not bad...

 

I drove a 1965 GTO that I bought at "Charlotte in the spring" in 1984. I drove it from the track to home,(almost 70 miles) in the rain. It was running on six cylinders and the battery was going down and it was DARK. I had to follow my other cars tail lights so I could see. I had to turn off wipers, head lights, and defrost cause of the battery. It took me two hours and twenty minutes in heavy traffic on 1-85. Talk about being "up on the wheel". I couldn't see and every truck that passed made it worse, plus I couldn't go but 45 and EVERYTHING passed me throwing up water making it worse. I was never more glad to be home and I felt like I had been beat with a stick, a very big stick.

When I tore the engine down it had a cracked head, blown head gasket, and the belt was bad on the alternater which is why the battery went dead. I had it purring like a kitten though in a few days and the car kicked ***. Wish I still had
it.
Hawk

PS I once drove six miles or so thinking i was going to **** my pants any second. <img src="images/icons/grin.gif" border="0">
Tha was pretty bad too. <img src="images/icons/wink.gif" border="0">

Hawk <img src="graemlins/fluffy.gif" border="0" alt="[Fluffy]" />

 

Heh, good post! I hit a "road gator" (huge piece of semi-truck tire) with my Riv and it wasted the whole front of my motor. Took out the belts, broke the fan all up, destroyed the water pump and wasted the power steering pump. Drove the overheating, non-power steering having, alternatorless, grinding, leaking beast another 15 miles to work. Filled the radiator with water from a puddle and drove it another 20 miles home. I could feel the engine heat through the firewall! Anyways, I fixed everthing and still drive it, but it smokes BAD...

 

Oh boy, I can contribute to this post. Where shall I start:

1969 Buick Riviera I had in high school. Drove various times with the following things:

1) 1500 miles <img src="images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0"> on a spun rod bearing. Yes, this is true. I do not know why it lasted that long, or why I was dumb enough to do it. It eventually broke in a spectacular mess, and I had to replace the original 430 with a salvaged 455 from a Pontiac.
2) Same Buick, on new engine. Drove the car for over a week with inoperable front brakes.
3) Same Buick, first engine. Drove the car about 15 minutes with a broken fan belt (= no water pump). Overheated the engine, probably leading to problem 1).
4) Same Buick, went awhile (don't remember how long) with no working alternator. Would charge the battery up at my neighbor's so that I could get the car to go for short ten-mile trips.
5) Kind of sounds like this car was a POS driven by a dumb-*** high school student, doesn't it?

1990 Ford Escort GT

1) Replaced the timing belt at about 65,000 miles. The belt had a tear in it that was about 3/4s across <img src="images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0">
2) Though not really an engine problem, sometimes upon startup, and other times without warning, the accessories, dash lights, and radio would lose power without warning, only to come back on sometime later after I hit a good bump. Could never find the short that did it. Later got a recall notice on the ignition switch. Turns out that several people had their cars catch on fire due to a faulty design!!

 

Had a '66 Beetle 1300, 100,000mi. Started ticking, and got louder and louder. Top speed got lower and lower. Wouldn't hit 50mph in the final days. Put nearly 1,000 mi on it until one day... BANG!!! Top speed reduced to 25mph floored and smoke pouring outta the back, oil light on. Pulled into the driveway and saw oil trailing down the road. There was a puddle a foot in dia under it, and smoke everywhere.

Autopsy revealed #3 rod came all the way out of the case through the top. BROKE THE CAM IN HALF!!! And it still ran! The engine was TOTALLY destroyed. 6 hours later, it was running again with new 1600 dual port. Then the trans blew. But it never left me stranded. Always would move under it's own power.

 

LOL... my last 347ci stang motor lasted a whole 147 miles! <img src="images/icons/mad.gif" border="0">

That's OK though... Live and learn!

 

74 Hornet: I put this junker together in the early 80's when I was 18 or so as a second car/beater. Me and my buddies went through this phase of playing chase, hide & go seek, etc, with our cars in the trails. I was hauling *** down a particularly rough trail when one of the tranny lines snagged on a root, pulling the radiator back through the fan, shredding the radiator before throwing the belt. I drove it home.

81 Jeep CJ7: During the mid 80's, in the wee hours of the morning, out 4-wheeling on a remote stretch of beach that required a trip through 3 miles of swamp to get to, this fine example of automotive marvel started overheating, so I headed back for civilization. Three miles of swamp and 10 or so miles of dark deserted highway later I pulled into the first gas station running on 2 or 3 cylinders and sparks rolling out the exhaust pipe. It took about an hour to cool it down, then I drove it home. Smelled oil burning on the drive home. The next day, I looked things over and saw that the plastic valve cover had melted. Resealed the valve cover and traded it in.

76 Monte Carlo: While driving home from the local race track one night, the engine dropped two cylinders and suddenly sounded like a diesel. A buddy of mine helped me tow it home with his Datsun truck. We pulled the heads and oil pan and found the intake valve on #6 had crumbled and took out the #6 piston, but that wasn't bad enough. It had sucked a piece of the valve back up through the intake and took out the #7 piston also. This was my only mode of transportation at the time, and being that I wasn't in any kind of financial shape to build a motor, we had to "patch" it. We had a junk 350 out in the weather behind the shop. We robbed two pistons & rods from the junker and put them in with the original rings and some cheap gaskets. The old beast had a serious case of piston slap, but I drove it for a year until I had a new engine ready for it.

I'm sure there are more but these are the top three that come to mind. <img src="images/icons/grin.gif" border="0">