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Tell your worst TR horror story!

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My but you guys lead exciting lives. Been driving a TR3A for 36 years, a TR4 for 8 and nothing has happened that approaches these stories. Only time I've had one of these cars 'on the hook' was a flatbed ride home from a body shop after a respray.

Mind you, I'm not really jealous, simply driving them is exciting enough for me.
 
Lucky you, Geo. Apparently you weren't as stupid as some of the rest of us were, when we were young-and-stupid.

I used to really go flat-out on that road that I eventually went off of. I wasn't doing it, that day -- I had other distractions and thought I was taking it easy. This was a rural area where everybody knew everybody. One guy told me that his mom, then in her 70s, told him, after hearing of my accident, "I knew that guy was going to get in trouble. I've seen him doing 100 on that road." He said, "Aw mom. How would you know he was going that fast?" She said, "I was doing 80, and he passed me!"
 
<span style="font-weight: bold">Date:</span> June, 1971

<span style="font-weight: bold">Location</span>: Garst Mill Road, Roanoke VA (very twisty, 45 MPH limit, about 3 miles of curvy delight).

<span style="font-weight: bold">LBC</span>: '70 Triumph GT6+, tweaked for autocrossing, pretty fast.

<span style="font-weight: bold">WHAT HAPPENED</span>: At about 80 MPH, with my girlfriend in the passenger seat, I lost rear traction/rear end in a curve (imagine that with a rotoflex suspension!) while racing a TR-6 (I was winning by about 3 car lengths at the time).

Rear end went out very quickly, then the car flipped over the side of the road and rolled twice, came to a rest on the driver's side door. Miraculously, we walked away from the wreck with minor injuries, nothing serious. Didn't even call the ambulance. The guy in the TR-6 stopped to help.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Lessons learned</span>:

1) Street racing really doesn't impress classy girls;

2) In a GT6, the rear end goes first, without warning, like you were driving on bananna peels, literally (I already knew this, but didn't heed);

3) If you're gonna roll your car, it helps to crash in a freshly-plowed field that is very soft, with no hard object to hit;

4) Don't race on public roads.

5) Four-point racing seat belts can save your bacon.

6) Purchase collision insurance if you can't afford to sustain a total loss on your car.

Haven't wrecked a car since. Gosh, that was a really nice GT6, too.

Also, girlfriend didn't dump me because of the wreck.

Scary, but fun in a twisted way.
 
Worst TR story. Driving the 3rd six, which would intermittently die going around right hand corners after warm. Let it cool down, startup fine. Coil....

Worst car story; in retrospect one was so scary it was amazing that I still live, but at the time almost exhilarating.

Driving down from the Sugar Shack, a club in Big Bear, Ca. coming down Hwy 18 around 3 am, up above San Bernardino, just came out of the twisties on to a fairly straight stretch of road at about 95 mph, lost all power, no lights, no engine, nada... Luckily there was a full moon, so I stretched my legs to lift my eyes up above the windshield(fortunately had the top down) while I was able to stop safely on the side of the road without killing myself....(chewing gum wraper on the main fuse to get home). This was a 54 XK 120M that I had recentl purchased, this had to have been the summer of 65.


Secondly, same car, two months later, coming down from the same place, but a different route, Hwy 38(the Redlands route). Going through the twisties, watching a Ferrari(looked like a California, because there were people in the rear seat) leave me in the dust, I was doing at least 70-75 on roads marked 35. Left rear wheel dropped. The previous owner had stripped the splines and "shimmed" the wheel to hub with old soda can skin.... Pretty good walk before I caught a ride.
 
kodanja said:
Thats a scarry one vagt6!

So does the girl friend have daine bramage?
Click to expand...

Uhh, no. But it was not easy explaining the wreck to her mother! She didn't like me very much after that . . . :cryin: :crazyeyes:
 
To reply to Mad river. I stopped watching my wire wheel roll away after the first 100 meters or so (To this day I can't believe how that wheel rolled that true and straight for that distance). As I was assessing my three wheeled TR a car pulled up and a guy gave me back my wheel. Nice guy, must have owned an old sports car and recognized my plight.
 
I am struck by the common element contained in all the crash/offroad/accident events....everyone SURVIVED! And for the most part without serious injury. Seems to me our favored means of transportation deserve a round of acknowledgement. More than once those LBC's saved people's bacon!
 
Silverghost said:
I am struck by the common element contained in all the crash/offroad/accident events....everyone SURVIVED! And for the most part without serious injury. Seems to me our favored means of transportation deserve a round of acknowledgement. More than once those LBC's saved people's bacon!
Click to expand...
Well, I'm sure some of the non-survivors will chime in anytime! :devilgrin:
 
My worst TR horror story is just redoing the suspension 11 years ago. Hasn't started since!
 
John_Mc said:
Silverghost said:
I am struck by the common element contained in all the crash/offroad/accident events....everyone SURVIVED! And for the most part without serious injury. Seems to me our favored means of transportation deserve a round of acknowledgement. More than once those LBC's saved people's bacon!
Click to expand...
Well, I'm sure some of the non-survivors will chime in anytime! :devilgrin:
Click to expand...

LOL'ing, waiting to hear from them too.
 
angelfj said:
Silverghost said:
More than once those LBC's saved people's bacon!
Click to expand...

probably more likely dumb luck! :yesnod:
Click to expand...
That's all it was in my case. I came waaaay too close to becoming one of those no longer able to write their story due to being, ummm, dead.

And that's what I used to tell my older son -- who, for years, was a completely scary clone of his old man. "I lived long enough to father you through sheer, dumb luck. You have the option to take some control by being careful. Or... you could just hope you're as lucky as I was..." He's 30 now, and more careful than he used to be.
 
Kodanja, I think my worst story was exactly like yours: I was zipping down the freeway on my way to the beach and all of a sudden I lost powere and the engine went to idle. I pulled over and popped the hood and the throttle linkage had come loose, landed on the positive terminal of the starter and was glowing red hot! I was able to move it, let it cool down, reattach it, and I was on my way. Not too horrific!
 
I'm surprised there aren't any" My car burned to the ground..." stories what with the Prince of Darkness smoke systems.

I have 2, close calls more than not.

Had a 65 Tr-4.In high school, summer after senior year, friend and I are bombing around Door County, round a corner at dusk, fog, just to see the outline of a horse, as his head passed OVER the windshield.

Have a 74 TR-6, going on a country 2 lane, dusk, and a deer comes out of a field at full run, hits the TR square on the passenger side, where door meets fender, bounces off, spins around behind me, and gets up and runs off. I stop and expect a mess. Not a scratch on the car, only dirt, or I think dirt?!

Perry
 
I had the ignition warning light fall out of the plastic holder on my TR4A and fall against the bulkhead. The smoke was scary and I managed to pull the lead off the battery before any flames started. After that, I taped the bulb holder in place.
 
I had a potentially drastic episode with my TR6 when I starting the restoration.
My garage is in the country, near a couple of apartments. There were no cars in the parking lot one afternoon when I started lifting the car to put on jack stands. I walked to the driver's side which was fairly tight to the wall when the car decided to come off the floor jack.
I held the car away from me while I walked back along the car, opened the door and jumped in.
It would have been a long painful wait.
 
Hard to pick just one, but here are a couple of highlights :

Driving some Interstate (don't recall which one) in Dad's 58 TR3A, nearly 1000 miles from home. Wasn't paying good attention, almost passed the ramp, started down the ramp at nearly 80 mph. Car lurched violently left then right, almost turning over. The nuts that hold the splined adapter to the left rear hub had come loose, and two of the studs were broken off. Tightened the remaining nuts with a pipe wrench (they were too far gone to get a lug wrench on them) and drove cautiously to my destination (a friend's house), then had Dad ship me a new halfshaft & hub.

That was over 30 years ago; ironically Dad just had the exact same problem on the same car a few months ago! But he didn't happen to take a ramp too fast at the right time, and didn't notice the problem until the wheel parted company with the car. He's got some damage to repair.

Descending a mountain at 80+ mph in my 59 TR3A about midnight; lost both headlights. Fortunately on a relatively straight stretch of road and little traffic, so I was able to stop on the pavement, let my eyes adjust to the limited moonlight, and pull to the side. Installing a spare fuse got me on my way.

Driving the 71 Stag to the shop to have the MC replaced, MC quit working totally. Continued on using the handbrake, but the rear brakes overheated so that at the final exit off I-10, no way to stop. Sailed right through the intersection, fortunately no one coming. Let the brakes (and driver!) cool, then continued to the shop, using lots of compression braking
grin.gif


Stopped at a motel roughly 600 miles from home in the 3A. When I went to move the car to the room (a railroad car), it didn't want to start. Presently black smoke started rolling from under the hood. I thought it was on fire!

But it turned out to just be a bum starter drawing too much current, the smoke was just the insulation on the battery cable. Got some friends to help push-start in the morning, and continued home. That was the incident that convinced me I wanted a gear-drive starter
grin.gif
 
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