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Tell your worst TR horror story!

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kodanja

kodanja

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so many to choose from!

but I think the worst was in my GT6 in 1984.


driving on a country road and the throttle cable somehow made contact the positive side of the battery.
It instantly welded its self at a high rpm.
I pulled over, lifted the bonnet to find it was glowing red!

I still have the scar on my hand from pulling it off the battery....

To get it home, I rigged my shoe laces to the carbs thru the firewall. It was fun trying to shift !!! lol
 
My worst experience was driving a well worn 1960 TR3A with wire wheels. I was approaching a light and touched the brakes. I heard a whirring sound, followed by a "clink". At this point the car dropped down on its left rear corner and I watched a wire wheel roll past my car, straight through the light, and into the distance.
 
Please see my TR8 just imploded thread - lol. (I freely admit that in the over all scheme of isn't a big deal. No personal scars - just fiscal)
 
That happened to me in my MGBGT

scarry!!!

btw: Ive been following that link TDSkip........... :cryin:
 
So many to choose from...I guess the worst one is what happened with my first, a Spitfire 1500, I bought it before I even had my learner's permit. I only drove it for about 2 months after I got my license. A Toronado blew threw an intersection, clipped me on the left rear quarter and spun the car around and it slammed sideways into a telephone pole. Absolutely totaled the car. There wasn't a single body panel that wasn't bent or twisted. It hit the telephone pole so hard it bent the frame.
 
JKB1957 said:
My worst experience was driving a well worn 1960 TR3A with wire wheels. I was approaching a light and touched the brakes. I heard a whirring sound, followed by a "clink". At this point the car dropped down on its left rear corner and I watched a wire wheel roll past my car, straight through the light, and into the distance.
Click to expand...

And whence it landed, you know not? :smile:
 
Well, there was the day I picked up the TR3 from the body shop after having the rear end rebuilt, repairing old body damage acquired before I bought the car. The car looked great, and I drove home, put the tent in the boot and continued onto a TR event. About ten miles out there was a sudden down-pour and I spun the car on some diesel straight into a wall.
I returned the car to the body shop on the back of a truck, with heavy front-end damage about two hours after I had picked it up.
scan0044.jpg
 
JKB1957 said:
My worst experience was driving a well worn 1960 TR3A with wire wheels. I was approaching a light and touched the brakes. I heard a whirring sound, followed by a "clink". At this point the car dropped down on its left rear corner and I watched a wire wheel roll past my car, straight through the light, and into the distance.
Click to expand...

Had that happen with my GT6 only it was a front wheel.

But the worst was when I flipped my 64 TR4, three times.
 
Had the left rear wheel come off my TR4 but it was just as I was stopping for a red light so the fender ended up resting on the tire keeping the wheel vertical. Jacked up the car and mounted the wheel back on. No damage other than stripped wheel studs, easily replaced. Whoo Hoo........
 
Well, alright... I thought we were going to tell <span style="font-style: italic">mechanical</span> horror stories like thrown rods in the middle of the desert, and stuff. But, since it has devolved into mere crashes ------

I drove my second TR3 over a 40 foot cliff. Spun it out on the, slightly rain-slick, Smith River Road in Oregon. Went off the road backwards and over the edge, just as I thought the car was coming to a stop. Sold the remains to a neighbor down the road for parts, he had one too. There sure weren't any good body panels on it.

Two vertebrae & two ribs. 28 days in the hospital and a full six months until I really felt up-to-speed, even though I was only 22.

There's more, of course, but that was the worst...
 
JKB1957 said:
My worst experience was driving a well worn 1960 TR3A with wire wheels. I was approaching a light and touched the brakes. I heard a whirring sound, followed by a "clink". At this point the car dropped down on its left rear corner and I watched a wire wheel roll past my car, straight through the light, and into the distance.
Click to expand...


When I ETS'ed out of the Army in 1972, I left Ft. Polk for good, driving my TR3. I was throwing bits and pieces of my uniform out of the car; as I passed the MP at the gate, I flipped him the bird (he hated me anyway - short-timer Captain dentist with an attitude and a peace symbol on my bumper) whence my front wire wheel fell off. Dead in the water, and an angry MP with a drawn .45 staring down at me. Not a good situation to be in.
 
I think that my worst horror story has been following Dale's horror stories.

It's like being a little kid on your first trip away to Boy Scout camp and the older guys sit around the camp fire at night telling spooky stories. Then every noise that you hear is a monster.

After reading some of those posts, if I hear a noise or my car burps, I get paranoid......
 
While returning to our base in Vallejo from a weekend in Alturas, CA, it was dusk and we were in open range country. Driving rather fast for the conditions, we rounded a small hill and entered a cloud of dust. Applying the brakes, we found ourselves surrounded by cattle. Good Lord, you could see under them. We must of lived right to not have run head long into the side of a steer.
 
Rounding a blind, right hand curve in my 58 TR3, beautiful little white with red int. Rounded the curve only to see a deer standing right in the middle of the highway. Thought that I had pulled around to miss it on the inside of the curve only to have it change it's mind. Blammmmm. I ducked down because I thought it was coming up to rip off the windscreen. I managed to drive home with both head lights pointing at the road about 10 feet in front of me. All it took was a new nose. Lucky me. For the deer? not so much.
 
No real TR ones, but I put my Rover into a tree and me through the windscreen when I was 19. Car was a write-off, I was close.
 
Front left vertical link snapping on the interstate at 65 mph, shooting me into the medial strip, three wheeling with minimal steering, toward oncoming traffic...OR...my TR6 rolling down a hill under it's own power, coming to a rest a the base of a walnut tree.
Take your pick, I can't decide.
 
Mate had one of those links let go Doug. Busy Saturday morning traffic and who does he have a head on with....wife's close friend !. Luckily just a few bruises.

Mine.... still break into a sweat years later.

Barrelling down hill in the 3A towards a roundabout. Spot huge truck arriving from the right. Stab the picks and nothing. In disbelief, stab again and get the floor. Huge tug on the handbrake saves the day by a whisker. Phew.

The culprit.... an almost invisible score in the master cylinder.

Viv.
 
This one isn’t a TR story but still may be worth mentioning, Right after I bought my Jag E-Type, I had brake problems.

I brought to a so called “Jaguar Specialist" shop that will remain nameless(Big surprise, they went out of buisness years ago). They kept it for weeks I kept calling and the reply was always “still waiting for parts” finally I called and their phone had been disconnected!

I went by the shop and my car was outside with the front hood crushed. I finally got in touch with the owner’s son. He said that it was parked outside and the buildings sign fell off onto my car and several others! I was furious, I asked “you didn’t think this was important enough to inform me?” He said well, his father figured that "he’d just get it to a body shop and have it fixed and it would be OK, no need to worry me with it."

They finally did the body work fixed at their expense. When I did get the car back the brakes still didn’t work right. Needless to say I ever went back there again.
 
Interior of car totally gutted except of driver's seat.

Night drive, one headlight dead, tranny gets stuck in
2nd gear but clutch marginally functional so I've got
neutral and 2nd.

BLAM! The clutch hydraulic line bursts with the car
in 2nd gear during an attempt at neutral. Car staggers
to roadside. Car abandoned and it then goes AWOL for
a spell.

The curse returned.

Rear wheel hub breaking off at 40 mph was 2nd worst.

d
 
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