my newly recored radiator on my morning commute; another time the crankshaft broke in two at the rear main; the bolts attaching one of the axles to the 3rd member sheared (thankfully on the way home from work one day so I wasn't late to work) the front u-joint grenaded itself; the starter would routinely jam no matter how much shimming and routine tightening I did (a 7/16" open end wrench was a standard item in the glove box, and I needed to make sure the Lucas starter was the one with the hex on the end of the shaft, not the metal cap).

The final straw though was when backing out of a parking space, a section of the frame actually tore completely out where the lower a-arm mounts bolt through the side rails. I backed out at a couple of miles an hour and suddenly the whole right front corner of the car drops 6 inches with a big creak and a groan and a bang. I grab a flashlight and tilt open the bonnet and peer down to see 5 inches of daylight beteen the lower a-arm and frame. At first, I thought it unbolted itself, but as I looked closer I saw that the whole side rail tore out. I went weak at the knees with this one because only minutes before I was humming along the freeway at 65 MPH. My guardian angel obviously has a British accent.

Mind you, all of this happend within a span of about 6-months...

The really sick part of it and a true sign that I'm in the advanced stages of the disease is that I still have a soft spot for Heralds!
 
Hi Dean:

I enjoyed looking at your website and reading about your LBC's.

Be sure to keep us informed over on the Triumph Forum about your TR4 adventures. I "saved" my '62 TR4 from behind a garage a little over a year ago ... I'm far from an expert (there are a lot on this site!) but never be shy to ask any questions you might have.

Good luck, and welcome to the club!

Matt
 
Hey Thanks Matt!

Once I actually take posession of the TR4 next year, I'm sure I will darken the doorstep of the Triumph forum with alarming regularity, armed with loads of abstract questions about silly things the car is punishing me with.

Cool deal about your TR4! More pictures?

Dean
 
Dean:

I hope I'm not cluttering up your introduction thread.

Here's a link to the thread I posted the day after I brought the TR4 home:

Thread 1

And this link has pictures of it "as found":

Thread 2

Thanks for your interest, and once again, we're glad you're here.

Matt
 
Matt-

Don't worry- I'm the one that's cluttering up my intro thread! I'm sure I'm coming across as the neighbor who doesn't ever leave! ;-)

Cool car, and it looks like we're going to have bookends! The '64 that I'm going to get is red with a white surrey top and steel wheels! I know the paint on yours has seen better days, but I must say I think the white racing stripes are very smart looking.

I'm a goofball though in that I'm the only guy on the planet that prefers the soft top to the surrey top and the painted white dashboard over the wood one.
 
Re: My name is Dean and I suffer from Mad Car Dise

Bugeye58 said:
Yeah, Doc, but you don't explain how many days in those ten years you actually <u>drove</u> the Elan, do you? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
Jeff
Click to expand...

Actually a majority of 'em, Smart-butt. :raspberries:

Would alternate to the +2 once in a while to keep it limber, once in a while to do a repair on the Elan if it took more than a day.
 
DeanMcKay said:
I'm a goofball though in that I'm the only guy on the planet that prefers the soft top to the surrey top and the painted white dashboard over the wood one.
Click to expand...

I think we'll get along just fine Dean ... my TR4 had a wooden dash installed at some point in its life, but I have been collecting the parts to return it to its original painted dash.

Matt
 
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